Natalie Smolenski: "We're In Dark Times" — The Rise of Counter-Elites & the Bank-State War Machine

**Natalie Smolenski** (0:00)
There's something about the relationship between bank and state that isn't good for the people. Banks, they were in a position to issue credit. Who's, you know, the biggest customer for bank credit? Governments.
And what do they use bank credit for? Largely to wage war, which in turn, the banks profit off of. And so what we've seen over the last few hundred years is this kind of social ratchet effect. And the challenge that Americans have right now is that it's not possible to solve this problem by voting it away. The most effective thing you can do is take back financial sovereignty and actually as an individual, be your own bank.

**Natalie Brunell** (0:51)
Hey, everyone. Welcome back to the show. Joining me this week is Natalie Smolenski. She's a software executive, anthropologist, and editor of the Satoshi Papers. We haven't heard from her in a while, and this is our first in-person show. Natalie, it's great to see you. How are you?

**Natalie Smolenski** (1:06)
It's so good to be here.

**Natalie Brunell** (1:08)
I was trying to find your Twitter thread and I'm like, where is she? She's off Twitter. What's happening? Give us the latest.

**Natalie Smolenski** (1:15)
I'm off. This is like a little sabbatical time. After the publication of the Satoshi Papers last year, I just took a step back.
I have a lot of things brewing, so yeah, no.

**Natalie Brunell** (1:30)
Well, we're excited for whatever they might be when you're ready. Well, let's talk about things because I feel like the state of the world is so much more chaotic since the last time we did our show. You were forecasting this, more political division, governance being questioned at various levels of society. I would just love your reaction to where we're at right now because it seems so volatile.
Yeah.

**Natalie Smolenski** (1:58)
I think over the past year, so many Americans have come to the conclusion that a lot of things that seemed like conspiracy theories in the past are true.
I think we're living through a collective national identity crisis. Who are we? First of all, who have we become as a country? Second of all, where are we going to go from here? I think we have a lot of questions now about the efficacy of democratic institutions, even something as simple as elections to meaningfully change the direction in which the country is going.
There's been, I think, a growing recognition that the American Project, which was founded on the liberty of the individual person, is something that we're going to have to fight for again. And it's not clear what the paths are.

**Natalie Brunell** (3:05)
Well, what do you say to people who are feeling disillusioned by the whole process? Because it feels like no matter who you vote for, we kind of get the same, which is more debt, a deterioration of the standard of living, more questions just about how we're going to survive sort of the challenges that are to come, whether that's with global conflicts or technologies. I mean, what do you tell people who are feeling like it's not even worth it to vote?

**Natalie Smolenski** (3:33)
Yeah. The most important thing anyone can do is exercise their individual rights. It is through the exercise of rights that they become entrenched and presupposed. What we want is a state where people don't have to think about their rights because they're just exercising them all the time.
Voting is one of those rights. I would say to anyone who's motivated to do it, to keep doing it, but to not neglect all of the other rights, freedom of speech, freedom of assembly, freedom of religion, the right to transact, these are all enshrined in our Constitution in ways that are historically unique and unprecedented. And it's the people who are going to be the drivers of change.

**Natalie Brunell** (4:23)
Which freedoms are you most concerned that we might be losing?

**Natalie Smolenski** (4:28)
I think freedom of speech is probably at the top of my radar right now.
I think we've gone from a climate where maybe there was cancel culture in the culture itself to one in which that cancel culture has now moved to the state. And we're seeing increasing calls for censorship and for government sanctions against individuals who are exercising that right.

**Natalie Brunell** (5:00)
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