Escape Economic Slavery With Bitcoin

Uncover how modern money systems enslave us and why Bitcoin offers freedom, with insights from philosophy, history, and economics. Neal Flesher discusses his book 'Modern Chains.'

Timestamped Overview

[00:00:55 - 00:10:27] Introduction and Early Life Insights

Robert Breedlove introduces Neal Flesher and his new book “Modern Chains,” which explores hidden economic chains in our money system.
Neal shares his simple Kansas upbringing, where hard work and saving were key to a good life, inspired by his grandfather’s story.
He discusses joining the military, learning leadership at West Point, and how philosophy helped him think critically about life and decisions.
Neal explains his shift to studying economics when he realized traditional wisdom wasn’t enough for family prosperity.

[00:10:27 - 00:20:59] Exploring the Nature of Money

Neal describes turning to ancient philosophers like Aristotle to understand money as a token created by people exchanging needs.
He breaks down money’s parts: material traits (like durability) and functions (like storing value or being a medium of exchange).
Discussion on how money’s functions are linked—you can’t store value without exchanging it first.
Robert adds that money is complex, like language, and hard to fully define due to many viewpoints.

[00:20:59 - 00:30:46] Philosophy of Reality and Money

Neal introduces “hylomorphic” as a mix of matter and form, explaining reality as both changing and stable.
They discuss how humans understand the world through senses and reason, but with limits—no absolute knowledge.
Money fits this idea: it’s neither fully subjective nor objective, but a blend shaped by human needs.
Emphasis on accepting mystery in life and knowledge, avoiding extremes like total relativism.

[00:30:46 - 00:40:03] Slavery’s Evolution to Modern Economics

Neal argues slavery didn’t end but changed form, now through money systems that take people’s work without chains.
He compares old physical slavery to today’s economic extraction via inflation and debt.
Discussion on debasement (diluting money) as stealing work energy, morally the same as slavery.
Neal ties his military background to fighting for freedom, now seeing economic chains as a new battle.

[00:40:03 - 00:50:43] Rationality, Free Will, and Dignity

Humans differ from animals by using reason and choice, making us responsible for actions.
Economic systems that take work deny human dignity and freedom to choose paths.
Critique of calling inflation a “tax”—it’s worse, as it hides the extraction and harms dignity more.
Stories of how fiat money creates illusions, leading to theft without consent or awareness.

[00:50:43 - 01:00:00] Money’s Power and Practical Examples

Good money needs strong traits like scarcity; gold beats marshmallows as money due to better qualities.
Bad money (like wet noodles) fails in real exchanges, showing money must work practically.
Federal Reserve creates debt-based money from nothing, extracting energy while hiding the process.
This “monetary Gnosticism” pretends words create value, ignoring real work.

[01:00:00 - 01:10:27] Ethics, Trust, and System Flaws

Money should be ethical first, as it’s the glue for fair human relationships and society.
Debasement rips society apart, seen in history where empires fall after diluting currency.
Judge systems by results, not intentions—debt money enslaves regardless of motives.
Trust in institutions like the Fed opens doors to corruption, as power tempts abuse.

[01:10:27 - 01:20:59] Gold’s Limits and Bitcoin’s Role

Gold’s heaviness led to central banks, creating corruption opportunities.
Bitcoin fixes trust issues by allowing verification without blind faith.
Discussion on rare leaders like George Washington who rejected power, but most can’t resist.
Fiat erases truth vs. illusion, breaking reason and leading to force over talk.

[01:20:59 - 01:30:46] Incentives and Societal Decay

People follow incentives more than laws; bad money turns economy into a casino.
Winning unearned wealth (like lotteries) often ruins lives and relationships.
Meaning crisis links to meaningless money—work loses value, leading to despair.
Reject fiat lies by admitting it creates nothing; seek ethical alternatives.

[01:30:46 - 01:40:03] Fractional Reserves and Contradictions

Debt money defies logic: IOUs on IOUs can’t create real value.
System relies on faith, but reality will expose the illusion eventually.
Fractional banking shows incoherence, promising more money than exists.
Call to reestablish truth by rejecting illusions in daily exchanges.

[01:40:03 - 01:56:09] Meaning, History, and Hope

History shows debased money leads to moral and civilizational decline.
Humans learn little from past mistakes, repeating cycles.
Bitcoin offers escape by tying value to real work and verification.
Final call: Admit economic slavery and act to reclaim freedom through better money.

Notable Quotes

Economic Chains
The economic chains are invisible. So when you shine the light, the philosophical light of reason on the system, you see some shadows.
Neal Flesher @NealFlesher

Philosophy of Money
Money is a token of need that's intersubjectively brought into existence. The act of people exchanging an object for their needs is what creates money.
Neal Flesher @NealFlesher

Hylomorphic Reality
Reality is this unity. It's actuality and potential. It's this unity of both.
Neal Flesher @NealFlesher

Modern Slavery
Slavery did not die. It evolved... What once bound human beings with iron shackles now ensnares them through currencies, contracts, and credit systems.
Robert Breedlove @Breedlove22

Debasement as Slavery
When they're debasing the money, it's diluting the value... By taking the value like that, that is taking your work, that's taking your labor.
Neal Flesher @NealFlesher

Human Dignity
The coerced extraction of a person's productive energy... denies the fundamental human dignity in deciding one's path.
Robert Breedlove @Breedlove22

Monetary Gnosticism
Our monetary system is not anchored in genuine value... but in managed illusions... A monetary Gnosticism that denies natural law.
Robert Breedlove @Breedlove22

Ethics in Money
Economics presupposes an ethical foundation... Money is ethical before it's economic.
Neal Flesher @NealFlesher

Trust and Corruption
Trust is the window for corruption. When you're trusting somebody, you have a blind spot.
Neal Flesher @NealFlesher

System Judgment
The system's moral status does not pivot on the good or evil intentions... It hinges on the inescapable outcomes it produces.
Robert Breedlove @Breedlove22

Fiat Illusion
Fiat currency is a living lie... It erases the boundary between truth and illusion.
Robert Breedlove @Breedlove22

Meaning Crisis
When the money becomes meaningless and the work is meaningless... Of course people are going to face meaninglessness in life.
Robert Breedlove @Breedlove22

Reject the Lie
Every time someone passes you that dollar... You are implicitly saying something from nothing. No value was created.
Neal Flesher @NealFlesher

Transcript

Robert Breedlove [00:00:55]: Neil, man, appreciate you making the trip out here. Super excited to have this conversation. You and I have been trading some messages for, I don’t know, a few months. You’re very deep in the bitcoin philosophy rabbit hole, and you just published a book today.

Neal Flesher [00:01:30]: Yep. Good timing.

Robert Breedlove [00:01:32]: Yeah.

Robert Breedlove [00:01:32]: What’s the title of the book? And maybe just tell us a little intro about it.

Neal Flesher [00:01:36]: I mean, the title is Modern Chains. It’s. It’s really just a. We’re just trying to shine a flashlight on our monetary system and see what happens. And even though we look like we’re free and we’re running around, we’re doing all this stuff. The economic chains are invisible. So when you shine the light, the philosophical light of reason, you know, on the system, you see some shadows. And I was really.

Neal Flesher [00:02:04]: I don’t know, it just took all my attention. I can’t not think about it anymore.

Robert Breedlove [00:02:09]: Yeah.

Robert Breedlove [00:02:09]: You were saying about, what, six or seven months ago, that it just clicked for you. Yep. And you had to. You had to write the book.

Neal Flesher [00:02:17]: I had to, yeah. When? I don’t know. They say strike when the iron’s hot, and I was searing, so I just poured out of me. I poured my life, my soul, my mind into these pages, and I hope people appreciate them.

Robert Breedlove [00:02:33]: Yeah.

Robert Breedlove [00:02:34]: You have written right here at the beginning, for those who sacrifice before me, that I may sacrifice for Those who come after. I poured my soul into these pages. A record of testimony and conviction because truth is owed and silence is surrender. I thought that was very powerful. And I, fortunate enough, was. Was fortunate enough to look at your book before this, and, man, it is. It’s excellent. Again, I thought, you know, based on our exchanges, we were both sort of in the esoteric, dense philosophy conversation, and I really thought that’s what the book was going to be like.

Robert Breedlove [00:03:10]: But then you sent me the book, and you’ve done an amazing job of distilling very complex, deep philosophical ideas into a very accessible format. And, yeah, I think this could be one of the best bitcoin books ever written. I haven’t read it all, but it’s really, really good. So very excited to talk to you about it. Yeah, let’s start. So I don’t normally do a lot of stuff on kind of personal background and whatnot, but I think yours is actually super relevant in both your inspiration for writing the book and the experience you’ve had in life that allows you to speak from a certain perspective that others cannot. So can we just start childhood, monetary lessons, early life, professional career, everything leading up to writing the book.

Neal Flesher [00:03:59]: Yeah, I mean, growing up. I mean, I’m just a Kansas boy. You know, Kansas is kind of a weird place. It’s just in the middle of nowhere, lots of farms. And the thing about that is, like, the culture, everyone’s kind of tied directly or indirectly to the land. You know, everything pumps on the farming because that’s what they’re creating value, you know, making food, raising livestock. And it kind of. That grounding kind of makes the culture.

Neal Flesher [00:04:28]: There’s. There’s like a simplicity to the wisdom, you know. So, like, growing up, I never thought about money, but it was just kind of. It was just assume, like, you work hard, you earn money. That’s. That was kind of like the extent and like the generational kind of wisdom that comes from that is just like, okay, I work hard, save 10% of what I make, and I secure a prosperous life. Like, that was just kind of like everybody just. You just attack.

Neal Flesher [00:04:57]: That’s. You just go, you know, like, execute that plan and you’ll be okay. And it’s like, you know, I never met my grandfather. He died before I was. Was born. But hearing the stories about him, you know, he got married super young, you know, had eight children. Just worked at a little service station, you know, in the middle of rural Kansas. You know, it’s just like he was able to provide for his wife and Children, give them a good life, you know, and he built, you know, he was part of a rich community.

Neal Flesher [00:05:31]: You know, when everybody needs each other, you know, that economy, it builds an abundance, it builds prosperity because, like, hey, we’re helping each other out, you know, value for value. And if we’re making a trade that we both benefit from, I mean, that it’s just a win, win. Like, it’s just a positive sum game and just makes the whole community rich. And it was like, that was kind of my. My understanding of, like, the life that you’re like, what’s the purpose of work? What are you trying to do with your life? You know, you’re trying to build this prosperous life and share and build, you know, relationships with other people and build a community. And like, you know, that, that work ethic, it’s as simple as it is. I mean, it worked pretty good for me. Like, I enlisted in the military and I did three years, you know, running around as a little infantry dude, you know, and working hard.

Neal Flesher [00:06:27]: You know, I got recognized. The army recognized that, hey, there’s. There’s something here. And I got offered the opportunity to go to West Point. You know, I didn’t think about. I never planned to do that, but just, you know, worked hard, you know, did what you were told, and opportunities kind of came. I was like, I took that and, you know, that’s where we started to talk about leadership, you know, at West Point. And it’s like, you know, what does it mean to lead, to have people under you? And you’re saying, hey, this is what we’re going to do.

Neal Flesher [00:06:57]: And based on whether or not I make good decisions or not is whether or not we come home. You know, it’s like, so there’s a gravity to leadership that you really take to heart. Like, yes, there’s business leaders and stuff like that, and that’s still important, too. But when you’re in the military, in that domain, it just becomes like, you can’t deny the importance of, like, leadership and how, I guess, whatever the consequences of good leadership and bad leadership.

Robert Breedlove [00:07:31]: Yeah.

Robert Breedlove [00:07:31]: You’re dealing with life and death situations constantly.

Robert Breedlove [00:07:37]: Right.

Robert Breedlove [00:07:37]: In that position. Almost all of your. Maybe not all of your decisions, but all of the important decisions are life or death.

Neal Flesher [00:07:43]: Yeah. I mean, even if you’re just doing some training, you know, eventually, sure, that’s it’s going to matter, you know, and when it does matter, like, you hope that you trained everybody right and you gave them all the tools that they needed to be successful.

Robert Breedlove [00:07:57]: Yeah. Yeah.

Robert Breedlove [00:07:58]: You’re working at an extreme most people don’t deal with often. And so I’m sure it takes very serious resolve, very serious approach to everything.

Robert Breedlove [00:08:10]: Right.

Robert Breedlove [00:08:10]: All of the protocols, all of the training, as you mentioned, I’m very big on training. I think it’s one of the most important things in the world. What about your. And you would later become a father and a husband yourself, but then you eventually, you know, maybe you could speak a little bit to that, but then get to your philosophical awakening on money. You know, you said you started out just looking at money very simplistically, something you work hard for, you obtain secure, prosperous existence. What changed? And at what point did your views on money change?

Neal Flesher [00:08:43]: Yeah, so I started. I studied philosophy at West Point. You know, that’s when I first kind of dipped my toe into philosophy. Because I was really. I was really drawn by just like, oh, critical thinking, like, how. Studying how we think. Because, like, I was like, that ties directly into leadership. Like, if I have, you know, if I have a sharp mind, I can analyze things and, you know, make better decisions.

Neal Flesher [00:09:09]: So I thought they just kind of dovetailed really nice together. And then, you know, when I got out of the military, I still was really enthralled by the philosophy, so I went and, you know, went back to get a master’s in philosophy. And so it’s like, you know, getting, like, you’re talking about more esoteric, like, deep. Like, I have. I have strong philosophical legs. Like, I can. I can run the. I can run the race.

Neal Flesher [00:09:34]: And, you know, it’s like I didn’t care about learning about philosophy to just, oh, what did this guy say? Like, I wanted to do things with my mind. I wanted to learn and understand the arguments and understand reality so that I can navigate through it effectively to be a leader, so I can lead my wife, so I can lead my children and, you know, secure that prosperity for my family. And that’s kind of where my. That simple wisdom kind of ran out of steam. You know, like, I’m just working hard and saving and it just seemed a little off. My grandfather’s story, you know, in my mind, was getting further and further away. And I was like, this, what. What’s going on here? Like, something’s off.

Neal Flesher [00:10:27]: And I realized that, yeah, my understanding of money, just work hard, make money, like, that’s just not sufficient. It’s a fifth grader understanding of our economic reality, and it’s just not going to cut it. I owe my family more than that. And so that’s when I turned my eyes to Economics and started like, okay, well what is money? Like the name of this show, you know, like this, this question, you know, people arrive at it, you know, many different ways, but you’ve nailed it. Like, it is the central question of, you know, I don’t know my. At least for my generation, like, because you don’t have the answer. Like, you know, there’s 50,000 different answers to that question. And as I was porn starting to look through the economic stuff, the economic answers, you know, it’s like they just weren’t satisfying.

Neal Flesher [00:11:22]: It was like, oh, well, that’s kind of true. That’s. Here’s a partial truth, here’s this. But like, you know, as a philosopher, like I want, I want the whole answer. Like, what is money in? Just want to grip it and the whole thing and know what I have in my hand.

Robert Breedlove [00:11:37]: Yeah, and that’s the. I think you’ve described it well where we’re trying to get. I mean this is the purpose of language and logic and rational discourse and discursive reasoning. You know, we’re trying to get different aspects on a thing and then we have this collection of aspects that give us sort of the whole.

Robert Breedlove [00:11:58]: Right.

Robert Breedlove [00:11:58]: Or at least a something approximating the whole. And the aim of philosophy is always to get that right. A more holistic perspective of what we are talking about, thinking about, dealing with, experiencing, et cetera. And the money question is so interesting because there are so many answers to it. Each one is aspectual, right? It’ll tell you one thing about money, but sort of conceals another. And you need to get a lot of different answers to the question to really get a grip on it, to get an optimal grip on it. And my daughter’s here with us today, so sorry about the coughing and occasional laug guys, but this, you know, I found it to be a philosophically tantalizing question equal to something like what is truth? What is goodness, what is beauty, what is justice? And I think it’s. It is, it is the defining question of our time in history because of all of the falsification that’s been put up around it, right? It’s already a complex question in and of itself.

Robert Breedlove [00:12:57]: But now you also have to deal with all of the conditioning and programming and propaganda, all of this representing fiat currency as money, for instance, right? That it’s a debt based money. One of the definitions of money is the final extinguisher of debt. How can we have a debt based final extinguisher of debt?

Robert Breedlove [00:13:17]: Right.

Robert Breedlove [00:13:17]: It’s oxymoronic. It doesn’t make any sense whatsoever. That’s just one example. There’s many more. So not only are we dealing with something that’s very deep, right? It’s like language, like asking, what is language? You know, money is a form of language, but you also have all this obfuscation that surrounds it because we live in a central bank paradigm, and the central bank benefits from that obfuscation. So what, that was your inspiration, I assume, to write the book. And then what have you unearthed in your explorations? I mean, you start with the essence of money in your book. So where did you go there?

Neal Flesher [00:13:53]: Well, because I was so unsatisfied by all the different answers, I just was like, okay, well, I am a philosopher. I have read most all of Aristotle and I’ve read a bunch of Aquinas, and I know how to read it, but I never read them looking for money. So I was like, I’ll just go back. What does Aristotle say? And his whole idea, he would define. I have the whole answer. You know, the thing know when, you know, it’s four causes, you know, so just like, you know, he, he, he. His simple answer is, it’s just a token of need that’s intersubjectively brought into existence. You know, the act of people exchanging an object for their needs is what creates money.

Neal Flesher [00:14:43]: You know, it’s like, I was like, that makes a lot of sense. You know, if there’s no people, there’s no money. If all the people go away, all the gold in the ground just. It’s a mineral sits there. Yeah, it’s whatever it takes. People creating money. So it’s like we create it. Got it.

Neal Flesher [00:14:59]: You know, but he talks about, you know, so the material, formal, efficient and final causes of the thing, you know, so like, the material, what is that, that object? It’s, it’s potencies, its potential, you know, these types of, like. So when, when manger is talking about saleability, you know, all the circumstances and can context that make a thing, you know, sellable? You know, it’s like, okay, well, something can be more or less sellable.

Robert Breedlove [00:15:29]: Yes.

Neal Flesher [00:15:29]: So it’s like, okay, well those, that list, you know, it’s almost an infinite list of material characteristics that make a thing, you know, valuable, you know, to somebody else. It’s just like, that’s what, that’s what he’s talking about material causes, you know, the, the formal causes. Like that’s its function, its purpose. You. These are things that, these are categories of belonging. We either exchange this object or we don’t like it’s. Not a. It.

Neal Flesher [00:15:59]: It. It doesn’t admit of. Of more or less, you know, so it’s just like, see, Aristotle, he’s talking about this, about medium of exchange, store value, unit of account, you know, thousands of years ago. Yeah, like. And that’s what he said. Like, well, that’s its. That’s its form, you know, so these functions are. That’s what it does.

Neal Flesher [00:16:22]: So it’s kind of odd when people talk about, oh, well, it’s a good store value or it’s a bad store value. So now we’re talking about degrees. And it’s like that kind of misses the point when we exchange an object, when we actualize that function. Well, it implies that there’s already value stored in it and there’s a price that’s associated with that. So those functions come together. Like it’s. Take. They’re.

Neal Flesher [00:16:50]: They’re bound together. Like, you can’t have a store of value without it being a medium of exchange is. The medium of exchange is like its essence. That’s what. That’s what actually creates the money.

Robert Breedlove [00:17:00]: Yeah.

Neal Flesher [00:17:00]: So it’s like you can’t have a store of value if someone wasn’t already exchanging something for it.

Robert Breedlove [00:17:05]: Right.

Neal Flesher [00:17:05]: You know, so it’s just kind of those functions are bound together. And I don’t. I don’t, like, philosophically, when I hear people pulling them apart and treating them as separate because it’s like, I don’t know, it’s just. That doesn’t. I don’t even know what that is. That’s probably a stupid, bad.

Robert Breedlove [00:17:24]: No, no, no, it’s okay. I guess the point. A point would be that even in Aristotelian philosophy, you know, Plato as well, Neoplatonism, like, they haven’t come to a good understanding of money ultimately, like they do. They fit it into their framework, but I think even their frameworks don’t necessarily explain it in its fullness. And I’m not. I hesitate to criticize Aristotle or Plato.

Robert Breedlove [00:17:51]: Right.

Robert Breedlove [00:17:51]: But it’s more like they lived in an era where economies were not as complex and interconnected and global as we are now. So it’s like. It’s like asking those guys to understand a cell phone or something, you know, like, maybe that’s a bit of a stretch of an analogy, but you get what I’m saying. It’s like it just hadn’t evolved to the point of what it is today. So they didn’t maybe see the. The importance of it and. And maybe the complexity of it as well.

Neal Flesher [00:18:17]: Yeah. And I Guess in some senses though, like the simplicity was what actually helped me really kind of grab wrap my head around it.

Robert Breedlove [00:18:26]: Yes.

Neal Flesher [00:18:26]: Like I, for me being able to distinguish. Okay, well these are its material characteristic.

Robert Breedlove [00:18:32]: Yeah.

Neal Flesher [00:18:33]: Versus these are its formal properties. Like helped me kind of navigate through all the economic jargon and craziness. Like I could kind of attribute. Okay, this is what he’s talking about. Okay, this is what they’re addressing. Just kind of helped me sort and categorize. I mean the, the economic realities of today.

Robert Breedlove [00:18:53]: Yeah, it’s a. I mean it’s a. You can hardly have a better starting point than that for your philosophical understanding.

Robert Breedlove [00:20:59]: One of the terms you use in your book, which I think is very important, is hylomorphic.

Robert Breedlove [00:21:53]: So as I understand this, correct me if I’m wrong, but it’s something that is neither subjective nor objective. It seems like it’s both or neither. And I’m not sure it’s between subject and object.

Neal Flesher [00:22:05]: Yeah. So like hylomorphism. So you got to understand that. So in the metaphysics, Aristotle, he’s trying to understand what. It’s reality.

Robert Breedlove [00:22:16]: This is his book, right? The metaphysics.

Neal Flesher [00:22:18]: The metaphysics, yes.

Robert Breedlove [00:22:19]: And this is a.

Neal Flesher [00:22:20]: Just.

Robert Breedlove [00:22:21]: People get scared of that term. It’s about the, the being of something.

Robert Breedlove [00:22:25]: Right.

Robert Breedlove [00:22:26]: The essential nature of something, not just our perception of it, but what is it beyond even our perception.

Neal Flesher [00:22:30]: What does it mean? To be.

Robert Breedlove [00:22:31]: Yes.

Neal Flesher [00:22:31]: And to exist. So it’s like he’s. He. He’s trying to understand, like, well, what is reality?

Robert Breedlove [00:22:40]: Yeah.

Neal Flesher [00:22:40]: And you know, there’s. There’s the, like the. There’s. Basically, he’s caught between a rock and a hard place. You know, people think that every. Like there’s this. It’s like a static monism versus a dynamic monism. Like people are like, oh, everything is just always changing.

Neal Flesher [00:22:59]: Nothing actually is. It’s always in motion.

Robert Breedlove [00:23:02]: Yes.

Neal Flesher [00:23:02]: Everything’s just. So we can’t say this is a glass because it’s like it is. But then it can break. And it’s like relativism. Yeah, it’s just relativism. It’s all. Everything’s in motion. Nothing.

Neal Flesher [00:23:13]: Nothing is.

Robert Breedlove [00:23:13]: Yes.

Neal Flesher [00:23:14]: And it’s like on the other side, it’s just like, no, everything is what it is and there is no change.

Robert Breedlove [00:23:20]: Yes.

Neal Flesher [00:23:21]: It’s like, well, there’s. There’s logical contradictions, there’s impasses that both of those kind of lines of, of of thinking, you know, run into. So he’s trying to figure out, well, okay, obviously real. Like something is real. How do I describe that? And he comes into this, you know, his solution is you know, hylomorph. It’s this. It’s actuality and potential. It’s this unity of both.

Neal Flesher [00:23:49]: There, like a tension between there. It’s like, yeah, the. The ice is, you know, hard and it has the potential to melt. And it’s like. So he’s trying to figure out a way to describe reality as, you know, that we experience.

Robert Breedlove [00:24:03]: Yeah.

Neal Flesher [00:24:04]: You know, so it’s. There’s like a. It’s this underlying realism where you’re just like, okay, as a human being, I exist. I have sense faculties that let me, you know, interact with and detect reality. I have a rational faculty which helps me make sense and. And make sense of reality itself. And so it’s like. So there’s this like, metaphysical and epistemological realism that is kind of being built on to where it’s like, we’re not going to question everything.

Neal Flesher [00:24:33]: Like, we have. We’re human beings. And that’s not necessarily a bad thing.

Robert Breedlove [00:24:37]: Yeah.

Neal Flesher [00:24:39]: It’s the only way we can interface with reality.

Robert Breedlove [00:24:41]: Yeah.

Robert Breedlove [00:24:42]: Yeah. The way I, I mean, to try and demystify this a little bit, I don’t know that this is a perfectly correct way to do it, but I look at it as if reality is in constant flux. It is constantly changing, but there are principles underlying it that do not change.

Robert Breedlove [00:24:58]: Right.

Robert Breedlove [00:24:59]: You could think of this like, well, the laws of physics seem to be relatively constant, yet they give rise to all, like, infinite physical change everywhere. You could also look at the laws of Darwinian natural selection.

Robert Breedlove [00:25:11]: Right.

Robert Breedlove [00:25:12]: They’re pretty simple.

Robert Breedlove [00:25:13]: Right.

Robert Breedlove [00:25:14]: If it works, keep it. If it doesn’t, discard it.

Robert Breedlove [00:25:17]: Right.

Robert Breedlove [00:25:17]: By virtue of new organisms coming into existence, facing selection pressures. And whatever survives is what evolution produces. So there’s simple laws underpinning it. But what is the final form of evolution?

Robert Breedlove [00:25:30]: Right.

Robert Breedlove [00:25:30]: That doesn’t make sense to ask that question. It’s the variation. It’s constantly changing to. To fit the selection pressures of any given environment. So there is this. Is this dynamism between static and dynamism, if you could say it that way. And so as humans, it’s like we. We’re dealing with that reality we have.

Robert Breedlove [00:25:51]: Reason does give us access to the laws of physics, to Darwinian natural selection. But the actual naming or labeling of the instances or the manifestations from physics or from natural selection is what we’re using language to do. Right. So we’re dealing with an infinitely complex reality, but there is an underlying unity in terms of the principles or laws or rules that govern the manifestation of that complexity.

Neal Flesher [00:26:19]: We. We. We will know of reality as a human being. Yes, you know, like we don’t have.

Robert Breedlove [00:26:25]: And that’s also very important.

Neal Flesher [00:26:26]: Yes, we don’t have. Like. So this is a. Like we don’t have absolute knowledge.

Robert Breedlove [00:26:32]: No, you’re right.

Neal Flesher [00:26:33]: But it’s. That’s not to say that, oh, you can’t know anything. Like, we know things as humans.

Robert Breedlove [00:26:38]: As humans. As that is so essential too. And I thank you for saying that because there’s this notion that we can have some type of impartial observer perspective on reality, but it’s simply not possible. Even our eye, we can only see, what is it, less than 5% of the electromagnetic spectrum we can see as visible light. Obviously we can detect other wavelengths with instrumentation and whatnot. But we don’t know what aspects of reality are hidden to us completely. And there’s no, there’s no justification to say that we ever could, basically because no matter what you say or do, guess what you’re doing it from inside of a human being. You’ve got human rationality, human perceptions, human sense organs, all the things.

Robert Breedlove [00:27:23]: So there is a radical humility that comes with that, that human action is the ultimate axiom in a way.

Robert Breedlove [00:27:30]: Right.

Robert Breedlove [00:27:31]: It’s the one thing that you can never overturn because even to try to overturn human action is to act as a human correct with argumentation. So there’s.

Robert Breedlove [00:27:39]: Yeah.

Robert Breedlove [00:27:39]: Anyways, I’m glad you said that, but. So what’s the takeaway there on hylomorphic. It’s this.

Neal Flesher [00:27:45]: Sorry, money is.

Robert Breedlove [00:27:46]: Has this betweenness property to it.

Neal Flesher [00:27:48]: So the principle that I took away from. He said reality is this unit. It’s a both. It’s not an either or. Reality is both. So I take that principle and now I’m applying. I apply it to everything.

Robert Breedlove [00:28:03]: Yes.

Neal Flesher [00:28:03]: Like, if anything is real, it needs to have a hylomorphic answer.

Robert Breedlove [00:28:10]: Yes.

Neal Flesher [00:28:10]: If I’m going to be addressing it in reality.

Robert Breedlove [00:28:12]: Yes.

Neal Flesher [00:28:13]: If I am not, if I don’t have a hylomorphic answer, I’m no longer addressing reality as it is.

Robert Breedlove [00:28:21]: Right.

Neal Flesher [00:28:21]: But rather as what I speculate it to be. Or. Oh, wouldn’t it be nice if this or that. Like, I’m only addressing a part. And just in some ways you’re just. If you take it as a whole, staking the part for the whole. Because it’s just incomplete.

Robert Breedlove [00:28:37]: Yes.

Neal Flesher [00:28:38]: So with money, well, I need a hylomorphic answer.

Robert Breedlove [00:28:42]: Yeah.

Neal Flesher [00:28:42]: Okay. So it’s matter and it’s. It’s form together. Not. I can’t. Can’t discard one, throw it aside.

Robert Breedlove [00:28:51]: Yeah.

Neal Flesher [00:28:51]: You know, so, like, that’s. That’s kind of. That’s how I used Aristotle to help me understand the reality of money.

Robert Breedlove [00:29:01]: Yes.

Neal Flesher [00:29:01]: That it is both of these things.

Robert Breedlove [00:29:02]: Yes. Yes. Yes.

Robert Breedlove [00:29:03]: Is it a fair simplification to say that, I mean, nothing really is purely subjective nor objective for a human being.

Neal Flesher [00:29:12]: Correct.

Robert Breedlove [00:29:12]: For a human being, yeah. Thank you. And then. So all of our understanding of anything has to be a little bit of both.

Neal Flesher [00:29:18]: Yes. You know, and people get uncomfortable with that because it’s like, oh, well, then it’s relativism. It’s like, well, I’m okay with that tension. I’m okay with a little bit of mystery. Because, like. Well, that’s just what being human is.

Robert Breedlove [00:29:33]: That’s what being human is. Absolutely.

Neal Flesher [00:29:35]: If we’re going to deal with reality.

Robert Breedlove [00:29:36]: Yes.

Neal Flesher [00:29:37]: Like, we can imagine a different world where I have absolute knowledge and I have this and that.

Robert Breedlove [00:29:43]: But that’s.

Neal Flesher [00:29:43]: But that’s not. It’s imaginary.

Robert Breedlove [00:29:44]: Yes.

Robert Breedlove [00:29:45]: It does not exist.

Neal Flesher [00:29:46]: It doesn’t matter.

Robert Breedlove [00:29:46]: Yeah.

Robert Breedlove [00:29:47]: The ancient Greeks, they use that word, tonos, to describe the dynamic tension between opposites and that it’s also been said that the mark of an intelligent mind is the ability to hold two opposing thoughts without, you know, entertaining two opposing thoughts without accepting either. So, like, we are dealing with a reality that presents us with this mystery. There’s always mystery behind it. And we have to accept that doesn’t mean it’s inaccessible. We can get deeper and closer to it through knowledge and training and, you know, know how all of these things, these modes of knowing, but there is always some inaccessible portion to it. The other term that’s been used here is. Is metaxu, I think, by the Neoplatonist describing the same thing as hylomorphism, basically, that there is a. It’s a betweenness.

Robert Breedlove [00:30:31]: Right.

Robert Breedlove [00:30:31]: Like, we’re always assigning categories to talk about reality, to try and decomplexify all of its infinite manifestations. But there’s always things that are intercategorical. Right. There’s always something between the lines. No matter how many lines we draw or how finely pixelated our worldview is, there’s always more of reality between the lines. And it’s that betweenness that is somehow, like, very essentially descriptive to language, to money, to mathematics, all of these things. And so it’s hard to talk about because you’re only. You’re stuck in language to talk about the thing that’s beyond language.

Robert Breedlove [00:31:06]: But it is. It’s a theme we constantly revisit on this show. And so I, you know, I thank you for bringing hylomorphic into the language around here. It’s. It’s another helpful term. All right, I want to shift to your book now, if you don’t mind. I mean, we. What I found to be really useful because, again, I had your outline, which is great, but when I started reading your book, I was like, okay, wow, you have done.

Robert Breedlove [00:31:31]: This isn’t just a hardcore philosophical analytical philosophy treatise.

Neal Flesher [00:31:39]: I already wrote one philosophy thesis, and no one wants to read that.

Robert Breedlove [00:31:43]: No one wants to read that.

Neal Flesher [00:31:44]: No one wants to read that.

Robert Breedlove [00:31:45]: And you wrote something I think people really want to read. So if you’re okay with this, I’m going to jump from the outline into your book and just read some excerpts, and I want to hear you riff on some of these things. So I’m going to start just right at the beginning of chapter one, which you titled the Journey and Key Concepts. You write, slavery did not die. It evolved. Yes, the brutal imagery of whips and auction blocks has mostly faded, yet the essence endures, systematically appropriating a person’s work by force. Although today’s outward trappings differ radically from chattel slavery, the same principle endures, same form, different matter. What once bound human beings with iron shackles now ensnares them through currencies, contracts, and credit systems.

Robert Breedlove [00:32:40]: Could you. I’ll read one more excerpt. It was a little bit further down, and then. I’d love to hear you sort of wax on this a bit. Indeed. Profound material differences separate historical bondage from the modern economic injustices we face. Yet the form of the violation, the coerced extraction of another’s work, remains the same. By highlighting this continuity of form, we do not trivialize or erase the immeasurable cruelty of chattel slavery.

Robert Breedlove [00:33:09]: Rather, we show how a timeless evil adapts itself in new guises. What once required physical shackles and overseers now achieves the same end through economic subjugation, draining work while keeping people blind to its machinery. If we refuse to name it for what it is, we risk letting that evil flourish once again, only with subtler methods and sanitized rhetoric. Great example of just your writing. It’s not, again, not analytical philosophy here. You’re writing something very compelling.

Neal Flesher [00:33:46]: And from the heart.

Robert Breedlove [00:33:47]: And from the heart.

Robert Breedlove [00:33:48]: Yeah.

Robert Breedlove [00:33:49]: So maybe we didn’t get much into your military background, but maybe you could give a little bit of that and how it inspired you to. To start this book.

Neal Flesher [00:33:59]: Yeah, so, I mean, talking about the form of slavery, you know, so we just got done talking a little Bit about matter and form. You know, this hylomorphic answer. And like in. When we’re talking with form, we’re talking about. Remember, it’s not things of. It’s a category of belonging. What’s its function? You know, so as I was getting the what is money? Question kind of answered the next question that followed. Okay, well, what is debasement?

Robert Breedlove [00:34:28]: Right?

Neal Flesher [00:34:29]: They’re debasing the money. They’re printing the money. The money supply is expanding. Okay, well, what does that do? What does that mean technically and morally? You know, that’s kind of like. That was the next stage of my, like, inquiry, you know, it’s like, okay, when they’re debasing the money, it’s diluting, right? Talk about diluting the value. But what is that? If money is this capsule, we could say money is the measure of value. And value is essentially a. The measure of motion towards an end.

Neal Flesher [00:35:09]: You know, what can actualize your needs? Going back to Aristotle, it’s so. It’s like, so when they dilute that, they’re diluting the value. They’re extracting stored value in a money and putting it in something else. It’s like, okay, well, what. What is that value? Okay, it’s that motion. It’s my work, my energy that I’m investing in to an end to accomplish something, to create value. So when you. By taking the value like that, that is taking your work, that’s taking your labor, that’s taking your productive energy, because that’s the form of debasement.

Neal Flesher [00:35:52]: And I was like, that’s the form of slavery. So when we’re understanding the form, we have to. Aristotle was that we were stripping away all the accidents, you know, I.

Robert Breedlove [00:36:05]: Which is the. The individual instances of a thing, anything.

Neal Flesher [00:36:09]: That could be different.

Robert Breedlove [00:36:10]: Yeah.

Neal Flesher [00:36:11]: And. And you’re only. When they talk about the essence of a thing, it’s the thing that remains unchanged, that doesn’t. Nothing. You know, it’s like, I have a height. You know, I could be an inch taller, I could be an inch shorter. You know, like. But that height itself, that property is unchanging, like, extent.

Neal Flesher [00:36:30]: Every.

Robert Breedlove [00:36:31]: Every height, length, width. Yeah, yeah.

Neal Flesher [00:36:34]: Anything like that.

Robert Breedlove [00:36:34]: So triangle having three sides.

Neal Flesher [00:36:36]: The triangle is perfect example of this. You know, so it’s. You have. So what is a triangle? You know, it’s like, okay, well, it’s form, the principles that do not change. You know, three sides all adding up to 180 degrees. You know, it’s like, okay, do some triangles look different? Yeah, they can be bigger, smaller, they can equilateral. They could be a right angle. It’s like, yeah, those.

Neal Flesher [00:36:59]: Those things change and different, but that’s not the essence of a triangle. That’s not how you define it. So when we. When we strip away all the accidents of chattel slavery and we strip away all the accidents of, you know, debasement, you have the exact same essence.

Robert Breedlove [00:37:15]: Yeah.

Neal Flesher [00:37:16]: That connection. And it’s like, that is. That is such a powerful truth. And it’s a truth that, like, we cannot lose sight of that.

Robert Breedlove [00:37:26]: Yeah.

Neal Flesher [00:37:26]: Like this. It’s not some. Oh, man, they’re debasing our money. It’s just kind of unfortunate. It hurts a little bit, but we put a little inflation, whatever, I guess, whatever it takes to keep, you know, society going. It’s like, no, all those justifications, you know, that they do not override this immoral, you know, injustice.

Robert Breedlove [00:37:48]: Right.

Neal Flesher [00:37:49]: And it’s like, nobody would be like, oh, it’s a little. Slavery is okay. You know, like, I got a couple of slaves in the back. Like, no one would say, like, oh, that’s okay.

Robert Breedlove [00:37:58]: Yeah, it’s today.

Neal Flesher [00:37:59]: Today.

Robert Breedlove [00:38:00]: Yeah.

Neal Flesher [00:38:00]: Like, but that warrants the same principled rejection. And it’s like, if people can see that, you know, I don’t know, that’s what. You know, coming back to this leadership thing with the military, it’s like, you know, what is. What’s a cause worth dying for? You know? You know, I deployed twice, went overseas to fight in the forever wars. You know, my country asked me to, you know, rationalize and come to terms with my mortality. What does it mean to risk your life for your country? What does it mean to, you know, be willing to sacrifice yourself for something greater than yourself? And, like, you know, you could call it, I drank the Kool Aid and did the propaganda and, like, I’ll go die for my country. But, like, the. The funny thing that happens there is I took it to heart.

Robert Breedlove [00:38:56]: Yeah.

Neal Flesher [00:38:57]: You know, and it’s like, when something is worth it, like, you do anything for it, and it’s just like this. Is this. This economic slavery. I feel it. You know, I’m thinking about my kids, I’m thinking about my wife, like, providing for my family. And we’re like, we’re all in bonds.

Robert Breedlove [00:39:17]: Yeah.

Neal Flesher [00:39:18]: And I am not going to. I’m not going to sit by on the sidelines and just let this happen and just hope that, like, I make it and. And that it’s okay. You know, that’s why I had to write this book, you know, to. To lead, to say, hey, this is alert people. So this is, this is what’s going on and we need to act appropriately.

Robert Breedlove [00:39:41]: Yes.

Robert Breedlove [00:39:41]: You know,

Robert Breedlove [00:41:13]: There’s a saying that everyone wants. Everyone would like to live at the expense of the state, but few realize that the state lives at the expense of everyone else.

Robert Breedlove [00:42:20]: So Everyone wants a free lunch. Everyone wants something for nothing. This is notorious way in which politicians get reelected. They just promise free stuff. Of course, none of the stuff is actually free. It’s all stolen through taxation or inflation and then quote, unquote, redistributed. Although that’s not an accurate term either. It’s just distributed.

Robert Breedlove [00:42:41]: It’s stolen and then distributed to someone else.

Neal Flesher [00:42:43]: See, I. I don’t even like the term stolen.

Robert Breedlove [00:42:45]: Okay.

Neal Flesher [00:42:46]: You know, I really don’t. You know, the. The moral philosopher in me just jumps up on the table when I hear people talking about stealing and, oh, it’s a. Like, I’ve heard debasement is a tax. It’s the silent tax. You know, the bunch of politicians love to say that. They’d be like, oh, debasement is the silent tax. It’s like, it’s not a tax.

Neal Flesher [00:43:07]: All right? You don’t get a tax bill. You’re not writing a check to the irs. Like, you’re not exchanging anything. You’re not paying anything. Like, so just. It’s not a tax.

Robert Breedlove [00:43:17]: Okay.

Neal Flesher [00:43:17]: You know, they say, oh, because of.

Robert Breedlove [00:43:18]: There’s. Because there’s no visibility or traceability, you’re saying.

Neal Flesher [00:43:21]: I’m just saying. So a moral crime. You know, Aquinas would talk about defining, Identifying moral crimes by their objects. So it’s like, well, what is. What’s being taken? You know, if I murder somebody, I am immorally taking their life. If I steal from you, I am immorally taking your property.

Robert Breedlove [00:43:43]: Right.

Robert Breedlove [00:43:43]: You know, which are both life energy in a way.

Robert Breedlove [00:43:46]: Right?

Neal Flesher [00:43:46]: Yeah, but the object. So stealing. The object of stealing is your property.

Robert Breedlove [00:43:51]: Yes.

Neal Flesher [00:43:52]: You know. Well, what’s debasement? Well, debasement is extracting your work, that value. It’s not really. It’s not a. It’s not like a proper. Like, it’s taking your purchasing power, but it’s not the object. Like, If I take $20 from your wallet, I stole 20 bucks from you.

Robert Breedlove [00:44:12]: Yeah.

Neal Flesher [00:44:12]: If I debase that money, I’ve extracted your work, I’ve extracted the value you put into that through. You created the value, you put it into that money, and I’m taking that from you. So it’s like, that’s. That’s slavery, you know, so it’s like. Okay, it’s like a euphemism that’s. That’s inappropriately directing you away from what’s actually. Like, it’s slavery.

Robert Breedlove [00:44:38]: Yeah.

Neal Flesher [00:44:39]: Don’t say anything else. Right.

Robert Breedlove [00:44:41]: Okay.

Neal Flesher [00:44:41]: Oh, but that’s crazy. And blah, blah. No, that’s what it is.

Robert Breedlove [00:44:44]: Yeah, here’s. So I think we agree, but maybe just semantically have approached it differently, because one, the way I’ve said this before is that I’ve defined slavery as Anyone with a 100 effective tax rate, which is all of the fruits of someone’s labor go to a tax authority or a slave master, which would be the same thing at 100%.

Robert Breedlove [00:45:03]: Right.

Robert Breedlove [00:45:03]: And then someone that pays 0% tax, a 0% effective tax rate would be a sovereignist.

Robert Breedlove [00:45:10]: Right.

Robert Breedlove [00:45:10]: The opposite of a slave. Someone that’s fully sovereign. Well, you want to know what percentage of a slave you are, just tell me your effective tax rate.

Robert Breedlove [00:45:17]: Right?

Robert Breedlove [00:45:17]: 35%, 45%, 15%. Whatever it is, that’s what percentage unfree you are. Another way to say this is like, okay, if you’re paying a 25% effective tax rate, that means you work 12 months out of every year. Three months of that work goes to the tax authority.

Robert Breedlove [00:45:32]: Right?

Robert Breedlove [00:45:32]: That’s you paying your slave dues. And the other nine months you get to keep. So I, I. Theft, taxation, slavery, like these are all. Theft and taxation are the same thing. So inflation, taxation, theft, these are all the same thing in my book. And then slavery would just be the ultimate version of that.

Robert Breedlove [00:45:51]: Right.

Robert Breedlove [00:45:51]: If it’s 100%, then that’s absolute slavery. Anything less than that is just some percentage on the continuum.

Robert Breedlove [00:45:58]: Right.

Robert Breedlove [00:45:59]: From free person to slave. So I don’t know, we probably don’t want to get wrapped up on the axis of semantics. But, like, I think we agree conceptually, even though we may not be using the same terminology.

Neal Flesher [00:46:08]: I’m just focused on the form, you know, so I’m, I’m not, I’m not worried about the more or less or the degrees. I’m just trying to. The categories of belonging.

Robert Breedlove [00:46:17]: I see.

Neal Flesher [00:46:17]: You know, so it’s like you, you can, you can. I’m not, I’m not here to get into a, you know, an oppression Olympics, you know, where it’s just like, who’s being the press the most? Like, that’s. I’m not about that.

Robert Breedlove [00:46:29]: Yeah.

Neal Flesher [00:46:30]: I’m just. If we can’t even just categorize what is being, what’s happening, you know, it’s like whether it’s taxation or, or stealing. Well, like that, to me, the coercive extraction of the value.

Robert Breedlove [00:46:44]: Yeah.

Neal Flesher [00:46:45]: That is what is the formal definition of slavery and why it needs to be called that.

Robert Breedlove [00:46:50]: Right. So would you say that inflation is worse than taxation because it lacks the consent? Well, they both lack consent, which is weird. The Only thing I would say inflation is worse because people don’t know it. Like, it’s. It’s. It’s more illusory.

Robert Breedlove [00:47:05]: Right.

Robert Breedlove [00:47:06]: That I would say tax via inflation. And then Joe Biden blames the ice cream producers.

Neal Flesher [00:47:11]: Yeah.

Robert Breedlove [00:47:12]: How about when you get a tax bill, at least, you know, oh, Uncle Sam sent me a tax bill.

Neal Flesher [00:47:15]: Yeah. The debasement is. Is wor. Is significantly worse because. And this is also Aquinas talking about so, well, what’s the object that’s being damaged? What’s like. And it’s. It’s stripping away your human dignity.

Robert Breedlove [00:47:29]: Yeah.

Neal Flesher [00:47:29]: You know, so, like, you get a tax bill, you pay it, like, the extent that it degrades your. Your dignity as a human being, as a human object.

Robert Breedlove [00:47:39]: Right.

Neal Flesher [00:47:39]: I don’t think those are even comparable.

Robert Breedlove [00:47:41]: Right, I see, I see.

Robert Breedlove [00:47:43]: Yeah.

Robert Breedlove [00:47:43]: Because at least you don’t consent to pay tax, but you do voluntarily pay it.

Robert Breedlove [00:47:48]: Right.

Robert Breedlove [00:47:48]: This is the same as if someone mugs you in an alley at gunpoint, you voluntarily hand him your wallet. It’s not consensual because you’re under duress. There’s a subtle distinction between voluntary and consensual, but you do voluntarily hand it out. Involuntary is like when you have a heart attack. Right.

Neal Flesher [00:48:04]: It’s coerced. There’s force being involved.

Robert Breedlove [00:48:06]: Of course it’s coerced. But I guess something can be coerced, and voluntary is the point. Voluntary involuntary is more like if you have a heart attack or you have a seizure.

Robert Breedlove [00:48:12]: Right.

Robert Breedlove [00:48:13]: These are involuntary things. So I would agree, actually there. That inflation is worse because it’s not even voluntary.

Robert Breedlove [00:48:22]: Right.

Robert Breedlove [00:48:22]: The people don’t even know that they’re being solved.

Neal Flesher [00:48:23]: They don’t even know what’s happening.

Robert Breedlove [00:48:24]: Yeah.

Robert Breedlove [00:48:25]: Which is by design, of course.

Neal Flesher [00:48:27]: When The Fed injects $6 trillion into the economy, you wake up and you don’t even know it.

Robert Breedlove [00:48:32]: Well, you know what’s even more insidious about it is people often celebrate it because they get a check in the mail signed by Donald Trump or whoever, and they think, oh, this is great. We printed money. And it’s like, wait a minute, you got a $3,800 check?

Robert Breedlove [00:48:45]: They.

Robert Breedlove [00:48:45]: Per household, whatever the number was, they printed $46,000 per U.S. household. What about the other $40,000? Oh, that was all stolen from you, basically, or whatever. What word would you use?

Neal Flesher [00:48:57]: Extract.

Robert Breedlove [00:48:58]: Extracted. Okay, so we’ll go with extraction or expropriation.

Neal Flesher [00:49:02]: Expropriation.

Robert Breedlove [00:49:02]: Expropriation.

Neal Flesher [00:49:03]: Yep. Expropriation. Appropriated extraction.

Robert Breedlove [00:49:07]: Yeah.

Robert Breedlove [00:49:09]: Okay. I want to so I’m jumping around quite a bit here, but I just want to read some of these excerpts and then you tell me, take it whatever direction you like. One really nice thing you did in your book is you often added these key takeaways. So as I was preparing for this interview, I was trying to get through the whole book very quickly. I was able to jump to the key takeaways, which I thought nicely summarized some of the larger parts of the text. So with that, I’m going to read a key takeaway that you provided on page 50. You said, Rationality means reality is intelligible. We can understand the world around us, discern truth, and grasp universal principles.

Robert Breedlove [00:49:46]: Free will means we can act on that understanding instead of merely following blind instincts or reflexes. In everyday life, if you feed an animal, it will keep eating until all the food is gone or until it is no longer hungry. A rational human, by contrast, can consider health goals, personal preferences, or even the time of day, and then freely choose to follow an impulse or deliberately cut against it. That ability to reason and then choose is what makes us moral agents. We are not simply sales blowing in the wind. It is also why the coerced extraction of a person’s productive energy through overt violence or subtle economic subjugation denies the fundamental human dignity in deciding one’s path. So what, this is what distinguishes rationality, is what separates man from animal.

Neal Flesher [00:50:43]: Yes.

Robert Breedlove [00:50:47]: But we’re dealing with it. We just talked about it, right? Like there’s this weird where the central bank prints money and then uses the proceeds stolen to engineer pseudo scientific excuses like Keynesian economics to literally confound rationality or to confound intelligence, at least to make the slave believe that the whip is good for them. Yeah, I mean, that seems like no way out of that trap other than Bitcoin. Ultimately, obviously, we’re going to get to Bitcoin, but what are your thoughts about that? What’s the relationship between this extraction of labor, energy via debasement and the short circuiting of human intelligence or rationality?

Neal Flesher [00:51:25]: Yeah, so the human object has this rational creature. You know, that’s, that’s Aristotle, that’s Aquinas. You know, it makes sense. Like we’re the creature that can abstract principles. We can abstract order. You know, you’re talking about the, the eye. You know, it’s like your eye doesn’t create that light, you know, it perceives it. And like our rational faculty, we don’t create the order of reality.

Neal Flesher [00:51:49]: Right, but, but we abstract it. We can interface it. We. We can understand it. So it’s like, that’s a really, really powerful thing. And like, that’s why they would say that rationality is the essence. It’s the one thing that distinguishes the. The human object, the human creature, from all else.

Neal Flesher [00:52:07]: Like, I’m not a rock. I’m not a dog. I’m a human being. And that rationality is. It means that we can. We see how things are going and we’re able to choose where we want to go. You know, like, we can follow. We can follow that or we can cut against it.

Neal Flesher [00:52:29]: And it’s like, I mean, that’s. That is your everyday lived experience.

Robert Breedlove [00:52:33]: You.

Neal Flesher [00:52:33]: You are doing every choice you make. You know, you’re either, you’re. You’re not just the. The rock rolling down the hill.

Robert Breedlove [00:52:41]: Right.

Neal Flesher [00:52:41]: You know, you. You are driving yourself. Human action. You are driving yourself through your life.

Robert Breedlove [00:52:48]: Yes.

Neal Flesher [00:52:48]: And when you strip people of that, right, when you’re denying them their. Their ability to choose to be that rational agent, that’s a dehumanizing thing. And you’re turning them into the rock. You’re objectifying them. You’re denying their subjective consciousness, human experience. And, you know, that’s a. I mean, that’s just evil.

Robert Breedlove [00:53:16]: That’s evil.

Robert Breedlove [00:53:17]: Yeah.

Robert Breedlove [00:53:18]: GK Chesterton has this amazing quote. He said something like, even a dead thing can go with the stream. Only a living thing can swim against it.

Neal Flesher [00:53:27]: Yeah.

Robert Breedlove [00:53:28]: And this. Yeah. This idea of treating people as means rather than ends, this also seems to be pretty important in this perspective that you’re actually. The perspective of slavery.

Robert Breedlove [00:53:44]: Right?

Robert Breedlove [00:53:45]: Well, that’s another definition of slavery. You’re treating people as means rather than ends, or you’re treating people as property rather than human beings with dignity and rationality and self ownership and all of these things and means and ends. This also gets to the human action discussion.

Robert Breedlove [00:54:03]: Right.

Robert Breedlove [00:54:03]: Because that is the definition of action.

Neal Flesher [00:54:05]: Human can never be the ends.

Robert Breedlove [00:54:07]: I can never be the means.

Neal Flesher [00:54:08]: Yes.

Robert Breedlove [00:54:08]: Right.

Neal Flesher [00:54:08]: The human can never be the means.

Robert Breedlove [00:54:10]: Yes.

Robert Breedlove [00:54:10]: Now, and this is subtle, too. This is subtle. This is subtle. I think about this a lot because we are means to one another’s ends. And consensually, that’s okay, Right. You’re a guest on my podcast right now. Okay. That’s a means to my end of producing a podcast.

Robert Breedlove [00:54:25]: Okay. But that’s fine. You’re not here under duress, are you? Blink twice. You’re here out of consensual exchange, Right. You wrote a book, you’re promoting a book. You’ve got ideas you want to share you know, all the things. So now we come together in consent. And I’m being the means to your end.

Robert Breedlove [00:54:41]: Right.

Robert Breedlove [00:54:42]: Of promoting or spreading the ideas you want to spread. That’s good. That’s capitalism, right. That’s cooperation. There’s another magical human quality is that we can cooperate like no other animal can through this principle of consent. So there’s this subtle thing here where like, we. It’s okay to be means to one another’s ends. It’s not okay to force people to be means to your ends.

Robert Breedlove [00:55:03]: That is slavery. Tell me where I’m wrong about that.

Neal Flesher [00:55:06]: I mean, I understand what you’re saying and I guess I just, I don’t conceptualize it as we’re using each other as means. We’re just human beings acting and coming together.

Robert Breedlove [00:55:20]: We’re helping each other.

Neal Flesher [00:55:21]: We’re helping each other. We are creating.

Robert Breedlove [00:55:22]: In the same way a hammer helps me build a house.

Robert Breedlove [00:55:24]: Right.

Robert Breedlove [00:55:24]: Maybe that the help is subtly different.

Robert Breedlove [00:55:26]: Right.

Robert Breedlove [00:55:27]: Humans are more complex than hammers. But it’s still as what you said earlier, value is that which accelerates you towards the achievement of an aim. So you didn’t say that exactly.

Neal Flesher [00:55:35]: I’m treating you as a human being, you’re treating me as a human being. Our interests are aligned. We’re coming together to create this value for value exchange which is making the world a better place. Like there’s. My world’s better, your world’s better. You know, I, I just, I don’t see the, the coming together of these, these interests as a using.

Robert Breedlove [00:56:00]: Okay.

Neal Flesher [00:56:01]: You know, like, okay, I understand what you’re saying and you can, you can think of it that way. But I just, like, I guess I’m a little more optimistic. Like, I don’t know, I, I see that coming together of, I don’t know.

Robert Breedlove [00:56:16]: It’S just, it’s collaboration, Cooperation.

Neal Flesher [00:56:19]: It’s a collaboration, you know.

Robert Breedlove [00:56:20]: Yeah, it’s all.

Neal Flesher [00:56:21]: And I would say that it’s cooperation.

Robert Breedlove [00:56:23]: Yeah.

Neal Flesher [00:56:24]: Like to, if we’re going to say something is being used as a means, a person, then I’m more extracting, you know, it’s like. Yeah, I don’t know, maybe it’s fine.

Robert Breedlove [00:56:34]: It’s again, semantic quibble. Perhaps we’re on the same wavelength conceptually. But I’m like, you know, when I, when I operate my laptop, right. I’m operating it. I’m actually, I’m really co operating it actually. Because I don’t know how this thing works all the way down to binary. Yeah, it’s working with me. So we’re like in this, in this relational thing, but between humans.

Robert Breedlove [00:56:57]: I don’t know. It always comes down to me to the principle of consent. Like as long as consent is being mutually honored, then it’s all good. It’s life, liberty, property. Leave people alone. You know, like as long as people are consensually engaging with one another, then you almost can’t do wrong.

Neal Flesher [00:57:14]: Yeah. You know, in our relations, if we’re both, if we’re both paying reverence to the other’s human dignity.

Robert Breedlove [00:57:24]: Yeah.

Neal Flesher [00:57:25]: I don’t think any, any venture like that, that cooperative venture is, is, is good.

Robert Breedlove [00:57:31]: Yeah.

Neal Flesher [00:57:31]: And, and I, if you were, I, I would, I would like almost push it to like, okay, you would be using me. If you’re like have some ulterior motive where you’re somehow. You’re seeing me as an object, not just Neil.

Robert Breedlove [00:57:49]: Right.

Neal Flesher [00:57:49]: You know, so in, in how. I guess it’s really, it’s inside you, you know, I am not using you as an object. I’m not using you as a means. I’m treating you as the, the human being that is Robert. And we’re just coming together. And, and if you see me as an object where you’re like, I’m going to use him to get my content, then well, that’s in you. Like you would. I guess.

Neal Flesher [00:58:11]: I don’t know if that makes any sense.

Robert Breedlove [00:58:12]: No, it does. I think I put less of a negative connotation on the word means. Like I think being like, I love to be the means to you. A guy like you writing a book like this, like I want to be the means to help promote these ideas. Right. I’m not thinking like, oh, he’s using me, you know, so I think maybe there’s just emotional association that’s slightly different with the word.

Neal Flesher [00:58:31]: Like I said, I understand, I completely understand how you are using that. And in that context it makes perfect sense.

Robert Breedlove [00:59:40]: I’m going to jump in with another excerpt here. Sounds good, and this one’s from page 75.

Robert Breedlove [01:01:02]: You wrote, like all real things, money is a union of form and matter. This is not some abstract theory of money, but a recognition of what money actually is in objective reality. While money exists materially as an object, it only comes into being formally through human creation and collective agreement. It belongs to both a natural category within reality and a social category within the human mind. Again, there’s that between us. Betweenness.

Neal Flesher [01:01:33]: Yep.

Robert Breedlove [01:01:35]: You go on to write for me. I’m sorry. Money’s form comprises its universal functions medium of exchange, unit of account, and store value, while its matter consists of the tangible attributes and characteristics that allow it to serve these functions paper bills, metal coins, or digital code. Overlooking this dual nature leads to the same philosophical traps that ensnare materialist reducing money to either mere physical objects or abstract symbols. Without grasping its true nature, one inevitably falls into a false dichotomy seeing money as either purely subjective or purely objective. Both views, incomplete and narrow, obscure the deeper reality of money’s function and, more critically, its manipulation as a tool for immorally appropriating human work. I know we’ve already kind of talked about this, but I just wanted it was a passage that really jumped out at me, so I thought I would read it again. Yeah, what is it about our failure to understand money as neither or either or if you see it either purely subjective or either purely objective.

Robert Breedlove [01:02:48]: What is it about that. That obfuscates it in a way that allows it to be used as a tool for expropriating human work?

Neal Flesher [01:02:57]: Yeah. So I think the best way to describe it, we’ll just use two examples of both sides and we’ll show how it fails. So we’ll just use Marx and Mises. And I know Mises is beloved to many people listening on this, and there will be a critique, but it’s said with love. So if we objectify or we subjectify money, we’re objectifying or subjectifying value. Right. We’re saying it’s either or. We’re denying the bothness.

Neal Flesher [01:03:30]: We’re denying that hylomorphic answer. So on the one hand, Marx, he completely objectifies it. Right. His. His labor theory of value. He says it’s literally the quantity. That’s his words. Quantity of labor equals value.

Neal Flesher [01:03:46]: Right. So he’s denying the subject. He’s denying that, like, money exists. You know, it’s just this, like, it’s. It’s all matter. It’s just this thing that we. We dump into it. He’s denying preference.

Neal Flesher [01:04:00]: He’s denying function. Like, I might value this water more than you do because I’m more parched. You know, like, yes, we have to account for the. The subject.

Robert Breedlove [01:04:15]: Yes.

Neal Flesher [01:04:16]: Like that you have preferences, you have needs. Like, your needs are different than my needs. And where they meet is kind of where these exchanges of value come from. And like. So Marx completely objectifies it and denies the subject. Well, Mies, in human action, he says, you know, I have the quote in the book, but he said, you know, it’s. It’s not intrinsic. It’s not in the.

Neal Flesher [01:04:42]: It’s not in the object.

Robert Breedlove [01:04:43]: Oh, I know this one.

Neal Flesher [01:04:44]: Only. It’s only a preference.

Robert Breedlove [01:04:47]: He says value does not exist in the object. It exists within us. It’s how we respond to the conditions of our environment.

Neal Flesher [01:04:54]: Yeah, yeah. And for everything that he gets right, I would say he goes one step too far there by denying the object. Like, that’s what he’s doing when he says it’s not in the object. Well, the hylomorphic answer is that value exists in the object. Potentially.

Robert Breedlove [01:05:11]: Yeah.

Neal Flesher [01:05:11]: And it takes the subject to actualize it.

Robert Breedlove [01:05:14]: Yes.

Neal Flesher [01:05:14]: So it’s like that’s between the subject and the object. It’s putting the two together. That. That makes that. Right. So, yes, yeah, simple example. And I put this in the book. But if we take a moon rock, according to.

Neal Flesher [01:05:31]: For applying the labor theory, of value. That’s probably the most valuable object on all the planet because it’s taken a thousand years of engineering and crazy months and rockets and all this stuff to go and grab this little moon rock and we bring it back down and we say, this is the most valuable thing on, on Earth because it has. We’ve put the most labor into acquiring.

Robert Breedlove [01:05:52]: Sounds like something a Marxist would say.

Neal Flesher [01:05:53]: Yeah. And it’s like, okay, well it doesn’t. What is it doing? Yeah, what’s its function? What, what is it. It’s doing nothing. So it’s like if. Again, so if, you know, money is this measure of value, and value is the measure of motion towards the end. Without the subject attributing, hey, this is the end, this is its function. We’re without directing, without direction.

Neal Flesher [01:06:16]: You can’t have a value. So, like that, that moon rock from a Marx, from the Marx like, perspective is just like, it doesn’t even make sense, like, at all. Like, how can it have value? It’s not doing anything. It’s, oh, I’m looking at it, or whatever, like, that’s fine. But when we go on the opposite side of that, so me says it’s not in the object. So the moon rock is just whatever’s in my mind that I’m attributing to it. It’s like, okay, well, if I’m hungry, it doesn’t matter how much I think I value that rot and I eat it. I’m going to eat the moon rock.

Neal Flesher [01:06:50]: Like, well, that moon rock has no potential to nourish me. It has no potential to fulfill, to actualize that need that I’m attributing. I’m saying it’s valuable because it’s going to serve my need. But if it doesn’t have the objective material potential to do that, I can’t actualize it. You know, so it’s just like, it’s. I know it’s very nuanced, but it’s just like, don’t, don’t throw away the object because that’s what fiat is.

Robert Breedlove [01:07:19]: Yeah.

Neal Flesher [01:07:20]: You know, if we take, if we take the subjective theory of value as stated, it’s not in the object.

Robert Breedlove [01:07:26]: Right.

Neal Flesher [01:07:26]: Well, what’s wrong with fiat?

Robert Breedlove [01:07:28]: That’s right.

Neal Flesher [01:07:29]: I think it’s valuable.

Robert Breedlove [01:07:30]: Yeah.

Neal Flesher [01:07:30]: It serves my function. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Yeah. Well, the material object that is fiat has no potential. There’s nothing to actualize. It can’t create value. You know, in the book, I’m talking about the creation of value as all those things coming together. You Know this a subject, you know, directing their work, their energy through time to move something towards an end.

Robert Breedlove [01:08:01]: Yeah.

Neal Flesher [01:08:01]: Well, what are they moving? The object. And that object needs to have the potential to actually fulfill that end.

Robert Breedlove [01:08:06]: That’s right.

Neal Flesher [01:08:06]: And it’s the unity of those both coming together that makes it so powerful. And that’s why, that’s why fiat doesn’t produce anything, because it can’t, there’s. It can’t create. It doesn’t create anything.

Robert Breedlove [01:08:17]: Yes.

Neal Flesher [01:08:18]: Fiat is literally by decree. It is something from nothing. It’s a value proposition of something from nothing. But nothing can come. Like it cannot do it.

Robert Breedlove [01:08:28]: Right, yeah.

Robert Breedlove [01:08:30]: No, no, it’s an excellent point. It reminds me of this common description of money as a belief system, that it’s just like, oh, you know, you can be Christian or Buddhist or Muslim, like just choose whatever belief you want.

Neal Flesher [01:08:43]: Yeah. That would just be. It’s all subjective.

Robert Breedlove [01:08:44]: Right.

Neal Flesher [01:08:45]: Whatever you think it is, this is.

Robert Breedlove [01:08:46]: Pure relativism, pure subjectivism. You just choose whatever you want, choose your own adventure and then whatever you choose will work.

Robert Breedlove [01:08:53]: Right.

Robert Breedlove [01:08:53]: And that falls flat hard because that totally ignores all the evolutionary history of money, all of the actual properties of money. Right. That make some money’s good or some technologies as money good, some technologies as money bad. Which is another way of saying like, you know, useful.

Robert Breedlove [01:09:13]: Right.

Robert Breedlove [01:09:14]: Like you can try to use a marshmallow as a hammer, but it’s not going to work.

Robert Breedlove [01:09:17]: Right.

Robert Breedlove [01:09:17]: It’s not going to drive nails, period.

Robert Breedlove [01:09:19]: Right.

Robert Breedlove [01:09:19]: It doesn’t matter how subjectively you believe in it, how much you meditate, pray, whatever, it’s a marshmallow, it’s not going to drive nail the end.

Robert Breedlove [01:09:25]: Right.

Robert Breedlove [01:09:26]: The same is true for money as a tool. There are better tools for the job and there are worse tools for the job. Just so happens with money though that it has this weird like winner take all network effect dynamic that like actually the more, the larger a monetary network is and the more deeper its liquidity, which is almost saying the same thing, the more valuable it is. Right. So we tend to have one money become dominant because it gives you more a wider set of trading partners. Basically.

Neal Flesher [01:09:52]: Yeah.

Robert Breedlove [01:09:53]: That’s why we had one gold. That’s why we’re going to have one digital gold. Basically.

Neal Flesher [01:09:56]: Even in that framework, you know, the value of it, it’s moving faster to those ends.

Robert Breedlove [01:10:01]: Yes.

Neal Flesher [01:10:01]: Which makes it more valuable. Like that’s exactly how it comes together. And it in reality, you know, like that’s. We’re all, we’re trying to anchor ourselves, ground ourselves in economic Reality.

Robert Breedlove [01:10:13]: Yes.

Neal Flesher [01:10:13]: Not subjective fantasy.

Robert Breedlove [01:10:15]: Exactly.

Neal Flesher [01:10:15]: Not speculative, you know.

Robert Breedlove [01:10:18]: Yes.

Neal Flesher [01:10:18]: Dreams and unicorns.

Robert Breedlove [01:10:20]: Exactly, Exactly. So this idea that, yes, money. And this is again, we’re in the betweenness, right. Money is subjectively selected on the market, Right. People come together and choose what best fulfills the functions of money for them individually. But then the culmination point of that is there is one money that one monetary network or tends toward one monetary network, and that becomes an objective fact. Gold is objectively better money than marshmallows or whatever, tacos, bananas, whatever.

Neal Flesher [01:10:53]: Correct.

Robert Breedlove [01:10:54]: Right.

Robert Breedlove [01:10:55]: And so you’re in this betweenness. It’s not a purely subjective phenomenon. It’s not a purely objective phenomenon. It’s some. It’s the fittedness between the subject and the object from which money emerges.

Neal Flesher [01:11:06]: Gold is better money. It’s a superior money to the marshmallow because of its material attributes, the things that can be more or less of it. Yes, it is that it. Gold pushes, it has. It has more power.

Robert Breedlove [01:11:22]: Yes.

Neal Flesher [01:11:22]: You know that that’s. That’s like. So when we’re talking material, like potency. Potency, power, like potential, those are. Those are. Those are used, like interchangeably.

Robert Breedlove [01:11:32]: That’s right.

Neal Flesher [01:11:32]: And like Aristotelian, like. Yes, they use those words interchangeably. So it’s just like that’s what makes gold powerful money. Or we say, more powerful than. Than the marshmallow.

Robert Breedlove [01:11:43]: Yeah.

Robert Breedlove [01:11:44]: Now, it’s well said. And you have this excerpt that I think crystallizes it. Well, in the book you wrote, yes, theoretically, popcorn, uranium, or used coffee filters could be used as money. But in the objective reality of economic exchange, they are not. Their failure is not a matter of opinion, but a consequence of their practical inability to fulfill the universal functions of money. Calling a wet noodle a joist will not keep a structure from collapsing. Money that cannot bear the weight of its function is as useless as a rope made of sand. So, I mean, for me, this is just a really.

Robert Breedlove [01:12:27]: Like, before Bitcoin, before the what is money? Question, before all this stuff. Like, I bought into the Cartesian sort of worldview to some extent. I mean, maybe not completely, but I really thought you could reduce most of the world to subjects and objects.

Robert Breedlove [01:12:41]: Right.

Robert Breedlove [01:12:42]: You often hear people citing this in arguments. They’re like, this is an objective fact. You can’t argue with this. It’s like, well, who chose the facts, Right? What narrative is it supporting? Well, you know, there’s all these subjective elements to whatever objective fact you’ve chosen. And so this is, for me, like highlighting the what is money? Question. As a philosophically interesting pathway to go down because you end up in this recognition that, oh, wait, this is a lot more complex than my super simplistic Cartesian worldview of, you know, I think, therefore I am. There are subjects and there are objects, and that’s it. It’s again, there are things that are intercategorical, and money is one of these things.

Robert Breedlove [01:13:22]: And so it teaches you to get deeper in your thinking.

Robert Breedlove [01:13:26]: Right.

Robert Breedlove [01:13:26]: You get below subject, object duality into a more rich understanding of reality. I think you’ve done a great job spelling that out.

Neal Flesher [01:13:37]: Yeah, sorry, I was. I had a thought and then I.

Robert Breedlove [01:13:39]: Was like, oh, no, it’s all good. Unless you have a thought you want to share, I’ll read another excerpt here.

Neal Flesher [01:13:45]: Go for it.

Robert Breedlove [01:13:46]: Okay, so now I’m jumping ahead. I’m all the way up on page 110. Obviously we’re covering a lot of ground because I want to hit a lot in your book in one day, so we’re not hitting all the fine detail. You write the following in sum. The Federal Reserve serves a singular purpose, perpetuating the cycle of debt creation and monetary expansion. Every new dollar is born from an obligation binding the system to an endless loop of credit issuance and repayment. Our monetary system is not anchored in genuine value or honest exchange, but in managed illusions. A carefully orchestrated spectacle of balance sheets and promises stacked on promises designed to extract human productive energy while concealing the invisible chains that bind us.

Robert Breedlove [01:14:35]: This entire infrastructure depends on the belief that value emerges from mere decree. A monetary Gnosticism that denies natural law and the reality that work produces value. Next, we will see the moral wreckage that follows from elevating illusion over substance. What began as a tool to facilitate trade has become an instrument of control, ensnaring humanity in a system where autonomy is bartered for the illusion of security, and all of it is sustained by the fragile belief that the cycle will never break. Very powerful wording. We’re. Again, it’s a little bit discontinuous here because now we’re all. We’re into the central banking fiat paradigm discussion, which we just kind of jumped out of the philosophical nature of money into that.

Robert Breedlove [01:15:27]: So maybe you could provide a little bit of bridging between the two domains. And then I want to. I want you to double click on Gnosticism here, because I don’t. I don’t know that that’s a term most people are familiar with.

Neal Flesher [01:15:36]: Yeah, so it is a term I never really heard of at all. And when I did hear about it and Started learning about it, I ended up like, that’s what I wrote my master’s thesis on like modern Gnosticism. And it’s very, the various types and its manifestations. And I was captivated by the social problems and social issues of the day. But generally speaking, so when we’re talking about, okay, so what does it mean for something Gnostic? It’s this like this ancient belief, right? Well, simply put, it’s just the idea that knowledge with a big K, right? If I have absolute knowledge, I have this secret sauce. I have the secret knowledge of how to manipulate the structure of reality to basically conform itself to the confines of my mind. You know this idea that by saying the right things, if I know the right stuff, I can literally change the structure. I can cast spells, I can change the structure of reality to, to match my speculative fantasy.

Neal Flesher [01:16:46]: I have this speculation, reality itself is this oppressive thing, right? And I have to break through like with this, armed with this knowledge, I can break through it and change it to Sal, right? So that idea of Gnostics is. So we have some secret special sauce that can free ourselves, break through some oppressive reality to salvation. It’s like, well that’s literally our modern monetary system, by fiat, by decree. So by saying things, by knowing how just to adjust the rates, just right, this silly economic reality that keeps us down and keeps the markets down, or that keeps us impoverished, we’ll be able to break through it and create abundance for all. It’s like it hasn’t been producing that salvation because it’s not real. That’s right, it’s not real at all. It’s not creating any value so it can’t fulfill its function as money.

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Robert Breedlove [01:20:07]: Again, that’s Coinbits app Breedlove. So what is it about the central bank and Gnosticism? What is the connection there? Is it just that? Is it just. Because when you. As you were describing that, I was reminded of. I don’t know if this is the only use of the word fiat in the Bible, but it’s a very important use. Fiat Lux, right? God said, let there be light. So God spoke creation into existence. Okay, well, humans are not God, we’re not God, but.

Robert Breedlove [01:20:42]: So I often describe fiat as humans attempting to play God.

Robert Breedlove [01:20:45]: Right?

Robert Breedlove [01:20:46]: It’s like economic reality be damned. We’ll just print all the money we need to fix all the problems. As one instance of fiat, there’s also fiat regulation and blah, blah, blah, all these other things. What is the connection? Is that the sole connection you’re drawing here between the Federal Reserve, which is the central bank of the United States, and Gnosticism?

Neal Flesher [01:21:04]: Yeah, I mean, that is in the book. I can’t remember the exact quote, but I do talk about how, you know, you just pull out that bill and it says, in God we trust. And it’s, it’s one of two things. It’s either, it’s either a lie that they say, oh, and God has it. Like we’re, we’re trusting God to take care of us. It’s either a deceitful lie to, to placate people and to make them think like, oh, it’s okay, or, or more almost, almost worse is if it’s actually true and because we trust them. So that’s their admission that we’re God.

Robert Breedlove [01:21:46]: That’s right.

Neal Flesher [01:21:47]: Like I control. If you want to think of God as the being that controls reality, it’s like that’s, that’s what you’re saying.

Robert Breedlove [01:21:55]: Yes, yes.

Neal Flesher [01:21:56]: My beliefs, what I say, what I have the control. Yes, I will let. This is what the central bank says. Let there be value. Except there’s no value.

Robert Breedlove [01:22:08]: Yes.

Robert Breedlove [01:22:09]: Because value can only emanate from productive human action.

Neal Flesher [01:22:15]: Yep.

Robert Breedlove [01:22:15]: Right.

Robert Breedlove [01:22:16]: So to speak, a thing into existence.

Robert Breedlove [01:22:18]: Right.

Robert Breedlove [01:22:19]: Let all the poor be fed.

Neal Flesher [01:22:21]: Yep.

Robert Breedlove [01:22:22]: It doesn’t do anything. It doesn’t change reality.

Robert Breedlove [01:22:25]: Yes.

Neal Flesher [01:22:26]: If you are living in your speculative world, sure, I guess you can believe it all you want want.

Robert Breedlove [01:22:33]: Right.

Neal Flesher [01:22:33]: But no, no bellies are fed.

Robert Breedlove [01:22:35]: So what prevents the reconciliation to reality? How do these illusions persist for so long? How do people keep using the dollar as currency without it failing? Like, what is it? What’s giving this illusion life?

Neal Flesher [01:22:50]: Well, I think there is the, the coercive aspect of slavery. So there is force, you know, being used. Like you have to pay, you have to pay your taxes in dollars. You have to, you know, like, you can’t just. I’m just gonna opt out of all society and you know, go live on Antarctica. Like you can’t escape the, the government and it’s like you could run, flee from one to another. But like we’re social creatures, there’s always going to be relations and you know, this kind of a, a different tangent, but like a. We’re not going to be able to extinguish the non voluntary, asymmetrically power, asymmetrical power dynamics of human relations.

Neal Flesher [01:23:39]: Like there’s always going to be people that you have to exist with that you didn’t choose to. And some will be more powerful than others. And like it’s society is really how we’re trying to mediate that. Sorry, but which goes back to one of the original, you know, Aristotelian ideas because he even says this too, like back where we started with what is money? Well, Aristotle says that money is that social glue. Money is how human is how humans form relations, how they connect to each other. So for Aristotle, money Money is ethical before it’s economic. Like, if there’s not ethics, if there’s not a sense of justice and honesty, then no one will ever interact with each other. So it’s like economics presupposes an ethical foundation.

Neal Flesher [01:24:37]: And so you could think of ethics as the soil from which we plant the economic tree. And when we have horrible fruit, when our economics is producing horrible fruit, it. We have to look at the soil. And if we’re in an immoral, unethical soil, it’s like, well, that can only produce horrible fruit.

Robert Breedlove [01:24:57]: Yes, yeah, sorry.

Neal Flesher [01:25:00]: Tying that all back together to that.

Robert Breedlove [01:25:02]: Original thing, it really does make sense. And the word opportunism comes to mind. It’s like just trying to engineer conditions in which immoral acts are not opportunities or not profitable or carry some. You know, there’s some stick. You know, if you do something, that’s what the rule of law is, right? If you steal someone’s car, oh, you’re going to get in trouble and pay a fine or go to jail. Like, there’s a stick behind it. And that’s not enough.

Robert Breedlove [01:25:37]: Right.

Robert Breedlove [01:25:37]: We need something more than just the sticks. I mean, the sticks, I guess, have gotten us this far. There’s not just stick. There’s also, like economic incentives, right, to go out and provide someone a useful good or service. There’s profit motives and all this. But there’s been this inability to get into a situation where we need less sticks because we have better carrots, if that’s a working metaphor. And it seems like bitcoin, which we haven’t gotten into bitcoin yet, but it is something like that, right? It’s like the state has been the big authority for the past several centuries. You know, it’s the big stick, basically.

Robert Breedlove [01:26:16]: But we need. That’s not enough because people don’t really follow laws. They follow incentives. And those sticks really consist in disincentives. Ultimately, they’re not incentives per se, they’re disincentives, right? You. You get punished for doing something bad rather than get rewarded for doing something good. And so we need to. We need more emphasis on incentives because ultimately that’s what people will follow.

Robert Breedlove [01:26:41]: People are more likely to follow incentives than they are to move away from disincentives. So bitcoin is. What is it doing? I don’t know. I guess it’s like, I don’t want to jump ahead here, but it’s sort of obviating the need for so much statism because you now just get people that can secure their purchasing power. Very efficiently, which then allows them to deal with one another consensually. And then they. There’s not as much of a carrot to coercing someone because it’s hard to steal their stuff.

Robert Breedlove [01:27:13]: Right.

Robert Breedlove [01:27:13]: And they have a lot of mobility, a lot of concealability with their purchasing power. I am officially jumping ahead now. So I don’t know if you want to respond to that, or we could just jump back into an excerpt.

Neal Flesher [01:27:25]: Yeah. So I’ll try to thread the needle through those holes. So I would question or deny that the stick even works. This goes back to. This will bring in the time preference type of stuff. So works on what time scale? So an unethical money that glue that extraction is going to rip society apart, which means everybody loses. So the people at the money print are the people closest to that. They’re benefiting.

Neal Flesher [01:28:05]: Right. But on what time scale? You know, when, when, when society rips apart, they are, They’re. They’re on the sinking ship just the same as everybody else.

Robert Breedlove [01:28:15]: Yeah.

Neal Flesher [01:28:15]: You know, so it’s actually not in their best. It’s not in their interest on, on the, you know, even if you want to stay through their life, like, okay, they’re. They’re profiting, they’re benefiting. And now their grandchildren, they’re going to be the ones that go down with this ship. So it’s just like, you know, the idea of having an ethical money, and that’s what keeps society together, you know, because Aristotle says it will rip society apart. And, like, that’s what we see today.

Robert Breedlove [01:28:43]: Did he say that with the basement specifically?

Neal Flesher [01:28:45]: Well, the ethics. Okay, so if you have an unethical money, okay. It’s going to tear society apart.

Robert Breedlove [01:28:52]: Man, if only he had taken it to the specific of debasement.

Robert Breedlove [01:28:58]: Right.

Robert Breedlove [01:28:58]: Like, that is what makes it unethical.

Neal Flesher [01:29:01]: I mean, there’s lots of different ways that I guess the money could be unethical.

Robert Breedlove [01:29:04]: You know, what are some other ways?

Neal Flesher [01:29:05]: I mean, just like. I mean, I guess the basement is a fraud in and of itself because it’s the passing off. Like, if we think about the clipping of the coins, you know, like, okay, we’re shaving off. I have these 10 coins and I shave off just a little bit and I make this 11th, and I’m passing them off as a whole coin.

Robert Breedlove [01:29:22]: Sure.

Neal Flesher [01:29:22]: But it’s not. It’s not a whole coin. It’s the same thing. Like, like dollars aren’t fungible. That’s the purchasing power. The value of a dollar, it changes in proximity in time and space to that printer. And it’s just like they’re. They’re creating the new dollar, and they’re passing it off as if it was a whole dollar, even though it’s not.

Neal Flesher [01:29:49]: And it’s like, it’s. Until it’s. Until everybody else catches up. Like, oh, man, there’s just a bunch of money, that there’s more money supply. And then they adjust all their prices and all that. Like, until that happens, they’re. They’re passing that off as whole.

Robert Breedlove [01:30:04]: Yeah.

Neal Flesher [01:30:05]: And so, yeah, I mean, I guess I could just. Straight up, it’s all. Fraud with money is a type of debasement in that sense?

Robert Breedlove [01:30:14]: Yeah, I think so. And I. Man, Aristotle could have saved us maybe so many thousands of years of suffering if he would have just made that explicit connection. Probably not. Actually. They probably would have just ignored Aristotle and gone on about their business. So. Yeah, but it’s.

Neal Flesher [01:30:29]: It’s true. If you look back in history, every civilization that starts to debase their money, that’s right before they fall. That’s right before they crumble down, like so. It’s just like, you would think we would get smart even just looking at the facts of history. Like, ah, you debase the money, and then civilization falls apart.

Robert Breedlove [01:30:47]: Yeah.

Robert Breedlove [01:30:47]: Well, the one thing humans learn from history is that we learn nothing from history, as I’ve heard.

Robert Breedlove [01:30:51]: So.

Robert Breedlove [01:30:52]: Okay, I’ll jump into another excerpt here. This is one of your key takeaways on page 115. The system’s moral status does not pivot on the good or evil intentions of its architects. It hinges on the inescapable outcomes it produces, whether inspired by benevolence or shaped by hidden malice. A machine that relentlessly siphons human energy from the many to the few. Few is, by definition, an engine of enslavement. Our moral inquiry cannot be deflected by speculation about motives. We must judge the system by its tangible fruit.

Robert Breedlove [01:31:31]: Next, we confront the crucial element on which the entire system rest. Trust.

Robert Breedlove [01:31:38]: Yeah.

Robert Breedlove [01:31:39]: The section that preceded this, you’re basically saying that doesn’t matter.

Robert Breedlove [01:31:42]: Right.

Robert Breedlove [01:31:42]: A lot of people say, oh, Jerome Powell’s a good guy. What do you mean? He’s all. It’s like, it doesn’t matter. Doesn’t matter. Doesn’t matter who, what, shareholders, employees? Doesn’t matter if they’re all saints. They’re all, you know, holy men and women. It doesn’t matter why.

Neal Flesher [01:31:56]: Or evil geniuses.

Robert Breedlove [01:31:57]: Or evil geniuses.

Robert Breedlove [01:31:58]: Right.

Robert Breedlove [01:31:58]: It doesn’t matter because of the fruits, as you said, the consequences.

Neal Flesher [01:32:02]: Yes. Like you said, we do we do tend to fixate. We want to, we want to know why. Well, why is this being done? You know, like, oh, they’re trying really hard. Like, I’m sure, I’m sure they’re trying to help us out. You know, when they send us those stimulus checks, they’re, they have our best interests at heart, you know, and that matters. Right. It’s like, well, I just, I just categorically, like, it’s a category error.

Robert Breedlove [01:32:24]: Yeah.

Neal Flesher [01:32:24]: To. It’s a waste of time and energy to fixate on the motives of what is inside somebody. You know, and this is, you know, straight Aquinas, he says, you know, as rational beings, you know, we are equipped to judge the observable, objective behavior of others.

Robert Breedlove [01:32:42]: Yeah.

Neal Flesher [01:32:42]: But it’s not that we’re bad at judging their interiority. We’re literally incapable, you know, so it’s, it’s a, it’s a category air to even like, try to think like, well, let me judge inside your heart. Let me judge inside your head, like what’s going on. Like, it doesn’t. Just put it aside. Yeah, just like that. Just like that. Put it aside.

Robert Breedlove [01:33:01]: Yeah.

Neal Flesher [01:33:03]: Just look at what is happening. What is the consequence of this system?

Robert Breedlove [01:33:07]: Yeah.

Neal Flesher [01:33:08]: And you know, like, you got the creature Jekyll Isle and it’s like, is this some crazy, you know, evil plot to take over the whole world? Or, or maybe they’re just like, they wanted to help and they’re like, hey, let’s. This will be a great system that’ll bring about prosperity for all. It’s like, yeah, it just, it doesn’t matter. I don’t care what their motives are. I just, I’m just like, this is, this is what’s happening in reality. Yes, we’re enslaved and we should act accordingly.

Robert Breedlove [01:33:32]: Yes.

Robert Breedlove [01:33:32]: No, it’s, it’s well said. It’s just occurring to me as you’re saying that, that probably one of the best question. Best answers to the question. Probably. I even call this like a meta question in a way. Like people, you know, why, why, why, why? Like your 3 year old asked is why?

Neal Flesher [01:33:49]: Why, why?

Robert Breedlove [01:33:50]: I think one of the best answers to that question in the sphere of human affairs is money, ultimately.

Robert Breedlove [01:33:55]: Right.

Robert Breedlove [01:33:55]: Or you could also broaden it a little bit to self interest.

Robert Breedlove [01:33:58]: Right.

Robert Breedlove [01:33:59]: And so no, I, and I very much appreciate the book the Creature from Jekyll island. And I don’t really think it makes the case that there was some evil plot to take over the world. It’s more like, I like the term that Ed Dowd gave Me, which was meta fraud. So, like a lot of people, following their individual incentives in conditions where there are opportunities for illicit gain over time.

Neal Flesher [01:34:19]: In the short term.

Robert Breedlove [01:34:20]: In the short term. But it will culminate in something like the central bank. I also think you could ground this out in the technical. Really, the properties of gold.

Robert Breedlove [01:34:30]: Right.

Robert Breedlove [01:34:30]: The fact that gold is this heavy metal and is not very portable means that we do need to centralize its custody to make it globally transactable. But when you centralize that much purchasing power in one place, of course it breeds corruption.

Robert Breedlove [01:34:44]: Right.

Robert Breedlove [01:34:44]: Like, of course, you’ve now given the custodian this very significant asymmetric power. And if maybe you can trust the custodian.

Robert Breedlove [01:34:52]: Right.

Robert Breedlove [01:34:52]: Maybe he’s a saint, or they’re saints or whatever. But then you’ve given the government a honey pot. And, you know, there’s this great graph of like, it’s just a right triangle and it says, like, you know, the hypotenuse going down of a right triangle. And it’s like knowledge of history and trust in government.

Neal Flesher [01:35:08]: Yep.

Robert Breedlove [01:35:08]: You know, like, that’s the only graph you need to know. Like, the higher your knowledge of history, the lower your trust in government. And so, yeah, maybe we end up with corrupt monetary system just because of gold’s sort of physicality and cumbersomeness, if that’s a word, as money.

Neal Flesher [01:35:27]: Trust is the window for corruption.

Robert Breedlove [01:35:29]: Yes.

Neal Flesher [01:35:30]: When you’re trusting somebody, you have a blind spot, you know, and that. That blind spot, it allows for them to take advantage.

Robert Breedlove [01:35:37]: Yes.

Neal Flesher [01:35:38]: Of that trust. Like that. That’s why it creates that opportunity.

Robert Breedlove [01:35:42]: Yes.

Neal Flesher [01:35:43]: To take a shortcut, to deceive, to exploit.

Robert Breedlove [01:35:47]: That’s right.

Robert Breedlove [01:35:49]: Yeah.

Robert Breedlove [01:35:49]: You’re presupposing someone’s integrity when you trust them.

Robert Breedlove [01:35:55]: Right.

Robert Breedlove [01:35:55]: You’re saying that they’ve said they’ll do a thing and you’re believing them, you’re trusting them that their actions will follow their words. There will be integration between their actions and their words. They will exhibit integrity. But that. I love Nick Szabo’s phrasing on this too. He says trusted third parties are security holes, which is like a more computer science cypherpunk way of saying the same thing.

Robert Breedlove [01:36:21]: Right.

Robert Breedlove [01:36:21]: Trust. How did you say it? Trust is the opportunity for corruption.

Neal Flesher [01:36:25]: I mean, trust is the window.

Robert Breedlove [01:36:26]: The window? Yes, the window.

Neal Flesher [01:36:28]: And the more you trust, that window gets bigger and bigger.

Robert Breedlove [01:36:32]: Yes.

Neal Flesher [01:36:33]: I think today we’ve just blown off the entire side.

Robert Breedlove [01:38:13]: You write this is key takeaways on page 119. Blindly entrusting near limitless financial authority to any institution, no matter how well intentioned, guarantees eventual abuse. Since Socrates, we have known that power lacks reliable guardrails inevitably catering to self interest. Our monetary system’s reliance on human incorruptibility is not a sign of prudence, but a testament to systemic folly. When trust stands in for genuine oversight, we hand the keys of our economic future to those least equipped to resist temptation. This sets the stage for a deeper look into the logical underpinnings and contradictions of debt based currency. Okay, so when trust stands in for genuine oversight, we hand the keys of our economic future to to those least equipped to resist temptation. What is genuine oversight? How can we have genuine oversight without trust? Don’t we need to trust an overseer? How can we have this?

Neal Flesher [01:39:23]: Well, it’s almost as if we need some bitcoin.

Robert Breedlove [01:39:27]: All roads lead to Bitcoin.

Neal Flesher [01:39:29]: Yep. I mean the verification.

Robert Breedlove [01:39:32]: So let’s make it sorry before because we’re getting to bitcoin and we’re not there yet. Is it possible to have Genuine oversight without trust. Minus Bitcoin. Do you think it’s possible in a non bitcoin world?

Neal Flesher [01:39:47]: I don’t think in an absolute sense, I doubt it. I don’t think that like you need the right tool for the right job.

Robert Breedlove [01:39:54]: Right.

Neal Flesher [01:39:56]: You can limit, you know, like you can, you can put in those guardrails. You can, you know, that’s what society is trying to do. U.S. constitution trying to, is trying to say, hey, we’re gonna stay on the straight and narrow. We’re going to, you know, try to keep people honest, ensure that they’re, they have integrity.

Robert Breedlove [01:40:16]: Yeah.

Neal Flesher [01:40:17]: But the people that are drawn to power, the people that are drawn to those in those stations, like just the, like the act of seeking those out means you’re already kind of at a certain personality type. You know, you, you’re, you’re drawn to that. And it’s like once you get there and you’re like, oh well, no one sees. Like that’s when they, that like that’s the temptation.

Robert Breedlove [01:40:43]: Yeah.

Neal Flesher [01:40:43]: You know, and it kind of, it goes back to this like Gnosticism. Like this Gnostic temptation is hard. And it’s been throughout all history, people wanting to take it just like, well, wouldn’t it be nice if my what’s in my brain became real? Like, what if I could be that one? And it’s like, yeah. And then you get into a, you get into a. It’s just, it takes a. You know, there’s very few human beings, you know, like the George Washington that say no. You know, it’s like, like it’s a, it’s not that humans are incapable of it.

Robert Breedlove [01:41:16]: Right.

Neal Flesher [01:41:16]: It’s just a, it’s a really hard, hard standard to achieve.

Robert Breedlove [01:41:20]: Oh yeah, yeah. And he, George Washington specifically did that with a role model of Christ.

Robert Breedlove [01:41:28]: Right.

Robert Breedlove [01:41:28]: Like these, these were deeply Christian men. Right. They really not just believed, like propositionally believed in the Bible. Like they were trying to enact and imitate Christ. So to be able to turn down, I’ve told this before, but just to like re reference it, you know, George Washington leads America, the American Revolution to victory.

Robert Breedlove [01:41:49]: Right.

Robert Breedlove [01:41:50]: And they were fighting for the principles of a constitutional republic, right to be free from the bank of England, to be free from taxation, all of these things. And at the conclusion of that war, the man that actually earned the victory, if, you know, obviously it was a group effort, there were a lot of people involved, but he was the leader, Right. He’s the general. They wanted to crown him king. They wanted to crown that man king. He could have cemented his bloodline basically.

Robert Breedlove [01:42:19]: Right.

Robert Breedlove [01:42:19]: That he could have cemented the royalty of his bloodline for the subsequent however many hundreds of years that the American empire would have have stood. And he said they put the keys to the kingdom in his hand. All he had to do was close his hand. And he has a really good justification for closing his hand. He just won the war. And he said, no, I will not be your king. I will be a two term president. That is all we are, a constitutional republic.

Robert Breedlove [01:42:43]: These are the principles we follow. And look, maybe we’re deifying this guy to some extent, but I mean, that is a fact. Right. We did not crown George Washington king despite the fact that people wanted to crown him king at the conclusion of that war.

Neal Flesher [01:42:56]: Yeah. I think it says just in much about just the temptation for regular people to want to trust. To offload responsibility and put it on another.

Robert Breedlove [01:43:05]: Exactly.

Neal Flesher [01:43:06]: You know, so it’s for as much as it says about Washington, you know, and like how amazing and how high of a bar he cleared to say no.

Robert Breedlove [01:43:14]: Yes.

Neal Flesher [01:43:14]: You know, just we’re pretty willing to, to try to throw it on somebody because.

Robert Breedlove [01:43:19]: Yeah, that’s what is. I love this quote that Dylan, maybe a hero is someone who understands the responsibility that comes with their freedom. You know, it’s very easy to be human. Like, oh, just let someone else handle it.

Robert Breedlove [01:43:31]: Right.

Robert Breedlove [01:43:31]: I don’t know, let me just get something for nothing. Let me abdicate all my responsibility and just go do whatever I want to do, pursue my own hedonistic desires or whatever it is. Okay, great. That sounds, you know, a very. That’s the path of least resistance, let’s say. But unfortunately that is a doomed path. And I don’t. Yeah, it’s, it’s.

Robert Breedlove [01:43:50]: We’re very fortunate to have forged great men across history, but as you said, they are exceedingly rare. We can’t just trust that the whole system is going to find a George Washington every time we need one to like lead any department or lead any bank or whatever.

Robert Breedlove [01:44:05]: Right.

Robert Breedlove [01:44:05]: Because it’s just not the case.

Robert Breedlove [01:44:08]: Right.

Robert Breedlove [01:44:08]: These men are so few and far in between. Like, you could maybe call him a philosopher king. You could maybe call Marcus Aurelius one. I don’t. It’d be hard to name another one.

Robert Breedlove [01:44:17]: Right.

Robert Breedlove [01:44:17]: To go beyond that, you’re going to be in the domain of the theological. Like Christ, like Buddha.

Neal Flesher [01:44:23]: I bet you got a handful.

Robert Breedlove [01:44:25]: Yes.

Robert Breedlove [01:44:28]: Trust, man. Trust is a real problem.

Neal Flesher [01:44:31]: Well, that’s the whole problem with the system.

Robert Breedlove [01:44:33]: Yes.

Neal Flesher [01:44:33]: We are trusting the Federal Reserve to not extract from Us, we are trusting the politicians to not extract from us.

Robert Breedlove [01:44:43]: To tell the truth.

Neal Flesher [01:44:45]: I mean, even the idea that, oh, well, only 2%, 2% inflation rate, it’s like, all right, well, I started looking at all the charts and the economic data and stuff, and you just go to the Fed, just go to their website, look it all up. It’s all there. It’s all out in the open. You can just look at it and you’re like, okay, well, how much have you guys actually inflated the money supply? How much have you debased the currency? And it’s like, well, their chart only goes back 45 years. And it’s like, oh, in 45 years, we increased M2 by 13,581% percent.

Robert Breedlove [01:45:20]: Yeah.

Neal Flesher [01:45:20]: You’re like, okay, let me do the math real quick. That’s a lot more than two.

Robert Breedlove [01:45:23]: Yeah.

Neal Flesher [01:45:24]: You know, that’s like a compounding 14.

Robert Breedlove [01:45:26]: Yes.

Neal Flesher [01:45:26]: Even if you want to hand it. So it’s just like, even if we took you at your word, oh, 2%, like. Well, you’ve. You’ve leaned on that lever quite hard.

Robert Breedlove [01:45:36]: Yes.

Neal Flesher [01:45:36]: And that’s what hurts.

Robert Breedlove [01:45:38]: That’s right, that’s right, that’s right.

Neal Flesher [01:45:40]: Why is the. Why is the working class. Why is the middle class being hollowed out? Well, because the money is no longer connected to the value of your work. Like, you’re not actually having to create anything. You know, you get rich today by winning a speculative trade.

Robert Breedlove [01:45:58]: Yeah.

Neal Flesher [01:45:59]: You’re going into the casino. You’re like. I mean, that’s all the stock market is. Essentially. It’s just this thing that’s trying to keep up with debasement. And it’s like, it’s just such a. When. When you, when you, you take the work out from.

Neal Flesher [01:46:15]: Away from value, you’re also taking like the meaning of your life. Like, what do you do with your life? Well, you work. You work towards end. You work to acquire and achieve and, and to. You build a life.

Robert Breedlove [01:46:26]: Yeah.

Neal Flesher [01:46:27]: You know, but if you can no longer build that life, they’ve deprived you of that meaning, you know, so if your, Your work has no meaning and the work is no longer tied to the. The money because it doesn’t have any value, you know, you’re just like, whatever, I’ll just go buy some fart coin and see how it goes. You know, Let me just play a scratch off.

Robert Breedlove [01:46:46]: My daughter would love fartcoin, I think. And that’s a real coin, by the way. I know we were joking about this the other day, and then he sends me an Email he. I got from. I’m pointing to my producer, Eric. He sent me an email he got from Coinbase saying, Fartcoin’s a big mover today. It’s up 300% or whatever. It’s like, are you kidding me? Like, this is clown world in your face.

Robert Breedlove [01:47:07]: Like, it’s so funny but sad at the same time. Okay, I’ll read another. I’m sorry, just to your point there, and I haven’t fully. I mean, I don’t know that anyone will ever fully unpack this, but the meaning crisis, to use Vervake’s term, that we’re all in, like, clearly it’s connected to the money, right? When the money becomes meaningless and the work is meaningless and it doesn’t matter how hard you work, always behind. And now you get ahead by going to the casino. It’s like, of course people are going to face meaninglessness in life. Like, the. The economy does not work.

Robert Breedlove [01:47:44]: The economy has become a degenerate casino.

Robert Breedlove [01:47:47]: Right.

Robert Breedlove [01:47:47]: No wonder the prices of goods are going up while the quality goes down. Everyone’s scamming everyone else. Everyone’s lying. You know, by the end of the Soviet Union, one of the things they said was they pretend to pay us, we pretend to work. And something like 25% of their population was employed as government informants. Before the Soviet Union collapsed, it was also a diseconomy. Like, the economic inputs that went into the Soviet economy, less came out. It didn’t economize.

Robert Breedlove [01:48:14]: It diseconomized. So it’s like. But we don’t learn. We don’t learn these lessons. We don’t learn these lessons.

Neal Flesher [01:48:21]: The meaning stuff’s also very interesting, too, because it’s okay, so you win the lottery, right? You won, you’re better off. It’s like, well, not if you go and look at the stats, you know, like, that is a. That is a dark bit of research to do. Looking into the. Not even just. So, financially speaking, lottery winners are not better off financially than they were after winning. Like, it’s like five years, you know, and the suicide rates of those people are astronomical. Yeah, it’s like, it’s been a while since I’ve looked at it, but I mean, it’s.

Neal Flesher [01:48:59]: It’s approaching, like, 40. And it’s like, why. Why would these people who want and get it all, it’s like, well, why would they. Why would they ever want to kill themselves? It’s like, well, because it completely changed. Like, all that money is also. It’s not. Not. It’s not tied any real work.

Neal Flesher [01:49:19]: They didn’t create any value, you know, so it’s all unearned.

Robert Breedlove [01:49:22]: Yeah.

Neal Flesher [01:49:23]: And that. What, what does that do to your life? Like, it just drops this huge weight and you’re just not ready for it, and it strains all your relationships. And I mean, it’s just so. It’s good. Like, would I want to win the month, win the lottery? And it’s like, well, am I a person that has, you know, any experience with just getting all that responsibility and you know that it’s just a huge force to take in your life and are you the type of person that can take it or do you break? And it’s like, well, I don’t know. I’ve never been in that situation. So it’s kind of like to say, I want to win the lottery is almost just like playing Russian roulette, you know, I don’t know. Who knows? Maybe it works out, maybe it doesn’t.

Neal Flesher [01:50:05]: But the consequence of it not working out is it destroys your entire life completely.

Robert Breedlove [01:50:11]: And it puts a giant target on you too.

Robert Breedlove [01:50:13]: Right.

Robert Breedlove [01:50:13]: Any. Any friend or family member. Yeah.

Neal Flesher [01:50:16]: It. It twists and strains those relationships.

Robert Breedlove [01:50:20]: Yes, 100% that. You know, I have many friends that are financially well off. Some are married, some are not. But one of the chief complaints among single rich men is the. Their inability to date and find, like, a woman that actually loves them for who they are. Because you can’t. It’s so hard to disentangle. Is this woman just gold digging or trying to get something out of me, or is she legitimate? Does she actually just love me for who I am? And it’s like, that’s very hard.

Neal Flesher [01:50:50]: And like you were saying before, like, treating each other as a, as a human being, there’s meaning in that. Like, yes, that’s fulfilling, that’s gratifying. And when someone just views you as this object you are, your bank account, you are your. This, like, that. That drains on you, you know, everybody’s objectifying me, me. No one sees me as this. I. I have no ability to form lasting, genuine relationships with people, even if you want to.

Robert Breedlove [01:51:16]: Yeah.

Neal Flesher [01:51:16]: So you’re just. You’re a hollowed husk, you know?

Robert Breedlove [01:51:18]: Yeah. And that is such a problem because how do you overcome that?

Robert Breedlove [01:51:24]: Right.

Robert Breedlove [01:51:24]: You can’t really. If it’s not. It’s not a problem money can fix. Like, the money is causing the problem. And so it’s like, yeah, people might. Jim Carrey said something great about this. He’s like, I wish everyone in the world could become rich. And famous, just so they could see that it will not solve their problems.

Robert Breedlove [01:51:39]: Like in fact, it can amplify our problems as we’re describing here. And there’s something to be said for that man. If you think it’s just going to be, oh, I win the lottery and that’ll change everything. Which is something like, man, growing up in lower class Tennessee, you heard that a lot actually. People were like, oh well, if I just won the lottery, then blah, blah, blah, you know, it’s like, that’s not.

Neal Flesher [01:52:00]: The way it’ll change your life. But you don’t know. For better or for worse, for better or for worse, that is the gambler.

Robert Breedlove [01:52:06]: Yeah. And gamble indeed. It’s not just a gamble to play, it’s also a gamble to win it.

Robert Breedlove [01:52:13]: Yep.

Robert Breedlove [01:52:13]: All right, did I. No, no, no. I want to make sure that I’m on the right excerpt here. I’m on now on page 126 is another one of your key takeaways. You wrote, with any debt based money, the mind meets an irreconcilable violation of reason. As monetary gnostic pretend to conjure wealth from nothing in direct defiance of the principle of non contradiction, we are told that IOUs repaying IOUs layer upon layer somehow creates real value. When our financial elites declare it so they merely erase the boundary between truth and illusion. Such a system holds on only through elaborate narratives and collective faith.

Robert Breedlove [01:53:00]: But the weight of reality cannot be held off perpetually. Next we see how this fundamental contradiction manifests in a more concrete institution, fractional reserve banking. Here the system’s incoherence becomes undeniable. So one of my favorite things about your book so far is I have all these little tropes and quips I’ve made over the years and they make a lot of sense to me. But then you forget, like your audience isn’t as mired in monetary history and philosophy as you are. So they just, just, I think they just go over people’s heads or fly, you know, in one ear, out the other, however you want to say it. One of the things I’ve said a lot is like fiat currency is a living lie, right? Like we are every time you’re using it, thinking in it, dealing in it. Like what? Even if you’re the best, most honest dealing person in the world, you’re still participating in that lie, right? You don’t know how it’s affecting you.

Robert Breedlove [01:53:55]: It’s the water you’re swimming in. The water you’re swimming in is toxic somehow. And I like this line here. Where you said it erases the boundary between truth and illusion.

Robert Breedlove [01:54:06]: Right again.

Robert Breedlove [01:54:06]: We’re back to like destroying human rationality. We can’t make sense of the world. We don’t know. If a price going up, does that mean there’s actual demand for this thing? Like, this is a market opportunity. I should start a business. Or is this because The Fed printed $8 trillion and the price of houses went up or whatever. The thing is, we’re literally confounded. And when human rationality breaks down because of the illusion, we are swept into the domain of physical force.

Robert Breedlove [01:54:31]: Right.

Robert Breedlove [01:54:31]: When we can’t. My favorite definition of the freedom of speech. So that our ideas and thoughts can go to battle and die. So that our bodies don’t have to. When we can’t make sense of the world or have rational discourse with one another, well, then what’s left to do? Other than go over here into the physical domain and back to your earlier point.

Robert Breedlove [01:54:50]: Right.

Robert Breedlove [01:54:50]: It’s no coincidence that we see the debasement of currency leading to the debasement of morality, leading to the debasement of civilization. This is almost the primary lesson of history, yet it’s one we are completely unable to learn.

Neal Flesher [01:55:04]: Don’t look over here.

Robert Breedlove [01:55:08]: What can we do? I mean, it’s so. I know all roads lead to bitcoin, but are we just, without asking a Bitcoin question, what can we do to reestablish the boundary between truth and illusion in this world that we live in?

Neal Flesher [01:55:21]: Well, you reject the lie. So every time someone passes you that dollar, you are implicitly saying something from nothing. Something from nothing. Yeah, something from nothing. No value was created. You know, when they. The margin, when they just print that money, the zero marginal cost of production, they’re not. No value was created, no work was done.

Neal Flesher [01:55:47]: The world is not a better place, you know, just because they hit print. So it’s just. But they’re asking you to go along, to play along, to say, no, this is value, because we said it. So. And just, at least the first step, just admit that that’s what’s. That’s what’s going on.

Robert Breedlove [01:56:08]: Yeah.

Neal Flesher [01:56:09]: You know, the dollar is not a. Like there’s value in it. Like, but that value is just every time they print a new dollar, it’s getting siphoned out, siphoned out until nothing is left. Like. Like that’s how you get the Zimbabwe, you know, like millions of dollar value meal. It’s like, yeah, you know, in a certain way, if, like a politician came up and they said, you know, hey, our goal is to make everybody a millionaire. It’s like, well, we are well on our way to doing that. You know, where eventually that.

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Escape Economic Slavery with Bitcoin

Meta Data

Table of Contents

Timestamped Overview

[00:00:55 - 00:10:27] Introduction and Early Life Insights

[00:10:27 - 00:20:59] Exploring the Nature of Money

[00:20:59 - 00:30:46] Philosophy of Reality and Money

[00:30:46 - 00:40:03] Slavery’s Evolution to Modern Economics

[00:40:03 - 00:50:43] Rationality, Free Will, and Dignity

[00:50:43 - 01:00:00] Money’s Power and Practical Examples

[01:00:00 - 01:10:27] Ethics, Trust, and System Flaws

[01:10:27 - 01:20:59] Gold’s Limits and Bitcoin’s Role

[01:20:59 - 01:30:46] Incentives and Societal Decay

[01:30:46 - 01:40:03] Fractional Reserves and Contradictions

[01:40:03 - 01:56:09] Meaning, History, and Hope

Notable Quotes

Economic Chains

Philosophy of Money

Hylomorphic Reality

Modern Slavery

Debasement as Slavery

Human Dignity

Monetary Gnosticism

Ethics in Money

Trust and Corruption

System Judgment

Fiat Illusion

Meaning Crisis

Reject the Lie

Transcript