Tokyo Citadel Builders
Return and Reboot
A: Japan segment
1: Rice disappears from supermarket shelves; reappears 50% more expensive.
2: Apple goes full OLED, drops Japan from supply chain for iPhone screens.
3: Japan McDonalds updates dress code: loosens up on hair dying.
4: Foreigners not paying hospital bills. Prepare for KYC to get healthcare.
5: Russia bans Rakuten’s Mikitani and Toyota’s Toyoda Akio from entering Russia.
6: Japan conference update
7: SBI and Oasys launch a shitcoin for games.
B: Bitcoin segment 46mins
1: Builders
https://theminermag.com/home/2024-09-07/tepco-bitcoin-mining-renewable/
2: Bitcoin dies (again)
3: Bitcoin Twitter moves to Nostr?
4: Does anyone listen to Bitcoin pods anymore?
C: World news 1hour 4mins
1: Trump Kamala debate
2: Ukraine’s “Kursk Offensive”
3: Darryl Cooper/ Martyr Made Tucker appearance controversy
D: Other topics
1: Touching grass movement. Concrete ideas to spend more time offline?
- Broadcast on:
- 12 Sep 2024
- Audio Format:
- other
I'm looking for Skyline, as I drive my Skyline, I'm rockin' baby nape, like Neo went away I'm around Tokyo drifting, what Nakimoto gifted These dollars don't make sense, no longer On the fence, no, Bitcoin only homie, Michael Sailor told me, ain't no second best, no It's my one and only, fear takin' else, yeah, Bitcoin doin' well, yeah, I'm in Tokyo, yeah As it said, deal, a- Welcome, welcome, welcome, beautiful, September morning, break, has been taken, rivers, seas, the oceans have been crossed, and now we're back, Dash, how's it goin'? It's good, thanks brother, it's been a while, I've kind of forgotten how to do this, so re-remembering in real time, but yeah, let's see how the show goes today The new and improved show will be a bit more diverse, probably more topical, jumping around, perhaps a bit, focusing on things that are more up-to-date and going on the world Dash said I don't want to read anymore, I don't want to read anymore, so we've decided that we're gonna take the left side of the curve here and just talk about what's going on and we'll see how this works out So, I'll let you kick us off, where are we startin' today, what are we talkin' about? So we're gonna start as usual with the Japan segment, but as you said it up there, we are slightly just in the format, so rather than me just drone and drone and drone on about the facts of the article, we're just gonna have an extended list, we'll go back to the go through each one, I'll just briefly summarize and then we'll have a discussion, some of them maybe won't go anywhere, some of them hopefully will get into some interesting talks, so listeners bear with us as we sort of work through this new format, and so for the first item on the Japan segment, maybe anyone who's living here has noticed, but rice, formerly ubiquitous in Japan, wherever you went, you could get rice, now we can no longer get rice when we go to the supermarket, so the very conspicuous bite's absence, if you go into a supermarket in Japan, to the rice section, there are just empty shelves, it feels like living in, I don't know, the sort of Soviet collapse or something, or why marginal or something like that, it's very disconcerting, even where there is rice starting to appear, it's apparently 50% up to up to double of the prices of last year, my local supermarket has no rice, which my wife has sort of full panic mode about, she started to cut our provisions with, I don't know, I'm not sure what it's called, it's Shirataki or something like that, it's like this cognaku, it's like this white potato based filler, which she's putting in the rice rations to stretch out what we have, so yeah, that's been going on, have you noticed the rice shortage over there? Yeah, this is weird, I saw this one on the list and I was trying to make sense of it, I have not, I'm not entirely sure what, if this is something just outside of my field division, because I mean, I don't eat much rice anyway, but I have rice, I think I see rice in the store, I'll go to the grocery store later and look, but what should it cost? And what does it cost now? I'm not sure about, yeah, I'm one of these that just walks around the supermarket and throws things in the basket and doesn't really worry about the prices, not because I'm rolling in it or anything, just because, I don't know, I've never, you kind of, there's an implicit trust, right, you assume they're not going to rip you off, it's going to be fairly priced, but, you know, perhaps we're going to have to change that going forward. I just know it's up, it's up 50%, 100%, but in, like I say, in my local supermarket, there is zero rice, it's, there are empty chains, yeah, which is... Why, is there a reason for this? Is this just like... Yeah, they're blaming, of course, climate change and we covered in a previous show as well that the tourists apparently really like to eat rice when they're here, and so I have my little conspiracy theory, they haven't, they didn't, I didn't get this from the news articles, but my conspiracy theory, joining the dots, adding to and doing it in five is, the incentives are to sort of feed this up to tourists, to feed their all the rice available to tourists, you know, you have a declining population in the countryside anyway, so I assume that's maybe putting pressure on production as farmers are, you know, dying and then not being replaced, so perhaps you've got a bit of a supply squeeze, plus you've got the demand from tourists, you know, plus you've got these claims about climate change, I'm not sure how true that is, like the typhoons, things like that, they were mentioned as perhaps impacting on the supply, so, you know, the net result is, Miss Swatanabe, you know, is being faced with empty, empty shelves, which cannot be politically a good thing for the LDP, I mean, I'm not noticing panic or whatever, but it's got to, I mean, it just, it creates an ease with me, and maybe it's just because, you know, I'm reading books like When Money Dies, and I'm, you know, down the rabbit hole in the Bitcoin scene, but what, you know, I've kind of been anticipating shortages and empty shelves for a while, and now it's actually happening, it's kind of, it's kind of scary, but I don't, I can't believe it's just me, but maybe it is, since you said you haven't really noticed it over there. Yeah, I mean, I don't, you know, not to be, you know, moron, I haven't heard this from anybody, I haven't seen, seen this in the store, I'm going to, now I'm, now I really want to go to go, go check out the supermarket and see, see what, see what's there. Yeah, I am, I'm not discounting or denying that this is the case, it's just one of those ones that perhaps, you know, because I'm, I'm just surprised I would have heard more about it, you know, remember when the, the ties, you're, we needed to get tie rice or something, and they bitched about that, like it was the end of the world. I would have thought that no rice would have been more of a thing than, than having to eat shitty secondary tie rice, but I guess we'll find out, I'll start asking around a little bit about this one, because I'm curious where that comes up, the 50% price increase surprises me as well. So like, what the hell would you buy him in a 20 kilogram bag or something for the most right? Well, I think it's too, it's too, it's too, is it sold like two kilograms? I think something like two kilogram. Is it? Yeah, I'm not quite sure. You need to, need to fact check that. Well, the, I just know like, if you can go in the store and you get that giant S, right? Yeah. There's more than two kilograms, right? You know, maybe, because I think I, yeah, I usually buy again, my, which is usually like two kilogram, but yeah, maybe, maybe, maybe. Yeah, I don't know, I'm, I'm going to check that out. I think maybe because the 20, that 20 kilogram sack that you would buy, I think you're still in the store, I would have, you know, like I said, they were, but they lost their fucking minds over tissue. I can't imagine what would happen if you think you're right. Well, seriously, in the, yeah, in the store, I, I have looked in a couple, and a couple, and it's zero. So whether I'm, I'm doxing my location, it's, you know, a very particular part of Japan, or I, but I don't think so because I did see it on the news that there was, there was talk about empty shelves elsewhere. Yeah. I got to, I got to start paying more attention to these kinds of things because I'm, I'm, I'm an oblivious moron when it comes to some of this crap that I'm just not kind of tracking. Absolutely. And this is, you know, pure fear porn for Bitcoiners. So, you know, empty shelves, please get, get on it. Do you think this extends to other food as well? I haven't, I haven't noticed, but also haven't looked. Oh, yeah. I, I, but again, this is just so, you know, like you read the likes of when money dies, right? And it's, or any kind of these historical accounts of when things descend, you know, times are bad. It never starts with things completely on fire, right? It's always these little signs that pop up here and there. And so whether this is one of them, whether it's something that, you know, is going to be, you know, the free market is going to address, I mean, obviously the rice isn't exactly free market. And Japan is my understanding. I know it's sort of, it is heavily political, you know, tariffs on foreign rice, et cetera. And, you know, I believe this, there are kind of controls around pricing and, and things like that, you know, I'm not sure on the details. It surprises me that they're just, they're just hitting us with this 50% more expensive thing. You'd have thought the government, if anything, would subsidize that. I know they've been subsidizing gasoline and things like that. So there is a precedent for them to do that to kind of hide the inflation from the populace that way. You know, whether, right, I know that the, over the last couple of decades, and it's worth it. By the way, it's worth noting historically, rice was a luxury in Japan, you know, going back to the samurai era or whatever, the common people wouldn't actually eat rice. Rice was even used. Right. Yeah. It's, it's all, it was historically speaking about a sort of luxury item. It may be returning that way because the last couple of decades that the populace is actually shifting their diet to more sort of wheat-based, right? So they're buying these cheap lobes of bread and more Japanese people are eating more and more, more bread, et cetera, things like that. So perhaps in that sense, it's less, less of a political issue than one would have, you know, assumed or it would have been two decades ago, what have you. So there's always that aspect as well. I do notice what I, what I did notice for the first time in the store, this is when I, when I got back from travels abroad, was that they fucked with my coffee. Now the coffee thing that I would, I would buy was now, the bag of it is now half the size and the price went up 40% or something. So that kind of caught me off guard. That was the first time I'd really noticed it, the coffee, you kind of understand, right? 'Cause I guess they're importing that and so with the cheap yarn, maybe, maybe I was just, I was just, I was just shocked at like the, they cut the bag in half and they raised the price and I came back and I was like, this is horseshit, you know, why is this so expensive all of a sudden. Although I, I mean, I was kind of muted because I wasn't the US and you're walking around and everything is 97 times more than it should have been in my mind, it just, as an anecdote, I was walking around, you know, you get the, the, the thousand yen cut places here with no tip, you know, so you go without thinking about it, at least I do, you go and stop and talk to the guy, hang out a little bit, get your haircut. And then I was looking, I was in the US and it had been a while since I got a haircut, so I thought, let me stop by and get a haircut. And I was like, dish, you know, I'm in, I'm in a, a shit hole neighborhood and walking around and like 25, 25, $30 since when, why, what, you know, what is this $30, I'm going to pick seven seconds to fade up my size and take a little bit of talk, what the hell is this? And I got to do what, I got to do a 20% tip, this is horseshit. So Lord willing, that doesn't come to Japan anytime soon. So you're talking like a five X for a haircut, right? And then some four X, five X compared to Japan compared to what is it compared to Japan? Yeah. I mean, so you have to think, I mean, this, okay, there's geographical arbitrage and people aren't going to get on a plane to get a haircut. And so this, I guess some, you know, some difference in pricing can be maintained to some extent. That's ridiculous. You'd have thought, I, I kind of expect Japan to maybe double or triple, right? Maybe they want to catch up to the US, but you would have thought that we'll, we'll see bouts of inflation that, which we'll take. I mean, some, so the cut shop that I go to was, was a thousand yen. It's not, I think it's now 1,300. It's been creeping up over the last couple of years. So this kind of. Yeah, 1,100. Okay. So we'll see, but yeah, I expect we'll see like, I mean, I mean, the haircut thing might be a little bit unique to Japan because there's a fucking hairstyle if there's more of those than there are 711 than this friggin country. So there's just so much competition that it's hard to really raise prices too much, I think. Mm. Yeah. We'll see. I mean, so my, my prediction that ramen will be, was it, was it my prediction 5000 yen by the end of the decade? So that would be, you know, if haircuts track haircuts would also be around that figure. So we'll see, I'll throw a hissy fit. And ramen, I never eat ramen so I can be whatever fuck man, but I mean, like my haircut put it up in five. I'll get a haircut once every year then. Yeah. Yep. Well, that's an interesting, interesting development on the rice. Yeah. Okay. Well, there we go. We'll keep an eye on the rice. For the next item on the list, we've got some apples launched their new range of iPhones. I couldn't be less interested to guys. I think it's, it's the 16 now, is it? And they're putting all. I couldn't believe how fucking lame that release was. I mean, I. Watch it. Did you watch it? No, but I mean, you know, it used to be a thing, like to get some new thing. Now it's got a fucking side button or whatever. So you can take a picture right here. Like you can tell you, you can tell they've run out of ideas and Tim Cook is just waiting to retire. Mm. Yeah. I mean, he's, he's done very well at just sort of monetizing that whole beast. Um, uh, I think, I think the, uh, the key there was just don't screw it up because he, you know, he sort of inherited a goldmine. Although he's trying to like really screwed up with the, the, the face hugger there, which nobody bought and nobody wanted and nobody used. I was actually pretty excited for it. I was like, oh, it's going to be great. And then I saw like this thing sucks. Mm. Yeah. I've noticed that they quietly dropped that, right? Um, that was so it's all about the iPhone. The iPhone, you know, apparently also has USB C and they were now and they were boasting about that as if it was a new thing as, like, as if they hadn't been forced to do that. He was playing fuck about how you charge your iPhone. Yeah. One of the more ridiculous things to get excited about. Mm. You know, so, you know, for, for better or worse, we're not Apple fanboys, obviously. Um, so, but the, the, the, the relevant, what was most relevant, I guess, as you pan from this, uh, story was that, uh, Apple has completely dropped to Japan from the supply chain for the iPhone screen. So all of that iPhone screens now are going to be OLED don't ask me to explain what that is. It's just some sort of like a superior technology to LED, which the Koreans apparently are a lot better at doing than the Japanese. Um, so Japan used to dominate, uh, with the iPhone at large, I believe was like 70% Japanese at some point like a decade ago. I'm not quite sure what the, what the count is today. Um, but I know that they're not, they're zero representation, at least for the screen component. That's all coming from Korea now. So, you know, I noticed when I was back in the UK, which I was, I was in the UK over summer, that there's a lot of Korean electronics that has been a trend for a while now, um, you know, where people would have had Sony, uh, 20 years ago, 15 years ago, whatever. It's, uh, it's now Samsung, um, and so I don't know this, this might be going some, some way to explain why Japan is kind of falling behind the rest of the G seven. Should we say in terms of like, um, purchasing power of the yen, et cetera. It's just like, um, the, the, the traditional powerhouses and electronics, I don't think they're doing their same export numbers as they used to. So it's this, um, is this a concern? Is that, is I guess my question? It would seem to be, in my opinion, um, I, I think you can just across the board and this has been happening for the past 15, 20 years. It's just like, um, Sony and, uh, a lot of these other companies just have got, got stuck, got too big for their, uh, their british would, I don't know how to describe it, but they just don't like, what do they do anymore that anybody cares about? I mean, they have middle, middle grade products that they make TVs and shit, but nobody really wants those. They're not really innovative, putting out anything new. They can't keep up with, uh, the present precision technology of other, uh, emerging markets. Um, like, what is the purpose of these giant zia about two things anymore? Um, that does not bode well for us here in Japan. Unfortunately. No, I'd agree. I mean, the one thing that Sony has is the PlayStation, right, um, which I believe is still kind of a globally competitive thing. The Koreans can't do yet, um, although I'm not, I feel like they're shooting themselves in the foot there. I don't if you saw the PlayStation, um, five is like increasing the price to some ridiculous. I think, I think they just launched the, the seven pro, sorry, the five pro and it's like going to be seven or seven hundred dollars. Is that right? Seven hundred dollars. Something like that. The pricing that thing up now. Like, who knows he's buying that? I'm also curious how, um, video games develop in the future. Like who's buying? I mean, I do. What is the purpose of buying a console? Right. Dedicated anymore. Like, is that, is that going to continue? Um, I don't think so. Most people are playing like angry birds on their iPhone, right? Um, okay, so you've got the dedicated sort of hardcore gamers, maybe who that's not there. There aren't a lot of those are there. I mean, it's kind of about how to my, my, my, my knowledge realm, but I don't see guys like there's not an infinite amount of people like I'm going to spend 10 grand on my PC. Like, well, I'm representing the Warcraft, some demographic because I, I've owned every PlayStation up to four, but I'm a casual gaming, you know, I'm just playing whatever FIFA by FIFA when it comes out, play that with the kids or whatever, but, um, I am not buying the PlayStation five. You know, I'm not, I'm not spending $700 on a, on a console that's ridiculous. Um, so whatever, whatever that casual gamer, whatever demographic that I'm representing, I don't think it's buying that anymore. And then if you, you know, okay, so then you left it like the hardcore hardcore gamers, but they have options like they can get a PC or they can get an Xbox or whatever. So, um, and, and, and as, as we know, the key anyway is to develop sort of an IP moat, right? That's like the Nintendo play, I would say Nintendo to be fair, one Japanese company who is still like absolute, absolute first class globally. Um, and if in fact, I would say Nintendo are like the leaders in terms of IP, because if you look at the Disney, I mean, if you ask me Disney, Disney's who were the leaders of in that sense have been shooting themselves in the foot with all the work stuff over the last decade or so, and Nintendo have managed to avoid that by and large, as far as I can see. And so like they just go from strength to strength with their Mario franchises, et cetera. So I think, you know, Nintendo, Nintendo is the model and Sony, I mean, Sony, as far as I know, just doesn't have that, um, doesn't have that moat. Um, so, you know, they, they, they kind of have the moat in terms of obviously, there's not many who can make consoles out there, but as you're saying, like who's gonna be buying consoles going forward? That's the question. So if you want to watch, but I feel like Sony, I feel like we're, and we're starting to see the chickens coming home to roosting corporate Japan. Now we're seeing 7/11 targeted by, uh, is it private equity or is it, it's, uh, it's a Canadian rival, uh, maybe really a year they put in a bid, uh, a friendly offer for something like, I think it was something like 37 billion to buy 7/11 and that it was initially rejected. That is ongoing. So it's kind of, you know, with the cheap yen and, um, and there's obviously this narrative that Japanese companies don't, they sort of, um, don't deliver to shareholders. They don't put shareholders as a priority. Um, and I've seen a lot of back and forth in the sort of financial press about this, this, that, you know, on one hand, there was a lot of kind of maybe value to unlock for shareholders. On the other hand, set, you know, people are kind of, kind of generally happy with 7/11 in Japan. They provide excellent service and the, the worry is that if you get foreign capital coming in and sort of, uh, looking to extra, you know, sort of extract value out and give return that to shareholders, that could, um, degrade the customer experience, you know, and just make it a worse experience, which you probably would if you compare the experience in American 7/11 and Japanese 7/11. Well, I am actually, this is a side tangent, but have you noticed, like, do you, I mean, like, I, it kind of dawned on me over the past six months or something, like every, uh, worker at every convenience store now is actually a, like some kind of random dude from somewhere else. Yeah. Yeah. This is new. This is something new. This is something I hadn't, hadn't dawned on me quite so quickly, but I was walking around the other day, I was actually walking in most 7/11 and most of them have, you know, somebody from Syria or, you know, some Indian or something, like that, that, that's huge. I think, I mean, the immigration thing is, uh, is, uh, is a big thing and that, you know, I'm curious how that ties into the 7/11s and stuff, um, going forward. I agree. I mean, it had been going on a while with, but they were kind of Asian, right? So I remember when I first came to Japan, it was, everyone was Japanese in the convenience store. Then like a decade after that, it was, it was a, there was a lot of Chinese, I guess. Um, and that, yeah, now, like you say, you can get random, you know, Ukrainians and whatever, serving you. And, um, so we did, yeah, we definitely seen a lot of, uh, uh, as you say, sort of random people from all over the world turning up and working in there. So that's, it's, it's interesting because in the, in the UK was made, I was like the taxi drivers, I think with one of the first demographics that to flip to, to be in, you know, source of income for, um, uh, for immigrants in Japan, you still don't see, uh, in my experience, I take taxis a couple, you know, a couple of times a month maybe, but there's always Japanese, um, uber on the, like Uber eats on the other hand. I noticed a lot of foreign random foreigners popping up there. Yeah. A lot of Malaysians. Doing that. Yeah. So, but yeah, we'll keep, we'll keep an eye on that. But yeah, it's, um, yeah, I feel like there's going to be a lot of pressure now with the cheap yen, with just, just companies burning out of ideas, the likes of Sony probably, you can imagine the kind of, you know, the leadership there, um, it's just that, you know, I don't want to be rude, but it's, it, uh, you know, they could probably do with a little bit of diversity in the leadership ranks in terms of, I'm talking diversity of thought, right? And experience. And like you probably got guys who've gone to torte and, you know, they're just, they're very good with, they, they know the 80s playbook, you know, whatever, um, very well, and they're very good at being sort of corporate salarymen, samurai soldiers, but, um, they have no idea when it comes to, you know, dominating the world, uh, they seem to have lost that ability. Uh, and it wasn't always that way because obviously Japan was, um, you know, an economic superpower, just going back a couple of decades. So something needs to happen, uh, you know, I don't, I don't know whether it's like a change in of the guard, like the young people breaking through. I don't know if it's like more foreign, uh, you know, kind of representation, maybe, you know, and I'm, and I'm not talking like Americans necessarily, but like maybe Koreans would be more hungry or like Chinese people coming in into the board rooms there and sort of shaking things up. I don't, I don't know what the answer looks like, but it's that like, it's something needs to change. Mm. Agreed. Mm. All right. So, uh, next news item. So, um, again, signs of Japan changing, uh, slowly but surely, um, Japan McDonald's, uh, is apparently updating their dress code and they're going to allow their employees to, uh, be, um, have more, can, you know, freedom of their own hairstyles. Um, so to date, uh, for example, one of the rules was you had to have your, maintain your natural hair color. You went a lot to dye your hair, um, but people will now be allowed to dye their hair. You'll, you'll be pleased to hear Andy's. So we're going to be, you know, going to McDonald's and being served by blue-haired woksters and, uh, that's, that's going to be coming to Japan. Um, so, you know, uh, that Japan has held out for a long time. I'm sure, you know, we, we all hear about America in the fifties and whatever, and you can imagine, you know, the, the, the staff at McDonald's probably, I imagine they probably had similar dress codes. I don't know if that's true or not. Um, or sorry, McDonald's was, was, I guess only started in the seventies, but in the, in the family restaurants and whatever, there was probably these kind of, uh, dress codes and a certain amount of decorum and kind of, uh, whatever, uh, style was expected from staff. But that's all gone out the window in recent decades, but it's, uh, Japan is also now capitulating. Um, any, any thoughts on this? Yeah, I mean, I haven't been in a McDonald's in a decade. So it's, it's, it's like a bunch of things, which I am, um, somewhat, uh, uh, blind on just because I don't, I don't eat rice and, you know, or I don't buy rice and that, you know, I don't eat the McDonald's. Although this is, I mean, I, this is just, um, uh, this is, this is, this is no good, um, capitulation to, um, that particular influence of, of the US is not going to be well served by anybody not served by the people that are doing it because you look ridiculous, not served by the people who have to deal with it because it's ugly and you don't want to look at it. Um, the cultural infusion of mimicking the more ridiculous parts of the US has never turned out well for Japan. Um, I don't know, I don't know why you would make this change. I don't know what you're getting by making this change. I don't know the purpose of making this change, besides to, yeah, I mean, well, so that the hidden purpose made, but the, the, the stated purpose is because they, they'd run an experiment in one of the stores where they allowed it and they got, I think it was three times the number of applicants on new staff applying or something like that. So they're, you know, they're basically the labor markets tight and they need, they need to loosen up standards in order to find people was, was what they take away from me. But dude, I mean, this is the same thing I would say about importing a bunch of, you know, as Becky's to work in your 7-11 and it's like most of, I mean, half the, half the registers are now self-regist, self-registers in, in, in the 7-11 how, and if you take that away, then at least a third of the employees are not necessary. If you put a kiosk ordering system in the front, I mean, just realistically how much longer are, is the, is the McDonald's girl with the hat thing, can I take your order please, really going to be there anyway. So you're, you're, you're loosening it, corporate McDonald's couldn't, I can't imagine it giving a flying rat's ass about that anyway, I don't know what you're, you're just setting yourself up for shitty, shitty service for the next five years until all of these people are replaced anyway. Hmm. Yeah, I guess so, um, we'll keep an eye on it. I'm sure he's, you know, whatever, for the future of Japan, just look over at the US. That seems to be the, uh, the trend for the last couple of decades. So not, doesn't bode well, probably don't visit McDonald's much myself, got to be honest, but, um, it's, you know, I mean, McDonald's is a US import anyway, so if it died, it wouldn't hurt my feelings any. I mean, like, get rid of all the, I mean, I, I think both of us would look at most of the fast food, particularly, not maybe not the old school fast food when it first started, but they, the, uh, aberrant degenerative piece of shit that they've all kind of become and, and think to ourselves, well, if this thing dies all the better, so who cares? So I think it dying would probably be a, a benefit to the Japanese society. I agree. It's weird because Japan are some of the best fast food anyway, natively, right? Yeah. With the Takoyaki and all of that. I know I would go to McDonald's. I don't know. I don't know. My, my wife and takes the kids there. Yeah. More often than I like. Anyway. Enough about me. So, um, next, um, next item on the list, um, so there's been something in the news about foreigners, damn foreigners again, not paying hospital bills, you know, these, these, these inconsiderate foreigners will break their legs, they'll be taken to hospital, um, they'll be presented with a large bill and instead of being doing the honorable thing and paying up, they, you know, run off to their own countries. I guess this is maybe tourists. I'm not, I'm not quite sure. Maybe short-term stayers who are doing this apparently, I think it was 20% of the hospitals that they surveyed had reported unpaid bills from foreigners. And so there has been news about far, um, you know, hospitals demanding KYC, demanding additional KYC from you, if you're a foreigner, if you're in Japanese, you know, before you know that, you'll see treatment, um, any, any thoughts on this, so you're looking forward to KYCing before getting your leg mended. Did they say who the foreigners were? Is this the Chinese again, or is this kind of like all foreigners? Ah, they didn't, they didn't break down by, by the particular nationales or races. Um, so no, no ideas. I'm sure. Yeah, I'm sure it's, I'm sure it's both though. I mean, so, um, because I think, I think there's a trend as well for a lot of people of like young people to come out here and stay for three months and whatever in this kind of, what do you call it? The nomad capitalism kind of nonsense. And you know, so you'd expect, there's some calculus that goes on there. They probably don't have health insurance, um, travel insurance or whatever. And then something happens to them and, you know, it's like, well, I could pay any, you can, but I guess you, I guess you're going to have to be on the hook for 100% of it. If you don't have the insurance, you could pay like whatever, it is a couple of million yen, million. I don't know how much it is for a broken leg, but or, or you could just kind of leave the country and many of them are just choosing to leave the country is what I'm guessing is happening. But I don't know. I'm, I'm also curious, is this, is this, uh, when they say foreigners, that's a big basket of people. Is that foreign residents? Is that just, you know, Torah? See, this is the thing they don't, they don't say, and for me, it can't be foreign residents because all foreign residents, well, no, you'd have thought they had health insurance. I don't know. Maybe it's, um, maybe some foreign residents are also doing this. If they're, if they're, if they're working like gray, because I guess some people maybe don't have health care. I don't know. I don't actually know if that's true or not. Do you, do you know? I mean, you can get around. I mean, obviously you don't have to pay the thing. You can pay it late. Um, depending on your visa, uh, you can be a little bit more or you, to date you'd have, you've been able to be a bit more kind of shady with how you handle these bills and stuff. I mean, there's nothing saying you have to get the health insurance you can have or overshoot as a foreigner, you could have overseas health insurance. The name king is kind of a non, uh, the social security kind of a non, non-negotiable, uh, but the, uh, the health care isn't, for the most part, uh, that's why I'm curious to, uh, I, I'd actually be curious to break this one down. I don't know if this one is, is, uh, fear porn or not. I'm, I'm, I think the, the, the, the health care system has its own trouble just because of demographics and, and whatnot, whether or not foreigners coming in and screwing the system is a huge problem at the moment. I, I, I'd want to see what they're counting, how they're counting, who they're counting and why they're counting them before I, I lost my mind on this one. Fair enough. I think the net result for us though is we're going to be pested when we go into hospitals now. So, um, I, I was reading one Reddit post of a user who I think they had broken their leg and they were a resident, you know, they had health care and everything. And they went in and I gave the health care card and then the nurse came in and started pestering them and saying, we, we need you a zydew card, you know, a foreigner's card. And the guy was like, uh, was in my wallet and then she just, she just went and grabbed his wallet, took it out and took it off and photocopied it without even asking permission. So it's kind of gross infringement on, on, on human rights and privacy is, is, is coming. So, uh, you know, maybe, maybe the lesson is don't break your leg. I would, well, I mean, to a certain extent, I want to see, I mean, I have no problem with that. Like, if you're in somebody else's country and you're, you're a foreign resident, then, uh, put up and you have to, we, we have to find a way to better police, uh, the foreigners over here and that bitch about, like, my freedom or whatever, like, we have to, I'd actually like to start, uh, an NGO that, you know, the foreigner, the integration core or something and be like, all right, you're getting off the plane. Listen, whoever the hell you are, you're going to act like a fucking normal human being over here and you're going to obey the rules so that we don't all have to deal with you and that we can integrate fairly well. Because, um, you know, you look at the UK, the U.S., all these things with these immigration problems and it's because they come in and they're like, well, we'll, we'll, let's just act like this is Bahrain or whatever and you're like, no, dog, this is not, you left Bahrain to come here. So how about you act like you should here? Um, so I actually have no problem if they want to be a bit more heavy-handed when it comes to some of these things because maybe that keeps, keeps the folks in line. Um, I mean, I'd be more than happy if they didn't let the foreigners in. That would be my preferred, uh, choice. But if they're going to do it, they might as well go sing a porcelain on them and make sure everybody wants to cooperate. Why, I'd be, I'd be down for that. I'm not sure about the demanding KYC hospitals thing, but the, um, if we had some sort of draconian policy on trash, like if you didn't throw out your trash correctly, you get deported immediately. I would probably support that initiative. Well, I mean, so my, uh, my, my curiosity for the, the hospital thing is like, if you had the, I, some, some of the, the KYC and the verification. So if I've given you a, a valid insurance card, I would give it to them. I mean, like, yeah, that's kind of a lie in the other. So it's kind of a strange, it's strange, right? Yeah. Well, apparently you care. You're going to get paid with it. Yeah. Apparently because there's the name, the photo is, uh, no photo on the health. Insurance card. And so foreigners are just borrowing other foreigners cards. Although like you say, what would that, what difference would that make from the hospital's point of view in terms of getting paid? I'm not sure. Um, but anyway, that's, I mean, yeah, I, I, I'm sure there's a way to game, game this system. Of course. So, uh, I expect less convenience going forward. Um, right. Yep. So I'm going to, I'm going to have to move. It's something. You can't have nice things. Exactly. Um, okay. So moving on to the next item. Um, I'm not sure how much will be up this will be interesting, but there, um, I noticed Russia had banned a couple of, uh, a couple, I think there was like 12 or something, uh, like notable Japanese executives from entering Russia. So a couple that were mentioned were Rakuten Zmikitani and, uh, and the guy from Toyota, uh, the, you know, the least charismatic, is he the CEO? I don't even know what he is. But he's the guy. I think he's the president or something. Like the most boring guy on planet earth, um, but that he's, he's not allowed to enter Russia anymore. Not sure how much that's bothering them or inconveniencing their business, but I kind of found it interesting that Russia, I mean, clearly, you know, Japan is just a US kind of, uh, what would you call it? Um, obviously it's a part of the, uh, US, you know, the regime and, and the, and the regime is at war with Russia right now. So I guess it's not surprising that we're seeing these, uh, things happening. But I hadn't seen from Japan, like any kind of explicit, we're banning Russians or we're doing this against Russia or, I know, I know they've been supplying missiles. Um, I think it was, you know, Mitsubishi or someone was selling, selling missiles or, or, or, or manufacturing them for the US. But I hadn't seen any explicit, like, all the moves that Japan had made against Russia that would, would merit this kind of counter thing, but maybe I just missed them. But any, any thoughts on this? No, I think it's just a, they're part of the global alliance there. So, uh, fuck around and find out, uh, I know there's no flights to Russia, for example, from Japan. I do think I, I, I, I, I think I do remember, um, Japan, um, participating in some of the other stuff, maybe not quite as vocally, but they, they did, uh, with, with everyone else. Uh, yeah, uh, this is what happens when you involve yourself in, uh, foreign alliances with, uh, the US at this point that you get dragged into all kinds of nonsense. So, yeah. Yeah. I mean, and then, and then rice from the shelves is the least of you worry if there's some sort of blockade that if this, this escalates into, you know, if we do get a global or even a regional conflict, right? And then all of a sudden there's a blockade or something and we're not getting supplies coming in. I don't know. We'll see. If it happens, then, yeah, then we won't be making fun of the Haitians anymore. We'll be straight cats that we find in the neighborhood. Exactly. All right. Um, on that happy note, so, um, just finishing off the Japan segment here with a couple of kind of, uh, Bitcoin related stories and also a shit coin story. Um, so one is the Japan conferences coming up, um, which is when it's like a, is it a week and a bit away? Right? It's on the 21st. Yeah. So, um, and I've, I think I'm pretty much a hundred percent not going. Yeah. I think. Yeah. Yeah. So I listened to Corgi's latest podcast and, um, although I think he had one come out today. So it was the one a few days ago, but, um, he was talking about the conference and, uh, I was just, and he's talking about there's a Japanese track and there's an English track and it's like, I don't know, I kind of find it a little bit depressing because, you know, for me, Japan, maybe, and maybe this relates to what we were talking about Sony a little, little while ago, you know, how Japan thinks of Japan as Japan and the world is the world and it tries to keep everything separate. And, and I, and I know this is never going to change like they, they even have a, I have a writing system dedicated, you know, they created an alphabet just to isolate, uh, foreign loan words. So it's like it's pretty ingrained in the, in the Japanese psych, obviously the, the inside outside distinction and, you know, I don't think this is maybe ever going to change, but I feel like it really hampers them when it comes to, uh, you know, uh, commerce now and, and things like Bitcoin, because it's like guys, you know, you, at some point you got to just say, we can't isolate, you know, this, like global phenomenon like Bitcoin, like we've got a, we, we got to involve the foreigners and maybe it involves chatting in English, sorry, it's the global standard, you know, the language, the lingua franca. So yeah, this whole continued attempt to kind of just have two tracks in Japan and, you know, and, and, and they've got a bunch of like professors and whatever and to come and talk about it. And I'm sure they, they know probably less about Bitcoin than I do and I, and I'm, and I'm an idiot right and slight, would you not be better getting, I don't know, um, who you'd get over now, but, um, you know, there are many in the States who know a lot, you know, who, who are sort of the leaders of this movement. Um, so yeah, I just, I just, I just, the whole kind of thing to press me, baby, it's just me. Um, but I, I just, yeah, I decided I probably, probably not going to go. Um, I know there's going to be some fun things. I know that like, there's these bit, bit acts, miners are going to be for sale there and things like that. You're going to be able to go and buy, you know, lunch boxes with lightning should be very fun. If you're, you know, if you're into Bitcoin, you really want to use your Bitcoin, probably a great thing to go and attend and, and what have you, but yeah, not for me, probably not, not going. Yeah. You self any thoughts? Yeah. No, I mean, I, I won't be going either. Um, the, um, the conferences are hard. I wish Koji the best. I hope, I hope he can put it together that has bankrupted many, uh, many an attempt there. So hopefully he doesn't do that to himself. Um, the, the Japanese track, I wouldn't mind a Japanese track. The problem is Japanese aren't realistically, they're just not doing anything. So you're going to have a Japanese track of what, right? Um, if there was a bunch of shit going on, then Japanese track it away, but they're not. So you're like, I don't know what you're, I don't know what you're, you're going to be talking about. Because you guys aren't doing anything and you're not really invested in it for the most part. So, um, good luck, I guess. There's one interesting one in the Japanese track, which is the guys, the Tapco related guys. Is it agile energy or something? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, is that, oh, is that coming up? Okay. Yeah. Yeah. We'll leave that for the, for the, for the builder segment. Good. Um, but that, that, that's, you know, maybe interesting, but, um, but yeah, there are the rest of it. I'm not sure. Well, one of the other things as well, a little pet peeve of mine. Not sure. I would like, I'd like to get your take on this. So Koji, and he's not just Koji is obviously depends on the Japanese person, but there's some Japanese people, especially the ones who are more like familiar with the West who speak better English, maybe. Like he's, um, insists on for every Japanese, but like Japanese speaker, he'll, he'll call him Sam. Right? So it's like, whatever. Koji Sam, right. Um, and for every foreigner, they don't get a son. They don't get a son, right? And I'm like, can you imagine I was speaking English and I was like, Mr. Smith and Mr. Jones. And then we're going to have Koji and like, there'll be an out, you know, national, uh, there'll be an international outcry, right? Like, does it, does it not bother you and Japanese people will not do sand for foreign people? Does that not bother you? Um, not really because, um, I'm probably more likely to do, just as you said, Mr. Smith, Mr. Fuji, or Mr, uh, Mr, uh, Mr, uh, Mr, whatever, and then get to a Japanese person and then, um, you know, Sato over here, you know, um, so I'm, I'm kind of that guy on the other end as well. So I kind of expect that. We need more like you, but I've even heard Japanese, I've even heard Japanese people do it in English with Mr and Mrs. Elizabeth, like Mr. Sato, you know, Mr Yammer, Yammer Nishie or whatever, and John, you know, uh, I like, are you, are you for real? But anyway, I don't know. That's, that's one of my pet peeves. And, uh, maybe that, that, uh, contributed to my, uh, sort of being grumpy and deciding not to go to the conference. Um, okay. So, so, yeah, final, final story sort of relating to Japan is SBI and Oasis are launching a shit coin for games, did not look into the details. SBI, one of the sort of quote unquote crypto leaders in Japan, I think they're invested in, uh, Ripple, um, so, and they, they're, they're kind of interesting company in terms of the, they, they're, they're one of the largest brokerage is out here. They, they don't all sorts of interesting pin tech stuff. Um, I, I just, it just reading this, it was depressing. It felt like 2017. It's like really going to do a blockchain thing for, for games. It's like, um, yeah, this is just, this is, this is just a, uh, who, whoever they just paid for them to do this is nothing's going to happen. Nothing's going to be involved. Right. This isn't a thing that this is nothing to be interested about, even if you're a shit corner. But even that, they just paid for the average, they just paid, they just paid for the marketing. Mm hmm. You know, like, Ripple pays for SBI to like do whatever, you know, or announce a partnership or whatever. Yeah. That we care about to scrap. Yeah. All right. Non-story. Non-story. So, uh, good. That concludes Japan's segment. So I hand it over to you for, to begin the big, the new segment, the Bitcoin segment, which will, which will begin with the builders. Yeah. Yeah, the, uh, the big one is, uh, local Tokyo grid operator mines Bitcoin to save renewable surplus. I'll just go through this little short article here, Agile Energy Energy, which you mentioned earlier, uh, subsidiary of Tokyo Electric Power, TEPCO, is experimenting with Bitcoin mining to prevent wasted renewable energy, uh, and encourage adoption. It's actually been in the pipeline for a while. I've been waiting to see this kind of pop up. According to a report by a Sahi Shimboon on Saturday, Agile Energy installed Bitcoin mining machines in Gunma and Tochiki prefectures adjacent to solar farms. This initiative aims to utilize excess renewable energy capacity that would otherwise go to waste found in 2022 as a wholly owned subsidiary of TEPCO, a public with a grid operator in Japan, Agile Energy's Bitcoin mining project arose from the country's output control practice for renewable energy producers to avoid power over supply, uh, especially during peak solar generation, renewable energy producers are often forced to curtail or shut down their operations leading to a waste of energy, uh, according to the Sahi Shimboon. In December 2022, Agile Energy partnered with Triple One, a semiconductor designed to source mining chips for the project, a pilot demo at the time involved setting up data center with 1,300 Bitcoin miners totaling 1,500 kilowatt hours of capacity at a TEPCO business site in Tokyo metropolitan area. Agile Energy X's, uh, simulations claim that if Japan achieves its goal of 2% renewable by 2050, a significant amount of energy will be wasted, Agile President, uh, Kenji, uh, Tatawa said the report, uh, in mining profitability is currently limited due to output control levels. However, he believes that as Japan expands, expands rather its renewable energy infrastructure and Bitcoin mining will become a more viable solution to address wasted energy. This could provide a new financial incentive for renewable energy producers further encouraging investment in green energy technologies. This has been the, uh, big thing in the Bitcoin, uh, mining, uh, arena for a while and it is finally coming here to Japan, any thoughts? Yeah, well, so it's, I've noticed it's made waves in terms of, um, it was been in, it's been whatever retweeted by influencers in the Bitcoin space and covered by no bullshit Bitcoin, et cetera. So it seems to be making news. Some people seem to think it's a pretty big deal. I don't know. I mean, I'll reserve judgment. It's interesting that it's tied to the renewable thing, which is, I think it's different to in the States where it's more like demand, what do they call like demand, like, um, demand response or something like that. I think it's a play in the States, um, this is more about like justifying renewable investment. So I think short term, it's probably good because the optics are good, um, from a kind of marketing point of view and like countering foot, um, uh, anti Bitcoin foot, um, and you know, it makes it kind of non threatening and maybe palatable, maybe, maybe interesting to the, to the, to the population. I think long mid, mid to long term, it's probably a dead end because I just think renewables are a dead end, um, kind of fall on, on the side of like, Marty, Ben, with, on this, like, I just think we need more nuclear. I think renewables are an absolute joke. Um, just, it just doesn't make any kind of sense, just, just the science. For me, doesn't make sense. It's like, you know, we, we have, we, you need more dense forms of energy, the history of energy has been, you know, utilizing more and more dense forms of energy. So going, trying to go backwards is silly, but, um, but we'll see it's, uh, it's nice, it's nice to see Japan finally getting the game in some form, I guess. And, uh, we'll, I just hope it kind of grows from there. I hope we end up, you know, spinning up the nuclear sites, maybe, maybe building some new nuclear sites, which are better kind of earthquake proof and, and what have you and, uh, and, and the big coins are part of that in terms of stabilizing the grid and helping, uh, you know, with demand, et cetera. Um, so we'll, we'll, we'll hopefully go into that going forward. Yeah, I think, um, I agree with you on the, the renewables. Although I think it's very like, it's very possible, likely, I don't know, but possible that they, we get a 50, we get a 50 year diversion when they try, where they like go all steep and they try and force this, even though it's not working. And you know, it's, it's a blip on the radar, but, you know, powers that be, uh, try and take us down a, a renewable rabbit hole and we lose 40, 50 years of development to, to it. And you know, in which case, eh, um, I guess they'll, they'll try and throw Bitcoin mining in there. This gets into the security, uh, debate. I wonder how many, you know, if it's, you know, three sets per V bite, it's not going to, uh, impress these people forever. So I'll be curious to see in, in 15 years, if this, if this continues or whether, or, uh, Bitcoin mining goes into the future, uh, you know, the mempool, you know, despite, uh, all protestations from the Odell types a couple of months back and back to three, like, I think it's two or three sets for a V bite at the moment, uh, so we're not really dealing with a big crunch when it comes to getting on chain transactions done. Mm. Yeah. Agreed. We'll see. We'll be interesting to see how that goes. And that's, that's, that, I mean, that's, but essentially we're talking about the survival of Bitcoin itself at that point, right? Yeah. Yeah. Uh, open question. Good. Okay. Well, we, we had a few more, uh, sort of Bitcoin related things here on the list. I mean, just one thing was obviously, I haven't, I haven't checked the price for a while for a few days, but as far as I know, it's still down. Is it still down? It's like in the fifties, right? Um, 50, 58 or whatever. Is it? Is it back to 58? Wow. It kind of died. It kind of died again. It keeps dying. I don't know. And I have a feeling that until, until most people have kind of given up and just don't expect it to increase and stop paying attention, I don't know, like it's not going to happen and we're not going to get another, the bull run. I think that I feel like that's the way it always happens. Um, but how about yourself? Are you, are you even bothered? Are you like even checking the price? Are you even, I mean, I'm at the point where, up or down, I just, I'm barely interested anymore. Yeah. Yeah, the, they're on, I mean, when you look at, uh, uh, you know, overlapping the cycle is right on, it's right where it always should be. I think people got a bit, got a bit of a heart on when it hit the all time high super early because of the, um, the ETFs. And then when it didn't shoot right up, continued to shoot right up and, and got back on track that people got kind of disappointed. Um, so I, you know, it looks like it did. The last time that, uh, you know, in back in 2020, so, uh, and 2016, so I don't know why, why there's quite so much, you know, uh, rending of clothes and that's, gnashing of teeth kind of thing, but, you know, it, uh, it, it, it doesn't, you know, people refuse to, to remember like Bitcoin actually moves very slowly and only what's it like 20 days or 18 days or 25 days, like a few days when a thing, thing, thing pops up, but for the most part, it kind of sits on its ass. Um, and you should not be checking this thing daily because it's bad for your soul to be this worried about money and whatnot, you know, get out, do something because it is just money and it's good saving technology. How exciting. If the savings, if, if, if your savings account worked as it, as it should, how excited are you daily to check your savings account, you know, um, you should have the same, hopefully we get to a place, uh, soon where we can look at Bitcoin the same kind of way. It, it does what it's supposed to do when we don't have to think about it and you just kind of save and go about your, go about your business. Hmm. Fair enough. Yeah. Okay. So, um, that's, that's it. That's the price to talk for this week. Um, another thing I wanted to bring up was this trend, uh, I wanted to get your opinion because I'm, I'm not strong as you know, I mean, I, I don't even like NOS to that much. Um, so I'm on, I'm using amethyst and I'm, you know, following a few people, whatever. It's kind of like people just talking about Twitter, uh, Twitter mainly X because it's like, it's like a typical, uh, it's like a woman who gets the breaks up with her ex and then she all she talks about is her ex. It's that kind of vibe on Boston when they're talking about her. Um, but what I have noticed is, you know, a number of the influencers, well, Odell's sort of leading the charge. It's like delete, delete your ex account and he did to be fair, to be fair to him. You know, he does, uh, you know, he, he, he, his actions in his words are sort of aligned. So he, he, he, he deleted, uh, his, uh, X and he had like, I don't know, a good number of followers, um, on there and a number of people have done it. So like, MVK did a thing over the last weekend where he, he posted on Noster that he deactivated his account and then, and then he sort of walked that back a few days later and just said he did, he did it for the weekend. And so I don't think he's deleted his account, but, um, but yeah, the, the, the, there's, there just seems to be this trend where the Bitcoin influencers are sort of moving over. Um, have you noticed that on, on X at all is like the, is there less Bitcoin stuff there now? Or what would you feel like? Yeah. Yeah. Could I, I have, uh, a Noster account, which I checked periodically, but I'm, I'm more on X. Uh, yeah, definitely those guys have, have, have, have, have made, uh, made a move. Um, now a lot of those guys are, are guys that I don't listen to as much anymore anyway. So some of the big, um, so some, so some of the Bitcoin people are, are, uh, uh, continue to be, but like, if you're a big, uh, and be K guy and, and Odell guy, Preston pitch, some of those, some of those guys really do, uh, or what's said other guy that the Canadian, uh, what's his name? Canadian guy, the, um, the micro guy? No. Is he? No, he, he, he runs one of these funds as well, ego death capital, whatever it's called. But you know, he's over the, he, he basically exclusive over there. Um, the, uh, yeah, Noster is, is, is Bitcoin talk land. Um, I, I don't know who uses Noster that's not a Bitcoin, uh, they say that there are such people. Um, I hope there are as with, uh, I continue to repeat myself. I, I don't, I'm not particularly bullish on this thing. I hope to be wrong. I hope this thing works out and I hope it does something. Um, I'm not sure, uh, that it does. I think I don't know why you would cut yourself off from, uh, uh, a, an influence point, you know, or a, a, a, a, a place where there's vast and more users, especially now that you get a guy running it, that's, you know, at least nominally, um, friendly to you. I don't know why you would, you know, take this particular moment and be like, yeah, fuck him. Uh, um, I don't know what, what is to be gained by that. Um, so these, the idea logs on this one confuse me a bit, um, so yeah, I, I see some of them have left, although I think at the moment, there's not, they're not doing much interesting. Part of the reason why I'm not overly, overly concerned about being open in Austin anyway, if there isn't a whole fuck ton going on at the point that's super exciting anyway. Um, the political and the social movements at the moment, which are, are much better tracked on, on X are, are kind of at the forefront, at least for me. So, um, I don't know, I, you know, like, if you want Bitcoin to be part of the conversation, you got to be where the conversation is, unfortunately, I don't think you need to stop posting on, on noster and developing that, but you know, just to, to think that any, that it's going to, um, take over because you gave everyone the finger and left is, is odd. Well, that's a good point and it leads into the, the final sort of Bitcoin related thing I had here. So obviously, uh, Peter McCormack, um, has ended his show, what Bitcoin did. I think the last episodes out. Yeah. And I think he's, you know, I've, I've just come to have so much respect for him, what he's doing with it, the football club, the soccer club, uh, for the, you know, guys on the other side of the Atlantic, um, or Pacific, I guess, from where I'm sitting now. Um, you know, all of that is so impressive. Um, he, I, you know, and I think, I think he understands, but the thing about him is like, he understands Bitcoin, but he also understands the sort of non-autist world and he's, he, I think he's one of the best out there in terms of bringing those two worlds together, you know, the actual real world, uh, and the Bitcoin world. And for him, you know, his, his instincts are very good. I feel like the timing is just fantastic for him to do what he's doing. He's, he's spinning up a new show. It's going to be on the same feed, I believe, and I will definitely be checking it out, but it's going to be kind of Bitcoin adjacent, would you call it, but it's going to be like far broader topics. And I'm hoping he'll do more like political stuff of the sort we're going to be getting into, I think in the next segment here. But, um, so my, my, my question is like, well, I, I, well, my opinion is that Bitcoin pods are kind of ridiculous at this point in Bitcoin's history. Um, we, you know, we understand kind of what this thing is, you know, um, there's only so many episodes you can listen to about soft forks or whatever. Um, yeah, I'm not saying there isn't maybe an education job and a role for podcasters to educate newbies and whatever. But, um, I think going forward, you need to integrate Bitcoin into the wider, uh, top, you know, uh, trends like exactly to your point. I think that's what Peter McCormack's doing. I hope that our show in, in, in our small way is also kind of part of this trend. Cause, you know, we don't, we don't talk about Bitcoin that much. Um, only when, only when it's relevant to the larger trend. So, I, you know, my, I guess my question to you is like, are we, are we going to, in this cycle, are we going to see, I guess, the kind of, the kind of death of a lot of these Bitcoin shows, like what happens to Stephen, the, the, the veteran and these kind of guys, do you think in the next, uh, you know, two, three, four years, especially with like swan imploding. Yeah. Um, that one, that one, I didn't see that one coming. Uh, I had been a big defender before. Um, the, no, I think, I think that's entirely right. As, as we, as we both repeat it a few times, but how the fuck many times can you talk about op cat? Like either it's going to, I mean, the, the podcasts are not going to happen, uh, are not going to change that one way or the other. The, um, the, I think there's, as you said, there's a place for perhaps just, uh, stuff on the vera, uh, and, and we can, uh, Bitcoin, whatever, uh, what is, and became Bitcoin, Bitcoin review, like a few of those are helpful for the nerds in the group and those that are, you know, it's a, it's easier to coordinate and get people all on a podcast and it is a, a meetup or, or a, um, a conference or something like that. So it's a good, a good way to get, uh, people talking and keeping, keeping things moving, but you only need so many of the things. Um, and if you want Bitcoin to be adopted, well, then you have to put it in a context where people can adopt it like you're not going to get your, I mean, it's gotten, it is infiltrated the norm, uh, the normy world on the articles and on the, the ideology as much as it's going to, but you know, my fucking father is not going to listen to 17 hours of what Bitcoin did. You know, it's got to be part of a broader conversation, part of, uh, part of a broader, uh, ideological movement, if you want to put it that way, uh, part of something like we've got to tie it into different things that, that people find, find interesting. Um, and just, it, it perpetually talking about inflation is just not going to do it for them. They get it, time to move on. So I think that's right. And our, I think, uh, Peter is, you know, uh, Peter's fantastic for that. People always, uh, take shots at him, which I, I can't understand. I mean, he's doing exactly what everybody else larbs about doing. So there's a lot of the respect for what he's been, uh, been able to put together. And I, you know, I wish I could do the same. I wish I could say the same thing about myself. Um, and I hope I, I wish him the best. I look forward to that new show. Uh, his first is with, uh, Matthew Pines, um, doing, uh, what's this show called Mr. obnoxious, I think is the name of the show. And, uh, they'll be talking, you know, Matthew, I'd less interesting to make this talk about aliens and shit, but, um, the, uh, I'm, I'm curious to see how he, he moves it forward, how he did, how he developed it, developed it, and see what kind of, uh, people he brings on. Hopefully doesn't go, I mean, I know he's, uh, socially, he's a, uh, kind of a social lefty. So hopefully he doesn't get too, too gay with it, but we'll, uh, you got to, you got to wait and see what the man does with his own show. And I'm certainly not in a position to give him any, you know, give him any advice. I mean, if, if, uh, if it's going to be done well, I'm sure he'll be one to do it well. So I look forward to listening. Yeah. Yeah. Me too. Hopefully like a Lex Friedman, but with brains, that would be good. Lex Friedman, who isn't ungodly boring. So we'll see. Yeah. A big, big hopes for Peter. I really hope it works out for him. Um, yeah, good. All right. So on that note, we can, we can finish here with some topics on sort of global, hopefully the more relevant topics, um, that we just sort of alluded to there. And so, you know, the first one I had on the list here was the, obviously the debate everybody in the world is talking about we're all Americans now. Um, I think it's 10 AM Japan time. So I'll probably be checking out as I'm, as I'm pretending to work here. So, um, uh, you know, I'm obviously talking here about the Trump, uh, Kamala debate. I've noticed people like, I don't know, you can tell what side of this political spectrum people are on by how you call, whether you call it Kamala or Harris. Um, so I fuck with people. I, I, because they will mention that and I will change the way I pronounce it to every time. It's like, come on. I just to fuck with them. I refuse to, I actually don't know what, how she pronounces her name, but it's going to, I use every other variation, except the right one. Well, no one knows anything about her. This is the interesting thing. And, um, I've heard, I've seen that in the mainstream media brought up by the cathedral is kind of panicking a little bit because then this, they've noticed that nobody knows anything about her and, and that they're a little bit, uh, uh, reluctant to support her for that reason. And so there's, uh, there was a big hope there was, uh, what's his name? I think his name is mine. Well, one of the, was it? Oh, mine. Well, maybe it wasn't mine. Well, maybe it was Giddy and something, whether in the, in the financial times yesterday was, it was panicking, was worried. He was really hoping for a good showing from Kamala in this debate because, you know, the polls are showing that, um, as she's, it's neck and neck, I believe, for the popular vote. And he was, he, he claimed, he made a claim in this article that the, is it the electoral, electoral college, college system is, um, disadvantaged is Democrats. Yeah. He said that without any kind of detail or, is that true that disadvantage is Democrats? Or is it like, well, because, I mean, unless you're a fucking moron, uh, no, uh, which he is apparently, no, it just, it, it just doesn't, it, it doesn't, um, put all the weight, uh, the voting into urban centers. Right. So if anything, it, it, it disadvantages the cities, but that doesn't mean it disadvantage is Democrats, right? It's like, say, but it doesn't even, it's advantage. It just doesn't put all the weight on LA, New York and Boston. Right. Right. Well, you, so in other words, you, you're preventing the continent from being dominated by like two major population centers. Right. Right. Which is so anyway, um, so yeah. So there's, so there's a lot of like cathedral expectation and hope. And I feel like that's going to be counter productive because it's going to be putting a ton of pressure on, on, on Kamala to perform. And I don't think she's got it in a locker. Uh, we're going to see it's, you know, it's just short, short the over an hour away as we record. Are you, what are your, you know, your, your thoughts about this or your hopes for this debate? Yeah. This woman is, I mean, is verifiable moron. I mean, this is just, this is just not an intelligent person. This is a complete creation and, um, development of everything that the, the left and at the mirror managerial classes become, I know what they want her in there because she's a complete fucking cipher. Like she, she has no opinion. She hasn't, this is not a real person. Um, she does, she couldn't, she, she will exist as, as relevant as Joe Biden does, which is not at all. And the, the, the, the managerial class will continue on. It was interesting being in the US, uh, after she was, uh, put up there. Um, I was surprised to see black men being like, fuck this woman. I was very surprised to see, uh, black women, um, initially get behind her and then start to walk that back because this was, this all, I, I got, when I was in the US, this was all after this really unfolded, I started to unfold. Um, and then the, her main support is white women in the burbs. Like that, that, that, that are just going to vote for a woman. Um, everyone dislikes her. Faggy men, faggy, um, left leaning men will do it. And then you ask them why, you know, it's hard because I started with people like, so why, what do you like about abortion? I'm like, what the fuck do you care about? I mean, you're, you're a single 45 year old man, what the fuck do you care about abortion? You're like, what is this ridiculous? So I don't, I think the biggest problem is, uh, them trying to find a way that, that side of the aisle, to find a way to, that, that group of elites trying to convince you that this is close, close enough to steal, which is really hard because I was walking around in places and seeing brothers with, with MAGA hats on. And really, you know, and it's just, you know, this just does not bode well for her, um, in terms of that. Now, I think it's just just because people vote party lines. It's not quite the blowout that you'd hope for. But if you were to tell me that he ends up getting the popular vote and not just the electoral vote that wouldn't surprise me. So they got, I mean, there's, she has to in this fucking debate. Sorry about that. We had some audio issues there. Um, Zane Castor, again, we, you know, whatever, one mountain minded to think about changing this. Um, and so we were talking about Trump, Trump Kamala. I think you, there was a, you know, there was some initial enthusiasm without it kind of rapidly waned. Um, for her, I, so, I mean, for me, it looks like Trump's got it, got it in the bag. Um, unless there's some sort of shenanigans and it like the election stolen. Um, but it's, you know, it seems like he's going to get in. I think maybe the, the, the rest of the world is also maybe coming to the same conclusions we've seen. Interesting things happening in Ukraine. Um, they're quote unquote, cursed, offensive. So they've, they've made some sort of an incursion into Russian territory. And, um, there was some news about them launching drone attacks on Moscow the other day. And so I think some lady was even killed. Some buildings were, were blown up or set on fire or something like that. So, you know, it seems like, uh, you know, why, why would they do that? Why would they escalate in this way? You know, is it because they expect a Trump presidency? And then they expect they're going to have to be sitting down and sort of negotiating, um, peace terms in the next few months. What do you, any thoughts on that? Yeah, that from when I, uh, from other people, from one of other people said it was a PR move that I try to convince the, uh, Germans and whatnot that they should still get the money even though they're losing. Um, the cursed offensive was just kind of, uh, flash in a pan, which they didn't even tell us. Oh, yeah, you're back. Uh, which, uh, which, which didn't, which amounted to fuck all. So yeah, I think with, um, elections in Germany, which favored, uh, the AFD, uh, Pierre Poliev in Canada, uh, being light years ahead of Trudeau, uh, La Pen beating, um, Macron, Trump, looking strong compared to Kamala. I think the, the Ukrainians are like, really, they're going to figure out what to do now because this, uh, the writing's on the wall. It's not a matter of, of if, but when, um, and hopefully the sooner the better. So like, people can stop dying and they can end this, um, ridiculous war Ukraine's best hope. It seems that this point is to, uh, keep what they've got. I don't think they're going to get anything back. And hopefully they don't, uh, really lose their minds and try and take, uh, um, take crime here and end up losing Odessa for themselves. And they end up just this kind of ridiculous non entity on the east end of Europe. Hmm. Yeah. We'll see it. We'll see how it goes. Um, you know, I think one way or another, there's going to be probably some clarity in that, uh, in the next, you know, following the US election results. Uh, I hope so. Anyway, cause I'd rather that than it just escalates and we know we ended up with another, we, we were, we're all three. So keep an eye on that. Um, wanted to finish off the sort of will news segment here with, um, I noticed there had been, you know, you listen to the Marda made podcast, Charlie Cooper. Yeah. Yeah. Very good. Very good. I, I only got it into it recently. I noticed he'd launched a new show and so I listened to it and he was talking about this controversy. Apparently, according to, you know, I learned from that that he'd gone on the Tucker show and that this apparently had really blown up. Yeah. Me was getting all sorts of talking heads commenting on it, apparently the White House, uh, secretary was one also released a statement about it. So this is really blown up. Um, I listened to the Tucker show after that and, you know, it, so it just, it's, it's this kind of good. Um, this whole rabbit hole of kind of revisionist history, like really looking at World War two in it with an honest set of eyes and neutral, I guess. So just trying to, just trying to get to the truth there because World War two, I think we discussed on the show previously, but it's, it's kind of, it's kind of part of the founding myth of the regime, World Order. And so when you stop poking at that, you start, you know, getting kind of poking a very, very sensitive areas. And it seems, again, this is another example of that, but, uh, any, any thoughts on this whole controversy? Yeah, it was interesting. I liked, I don't know what I was actually surprised. It got as much, much play as it did. Um, the time that, uh, is spent on, what is it, the Streisand effect is the time they spend pitching about this thing launched this into the stratosphere of, of public consciousness. So good job. I think it, I think it's important. I think it's a lot of these revisionist histories are, you know, they're, they'll obviously not get everything right, but it's important to counterbalance. And the more you learn about some of these things, you can start to tear down some of these idols that you've had about your past and start to re, um, by looking more objectively at the past, you can see kind of where the, the train went off the tracks and start to, to figure out a way back because we will, I mean, you and I would, uh, both agree and people like us, like, should have headed in the wrong direction, but you can't fix it until, you know, perhaps where you went off and then you can reroute to put yourself on a better, better trajectory going forward. And guys like Deron Cooper really, um, spending, spending the time digging this up and helping to reframe the issue is of the utmost importance at the moment. Now I had, you know, both, both you and I had kind of started to go down the rabbit hole for the past couple of years anyway. Um, and it's interesting to see folks doing it. The boomers are not pleased that they're not going to go, they're not going to go willingly on this one. Uh, but the Gen X and the millennials, uh, I think have a good, uh, opportunity to re, uh, reformulate things going forward so that the, the zoomers and Gen Alpha can, uh, not be subject to the same kind of stupidity that we were. Yeah, absolutely. Uh, so I would highly recommend milder made podcast by Daryl Cooper. Um, I'm going to be checking out some of his back catalog. I had really been impressed with something he'd done on Dostoevsky and Nietzsche, which is completely separate to this whole thing. It was a really, really moving like two hour podcast he did on that and I recommend anyone check that out, but I will definitely be digging into his, uh, his history stuff as well following this. So thank you liberals for making this a, as you say, the Streisland effect here. Um, so yeah, just, just finally then. Um, so I noticed, uh, unless you've been living under a rock, there's been some kind of, you know, this kind of movement. I guess it's grassroots. It seems to be, uh, I don't think I'm being psyoped here, but like this kind of touching grass thing you've probably seen on, online where people are, uh, my interpretation of the movement is essentially, it's like turn off your screen, go outside, connect with the real world. And, um, you know, it's been, it's been, maybe, uh, this kind of sentiment has been around a while. I remember when people started coming out with, uh, they said they got rid of their smartphone and they'd gone back to flip phones. For example, this was, this happened a few years ago. I was noticing that happening. Um, and I was a holdout for a while because I'm a, you know, I'm a bit of a nerd, like my device is whatever, but I, you know, even me now, I'm like, you know what, I'm fed up at the internet. I mean, what one of the things I've done is, um, I've gone out and bought Transist the radio. I'm actually gone, I've gone back to listen to the radio. I, you know, I've started reading paper books again and paper newspapers. Like I'm deleting apps off my phone. I'm just, I'm kind of sick and burnt out with the whole internet, uh, metaverse thing. Um, and I just wondered, did you, did you notice anything there? And do you think, do you think this is a real movement away from, from the internet? Or is it just, is it just like, uh, are we like proto boomers kind of swimming against the tide? And, and this is all, all futile. Yeah, proto boomers. I don't, yeah, that's not going to happen. Unfortunately. Um, I think it's not, um, you know, one thing I, I keep coming back to is it's not, it's not back. There is no going back. The only, the only way out is through, um, not necessarily in the accelerationist way of thinking about it. But, you know, there, there's no pretending like this doesn't exist. Um, you got to learn to integrate it. You got to learn to understand it. You have to learn how to, um, take. I think it's important for, for you and I got our generation, our age, um, our, our type of person, to really, to remember that before times, um, and think critically about how, uh, these things can be used, the benefits of them, whether, um, being oversold, whether being over, uh, implemented and, uh, you know, with our kids to try and shield them from some things, uh, introduced it in wise ways and, and helped them to, uh, push going forward. But there is no going back. Um, the, the touching grass thing, you know, it's not a bad idea for people to do that every once in a while, but it's not going to be a, uh, there's going to be no movement as such of people doing that. The only, the only time that'll be a movement is when, you know, an EMP hit and we can't get online anymore. Right. And that'll be, uh, we'll have a, we have different problems. A lot more worries. A lot more problems then. Excellent. All right. Yeah. I, I think I agree with that, that's a, so that, uh, that concludes our list for this week. All right, brother. Well, it was good. Enjoyed the, uh, the new format. We'll see you how it, how it worked going forward. And hopefully, uh, people listening, uh, enjoy this as well. Yeah. Listeners, feel free to, uh, hit us with a boost or something. And even if it's just like 50 sats, just to give us your opinion, if you think, if you think it sucks, let us know. If you liked it, let us know. All right, brother. Talk to you soon. All right. Let's speak to him. Yeah. Yeah. My life, my life, my life, my life, my life, my life, my life. Tokyo said, yeah. Tokyo said, yeah. Let's go. Let's go. Yo, I'm looking at Skyline. I got to drive my Skyline. I'm rockin', baby, nape, like Neo went away. Brown, Tokyo drifting, what Nakimoto gifted. These dollars don't make sense. No longer on the fence. Bitcoin only homey. Michael Saylor told me, ain't no second best. No. It's my one and only fear takin' else. Yeah. Bitcoin doing well. Yeah. I'm in Tokyo. Yeah. As it said, they'll, hey, Konichiwa, wife like red dog GTI, DC, A2BTC, stackin' sats as manager, hey, Konichiwa, wife like red dog GTI, DC, A2BTC, stackin' sats as manager, tick tock. Next block, this is a major e-park, my C phrase, I keep locked. Don't worry about what we got, what he got, what she got. This Bitcoin, we good breath, this Bitcoin, we good breath, this Bitcoin, we good breath, I ain't got a thousand flows, I've done a hundred shows. Check the proof of work, the amount it really shows. Said Dell, livin', B3B, we keep on givin' out. You know what we're all about, we aren't purple kid. I'll increase in Bitcoin adoption. So many plebs I've adopted, tick tock. Next block, you know we ain't gonna stop it, increase in Bitcoin adoption. So many plebs I've adopted, tick tock. Next block, you know we ain't gonna stop it. Oh, my, my question. Yeah, Tokyo said, Dell, Tokyo said, Dell V. Keeps taking love, Bitcoin don't go, keeps taking love, Bitcoin don't go. Keeps taking love, Bitcoin don't go. [Music]