Bitgenstein’s Table is released every Thursday. (Or Saturdays, when there's random loud music outside the studio during the week.) Subscribe on:
- iTunes at itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/id1410515815
- Soundcloud at https://soundcloud.com/bitgenstein

Throughout fiction and history, we see one story after another where revolutionary heroes become new versions of the villains they replace. Will cryptocurrency be any different?

***

Except for the theme, all songs are seat-of-the-pants improv this week. (You can probably tell I was a little short on time for this episode.) Improv borrows from themes mentioned in the podcast conclusion.

Theme song written and performed by Joseph Dickinson (audiojungle.net/user/jdmusic).

Bitgenstein's Table

Heroes & Villains: Twoface, Alma Coin, Zimbabwe, and the SEC

Bitgenstein’s Table is released every Thursday. (Or Saturdays, when there's a big Toronto blockchain conference all week.) Subscribe on:
- iTunes at itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/id1410515815
- Soundcloud at https://soundcloud.com/bitgenstein

***

As Minister of Finance, he voted against the 2015 bank bailouts in Greece, and resigned when they were passed. He's worked at Valve (makers of Half-Life and Steam) as economist-in-residence. He's taught at Cambridge and written popular game theory and economics books.

Yanis Varoufakis is controversial and hard to categorize, but he has a lot of incisive things to say. He even mentions Bitcoin in his latest book, "Talking to My Daughter About the Economy: A Brief History of Capitalism."

This week I sum up Varoufakis's book, including the fascinating intro on how it was starvation that pushed European and Asian societies to advance so quickly, when compared to the rest of the world.

I also talk about what Varoufakis says about Bitcoin – and what he unintentionally says about the tokenization of everything.

***

The three Chopin nocturnes in the background are hastily performed by me. Please rate and review the podcast to help it grow!

Theme song written and performed by Joseph Dickinson (audiojungle.net/user/jdmusic).

No Bitcoin without Starvation, plus Keynesians, Bank Bailouts, & Tokenizing Robots

(Bitgenstein's Table is now available on many platforms, including Apple Podcasts, DTube, Spotify, Stitcher, Google Podcasts, Soundcloud, and more. Please leave a review to help other's discover Bitgenstein's Table.)

Early decentralized social networks like Peepeth and DTube are starting to come online, resisting censorship with permanence. Meanwhile, privacy coins like Monero fight censorship with anonymity.

Do we want a world of transparent permanence or a world of anonymity? In part 1 of Heresy, Privacy & Censorship, I introduce censorship resistance, concerns with it, and the projects I mentioned above.

The Peepeth Kickstarter (and exclusive Peepeth rewards) are at http://kck.st/2PndDIt

***

Correction: I accidentally call Cuthbert Tunstall the "Archbishop of Canterbury" in this episode. He was actually Bishop of Durham, though he was appointed by the Archbishop of Canterbury.

Music this week: 3 songs by Ernesto Lecuona, performed by me, plus a couple of improvisations. Theme song by Joseph Dickinson (audiojungle.net/user/jdmusic).

Heresy, Privacy & Censorship #1: Monero, Peepeth, Kierkegaard

Usually, Bitgenstein’s Table is a discussion of philosophy, history, economics, or psychology. Today, it’s a different kind of fun.

In one future, open blockchain has pushed transparency on the world. Politics, money, reviews, social life - everything is accountable, everything is trackable, everything is open.

In the other, blockchain also dominates - but with privacy tech. GDPR was only the start, and now every person in the world, individuals and organizations both, has a right to total privacy.

Two short stories explore what life in these worlds might be like. They’re absurd enough to be fun, but they’re also thought experiments.

***

Last week’s episode talked about the discussion between transparency and privacy, with Peepeth, Dtube, Monero, Zcoin, PIVX, DASH, and more making appearances. 

Next week, we’ll take a break from privacy and permanence to feature a guest from Nexus (NXS), but soon “Heresy, Privacy & Censorship 3” will be back to explore ways we might find balance.

***

Original theme song, as usual, by Joseph Dickinson (audiojungle.net/user/jdmusic).

Sound effects are mostly from Freesound.org, and contributors include InspectorJ (www.jshaw.co.uk), jacobalcook, ralphwhitehead, klavo1985, ChazzRavenelle, and Andrewthomson. Used by permission under either the Attribution or the Creative Commons license.

Heresy, Privacy & Censorship #2: A Tale of Two Societies (Dramatized)

This week, we discuss kidnappings & gunpoint attacks demanding cryptocurrency. We often say that cryptocurrency is unseizable. But in one sense, it’s actually more seizable than dollars in your bank account: Kidnappers’ crypto accounts, unlike bank accounts, are unfreezable and are themselves unseizable – making stolen funds completely unrecoverable.

What can we do to be safe from ransom and wrench attacks?

***

Next week I have an exciting guest interview with Manuel Martin, who worked at CERN's Large Hadron Collider for many years and is now teaming up with other experts to fix many problems with the scientific publishing industry.

***

Original theme song, as usual, by Joseph Dickinson (audiojungle.net/user/jdmusic).

Besides one nocturne (in C minor) by Polish composer Frederic Chopin, all other piano songs – Prelude for the Left Hand Alone, Nocturne for the Left Hand Alone, and Etude in C sharp minor – are by Russian composer Alexander Scriabin.

Kidnapped for Bitcoin: Avoiding Ransom & Wrench Attacks for Cryptocurrency

A full transcript (with pictures!) of this interview is available at https://media.icoalert.com/podcast-bitgenstein-cern-blockchain. This week it's my pleasure to have Manuel Martin Marquez, of CERN and Orvium, on the podcast.

Academic publishing in scientific and medical fields is central to much of society.

Legislation, corporate policy, litigation, ethics, research direction, guidebooks and textbooks of all kinds all rest on the foundation of peer-reviewed academic studies.

But the ancient peer-review system is opaque, clunky and perhaps even prone to error. How can transparent, decentralized networks revolutionize the way we as humanity know things?

***

This episode is not sponsored by Orvium or any other entity.

Find out more about Orvium at https://orvium.io
Try Orvium's beta product at https://beta.orvium.io
Join the Orvium Telegram at https://t.me/orvium

Follow Bitgenstein's Table, the Crypto Philosophy Podcast, at https://anchor.fm/bitgenstein

For music credits, see the notes to episode 3, with Ryan Dennis. Other piano solo music is performed by me and composed by Spanish composer Joaquin Turina.

Fixing Scientific & Medical Publishing with Blockchain, with Manuel Martin Marquez of Orvium & CERN

Universal Basic Income is becoming a hot topic again. Is it a good idea? Why are a number of libertarians in the US jumping on board the UBI train?

What about Daniel Larimer’s Universal Resource Inheritance, proposed for EOS? And does Bitcoin already exhibit characteristics of UBI, thanks to its deflationary nature?

Join me as we explore this and more. As always on Bitgenstein’s Table, we’re trying to think more deeply about the future we want to build.

***

Next time is a special guest episode in cooperation with the Everything EOS podcast. We’ll be discussing UBI and URI as they relate to cryptocurrency, direct from the EOS Hackathon in San Francisco.

The articles I mention by Dan Larimer are available at https://medium.com/@bytemaster

See other links, including the video and article by Mark Cuban and more, at https://bitgenste.in/UBI

***

Original theme song, as usual, by Joseph Dickinson (audiojungle.net/user/jdmusic).

A few piano songs by me include a little-known Intermezzo by Poulenc and a couple of pieces by Ravel. Then there’s a mechanical-sounding song that we won’t talk about. Finally, the traditional Asian music near the end is used by permission. I wish I knew how to play those instruments.

Dan Larimer vs. the Rothschilds: EOS’s URI & Bitcoin as Universal Basic Income

** RELOCATED to https://anchor.fm/bitgenstein **

Bitgenstein's Table: the Crypto Philosophy Podcast applies 2500 years of the wisest human thought in philosophy, psychology, sociology, history, and more to the future of blockchain & cryptocurrency & how to make better decisions.

Bitgenstein's Table

Popular tracks