Why We Defy | Alex Gladstein
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Location: San Francisco
Date: Tuesday, July 23rd 2019
Company: Human Rights Foundation
Role: Chief Strategy Officer
On December 6th 2018, I interviewed Alex Gladstein for my podcast What Bitcoin Did to discuss Why Bitcoin Matters for Freedom. Alex and I have stayed in regular touch since the interview, and in May of this year, Alex invited me to the Oslo Freedom Forum.
In Oslo, I saw presentations from Human Rights Activists and met with people working all around the world fighting for freedom. After the event I told Alex that I wanted to launch a new podcast, one which would cover Bitcoin alongside other sister topics such as human rights, censorship and freedom. Alex and I discussed this over the summer, came up with the name Defiance, and Alex wrote the manifesto and agreed to be the guest for the first show.
Alex is Chief Strategy Officer at The Human Rights Foundation and a human rights activist. In this interview, we discuss the extent of authoritarianism around the world, how absolute power corrupts, and how Bitcoin supports financial freedom.
Peter McCormack
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00:00:00 - Show Intro
00:01:39 - Welcoming Alex to the show
00:03:36 - Birth of Defiance
00:08:08 - Global variances in freedom
00:11:32 - Veil of freedom in Russia
00:17:12 - Why do countries become authoritarian
00:23:02 - Turkey’s migration to dictatorship
00:26:22 - Saudi Arabia international relations
00:31:43 - Collapse of society in Venezuela
00:34:37 - Fallacy of Che Guevara
00:37:01 - Absolute power corrupts
00:43:01 - From an open democracy to dictatorship
00:45:57 - Encroachments in free societies
00:49:46 - Wikileaks and how Bitcoin supports financial freedom
01:12:52 - Why decentralisation is so important
01:15:24 - China’s Belt and Road programme
01:23:54 - Satoshi Nakamoto’s an act of defiance
01:25:41 - Where does change come from?
Connect with Alex:
Connect with The Human Rights Foundation:
Articles by Alex:
Presentations by Alex:
SingularityU Greece Summit 2018: Why Decentralized Technology Matters for Freedom
SingularityU South Africa Summit: From Wechat to Bitcoin
SingularityU Spain Summit 2019: Exponential Democracy
Interviews with Alex:
What Bitcoin Did: Why Bitcoin Matters for Freedom
Unchained: The 3 Reasons Bitcoin Matters
Mentioned in the show:
The Atlantic: Town Square Test
Wikipedia: The Bank Secrecy Act
CNN: Russian court imprisons Pussy Riot band members on hooliganism charges
History.com: Fall of the Soviet Union
Atlantic Counsel: Why Boris Nemtsov Still Matters Today
Time: How Putin Built a Ragtag Empire of Tyrants and Failing State
Vox: How Venezuela went from a rich democracy to a dictatorship on the brink of collapse
The Atlantic: The Decline and Fall of Turkish Democracy
Al Jazeera: Turkey's failed coup attempt: All you need to know
Insider: The story of Jamal Khashoggi's murder and how the world looked the other way
The Independent: Saudi Arabia seeking to execute teenager who was detained aged 13
The Guardian: Europe must stop this disgrace: Viktor Orbán is dismantling democracy
Wired: The complicated truth about China's social credit system
The Guardian: The Cambridge Analytica Files
Wikipedia: Belt and Road Initiative
The Conversation: What’s wrong with Huawei, and why are countries banning the Chinese telecommunications firm?
The Telegraph: Ai Weiwei: a tumultuous timeline
People mentioned in the show:
Boris Yeltsin: Wikipedia
Hugo Chávez: Wikipedia
Omar al-Bashir: Wikipedia
Fidel Castro: Wikipedia
Che Guevara: Wikipedia
Robert Mugabe: Wikipedia
Mo Ibrahim: Wikipedia
George Washington: Wikipedia
Prayut Chan-o-cha: Wikipedia
Viktor Orban: Wikipedia
Xi Jinping: Wikipedia
Satoshi Nakamoto: Wikipedia
Johannes Gutenberg: Wikipedia
Media references:
Film: Edge of Democracy
TV Show: Black Mirror
Thank you to my sponsor
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