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19: Bitcoin's #1 Trailer Park Supervisor, With Brad Mills

In this holiday episode I met up with super early Bitcoin adopter Brad Mills [https://twitter.com/bradmillscan] to discuss the strange new world we're entering as Bitcoin reaches new all-time highs, and the global financial system enters a period of unprecedented stress. Why were the very first Bitcoiners drawn to Bitcoin, before anyone else believed in it? Could there be common characteristics amongst these earliest adopters which might make them a strange kind of community? What is the world they'd like to see Bitcoin bring about? And, perhaps most important, how will the world change with a bunch of newly minted, left-libertarian billionaires looking to shake things up? We were supposed to discuss the Weird World of DeFi, but that's gonna have to wait for a future episode because we got sidetracked discussing Brad's interesting history, what led him to Bitcoin, and the strange future implied by a bunch of wild-eyed libertarians running around as freshly minted millionaires. I hope you enjoy the episode!

18: Navigating The Reality Tunnels, with Emerson Brooking

In this episode, I met Emerson Brooking, [https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/expert/emerson-t-brooking/] a fellow at the Digital Forensics Lab and author of LikeWar [https://www.amazon.com/LikeWar-Weaponization-P-W-Singer-ebook/dp/B0795FB3ZY], to take a deep dive into the topic of online disinformation. I put to Emerson my feelings that what people are calling the 'post-truth' world has in fact been in gestation long before the internet, and that a lot of the arguments about today's epistemic disorder come down to sour grapes over the apparition of new information incumbents capable of creating and distributing disorderly narratives, at scale. His responses surprised me. If you're interested in digging deeper into this topic, you can check out the latest episode of my new documentary project, SCHISM, at youtube.com/SCHISM [http://youtube.com/SCHISM], or follow the link in the show notes. Now, on with the show.

17: How Decentralization Could Save Online Privacy, with Orchid's Alex Kehaya

In this episode, we meet Alex Kehaya (https://twitter.com/afkehaya?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Eauthor) of VPN Orchid (https://www.orchid.com/) to discuss the company's radical new decentralized approach to improving privacy for internet users. As you'll hear, Orchid's model solves a lot of the problems associated with traditional models —  providing better anonymity and privacy, and reduced exposure to the honeypot problem that's always plagued centralized services.  This episode will be of great interest to anyone looking to augment their online privacy without relying on a single centralized service — and the potential for decentralization to improve our digital lives.

16: How The Cult Of The Dead Cow Invented Hacktivism, with Joseph Menn

In this episode, journalist and writer Joseph Menn discuss the seminal hacking crew Cult Of The Dead Cow. CoDC was one of the key forces behind the creations of 'hacktivism', which tries to contribute political change via formal and informal hacking operations. Of particular interest here is how CoDC's work has more than occasionally dovetailed with American foreign policy -- especially with regards to China. Joseph Menn is on Twitter @JosephMenn (https://twitter.com/josephmenn) , and his book on the Cult Of The Dead Cow (https://www.amazon.com/Cult-Dead-Cow-Original-Supergroup/dp/154176238X) is available at all good bookshops.

15: SinglsDAO: How To Decentralize The Video Economy, with Troy Murray

In this episode, we talk to Troy Murray (https://twitter.com/Danny_Desert) about SinglsDAO (https://snglsdao.io/) : a BitTorrent and blockchain-based system for distributing and monetizing video content, the crazy amounts of money SingularDTV (https://www.singulardtv.com/) raised in their ICO, and why the ICO system seems to have provided a bad incentive to develop actual products. Find out how SinglsDAO is intending to take power away from centralized services like YouTube, why that goal suddenly seems incredibly urgent, and why a Distributed Autonomous Organization is the right way to go about it.