Brief comments on belief and culture

hello crypto fellow travelers this is charles hoskinson broadcasting live from warm sunny colorado always warm always sunny sometimes colorado i wanted to make a quick video because there's a few things that have been percolating about recently some vegans reached out to me first by email and then in a much more public way basically aggressively bullying and saying that if i'm not vegan then i'm unethical and a bad human being and i don't care about the world and there's a moral inconsistency in the devouring of me i'm tolerant of people's beliefs and if people want to be vegetarian or vegan if people want to follow a particular religion if people want to do whatever that's not a problem but what i don't tolerate are when people say if you don't believe the things i believe then you're a bad human being and your morals are wrong i live in colorado and in wyoming i have family members who are in the agricultural space family members who hunt i eat meat for the rest of my life i'm probably going to eat meat it is what it is and i understand the arguments for vegetarianism and actually quite sensible i don't understand the arguments for veganism i never have and i never will if i go and take eggs that my chickens lay that i take care of myself how is that unethical to the animal given they're treated incredibly well if i if i cheese produce from cows that are treated really well that aren't slaughtered or butchered how is this bad i i just don't understand it veganism to me in many cases is a cult i and everybody knows you're vegan because you tell them if you want to belong there and do your things there it's not a problem for me and i have plenty of friends who are vegan in fact one of the founders of the sea fund is vegan and we certainly have our conversations and differences about it but what's not okay is to say that i'm an unethical person because i eat meat and i will aggressively push back for the sake of my home state colorado and wyoming and for the sake that i happen to be a farmer and probably will be a rancher here at some point it's just my lifestyle and it's what i believe and i've noticed now that some people on twitter say well i'm selling my ada now it's such an unethical coin or charles is being a bully or these types of things let me be exceedingly clear to you if you treat me with respect i'll be nice and kind back to you if you treat me an go yourself i don't have time for you and i've been very open and clear about that i'm not a politically correct person and i never will be and i punch back and some people love this some people hate this some people say i should have no political inclinations and be a completely empty suit let's be clear about something there are a hell of a lot of people who like our product and project because the people at the front of the product and project wear their emotions on their sleeves and are completely transparent and where they stand we aren't fortune 500 polish pr people here we're very passionate about our beliefs and very passionate about the things we and don't and i encourage everyone regardless of where they sit on the political spectrum to express themselves i think the world works a lot better when where people stand it doesn't mean you agree with those people what it means is where you stand what i'm very tired of in life is waking up every day trying to figure out how do i not offend somebody how do i not tell people what i really feel and believe instead how do i predict what they want to hear and be a sycophant or a demagogue or be so deluded that there's no actual substance there it when you see it the corporate doubles speak the slogans that they run time and again and again and again to try to make as least defensive as possible and reality is that the world is hungry for legitimacy and genuineness and for people who actually are real and i said a long time ago i have to make a decision am i the kind of ceo that it would be safe to put in charge of a fortune 500 company or am i the kind of ceo or the only way i get there is by building it myself because no one would actually take the risk of hiring me and i said what let me do the latter because i can live with myself that way so i eat meat and i will let the world know that i eat meat and i'll never apologize for it and i have a lot of political opinions and i'ma let the world know my political opinions and i'm not going to apologize for them that said how much of an impact does that have on cardano the protocol zero because i don't decide because it's a decentralized ecosystem what you get to do with the protocol you can hate me vehemently disagree with me and think i'm a crazy person and at the end of the day it's the protocol is the protocol it's going to do its thing and there'll come a day that i die maybe it's tomorrow maybe it's 100 years from now and the things that i've built the things my company built are going to still be around and the terms and conditions and rules will be identical we have to escape from this woe capitalism of if i disagree with a particular person who happens to be in the room the entire room is tainted and all things are corrupted and broken and bad and evil because here's the reality in a free society you're going to disagree with people they have different values than you that doesn't mean that those people are evil and that doesn't mean that society is in some way corrupt broken or bad it just means you disagree and some people somehow someway have found out that by embracing and accepting diversity of thought even when there are strong disagreements that the world works better the side that burns books the side that censors the platforms and says there's only one truth and way of thought i can't remember a single instance in human history where that side has been the good side the good people so don't fall into that trap it's okay to be around people that you don't always agree with and we as a society should reward legitimacy and openness and transparency and honesty i'll freely admit that there have been times i've been wrong where i got statistics wrong or facts wrong and i freely admit that some of my values have changed over time when i was a lot younger i was a froffing from the mouth libertarian and then i remember going to india and seeing all of the electronic waste miles and miles and miles and miles of e-waste and seeing children some as young as seven years old eight years old dealing with hazardous substances trying to extract precious metals and semi-precious metals from integrated circuits and inhaling those hazardous substances a lack of environmental policy and good governance is a direct responsibility for that entire generation suffering horrible consequences for the e-waste so regulation does make sense and libertarian thought probably is not going to solve that i've had huge arguments and debates with people on the libertarian side of the article about just these things i also believe that while national defense should only be used as a last resort there are cases where sometimes you need to use force and with the non-aggression principle you're never allowed to quite do that but there are brutal narcissistic sociopathic dictators out there and every now and then the only option outside of tolerance of concentration camps and evil is the removal and again i've gotten tremendous criticism throughout the years from the libertarian side of the aisle about it and i think i'm doing my job when at least some people are pissed off and i think i'm doing my job when at least some people disagree we call that sanity a free society things you care about you should have a strong opinion about what we're building here is a government and a government allows all people to converge and give consent to a path forward it's not here to empower a particular company individual or philosophy the only thing i really try to ingrain into the system is anti-authoritarianism i am deeply concerned about any government my own or china or whatever to have have unilateral authority over your use and utility of the systems i build because i'm deeply skeptical that there will be wisdom and judgment in that i'm fully cognizant of all the sins of the past and how there is a ch a reoccurring theme of asking for forgiveness rather than doing the right thing and only after the scandal gets too big and i'm sorry i don't want to live in a world where tyranny is automated i don't want to live in a world where the very things i've constructed are the things that basically get to imprison all of us in some sort of dystopian social credit hierarchy and if you don't believe that's happening look at the sharp eyes program in social credit china and understand that we're not too far off in the united states and other places from having something just like that the only difference is it's enforced through private industry instead of a government mandate but the end result is the same so those values are built into the things i construct and as long as i'm working on them i will try to promote and push those values but whether we should have universal health care social rights for a particular group whether you should be vegan or not these have absolutely nothing to do with the system the system is beneath that layer of society those complex ethical questions and social contracts and so forth i leave that for other people to decide it's not my place and it's not my purview it's just my place to make sure the system works for as many people as possible and that the rights and values that the system was instantiated with are durable and if they're to be changed they're to be changed through a systematic process of the super majority over a long arc of time instead of the whims and wills of the mob reacting to a particular event as we often run into okay so i just wanted to make this video to to articulate that and i expected this fully as cardano started reaching prominence a lot of people are entering in who are new and they have a little bit of ada and they think well if this ecosystem the guy at the top and i'm not even at the top let's be honest here it's a horizontal structure there's no ceo there's no one running it but the lead development company sure doesn't exactly correspond to my values i have to sell all my aid on leave as if somehow i have an impact over your use and utility and the direction of the systems for you i do amas almost every week i'm the most transparent guy in the entire cryptocurrency space and i'm incredibly direct about what i believe and i do that because i want everybody to know who i am as a person and where i stand believe me it would be so much easier for me to be conservative in this respect it'd be so much easier for me just to say all the pretty honey things that the normal fortune 500 ceo says and be friends to everybody and donate to all the causes that are popular and so forth and what the vast majority of people who love us care about us send fan mail and are deeply engaged would not be because they wouldn't trust anything we do there would be nothing to differentiate us from all these other things because they would say well these people are just corporate shills they don't really have any core beliefs or values they're willing to change on a dime just so that they could potentially get an extra customer and instead i said let's just be the firebrands and let people know who we are and the cards will fall where they fall the romans have a saying for it the die is cast and that's exactly the way i've run things and i do things and i accept freely the enormous criticism that comes with it and also i accept that every single day i'm going to be brutally attacked in incredibly unfair ways since starting in this industry i've been called a narcissist a sociopath a pathological liar i've been attacked in every possible way i've been called a criminal usually every single day sometimes to my face i've had people drive by my ranch screaming my name i've had death threats i've had people mail me white powder pretending it was anthrax i've had my home robbed i've had my physical safety on numerous occasions threatened again and again and again and again tomorrow when i wake up i'm probably gonna get another five emails telegram messages tweets people attacking everything from the way i look to the way i speak to the fact that i'm losing my hair to my body weight that's my life every day and i have to have an enormously thick skin and i'm not allowed to reply or get angry or get upset i just have to dust myself off and take the higher road and i'm okay with that for personal attacks but what i'm not okay with is saying that i'm not allowed to express my beliefs in philosophy that that somehow hurts the project you are missing the point of decentralization if you believe that that hurts the project we're not ready for decentralization you're just wanting a dictator a benevolent dictator to come in and guide you to the mountaintop make you rich and take care of you from cradle to grave this is crypto grow up no one's in charge no one will ever be in charge and if someone claims they are it isn't crypto you have to think for yourself you have to protect your own funds and you're in charge of these things it's a scary thought it's scary you can lose your money and no one's around to save you and reimburse you and refund you if you suffer from a giveaway scam or a hard drive failure you could potentially be wiped out if you vote for the wrong thing maybe that person steals the money maybe that person doesn't deliver that's on you you voted for it if you delegate to a bad pool then you don't get staking rewards it's crypto you are in charge not me i just was the first mover to set up the dominoes but what that chain reaction is going to live long after any of us and that's the point it's a different way of running society and it requires a level of personal resilience and maturity and sometimes i measure up and sometimes i don't but i ask my community and those who wish to be within the community if you can do anything take a step back and ask yourself why are you here and what are you trying to accomplish and what are you looking for if you're looking for a savior you will find none if you're looking for someone to be a paragon a virtue and always do the right thing and say the things you always agree in you will always be disappointed if you're looking for freedom and opt out if you're disgusted with the way that the world works and you want something different and better then you are welcome and not only that you are obligated to participate my job is to give you the tools so that you can and get something done and change the world it's not my job to figure out how to make you rich it's not my job to say the things that make you feel you have a friend i'm just going to tell you where i stand how i think like everybody i have some kooky beliefs and i'm going to keep those kooky beliefs and a reasonable free thinking people i'll change them when evidence comes but you i have a background you i have values and you i have beliefs about how the world should work and all i can do is write the papers and write the code and build the tools and what happens is day by day more and more of the network is governed by the users of the system and eventually the entire network is completely defined that way and i fade in the backdrop just like satoshi did with bitcoin that's the point and we've already reached the stage where my opinions don't matter anymore it's on autopilot guys come may 31st 100 of block production is made by the stake pool operators already a super majority is the cip process within the next 12 months will be completely managed by blockchain based voting which means all updates to the system are decided by a democratic process right now we're just kind of filling out the paint by numbers of the 2020 roadmap we all agree we need smart contracts it's part of that social contract there's no variation but cardano 2025 the next five years that's a debate we'll come to the table with a consortium of many members and it'll be the biggest discussion in the history of cardano and checks and balances and a whole government will be put into place specifically for this the very first meeting about this for you guys is going to start i believe at the cardano 360 episode this march and if not then in april where you actually get to see how enormous this undertaking is and how many different moving pieces it has to make sure that it's done in a reasonable way and iohk is a logo amongst a sea of logos there and no matter how strong my opinion happens to be on one particular thing i'm just one voice just like your one voice and it turns out that my voice is not the only voice and in many cases it will be the one that doesn't win i'm used to being in the minority of opinions and that's okay you have to be willing as the creator of a system to have your values on the sleeve and if we're really truly enamored with the concept of decentralization let's go do it then just that simple so anyway that's the video we all have to learn how to be more resilient we all have to grow up a little bit and we all have to understand that we're going to be surrounded by people whom we don't agree with calling those people evil calling those people unethical or saying that you can only purchase products that conform to your values is a very short-sighted and shallow thing if you're truly vegan i don't think you could ever buy toothpaste if you're truly vegan i don't think you could ever wear clothing or participate most consumer products or ride in a car with leather seats where does it stop i respect and appreciate that we as a society should have higher standards and morals and ethics and the treatment of animals is something i actually deeply care about all the animals i have and i'm willing to enjoy i have far more animals than you do many donkeys chickens goats horses five dogs i take care of and they live long happy lives and we don't slaughter them do you so it's a complex thing and we can disagree we can have a debate happy to have that but don't tell me that somehow my opinion should matter about the stability and fidelity of cardano or how the system runs that's completely beside the point charles hoskinson the person's happy to talk to you but as for the ceo of iog the things we build the things we do we've never once had that conversation and it never will it's about smart contracts about nfts it's about defy it's about the updates and what we've been following the paul howmos method since the very beginning tell it tell you guys what we're gonna do do it and tell you what we did i said gogan is three hard forks we did the first we did mary and alonso is the next one we tell you what's in them metadata and token locking and then we got nft excuse me native multi-asset and then plutus support for smart contracts big bing boom just like that and we do best effort to keep you guys in the loop i usually try to announce progress and deals and other things as soon as i humanly can sometimes we announce a little too early because some event comes up sometimes we announce a little too late but for really big ones i'd like to at least be the one to announce it because the probability of it leaking through a secondary channel goes up exponentially the closer you get to the announcement especially for nation state deals or large liquidity events so better here for me than anyone else and the risk of that is occasionally a hiccup happens and it slows things down a little bit but that's my job to be that guy and do those things and maybe you love it maybe you hate it what in a few months you'll be able to start that discussion about a better way of doing things and a more diverse group of doing things and if i've done my work correctly that should converge quite nicely so have a nice day everyone and enjoy warm sunny colorado or wherever you happen to be and if you want to have a bowl of edamame have your bowl of edamame if you want to have a juicy steak have a juicy steak if you want to subsist just on air i there's a there's a youtube video about that take