Ukraine

hi everyone this is charles hoskinson broadcasting from colorado i wanted to make a video about ukraine as many of input output is a global company and we have people all around the world more than 50 countries one of the countries that we have a fairly high density of employees and contractors and is ukraine about 15. we have had long arc roots there since 2016 we have a team called team veritas mostly cryptographers and now we have a lot of engineers led by in the case of veritas roman olinykov and then engineers working on various products in the portfolio in fact some ukrainians were responsible for the development of plutus they're part of that core team i've been to ukraine many times west and east i've been to odessa and kiev the capital as well as lev and i have nothing but phenomenal memories and friendships there for example i recall years ago going to the bitcoin incredible party that pavel and his then wife lilia hosted in odessa and won a kiev and then one in levive and i often attended that because i so enjoyed the beauty the food in the people it was just fun to go there and it was just fun to get to know people and it's really heartbreaking to see what's happened war is the failure of diplomacy and ultimately the absence of love for each other and compassion there's nothing good that comes out of what happens with these situations people die families are destroyed infrastructure is ruined hopes and dreams are shattered and certainty is replaced with chaos terror and trauma and even after the war ends the trauma seldom recedes quickly if at all the people of ukraine have tasted freedom for the past few decades from a brutal regime the soviet union and have tried their best sometimes succeeding sometimes not to become an independent free democratic nation my own country the united states we've been around for more than 200 years and it hasn't been easy even after we won the revolutionary war we still had to find another one and we endured the indignity of slavery as well as many institutions and practices that today would be considered barbaric and even after the civil war and while colonizing the west terrible things were done to the indigenous populations to become a more tranquil union we've had to go on a long journey and ukraine has had problems and it's going on its own journey but all things considered they were doing a pretty good job given their age and where they came from and the nature of their leadership at that time and today russia revisiting the past and annexing ukraine it tastes of imperialism of a different era of the 19th century when there were kings dictators emperors people who viewed war as the family business as the state of affairs if we recall charlemagne there were very few years during his lifetime that he wasn't on a horse or indirectly commanding some battle with some adversary whether it be the lombards or saxon or muslim occupies spain didn't matter there was somebody he had agreements with there was some war to fight this was the standard state of affairs for most of human history the 20th century after world war ii was different we converged to a world order with the promise that we could achieve so much more with peace trade diplomacy we could ever achieve at the end of the barrel of a gun what's happening today is a reversal of that brief window in human history where we tried to do things differently and if it's allowed to fester i can imagine we will see continued aggression not just from russia but from china and other nations ultimately the world will be a less safe place and those who are on the borders of powerful nations led by authoritarians will live in a constant state of paralyzing fear that their time will eventually come and they will become a colony directly or indirectly of a world power whether russia keeps ukraine or not is besides the point because if they don't they're likely going to leave a vichy government and a permanent military presence in the western parts of the country and use that as leverage for whatever demands they have with nato and the united states if the sanctions that have been posed on russia are ineffective then no tool outside of a kinetic operation war will be able to compel them to slow down aggression i'm concerned about georgia and other places and worried that in revisiting the past if this is successful we will see more of it i have friends all throughout the eastern bloc some who grew up under it many of you remember my people of iog interview with dan friedman who grew up in ukraine he was a citizen of the soviet union and his family fled as refugees to europe they had nothing just the clothing on their back and a few effects and had to stay with friends and family and try to claw and scratch their way to the united states there are currently thousands of diaspora now in poland and other places who are replicating the stories of the past i'm concerned that we'll see in asia acts of aggression against taiwan vietnam india and other places that may result in the annexing of territory or vichy governments being installed but ultimately moving the direction of the reduction of freedom people should not have to fear freedom of association commerce and expression we should have the ability to love the people that we love and have the ideas and thoughts that we have and pursue the commercial endeavors that we do authoritarianism does not allow you to do that you are only allowed to operate in whatever space the dictator and his backers mandate and anything outside of that is punished harshly this is antithetical to everything our industry stands for people often say that i shouldn't wait into politics and i keep reminding people the core of who we are as an industry is political because our fight isn't about a particular token having a higher price over another token our fight is ultimately one of liberty and freedom to give people the power to be their own institutions to be their own bank to verify what previously could not be verified whatever that might be and ask what kind of society can exist once trust and faith has been restored in each other and the institutions that we rely upon to navigate the complexity of the world and what kind of a society can exist where there are no more kings and dictators and presidents and leaders just people with the means and tools to work together towards common ends with the wisdom to understand that their actions ripple long beyond today and tomorrow the decades in the centuries putin is an old man he's not going to live 100 more years probably not even 50.