This is a transcribed excerpt of the “Bitcoin Magazine Podcast” hosted by P and Q. In this episode, they are joined by Knut Svanholm, who talks about how Bitcoin can improve all areas of your life and how Bitcoin works as a weapon. peace
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Knut Svanholm: Yesterday, while watching YouTube, I realized that Pink Floyd’s “The Wall” had a huge impact on my worldview. I saw it when I was 16 and it was pretty profound. I thought it was pretty profound at the time. If you remember that movie, I like them because it was like no other movie. The story line is very different from the movie, but it starts with this boy whose father died in the war. And there is a powerful verse about: “Then His Majesty’s Royal Command took my father from me. This is very difficult; some institutions have the right to take someone else’s life and order them to die at a higher price and what that does to the next generations. Then, of course, there’s the whole school system thing, which is a meat grinder that corrals people into voting cattle. I think in retrospect, this movie probably had a huge impact on my world view and my hatred of collectivism.
Besides, I grew up in the countryside with a free-spirited father. I sailed the seven seas. I worked on a chartered ship for eight years and saw many different countries. I also lived abroad several times when I was a child: I lived in Mozambique, Tanzania and other places for half a year when I was 10-11 years old. I think I was less inclined to believe any national lies then.
Remember the 1980s in Sweden; we had no commercial TV channels and no commercial radio channels. All of these are state-owned and largely remain so to this day. There is such a subsidy system that large media companies receive money from the state and, of course, do not bite the hand that feeds them. So there is. But by the 1980s, it was really cut off from the rest of the world. Once a year we have to watch cartoons on Christmas Eve. We got to see Donald Duck once a year. So this was what it was like to grow up in Sweden in the 80s. In retrospect, it was pretty dark. I think all of that influenced my thinking.
Q: I want to talk about prioritizing time. For our audience members who may not understand this, can you help them understand the difference between high and low time preferences?
Svanholm: When you prefer instant gratification, high time is preferred when you don’t delay gratification. So if everything you own is stolen, you prefer high time, because you need it, because you need food to live, and you don’t need shelter – in most places – you need shelter so you don’t freeze to death at night. So you become a highly time oriented person who prioritizes short term gains, making you prone to crime and bad decision making, short term decision making.
And preferring less time is the opposite. Then you think about the future and you think about future generations. You plan ahead and build something for the future. I believe that high time preference and low time preference are on the same scale as fear and love, because for me, high time preference is a fearful state of being. And what is the opposite of fear? The opposite of fear is love. So prioritizing less time, or being able to prioritize less time, because you have more capital and a more certain future, which allows you to show more love not only to people, but also to yourself.
I think this is Bitcoin’s killer app, that it makes us better people. It makes us kinder to each other, but also kinder and kinder to ourselves. We can take better care of ourselves and others. That was largely what I was talking about.
It ties in with something my grandfather used to say, “What you can do without, you own,” and it’s something that has stuck with me since I first heard it. This is the flip side of “Your goods shall possess you.” Because if you can control your mind to the point where you no longer desire anything, then you have the things you don’t want, in a sense. For example, I would never buy a Lambo no matter how many bitcoins I have and how rich I am. I don’t want Lambos. In a sense, I own all the Lambos because I control my desires. I think bitcoin is like a gateway drug to this concept.
Sooner or later, bitcoiners realize that they don’t need that bad in their lives. The longer you stay in Bitcoin, the less material things matter. It will be very interesting to see how this plays out, because as we know, to get rich in a fiat country, or when you get rich, you buy a lot of crap and crap that you don’t need. and I think this is reversed in a post hyperbitcoinization. We will have a rich future without excess consumption because we will not crave as much as we do now. I think that’s the real killer here.
Q: I want to try to open it up a little bit. There’s a question behind all of this, and I’ll start with one: Do you think people realize that when they use fiat money, the money is routinely inflated, so they have to spend it all the time? Compared to Bitcoin, I think we all know that the value proposition of spending our Bitcoin today is greater than saving it and spending it in the future.
Swanholm: I don’t think they realize it on a conscious level, but it affects people. People who acquire assets and take out big loans win the fiat game. That’s how you win. For example, you buy a ton of shit, including houses. Real estate is a shitcoin. I saw some metrics from the US that over half of the real estate bought in the US last year was for Airbnb use, not for people to live in themselves.
Thus, before our eyes, it becomes the saying, “You shall have nothing and be happy.” But I prefer Bitcoin’s “You’ll have no debt and you’ll be happy” future, because just change one letter and you’ve got a Bitcoin future, which means you accumulate capital first, then consume – if you want to part with your bitcoin. The longer you hold your bitcoins, the more you realize how valuable they really are.
This is where I come to the second prediction about the future. I’ve experienced this even now because I’ve collaborated with all the Bitcoiners and they’ve given me stuff. They gave me their services and physical items such as FractalEncrypt’s artwork. They helped me with translations, proofreading, editing, animations and story – all for free. We rarely exchange satoshi with each other. This leads me to conclude that it is Gresham’s Law of the bitcoin standard that we treat each other well, because we see our stacks as too valuable and are willing to use our own reputational capital instead. It is the lesser valuable coin if you compare the two. So I think there’s a connection there, and that’s why I think the need for money to exist in a hyperbitcoinized world is diminishing.
Here is the true scaling solution. Less surgery is needed. Ironically, this “trust, verify” attitude of bitcoiners leads to a world where we can trust each other more. If you compare this to your relationship with friends and family, you rarely exchange money there either. You help each other without even wanting to.
I think Bitcoin is going, or people in Bitcoin are going to a state where we are always incentivized to help each other. Not only is it a time saver, but it also pumps up our wallets. We want Bitcoin to succeed, so we want other bitcoiners to succeed.
That’s the main reason we’re having this conversation right now. We all love Bitcoin and we want others to get on board and enjoy it too. And if we keep some bitcoins in the process, we enrich ourselves, so we are motivated to help each other and exchange favors for free.
The funny thing is, it’s not going away because we’re hyperbitcoinized; we still have it. A Bitcoin private key is literally the key to your heart. We put this mathematical experience in the back of our heads and we become better people.
I just find it endlessly fascinating. I can’t stop thinking about it. It gives me hope.