Episode 13
Chat with Kiki part 4 - "One of the most compelling attributes of Bitcoin is the time preference"
"Women are the main caretakers... in some ways, women have less time [than men]... But that means they value their time more, and I think one of the most important attributes or compelling attributes of Bitcoin is the time preference."
-Kiki
Please email your questions/comments to Tali@OrangeHatter.com.
Mentioned in this episode:
Free Market Kids Short
Get your HODL UP ("The best bitcoin game ever!") at www.freemarketkids.com.
Transcript
Hi everyone.
Tali:Today we will listen to part four of my conversation with Kiki.
... Kiki:health and wellness and self-care practices.
... Kiki:I was very close to the people that were developing practices early on, because I
... Kiki:was involved in a dance and theater and experimental theater, physical theater
... Kiki:community in New York City through my studies at New York University.
... Kiki:And then through working with these really groundbreaking theater
... Kiki:directors, choreographers, postmodern choreographers, as well as doing
... Kiki:contact improv, which is a really exciting form of dance and movement.
... Kiki:And then I was involved in yoga and everything else.
... Kiki:And so, you know, today obviously we hear a lot about, you know, fascial release,
... Kiki:and there's foam rollers in every gym.
... Kiki:Well, when I was, you know, in the early eighties I was working with teachers,
... Kiki:directors, choreographers, and we, they were pioneering fascial release.
... Kiki:We were using, you know, um, rollers like you would use in
... Kiki:the kitchen for making a pie.
... Kiki:So I owned, I had a roller in my Chinese village.
... Kiki:People would be like, You don't even bake.
... Kiki:Why do you have this?
... Kiki:I'm like, that's for my, my facial release.
... Kiki:And so we were lying on, you know, rolling on tennis ball and shoving two
... Kiki:tennis balls into a sock so that it perfectly went to either side of our
... Kiki:neck and spine and everything like that.
... Kiki:And so I, I mention all this to say that I think an important part of
... Kiki:Bitcoin adoption is that someone is an outlier and they're an early adopter.
... Kiki:And I ran into an NYU professor of mine, I guess like 35
... Kiki:years later or 30 years later.
... Kiki:I left New York, I had come back, I was at one of my favorite places in the
... Kiki:whole world, the Russian and Turkish baths, because when I lived in the
... Kiki:East Village in the eighties and early nineties, these were old tenements.
... Kiki:When people are like, what was it like?
... Kiki:I'm like, go to the Tenement Museum.
... Kiki:You'll see exactly what it was like.
... Kiki:You know, the apartments were freezing, the old fashioned windows,
... Kiki:the air, the wind blowing in.
... Kiki:So there was an old fashioned bathhouse.
... Kiki:And there used to be public bathhouses.
... Kiki:People wanted to get clean.
... Kiki:They went to a bathhouse once a week.
... Kiki:So, you know, as someone who was constantly moving and cold in the
... Kiki:winter, I loved gonna the Russian bath.
... Kiki:So jump ahead in, you know, 2010, I'm at the Russian bath.
... Kiki:I see a former teacher, professor of mine from NYU in experimental movement
... Kiki:oriented theater, and he recognized me and he was like, "oh my God.
... Kiki:Oh my God, you did everything said, we told you your body is an instrument.
... Kiki:Your voice is an instrument.
... Kiki:You must look after your instrument so you can express in the possible
... Kiki:full-fullest way through movement and voice and everything like that."
... Kiki:So yes, I did do all those things.
... Kiki:So I was an early adopter because of course I wasn't the only person
... Kiki:that was exposed to those techniques, but I continued to do them.
... Kiki:I think, you know, when you and I first met you were like, "I rarely see people of
... Kiki:your generation at these Bitcoin meetups.
... Kiki:What are you doing here?"
... Kiki:And I would say I'm not like other people who are my age.
... Kiki:Anwhen I first learned about Bitcoin, I reached out to people
... Kiki:from age 45 to 65 and I was like, "What do you know about Bitcoin?"
... Kiki:What do you know about Bitcoin?
... Kiki:I asked a hundred people, many of them highly successful in business, and 99
... Kiki:people said, "Bitcoin, it's rat poison" or whatever they said, "Bitcoin, I
... Kiki:don't know anything about Bitcoin" or "it's a ponzi" or "it's nothing."
... Kiki:So no one knew about Bitcoin.
... Kiki:When I, I started yoga.
... Kiki:I first opened a yoga school, you know, 12 years or 13 years after learning yoga.
... Kiki:I opened a yoga school in Los Angeles in 1996 really before we were using
... Kiki:the internet or anything like that.
... Kiki:And, uh, I was driving around LA and looking for "for rent" signs in
... Kiki:commercial real estate buildings.
... Kiki:Then I would, you know, stop and write down the phone number and then go
... Kiki:home, and call them on the landline.
... Kiki:And they, you know, a landlord would ask what kinda business and I would say "yoga"
... Kiki:and the landlords would say "No food."
... Kiki:And they would hang up the phone.
... Kiki:They thought I was saying "yogurt," so I'm not like other people.
... Kiki:Early adopters.
... Kiki:When I opened my yoga school, I opened a yoga school in a
... Kiki:creative small neighborhood.
... Kiki:I would say that I opened one of the first neighborhood yoga schools in Los Angeles.
... Kiki:Um, and that would mean for the rest of the most of the rest of
... Kiki:the country and the world because there was like two or three well
... Kiki:known yoga schools in most towns.
... Kiki:They had to do with a certain lineage of teaching.
... Kiki:So you went to the Iyengar Yoga school or you went to the Kundalini Yoga school.
... Kiki:And so when I was opening yoga school in Silver Lake, people were like, "who do you
... Kiki:think is gonna go to your a yoga school?
... Kiki:Why are you opening it there?"
... Kiki:The tiny farmer beauty salon.
... Kiki:And I was like, "who's gonna come?
... Kiki:All the artists and creative people that live in the neighborhood.
... Kiki:They're just gonna drive by it or walk by it and walk in and do yoga."
... Kiki:And so that, you know, was very successful.
... Kiki:So, I would say I'm an early adopter, I'm an outlier.
... Kiki:And if someone is not an early adopter and they're not an outlier, they're
... Kiki:not gonna be interested in Bitcoin.
... Kiki:Someone has to have a general distrust of authority.
... Kiki:'Cause if they think that their government or their bank or even, you
... Kiki:know, the older generation or something is looking out for them or has their
... Kiki:best interest at the forefront...
... Kiki:well, they're, they're not gonna be interested in Bitcoin, and it has to
... Kiki:be someone who's very disciplined.
... Kiki:So if someone's not disciplined, they're just gonna be like, "why would I go
... Kiki:through all the trouble of learning about Bitcoin, holding my own, learning
... Kiki:about cryptography, holding my own keys, listening to hundreds of hours of podcasts
... Kiki:that make very little sense initially?"
... Kiki:So someone has to be very disciplined and they have to be disciplined enough to say
... Kiki:like, "I'm saving my money for my future."
... Kiki:And I would also say they have to have high confidence because if they have
... Kiki:low confidence, then if anybody says to them, "Bitcoin, that's dangerous."
... Kiki:They're gonna quit.
... Kiki:"Bitcoin?
... Kiki:What are you talking about?
... Kiki:Bitcoin?
... Kiki:What are you stupid?
... Kiki:That's ridiculous."
... Kiki:So you have to have high confidence.
... Kiki:You have to be able to go, when people are like, "yoga?
... Kiki:Why do you go to yoga every morning at 8:00 AM?"
... Kiki:Which in like the mid 1980s was the craziest thing a person could do.
... Kiki:Well, I had high confidence and I had high discipline, and I was an outlier, and I
... Kiki:had a general distrust of authority, and so I was like, "Because it's amazing."
... Kiki:So I think people have to have that.
... Kiki:Maybe most of the men, most of the people in Bitcoin, which are mostly
... Kiki:men, maybe they have more of that.
... Kiki:I don't know.
... Kiki:Maybe it's harder for women to have those qualities.
... Kiki:Maybe women are too busy with full-time work and child rearing and all these
... Kiki:other responsibilities because women are the main caretakers, whether that's
... Kiki:their own elderly parents or siblings or children or nieces, nephews, et cetera.
... Kiki:So in some ways, women have less time.
... Kiki:But that means they value their time more, and I think the most, one of the
... Kiki:most important attributes or compelling attributes of Bitcoin is the time
... Kiki:preference, is if you really value your time and how little of it, you know,
... Kiki:we actually have, and how quickly time flies, then we know whatever money we
... Kiki:take today to put into Bitcoin, even if that's 10 US dollars or 50 US dollars
... Kiki:or 500 US dollars, that money in Bitcoin is going to grow in value despite, you
... Kiki:know, these dips and rises that we see.
... Kiki:If look at it over the life of Bitcoin, which is only 14 years,
... Kiki:they're barely distinguishable, and we only see like this upward arc.
... Kiki:And so if someone really values their time and they value meaningful
... Kiki:experiences over fast food, fast fashion, fast, you know, entertainment,
... Kiki:social media, things like that.
... Kiki:So if they value meaningful experiences, then Bitcoin is like the marshmallow test.
... Kiki:It's like the perfect time preference test.
... Kiki:Can you wait?
... Kiki:If you wait, you know, five minutes or 10 minutes before you eat that marshmallow,
... Kiki:I'm going to give you two marshmallows and you know, you can go to YouTube and
... Kiki:look at the marshmallow test and you can really see the children, really like the
... Kiki:look on the face of the children that have that ability to wait out the time
... Kiki:period and get that second marshmallow.
... Kiki:That's all about time preference.
... Kiki:Can we sort of stay the course, save money, hold it in Bitcoin for our
... Kiki:meaningful experiences in our later life, for our meaningful experiences, for,
... Kiki:you know, our, our families or whatever.
... Kiki:So yes, I would say those are qualities that are important
... Kiki:for understanding or becoming interested and investing in Bitcoin.
Tali:I definitely agree with you about how you have to not be afraid
Tali:to be an outlier, especially at this time in the development of Bitcoin.
Tali:I think there will come a day when you can't be a part of the
Tali:ecosystem and not be an outlier.
Tali:And that's what we're striving for.
Kiki:Yes, but we're still early.
Tali:We're still early.
Kiki:We're still early.
Kiki:So you, we have to be an early adopter.
Tali:Thank you for joining us today.
Tali:We will continue this conversation tomorrow.
Tali:Be sure to come back and hear the rest.
