21ism - Block013 - CODE - Matt Odell

SPEAKER_2 (0:47)

Yo, yo, yo, welcome to 21ism.com. Sound Culture Renaissance. We craft, curate and amplify Bitcoin-inspired creativity. As Bitcoin matures into a teenager today, it's never been more clear how valuable privacy is becoming to maintain free speech, liberty and open society. The anonymity surrounding its birth and absence of corruptible leadership are key aspects of its decentralization, distribution and universal dominance. We're hitting a crossroads that humanity has never experienced before. Never before have our lives been so digital with governments and tech oligopolies designed and incentivized to store and monetize our data. So how do we go about navigating this panopticon that we are finding ourselves in more and more? Well, this block, we are featuring Matt Odell, one of the most outspoken Bitcoiners on the issue of privacy and digital surveillance, OPSEC, etc. Speaking to Matt is our guy, Max Bit-by-Bit, and it's a really excellent rip. Hope you enjoy and happy fucking birthday Bitcoin. Peace.

Max Bit-by-Bit (2:03)

Hi, mate. How are you doing?

Matt Odell (2:05)

How's it going, my dude?

Max Bit-by-Bit (2:07)

Yeah, really good. How was your Thanksgiving? Did you have a nice time?

Matt Odell (2:12)

Yeah, it was good. Do you Brits know what Thanksgiving is?

Max Bit-by-Bit (2:15)

Well, not really. We just know that you eat lots of food and hopefully dunk on your family members who don't help Bitcoin.

Matt Odell (2:23)

This was that's more or less correct. There's a little bit of alcohol and football involved as well. But, you know, I think Thanksgiving has a very special. It's more special than it used to be the last two years, because I still have some family members that are decently COVID scared. So for them to meet in a closed environment without masks on, eating food with each other, I like to think it's more significant than it used to be.

Max Bit-by-Bit (3:01)

Yeah, it's nice. A bit of human contact and good food. That's what it's all about.

Matt Odell (3:05)

And just to wake them up a little bit, to remind them what's important in life, to stop being so fucking scared all the time. So that was a big thing for me this year. This was actually the first year in maybe eight years that Bitcoin hasn't come up at Thanksgiving. I think they can all just hear my response in their heads. So no one brought it up, and I didn't bring it up. I was waiting to see if someone else did.

Max Bit-by-Bit (3:31)

I guess when you've been on a losing streak for as long as they have, they eventually think, oh, fuck this, this is no fun, this game.

Matt Odell (3:40)

I like to think some of them got it. I mean, they all get, all their gifts from me throughout the years are always Bitcoin. So they're like forced hodlers, even if they don't fully agree with it.

Max Bit-by-Bit (3:49)

That's very kind of you. Well, I'm glad you had a good Thanksgiving. It sounds like a lot of fun. So I might steal that tradition and bring it over to England. We can't have enough of these sort of gatherings, so I might be taking that.

Matt Odell (4:00)

Exactly. Do it.

Max Bit-by-Bit (4:01)

Firstly, thank you for joining us on 21ism. We were chatting, we've had a bit of a pivot because we want to be a bit more direct on what we're covering and cover the topics that we think are really important right now. We were talking about privacy and why this is so vital for civilization going forward. And obviously, your name came up there. Something that I've been really thinking about a lot recently is looking back and thinking, well, if Satoshi had fucked up, if his OPSEC wasn't as brilliant as it was, and if we knew who they were, I think the whole thing would be very different. That's my personal feeling on it. And so when I'm looking at what's being built going forward, especially with all eyes on anyone who is freedom-loving or freedom of speech-loving, they're going to be demonized over the coming years. And so it's something that listening to you and Marty over the years has really made me think about more and more. And when I came in, I was like, I was always quite a private person, but I didn't really think about the implications. And it's changed the way that I'm living my life, and I'm seeing it more and more with more people. But it's a theme that I think if we fuck this up going forward as a collective, we're going to have serious implications. So I wanted to get your thoughts on it and just riff on that idea a little bit.