Balaji Srinivasan on his past and future predictions and why tech can't escape pollitics

Balaji Srinivasan, author of The Network State and co-founder of Counsyl, talks to Erik Torenberg about his past and future predictions, the future of the left and right, and why tech will never be able to escape politics.
CLIPS PLAYLIST: / @upstreamclips
PODCAST INFO:
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TIMESTAMPS:
(0:00) Preview of episode
(2:30) Why are the scariest words in the English language “Balaji was right”
(7:06) When to reform vs start a new institution
(9:50) Are ideas weapons?
(14:36) Sponsors
(17:00) You don’t start with a tech company anymore, you start with a tech community
(20:48) Internet nationalism
(24:04) What "political" means
(28:22 ) Activist movements are like “pump and dumps”
(32:22) What the sovereign individual misses
(44:19) Bitcoin is still the flag of technology
(49:03) Democrats will move to the right on immigration
(1:01:46) Tech America vs Woke America
(1:02:35) Why are tech people so woke?
(1:08:47) The left will flip on diversity
(1:13:34 ) The left is shifting from wokeism to statism
(1:21:00) Bitcoiners will take over the right wing party
(1:27:30) Elon
SOCIAL LINKS:
Erik’s Twitter: @eriktorenberg
Balaji’s Twitter: @balajis
Podcast Twitter: @Upstream__Pod
Erik’s Substack: eriktorenberg.substack.com
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[@UpstreamwithErikTorenberg]

TIMESTAMPS: (0:00) Preview of episode (2:30) Why are the scariest words in the English language “Balaji was right” (7:06) When to reform vs start a new institution (9:50) Are ideas weapons? (14:36) Sponsors (17:00) You don’t start with a tech company anymore, you start with a tech community (20:48) Internet nationalism (24:04) What "political" means (28:22 ) Activist movements are like “pump and dumps” (32:22) What the sovereign individual misses (44:19) Bitcoin is still the flag of technology (49:03) Democrats will move to the right on immigration (1:01:46) Tech America vs Woke America (1:02:35) Why are tech people so woke? (1:08:47) The left will flip on diversity (1:13:34 ) The left is shifting from wokeism to statism (1:21:00) Bitcoiners will take over the right wing party (1:27:30) Elon

[@dawnfmEnthusiast]

after that Marc ep, I know this'll be great. Thanks for the high quality discussion!

[@Ejejebbdd]

I know this will be great. Thanks for making this!

[@heymichaeldaigler]

Watched the first one and now this! Thank you for making this podcast. You’re serving the folks that are always on the look out for sleeper people and ideas.

[@drewsmith8054]

Balaji is a super smart mind who always delivers amazing view points that’s 1000x better than many of our warmongering politicians

[@simonseverino]

Two legends. Keep it up!

[@anandagarwal7237]

Great analysis

[@deenzmartin6695]

good guests so far

[@jasonoconner7863]

Late night coding just got very interesting. Thank you Erik.

[@tylerbranch6082]

the question nobody's asking: what's inside balaji's cup?

[@deenzmartin6695]

dat lean

[@10KRotator]

holyshit this is underrated AF!

[@seanlogan1082]

This is awesome dude!

[@RadicalNuance]

Sub 2K gang!

[@rofafofo7057]

was this recoreded before the bet?

[@rofafofo7057]

it's already answered

[@alexmarinica5310]

Mate, who’s next on the podcast? Thomas Sowell? 😉

[@benhadley]

Elon Musks companies aren't un related or atleast they out of the top 10 verticals by revenue they represent 6 of them. They represent the infrastructure it would take to create a new civilization on a planet. Energy, Communication, Transportation, Telecom, IT. The crazy part is just like NASA was responsible for a lot of R&D that went downstream to other tech companies (like the GPS) - he owns his own NASA which can use Government dollars to create new things like star link.

[@rocknrollcanneverdie3247]

"Eh-lon"

[@seanwieland9763]

39:52 Butlerian Jihad when? 🤖

[@puravida1159]

Excellent show. Bitcoin price is of course being manipulated. On the Bitcoin manipulated price. I think someone should do a short squeeze on these guys. It would be different than gold or silver. All we have to do is demand the wallet addresses of the Bitcoin they are short selling. This will cause them to collapse immediately. And will have the added affect of allowing real price discovery of Bitcoin. Think about it. This could cause Balaji to win his bet. In fact Balaji could do the short squeeze.

[@user-ri4qk1xy3c]

It’s impossible to short Bitcoin.

[@puravida1159]

@@user-ri4qk1xy3c I agree if you are trading actual bitcoin with verified custody. However there is a market in paper bitcoin. Remember the creation of a futures Bitcoin ETF? I believe that was specifically designed to keep the Bitcoin price suppressed. And shorting it. Just like they do with paper gold is the only way to do it. I am not an expert in market manipulation. But I can tell you experts in this field talk about it extensively. Such as Max Keiser and Caitlin Long.

[@n1mbusmusic606]

Twetch...elon knows about bsv..

[@n1mbusmusic606]

Bsv is real bitcoin Csw satoshi Will you pass the intelligence test?

[@riot121212]

failure to separate liberal politics from left politics and keeping them all under"woke" is at best just wrong and at worst disingenuous.

[@GMGBlackWhiteMUNGEY]

Why do hosts like this stutter so much? Balaji is actually a very fluid speaker. This host and many of the rest of the tech nerd community thinks it sounds intellectual when they stutter lol it’s so weird

[@hectorjelly]

I think you've given this guy enough airtime, why not get someone with a different point of view.

[@deenzmartin6695]

¿qué?