[Applause] [Music] [Applause] hi everybody dr nick riviera nick good to see you welcome to wyoming [Music] it's a great state my parents live up in gillette i live down colorado one of these days i'll get so tired of colorado i'll move up north i love this place ranchers hate bankers it's a good place to live so my foray into politics a long time ago was in 2007 because i was a lot younger wasn't quite as fat had a little bit more hair and i joined the ron paul campaign at the time there were only 5 thousand people in it it was quite small and you know what happened within a year we had two million people and everybody knew the name ron paul campaign for liberty was formed we had crazy websites like break the matrix we had the ron paul blimp it was an incredible journey and i learned a huge amount from it and some good some bad and throughout the years every now and then i participated in varying things like audit the fed you all remember that yeah and the fed yeah don't even get me started with those guys and then also the rand paul senate campaign we won that one the 2012 ron paul campaign so what was the point what were we trying to accomplish what were we doing we said you know this government has lost legitimacy let's return back to the things that are legitimate follow the constitution that's a pretty simple thing let's have sound money that sounds like a good idea and hey you know these endless foreign wars it seems like every president starts one or preserves one continues one let's make that stop so those are the three pillars of the ron paul campaign sound money end the wars and follow the constitution pretty simple pretty easy and it was actually a very bipartisan movement we had frothing from the mouth communists and we had hardcore libertarians all in the same tent two million of them and we lost and those who run for office who desire to change they tend to lose or they tend to get co-opted let's look at the tale of three presidents all three were change makers they came in as outsiders and every single person bet against them said no way know how or not their time first was ronald reagan and this is in recent memory ronald reagan he campaigned for barry goldwater back in 1964. that's what really got him started he delivered this magical speech well barry got his ass kicked whole republican party got their ass kicked in that uh that election cycle and nixon put it back together in 66. reagan didn't go anywhere though he kept campaigning and fighting and pushing and you know what happened 1980 he ended up actually winning and becoming the president of the united states of america and he took over the whole republican party and everybody said wow things are going to be different now this guy is completely different from nixon and nelson rockefeller and all these other guys running you know what happened nothing changed military got bigger federal government got larger we still spent more money than we ever spent before freedoms and liberties continued to erode away everything is business as usual then came barack obama on the back of the 2008 financial crisis now this guy he pulled a coup the first coup since the 1930s since 1932 when fdr won the election on the back of the great depression took out herbert huber and he comes in with a super majority in the senate and the congress super majority 60 senators he had the entire congress this guy could have passed a party line vote that we all have to wear hats on tuesday and guess what it would have passed no filibuster no nothing and what was the number one issue the american people cared about they said our financial system sucks it's corrupt these banksters need to go to jail they took to the streets for it remember occupy wall street okay so you have a guy coming he's completely new completely independent very little political history and he could do whatever the hell he wanted to do he had control of his political party so where did he spend his capital did he actually form an inquisition go drag all those banksters start throwing some in jail changing our monetary system raining in the banks nope no way no how didn't happen we did some healthcare stuff this that the coalition broke apart and it's a business as usual so the american people they say we're so tired of this then in 2016 a reality tv star runs who has never been in office never been in the military no political experience so far outside of the system you you had to have made this guy in a lab okay runs for office no one takes them seriously and they say it's gonna be bush versus clinton that's the election we're looking for okay and you know what happens he wins the primary they say god that's crazy the republicans are going to get destroyed oh well i guess president clinton he wins the election and what's the first thing that happens rents priebus becomes his chief of staff and he gets absorbed into the milier of the political machine and now he's starting to look a lot like a traditional republican president when you take all the hate the rhetoric and all the things the media says you look at the policy who's the head of the treasury steven mnuchin from goldman sachs much change there who's the secretary of state former head of the cia a republican congressman much change there with pompeo really the reality is we don't actually run the show we haven't for a long time we have four branches of government the fourth is the bureaucratic arm millions and millions and millions of people floating around and those people are unelected and unaccountable they just do whatever the hell they want to do you can call them the deep state you can call them whatever you want but they control the policy whether you can have a mine you can drill for oil where you can put your buildings all the things environmental policy fiscal policy you name it they run it and you didn't vote for it and doesn't matter who's the president doesn't matter the congress or the senate because the system is built that way and we like to vote to change it and we ask well how do we do that how do we vote to change they always tell us here's a phrase you'll hear from the media time and again the most important election of our lifetime how many times have you heard that every two years it's the most important election of our lifetime here's what they don't tell you the percentage of people who vote goes down every two years people are opting out they're tired and then the other thing is they don't talk about other terms you ever hear rational ignorance yeah i never hear no you never hear that why it's the value of learning the thing is less than the time it takes to learn it this is a super complicated world healthcare is complicated monetary policy is complicated guys i have a company that runs in 40 countries i've been to 52 countries in the last five years i've met dictators and kings i've been to switzerland where they don't even have a leader they have this concept of primus interla vapares the first among equals they have a committee that rules switzerland as a confederacy and the president is just the head of the committee seven people sit on it i've seen every political system you could imagine and there's a thousand different ways to solve any problem that comes up the problem is to solve problems you have to invest considerable time and effort you have to weigh the issues you actually have to get deep into the guts of it you have to be willing to take risks you have to have competent people in the room you have to understand your biases you have to understand that you will have winners and losers for any solution that you pick who's willing to invest the time when if you invest the time your representation and vote is identical to those who don't it's just that simple so people opt out they stop caring they take vanity votes they only focus on the surface they don't get deep the system is built to avoid you from getting deep so we think to the future we ask ourselves how do we change this well first off these two political parties they got together and they said there's a common set of things we need to agree on and as long as we agree on that it's okay everything else who cares they created an election system where they always win two parties will always win if you're a third party you're not legitimate doesn't matter who you are george washington could come out of the grave today and and somehow run for president in 2024 if he didn't run as a republican or a democrat he would not win that's just the case of where we're at so we say well how do we change that well you need to change the way that people vote we need to be able to vote online we need to change it from alice versus bob to preference ordering or other voting systems where you pick a collection of candidates i like alice than bob then maybe jim then maybe jane so there's no more notion of throwing your vote away you suddenly now have ballot diversity we need to fundamentally change the way that we elect people what was the first thing the progressives did under woodrow wilson once they got power they said wow we really love powerful strong central governments so what was the counterbalance to america becoming a powerful strong central government the senators they weren't elected by us they were elected by the states to represent the states and the federal government act as a counter-balance to an overarching federal bureaucracy they changed it the popular vote so just a super congressman five times more powerful serves three times longer but basically the same thing that was not the intent in the constitution okay so we have to think about how do we elect our people what is their role and what do they do for us why are they here and you always have to keep a basic common sense idea in the back of your mind did i consent to this is this making my life better are we together on this or is this making someone else better but i didn't consent to it i don't want this there's no greater example in 2020 than covid our nation has 700 different policies for covid and it's just madness we're the laughingstock of the world and rightfully so why i have friends in hawaii who have gotten tickets for sitting alone on a beach at seven o'clock in the afternoon for violating quarantine apparently you can get the virus for sitting on a beach but the very same state it's perfectly fine to go to a resort pool and hang out with a bunch of people densely packed that's fine mask wearing what the hell does that mean some places wanted some places don't want it here in wyoming they don't care if you guys are like this in california you're like criminals you're horrible people how dare you and then we ask basic questions okay let's talk about the science well who is responsible for that who is the arbitrator of these things we can't even agree if the vaccines are going to be safe and effective or not if you're a democrat and trump is president they're politicized and going to be horrible and kill all of you if you are a democrat bindings in office the vaccines are the godsend and they're here to save all of us same vaccine same company same science same set of facts why because there's power to be made and dividing people there's power to be made and making us hate each other there's power to be made in making us treat each other differently based upon where we're from what we believe the color of our skin the religions we hold our founding fathers understood this they created a system of checks and balances to attempt to prevent us from succumbing to the temptations of that and what's happened in the last century and certainly with this one is that people have undone those checks and balances systematically and created structures that gain consent by division created structures that control the flows of information now people are being t platformed if you have different ideas in the mainstream go to twitter and let's see how long you last go to facebook and let's see how long you last we keep talking about how if only we could get independent candidates in but the independent candidates are going to carry alternative visions and messages and if your alternative visions and messages can be de-platformed at any time then what do they matter will you actually get people around and let's think about the experience of running for office we ask why don't we have better candidates why don't we have people who are going to give us what they need like these brilliant business leaders the elon musks of the world why don't they run the country you know i have friends in opposition research live off k street they used to work for the intelligence agencies the fbi all these places some work for the mossad they make much better money in opposition research you know how they do oppo research here's the day you're born here's today day day day day day all the way down and they find out every damn thing they can not for dirt for narrative after they know your entire life story they say okay here's our checklist can we make this guy a racist what in the fact pattern would let us do it can we make him a sexist a homophobe but beg it whatever and then then they call up their friends go from tmz to the new york times pre-packaged ready to go stories so how the hell do you run for office if you're a controversial person who changes things and takes risks if this is what happens to you the information channels are de-platformed at a drop of a hat if you don't follow the right narrative and you have people whose day job is to dig into your entire history and turn you into whatever monster they want you to be look at ben carson tale of two people ben carson in the 1990s was an american hero he was a brilliant pediatric neurosurgeon who did the most complex surgeries you could ever do including operating on children in the womb fetuses imagine that there was a movie about him gifted hands cuba goody jr played him he was a hero he runs for president suddenly he's now an idiot a racist sleepy ben carson my god the character assassination on that person was extraordinary same person same belief same politics goes from a hero to a national embarrassment and who were the people who carried it the daily show and all these other people so we talk about how do we come together as independents and change things we must change the way we vote we must change the way the media works we must change the way that information flows and how we treat each other and the legitimization or delegitimization of personal attacks upon people and if we don't do that you will never get great candidates and if we don't do that we will never change those who run the system and then once we're back in control of our government the next thing we need to do is kill the bureaucracy and how do we do that well we may have to write some constitutional amendments we may have to hold a constitutional convention we may have to get term limits that's a national conversation but we don't even get the right to have the national conversation when other people control who's legitimate and who's not in the flow of information so the advantage i have is i'm part of an industry the cryptocurrency industry you know what we just don't like rules here we rewrite them and we sometimes just don't follow them them and it's worked out pretty good 10 years in guys in mongolia own bitcoin camel herders go figure we're making some changes here and one of the things we build are voting systems and id systems and we actually talk to nation states we're in ethiopia and mongolia uganda south africa and one of these days we're probably going to end up building election systems for them in fact i brought some of my commercial team here if any of you run a political party and you want to change the way your primaries work get people voting online that's what we do so how i'm going to spend in the next few decades of my life is in the cascading disruption the idea is that we just do small changes that cascade and over time they evolved to consume the system the single most important thing was our money because if we don't control that we don't control anything and we're starting to get control of that again but now the time has come for us to own our own data the time has come for us to own our own identities and the time has come for us to own our own votes that's simple and you know what everything we do is open source patent-free and you ask who's in charge well it's very simple you are there are no leaders you don't need them for these types of systems they're protocols who's in charge of the internet a system of billions of people what's the internet company what's internet code there isn't one google would like that and damn they're trying hard for it but even they can't do it so that's the power that i push and the more people who adopt these paradigms the more you get back and every single time trust is violated whether it be a social network or a central bank or a government itself we will build protocols to get the trust back and to consume them and the key is that we just have to work together and we have to avoid the temptations of division it's actually why i endorse brock because he was the only candidate that said love he's the only candidate running right now that actually said let's stop hating each other i'm sorry your sexuality race and your religion is the least interesting thing about you your story is the most interesting thing about you where did you come from who are you what have you done what's your character these things and you know what your sexuality and race may be part of that story but it's always different you may be barack obama's kids or you may have grown up in a sudanese diaspora so there's differences there that's what we should focus on are the stories and how we can find common ground and how we can actually love each other respect each other and work together and ask ourselves how do we live in a better place as a final point because i know my time's out i wish i had a little bit more you have to think to the future if you want to accomplish anything we run businesses and as a ceo my job is to look and say where will the market be in five years or 10 years or 15 years and how do we win how do we get there so we we have to ask ourselves as a nation where do we want to be in 2100 not 2022 2024 but 2100 what type of lives do we want to have what's the day-to-day going to be do we have a 40-hour work week do we have a 10-hour work week what's the average person's life and as we're asking that there's a simple test i'd like each and every one of you to do to help liberate you a little bit from yourself it's the birth test imagine the only thing you know is that you're going to be born into a country that's it okay you don't know who your parents are if you have a disability if you're a man a woman the color of your skin the religion you're going to have that's the only thing you know is you're born into a country would you take that bet so compare it if only thing you know is you're going to be born in indonesia versus canada versus the democratic republic of congo which one of those countries would you pick so we ask ourselves the america of 2100 as we look to that would you want to be born there and how do you build a country where the answer is always yes even given every other country in the world just that simple and then you work your way backwards to how must we treat each other what tools must we build and how do we get there so thank you all for coming i'm glad to see some faces new and old and let's get some lunch huh [Applause]
