Balaji Srinivasan is an angel investor, tech founder, philosopher, and author of The Network State: How to Start a New Country. He was formerly the CTO of Coinbase and General Partner at Andreessen Horowitz. Please support this podcast by checking out our sponsors: - Policygenius: https://www.policygenius.com/ - Blinkist: https://blinkist.com/lex to get 25% off premium - Notion: https://notion.com - Onnit: https://lexfridman.com/onnit to get up to 10% off EPISODE LINKS: Balaji's Twitter: https://twitter.com/balajis Balaji's Website: https://balajis.com Books: 1. The Network State: https://thenetworkstate.com 2. Reputation and Power: https://amzn.to/3eyQiF6 3. Exit, Voice, and Loyalty: https://amzn.to/3TpuLNP 4. Seeing Like a State: https://amzn.to/3MJfvcD Articles: 1. Bitcoin Is Civilization: https://www.commonsense.news/p/is-bitcoin-anarchy-or-civilization 2. Great Protocol Politics: https://foreignpolicy.com/2021/12/11/bitcoin-ethereum-cryptocurrency-web3-great-protocol-politics 3. Regulation, Disruption, and the Future: https://bit.ly/3CKY9Ys 4. The Measured Man: https://theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2012/07/the-measured-man/309018 5. Secret Document That Transformed China: https://npr.org/sections/money/2012/01/20/145360447/the-secret-document-that-transformed-china 6. Hollywood's Missing Movies: https://reason.com/2000/06/01/hollywoods-missing-movies 7. New York Times Truth Campaign: https://adweek.com/agencyspy/droga5s-first-big-campaign-for-the-new-york-times-is-all-about-the-truth/126274 PODCAST INFO: Podcast website: https://lexfridman.com/podcast Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/2lwqZIr Spotify: https://spoti.fi/2nEwCF8 RSS: https://lexfridman.com/feed/podcast/ YouTube Full Episodes: https://youtube.com/lexfridman YouTube Clips: https://youtube.com/lexclips SUPPORT & CONNECT: - Check out the sponsors above, it's the best way to support this podcast - Support on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/lexfridman - Twitter: https://twitter.com/lexfridman - Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lexfridman - LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lexfridman - Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/lexfridman - Medium: https://medium.com/@lexfridman OUTLINE: Here's the timestamps for the episode. On some podcast players you should be able to click the timestamp to jump to that time. (00:00) - Introduction (07:23) - Prime number maze (33:35) - Government (49:51) - The Network State (59:55) - Pseudonymous economy (1:23:41) - Exit (1:38:23) - Building a network state (2:26:09) - Wikipedia (3:03:40) - Fixing science (3:30:08) - Fixing the FDA (5:01:16) - Longevity (5:20:14) - Donald Trump's ban from social media (5:49:32) - War (5:56:41) - Censorship (6:10:40) - Social media (6:26:56) - Wokeism and communism (6:45:44) - Cryptocurrency (7:03:17) - AI, AR, and VR (7:15:15) - Advice for young people (7:48:10) - Regulating logic
The Art of Manliness podcast discusses the history of life insurance and why it's important in today's world. They provide insights into the different types of life insurance and tips for choosing the right plan for you.
The study of statistical mechanics stemmed from the need to understand the workings of steam engines, and it has been used to explain a range of physical phenomena, from Maxwell's equations to Ramanujan's identities.
The assumption that other civilizations have seen ours may be flawed due to the decrease of energy as electromagnetic radiation leaves our planet, but this is still an unexplained mystery. There are more sophisticated theories such as the dark forest, which suggests that we are the only ones not hiding our presence, and observations like the Bomber and Passion series that predate quantum mechanics.
The development of chatbots has come a long way, but we are still far from a group of N chatbots resembling a group of N humans. While chatbots may seem like a simple box of code, they are actually highly complex and obfuscated pieces of JavaScript that can perform tasks automatically.
The podcast discusses the difference between technical truths and political truths when it comes to starting something new. While we want to start fresh without historical constraint, technical truths, like the gravitational constant, exist independent of human beliefs.
Exploring the potential benefits of a cryptocurrency portfolio strategy and how individuals can diversify their investments by selling BTC for ETH, Solana, Monero or Zcash.
In this episode, the speaker discusses the concept of over-the-air updates and how it is one of the biggest innovations in the way Tesla thinks about cars.
The degree of alignment of a company with the scale of a community can create a highly aligned online community, which is a group with a capacity for collective action that can crowd fund territory around the world and gain diplomatic recognition from preexisting states.
The appearance and structure of online communities, specifically for work-related purposes, is unpredictable due to competing factors such as novelty and focus, leading to a lack of consensus on what they should look like.
The model of individual moderators in subreddits used by online communities is indicative of the growth of digital societies becoming physical societies. Discord is becoming the preferred messaging app for individuals to jump into different communities compared to Slack due to its larger member capacity.
This episode explores the pros and cons of having pseudonyms and multiple online identities, from creating different personas for privacy and security reasons to the dangers of online anonymity and the importance of accountability.
The speaker discusses how many governments have institutionalized some form of murder throughout the 20th century, and also brings up the idea of blind auditions where a person's performance is judged solely on their merits rather than their identity.
This podcast discusses the trade-off between preventing disorganized murders and facilitating organized murders that comes with increased tracking, and how it relates to the fundamental human nature of an individual.
The use of military training as a dramatic device, from Full Metal Jacket to the Mandalorian, is a common theme in popular culture. While it has been criticized for its portrayal of drill sergeants as bad guys, soldiers actually enjoy it, and it's not uncommon to hear it compared to Adolf Hitler's behavior in the modern era.
This podcast discusses the concept of exit and voice in various scenarios, including politics and corporate governance, highlighting the importance of both methods in catalyzing change.
The internet can both hinder and facilitate empathy and connection between people. It allows for the possibility of building meaningful connections with others around the world, but also has the potential to decrease empathy in face-to-face interactions.
The rise of connection through the internet has led to crowdfunding, the process of raising funds through collective effort, to become a global phenomenon. Crowdfunding allows like-minded individuals to come together and create projects that otherwise would not exist.
The current form of government, 51% democracy, is essentially a form of dictatorship because it does not take into account the consent of the minority. The speaker proposes a new system, 100% democracy, made possible by cryptographic consensus in cryptocurrencies, which could reshape the world of atoms.
Balaji discusses how private cities and countries like El Salvador are paving the way for the future of digital passports.
The process of creating a sovereign state requires choosing the right land that represents a network state where ideas unite people, to prevent generational conflict and war. This process was evident in the creation of Israel as a sovereign state within the lifetime of some older people.
The social smart contract combines the concept of Rousseau's social contract with smart contract technology to create a framework for human rights that can be extended to everyone in the world. It can ensure that the rights of all people are respected and protected.
In this episode, the speaker discusses the challenges of maintaining a ruling class through inheritance, as descendants often squander their inherited qualities and wealth unless it is compounded over time. Older families were larger, meaning that unless the fortune is compounded to an extent, most descendants may not have inherited any of the fortune.
In this episode, the guest argues that there are two definitions of a network state, one that is a diplomatically-recognized entity and the other being a loose definition that has become a part of everyday language. He further discusses the concept of founding versus inheriting and how it relates to the idea of having an authoritarian leader in control.
Most countries are actually small countries, despite the belief that most people live in big countries. The number of UN listed countries has remained relatively flat over the past 30 years.
The importance of proof of human, income, and real estate rise on the blockchain, as these assertions are rank on the leaderboard of the fiat states, adding transparency and security to digital states.
A previously undetected fraud in the digits of real estate allowed for weeks or even months of fraudulent activity. Auditing through forks rather than edit words could prevent this in the future.
The presence of partisan polarization in Wikipedia edits can be analyzed through examining past edit wars and observing the color-coded indicator of media outlets on a specific webpage. This partisan polarization can impact the neutrality of Wikipedia articles.
The inability to cite direct quotes on social media on Wikipedia and the reliance on mainstream media outlets, specifically those labeled green on the Wikipedia reliable perennial social policy, is a structural shift that aligns the platform with US mainstream media corporations.
The discovery of an archeological site in Northern Turkey challenges the estimated timeline of when civilization began and historians debate controversial topics such as the influence of drugs in the Third Reich.
The speaker emphasizes the importance of unit testing mathematical functions, which can be easily done with modern technology, to ensure accuracy and reliability especially since they might be read many times more than they're written. The Kelly criterion is a particular concept that benefits from this approach as it is widely used and useful to know.
This podcast discusses the game of Gnomic and how it is a rare game where knowledge of the rules doesn't allow people to game the game. This concept is related to academia as the current institutions lack trust and the answer is not to trust no one but to change the rules of the game.
The speaker discusses the issues with "crypto science," where people publish false information in the name of science, and the flawed processes of public policy. They also touch on issues with central institutions and discuss an example of conflicting science regarding mask usage.
Youscholar.org offers a prototype to demonstrate how papers can have antecedents that do not match, and thus help prevent errors such as citing the wrong source or misleading research findings due to batch effects.
The use of cryptocurrency instruments to create a chain of custody for data can improve cybersecurity. By programming hashes and data into the instrument, manufacturers can track the source of data and regenerate it from its code, allowing for better protection against cyber attacks.
Balaji Srinivasan discusses the centralized US government establishment set up after WWII and how it may be showing its age in terms of funding basic science. He explores the idea of distributed funding and the role of technology in changing the funding landscape.
In the future, every branch of science will be a branch of computer science, incorporating computational methods for realistic simulations, big data analysis, and machine learning. This includes the concept of "crypto history" which makes history computable.
The partnership between big government and big companies can prevent small companies and small countries from progressing, limiting innovation and regulation outsourcing. Career tenures for regulators take them out of reach of the electorate.
In February 2020, while observing the situation unfolding in China, some people believed that the state could potentially stop the virus via lockdown despite the increasing number of deaths, particularly of young people like Li Wenliang.
The podcast discusses the various actions taken by the FDA, such as preventing access to AIDS drugs and their stance on "raw milk". They also compare the FDA's approach to the German saying of "starting with the thumb".
This podcast episode discusses compliance methodologies for drug regulations, including voluntary reporting and replacing the FDA with an ELP. Also mentioned is an IoT pill that provides measurements when swallowed.
The podcast episode touches on topics of entitlement, authority and the use of cameras. From book reviews to pharmacy barcodes, are we entitled to certain things? How does authority play a role in daily life? And what are the implications of cameras in public spaces?
Despite the potentially increased cancer risk, lack of efficacy, and cost, the security theater of airport screenings remains in place due to the belief that it makes people feel safer while also providing a platform for political grandstanding.
This podcast episode discusses how the FDA's reputation as a regulator is also a constraint to its power in the pharmaceutical industry, and how the motives of those running regulatory agencies may affect their actions.
The podcast discusses how blindly following popular opinion in scientific and governmental fields stifles progress and the pursuit of truth, using examples such as the FDA's denial of AIDS medication to a patient in need.
The FDA regulates pharma companies and their approval is a fundamental challenge for these companies because they are the primary customer. The FDA's power and reputation are similar to that of the EPA's reputation over oil companies.
This podcast discusses the shift in public trust from institutions towards independent millionaires, social media, Uber and Airbnb. It further explores the need for quality ratings and bands of bad actors to ensure trust in various fields such as FDA and CDC.
The regulatory struggles that Uber has faced to innovate the taxi industry can ultimately lead to better regulation through concepts like polycentric law and catalysis, thanks to increased leverage provided by the internet. The future of self-driving cars can also transform the way we regulate and perceive transportation.
The speaker discusses the limitations of current medical practices and highlights the potential benefits of continuous diagnostic for personalized medicine.
The conversation explores the implications of bureaucrats transitioning into tech, the role of the government in promoting innovation, and the potential of data derived from the human body.
Wearable technology such as Fitbit and continuous glucose monitors provide a wealth of information that can be used to improve overall health and fitness, making it more than just a diagnostic tool for disease.
The most capitalistic areas of medicine are the most functional areas of medicine like ambulatory medicine, whereas ambulance medicine is socialist medicine.
This podcast discusses the challenges and limitations of CPT codes, which are used to code biomedical procedures and determine their value in insurance reimbursement. It also touches on the flaws in the current medical system and the need for improvement in this area.
Balaji Srinivasan discusses the concept of building a network state and funding different types of ventures in the network state, such as a Christian-oriented network.
In this podcast, the conversation centers around the desire for longer life and how traditional medicine needs to adapt to mass life extension, using the comparison of cryptocurrency and traditional currency to make the point.
The movie Limitless highlights a nootropic drug that enhances cognitive abilities with side effects. Longevity is considered a prerequisite for humanity to expand into the cosmos, as clear data on millions of people could help AI predict a person's life expectancy and aid in the exploration of new worlds.
Synthetic biology allows for the synthesis of entire eukaryotic chromosomes in the lab, raising the possibility of creating a "mind clone" by aligning the cloned mind with the experiences and fundamental characteristics of the original version.
Variant Bio is a company delving into identifying people with exceptional health traits and further exploring the possibilities of enhancing human performance, potentially for disease prevention. The conversation discusses the potential positives and negatives of researching such enhancements and the ethical debates surrounding it.
This episode discusses the four points of view on the Capitol riots, which include the American left, right, India's point of view, and the developing world. The legitimacy of the riots is also questioned due to recent events and lawsuits.
The world of politics today can be seen through various lenses such as US establishment, Tucker-Maga, Baltic/Ukrainian, Indian/poor countries, Chinese, and Russian perspectives, along with an antebellum-like polarization according to Peter Turchin. Additionally, some equations in certain environments are time symmetrical and can be reversed.
The speaker reflects on the possibility of a third world emerging in the current global political climate and questions the idea of allowing total corporate power to challenge elected governments. There is also mention of states breaking away from federal laws on certain issues.
The term "nation state" is often used without much explanation, but it encompasses a diverse range of countries with unique cultural and historical backgrounds. India, for example, was composed of 562 princely states before it united in 1947.
The current ultra-nationalist trend in China could result in potential breakups due to disagreements of half its population. Sci-fi writers can explore the possibility of the US losing to non-white Chinese communists.
With tensions between the US and China on the rise, the possibility of a hot war between the two nations could have catastrophic consequences, including $1,000 gas in Europe, 10X energy, the threat of World War III, and even nuclear war.
The de-platforming of Donald Trump by tech companies in the aftermath of the Capitol riots has historical parallels, from the failed business plot against FDR to the positive press that helped Fidel Castro's revolution in Cuba. The decision to de-platform Trump has been supported on the grounds of protecting democracy, but also raises concerns about censorship and the power of tech companies.
The idea of communism as a universal, inclusive ideology was actually a disguise for Russian nationalism. This is illustrated in the way that Russian speakers were privileged in Eastern Europe and the Baltics, similar to the way Hitler's ideology could have gained more support if constructed differently.
The speaker believes that long-form, unedited conversations are rare yet powerful in providing an alternative perspective. He also suggests that exposure to controversial figures can lead to a better understanding of their actions.
The podcast discusses the idea of stateless nations and how they differ from nation states. It also delves into the potential for these stateless nations to eventually form their own independent states.
The article discusses three ways to create a state: compromise, insurgency, and shifting focus to a different region.
The future of social media could involve creating an ontology of consensus reality, including universally agreed-upon facts, which could be incorporated into a knowledge graph for use across multiple countries and cultures.
The transcript discusses how engineers can understand and manipulate the differences between front end and back end to meet their needs. It also relates it to revolutionary left systems transforming into ruling right systems.
The relationship between moral authority and economic authority is cyclical. The loss of moral authority leads to a loss of economic authority, and vice versa. In the late 1800s, Republicans turned their moral authority into economic authority, but this shifted in the following 50 years as their loss of moral authority led to the loss of their economic authority.
The future of capitalism lies in the competition between communist, woke, and crypto capital. The New York Times is an example of woke capital and this competition will ultimately shape society.
The concept of wokeness is the combination of Foucauldian deconstruction and civil rights, with the former removing the legitimacy of the old order and the latter creating a new, accepted order. The US establishment is now moving towards a re-centralized center that aligns with this concept of wokeness.
The speaker proposes abolishing local police but funding law enforcement agencies like the FBI or the Capitol Police. They also predict that in the future, cryptocurrency may cause a shift in political views and values, pulling some right-wing individuals towards adopting crypto but ultimately causing most to prioritize the American flag and the dollar.
The power of being able to control someone's digital world has increased with the digital era, but the check on that power is crypto and its decentralization. India and Israel, two sovereign states full of globally mobile tech talent that is hard to demonize, need to maintain a cautious distance with China.
Crypto search is a new way of building back-end systems that index on-chain communications including on-chain transactions, making it a total disruptive thing to search in the medium term.
In this episode, the speaker explains how woke arguments are used by capitalists to push their competitors out of the app store, and how centralization is often a disguise for corporate interests.
The future of social networks will likely involve smaller, deeper networks with a million to 10 million people. The emergence of digital currencies will unify all financial instruments and even non-fungible items like Chuck E. Cheese tokens and karma.
The combination of strong theoretical knowledge in computer science and statistics, paired with practical software engineering skills, is necessary for success in data science.
This transcript explores the idea of the great man theory of history and how Steve Jobs exemplified it with his role in turning Apple into one of the most valuable companies in the world through his understanding of technology and computer architecture.
The tech industry is becoming less white while media and journalism companies are still majority white, leading to repositioning and clashes. Mark Zuckerberg is cutting out the establishment and directly posting or talking to individuals like Joe Rogan instead.
The counter decentralization in the US and China has led to crackdown and deplatforming, but the media can report false coverage and charge users for the truth. Although deplatforming is bad, it is not the only problem faced by the society.
By having engineering skills and content creation, an individual can become a political leader who builds their own distribution, owning their own thing, and creating a new form of political leadership where a large online community is crowdfunded, and a distinctive vision of the good is built.
The conversation discusses cultural differences between countries like Poland and Brazil and their relation to understanding certain cultural context in America. They also touch on Europe's potential for leadership in AI regulation and outline some important rights to consider.
The speaker believes in preventing the future rather than predicting it, and reflects on a recent conversation that was enlightening. The speaker also notes the tendency to predict more of the same when observing one's surroundings.