In this episode:

• Deep Dive into CBDC: Lindsay introduces Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDC), providing real-life examples of how these might impact day-to-day transactions and individual freedoms.
• Privacy and Surveillance Concerns: Lindsay describes some implications of electronic currencies and the resulting erosion of privacy, mentioning that it could lead to a dystopian world.

Check out Lindsay's Airbnb Experience:

https://www.airbnb.com/experiences/3362025

https://www.meetup.com/bitcoin-bootcamp/

To learn more about Bitcoin: Join the Orange Hatter Women's Reading Club. Visit https://www.meetup.com/womensbitcoinreadingclubwithorangehatter

Please email questions/comments to Tali@orangehatter.com

Remember: Knowledge is empowerment! 🍊🎩

Mentioned in this episode:

Free Market Kids Short

Get your HODL UP ("The best bitcoin game ever!") at www.freemarketkids.com.

Hi everybody.

Welcome to part three of my conversation with Lindsay.

So I'm not familiar with Airbnb experiences.

Is that something that they post on their website or is that just something

you're calling Airbnb experience?

No, that is a part of Airbnb.

Most of the time people use it for, you know, there's like, you can take

a cooking class, you can go on a kayaking trip, you can do painting or

you know, food tours, stuff like that.

It's, it's actually a, a pretty big thing.

I got introduced to it when I, when I took a food tour in Thailand once,

and I was like, this is, you know, this is a really excellent platform.

And that's where all of my signups have come from.

Almost no one has, has reached out to me through Meetup that way.

Uh, which I was kind of surprised at, but, but Airbnb is, I dunno.

'Cause I, I also run the, I also have a rental Airbnb,

like a, a residential place.

And as a, as a host, it's definitely a different, a

different experience running it.

And Airbnb experience as opposed to, or the residential rental and Airbnb is much,

much more stringent about what they allow.

And like the, you know, picture quality and everything that you put on there

has to be, there's a waiting period to get every everything approved and then

to change it, you need to go through that same waiting period again and.

Yeah, they're not, they're not always flattering about the pictures that

they, that they select to post and just, you get a, I got a lot of

rejections as far as, you know, photos and, you know, any kind of marketing

thing that I wanted to put up there.

Um, and I don't know.

I've never run a different one, so I don't know if that's a normal

experience or just had to do with, with my content specifically.

That's interesting.

I wonder if it is a, a content issue, but for all the listeners out there who

are possibly, you know, like the light bulb is going off and they're like, oh, I

can do that too locally and try to reach more people, what would you suggest?

How should they take their first step if they want to create something

similar to that where they are?

First and foremost, you need to make sure that you

have good content to offer.

I mean, really, really make sure that you are, that what you're communicating

to people is, is relatable, is understandable, is not too technical.

That's really easy.

That's a really easy hole to get stuck down if you're, you know, if you're

really involved in the community.

And I've had to, you know, kind of tell myself and make sure

that I'm scaling that back.

'Cause you do, you need to kind of remember where you started and,

and meet people where they are.

'cause there's a lot of people that are, you know, this is, this is a scary new

world and, you know, what makes, what makes Bitcoin not for criminals or,

you know, not for nefarious activities.

What makes it not dangerous?

What makes it so that it can't be stolen from me?

And like, you know, for all of those reasons are, are very, very real.

In the beginning and you need to kind of keep that in mind.

So yeah, first, first thing's most important is make sure that you're,

that when you do have an audience, that it's going to hit home, that it's

going to be relatable, approachable, non, you know, non offensive,

and that you're not coming on too strong as far as finding a platform.

I think that, I think that podcasting seems to be the

one that has really taken off.

So if you have the technical capability to do that, that

seems like a really good avenue.

Airbnb experiences it, you know, it's working for me and I don't have,

like I said, I can't do this this full time, so it, it only being,

you know, every couple months or so like that, that works fine for me.

If you're looking to do it more, you know, more often than that, I'm

not gonna say that it's a bad venue.

I'm not.

Maybe, maybe, you know, Maybe it's me.

Maybe I'm just interacting with it poorly or there's something that they don't like

about, you know, my particular content.

I don't, I don't know.

And if I don't know, I think that for Meetup, if you're in an, if you're

in a more urban area, I think Meetup works great, but it's not quite

so much if you're in the boonies.

Yeah.

Thank you very much for those tips.

Um, so you were talking about meeting people where they are and keeping

things as non-technical as possible.

And so you told me about a few analogies that you use that

people can really connect with.

Can you give us one of those?

Yeah.

So in addition to the, you know, talking about the, the grocery store employee

kind of analogy for inflation, I also like to touch on CBDC in my class.

Um, kind of more towards the end, just because I think it's really important

to kind of contrast the, the world of Bitcoin and the, the current state

of affairs and where that's headed.

So CBDC, they're Central Bank digital currencies.

You're probably gonna hear more about them if you haven't already on the news.

And there's the whole release of the the Fed Now thing, which is, I

believe, live, which is kind of the infrastructure for an eventual US CBDC.

But like the current existing CBDC benchmark that you can look at is China,

and they have their CBDC is live as a pilot in a few parts of the country.

So I kind of like imagine that you are.

You know, a middle-aged woman and you happen to be a diabetic and you know,

you have a, a regular job, not high income, and you have a bank account.

Traditionally, if you put money in your bank account, you earn a

little bit of interest on it, and right now it's almost nothing.

I mean, it's, you know, 0.02 or something, you know, negligible.

But with a CBDC, now it can be a negative interest rate.

The bank is charging you to hold that money.

But with the CBDC, You can't pull it out.

You can't stuff cash under your mattress anymore.

You have to have them hold it.

So you don't have, you have no way of escaping that negative interest

rate if they decide to charge you that and that negative interest

rate, because you can't pull it out.

You don't have a way to defend yourself from it.

It can be increased.

You know, they could say that, you know, we're going to send out stimulus

checks to your bank account, but the catch is if you don't spend it

within the next three months, 30% of it is gonna be, is gonna be gone.

They could do, it allows a lot of tools that have never

existed before to be implemented.

And I'll say that you are that woman, you happen to be a diabetic.

Your money if it's fully electronic, like that can be tied to your medical record.

So if you are a diabetic, they can have it set up so that your money is

programmed so that it doesn't work.

You cannot purchase a, you know, a bar of candy that has more

than 15 grams of sugar or so.

Even if that bar of candy is for your granddaughter, they can make

it so that money can be, can be given new rules for everyone.

Or for individuals who meet specific criteria, or if you are, say, an

activist that, um, you know, is, is protesting a cause that, that rubs the

government or authorities the wrong way?

I mean, they can turn off your ability to buy tomato.

Like, it's really difficult to keep protesting if you can't,

if you can't feed yourself, if your money doesn't work anywhere.

Or another thing that they can do, that they could program into this

would be the ability to have your money only work within, say, you

know, a two mile radius of your home.

So it's like, you can't travel, you can't, you know, you can't continue to,

to protest this cause or, or whatever it is that they, you know, whatever activity

that they don't like that you're doing.

It just, it strips all of the freedoms that you were used to with cash.

Another thing about it is, you know, let's leave, let's leave the, the middle-aged

woman analogy, unless jump to say you're a college student or a high school

student and you wanna make some extra money because you wanna go mow lawns

in your neighborhood for the summer.

You know, you charge 20 bucks a salon or something like that.

Now, every single one of those transactions, it's not cash anymore.

It can't be, it has to be through this electronic CBDC.

All of those transactions are direct, all of them are taxable,

and it's like they're, it just, it completely removes any sort of, you

know, any ability to be anonymous.

And I know there's, there's kind of an attack on, on privacy right

now as if privacy is something, something nefarious in and of itself.

You know, they say that if you don't have, if you don't have

anything to hide, you're fine.

Well, I bet that everyone listening to this has curtains on their windows.

And it's not because they have something to hide, it's because they don't want to.

Reveal themselves to the world all the time, and you shouldn't have to.

There's nothing wrong with paying a high school kid 20 bucks to mow their

lawn and not sending the government their 12 cents or, you know, their

$1 or whatever cut out of that.

Like that's not, that's not a crime and it shouldn't be.

And CBDC are a, are a really insidious way to bring out a whole,

a whole new world of, of control and surveillance, um, that, that no one,

uh, no one here has ever experienced.

I know that's something that, that is a pilot program in China and, and

so far it's looking pretty dystopian.

If, if George Orwell could see it, he would've written

a, uh, an even scarier book.

I think when, when people talk about CBDC, the story that hits home

the most for me is just the example that I've heard about our grandma.

You know how grandmas just like to give, you know, a dollar or $5 or something

to their grandkids and like when you go to the grocery store, get a pack of

candy or something, they now in that new system, they can't even give their

grandchild that pocket money anymore.

You know, it, it's the sign of affection becomes something

official that is taxable.

Even in that casual interaction.

Yeah.

Uh, I think one of the, one of the arguments you would hear against that

is, you know, oh, there would be a, there would be a minimum, you know, threshold or

whatever, you know, it's $600 or whatever.

Anything under that is, it's not gonna be taxed.

But I don't know, I hear that kind of argument.

I'm just like, you know, I, I bet you they thought that way in China.

I bet you they think that way, or they used to think that way in like

North Korea and stuff like, When, if there is a power able to be

corrupted, it will be, and, you know, to get things, to get things started.

It's, you know, it's gonna be all, all painted about how, you know, how

convenient it is and how safe and secure it is and how, you know, criminals will

have, you know, a really hard time.

That sounds really scary when, when they get to decide who criminals are.

And you know, if a criminal is someone who mows four lines and you know, they,

they've broken the threshold of how much, how much income they're allowed to have

without, without having to pay taxes.

Like that's, that starts to get into a, to a really dystopian kind of a world.

Thanks for joining us today and learning with us today.

If the discussion with our guest resonated with you and you would

like to dive deeper into the world of Bitcoin, don't miss out on joining the

Orange Hatter Women's Reading Club.

The meetup link is in the show notes.

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