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The Cash:
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The Story:
Many people will see a meme about a military political situation in the middle east and assume that they might understand something about it. However, a complex scenario with many different players, many motivations, prejudices and current interplays of actions is too complex to be condensed down to a few sentences on Facebook.
Is ISIS controlled or funded by the US government? Our guest Ishmam Ahmed says that the evidence points to no. There is a complex narrative behind it, involving Al-Qaeda Iraq’s split from Al-Qaeda, their subsequent organised crime activities, the de facto government infrastructure which they have now built, the rebellion against the current brutal Assad regime leading to the radicalisation of many citizens, other groups fighting against ISIS and the Assad such as the Free Syria Army, and funding of those groups from other countries in the region.
Can you work through the labyrinth of interests, radicalised interests, mixed interests and crossed interests? We review the evidence on the next episode of … The Paradise Paradox!
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The Cash:
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:
1999, nearing the dawn of the millennium. Developers Shawn Fanning, John Fanning, and Sean Parker gave birth to Napster, and on this day music was set free. As the Internet has developed – faster download speeds and cheaper access, record labels have been forced to seek solutions, trying to fit their old ways of business, into a new world of technology, and minimise falling profits. The latest and favoured avenue for music consumption has become online streaming, which has made all music on a wide scale available thanks to the likes of Spotify, Pandora, and Apple Music. The craze of having the latest music at your fingertips and instant access to your favourite jams.
This is all part of the surface illusion, as the artists are still sold short, still not adequately compensated for their creative works. Behind a complex system, with a careful formulae to direct and nudge the tips, money doesn’t go to the artists that you listen to – at least, not the way most would think. There are flaws in this streaming system; a customer is paying for a service and receiving a service – but one must consider:
The payment algorithm – How is the balance of fans vs plays?
Mathematical calculated – How are artist royalties decided?
Your choices – Do they count, and do you matter?
Amongst these issues, the major flaw in the “big money pool” – the way most streaming services distribute the revenue – is that it is does not distribute the money fairly amongst the artists. The system is being gamed and hacked. Active corruption plays a role in the form of click fraud – where the competition of fans vs clicks takes place. The system is manipulated to serve a targeted minority. There are other methods to manage streaming revenue distribution, such as stream payment VS subscriber payment. However, as long as the music industry is centralised and under control by large labels, these issues will remain inherent to the music industry, with fans and artists scrambling to find ways to publicise this plight.
Technology shifts are here again to change the game, providing the answer and guiding an alternate form of online distribution. The new Internet, powered by blockchain technology, will give ownership back to the artists and expand options for consumers. Artists understand that they are also the entrepreneur, in control of their brand, marketing via alternative media, personality via social media and responsible for their revenue streams. Startups such as Baboom and Peertracks are taking advantage of artist value, market needs and the technology, providing the answer to this industry fault. Baboom promotes fair-trade streaming combined with an online music store, they pay artists 90% of the revenue directly and support a paying artists for fan subscription. Peertracks will utilise the blockchain which will allow artists to connect with fans, by giving the fans the chance to trade unique tokens – a form of currency which can be used to fund albums, and buy concert tickets and merchandise from that artist, and to hold a share in the artist’s success. Companies that support a direct relationship between artist and fan will gain traction, allowing artists to independently build an income stream which reflects their real popularity. These interactions will create communities and ensure that artists remain inspired and supported in producing and giving to the world.
Join us as we explore the technological vortex which could lead to a whole new era of creative genius on the next episode of … The Paradise Paradox!
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The Cash:
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:
Ever since the peaceful anarchist event, Anarchapulco, in 2015, many people from the US and Canada have decided that moving to Acapulco, Mexico might improve their lives. Many found ways to make money off the Internet or to transfer their existing jobs to a new location, and start a new life where they didn’t have to worry so much about any government interfering their lives, threatening them for operating their business in a way that the state didn’t like, or getting their dogs shot by police officers for no apparent reason.
They may face many obstacles on their journey, including their friends and family warning them to stay away from the city which is run by drug cartels, where the police periodically go on strike, and which is reputedly the fourth most dangerous in the world. Nevertheless, these brave soldiers journey on, and many of them are willing to share their expatriation wisdom experience with the world. It takes one man to document the evolution of this community of liberty-minded individuals, this Latin American “Galt’s Gulch”, and his name is Juan Galt.
In this episode, Kurt interviews Juan and talks about the ways that cryptocurrency might be used in the near future to replace government property registry systems, his documentary (renamed since the interview as “Seeking Freedom: The Acapulco Files”), and ways to break down borders using Bitcoin and smart contracts. Join us on a jet-setting, freedom-fighting, border-bounding episode of … The Paradise Paradox!
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The Cash:
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:
Just 30 years ago, nobody really knew what the Internet was or what it was used for. Just 15 years ago, nobody in the music industry knew or cared what file sharing was. Now, large record companies are facing even greater threats to their oligopolies, such as crowd-sourcing of albums and tours – a method increasingly used for upcoming artists, thereby bypassing the traditional system all together.
In this episode, we interview Diaz Rodolfo, musician and fellow Guadalajara resident about his ideas on how Bitcoin is going to change the future of music. We also talk about how Bitcoin can help people evade the control of their governments, finding freedom through cryptocurrency. Join us on the next enthralling installment of … The Paradise Paradox!
If you enjoyed the episode, don’t keep it a secret! Feel free to share it on Twitter, Tumblr, Facebook, Reddit, or your office bathroom wall.
The Cash:
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:
In December 2015, Martin Rojko of CoinTelegraph.com asked several Bitcoin experts what they expected the price of a bitcoin to be by the end of 2016. The guru, public speaker and “rockstar” of Bitcoin, Andreas Antonopoulos, searched his soul and summoned the wisdom from the depths of his being, and answered: “I don’t do price speculation. It’s astrology for markets and I think it is irresponsible for media companies to do this.”
The fact is, nobody in the world knows what the price of bitcoin is going to be in a month, much less a year. However, taking a snapshot at this stage of the bitcoin evolution, there are four factors which will probably play a huge part in determining the price over the coming years.
The amount of venture capital and angel investment pouring into Bitcoin companies.
In 2013, digital currency related startups has attracted investment of $25 million in VC funding. In 2014, “In total, bitcoin startup investments now total over $400M in aggregate funding” (Source: CBInsights), and in 2015 VC investments ‘topped $1 billion’ (Source: Bloomberg). However this remains to be fully realised in the bitcoin unit price. Big names such as Nasdaq, American Express and Visa are also investing in Bitcoin startups.
Bitcoin has possibilities for endless programmable applications, which will go on to disrupt various industries. However, it is clear that the first target and the primary industry of focus is finance and banking. For 2016, Venture capitalist Tim Draper anticipates many Bitcoin consumer applications, the US government to recognise Bitcoin as a currency and perhaps the first Bitcoin unicorn – that is, the first billion dollar Bitcoin start-up. With all this money and focused effort going into the development of Bitcoin applications as it’s used for international remittances platforms, micropayment, crowdfunding of public works projects, smart contracts and peer-to-peer lending, it can only be bullish for the price, as Bitcoin is used more widely.
2. A decrease in the production of Bitcoin in July 2016.
At time of writing, 25 BTC are produced every ten minutes by diligent miners. In July 2016, the block reward will halve. A stable demand with a reduced supply tends to lead to an increased price. It’s possible that holders of BTC will start buying more in the preceding months, in anticipation of the reduction.
3. Possible failures of the incumbent banking system.
Many people, especially in the Austrian economics camp, are becoming increasingly concerned about a failure of the banking system. Financial gurus such as Mike Maloney have forecast the possibilities of deflation, big inflation, or even hyperinflation of the US dollar, which could have profound effects on the world economy. For many, holding bitcoins is seen as risky. But is it as risky as holding a fiat currency, which has very limited scarcity, and may be printed to oblivion by the perverse symbiotic relationship between a central bank and a national treasury? In times of crisis, or in anticipation of times of crisis, when governments around the world are clamping down capital controls to say who can move what money where, it wouldn’t be surprising if people decided to move it into the most portable money that has ever existed: bitcoins.
The understanding of Bitcoin in public consciousness
Since Bitcoin first leapt into the media, it has been trashed, slandered, accused of being a tool of terrorists and violent drug cartels, and declared unstable and even dead many, many times. However, the sentiment in the media is slowly changing, with many starting to see that cryptocurrency is not going away in a hurry, and there may be real news beyond a sensational headline.
We can see in the statistics on Blockchain.Info that the rate of adoption appears to be steady, or increasing, in the rate of daily transactions and in the total number of addresses.
Perhaps soon, people will start to realise that it’s possible, not just to use Bitcoin to evade capital controls, but also to use it to evade taxes, and government control in general, turning many markets into black markets, and using blockchain technology to distribute state secrets anonymously, realising the dream of the Crypto-Anarchist’s Manifesto. By that stage, perhaps the price will be irrelevant, because the value will be obvious.
You tell me that the system works, that things are going well, that the government feeds the poor, that their regulations prevent people taking advantage of us, that we are safe, and presumably, that we can put our trust in them. You tell me that phasing out governments (and the central banks that back them) might cause chaos, and why should we take a risk when everything is fine right now? You tell me that the system works. I’m inclined to disagree.
Yesterday, I sent my friend in Venezuela a few dollars’ worth of bitcoin. Far away from your mind, people are suffering because of a more-corrupt-than-usual central bank, and a more-corrupt-than-usual government. Many lives have been ruined, and many people are confused, because their fiat currency is collapsing. The official rate for the Bolívar, for bankers and government officials in denial, is 6.35 Bs to the dollar. The real rate of Bolívares to the dollar, is 841.67, and as the value of the currency slips away into the night and into Madero’s buddies’ pockets, laying the foundations of Chavez’s daughter’s three-storey mansion, the remainder of the country dives into poverty.
It’s easy not to think about that, and justify social programs for the poor, that are funded with money from central banks, and believe that these programs do good – without thinking about the real consequences. These programs may have continued for your lifetime, and so, in your mind, you expect them to always be there – these programs which, at best, provide help in a difficult time, and at worst, incentivise people to become trapped in a cycle of poverty or dependency. These things are fine, for now. The poor don’t scream in the streets, for now, because they are well-fed, though every year the old-aged pension of $200 a fortnight is worth less and less, and you don’t hear the cries of the old because they’re too old to cry out. The system feeds those whom it has disenfranchised, and so, you assume that everything is fine. The system works, you say.
The system works, until one day when it doesn’t. The system works until one day when you wake up to find out that it’s a bank holiday, and the government has authorised the bank to take everything over $1,000 in your account, and limit your withdrawals to $50 a day, leaving you unknowing if there will still be money there tomorrow to withdraw. The system works until one day the Deutschmark slips over the fiscal cliff, leaving you wondering how you’re going to find that last billion marks to buy a loaf of bread to feed your family, while central bankers in their country villas sleep on beds of gold ingots. What becomes of the poor then?
The system works if you pretend that there aren’t millions of young men in prison for victimless crimes, a ridiculously high murder rate in Ciudad Juárez, kids killed by stray bullets in Medellín, farmers in Antioquia extorted into growing coca by paramilitaries, made profitable by the War on Drugs, funded by the Federal Reserve.
Tell me that the system works, and all we need to do is take more money from the rich, and everything will be fine, apparently without realising that there has never existed yet a tax system which isn’t built to favour the rich and powerful, and without realising that any tax system will invariably be used to provide collateral for a central bank, which will invariably be used to kill.
The system works as long as the media don’t publish pictures of those wars which central banks have funded. They don’t show you the dead bodies, and they don’t show you the radicalised veterans who have cast the scales from their eyes with anger, who repeat those words “War is a racket.” They don’t show you the millions of dead civilians, the children who only ever wanted to play in peace, suffering from white phosphorous fume inhalation, the images of a father holding his dead babies in his arms and asking God why? Oh no, they don’t show you that.
And as long as they don’t show you that, and as long as you don’t look for yourself and put the pieces together, you can come here and tell me without irony: the system works.
No, the system doesn’t work. And what you don’t realise is, the system is already finished. We already have the technology to solve all of these problems. The system is a dead man walking, and for those of us that see it, when we observe the extreme force that it uses over the coming years in an attempt to maintain dominance, we can take solace in the fact that what we are watching, are the death throes of a millenia-old beast.
Kurt reposted this article on his Steemit account here.
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The Cash:
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:
For years now, you have been able use fiverr.com and freelancer.com to hire people all over the world to do work for you. You can check their qualifications, their proposal for the task, haggle over the price, ask if they’re available for future projects. But would you bother asking which country they’re from? Does it matter?
Today, people can register companies online, on the blockchain, possibly using Bitnation or Next. Their companies can exist independently of any nation. To do business with them, do you need to know who they are? Do you need to be able to put a pin on their office in an atlas?
The world we’re heading into is a world where companies operate in cyberspace – outside the jurisdiction of any government. They have no head office, keep all their records in the cloud, and transact purely in cryptocurrencies. Maybe there are banks which can compete with international banking cartels, because having no country means they don’t have to comply with the protectionist regulation which has been installed for many years. Maybe they don’t pay any taxes, because they’ve decided that the Internet is the best tax haven. Of course this way of doing businesses may start to raise many potential issues, such as problems with dispute arbitration, and innovative solutions may have to be developed to address them. The future is a fascinating and unpredictable place.
In this interview, Kurt discusses the potential of some of these types of organisations with Alex Colorado, a software developer for the Apache OpenOffice project, and we talk about the implications of these ideas for a borderless world. Join us in the next frontier-defying chapter of … The Paradise Paradox!
If you enjoyed the episode, don’t keep it a secret! Feel free to share it on Twitter, Tumblr, Facebook, Reddit, or your office bathroom wall.
The Cash:
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:
Tuur Demeester of Adamant Research states that Bitcoin is “as if gold was invented 7 years ago”. Bitcoin was indeed designed to have all of the qualities that make sound money, and has provided what was thought to be impossible – a scarce digital commodity – a crypto-anarchist’s wet dream.
Since Bitcoin’s initial rise in popularity, many people have began to question what the word “money” even means, forcing many economists to question their theorems and assumptions. And, when comparing cryptocurrency to fiat currencies around the world, an inquiring mind may eventually come to the conclusion that there is nothing more dangerous or destructive than to have money under the control of central banks – enabling endless wars and imprisonment of many peaceful people.
Since 2007, many central banks have been colluding with governments to increase currency supplies, creating an excess of “cheap money” – that is, currency from loans with artificially low interest rates. The low interest rates encourage entrepreneurs to borrow more and more – which, in the short term, appears to stimulate the economy – however, this then becomes an unstable economy, because the business owners have been fooled about the true amount of resources available. This leads to many bubbles – and the subsequent bursting of these bubbles.
Take the Australian economy as an example. Over the past ten years, or longer, Australia has been riding the wave of the commodity boom, caused by artificially cheap credit and loose investment, accompanied by strong buying power from a booming Chinese economy. Now, however, many prices in the commodities market have been falling for the past twelve months, and nobody knows where they will find a bottom, and the Chinese stockmarket is suddenly struggling with its own crisis. As a consequence, many mutual funds and other investment firms are left out to dry, holding derivatives from companies such as Glencore, which have overextended themselves using cheap loans. Furthermore, many regular Australians might be left holding houses and other property, fueled by the collective delusion that is financially sound to undertake a 30 year contract to pay off a loan and get that family dream home.
The icing on the cake is that there is a surge of baby boomers that are looking to retire this decade. They are feeling very comfortable with their investment portfolio and with massive equity held in the family home. “Now is the time to enjoy myself after a lifetime of work”, say Mr. and Mrs. 65. Unfortunately, if international markets continue to tumble under the pressure of falling commodity prices and the collective population awake to the reality of the insolvent banking system – retirement could quickly become a luxury of past years.
It’s here that the immeasurable value of the new virtual asset, Bitcoin, will play a major role in access to and storage of your own money. Perhaps a safe haven to park you money, or at least a little bit for the soon coming rainy day. In this episode we speak with Tuur Demeester, where we talk about Bitcoin, the future of the world economy, the Australian economy, and his investment newsletter. Join us on a rollercoast ride from boom to bust, in the next thrilling chapter of … The Paradise Paradox!
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The Cash:
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:
We took a trip out to Pachuquilla, Puebla, three hours from Mexico City to have a New Year’s Eve party with 70 of Aaron’s aunts, uncles, cousins, nephews, second cousin’s, second nephews and second nephew’s second uncles. We holed up in a creaky, hole-filled pre-revolutionary house for the night and shared pulque, pozole and ponche with tequila.
We took a chance to get away from the party, head down to the river and talk about family traditions, about the well-known (to some) poem “The Man in the Mirror” (or “The Guy in the Glass”), and how even Mexican police can hate the government. Also, we had the honour of Aaron’s wife telling us some stories of elves and changelings in the forests of Puebla.
Please accept our blessings as you move into 2016 with … The Paradise Paradox!
If you enjoyed the episode, don’t keep it a secret! Feel free to share it on Twitter, Tumblr, Facebook, Reddit, or your office bathroom wall.
The Cash:
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:
‘You might say I am a dreamer, but I’m not the only one’ – the famous lyrics from John Lennon’s ‘Imagine’. John Lennon described his vision for a world of peace and equality, where all people are able to interact and contribute on a level playing field. SystemaD is striving to make this a reality. SystemaD is a technological platform allowing access to banking services without the formal control of traditional systems. It utilises blockchain technology, the transparent distributed ledger that makes up the backbone of Bitcoin. This grants all individuals access to build a reputation based on their personal economic participation, which can be then trusted by the larger community for future dealings.
Unfortunately, this vision of peace and economic equality still has its hurdles. Until all people of the world are free from the force of government and free from the economic vice grip of capital controls, this will never be the case. Economically, people must be free to choose how to participate and how to store their value. This means, a free market – where individuals trade without the bond to a government issued fiat currency and without market altering taxes and regulations. These free individuals then act responsibility in identifying their best way to serve their community, in way of production of goods and services and as they see fit.
Mckinsey & Company produced a research paper in 2009 stating that half the world’s adult population is unbanked. Considering that the World Bank has identified that “access to affordable financial services is linked to overcoming poverty, and increasing economic growth”, banking institutions have been very proactive in issuing bank accounts to their human livestock. As a coincidence, reports and trends of poverty (people living on less than $1.90 per day) has been on the decline, data states that poverty has dropped from 37.1% in 1990 to 12.7% in 2012. However, with no mention of the effect of inflation and no tangible living standards measure, it becomes difficult to measure realistic progress. As of 2015 the World Bank reports that, approximately 2.5 billion people worldwide still do not have a formal account at a financial institution.
There are various reasons why the unbanked remain so – insufficient documentation, travel distance, related service costs and general poverty. Essentially, the acute environmental circumstances exclude these people from access to the services offered by the financial and banking system. These are all problems which SystemaD is helping to bypass.
Research conducted by Lederle has shown that there are some serious after-effects and negative psychological outcomes that result from this exclusion. SystemaD is able to tackle the direct issue of exclusion of economic activity, as well as removing the need for a formal banking account. The platform gives direct access to financial services, facilitating market trade activities, the outcome has benefits far beyond financial health for the people involved.
Access and inclusion of basic banking services have shown to have positive impacts on people’s health. In particular, individuals grow a heightened sense of confidence, self-esteem, sense of empowerment, security and control. This extends to the individual building an education and knowledge in money management strategies, which increases employability, entrepreneurship and general well-being. The SystemaD team is witnessing, and has confirmed, the positive effect of using technology to close a gap of the old financial world, which can only build positive momentum.
In this episode we interview Diego Gutiérrez Zaldívar from SystemaD, where we talk about the goals and developments of the SystemaD platform. We discuss how education and training is crucial when launching a new platform, as well as the importance of organic uptake for growth of an open economy. Join us in another poverty-disrupting, well-being uplifting episode of … The Paradise Paradox!
