hi everyone its Charles Hoskinson broadcasting live from warm sunny Colorado always warm always sunny sometimes Colorado happy 4th of July it's a beautiful day outside it's a little hot but you know what outside of that got a nice breeze going here sun's out people are happy people are smiling you know it's always nice when the 4th July is a beautiful day unfortunately it doesn't look like they're gonna be many fireworks to outside if you're from a really liberal City I guess the 4th of July is now racist and so it's canceled if you're from most cities they're not shooting fireworks because of coronavirus but in both events I haven't let the fact that the government's not celebrating to celebrate myself because you know it's a really special day it's a very meaningful day you know the 4th of July commemorates when a bunch of very powerful people who had every ability to just live comfortable lives decided to take a very big risk these were imperfect people all people are imperfect but nonetheless they decided to put their name on a document that if they lost the Revolutionary War would result in their execution there was no way to walk back from basically saying we're gonna go commit treason putting out on a document and mailing it to your king that's kind of a threshold it's the same one Ceaser across the Rubicon when you're told don't do this and if you do it will crucify you they kind of have to do that so either he was going to win or die and similarly our founding fathers of our country were in the same position what makes America special is that we are always caught in a state of aspiration you see we have these lofty ideals about equality and lofty ideals about how human beings should live in these concepts like freedom and there's a lot of trust and there's a lot of heartache that gets mixed in with those ideals you see giving people the freedom to believe what they want say what they want practice religion to arm themselves these can have very bad outcomes and historically they have had bad outcomes for at least a few people but in the absence of these freedoms almost always society will descend to a dictatorship and the dictator will then create a much worse situation for everyone so the birth of our nation was an experiment and it was an experiment that has taken a long time to stabilize and we've all come to realize that we're still not quite honoring the ideals that we have set out for ourselves as a society but it doesn't mean that our history should be thrown away it doesn't mean that our founders should be discarded it doesn't mean that we have to somehow apply contemporary standards to people that lived hundreds of years ago and expect them to believe and feel the things that we do a friend of Mines a professor and he teaches in a Southern University and he has an exercise he does for all of his freshmen he asked them how many of you would be abolitionists if you grew up in the deep south in the eighteen tens 1820s and every single student says of course I would be and the professor says ok can you demonstrate at least one part of your life where you took positions which would publicly ostracize you where you took positions where you would basically lose your job be shamed you would basically be kicked out of your family circle and some students do have these stories but the vast majority of them usually do not so when we look at the lens of history and we apply the past to ourselves it's perhaps unfair to believe that people would always do the right thing the reality is culture changes in society changes and we looked at July 4th not as a deification or a beautification of certain people or events but rather it's an aspirational holiday for not just us but for the entire world a day where we make a conscious choice to take a risk to choose freedom today where we make a conscious choice to do things a bit differently even if it exposes ourselves to personal risk even if we're going to be belittled or criticized or ostracized they're excommunicated and this in a sense is the closest thing to a unifying American spirit that we have this concept that we don't take orders we just live the way we want to live and that transcends race gender language and culture it's a universal property that's probably good for the entire world and has been for a long time since we started that discussion in a way the cryptocurrency space is a born of that spirit in that example we've been told for a very long time that the institutions will eventually fix themselves we just have to elect the right people and we kept voting and the institutions never did and it got to the point where after the hundreds bank bailout after the hundredth collapse it was very clear that things would not be done differently and the people responsible for the 2008 financial crisis were put in charge of the government responsible for correcting those problems and lo and behold the bank's consolidated got stronger wealthier and more influential and the people responsible for destroying our economy suffered no ill consequences other than the fact that they got large bonuses and walked away with tens to hundreds of billions of dollars on the back of the pain and suffering of others so instead of complaining about it some people got together and they created Bitcoin and it led to a revolution of hearts and minds and we are right now in the middle of a monetary revolution a financial revolution and a broad discussion about how the world ought to work in the 21st century that is as American as it gets and that's the spirit of what July 4th is all about revolution from the old and bring something new you have to take a bit of a risk you have to accept that sometimes you fail but you never lose the vision and the goals so no matter where you are in the world I'd like to believe that you can get a little bit of inspiration from this as the French did when they had their own rebellion and I hope that you can internalize the parts of this day which are no matter how bad things get we can always find a way to be a bit better as long as we have the courage to step into the unknown so enjoy it July 4th I hope you have a chance to spend it with friends and family it's a great day I hope it stays a national holiday and I will always believe that our best days are ahead of us and I'll always believe that no matter how bad things get we can find a way to get out of it and we can find a way to do better and I think we are winning overall so thanks for listening I'll let you all get back to your barbecues and alcohol and other fun festivities and I really do hope that this day stays and I really do hope that the spirit of the day stays as well Cheers
