Svetski Wake Up Podcast

There’s a strong trend of anti-elitism growing in the world, and whilst I understand where it comes from, because it’s been poorly defined, it’s totally misguided. In fact, by not defining the damn thing properly, we group truly honourable & inspirational people up with the parasites. This lack of properly defining things is the source of many problems - but I’ll get to that in another video. I wrote an article about this which you can read about here: https://medium.com/the-capital/in-support-of-the-elite-3c2046381980,  and as usual, I want to wake people up & delineate between true elites, and the parasites we wrongfully label as such. In the process of doing so, I hope for two things: You don’t get caught in the trap of resenting those with more than you, because that is destructive and helps neither you nor society. You choose to become elite yourself. You embrace what’s unique about you. You choose to become the best version of yourself and impact the world in a way that only you can. This is what it takes to push the human race forward. The ability to be OUT-FUCKING-STANDING. You want to be an outsider. You want to be a minority. You want to be different. As Arnold said “nobody has ever done this before” is the motivator. Those who want to earn & grow themselves into the 1% are to be praised & admired. What could be more inspiring than an individual who creates something from nothing. Who takes their labour, their time, their effort and their energy to build something. This is profound. This is life. This is how the individual drives the human race forward. ____________________________________   Thanks again for listening.   Subscribe on YouTube, Anchor, Spotify: https://anchor.fm/wakeuppod   And follow me on Medium & Twitter @AleksSvetski  More coming soon!

People always refer to the morality of “democracy”, and it being the mechanism of rule that's the fairest & most just - but it’s just NOT true. Democracy will always devolve into authoritarianism because it’s just another form of collectivism requiring you to give up your personal agency to an external authority. A truly FREE society is one where economics rules, and the ability to cast your vote live at all times is the only way we can have a truly open, functional, liberty-centric society. This might sound like blasphemy to some, but in order to make sense of this statement, one has to understand what economics actually measures. Economics is the study of the allocation of resources (primarily time & energy) by individual participants in a society. This is the free-market, and more broadly, free-society form of organisation & convergence that does not require a central authority to decree what should happen, how & when (which is often inefficient & inaccurate). Economic decisions are real, live, functional votes in a free society. It’s representative of your choice here & now, and is more powerful than any other force in the world, especially a “democratic” one. Thanks for listening guys. Remember to subscribe, share, and follow me on twitter & medium @AleksSvetski

A lot of the things they want are actually “nice things”. The problem is they don’t think critically, nor deeply, and their ideas actually result in the opposite of what they want. So it’s not that they’re necessarily bad people - they’re just naive, lazy, and generally stupid. They don’t think in terms of consequence, nor in terms of nuance. They just think at the surface level & in black in white. They therefore cause more problems & proceed to blame it on everyone else. This is my shortest video to date. Thanks for listening guys. Remember to subscribe, share, and follow me on twitter & medium @AleksSvetski

All complex systems, all living systems and life by its very definition is something that moves, and is dynamic. There are inequalities everywhere, there is compounding and power laws, there are self-reinforcing spirals & death spirals. These are all normal aspects of living systems and when allowed to operate, they do so in a dynamic equilibrium. This is direct contrast to the morons running around taking about the “The 1%”. Whilst I agree there are UNFAIR inequalities, this is only because the base incentives of society are skewed. But so strong is the dynamism of life that even with such unfairness, those who have rigged the game are still subject the going back down the ladder. In a FREE & FAIR system, where we all operate on the same economic rules (economics being defined as the allocation of time & energy by the individuals involved), we get a beautiful dynamic equilibrium where people move up the ladder & back down. There is no "static" 1%. Not in free systems, and not even in rigged systems (nature is too powerful). This is why Freedom is so important to building natural, functional societies. The more freedom you give society, the more opportunity you create. The more you restrict freedom for equality, the more you destroy the opportunity to create opportunity. Therein lies the fallacy of the collectivists. A focus on the individual and on a fixed set of rules (unable to be changed by one party) gives rise to a society in which the best of us is rewarded. It’s a convergent network effect that rewards ethical & productive behaviour/ People move up & down the scale of have’s & have not’s. Some start at the bottom, whilst others start at the top. But those at the bottom rise, because they grow up learning the value of hard work and perseverance, whilst those at the top, who had it easy; learn complacency. We’ve seen this in all stories of the hero’s journey. Rocky 3 is a great example. Mr T whooped his ass because he was fucking HUNRGY. By removing hunger from the equation, you kill spirit & drive. This dynamic equilibrium, found in living systems, is how freedom operates. It’s a constant flux. The notion of fixed equality or “balance” is what we know & define as death. Life is alive. It’s dynamic & unpredictable by nature. The more you can predict it, the less alive it is. “Be like water”, as Bruce Lee said. A flowing river is alive, static water goes rancid. Thanks for listening guys. Remember to subscribe, share, and follow me on twitter & medium @AleksSvetski

Most modern economists (ie; professional sophists) unfortunately don’t understand entrepreneurs, have never run a business, nor been in a position of significant responsibility in a business and therefore have the unfortunate audacity to perpetuate the moronic concept that businesses, business owners & capitalist merely exist to “take advantage of their customers”. This is incredibly naive, short sighted and reinforces why modern economics is completely OUT OF TOUCH with reality. Entrepreneurs are like the stems cells of the economic body. They are crucial, whereas these economists (the modern & keynesian types who don’t understand logical consistency or sound philosophies) are useless leeches who try to apply mathematical models to that which you cannot model. In this video I use the example of a forest, and lumber to think about what capital & capitalism actually means in the context of the entrepreneur and the incentives in a FREE MARKET who’s cornerstone is PRIVATE property rights When it’s your asset, you don’t go and rip it all up unless you’re a moron, who will wind up ruining himself, and that is the self correcting mechanism that a free market organically includes, and which moron economists think they have to somehow dictate or decree. Pubic = no idea how much is needed, if it’s even needed. Blind & stupid. Public + Private = raping & piligaing Private = YOU GIVE A SHIT. And if you do not, you ruin yourself. Ta-daaaaaa. You CANNOT have capitalism with public property or central planning. THAT is why it’s failed so far. When you mix up the incentives - you screw it all up. It devolves into madness. The cancer that is collectivism will eat up the organic structure that is capitalism. You need a mechanism to take the power away from the state. And this is why #BitcoinFixesThis. Thanks for listening guys. Remember to subscribe, share, and follow me on twitter & medium @AleksSvetski

This episode was inspired by a Tinder debate...of all things. What I thought was going to be an interesting discussion, evolved into a debate with someone who believes that “free markets” have somehow been disproven, that money is an illusion, and that the core problem with the world is lack of regulation with respect to large corporates who exist to rape & pilliage society and it’s people. When confronted with ideas like the cantillon effect; the only response she could muster was: “it’s not that simple; central banks do not have that much power”. She claimed to want to do “help people” and then basically stated that “individuals are too incompetent & (in her words) irrational to make decisions on their own”, and as a result we should have regulations which enforce limits on growth. I was clearly triggered and I wish I saved the damn conversation but she deleted / blocked me on tinder before I could do so..hahahaha Oh well - at least it inspired this video, which I hope you enjoy. As usual, subscribe, share and follow me on both twitter & medium @AleksSvetski

The word “Crypto” has been co-opted, and it now refers to something which is a fantasy at best, and a scam at worst. The Crypto's you see floating around everywhere are not an answer to anything. They're a distraction at best, and at worst a bigger scam than the existing, legacy financial system; because they're perpetuated by entitled morons who think “they’re the right people to make the right choices” just because they can write some code.. They’re no different to the politicians and bankers of today, and if anything, less experienced & more incompetent so instead of working in the old guard, they spin up their own instances of the same garbage; only with a different smell. They miss the entire point of Bitcoin; which is to have an autonomous network deliver a guarantee of rules that are unchangeable - like the constitution of America, but orders of magnitude better. Bitcoin stands against everything that "crypto's" stand for. Bitcoin lowers time preference, it ensures nobody is in charge, it gives us a level playing field, and it fundamentally adjusts the base incentives of society. Therein lies its power. Crypto is just a bunch of young, inexperienced nerds who think "they know better". They don't seem to understand Bitcoin’s raison d'être. The idea that the supply is fixed, the parameters are fixed and the rules of the game are the same for everyone - and if anyone tries to change them to their own advantage (at the expense of everyone else) they get booted off (ie; forked off) the network. That’s the edge. Shitcoins (all altcoins), ICOs, Tokens and now "Decentralized finance" (aka; DeFi) is just a replication of the existing system, only on a more fragile network, with less checks & balances. It does nothing to re-stabilise society or change behaviour. It just perpetuates the existing fraud, and makes it such that catastrophic failure is even more likely. I tweeted on this (link below), and obviously discuss it further in this video. https://twitter.com/AleksSvetski/status/1278684910962782208 Thanks again for listening.   Subscribe on YouTube, Anchor, Spotify: https://anchor.fm/wakeuppod   And follow me on Medium & Twitter @AleksSvetski 

It’s July 1st and the start to the second half of what’s been a shitshow of a year.    In this episode I touch on the continued madness, and what’s likely the nail in the coffin for Hong Kong. To see these peaceful, intelligent and innocent group of people subjugated by a murderous, authoritarian dictatorship like the CCP truly saddens me.   Furthermore, to not hear a PEEP from any of these “woke SJWs” who’ve been making a fuss about non-issues like racism over the past few weeks, simply reinforces why none of them actually gave a crap about what they were allegedly standing up for.    In fact, when they attempt to align themselves with the protests in HK, it makes my stomach churn, because they’re literally fighting on the side of more state control and tyranny, which is EXACTLY what the HK people are fighting against.   It’s a sad day for liberty, and although I know that corrupt, centrally managed institutions ultimately collapse in on themselves, the collateral damage along the way is painful to watch.   Share this with your friends & who knows; maybe we can at least wake more people up to the perils of collectivism & statism.   Key Tweets:   https://twitter.com/TruthAbtChina/status/1278258459268579328 https://twitter.com/RollandNadege/status/1277949160982003712   NY Times write up:  https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/30/world/asia/hong-kong-security-law-explain.html    ____________________________________   Thanks again for listening.   Subscribe on YouTube: https://youtu.be/vKkXPp-QaHE  And follow me on Medium & Twitter @AleksSvetski

I had a debate with my brother over a year ago now, about Taleb VS Peterson. His conjecture was that Peterson’s work is just religious shit, whilst Taleb is a genius trader → and that’s all that apparently matters. This triggered some thinking on my part, but it didn’t come up again until recently, over the course of the CoronaScam, where I’ve seen him throw out many of his purporter values. This was further reinforced by his recent behaviour & comments about Bitcoiners too. Now don’t get me wrong Taleb is a brilliant mind, but I think he’s a hypocrite in many ways (really fat & unhealthy guy who apparently deadlifts), so I question the authenticity of his character → the quality of his work notwithstanding I enjoy both their work, but Peterson to me has a depth of authenticity, and a depth of character which I truly admire. And the more mature I become, the more I realise that is where the value lies in the humans we learn from & aspire to be. I’ll let the video do the talking. Shout out to @AmericanHodl, and @AllenFarrington Follow on Twitter @AleksSvetski Find Video version on YouTube: https://youtu.be/hByPjnLGlcU

Different approach on this episode, and talk about the importance of staying hungry and how that requires a world that is dynamic. There is NO such thing as a fixed status. This was inspired by Arnold. He reminds us to stay hungry, but the presupposition here is that you had to become Hungry.   To truly be hungry you need to know what it’s like to have nothing.  To be a have not. To be rock bottom.   Let’s look at one of the most important dynamics in Life: Being at the top  VS  Being at the bottom   People inherently don’t want to be at the “bottom” and want to get to the “top”, but in this episode, we explore why they both exist, and why this differential is absolutely critical for Life to exist.   The benefits of being rock bottom, or down & out include:   Depth Hunger  Strength   The upsides of starting at the top are great.  Luxury  Comfort  Ease   But they miss out on the depth that you experience and build from being at the bottom.  By eliminating the top & bottom, and forcing everyone into a lukewarm middle, we miss the best of both side.  In our attempt to remove the pain, we remove the meaning & numb the benefits.  The bottom is extraordinarily important. It’s where you build depth, and the lower you go, the higher you can rise.  And the broader the range, the richer the life.   We’ve been conditioned to believe that struggle is something we should avoid, and this conformity through comfort is a disease that makes you weak.   Hunger has its place. It makes you strong, it makes you worthy.