[0:10] Level39: Yes, I think while we’re waiting for everyone to get ready, I’ll just mention how the article came about. It actually came about, I was reading something that Jason had posted on his Twitter about his thesis. The words he was using just reminded me of something I had read. Specifically, it was Tesla’s essay on the problem of increasing human energy. He’s saying the same stuff as Tesla. And so I looked it up, reread the essay, and I was completely blown away because I came across this passage that was literally exactly what Jason was talking about. I showed it to Jason and we were just like, totally floored, it was just incredible.

He basically had rediscovered what Tesla was saying, in a sort of first principle’s way that no one had ever really thought about until we had re-evaluated with Bitcoin, I guess, is how I described it. So, once we saw that, I just said, “Oh, I’ve got to write about this and just put it into an essay.” And it was really interesting, I think I created a thread first, and as I started writing the thread, I got some people came out of the woodwork and was like, “Oh, you should include some information about some of the free energy stuff that Tesla was working on,” and a lot of it is quite sci-fi.

I started talking with Mike Hobart. We were just going through this stuff and just thinking about what can we include in this article before it gets really far out there? And that was a lot of fun. It was really great, a really interesting time putting things together. I just have to thank Jason, really, for introducing us to this sort of new way of looking at Bitcoin. CK, shall we get into it now?

[1:55] CK: Yes, we should get into it. And I guess, the only person who’s not on stage that should be is Robert Breedlove. If you are on a desktop, you should get to your mobile phone and accept the request to jump on stage. Actually, Zach Herbert, I just shot you a request as well. But we are all set to go. Level39’s awesome article that he dropped, actually all the way back in October, is pinned to the top here as well as a lot of other stuff regarding what Bitcoin Magazine is doing.

I want to make a quick shout-out to the Bitcoin 2022 Conference. You need to be there, you need to buy your ticket. I have heard a word from the organizers that our holiday discounting and all that kind of good stuff is over as of New Year’s, so, get your ticket now before the discounting stops. I believe we’re going to be doing one last kind of push for the New Year’s and Christmas and is the ultimate Bitcoin gathering. This is going to be 30,000 Bitcoiners descending onto the City of Miami. A 4-day event, 3-day conference, 1-day festival at the end to celebrate Bitcoin culture. I can’t imagine not being there and calling myself a Bitcoiner. It is worth every single cent or set or whatever you want to denominate your ticket in.

I saw a thing on Reddit where people were like, “Should I HODL Bitcoin or should I go to the conference?” Well, the answer is that you should figure out how to do both. If you go to the event, I guarantee it’ll be worth every single penny. And, if you do it right, you’re going to get a Bitcoin job. You’re going to make valuable, valuable Bitcoin connections. I started in the industry by getting my job at a conference. I know Cory, CEO of Swan, I believe it kicked off Swan Bitcoin at Bitcoin 2019. So, magic happens at these conferences, you got to go. I’ll stop shilling now.

Level, I’m gonna hand it off to you. I’m ready to get really freakin’ cosmic with this amazing panel just because these are some big-brain ideas. People haven’t even really considered them for a long time until Bitcoin, kind of, made them viable once again.

[4:03] Level39: A hundred percent, I think that’s exactly how to put it. Thanks again, CK, for hosting this and to Bitcoin Magazine, and every one, this amazing panel, it really came together because of Jason. I think a lot of people showed up because they want to hear what Jason has to say and ask him some questions, so I’ll get to it as quickly as I can here. We’ll just go over quickly, just for those who aren’t super familiar with Tesla, probably one of the most amazing inventors ever, I would say.

There’s a great book called Tesla: Man Out of Time. If you want to read it to learn more about Tesla. He was born in 1856 in Croatia. He created alternating currents and transmission technology. Certainly, Bitcoin relies on a lot of his technology. He invented electric oscillators, electric meters, the Tesla coil in 1891. He demonstrated radio communications two years before Marconi did. He emigrated to the US in 1884. He worked for Edison. I think he was helping him to revamp something with DC. Edison actually took advantage of Tesla financially. He actually promised Tesla, I think $50,000, and then when he finished the work, Edison was like, “Sorry, I guess you didn’t understand American humor, you’re not getting any money.” This was really the story of Tesla’s life, I would say, for the most part, doing all this amazing work.

Edison actually ended up FUD-ding Tesla’s AC inventions. He electrocuted animals with AC, this was Edison. He said it was dangerous, so Tesla was used to the FUD, coming from all sorts of individuals like Edison. Let’s see, Tesla invented the radio before Marconi. Marconi actually used 17 of Tesla’s patents when it came to radio. Tesla conceived the RADAR in 1917, 18 years before Robert Watson-Watt. Edison was actually head of R&D for the US Navy at the time and said there’s no practical application for Tesla’s idea for RADAR.

Wilhelm Röntgen was credited with the discovery of X-rays. Tesla had taken actually the first X-ray photographs and sent them to Röntgen, and who really developed it. He partnered with General Electric, built the first modern power stations installing hydro-powered AC generators in Niagara Falls. He experimented with cryogenic engineering. The first person to record radio waves from outer space. He discovered the resonant frequency of Earth 50 years before it could be confirmed. He’s believed to be the only person who reproduced poll lightning in a laboratory. He invented remote control in the 19th century, what Tesla called “Telautomatics.” He often was credited with inventing the neon light. But in fact, his lights were wireless and more advanced than neon lights. Imagine using the Earth’s ionosphere to distribute free electricity to the entire world. He couldn’t get the funding.

He spoke eight languages, he could memorize entire books, he could recite them at will, he could visualize devices entirely in his head, and build them without notes. He was eccentric, he died at 86 in a New York City hotel room. He was living on milk and Nabisco crackers at the time. He fed pigeons, he had little money to his name. He was often taken advantage of by investors and unable to protect or monetize his revolutionary ideas. He likely had something called “Closed-Eye Visualizations” and a very high level of them, it was very rare. It began after the loss of his brother in 1863. You can actually visualize his inventions and his ideas, they would come to him in his visions, and he could see them right before his eyes, and take them apart and do all sorts of things to them in ways nobody else could imagine. And really, he was largely overlooked by history, and more credit was given to those who profited from him.

Tesla really grew up in a gold standard world, and he struggled to profit from the transition to fiat money, is the way I saw it. And the growth of the fiat system really necessitated what I like to think of as proof of profit. Whereas Tesla really would’ve benefited from a proof of work world. But he was flawed, I’ll just point out that he wasn’t perfect. He actually believed in eugenics and forced sterilization of criminals and the mentally ill, which is a bit ironic. Some believe that he was suffering from madness, actually, to some degree. But he was celibate his entire life, so that might have been his own way of dealing with that.

Real quickly, I just want to read a passage now before we hand it off to the other people on the panel. This was the passage that led me to really write the article and compare it to what Jason was working on. And I’ll read this passage here, this is from “The Problem of Increasing Human Energy”. But before I get into this, I’ll just summarize. One of the main themes in this essay that Tesla wrote was this idea of human mass. And human mass is, you can think of it as human progress moving forward with inertia. And, it’s imperative that this mass is kept moving, if we let it slow down or stop, it becomes increasingly harder to get it moving again. So you can think of it as in like a blackout. If all the energy and power goes off, it takes a long time to get those generators working again. But Bitcoin mining actually keeps the wheel of human mass spinning and that energy can be readily diverted at moment’s notice to other high-priority applications.