Read_857 - Instant Settlement: The Construction Industry

[00:00:00] Speaker A: Imagine a sports game where different players are motivated by distinct incentives. Defenders aiming to pull the ball outside the field, midfielders prioritizing maximum passes, attackers focused on scoring the most goals, goalkeepers rewarded for saving the most shots, and coaches for the most words shouted from the bench. You can imagine that will not be an optimal team performance when they step on the field. The team winning should be prioritized over any individual player's performance. The best in Bitcoin made Audible I am Guy Swan and this is Bitcoin Audible. [00:01:00] Speaker B: What is up guys? Welcome back to Bitcoin Audible. I am Guy Swan, the guy who has read more about bitcoin than anybody else you know. [00:01:08] Speaker A: And this is the place where you. [00:01:09] Speaker B: Will learn everything about bitcoin. The economics, the open source technology, history and technology of liberty. That's what we do here. And I am Professor Guy Swan, your host for the day. And and this episode is brought to you by Fold the Fold Debit card and Bitcoin banking system. That's kind of how I think about it because it is the most essential tool in my set of being on a bitcoin standard. And every single time they release a new feature, it literally becomes that more essential. If you have not checked out Fold yet, the holiday season is the perfect time because gift cards right now they are doing boosts and, and entering a chance to win a ton of SATs by buying big like bulk gift cards for higher percent back. I think, I think Amazon has like a 4% back right now for a $500 freaking card. If you are getting holiday season stuff, you gotta check out Fold. [00:02:06] Speaker A: Well, we've got a really great read today. [00:02:09] Speaker B: This is a series that's actually been around for a while. He's actually finished the whole series and I have been meaning to get to it for so long. And it's by Ivan, who is actually from the team at Breeze, who have. We've talked about Breeze tons of times. We had Roy on the show a number of times as well. It is such a cool project. But he's also been digging into thinking about how the change in the nature of money and the nature of our monetary networks and how we interact with them and how instantly how we can. [00:02:43] Speaker A: Attach instant settlement to so many of. [00:02:46] Speaker B: The things that we have in the market economy that it actually changes how. [00:02:50] Speaker A: We think about organization. [00:02:51] Speaker B: And he's one of the only people that I have seen that have actually. [00:02:55] Speaker A: Dug into details, into specifics about what. [00:02:58] Speaker B: That change in organization might look like. So this is a really cool series. I think I'M going to read the whole thing on the show just because it's fun. There's a lot of stuff to dig into and we're going to read the part one. I mean, we won't do it back to back, but we're going to read part one of his series today, which is on Instant Settlement in the construction industry. Shout out to everyone who supports me who boosts on Fountain and zaps on Nostr. It really means a lot and you guys help support the show and keep this thing alive. So thank you so much. And with that, let's go ahead and. [00:03:32] Speaker A: Get into today's article and we will. [00:03:34] Speaker B: Talk about it in a guy's rant to follow. And it's titled. [00:04:05] Speaker A: Instant the Construction Industry by Ivan Makodonsky the first part in an article series by Ivan Makodonsky from Breez on how Lightning's Instant Settlement finality can be a disruptive force, fundamentally changing how different industries are organized As I delve deeper into the realm of Bitcoin and the Lightning Network, I am consistently struck by the potential benefits it holds for humanity. The realization of how inefficient and broken our societal structures are due to the limitations of fiat currency becomes increasingly apparent to everyone. While the spotlight often shines on the monetary aspects of Bitcoin, my exploration into the Lightning Network, spurred by my work at Breez and our company's visionary goals, has unveiled an aspect that remains largely unspoken. This hidden gem promises significant benefits for humanity, yet it requires the careful alignment of various building blocks before its full potential can be realized. I will try to illustrate individual pieces of the vision that I have for changing human behavior through the Lightning Network. Those will be examples of different visions for different industries, how they will be disrupted from their current operations, and ways of delivering the benefits of lightning to each one. I'm not sure how many industries I'll talk about, because the more I think about it, the more I see that it's connected to everything, just like bitcoin. But I will cover as many as needed so the disruptive potential can resonate with more people. Quick disclaimer I'm not an expert in any particular industry, so the examples can be improved even more from people who are experts in them. The idea is to get the disruptive potential across so people can build on them. So do not get hung up too much on the details the current problems in construction First I need to define the problems, inefficiencies and frictions before going into the disruption and the solution. I will talk about a construction project for a building because it is really easy to grasp. For this example, there are a few groups of people in the industry that are relevant for this example. Buyers of the building planners. These are people that are responsible for the visual, functional, structural and mechanical aspects of the building. Architects, designers and engineers, construction company owners, supervisors, and construction workers. Within the existing system, each of these stakeholders operates with distinct incentives aimed at optimizing individual gains, resulting in a complex interplay of motivations and a partial overlap between them. The incentives that we will keep in mind Quality, time and money. The buyer wants the building to be built to the highest quality for the least amount of time for the agreed price. With the construction company, the planners will create their plans, but they do not care if the building is built at all. If they get paid money just for. [00:07:17] Speaker B: Drafting the plans, the construction company wants. [00:07:20] Speaker A: To build it as fast as possible for the lowest price, often meaning the lowest quality possible at the agreed up price. The supervisors could be individually incentivized based on bonuses and penalties from the construction company. If they have a penalty for subpar work, that will be their incentive to want the highest quality so they can approve it easily. If they have a bonus for early completion, they will optimize the work to be fast and would not care so much about the quality. Even if they have both incentives in place, they are still partially invested. Their main income is something separate. Those are just bonuses. Construction workers want to build as slowly as possible and they do not care so much about the quality. They receive money for time and not actual work. So the slower they build it, the more profit for their efforts that they get. Looking at the individual incentives of each party involved, it becomes evident that people in the construction industry are consciously or unconsciously pursuing divergent goals. To illustrate, imagine a sports game where different players are motivated by distinct incentives. Defenders aiming to put the ball outside the field, midfielders prioritizing maximum passes, attackers focused on scoring the most goals, goalkeepers rewarded for saving the most shots, and coaches for the most words shouted from the bench. You can imagine that that will not be an optimal team performance when they step on the field. The team winning should be prioritized over any individual player's performance. Constructing unity, resolving frictions and Realigning stakeholders in the building industry in addition to these incentive misalignments, various other factors contribute to friction in the construction industry. Notably, there is an issue of workers handling of tools and machinery, which are typically owned by the construction company. This lack of ownership often leads to inadequate care, resulting in accelerated tool wear and increased costs for the company. Tensions between workers and the company may escalate, with instances of tools being intentionally damaged or stolen out of frustration. Moreover, disparities in tool quality can lead to resentment among workers, questioning why some have access to new and better tools while others are assigned worn down equipment. Compounding the challenges in the construction industry is the issue of changes requested by the owner after a structure is built. Small alterations, such as moving a window half a meter to the left do not result in additional payment, and the construction company absorbs these costs. The practice not only disrupts the workflow but also leaves workers discontented as they invest effort in redoing tasks without receiving any extra compensation. Furthermore, when planners fail to design a component correctly and builders construct it to the specifications only to face subsequent issues, there is a notable absence of accountability on the planner's part. Instead of rectifying their mistakes, planners are often rehired to redesign the element properly, creating an additional set of plans. Paradoxically, this process results in the planner earning more money despite their initial error. The burden of the mistake is shifted to others, emphasizing the lack of accountability in the current system. Just because there is a disconnect between the construction task, completion, payment the construction of a building is a time intensive process that spans beyond a few hours, and to manage the substantial financial risk involved, construction companies typically structure payments in installments. However, this approach is not without challenges. It introduces a dilemma where the construction company may be constructing portions of the project without having received full payment, or the buyer may be paying for elements that have not yet been built. This inherent tension triggers a continuous cycle of negotiation and renegotiation between the construction company and the buyer, revolving around what aspects are included in the overall price. [00:11:42] Speaker B: And what falls outside of it. [00:11:45] Speaker A: This ongoing dialogue underscores the complexities and uncertainties inherent in the payment structure within the construction industry. The root cause of the multifaceted issues in the construction industry lies in the lack of alignment among stakeholders. Drawing inspiration from Sun Tzu's wisdom in the Art of War, he will win, whose army is animated by the same spirit throughout all its ranks. You can't expect to win in any project if the whole team is facing in different directions with different motivations and goals. Bitcoin and the Lightning Network present an opportunity to bridge this gap, providing instant settlement for work done, a transformative shift that could foster a more unified and harmonious approach within the construction industry to address these issues. A potential solution emerges with the advent of Bitcoin and the lightning network. Unlike traditional payment systems, these technologies eliminate the delay between completing physical tasks such as placing a brick and receiving compensation. This instantaneous reward system has the potential to align the interest of all involved parties, fostering a shared purpose and collaborative effort towards common goals within the construction sector. Now that we have this technology, for instance, settlement like never before. The benefit of getting paid over Lightning for all the physical tasks will drastically reduce the time delay and it will have a ripple effect in so many ways. In my role at Breez, I have a unique vantage point witnessing the dedication of lightning developers as we and other companies strive to make this technology effective. Now let me paint a picture of what will happen in the construction industry but outside of the fiat system and plugged into the lightning network. Settling the payment instantly when the work. [00:13:52] Speaker B: Is done changes everything the workers reputation. [00:13:57] Speaker A: And compensation I am envisioning a bottom up transformation where workers in the construction industry would transition from receiving payment for time working to being compensated for completed tasks. Whether it's constructing a wall, assembling windows or installing the electrical system on a floor, each task earns instant payment. This shift eliminates the need for time. [00:14:24] Speaker B: Based bonuses as workers are motivated to. [00:14:26] Speaker A: Complete as many tasks as possible to accumulate satoshis. The focus for supervisors transitions solely to quality, with payments contingent on meeting established standards. By operating on a task by task payment model, companies no longer need to maintain a workforce on the payroll. Instead, tasks are posted for upcoming construction and individuals can apply complete tasks and receive immediate payment for each execution. This approach minimizes the risk of overpaying someone for subpar or slow performance. There's reduced uncertainty in the payment for the worker. Non payment results in discontinued work from the worker, creating a self regulating system. As workers accumulate more tasks, their skills improve, enabling faster task completion. A reputation system documenting task history involving time, efficiency and quality develops. This reputation becomes a valuable asset, making it easier for skilled workers to secure tasks and approval. To be clear, the reputation will be a history of all the tasks that they did, the time it took them. What was the quality at the end? Did they have to redo their work to meet the desired final result? Ultimately, this shift to a task focused instant payment system transforms the dynamics of the construction industry, fostering efficiency, quality and a merit based workforce. Tools of Empowerment Unleashing efficiency and accountability with compensation decoupled from time, individuals have a strong incentive to expedite tasks. The optimal way to achieve this acceleration is by utilizing proper tools in maintained and in prime condition. In a bitcoin standard environment, individuals can progressively invest in superior tools, fostering a personal incentive to acquire and own these resources. In a competitive scenario where two workers apply for a task, the one equipped with superior tools gains a significant advantage completing the task much faster than their counterpart. Alternatively, if a company provides tools for a task, a parallel assignment system is. [00:16:52] Speaker B: Implemented just like the task itself. [00:16:54] Speaker A: Tools are designated to specific individuals. To increase accountability, workers must submit a deposit upon taking company provided tools. This deposit substantially heightens their responsibility for the tools. Maintenance upon task completion, if the worker breaks the tools, the company utilizes the deposit to procure replacements, leaving the damaged tools with the worker. Returning the tools in the same condition prompts the company to refund the deposit and reclaim the tools. If the company declines to refund the deposit, the worker retains the tools, creating a strong incentive for workers to invest in and use their own tools rather than relying on company owned equipment. This transformative approach encourages a culture of personal responsibility and ownership in tool usage. In the current system, organizing workers presents a significant challenge. Oftentimes, one person is actively working, while eight are merely observing. Supervisors are burdened with the task of monitoring and optimizing resource allocation, differentiating between those slacking and those hustling to expedite the job. However, the system I propose transforms this dynamic. Workers become self organizing entities driven by the prospect of earning 100% of the SATs for an individual task. In this new paradigm, workers collaborating on a task receive a shared payment, but the efficiency gains from self organization can significantly reduce the time required. A senior worker might choose to take on a larger share, say 70%, while assigning a less experienced colleague to handle less skilled aspects the grunt work. This creates an equitable distribution of payments for the completion of the work. Alternatively, if a worker possesses specialized tools, they may negotiate a larger portion of the payment. Inefficiently organized teams face the risk of not securing future tasks, compelling them to either refine their coordination or face unemployment. The role of the supervisor is streamlined, focusing solely on the completion of tasks with the stipulated quality standards, rendering much of their traditional responsibilities obsolete. With this framework, Blueprints in Action, Real World Accountability, and Hands on Expertise in the proposed system, planners undergo a fundamental shift in their compensation structure. While they receive an initial 20%, the. [00:19:37] Speaker B: Percentage is an example. [00:19:39] Speaker A: It could be any percent payment upon completion of the blueprint. The majority of their compensation is contingent on the successful execution of the construction project according to the specifications outlined in their plans. This transformation aligns their incentives with the real world outcomes of the construction process. To ensure accountability and quality control, planners are required to be physically present on site during the construction phase. This hands on Involvement in overseeing the translation of their blueprints into reality serves a dual purpose. Not only does it allow them to verify that workers are adhering to the plan, but it also empowers them to make real time adjustments and improvements based on practical insights. This direct engagement with the construction process fosters a deep understanding of what works in practice, accelerating the planner's learning curve. Planners protect their work and stay committed by using cryptographic signatures on their blueprints and confirming their role in the project. If the buyer terminates the contract while following the agreed upon plan, planners should receive the remaining 80% of their payment. This approach ensures planners are more than detached blueprint creators they actively participate in turning their designs into reality. This eliminates the practice of charging for plans without actual construction, emphasizing the goal of completing the project, not just receiving the payment. Balancing Autonomy and Expertise for Seamless Project Completion in this future, with instant settlement, construction companies will play a crucial role in overseeing the entire project. Despite the increased self organization of workers and greater responsibility on planners, there remains a need for a centralized entity to ensure the seamless completion of the entire construction project process. This entity will be responsible for coordinating and tracking all resources required for each stage of the construction, as well as attracting the right individuals to perform the tasks at the right time. The beauty is that a centralized entity could be the buyer of the finished construction. This way, they are not going to pay a company to supervise and leverage this self organizing system for completing the project themselves. While many aspects of this oversight could be managed through a comprehensive app, the complexity of construction projects may require the expertise of a dedicated construction company. Buyers who may not be experts in construction management are likely to prefer hiring a professional company to ensure the successful delivery of the project. Similar to the current model of lightning nodes where anyone can set up a node but some prefer to pay fees for professional management, buyers may opt to pay construction companies for their expertise in managing the project efficiently. While some individuals might choose to use the app and manage the construction process themselves to avoid additional fees, they would also bear 100% of the responsibility for the result. The role of construction companies in this scenario becomes that of experts who streamline the construction process and provide a valuable service for those seeking a more hands off approach. Task Centric Harmony Streamlining Construction Projects with Instant Settlements in this model, the construction company essentially functions as a supervisor overseeing the project and all individuals involved act as freelancers responsible for specific tasks. Supervisors focus on checking and ensuring the quality of completed tasks. If a task meets the required standards, supervisors mark it as completed. Photograph and Report it in the app, allowing the individuals involved to receive their instant payments in satoshis and move on to the next tasks. The payment per task system not only streamlines the workflow, but also reduces the risks associated with large payments for the overall project. For example, if a buyer is unfamiliar with a construction company's reliability in maintaining high quality standards, they can conduct daily tours with supervisors based on the quality observed. The buyer approves and transfers funds for specific tasks that will be made for the next day. If the buyer decides to make changes or request a task to be redone, they must consider the associated extra cost and time delay. The construction company provides a clear price for each additional task, and upon the buyer's agreement, the settlement occurs instantly. This approach ensures transparency and fair compensation for everyone involved in the project. The flexibility for any party to terminate their relationship at any time significantly enhances the stability of the entire system. The worker can stop working if he is not paid for their last task. The supervisor or planner can refuse to pay them because the worker can't deliver quality. The buyer can refuse to pay for the same reason, or if they feel they are overpaying, they hire another company. The company can stop working because they did not receive the payment for the tasks completed that day. The risk of discontinuing value and service delivery at any point or level is significantly lower because there is minimal prepayment and minimal work is done before receiving payment. This ease of termination fosters a dynamic system where all entities involved are highly motivated to optimize their performance and deliver construction projects at the agreed upon quality or even surpassing those standards. The ability to swiftly address concerns and make changes contributes to a more efficient, an accountable construction process compared to traditional fiat based systems. This is the effect of introducing instantly settled payments and split payments in the construction industry. A person who is in the construction industry can paint an even more accurate picture of how to optimize it than. [00:26:14] Speaker B: Me because he knows so many more. [00:26:16] Speaker A: Details that the instant settlement dynamic can solve than I ever would. The key now is for someone within the industry to recognize the direction in which the future is heading and take the initiative to develop an app that can seamlessly coordinate all stakeholders. Fortunately, adapting existing apps from the Fiat system to incorporate the Lightning Network has become remarkably straightforward, requiring minimal comprehension of Bitcoin or the Lightning Network. Much like the conventional banking system, the focus shifts to leveraging instant settlement payments to resolve long standing issues. Now let's go build that app. [00:27:00] Speaker B: Sats back on everything that you purchase. [00:27:03] Speaker A: Buying Bitcoin every single time you Swipe your card by rounding up to the next dollar. Automatic stacking for any time period you want. Automatic conversion of any portion of your. [00:27:14] Speaker B: Paycheck directly into bitcoin. [00:27:17] Speaker A: Even more sats back 2%, 4%, even 10% on any of a ton of. [00:27:23] Speaker B: Gift cards from major retailers. [00:27:25] Speaker A: If you are trying to be on. [00:27:27] Speaker B: A bitcoin standard, if you want Bitcoin to be your money, I personally don't. [00:27:32] Speaker A: Have any other tool that is more. [00:27:34] Speaker B: Critical to that setup than Fold. Everybody else is like waiting for bitcoin custody and banking and all of this stuff. And I'm like, we already have a full Bitcoin banking and debit card offering and right now if you use the link that I have right down there. [00:27:49] Speaker A: In the show notes and sign up. [00:27:51] Speaker B: You get 20,000 sats for free and. [00:27:55] Speaker A: You support my work and give me 10,000 sats for signing up. I know this is an advertisement on. [00:28:02] Speaker B: My show, but I'm being 100% serious when I say seriously, if you are. [00:28:07] Speaker A: Still using a normal bank account with a normal debit card, just consider switching to Fold, lowering the barrier to basically having Bitcoin completely intertwined into all of. [00:28:19] Speaker B: Your banking and payment elements and having. [00:28:22] Speaker A: Sat back with literally everything you do. Just opening up the Fold app and. [00:28:26] Speaker B: Looking at what you can do there first. [00:28:29] Speaker A: I'm telling you it is a freaking cheat code. Check out the link. Plus tons of other affiliates and just. [00:28:35] Speaker B: Really great products and services that I have right down in the show notes. All right, so this read, I really love this. I actually want to do this entire series on instant settlement and rethinking how. [00:28:51] Speaker A: We can build out or restructure and. [00:28:54] Speaker B: Reorganize so much of the labor and workforce and how we coordinate systems and projects in the economy when we forget that that's really one of the most fundamental and impactful ways that fundamental changes in networks and systems have fundamental changes in society. It's not because it just arbitrarily causes. [00:29:21] Speaker A: Everything to get better. It's because incentives align and people rethink. [00:29:25] Speaker B: And redesign structures and our organizing our networks, which that's what a business is, it's just a network. [00:29:35] Speaker A: It enables us to redesign them so that their incentives are more strongly aligned. [00:29:42] Speaker B: With what actually needs to get done. [00:29:45] Speaker A: And this is why when you change. [00:29:47] Speaker B: Something at the most systemic level and money itself is the base layer of society, it is the most foundational of. [00:29:56] Speaker A: All of pretty much all of the. [00:29:58] Speaker B: Networks, you can kind of put it right next to language and you can't. [00:30:03] Speaker A: Even put it Next to culture, it kind of has to come after culture, because culture. Or, excuse me, underneath culture, because culture. [00:30:09] Speaker B: Is a consequence of our ability to scale, interact, and actually sustain trust in. [00:30:16] Speaker A: A societal or a social environment. So culture couldn't possibly be what it. [00:30:23] Speaker B: Is today without a monetary foundation. And I mean it in the sense of, like, just scaling. If we're looking back, like, 2,000 years. [00:30:32] Speaker A: And the inability to have kind of. [00:30:33] Speaker B: A, you know, cross ocean culture or communication, and the fact that all of our networks, our technological networks, our communication networks, actually create a baseline for what. [00:30:46] Speaker A: Is possible in the merging and evolution of the social sphere. And ultimately, money is one of the most quintessential scaling technologies of a society, of civilization. [00:31:00] Speaker B: This is why it's so hard to put anything below it in the hierarchy. [00:31:05] Speaker A: Of the importance of everything. [00:31:07] Speaker B: Because if whatever it is that you. [00:31:10] Speaker A: Value or find to be an innovation. [00:31:13] Speaker B: Or a system that is critical or beneficial to humanity, if it couldn't exist. [00:31:20] Speaker A: In a society or a civilization, in. [00:31:22] Speaker B: A group of people that was only able to scale to 200 or 500 people, if it essentially required the scaling. [00:31:32] Speaker A: To a million, 100 million billions of. [00:31:34] Speaker B: People working together and coordinating in an. [00:31:37] Speaker A: Economic system for that degree of innovation or that evolution or the specificity of what it is that they designed or. [00:31:44] Speaker B: The problem that they solved, if it wasn't possible without that scale of society, then it's not possible without money. [00:31:51] Speaker A: It is money, explicitly, that enables the level of specialization and attention devoted to any single small idea. And then the accumulation of billions of. [00:32:03] Speaker B: Small ideas can lead to shifts that. [00:32:06] Speaker A: Change the structure and framing of our mental models for everything and how it should have worked. [00:32:13] Speaker B: And then it causes these larger fundamental. [00:32:15] Speaker A: Shifts lower down in the societal stack. [00:32:19] Speaker B: Which then ripples back up for another century into changing and re. [00:32:25] Speaker A: Specializing every layer above it. And this is such a great example. [00:32:29] Speaker B: Of how when you change the money and the. The operation, the critical elements and incentives. [00:32:39] Speaker A: Of how the monetary structure and how the payment structure works, suddenly things that. [00:32:45] Speaker B: Never made economic sense or never made. [00:32:48] Speaker A: Financial sense from the context of what. [00:32:51] Speaker B: You can build suddenly become possible. I think one of the interesting pieces that illuminates this. [00:32:58] Speaker A: What was it? It was about time. [00:33:00] Speaker B: Bitcoin and time. But it's not. [00:33:03] Speaker A: It's not their gigi's piece. It was. [00:33:07] Speaker B: Man. [00:33:08] Speaker A: Maybe it was. Maybe it was their GG's piece. [00:33:11] Speaker B: No, no, no. This was like an older one. This was on, like. This is the Nakamoto Institute, I think. I'll try to find it. I can't remember the piece off the top of my head, I think it was like a Zabo piece or something because it was talking about the history of clocks and like bell towers and talking about how when the creation of the, the local bell tower, it actually ended up solving tons of internal and personal disputes in work arrangements and schedules because it gave a consensus on what. [00:33:48] Speaker A: Time was within the range that you could hear the bell tower. [00:33:52] Speaker B: So you could. So rather than getting, you know, if nobody had a watch on their wrist or, and there was no like universal sense of time, well then one person could be like, oh, well, you know, I worked from sun up to sundown. And then the employer can say oh, you didn't work exactly that amount of time. You, you basically can dispute exactly what. [00:34:15] Speaker A: What period of time that is. [00:34:17] Speaker B: And with the bell tower is that everybody is actually working off the same clock. So you can say, I will work from this bell to this bell. [00:34:28] Speaker A: And it doesn't actually matter if the bell is perfectly accurate. What it does to solve the dispute. [00:34:35] Speaker B: Or negate the conflict before it even arises is ensure that everybody has the exact same points in which they are. [00:34:43] Speaker A: Starting and stopping and to measure from. [00:34:45] Speaker B: And then because it's also a global. [00:34:47] Speaker A: Consensus in the sense that, that the entire town is listening to the bell. [00:34:51] Speaker B: Tower and referencing everything off of the bell towers signal, well then there's not. [00:34:58] Speaker A: Any good way to cheat it because. [00:35:00] Speaker B: You, you, there's, there's no way to. [00:35:02] Speaker A: Single you out or your situation out. It requires consensus from the entire group, from the entire town. [00:35:10] Speaker B: So if you want to try to move it a little bit in your favor, it's just not going to work because it's a global, it's a broadcast signal that everyone is then relying on. So essentially the benefit and the cost of manipulating it or corrupting that signal is essentially negated. It doesn't really make a whole lot of sense. But what was really crazy about that piece and digging into this history was thinking about how something that seems so. [00:35:43] Speaker A: Small or seemingly arbitrary can have such a huge difference preventing conflict in preventing. [00:35:51] Speaker B: Real conflict to the point that it just becomes the norm that you would suspect that that sort of conflict just doesn't arise. And it's not because there is no. [00:36:02] Speaker A: The nature of the conflict is such. [00:36:04] Speaker B: That like people just agree on these things. [00:36:06] Speaker A: Quite the opposite. [00:36:07] Speaker B: It's just that you have such a totem that is so easily verifiable and so universal that there's never any reason to dispute it. You just look like an idiot or you look, you're you're obviously dishonest. The ability to make it clear where someone is being dishonest or where someone. [00:36:27] Speaker A: Is mistaken prevents all of this discommunication. [00:36:31] Speaker B: Or miscommunication between people that is the source of so many of the battles. [00:36:37] Speaker A: And problems and frictions and costs in society. It's about the fact that it's hard to work with other people. It just is. [00:36:47] Speaker B: So when you have some sort of a technology that can fundamentally realign or adjust certain incentives so that people have. [00:36:57] Speaker A: The same foundation to work off of. [00:36:59] Speaker B: The same truth or reality about who. [00:37:02] Speaker A: Has been paid or what has been done. [00:37:04] Speaker B: And the lower that technology is in the stack, the more it has an. [00:37:09] Speaker A: Incredible and almost invisible but such a profound change on the entire society that just keeps going up levels over and over. [00:37:20] Speaker B: It'll attack the next hierarchy or the next level up in the hierarchy of the production process, in the goods that are acquired and how and how agreements are made. [00:37:31] Speaker A: And then that shifts their thinking for the next up the line. [00:37:35] Speaker B: And then they build their own systems and they work with people who use those new agreements. Like all of these things like Fiverr, Amazon. Like we don't quite realize how much or at least I think a lot of people don't recognize in the day. [00:37:48] Speaker A: To day just how fundamentally so many of our systems have already changed just because of the Internet. [00:37:54] Speaker B: Like the idea that we could look up a reputation score or ratings on certain products is absolutely wild. [00:38:02] Speaker A: And this is exactly why I think. [00:38:04] Speaker B: Nostr and the idea of holding your own keys and having your own quote unquote sovereign space in this environment is. [00:38:11] Speaker A: So important because it provides an authentication layer. It provides a way for your web. [00:38:15] Speaker B: Of trust to be, to be a. [00:38:19] Speaker A: Critical filter and weight for your trust in those ratings. [00:38:23] Speaker B: You know, if it's got like 6,000 ratings but only a thousand of them. [00:38:27] Speaker A: Are two steps removed from your web of trust. [00:38:30] Speaker B: And maybe the difference in the rating. [00:38:33] Speaker A: Between those things is completely polar opposite. Maybe the ones that are two steps removed in your web of trust all gave it a 2. [00:38:39] Speaker B: And then these other 5,000 reviews that you don't even know where they came from all gave it a 5. This is kind of the fundamental idea behind Satslantis and the stuff that Alex. [00:38:50] Speaker A: Fetzky and their crew are building. [00:38:51] Speaker B: It's so. And I think it is the fundamental like, just like the original ratings and the original retweet and like button and these things when the Internet first emerged. [00:39:03] Speaker A: And social media first emerged and E. [00:39:04] Speaker B: Commerce first emerged were critical like 10x. [00:39:08] Speaker A: Multipliers I think the web of trust. [00:39:11] Speaker B: Weighted ratings, the social web as a. [00:39:15] Speaker A: Form of filter for what you believe is the truth on the Internet, is. [00:39:19] Speaker B: That 10x improvement that is subtle, that is simple, and that will align things properly. And that is exactly the sort of building block needed to then make something. [00:39:30] Speaker A: Like Ivan is breaking down here completely possible. [00:39:34] Speaker B: Because you combine that with Fiverr and you put it in an open marketplace. [00:39:38] Speaker A: Rather than some centralized platform and suddenly. [00:39:41] Speaker B: You'Ve changed the nature of what a business is. Because all a business is is a network to organize people that you find. [00:39:49] Speaker A: Reliable to accomplish some sort of a task. [00:39:52] Speaker B: But there's no reason at all that the way that we would do it today or the way that we've been doing it for a long time is still the optimal way. In fact, the amount of change that. [00:40:04] Speaker A: We have had in our communication networks, in our ability to organize without some. [00:40:09] Speaker B: Corporate structure, our ability to get work done directly, peer to peer in this hobbyist and kind of a gig economy. [00:40:17] Speaker A: Suggests that we are missing some really. [00:40:20] Speaker B: Big shifts that could change in how. [00:40:23] Speaker A: We think of organizing a million people. [00:40:25] Speaker B: To a single project or 10,000 people. [00:40:28] Speaker A: To a single project. [00:40:29] Speaker B: And scaling, that is how you accomplish things in a new way that were. [00:40:36] Speaker A: Never possible in any other way. [00:40:39] Speaker B: That kind of scaling is the stuff that just makes phenomenal things that just seem completely impossible to even imagine possible. Now the big challenge in my thinking. [00:40:54] Speaker A: Is how do you break stuff up into tasks? Because it's not quite. [00:40:58] Speaker B: I mean, obviously Ivan has just kind of broken down the general idea of. [00:41:06] Speaker A: How you could implement these things and why it's. [00:41:09] Speaker B: It's possible with a. You know, actually there's. There's something that I think I feel like we should cover is talking about how it is that the arrangement with. [00:41:21] Speaker A: With banking, finance and all of the. [00:41:23] Speaker B: Different middlemen that you have to have a middleman inside of the middlemen in order to organize like a project like this. [00:41:31] Speaker A: Because so much of it is literally. [00:41:33] Speaker B: Just about making decisions and navigating or coordinating the money itself, like how the resources are actually spent and where they go. [00:41:45] Speaker A: But a surprising amount of the limitations. [00:41:49] Speaker B: And design is actually built around the. [00:41:52] Speaker A: Control and flow of money. Because so much of the actual resources. [00:41:57] Speaker B: Have to also mirror the control and. [00:41:59] Speaker A: Flow of the money. Because money is basically the mirror of all resources that get used. So when you change, the reason it. [00:42:07] Speaker B: Is that when you change the nature. [00:42:09] Speaker A: Of money and you have tools like multisig, you have tools like lightning, and. [00:42:14] Speaker B: You can get instant settlement, the reason. [00:42:16] Speaker A: Things change so Fundamentally is because you. [00:42:19] Speaker B: Can now rearrange how your resources, your tasks and your projects are completed in the same way that you can now. You can now control and distribute the money itself. And I think a big part of this will be certain layers having to let go of control. And this is where a big part of it comes in, is when people have control, they are more likely to want things done their way, or they are more likely to think that their oversight or their direct interference in some. [00:42:57] Speaker A: Other part of the process is going. [00:42:59] Speaker B: To create better results, even though there may be a lot of indication that. [00:43:04] Speaker A: That'S not the case. But because of their incentive, they want to take advantage of that control. [00:43:10] Speaker B: And one of the elements of where. [00:43:12] Speaker A: And how you distribute money and where and how you distribute tasks, the completion. [00:43:17] Speaker B: Of tasks is actually about the removal of the hierarchy, control, hierarchy of control. [00:43:24] Speaker A: Or the distribution of it, essentially the. [00:43:27] Speaker B: Ladder, so that you don't have someone who is. You have more control at the individual layer and at the individual task and more responsibility and autonomy with the people who are actually completing those things, because. [00:43:42] Speaker A: Your feedback is more direct. [00:43:45] Speaker B: One of the things Ivan points out, kind of towards the beginning of this is. And this is true, it's funny. [00:43:51] Speaker A: This is why I think he applied. [00:43:53] Speaker B: This thinking to so many different industries and so many different models of organization like businesses and types of work, is that quote. [00:44:03] Speaker A: The root cause of the multifaceted issues in the construction industry lies in the. [00:44:07] Speaker B: Lack of alignment among stakeholders. [00:44:10] Speaker A: Drawing inspiration from Sun Tzu's wisdom in the Art of War, he will win, whose army is animated by the same spirit throughout all its ranks. You can expect to win in any project if the whole team is facing. [00:44:25] Speaker B: You can't expect to win. [00:44:27] Speaker A: Excuse me, in any project, if the whole team is facing in different directions with different motivations and different goals. [00:44:34] Speaker B: And I really liked his analogy. I thought this was just a fantastic analogy, actually. The analogy of the sports team trying. [00:44:43] Speaker A: To win the game. Because obviously the goal of any project. [00:44:46] Speaker B: Is to complete a solid, workable, valuable project. In the obvious example of construction, it's building a building that serves its purpose, that lasts and is an asset for its application indefinitely. [00:45:01] Speaker A: But his analogy was a sports team. [00:45:03] Speaker B: Where attackers, like forwards, are paid per goal that they make. Where goals, goalies are paid per. Per the number of goals that they stop. [00:45:17] Speaker A: Coaches are paid for the number of instructions they yell from the sidelines. Midfielders are paid for the number of. [00:45:24] Speaker B: Passes that they make, and so on and so forth. You could see how quickly this gets out of line. [00:45:29] Speaker A: Because the midfielders just want to control. [00:45:31] Speaker B: The ball and whether or not they score is irrelevant. Whereas the goalie wants people to try. [00:45:36] Speaker A: To score on him because it doesn't matter if they lose by 15 points if he stops 30 goals. [00:45:42] Speaker B: This is such a great analogy for the situation like the planner and the engineer and the people who are designing these things not being attached to their actual construction and the limited ability to. [00:45:54] Speaker A: Actually learn from their own faults. [00:45:57] Speaker B: You don't even have a feedback mechanism. And this is something that I personally have like huge problems with. It drives me crazy because engineers are. So does the math problem work out? Rather than intuition and failing to recognize the number of times where they're not able to actually account for like dozens, hundreds of factors, oftentimes in the way that they calculate, the calculation is necessarily a model, not the truth. And if they don't properly apply the model or the situation that they are. [00:46:32] Speaker A: In, they're going to get bad results. [00:46:34] Speaker B: Or they're going to get results that don't line up with reality. And this is something that, as someone who does things and builds things and has done that for many years in the past and my brother as well, and when they worked for the race team, this is something that we've run into so many different times. Like, for example, in my basement, I had to deal with an engineer, young guy, I'm sure he thought he was the best thing in engineering that's ever come up. And what sucks about this, and you know, this is an element that Ivan, I think, doesn't really take strong notice of or doesn't really apply properly, is. [00:47:12] Speaker A: In how difficult it is. [00:47:14] Speaker B: I mean, he's completely right that the model he proposes lowers the barrier to exit and or entry by a huge degree, which is why so many of. [00:47:24] Speaker A: His points still apply. [00:47:26] Speaker B: But having someone just come into the. [00:47:28] Speaker A: Middle of a project or build one. [00:47:30] Speaker B: Task without knowing the relevance, like without some, like, extremely thorough record and system of basically getting them into the middle of the project and completing that task, they could have so much context. That's like really difficult. [00:47:45] Speaker A: And onboarding someone new into a project. [00:47:48] Speaker B: Who doesn't know its history means you have to do a bunch of sunk cost over again. Like it might take you days or weeks to get somebody allocated or acclimated to a project and then you have. [00:48:00] Speaker A: To do that all over again if. [00:48:01] Speaker B: You find out that they're not good at working with your crew or with your project in particular, like they're not. [00:48:08] Speaker A: Aligned with the goals or they don't. [00:48:10] Speaker B: Have a good enough, they don't pay. [00:48:13] Speaker A: Good enough attention to the quality, et cetera, et cetera. [00:48:16] Speaker B: So that's always something to consider. And it's also why long term arrangements, I think, will not go away. I think what it leads to is. [00:48:25] Speaker A: A smaller subset of long term arrangements. [00:48:28] Speaker B: Where you're just paying for someone's like long term association or organization with the project. And then a bulk of the, a significant amount of the other tasks and. [00:48:43] Speaker A: The grunt work can be delineated out task by task. [00:48:47] Speaker B: Because part of a longer term arrangement and a deeper arrangement between two workers. [00:48:54] Speaker A: Is that you want them to stay with your project. [00:48:57] Speaker B: You don't want them to just jump, jump from project to project on task to task, because their affiliation, their association, and they're the base of their knowledge. [00:49:07] Speaker A: From working with you in the past. And having been with the project for a year already, because some of these. [00:49:12] Speaker B: Are huge projects, is itself valuable enough. [00:49:16] Speaker A: To take a loss on keeping them around when they might not be needed. So I don't think this model can. [00:49:22] Speaker B: Change the entire stack of the organizational system, but it does specifically allow people. [00:49:29] Speaker A: To arrange themselves and voluntarily associate and. [00:49:34] Speaker B: Build internal teams and things outside of. [00:49:38] Speaker A: The business and corporate structure or basically. [00:49:41] Speaker B: In their own structure. So it may very well be that. [00:49:45] Speaker A: Certain teams will just associate with others. [00:49:48] Speaker B: So, you know, if you hired these guys to do the Sheetrock, they're also going to be like, listen, you need. [00:49:53] Speaker A: To get these guys to do your wiring. [00:49:55] Speaker B: Because, because I'm telling you, they're fantastic to work with and it's great to have them on site because we're very good at, you know, playing off of each other. Like there will be loose teams and loose like associations that get that kind of naturally emerge in the associations and the networks themselves. [00:50:14] Speaker A: It's very much like a web of. [00:50:15] Speaker B: Trust sort of thing. I would expect it least. But going back to the engineers and the planners thing, I like the idea of a payment, a partial payment for the blueprint and then continued like actually. [00:50:29] Speaker A: Holding off the remainder until those plans. [00:50:33] Speaker B: Are actually implemented in the real world. And funny, this is actually something that. [00:50:36] Speaker A: Wouldn'T even necessarily need. [00:50:40] Speaker B: Bitcoin per se. [00:50:42] Speaker A: In order to accomplish this is just. [00:50:44] Speaker B: Something that needs to freaking happen now one way or the other, sats or no sats and who need to have feedback directly with the project. So going back to the idea of like, you know, the engineer that I had in the basement is they basically would not approve the changing out of our pillars. So we had one of the big things that we had in the crawl space was there were five pillars down the middle of the house because there's basically a big like double or triple beam with joists running to the back of the house and then joist running. [00:51:20] Speaker A: To the front of the house. [00:51:21] Speaker B: So it was running all down the center and there were five about every. I don't know, there weren't huge gaps, but say maybe 8 or 10ft or something. I'm not sure. There was a pillar that was a. [00:51:36] Speaker A: Two block by two block pillar. [00:51:38] Speaker B: So this thing was big and with five of them, it took out a. [00:51:42] Speaker A: Massive amount of the floor space. [00:51:44] Speaker B: And it also specifically limited kind of. [00:51:47] Speaker A: The size of the rooms that you could have down there. [00:51:50] Speaker B: So one of the very first things we did is we took out was, was to take out every one of those pillars and then put steel beams up underneath the. Basically the joists and the triple beam. [00:52:03] Speaker A: That were bridged with two steel posts from the middle. [00:52:07] Speaker B: So there were three beams that spanned. [00:52:09] Speaker A: The same distance as the five previously. [00:52:12] Speaker B: And there were little, I think they're 8 inch diameter steel posts that were. [00:52:18] Speaker A: Embedded directly into the concrete and had. [00:52:21] Speaker B: You know, engineering block and all this stuff underneath them to hold them up. [00:52:24] Speaker A: And then they were all welded together. [00:52:25] Speaker B: So it's far more structurally, I mean, like far more structurally sound than when we got it. In fact, those posts were sinking that the previous cement posts were sinking in the, in the ground because it was staying wet underneath the house, because it was all. [00:52:39] Speaker A: It just, it was a mess. But regardless, we did that. [00:52:42] Speaker B: And then when we wanted to put up walls and basically get a permit to put down the concrete and everything, they decided that to dig out the extra foot or so of clay underneath underneath the house, even though it was already an eight foot freaking crawl space, suddenly it wasn't up to code. And suddenly you, you could not do this without it all collapsing in on itself. And this code had been updated at some point in the history, like in the 20 years, 25 years or whatever. [00:53:15] Speaker A: That the house had been around and. [00:53:17] Speaker B: Essentially all of the block, if it was over like 4ft tall or something, had to be backfilled with concrete. Now I'm not even generally disagreeing with that sentiment. [00:53:28] Speaker A: The house was very cheaply built and some reinforcement was probably in order. [00:53:34] Speaker B: It was probably beneficial to have. And I didn't argue with the overall problem, but it also wasn't a very long span. [00:53:43] Speaker A: There was already an eight foot wall. [00:53:45] Speaker B: And had been there for a really long time. [00:53:48] Speaker A: And that was not the problem with any of it. [00:53:51] Speaker B: That was not it wasn't even cracking. [00:53:53] Speaker A: None of the issues were on the wall that they said were going to be the issues. You could see where the issues were. [00:53:59] Speaker B: And the real problem was that everything. [00:54:02] Speaker A: Was sinking, partly because of how terrible. [00:54:05] Speaker B: The ground was underneath the house. [00:54:07] Speaker A: Everything's just clay where I live, and it's awful. [00:54:10] Speaker B: But then also because the footing was total trash, we completely excavated to waterproof the front side and down the side of the house, and the footing wasn't even a footing. I don't even understand how you get away with this. I don't understand how any of this happens. Like, anybody who's ever dug a foundation and has seen one, like, you make. [00:54:37] Speaker A: Very sharp lines, you make it wide. [00:54:39] Speaker B: And you dig out a trench that. [00:54:41] Speaker A: Is the entire foundation you put in. [00:54:44] Speaker B: Steel, because this is the thing that everything else sits on. Then you build a wall on top. [00:54:49] Speaker A: Of it, and it's also the thing that needs to be level. [00:54:52] Speaker B: I'm not even kidding you. None of this. It looked like somebody just dug a kind of a trench with, like, a round. Like a normal, like, scoop shovel. Did not even slightly flatten the bottom of it. Like, literally just dug a trench. Like, you would just, you know, put your foot in the ground, just rip it up and then keep going forward and then poured just heavy rock concrete into this. [00:55:18] Speaker A: There was no form. It was completely inconsistent all the way down the thing. [00:55:23] Speaker B: There were areas where it was thin. There was areas where it was deep. [00:55:25] Speaker A: There was fat. [00:55:26] Speaker B: I mean, it looked. It looked like a. [00:55:28] Speaker A: Like if you just cased out a ditch. [00:55:31] Speaker B: Like if you were taking a mold of just a typical messy ditch, it had no form or organization at all. Like, there's. I cannot comprehend how that was up to code then. And I now, I think, like, every one of them that were built in. [00:55:50] Speaker A: The subdivision at the same time, where. [00:55:52] Speaker B: You can see there was an area added in our neighborhood, all of their foundations have to look like this. I don't know how you would get. [00:55:58] Speaker A: Away with this on one house. [00:56:00] Speaker B: And I guess they just pushed the. [00:56:02] Speaker A: Block down in it until it was level. [00:56:04] Speaker B: But it was literally horrifying. When I saw it, I was like, holy crap. How. [00:56:09] Speaker A: How does somebody build this? Perfect example of misaligned incentives because they. [00:56:16] Speaker B: Have no reason to care about it as soon as they get their hours of pay and they're out of there. [00:56:20] Speaker A: And the same thing with the contractor. [00:56:22] Speaker B: They were immediately. They were standing these up and immediately turning around and selling them to a big company that was just renting them out to, like, traveling teachers. Or something. I can't remember exactly how our area. [00:56:32] Speaker A: Of the neighborhood came about. So we poured an entirely new footing for the foundation that was basically inside. [00:56:40] Speaker B: The wall and connected into the wall to basically give it a better set. It's basically a bench all the way. [00:56:47] Speaker A: Around the inside of the basement. But the engineer said that we had. [00:56:51] Speaker B: To put in soldier beams at every. [00:56:55] Speaker A: Four feet all along the side and. [00:56:58] Speaker B: Back of the wall. Now here's the thing is there were multiple corners in the foundation wall. [00:57:07] Speaker A: And anybody who just kind of has. [00:57:08] Speaker B: An intuitive understanding of engineering knows that a corner, a perpendicular wall up against another wall is about as good of a structural thing as you can get. This is essentially what the purpose of. [00:57:24] Speaker A: The soldier beam is to do, is. [00:57:26] Speaker B: To provide a lateral support for that wall. But if you actually have a block wall in like, blocked in, like you. [00:57:36] Speaker A: Know, fingered into the other wall that is coming straight out from it, that does the same thing. [00:57:42] Speaker B: In fact, it's going to do it a lot better than an 8 inch beam will do. And the. [00:57:48] Speaker A: So the front of our house was not straight. [00:57:50] Speaker B: And there were a number of these. There's a number of these turns around one of the rooms in the front and then as it turns into the kitchen again. And they're like three or four foot little short walls that are turns. However, the engineer decided that these didn't matter and that we had to put. [00:58:10] Speaker A: In a soldier beam in the middle of these little walls and right around. [00:58:13] Speaker B: The corners because it just had to. [00:58:15] Speaker A: Be every four feet. And his math said that it had to be every four feet. These soldier beams are like $1,500 apiece. And he has managed to place a. [00:58:25] Speaker B: Bunch of them like right next to a corner, which makes no sense. [00:58:30] Speaker A: These are exactly the areas. [00:58:32] Speaker B: And there's, there's even a span where. [00:58:34] Speaker A: The long span of a wall, it actually has the longest span between the. [00:58:38] Speaker B: Two beams or between the two soldier beams. And I'm like, you would actually be. [00:58:44] Speaker A: Way better off if you just put those two beams and split them down the middle of this wall. And instead you've got one in two corners that don't need to be there. [00:58:55] Speaker B: So basically, and I argued with the guy and he was like, well, this is how it is, this is how it is. And I talked to the contractor and a bunch of the people who practice like hands on build this stuff. And he said, yeah, no, that's ridiculous. These beams aren't doing anything right here. And like I said, here's this span in which it would have actually been. [00:59:15] Speaker A: Beneficial to put one in the middle. [00:59:17] Speaker B: And spread these out rather than put them at the, the distances that he had planned out for. It's just, you look at it and it's intuitively obvious. [00:59:25] Speaker A: This is strong, this is weak, this is strong. Here's where you would put the beams. But he refused. [00:59:30] Speaker B: He just like, no, I'm not, I'm not going to approve that. And so where we have like 18. [00:59:35] Speaker A: Soldier beams or something, we really only. [00:59:37] Speaker B: Have 12 that are doing any good. [00:59:40] Speaker A: And we honestly probably should have had 13 in different positions. [00:59:45] Speaker B: And I honestly think this is just a young engineer who has no practical. [00:59:49] Speaker A: Experience, who went through school and he's. [00:59:51] Speaker B: Doing something by the book and he has no idea how to build actual things. And I think that disconnect from the practical reality and the projects themselves by the people who plan those is a. [01:00:03] Speaker A: Really, really big problem. [01:00:05] Speaker B: And I wasn't sure how big that problem was until my brother actually went to engineering school. And my brother, my brother and I had always done, if you've ever heard of Science Olympiad during middle school and high school. It was basically where I got 80% of my genuinely useful education in public schooling. But it's basically a competition for nerds in a bunch of different projects and like little specific disciplines or whatever. And the ones that my brother and I were particularly skilled in were all the building projects and engineering things. And it wasn't because, you know, I spent tons of time looking through physics books and I mean granted I did great in physics, but it wasn't because of that that I had any understanding of these things. [01:00:59] Speaker A: You can just get a general intuition. [01:01:02] Speaker B: About how things are made and where stresses are and how pressures and stresses move through an object by building stuff, by just doing stuff. The math is just a formalization of what we can intuitively understand. If you actually have hands on experience building a thing. And not to brag, even though I guess I should probably brag a little bit, but one of the things that we would do is there's like a bridge competition. [01:01:31] Speaker A: Bridge tower and boomilever, which were all. [01:01:33] Speaker B: Variations of the same thing where you would build some structure to hold 55, basically a big five gallon bucket full of sand. [01:01:45] Speaker A: It's 55 pounds. [01:01:46] Speaker B: Anybody who has ever picked up a bucket like that knows that this heavy as crap. And the bridge that had to span a 12 inch hole. And the bucket, the weight was suspended from the very middle of that bridge. And in high school we won the competition regularly with, we won state as well with I can't Remember exactly how heavy it was. But I'm pretty sure, unless it was a tower, because again, the tower was the same thing as you had to lift it. It had to be 12 inches off the surface of the table. And then the weight was just suspended. [01:02:29] Speaker A: From the top of the tower. [01:02:30] Speaker B: Um, I'm pretty sure it was a bridge, though. And it was like 18 grams. Like, I know it was very common. Like, it was very easy for us to get like 25, 30 grams that would hold the weight. Now to get like a reference of how, how heavy or how light that is, probably 30 grams, like maybe would. [01:02:53] Speaker A: Be the weight of an empty plastic. [01:02:56] Speaker B: Cup that you would get from Starbucks. Like, imagine if you put like one, if you, if you just squeeze it with your hand, it just collapses, right? So this would be something that weighs that same amount and can span across. [01:03:09] Speaker A: 12 inches of an open gap and. [01:03:11] Speaker B: Hold a 55 pound bucket, a five gallon bucket of sand. So we had been doing these sorts. [01:03:19] Speaker A: Of things for a really long time and we both had an intuition for this. [01:03:23] Speaker B: Then he went to engineering school at State and one of the things that they actually had in their introductory course for people getting into physics, I can't remember, it was like Engineering 101 or something like that. And everybody's like trying to get into the degree. And their goal was to basically do something similar to that was to build a very light bridge out of certain materials. Like, we would build ours out of balsa wood and then we'd have like. [01:03:50] Speaker A: An oak core in one of them. [01:03:52] Speaker B: But it's just extremely, extremely light, thin wood that you just structure in a. [01:03:58] Speaker A: Certain way so that it holds the. [01:04:00] Speaker B: Weight and it distributes the weight evenly. But my brother did. I think they had to use like popsicles or something. I don't know, it was something that was a little odd. You were like, well, you would want. [01:04:10] Speaker A: It like, this is college. [01:04:12] Speaker B: You know, we've been doing this in middle school and high school. Like you're supposed to level up. Like, or did these people, like, these are the nerds, you know, like, they're. [01:04:21] Speaker A: These people are going into engineering. [01:04:22] Speaker B: How have they not done this already? And my brother Jeff basically built, I mean, he showed it to me. Built like the worst version, like the cheapest, like most rushed version of a bridge he's ever built in his life. And he smashed, like, just obliterated everybody else in his class. And he was just looking at some of, like some of these things didn't hold any weight. And he tried to describe a bunch of like what these things were. And he was just like, I would not have, like you wouldn't have gotten, you wouldn't have even ever placed even in like middle school. How did these people, how did these people get here? [01:05:00] Speaker A: They're in college. [01:05:02] Speaker B: Now obviously that's not true of everyone. [01:05:05] Speaker A: But all I can think is how. [01:05:07] Speaker B: Many of those people did memorize what was in the textbook, got their degree. [01:05:14] Speaker A: Went on to be engineers and do the math just like the book tells them to do, but they have no intuitive understanding of where it applies and where it doesn't apply and why the structure actually holds. And honestly it's a little frightening. [01:05:29] Speaker B: So finding them some way to actually stay connected to the project and actually have to argue and associate with the people who are actually in the situation, building and having more minds apply to the actual project. I really wish there was some that. [01:05:50] Speaker A: We actually could design an obvious solution to this. [01:05:53] Speaker B: And I mean that in the short term rather than building an entirely new app and structure of organization and stuff. But I will say also one of the big problems is that this has a massive networking like bootstrapping problem. It has a network effect that's running. [01:06:09] Speaker A: Against it very, very hard. [01:06:12] Speaker B: And it's going to be incredibly difficult to build something like this out. Not even necessarily because all of the. [01:06:18] Speaker A: Pieces of it are difficult to build. [01:06:19] Speaker B: But because changing the culture and how people associate and work together is difficult to change. [01:06:26] Speaker A: Now I want to read a quote. [01:06:28] Speaker B: That I think, I want to explain how it is that I think you could get past this and how, because I actually know people in the pair development like people in the pair stack. [01:06:39] Speaker A: Who are trying to develop and work. [01:06:40] Speaker B: With things like this and specifically about construction. And this is something that I talked about with one of them and I think is the way to actually move into this is that you first have. [01:06:51] Speaker A: To get the design right. [01:06:52] Speaker B: And I think it's important the design and incentives and reputation system. In fact, let me go ahead and read the quote actually, just so we have the reference as we're talking about. [01:07:01] Speaker A: This says as workers accumulate more tasks, their skills improve, enabling faster task completion. A reputation system documenting task history, including time, efficiency and quality develops. This reputation becomes a valuable asset, making it easier for skilled workers to secure tasks and approval. To be clear, the reputation will be a history of all the tasks that they did, the time it took them. What was the quality at the end? Did they have to redo their work to meet the desired final result? Ultimately, this shift to task focused instant payment system transforms the dynamics of the Construction industry, fostering efficiency, quality and a merit based workforce. [01:07:46] Speaker B: I think, in fact I'm starting to. [01:07:50] Speaker A: Think I should do this. [01:07:51] Speaker B: And with my basement, with the way I've been doing like time lapse sort of photos and record keeping of everything that's going on, but I'm actually thinking more and more that I should actually go through and take pictures of everything underneath the ceiling, everything that's above the. [01:08:08] Speaker A: Ceiling, everything that's in the walls. [01:08:10] Speaker B: And every single time we finish one stage of the process is to take detailed pictures of every single piece of it. Because at this point the data storage cost versus the value of that information later on. [01:08:26] Speaker A: And if we had some sort of. [01:08:27] Speaker B: An app where I could basically be like, okay, sure, you can see my wall looks fine right now. But. But you know, what you didn't see was that these two by fours weren't very well nailed to the two by four up above it. [01:08:41] Speaker A: It was a quarter inch too short. [01:08:42] Speaker B: And they just bridged it with nails. This wasn't even. That's why this wall is just a little bit bowed. [01:08:49] Speaker A: This board here that's supposed to be. [01:08:51] Speaker B: Tacked to the concrete is actually lifted up because they tried to hammer it into a different place because things weren't quite lining up so it's not even really sitting on the concrete anymore. [01:09:02] Speaker A: Stuff like that. [01:09:04] Speaker B: You don't get to see those things in the walls. You don't get to see that, you know there's trash inside the cups. I mean, excuse me, inside the cinder block that holds up your foundation until you have to cut into it and take it out. And construction people in construction, everything is a trash can. Like if it's just going to be covered up and sealed away, you probably. [01:09:29] Speaker A: Have a Coke can or a Mountain. [01:09:31] Speaker B: Dew bottle somewhere inside your wall and you don't know it. I work construction with my dad and with my brother and stuff for a long time, maybe 12 years, all through high school, college, I don't know. Long time because even after that when I was doing my media thing and doing technician type work, I was still working, I would still go back and work construction. But some of the people you end up working with are questionable. And if there was a way to design the project and have that sort of record keeping and then you have something like nostr in the fact that you're holding your own keys and you're attesting to the point at which this was done. And you know, you hash when the photos are made or whatever in like a simple proof type, time stamping Thing which costs nothing is not even hard. The number of conflicts and disagreements down the road that could be prevented and never actually arise because of the ability to prove, the ability to verify the state of things at a certain point. [01:10:36] Speaker A: In time would be huge. [01:10:38] Speaker B: It could very well be like the bell tower just by having this, a normal part or element in the process. [01:10:47] Speaker A: Of completing a project. Now how do you build a network? How do you get across the network, the limitations of the network effect, and. [01:10:54] Speaker B: Actually build out a community like this? Well, first, whatever you do, you have to start locally. If you're doing it in the physical space and you're doing it with something like construction, it has to be one town, one city. You do not open it up to the whole world and try to get, you know, a thousand people from a. [01:11:09] Speaker A: Thousand different places onto this. [01:11:10] Speaker B: You focus in one place, you focus directly in your backyard and you go out and you talk to contractors, you talk to people in the construction industry and you start there. So if you're trying to build something, something like this off the ground, you need a, an atomic network in one locality. However, I think because of the physical elements of this, you, you don't want. [01:11:34] Speaker A: To have to be constantly adjusting and. [01:11:37] Speaker B: Building out the system and figuring out how it works while you onboard people. Because especially you know, businesses and workers. Because if it becomes where there are limitations or problems, people will simply leave and never return. It will essentially burn the reputation or the design and give you an even worse uphill battle down the road. [01:12:00] Speaker A: And this is why I think the best place to test this and the best place to build this out for anybody who is interested or thinking about it is code is GitHub projects is how you create things task specifically to build certain tools, build certain features and. [01:12:17] Speaker B: Deal with the very frustrating complication of pricing each individual task and having feedback. And also I also think it matters to bring people in that you, you basically vet beforehand. You don't even bring people in to take on tasks unless they have reached. So you don't just. It's not like a bounty system where somebody can be like, oh, I have no idea if I'm going to be able to get the, get the project or 10 people might do it all at once and only one person gets paid and so all this time is wasted. I think the bounty system has a lot of merit, like there's a lot of potential in it, but I think it's wrong in how it's implemented in certain ways because what ends up happening is 10 people think oh, I could do that, or I would love to do that project. But then they all think, but there's no guarantee that I actually get paid. I might do this work for five days and then not get the bounty. And so all 10 of them ref just don't even sign up. They don't even try to complete the task. And therefore the bounty does no good. And you don't actually attract someone to do the work. It's far more often that you put the bounty and then contact somebody and you're like, listen, I will pay you for this. Far more likely to actually get done. And it's a far more. I feel like I've even seen this in practice. Maybe some developers who listen to this can tell me where I'm wrong about this or where I'm right. Is that actually just having someone to work with. Like whenever I've done stuff, I just like hit up Pablo or somebody I know or MAF and Tosh and I'd be like, can you recommend me somebody? And then I can talk to them about what the price would be for. [01:14:04] Speaker A: This particular, particular feature or this block. [01:14:05] Speaker B: Of code or this module, you know, whatever it is. But I think there's like kind of a bit of a middle ground between actually long term arrangements. Like you're just an employee and you. [01:14:17] Speaker A: Just get paid for your time. [01:14:18] Speaker B: Because I don't think that's smart. At least I think that has a massive friction and a cost that is only relevant to a certain degree of person that is perfectly aligned with your project and your vision. But that generally that doesn't work with just randomly bringing people on board. And so much I think of where. [01:14:39] Speaker A: This innovation will come from is in. [01:14:41] Speaker B: Startups that just do it to save money and it doesn't help. I think this will actually accelerate this. [01:14:47] Speaker A: Shift because of the horrific bureaucracy and regulatory environment around employees. People don't want employees, I don't want employees. [01:14:57] Speaker B: I have people that I work with and they're all basically contractors. [01:15:01] Speaker A: Everybody has their own business, they set. [01:15:03] Speaker B: Up their own llc and I just pay them for what we do together. [01:15:07] Speaker A: Why do I do that? [01:15:08] Speaker B: Because it would be a nightmare to have them as employees and to deal with all the healthcare stuff and like the enormous amount of cost and barriers. [01:15:18] Speaker A: To both hiring and then firing someone. [01:15:21] Speaker B: In an official sense like that. [01:15:23] Speaker A: Nobody, not even the people I work with, want to deal with it this way. [01:15:28] Speaker B: We literally just work together. They complete some task or some part of the project that we are doing. They send me an invoice, I pay, we're Constantly renegotiating, we're constantly changing how much we're doing. And we have an ongoing relationship because we work really well together. It's basically this setup without an app. And I honestly think the one of. [01:15:49] Speaker A: The main reasons things will go this. [01:15:51] Speaker B: Way is because of the unbelievable amount of capital it will save. And it literally just needs the death. [01:15:58] Speaker A: Of the parasitic system that is sucking. [01:16:00] Speaker B: Up trillions of dollars of resources and. [01:16:03] Speaker A: Paying people absurd amounts that don't make any sense. [01:16:06] Speaker B: And having 8 million government employees that just basically they're just parasites on the system that get paid salaries that make absolutely no sense that the free market would never give them with ridiculous retirement packages. [01:16:19] Speaker A: And the whole reason they're doing it. [01:16:20] Speaker B: Is just because it's a good job, they don't care about it. It's not about actually completing some benefit. [01:16:27] Speaker A: Or being a service, it's just because. [01:16:28] Speaker B: It'S a good job. [01:16:29] Speaker A: If you can get a government job, it's the coziest thing in the world. They will always print to cover the bills. They literally exist outside of the reality of the economy and they think that they're providing a service by defrauding it for the benefit of some at the. [01:16:45] Speaker B: Cost of everybody else, when it just makes the entire society poorer. [01:16:49] Speaker A: And it makes them bad, it makes. [01:16:51] Speaker B: Them worse workers because they don't feel any pressure or the need to actually. [01:16:55] Speaker A: Improve or care about the quality of their products and the outcome, reputation and accountability. Yeah, it's really uncomfortable because it actually holds you to a standard and you. [01:17:06] Speaker B: Actually have to have a merit based. [01:17:08] Speaker A: Outcome that someone else is happy with. [01:17:11] Speaker B: In order to, in order to be successful. You can't just close your eyes, sleep. [01:17:17] Speaker A: And twitter all day to success. [01:17:19] Speaker B: And also nobody cares about your virtue signaling if you can't do the job. Who cares where you come from, what. [01:17:25] Speaker A: Your skin color is, or who you decide to have sex with? I'm paying you for a task, complete it. If you're good at it, you're good at it. [01:17:33] Speaker B: If you're not, we won't work together. [01:17:35] Speaker A: Easy fix. [01:17:37] Speaker B: And it puts the responsibility of everyone's. [01:17:40] Speaker A: Situation, of everyone's quality, of everyone's accountability in their own hands. [01:17:44] Speaker B: And it lets them own what they do. And I also like the idea of them having their own tools as like. [01:17:53] Speaker A: You literally pay for workers who bring. [01:17:54] Speaker B: Their own tools or you specifically rent or take a different agreement from the project manager or organization because you don't have your own tools because the amount. [01:18:05] Speaker A: Of overhead that, that actually adjusts for. [01:18:08] Speaker B: And puts incentives properly to the people using their tools. That's actually a really, really cool. That's a really cool idea. And the ability, the fact that we could. That's so much easier to organize today because of all our networking technology and because of how lightning and Bitcoin can. [01:18:24] Speaker A: Be integrated into these things. [01:18:26] Speaker B: It's also where I think a lot of the second layers, second layer technologies and things are going to be potentially really beneficial when we have widespread use of Bitcoin as a currency and as the mode to. [01:18:42] Speaker A: As the thing to get paid in. [01:18:43] Speaker B: And the thing to hold value in over time. Because think about like ARC or E Cash or a coin pool that has limited trust where you can like at certain points, like you could update where you could like have an ARC that you just literally just updated once a day because of the people you work with. There's no reason to update it every block or three times a block or every single time somebody makes a transaction. If you're already in an arrangement with someone, well, you could update it every single day. And the people can both pay and. [01:19:15] Speaker A: Get paid, use it already as their. [01:19:17] Speaker B: Wallet and get paid directly with an adapter or a connector payment that they always have the ability to exit and it just gets settled every day and they have the potential to exit and the organization can pay them immediately. And everybody is saving on fees in the organization. You're basically part of this network, like any organizational project also becomes its own, like kind of layer two, its own financial network. And it's used as a tool to keep everyone honest and run by either a core, a forum, a quorum, or a multisig of the owners or the people who are paying for the project or the group that wants to get the project completed. [01:20:01] Speaker A: As I said towards the beginning of. [01:20:02] Speaker B: This, is that organizations really are just managers of people and finances of where. [01:20:11] Speaker A: And how the resources get distributed. [01:20:13] Speaker B: And I just think there's huge innovation ready to be made because we have changed the underlying systemic foundation of these things and how we can align the incentives. [01:20:26] Speaker A: And when you change something at the. [01:20:28] Speaker B: Base layer network, every other network on top of it, including the network of organizations, of how we think of businesses, of how we think of what a. [01:20:37] Speaker A: Corporation is, how we think of employees, employer relationships. [01:20:42] Speaker B: These things can fundamentally change that I. [01:20:44] Speaker A: Think a lot of people had not considered. And it is because the nature of our money, of the money that we. [01:20:50] Speaker B: Use has changed as well. And Ivan has a really, really fantastic series and pieces on this and a shout out to him for putting these together. I finally got to talk to him not too long ago. And a really good guy. Definitely check these out. I will have links in the show notes to the other articles and we will be doing many more of them to come. Right now I have another thing on my schedule schedule and I'm gonna go get to it. I will catch you guys on the next episode of Bitcoin. [01:21:18] Speaker A: Audible. [01:21:19] Speaker B: Thank you so much. And until next time, take it easy, guys. [01:21:37] Speaker A: Nature uses only the longest threads to weave her patterns so that each small piece of her fabric reveals the organization of the entire tapestry. Richard P. Feynman.