
17 segments available
Balaji Srinivasan joins Mert to discuss his framework East vs. West and the State vs. Internet, arguing the West is in decline while the East and the decentralized internet are rising. They explore how crypto, especially ZK and privacy, plays a role as a backup of American values and the foundation for a rebooted civilization. If these ideas interest you, we're building startup societies at Network School. You can apply online at https://ns.com. OUTLINE 2:59 East vs West, State vs Internet 6:52 The geopolitical flippening is here 8:03 There’s no such thing as America 13:53 A centralized east and a decentralized west 17:32 China is vertically integrated like Apple 26:32 Crypto is the cloud backup of American values 32:37 Blockspace was once scarce like bandwidth was once scarce REFERENCES I. Books - The Sovereign Individual: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Sovereign_Individual - Tomorrow, the World: https://www.hup.harvard.edu/books/9780674271135 - The Network State: https://www.amazon.de/Network-State-Start-Country-English-ebook/dp/B09VPKZR3G - Principles for Dealing with the Changing World Order: https://www.amazon.de/-/en/Principles-Dealing-Changing-World-Order/dp/1982160276 II. Studies, Articles and Links - Gold is booming: https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c5ygyjy7kz5o - China could sink all US carriers: https://interestingengineering.com/military/chinas-could-sink-all-us-carriers - Raytheon CEO on China: https://www.ft.com/content/d0b94966-d6fa-4042-a918-37e71eb7282e - Google downgrades Chrome ranking after paid links: https://www.computerworld.com/article/1544620/google-downgrades-chrome-ranking-after-paid-link-monkey-business.html - The Great Reckoning: https://www.theideasletter.org/essay/the-great-reckoning/ - Bolivia crypto transactions up 530%: https://www.reuters.com/sustainability/boards-policy-regulation/bolivia-crypto-transactions-up-over-530-amid-currency-woes-2025-06-27/ - Why Nigeria's youth are ditching the Naira for Bitcoin: https://www.disruptionbanking.com/2025/10/29/why-nigerias-youth-are-ditching-the-naira-for-bitcoin/ - Farcaster: https://farcaster.xyz - zkKYC: https://eprint.iacr.org/2021/907.pdf - Solana Economic ZK: https://framerusercontent.com/images/b8hOfVcAWfJEfnbJ5s1d1FWnbw.png?width=3000&height=1576 SOCIAL: - https://x.com/0xmert_ - https://x.com/ns
Mert shares personal anecdotes about his growth on Twitter and the impactful conversations that led him to relocate to Dubai.
"Hello everybody to another episode of Accelerate with Mert. Today I have with me the man himself, Bali with a nice haircut as well. Bali, how you doing? >> Well, I uh I got an honor you Mert uh called..."
A discussion on the contrasting trajectories of Eastern and Western societies, and how cryptocurrency plays a role in this dynamic.
"and yes, I I think I think you had a good tweet the other day where you said something along and it was actually a well structured tweet because you anticipated the objection. You're like, I don't car..."
Exploring the impact of social media and cryptocurrencies on the stability of Western financial and political systems.
"Christianity helped tear down the Roman Empire, but then the synthesis of Christianity and the Roman Empire created the Holy Roman Empire. Now, people will say it wasn't in the same place and it was i..."
This segment explores the dynamics of US-China relations, highlighting economic concessions and the military balance of power.
"we won't know exactly what was said in that meeting for a while perhaps but like when JFK negotiated with uh Kruev over the Cuban missile crisis um it wasn't just that the Soviets pulled missiles back..."
This segment explores the concept of America not merely as a country but as a significant global empire, highlighting its worldwide influence and contributions.
"such thing as America only blue America Red America and Tech America just like there's no such thing as Korea. There's only North Korea, South Korea, and the Korean diaspora, right? Very much like tha..."
Exploring how America's quest for global hegemony was driven by necessity rather than ambition.
"center left and the center right built the greatest empire of all time. That was better than what the Soviets or Nazis would have done. And that was actually the defense. That was the reason they did ..."
This segment explores the contrasting futures of a decentralized West and a centralized East, highlighting the geopolitical shifts and implications.
"search results to show that it was being impartial on its search engine. Okay? Because it was so successful that it could afford to take that hit and and like very publicly abide by the same rules for..."
Exploring China's willingness to engage with diverse regimes while prioritizing trade and non-interference.
"pause there. >> Okay. So you basically if I'm to rephrase you think that today China's position is much stronger than people believe. They have the agent military the economy uh and even the future. U..."
Exploring China's sale of surveillance technology to bolster oppressive governments while focusing on resource extraction.
"opposite of neocons and neolibs. So, China will sell surveillance equipment to Venezuela to prop up its genuinely evil regime so long as it can pump oil from there and so on. It will prop up like the ..."
This segment explores the parallels between New York Times subscribers and Chinese Communist Party members, highlighting their roles in shaping narratives within their respective societies.
"subscriber. You know why? >> Why? >> Because uh the NT subscriber was like a party member in America. That's to say they got the it's very similar. They get a digest of what the official words are and..."
This segment explores the contrast between China's self-contained digital environment and the open internet, highlighting the implications for global civilization and governance.
"have to block it from any because they're just reading in Chinese. And so that serves itself as this giant like how often do you go and look at Chinese language content not that often right you have t..."
This segment explores how modern China maintains its cultural heritage while presenting a facade of communism, likening it to the transformation of Christianity within the Roman Empire.
"they call it communist. Right. They're not really they're communist in name only in many ways. You could people always argue this, right? But really they just preserve the logo. The substance is 5,000..."
This segment explores the transformation of ideologies, drawing parallels between Christianity's evolution and China's adaptation of communism under Deng Xiaoping.
"because Christianity was just set up to tear it down had taken it over. So this is sort of like BLM and so on taking over the top of the US government and it just kind of collapsed is eventually from ..."
Exploring how digital communities and networks can be manifested in the physical world through innovative projects.
"Android operating system or do you see it as maybe the tool that people that are kind of caught in the middle between let's say the west and the east would flee to something that China would use like ..."
This segment explores the role of crypto in maintaining order and resilience in a potentially anarchic world.
"collapses and we could reboot civilization like the mammals arising after the meteor hits the dinosaurs. And that's the point of crypto is, you know, crypto anarchy is not full anarchy fortunately bec..."
This segment explores the ideological significance of cryptocurrency, comparing it to the religious and commercial aspects of Christmas.
"together into Christmas because it's like a fusion of the pagan and the Christian, right? Hence like the Holy Roman Empire, right? Okay, fine. You could you could take that, but you could also just ta..."
This segment explores the evolution of blockchain technology towards enhanced programmability and the pivotal role of zero-knowledge proofs in revolutionizing privacy in cryptocurrency.
"in a way that even 3 years ago, I don't I would not say scaling was solved. Obviously, there's still L2s. There's still going to be problems to solve but let's say you can do a lot on chain today much..."