Hi, everyone. Welcome to Orange Hatter Today, you're listening to a conversation I had with Holly.

Thank you for joining me today, Holly. It's amazing to have you with us. And I can't wait to find out more about your Bitcoin story.

Of course, and I just want to say thank you very much for inviting me as well. It's a real pleasure to talk to you today. Yeah, I feel honored to be able to share my story with you and your listeners. It's so necessary what you're doing, I think. I love the philosophy behind it.

Let's start with your background? Can you tell people a little bit about yourself?

Yeah, sure, of course. My name is Holly. I'm originally English, obviously. I live now in Portugal, in the south of Portugal. And I'm the mother to two beautiful daughters. Both of them, well, for sure, my older one, Akiva. in Bitcoiner herself, my younger one, you know, we get there, we have quite some Bitcoin conversations. Yeah, I've been living here in Portugal for a while now. It's a place with a fairly active Bitcoin community, so that's a real pleasure to be around. Yeah, my background, goodness. Originally English, haven't lived there for a long, long time. I once did a DNA test and I think I have one of the most boring sets of DNA of anybody on the history of this planet. I'm like 94 percent English Irish, so, you know, no mixing, no interesting mixes in there whatsoever. So... That's, that's pretty much my background. Professionally, I had a very academic background. I have a PhD in classical history. Then following my PhD, I decided that I didn't want to stay in the academia for lots of reasons and being now I kind of dived in the world of bitcoin, I'm so glad I didn't, really part of the anatomy of the state, as they say. So I took my research skills into the non profit world and I'm well aware that many people would say that's not that much better than the universities, but I became very specialized in counter radical extremism, so in layman's terms counter terrorism, but not in the law enforcement capacity, more in a prevention capacity. That's more or less my background.

So what brought you to Portugal specifically?

Portugal specifically Yeah, I'm always somebody, I've, I've travelled around a lot and I've lived in a lot of different places. I've lived in Italy I lived in the Netherlands for, for a long, long time. Portugal I came to, I came to learn of through my ex partner who was very passionate about Portugal, loved Portugal, and the fact is that it does have, it's a country with quite some attractions for a Bitcoiner as they're very Bitcoin friendly, so there's no capital gains tax on cryptocurrency in general at the moment in Portugal. That might change of course, I've written a few articles about that very thing for Bitcoin magazine. And everything really fell into place for me personally great school for my daughter, a very beautiful place, a place where my and her outdoor lifestyle is very much welcome and accommodated. There's everything one could, one could want here really. Yeah, I love Portugal and it's been quite the journey to get to move here, but we've made it. And I'm really, really glad that we did. Really, really glad that we did. Since I moved here, I've myself been quite committed to building a Bitcoin community around myself. I host regular Bitcoin meetups in my area. I'm not the only person doing that. There's quite a Bitcoin community here, so it's lovely. And I give education sessions for any businesses around me that want to learn how to transact and save in Bitcoin. What I've been busy doing just on a voluntary basis just for fun for a while

That sounds like fun. So you said that Portugal is very Bitcoin friendly, and that there's no capital gains tax, which I love because I'm in the US, ummm, taxes. In what other ways is Portugal Bitcoin friendly?

Well, I mean obviously you have that tax incentive about Portugal and that's attracted certain people certain kinds of people I would come at that question from two angles really you've got the people who have moved here to take advantage of that and that meshes very much with the fact that Portugal is a bit of a hub for digital nomads in general. Interestingly, I meet a lot of people who work online here, who have their own businesses. So that's one side of it, but there's another side of it as well. I think. And I'm not even totally sure historically how this evolved, but Portugal, and specifically the area of Portugal that I'm living in, seems to have attracted, for quite some time attracted, a very kind of, what I would describe as a freedom minded crowd of people. So I think even in the 60s and 70s, there was quite a hippie movement here. Or not the 60s, of course, because that was, then it was still under dictatorship, but certainly following the dictatorship. A group of people seem to have moved here who in general are quite free spirits and the idea of freedom and individual sovereignty is certainly not an alien idea here. There's a lot of homeschooling here, there's a lot of interest in, alternative diets to what, what you might call the standard American diet or people raising their children in quite unconventional ways. In general, it's quite a freedom minded community, and I would definitely say that there's a natural affinity between that kind of community and Bitcoin. You know, once you start introducing people who've been thinking in that kind of way for, perhaps, for all their lives, having been raised by the kind of hippie community that emigrated here in the 1970s Bitcoin is a very natural marriage for them. It's a very natural progression. The idea of uncensorable money, money which is out of reach of the governments, is a very attractive idea.

Well, since I'm a homeschooler, something you said just really caught my ear. You said that they raise children unconventionally there. What does that mean?

Yeah, goodness, it's a bit difficult to explain exactly what I mean by that without showing you where I live. it's so beautiful here, Tali, and it's, it's very safe. In general, it's incredibly safe. There's a huge amount of sports. So a lot of the kids they surf and if you're into horse riding or Hiking or just spending time on the beach. It's a very free lifestyle in that sense. Certainly by comparison to Amsterdam, which is where I moved from. You know, there's just a lot of outdoor activity and a lot of quite like minded parents who can share a bit on on the homeschooling idea. Yeah, it's a great place to it's a great place for kids to be

It sounds that way. I wish I could actually look out your window. It sounds absolutely amazing. So If the, parents are all very freedom minded and they're homeschooling kids, is it a pretty easy quote unquote sell to tell them about Bitcoin and for them to get on board? Or is there still something that they would need to kind of get over before they become involved in Bitcoin.

I mean Well now we're talking about parents and homeschooling groups. I have not had that much contact with people in that capacity it's not that I'm Trying to orange pill Homeschooling parents. It's been more that I've connected with businesses in my area but for sure in general, it's, it's definitely a community that has a fairly natural affinity towards Bitcoin and the, the businesses which I've been trying to, to orange pill in this area, it's a good success rate, you know, really, I talk to people who sell their wares in this, this very kind of unconventional way. But in general, I would definitely say this is a community that is very freedom minded and very much Bitcoin inclined. Yes. Yes, that is a short answer.

That is so unusual because most people I talked to, they are facing a completely different kind of reception. So that's really exciting for you. So let's back up way to the beginning. When you first heard about Bitcoin. What happened there? And what was your first reaction to it?

So I first heard about Bitcoin through my then partner. And we discussed it, and I think, you know, like so many people, I did first come to it as, for a number go up, basically, thinking, This could be an interesting way to think about and save money. But quite quickly I started to learn, started to attend a lot of Bitcoin events. started to get very interested in the kind of whole philosophy around it. I mean, at the time, the events were not just Bitcoin, they were blockchain. And it took quite some time for me, for us to kind of separate the wheat from the chaff, as it were, and to figure out that these events that we were going to Not all of them, not all events were valuable, that some of them just did not resonate with me at all, or definitely had me feeling very curious about why anybody would want to put that kind of information on the blockchain, which, which started a kind of snowball process of thinking, well, what makes Bitcoin special then? And then really starting to learn about money, and I was shocked at the time by how little I knew actually about money. And having been exposed to quite some talks about about that and about the kind of early phases of Bitcoin and also starting to read some books about Bitcoin. We mentioned the Bitcoin Standard, for example that book really spoke to me deeply as a historian incredibly interesting to see, for me, the progression of what makes good money. That book put those issues in terms which I'd never seen it before. And it was a real learning experience. And that started to really change the way that I thought, not just about money of course, but about, well, the whole spectrum of things that money affects, basically every aspect of life. Yeah, I think that was the progress of it. And I started, yeah, just, just going further and further down the rabbit hole, and also learning much more about, diet, for example, the way we interact with one another, the effect that fiat money has had on our society and on relations between genders on our view of the future, which I, I do feel as a parent is especially relevant. It had me questioning everything. I think that's a fairly common Bitcoin comment really, isn't it? Once you started asking questions about Bitcoin, you start asking questions about everything.

Yeah, that's definitely a very common feeling that people have. So there are several things I want to go back and visit again. You mentioned diet several times. So how has that Changed you and you had also mentioned that the people in Portugal eat differently. So can you comment on both of them yourself and then also just Portugal in general?

For sure. I mean, I was vegetarian for a long, long time, most of my life actually until I got pregnant and during both of my pregnancies, I really craved meat and it was a real moral conundrum for me because I didn't want to eat meat. I really love animals and I remember going to see my midwife and saying, look, I'm really craving meat and her saying to me, if that's what you're really craving, you should definitely eat it because the baby needs it. And taking the decision to, to start eating meat while I was pregnant I think that was a really good decision. At a certain point, I really left the vegetarianism behind and started experimenting with carnivore also for all kinds of family reasons around me. So the other people in my family at the time were also carnivore. And I also thought it was very important not to be disloyal to her but especially for my younger daughter who has a real tendency towards sweet stuff, as I do as well. Goodness, I'm a real natural sugar addict. And so that took quite some giving up. I was also incredibly shocked when I tried to give sugar up the first time. I was genuinely, deeply shocked by the withdrawal symptoms that I had during this process. Withdrawal symptoms along the lines of which I've only ever associated with, I don't know, stories of people giving up narcotics and stuff. I mean, really profound cravings. Oh, physical symptoms, headaches, sweats. Obsessing over sugar now I've actually gone back to, so I went really cold turkey on sugar for a while, and I didn't eat it at all. Now I find that I can eat it in moderation. So I think I've kicked the addiction so now I can manage to kind of I can, I allow myself a little bit of chocolate once in a while, especially when I have my period. But other than that, you know, I, I try to at least limit sugar. And previously, you know, I really wouldn't. And I noticed huge changes in myself when I went carnival, especially in things like athletic performance. At the time I was doing a bit of running. I no longer do that. But at the time I was running some 10 Ks. And the first one that I did, I was really in a lot of pain after it, eating basically vegetarian diet. The second one that I did I had a steak the night before, managed it much more easily, had no muscle pain after it. Since then I've taken up the passion of my youth, which was kickboxing. I'm a very keen kickboxer. I really enjoy it. So I've taken that up again and I definitely noticed that it's easier to maintain fitness on a carnivore diet. It's easier to maintain what I can only describe as a kind of equilibrium of energy levels. I don't experience the highs and the lows of the sugar cravings. Energy surges, energy dips. I don't experience that as much. I do feel as if it's been it's been good for me. I can see it in my face, my hair, I was explaining to you before we started recording that I've just come back from clearing after the fires here. And I didn't, I didn't have time to wash my hair, so it's kind of, you might not be able to see it right now, but in general it looks a lot healthier. And just in general, I, I feel a lot, lot better on, at least I would call myself an animal based dieter. I'm not a strict carnivore, but I try to limit my carb intake. I also don't drink alcohol just because it's really bad for you. And it also doesn't disagree with me. Personally, I don't respond well to alcohol. I get drunk very easily and hung over very easily. So after one glass of wine, I'm already a bit tipsy and I usually feel quite quite nauseous after it. Just in general, thinking more about what we've been told about diet and what we've learned, the way we've been raised in dieting terms, and the way I want to invest in my future and my health I find that very important. I would say that, in general, in the area of Portugal that I live in. Diet is, it's, it's really interesting for me how present it is. Maybe it sounds like a stupid thing to say, but how present it is in daily life. People don't tend to take diet for granted. In general. It's a place where the diet is very, very healthy, I think. I mean, I live right by the sea, so there's a huge amount of fresh fish. There are wonderful farmer's markets, so just the fresh produce in general is very, very good. I know some local beef producers now, so I can get locally raised beef. I mean, the other side to that is that in the area that I live in, There is also a big vegan community. And I don't wish or feel qualified to tell anybody how they should be eating or raising their children. It's definitely not the choice that I would make or a choice that I see as healthy. I'm also not interested in anybody trying to evangelize me into that way of life because they feel that it's morally better. That's something that I don't enjoy or respond particularly well to. But that said, Those are the negatives of, of that, but I would say that there is the positive side in the idea that people don't just eat whatever is to hand and whatever's cheap and whatever's easy. There are people who are very engaged with the idea of diet in general and whichever direction that takes you in, whether that would be the animal based path that, that I've chosen. Or the vegetarian or vegan pass. At least people are thinking about it. At least it's a topic of conversation. I would also say specifically the area that I live in is extremely sporty. So a lot of people have moved here for the surf. If they're not surfers, goodness, everybody is into kickboxing or hiking or whatever the outdoor activity is that you want to do here. And it's. How can I put this delicately? Obesity is almost non existent here. So if you walk around my village, there might be a few elderly people who are overweight. But when I go back to England now, I'm really shocked at the pandemic of obesity, which seems to be swamping my hometown of Manchester, and I'm sure it's not much better in other places. It's, it's incredible and it's I know it's not particularly politically correct to say, but it's something that saddens me deeply.

Yeah, I can definitely relate to that. In the US, obviously we have a lot of problems with that and being a homeschooling mom running all over the place. It's so, so. Difficult to eat healthy. I struggled so much I used to go as far as cooking something in the clay pot in the morning before I send the kids off. And. I will wrap it with three thick towels to keep the heat in because I found that that was the best way to do it. And homeschool kids, everywhere they go. It's always the four of them together. So I only have to pack one, right? So I would pack a family size clay pot with hot stew or meat or something like that, instead of making sandwiches, because I was trying to veer away from bread and deli and prepared food, no crackers, that kind of stuff. I wanted it to be fresh. And my kids would say they would be so embarrassed when there was lunchtime. And all these other kids are taking out like packaged crackers and Oreo cookies and things like that. And they open up their Lunch bag and the lid comes off and the steam comes up and then the aroma wafts through the whole room and everybody's turning their head and they're like, it's so embarrassing. Everybody's looking at us because our food is smelling up the whole place. But I try

What's embarrassing about that? Like that's, what's embarrassing about having a mum who's presented, prepared them a beautiful home cooked meal? That's lovely,

but it is, it's so, so difficult. It takes so much planning. It's so much easier to go to a grocery store, get crackers and cheese plastic wrapped things it's like 99 cents for one a lot of kids had that and then they had sweet stuff packaged candies And so my kids would swap their fresh food for the candies and sweet things because mom wouldn't give them any you know. And since entering the bitcoin space and really relooking at how meat is sourced, especially in the grocery stores. I think that was the biggest wake up call for me because now I try not to buy meat from grocery stores. If I can help it, I get it from the farmers directly. And that's just not something that I would have questioned before.

Are you aware of the beef initiative in in Texas climate and you're nodding away vigorously there. Yeah, that's nice to see. Yeah. It would be wonderful to have that kind of thing in in Europe as well. And there are some guys up north who are busy up the north of Portugal that is who are busy trying to kind of, I'm not going to say replicate that system because Obviously, the Beef Initiative is based in Texas and there just is no comparison between Portugal and Texas. It's a radically different country very different cows, different crops, different landscape, even a different postal system. So it's not easy to, to try to get that kind of initiative going here, but they're doing a great job of raising awareness of the importance of knowing where your meat comes from and it's funny in the next village up from me, whenever I drive there, that's where I was clearing after the fires today. And whenever I drive there, there are these beautiful herds of cattle on either side of the road. And, well, my mouth is just watering, basically. I'm thinking, I'm thinking, where can I buy this meat? So now I'm starting to put feelers out in the local community but even in Portugal, the slaughter system is really regulated and, you know, I mean, to some extent, probably rightly so. I mean Obviously, it's a sensitive topic, but it seems that it is possible to contact local farmers, get together with a bunch of friends, basically ask them for the slaughter of one cow, and divide that up between a group of interested parties. So I'm definitely looking into that possibility for later in the year. That'd be nice.

Yeah, for sure. I was trying to do the calculation too. So right now We still have two kids staying with us. Two of them just left for college and so I was calculating like what if I bought a whole cow it just means that I need to have two freezers and then I will just be set for the whole year and then I don't have to go look for it somewhere And you get all the different parts of the cow, you get the tendons, you're looking at me crazy. Like, you don't eat the

no.

You gotta eat the tendons.

Yeah.

Mm hmm.

Yeah. No, I completely agree with you. It's, I'm just a little tiny bit intimidated by the cooking prospect of getting like hung or, you know, there are some parts of the cow that I feel extremely confident cooking like steak and ribs. And, but the, the other kind of the parts of the cow that here in Europe, at least we don't commonly get from the butcher or the supermarkets. I'm not sure I would know how to cook a cow's, I don't know, brain or a,

I don't know how to cook a cow's brain either. Actually, my mom would know how to cook the various organs. Because there's like, the cooking time is very, very different. But tendons I can cook because you just stir it in with your roast beef. And it just roasts down and then it just becomes this gooey mess and it's the gelatin that you want. Anyway.

Right. Yeah. Yeah. Fantastic stuff. I'm a big fan of bone broth as well. I love my, here in Portugal, I'm always quite happy that you can buy parts of the chicken that you definitely can't in Northern Europe. So I have packets in the fridge. I've got one now, actually, which it's chicken thighs and breasts and everything and wings, but it's also the feet and, you know, some of the organs. And I love that this makes this kind of, thick. If I cook that low and slow, that will make me this gorgeous kind of gelatinous mess, you might say. If I put it in the fridge, it looks like jelly, you know, you can, you can wiggle it like this. But I can feel how good that is for me. I just, I love it.

Yeah Yeah, for sure. I'm gonna move on to the next topic You mentioned that the fiat system affects the entire society, but also in the genders differently So, can you expand a little bit more about that?

I certainly can. I am well aware though, Tali, that what I have to say on that is Probably not very mainstream and perhaps not particularly welcome. I've lost quite some friends on this topic. And that's, that's a sad thing. I guess I would say that I'm quite a traditional woman. I, I love being a woman. I am so proud to have raised two girls who love being women. And I'm so proud that they both say that when they're adults they want to be mothers. I think that's. So normal, and even just those basic, I think, I just think that the state of society at the moment, and I blame the money, has taken us to some really radically, what can I say, some terribly sad situations. So, I'll give you two examples. I actually lost a group of friends because we were having a craft evening. So back in Amsterdam, I organized like a handcraft group. I love handcraft. I love making things. I used to, when my daughters still thought it was cool. In fact, no, it's true. My, my daughters still think it's cool to wear clothes that their mum made. But when they were little kids, you know, I used to love. knitting them sweaters with monsters on, or, you know, whatever they fancied. Or, or crocheting them little mermaids or bears or whatever they wanted. And I used to do that with some female friends. Now, you'd think that women that were attracted to, to that kind of activity would be also quite traditional in their mindset. But we, at one point, had a conversation in which we started talking about gender roles. And I was so surprised by the things that they were saying about women in the workforce, women in the home, men in the workforce, men in the home, that I tried rolling it back to a very, very basic scenario. I basically said, look, can we at least agree, if you're, as a woman, you're alone in the woods with a man, and there's wood that needs to be chopped, and there's food that needs to be cooked, can we at least agree That it will be at least much more efficient if the man with the massively superior muscle power chops the wood, right? Seems to me a no brainer. And I won't bore you with the entire story, but essentially I lost a group of friends over that conversation. Yeah, because there was a sense that, you know, the woman should be allowed to chop the wood if she wanted to chop the wood. The man might be better cook than the woman, so he should maybe be able to do It was a very strange conversation and it kind of escalated into a bit of a general discussion of women's roles and yeah, and it, I I just feel that it's brought us to a, such, we're in such a strange situation in which things that I would take very much for granted in terms of gender roles are no longer taken at, taken for granted, no longer even. permissible and that that has had a series of knock on effects. I was cooking food. So at the moment there's there have been huge wildfires in my area and It's been amazing. In fact, I just finished writing an article for Bitcoin Magazine about the power of community and what happens when people govern themselves. And it's just been, it's, it's been overwhelming to see. So a lot of people have lost their homes and what's happened is that groups of people have come together to cook for the people who've lost their homes and to help them clear their land. Now I've been doing a little bit of land clearance as well. But although I'm quite sporty, I'm also 50 kilos and perhaps have half the muscle power of most of the guys, especially the surfer guys in, in my neighborhood. So I feel that my capacity there, although I have the best will in the world, is relatively limited. So I've been alternating a bit between land clearances and cooking in the community kitchens. Also an interesting point. So the food which has been being provided until now has been vegan. So that's been an interesting one as well. So yesterday I brought a nice big pot of stewed beef to supplement that a little bit. And that gave rise to some discussion, but all accepted. Very nice people in this area, really. So I mean, it seems to me that it's a fairly natural thing for women. of the area to cook for the community and the men to get stuck into the clearance, you know, and the women can cook for the men. It seems to me to be a fairly natural thing, but even the women that are involved in that when I speak to them about being a mother, so we were speaking yesterday about children and having children, obviously I have two daughters, and I was just I was really saddened yesterday, after my time in the kitchen, to hear that a lot of the young women around me, they don't want that. They don't want to be mothers. I mean, obviously, there are others who do. And indeed who are, but but it's not uncommon now for, for young women to be saying, well, I think I would not want to be a mother. And I just find that really sad. I just, I'm sure you'll, you'd say as well as the mother of four children. Um, it's such a privilege.

I just wonder What about the fiat system do you think, because you're a historian, has driven women from Where we were a very short time ago to suddenly being a woman was not okay, or even being a man was not okay, you have to be like, both at the same time,

Yeah. Well, and here again, I'm aware that my views could be a bit controversial, but I think, I think the whole issue around not being proud to be a man or not being proud to be a woman, I just think that's just so tragic. And the entry of men into women's sports, I mean, come on, it's ridiculous. It's, it's like a joke. It's just like a joke. But I do think that there are some common themes when I speak to women like that. And I certainly, I don't, I'm so tentative about all of this, I don't want to offend anybody. If, if I'm, if I'm

it's it's, okay for you to speak freely, because if they don't like what you're saying, they can just hop off. I think it's really interesting for us to discuss it openly, because there's nowhere else We're allowed to discuss this at all and I actually agree with what you're saying and my daughters will agree with what you're saying So it's actually refreshing to hear it from your side as well and from what you're observing so I mean, I, I have an answer in my head about what brought us here in regards to money. But I wanted to see what you think as a historian. And then of course I mean, I can talk about this very strange feminine Movement or the no gender gender doesn't count kind of movement, whatever they call it They call it pride, but I don't think it's pride really it's almost like the lack of pride. You can't be prideful about Anything at all whatsoever even being a woman like my girls would say I love it when a man is being gentlemanly, like if he pulls out my chair or if he opens the door, I love that, but the boys are afraid to do it. My daughter went grocery shopping with her college friends. One time she slipped on the floor, fell down and her male friend was afraid to offer her a hand. Because he didn't want to offend her and she was like, why are you not helping me? He goes, well, I don't want to offend you. She goes, I want you to help me get back up And then he helped because there's so much fear that has been instilled into these young people they don't know what to do Even the most basic the friend has fallen down if it's a male friend, they would have helped if it's a female friend Oh, no, they can't help them because they might be insulting their women power It's so backwards. But let's talk about how money like brought us here.

Yeah, I mean, well, I think that there are several levels of it, but I would focus on two. I do think that the fiat system on, on a more superficial level I definitely think that, you know, that the fem well, is it even feminism? I mean, and true feminism wanted fairness, right? And nobody's going to argue with fairness, but fairness does not does not equal equality. That's not what fairness means in, in my head. And I think that's the, the dreadful mistake that was made in the 70s and 80s. It doesn't necessarily mean that women should be doing the same work as the men. You know, I think that that's the mistake. The idea became... Very, very prominent that women should be doing the same work as men. I think we went badly wrong. And I mean, I definitely remember as a little girl in the 80s, I remember the magazine covers, you know, the models on magazine covers. And they'd have this kind of, they'd have the big hair. They'd have the big 80s hair. And they'd have these big shoulder pads. You know, and they'd be wearing these kind of power suits and, and it was very strange. I mean, the message that, that I as a little girl was given really was that you've got to want to, you've got to want it all. You've got to be able to do it all. You've got to be the same as the men in the workplace and you've got to be a mother and a wife and you've got to look 10 years younger than you are and this and this and this and this. And I just think that's an incredibly confused message to give to little girls and not a very positive one either. I think that fiat has had a huge impact on that. I mean, that's, that's the money system in general, the hamster wheel. The older I get, the more I think that perhaps getting women into the workplace is simply a tax scam. So the governments could tax the other 50 percent of the population as well. I don't think... There's a coincidence there, I really don't. I think it's had a very corrosive effect on families, I think it's had a very damaging effect on women. I do think that fiat goes very deep philosophically as well. The high time preference, the lack of ability to commit from both genders, I think is very much connected to high time preference and fiat. So if I, just to go back to the women that I was talking about, who don't want to become mothers, what they have, it seems to me, just from an external point of view, the, the common theme that they have throughout their stories is that they have not been able to rely on men. There is absolutely no man in their life who has been capable of and willing To play a traditional male role and the traditional male role is to protect and provide most men it seems to me have been to think that it's okay not to protect and not to provide. And I think that that's been incredibly damaging. They think there seems to be some kind of expectation now that everybody flits from one relationship to another. They have not had men in their lives on whom they can build a solid foundation. And that's crucial. And they've been let down so often that what they've, from the female point of view, and look, I'm well aware that this is, this is strange and controversial to say, but it seems to me that what these, these women have almost taken the decision to do is to see Their relationships with men as only having a sexual aspect, basically because the men have not lived up to anything else. So what these women have decided to do is eliminate the importance of a male figure through their lives, and they start flitting from man to man as well, which I think becomes such a vicious cycle. You know, the women see men as unable to provide a genuine male role in their lives or fulfill a genuine male role in their lives. And men start to see women as a fairly temporary investment because because of this or because of that, because the women themselves have become unwilling to commit. And it's just a horrible cycle. Nobody benefits, you know.

I think that there's such a fine line to balance being protected and being dominated, The two concepts, I think that a lot of women are fighting against the dominance part, but in so doing, they lost the protection part, because that's such a fine balance that needs to be achieved. And I can see it myself. So, I mean, let me see if I can give you an example. My husband, he's ex army and he had female classmates. He said, when he first went into the service and they were going to a bar together, he walked ahead of them and open the door for them. And his female classmates were like, what are you doing? He says, well, I'm being a gentleman, I'm opening the door. And they say, you don't think I can open my own door? You know, it's like, he was. Trying to show that he cared and they took it as It was a dominance thing, like it was assuming that they were weak kind of thing. So then after that, he was afraid to open doors for anybody. So that's, you know, it started even back then that was in the very early 1990s. And I was talking to my son who is now 20 and his friend and both of them were trained up by an ex marine in a junior ROTC program. And when they went out, there were two girls, two boys, they were walking on the street downtown. The boys kept the girls on the inside of the sidewalk And it was an intentional, we are protecting you. We're downtown, we're in an unknown neighborhood, and we will be your guard, kind of thing, right? And the two girls, it was my son's girlfriend and my daughter, they both noticed, and they really appreciated being protected. But,

course!

but these two were specifically trained up by the program to take on the protector role. But if the two girls have been walking with the average boy, 20, 21 year old, I doubt that they have been taught that. And so they don't do that because they are afraid of offending anyone. Well, it probably wouldn't even occur to them because being a protector is no longer a thing for boys when they're, when they're growing up. Unless you're specifically taught that, which is very uncommon. My girls they complain about it a little bit because most of their guy friends are not gentlemanly and they don't take on the protector role and they want to be protected, but not dominated That's a fine line to walk.

Of course! Very, very interesting topic of conversation. I mean, I would say... You know, again, I'd say that I have, I'm quite a traditional person, a woman in general. I do think that, that, of course women want to be protected, it's biological, it's, it's not, it's not negotiable. It's not something that, that we should be or could be trained out of. I mean, of course women are going to prefer men who are protective of us. And, you know, the providing role, I think, is very, very interesting. When I talk about providing, people associate that very much with a financial provision. But actually I think that one of the most important aspects of providing is the provision of security, safety good experiences, a sense of security and emotional and physical. Of course women are going to want that. You know, it's not rocket science. biologically programmed to, to want that. And you know, again, a fairly controversial topic is dominance, leading role. I do think that, let me put that very carefully. I do think that men have and should have a leading role. And there, there are two things I'd like to, to mention on that. I think to get, to go back again to the idea of fiat, And women who feel protected or don't feel protected and the role that fiat has played. I think fiat goes, it goes so deep into our culture. In order for a woman to give a man a leading role, several things have to be in place, right? For a start, you can't just give a leading role to every man you meet. That would be crazy. Right? It should be a partner who is absolutely committed to you. You know that he's committed to you. Otherwise, giving him a leading role, and it has to be somebody that you can look up to and trust. If you can't look up to somebody or can't trust them, giving them a leading role in your life will be self destructive. If you think this person is not a good decision maker, or I can't necessarily trust them, unfortunately, you know, giving them a leading role or relying on them, you just can't do it. It, it is too big a risk to your own personal and emotional safety, depending on what role we're talking about here. Super interesting discussion on this. Not actually linked with fiat, but I definitely saw a very interesting link. I read a book not so long ago called the United States of Fear. And you'll have to forgive me because I can't remember the author's name, but it was excellent. It was written by a psychologist, and it was essentially about the rise of Karen behavior. You know what, you know what a Karen is? Right, so you're nodding away vigorously there. So he, from a psychological perspective, was saying that Karen behavior, which is puts him kind of Simple terms for myself as well. It's the Kind of behavior in which anxiety spills over into aggression almost massive dominance So a lot of the analogies that he made were with corona. So you get people who were really inclined to insist that their neighbors did not receive visitors in their home or well the security guard if you're not wearing your mask or whatever it was and he associated Karen behavior with a massive decline in basically trust in gender relationships. He was saying that women are naturally programmed to rely upon men for, or rather he was saying that women are naturally more anxious than men and rightly so, right? Because the world does contain more hazards for women. Men tend to be stronger. So for example, if I'm out in the ocean and the waves are really big, That's a bigger threat to me than it would be for a man who, who is twice as strong and more able to, to swim and save himself than it would be for me to walk down a dark alleyway. It would be a greater risk for me. The risk of harm would be greater than it would be for a man because a possible assailant will be more likely to be able to overwhelm me than would for a man. This is fairly natural for women to be generally and naturally more anxious than men because the world does contain more threats. But he said that what has deteriorated recently is women's trust in men's ability to, and willingness to, protect them and save them. That men's natural role is to reassure women and to also set boundaries on that. anxious, controlling behavior, and to say, no you can't go around telling people what not to do, or it's going to be fine, don't worry about it. And that, that women have started to perceive men as much more inclined to simply throw them under the bus in the case of a risk and run for the hills themselves without the burden of having to protect their woman or their family. It's a very sad book, but also a very interesting one. It, for sure, it resonates. I, for sure, I thought, yeah, I definitely see threads of this in society and I blame fiat.

Yeah. If we talk about the ability to provide, and I'm going to try to link this to fiat. So if you have a trusting relationship and you have a stay at home mom, and you have a husband who's working, who is a hard worker and a good man, and whatever people are doing in the banking system. And the fiat system causes a recession or, multiple recessions and the man loses his job, right? A lot of downsizing isn't happening to people who are lazy or didn't try very hard or just made bad choices. A lot of downsizing is affecting people who have done what they believe is right and have worked hard. And so you throw that job loss into the family dynamic, and then you not only lose faith in the system because you know you've done the right things, almost maybe unconsciously, you start to lose faith that your provider can consistently provide. I wonder if that comes in and plays a role. Because of the number of recessions that we've hit over the last several decades, especially they're more frequent I, so I'll give an example. We have a friend. Her husband was an engineer and he was downsized three times in a row. Like he, he was downsized, he found another job. He was downsized again, found another job, immediately was downsized again. During that process, his wife said, you know what, that's it. We're not looking for another engineering job. We're done. So they decided to go and open a coffee house. And that turned out to be very successful, but it took a long time of struggling for them to get that coffee house up and running but it's that idea of you can't trust the system. And if your provider is part of this, we are all part of the system, but if your provider is part of the system, then it's almost like I can't trust him. Therefore I need to step up. And of course they became a dual in same business, but two people are working, right? Whereas before it was one person working in the engineering job and one was just a full time mom, but they both had to step up to start this business and got their kids involved. And it became. a matter of survival. And I don't know if that plays into the whole idea of like, I wonder what their kids are saying to themselves, maybe even subconsciously watching that, you know, dad was providing, then he wasn't able to provide, then he was providing, then he wasn't. And the mom had to step up. And now it takes both of them to provide, like, what message are they telling themselves? And what decisions might they make differently because of what they witnessed that contributes to that whole feminism and the gender movement You know what? I'm saying like if we tie it all together in a

I see exactly, I, I can see exactly what you're saying, but that's a very special case. But what I'm hearing is absolutely beautiful. I mean, this, this man, I mean, What a hero! And I could understand that that must be psychologically very, very difficult for a man and also for the woman that's got his back and who's looking after the children, to be downsized three times in a row. But what you actually said was he was downsized, then he tried again, and then he was downsized, and then he tried again, and then he was downsized again, and he was willing to keep trying. I mean, what a fighter! And instead of giving up and thinking, I can't do this, He's opened a new business together with his partner who is supporting him and helping him and that. I mean, I think it can be a bit easy to get stuck in a trap of thinking, I don't know, negatively about men, but I think that's also a very feminist. way of thinking. And, you know, it's not as if he's failed to provide for his, his family. I mean, I've been really blown away. You know, I keep going back to the fires here. I think it's because they're quite present in my mind. But you know, when the fire was really burning in the area close to, to my home I could see it. I could hear it. I could smell it. It looked, sounded, and smelled like a monster. It was terrifying. And, you know, the fact that all these guys were rushing out there to fight it. Oh my God, you know, if anybody has ever thought... What's happened to, to the real men, you know, put, put a crisis out there and you see them. I mean, these are the guys that are now, they fought the fire. These are the guys that are chainsawing and clearing and working on cleaning the land. Today, I was at the land of a family with two little kids and. What I see is that both the mum and the dad are all hands on deck with the cleaning and the clearing, but you know, it is quite beautiful to see the dad stepping up to provide a new home for the children, even if it's not financial provision. What he's doing is leveraging his network to make sure that his family is safe and secure. I just think it goes very deep and is very biological. I do definitely see the fiat attack on that, and the way that men can be undermined, but actually I think that recession is just one form of crisis, and just like in the wildfires, you know, then you do see this instinct to protect and provide coming out actually quite quite clearly, you know?

a long time ago. I came across this book called Raising Boys and it talked about how boys were not allowed to be boys anymore from the time they're very little and It's like they're being taught to be girls But also be boys, but not really like their dad kind of thing, like you can't use physical action to resolve something. You don't hit the other boy or the other child, you come to the mom or the teacher. It sounds logical because obviously we don't want school fights, but every time we tell them they can't resolve something that we need somebody else to step in, we're taking away their sense of power.

Yeah, and also I would add to that that given that mums obviously are all women and teachers are overwhelmingly women What's interestingly happening there is that they're being taught not only are you not allowed to resolve that problem? You've got to turn to a woman that the problem has to be resolved in a feminine And in a feminine paradigm. So, I mean, the levels of that message are just mind blowing and very scary. And couple that with the idea of toxic masculinity, which is kind of propagated by God knows who It's mind blowing, it really is.

yeah we can talk about it all day long cause I've got like so much more stuff to say, I want to ask you about what you mentioned before in terms of what you're doing now. You said you're doing something that is terrorism prevention. What is that and how do you do that?

so that was my previous incarnation, that was my pre Bitcoin incarnation. So I was working as a researcher for various non profit organizations and basically they worked on a kind of project basis. We looked at, we worked a lot with people who have been terrorists and stepped out of the world of terrorism, shall we put it like that? radical groups. We worked a lot with professionals who come into contact with young people who would be considered to be vulnerable to becoming radicalized. And we did it just by looking at psychological factors and social factors and all kinds of other factors which can influence radicalization and. factors which can influence the exit from radicalization. It was a fascinating job. I do think that I am still proud of what I achieved within that, that job. I do think we helped some families and family comes very, very high on my list of priorities. So I'm really proud to be able to say that. On the other hand, I also think that governments have stuck their noses in to families far too deeply and their long sticky fingers, especially during Corona and it resonated less and less with my mindset. So now at the moment I'm working on a really exciting new initiative, which I don't want to say too much about, but I'm really genuinely very excited about it. Can't wait to get it off the ground. So in, in Portugal, I've been just kind of doing my own little thing, pottering around, trying to educate people a bit about Bitcoin and how to transact and save in Bitcoin, giving information sessions here and there. This has had a lovely snowball effect. So I've become known as. A person who knows a little bit about Bitcoin, I would never call myself an expert, I never have called myself an expert on anything. And I don't think I ever will, but somebody who has enough information to be able to help people get some first steps. So, that's had the lovely effect of having people start to contact me to, to ask if they have questions. And so, so some of my kickboxing buddies, for example, Have invited me for a Bitcoin chat and we've discussed what money is and why our current system is Messed up. I nearly swore on your podcast. I'm not going to What we can do about it how we can opt out We've been talking a lot about circular economies, so one of the things I feel really passionate about doing is orange pilling the merchants in my neighbourhood, with whom I transact a lot. So for example, my daughter's surf teacher I can now pay for her surf lessons in Bitcoin, I can pay to have my hair cut in Bitcoin, I can pay my dentist. Not that I orange pilled him, he was already well orange pilled before, before I met him. But my beef producer, the lady who makes the lovely face creams that I use, etc, etc, etc. Those are the people that I feel very passionate about orange peeling and starting a circular economy with. And also starting a community with, amongst whom, issues like gender issues, and what fiat does to community, and what fiat does to women, and what fiat does to, to our social interactions. these things can be discussed. So I've been feeling very passionate about setting that up, but I've also been feeling a bit limited in my efforts. I'm obviously I'm only one person. And I think I'm looking at a way to scale up and to export the whole blueprint, as it were, to communities where that could be of immense value. And so I'm, I'm now working with a former colleague of mine, actually, from the terrorism prevention world, who's now also discovered Bitcoin and fallen absolutely down the rabbit hole. So I'm getting excited texts at like three o'clock in the morning saying, Hey, do you know what the banking system has done to us? And so on and so forth. So it's very exciting to work with somebody else who's, who's quite passionate about it all and who has an amazing network in the human rights field. So definitely looking into a very exciting new initiative there.

That sounds really awesome. Okay, so last question. Bitcoin?

get off the fence. I would say that women have a bit of a tendency to think that finances are a man's world. I think that that's a shame, a missed opportunity in spite of the fact that communications around Bitcoin can be a little bit masculine in their form. We were talking about exactly that before you started recording, and I love this initiative. Don't be intimidated by it. It's so important. It's so important. It's going to have an impact on you and your family and your future. I would say, Start learning, get involved whichever way you can, and don't make the mistake of thinking, this is a man's world and I'm going to leave it up to my man. Because we all need this. We all need to know about this. It's really important. It's really important.

All right. Thank you so much, Holly. It was wonderful to chat with you and my best wishes to that new initiative that you are rolling out. And I can't wait to hear about it. Thank you again for joining us today.

Thank you so much for the invitation. It's been a real pleasure to talk with you. I've, I've really enjoyed it. And yeah, I'd love to come back and tell you more about it when we're up and running.