From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or learn the stuff they don't want you to know. A production of I Heart Radios How Stuff Works. Hello, welcome back to the show. My name is Matt, my name is Noel. They called me Ben. We are joined as always with our super producer Paul Mission Controlled Decond. Most importantly, you are you. You are here, and that makes this stuff they don't want you to know. Shout out to some of the big names listening. Joining our fellow listeners today, Mark Zuckerberg, thanks for dropping by. Jeff Bezos, Hope things go well for you with Amazon Prime Day. I guess that's happening as we record this. Now. There's a strike going on today with Amazon employees. They're very well should be. Have you seen terrible things that happened to those employees. But a lot of folks are calling for joining the strike in the form of not going to Amazon or any of its properties today for the next few days. That's what I've done. But let's let's also point out that the meme about storming Area fifty one, which now has picked up with some celebrity recommendations. I think Nathan Phillion, Jeff Goldbloom, Keanu Reeves and so on. We're posting about it science fiction stars that has that has gained more traction than any idea of, say, storming detention centers where US children are dying or boycotting Amazon, because Amazon is the new version of the Walmart conundrum. It's just so gosh darn convenient for so many people. I've also used Amazon regularly, full disclosure to get stuff for work, as have I not to derail things too much. I've been very shocked to see in New York one of like this liberal bastion um with a lot of young folks that work in like very kind of like woke kind of industries or whatever. Everyone gets their groceries from Amazon. It's crazy, Like you go to an apartment complex and the doors are just stacked high with Amazon boxes. I think people are able to be selectively uh kind of you know, awake two problems if it doesn't like directly inconvenience them. I think that's most people. Yeah, that's exactly what I was gonna say. Yeah, I think we see what's in front of us, and you know what we're aware of because of the people that are around us. And that's generally it unless you're fully plugged into your social network. I would call it performatively performatively moral. So, for instance, what happened to the child soldiers that everyone was uh so concerned about in two thousand twelve. They're still out there, many of them are no longer children, but new children have been accepted into the ranks. Yeah, it really is just what is trending right now? And do you remember the last couple of things. I had something just as an example that I wanted to chime in with earlier, and I've completely forgotten it now because now I'm thinking about this, it'll come back to I guarantee you. Unfortunately, there's there are no shortages of different examples. And of course, I mean, if we want to be optimistic about it, every little bit counts. Your actions do matter, regardless of what some people will try to make you think when they don't want you to take action. But speaking of actions, how are how are the weekends for everyone? Paul Mischion Control good weekend, thumbs up, thumbs up, Gotta we've got a nice streak. When michig Control nowadays, it's been pretty much thumbs up because he's living his best life. What'd you know it? How about? You know? It was good? I went and visit my mom in my hometown of Augusta, g A. Uh. My kid was in a church choir camp. So I went to a church service for my first time in many, many many years. And there were some things about it that I had forgotten about, like when they passed the election plate and yeah, sure is at the end you put the money in, you do put the money out, you put it in. That's right, that's definitely right. Then you've got me there. Um. But the ushers at the end take the plates and hold them aloft at the altar. Whoa, and is that a thing? Are you aware of this? Yeah? I don't know. It's it's a Methodist church, so maybe it's just a Methodist thing. But yeah, they all convene down on the floor, three of them, and they hold the plates up like as an offering too, you know, the the deity. That's nice. I was doing something similar. I was getting together my my e coin wallet. I realized that I hadn't been doing any kind of like I don't know what you'd call maintenance on it, like figuring out exactly where all my stuff is and my portfolios and all of that. But um, over the weekend, just I'm ready to use e cooin again. So they have what do you have? It's just it's your standard wallet. Really, you know where the income goes directly into that account. And I mean you're talking about like lightcoin, bitcoin like you're talking about different like coin. Yeah, you know, yeah, it's it's it's e coin. It's just the one that uh ecorp is, you know, introduced a while ago. I don't know, I don't it's my favorite one. I wish you suck. I wish you luck in your endeavors. Uh And this this is a show that we personally love. I I've thought about this before, and I would hazard the same case goes for you, Matt. If you came into a financial windfall, you'd probably still want to do this show. Huh oh yeah, I would. Just I mean I would just put put more money away in my coin. I quietly buy up our company. I mean I have fantasized about that. Me too. I've fantasized about quietly buying up the company. Going to work every day without telling anyone, anyone the case until there was an all hands meeting, and then just saying talking out of my neck, as we say in the South, making some crazy proclamation, and then when someone tells me to calm down, say, you know, reveal that I own I own the company, or some kind of I'm imagining some kind of play where you just correct the CEO or something, just just like a small correction, be like, just do it openly and publicly, and to actually homepst off because that's ridiculous, I would say from me now. Uh, and maybe just shark tank it, you know, maybe just fift that's all you need. We want to hear how things have been going in your neck of the global woods. So please don't feel like you have to wait until the end to contact us. You can pause the podcast right now. You can leave us a review that always helps us get a little bit closer to the good graces of our corporate overlords, a little bit further away from being fired. Uh. And so until until we secretly buy our company, we love some reviews from you when your fellow listeners, how about you been, How was your weekend? I had a lot of stuff happened. I was I was actually in town for this weekend. I will not be in town for the next weekend. There's a lot of travel. But who worked I've I've been working on some various projects. Um yeah, that'll that'll overall be checked special checks. I love that transparency. I've been open booking a meadow on a sunny day. Guys, But how are your kids? My kids? The ones I know, the one I know about this is good. She she did a really good job in her choir performance. I don't want to be a bummer. I saw something pretty crazy this weekend. I saw a hit and run accident. I saw a gentleman crossing the street in my hometown get hit by a giant Ford F one truck and it was very upsetting. And uh, I will say this, I always say this about my hometown. There's so many cops just lurking around trying to kind of nail people for the US and stuff. This was one case where it was really I was really glad they were around because they immediately chased the guy down. They caught him, and the ambulance was there and like a minute and a half cop was there to talk to the guy and talk to witnesses, and uh, you know, it was a good example of efficient policing and first respondership. And I witnessed at first hand. Did you report as a witness? I did not because there was somebody that was directly with the guy. There were several other people that were there. We was kind of were passing by. We just moved on. But you know, this strange thing is twenty years ago that may have been perhaps a headline in the local newspaper, but may have been forgotten pretty easily except for the people directly involved. That's all changed nowadays. And I would argue for the past decade at least, probably more probably closer to the past fifteen twenty years. Social media has become the primary currency and amusing netword, uh a little bit, a little bit in a cavalier manner. Social media has become the primary currency of communication for many, many people. And when we say social media, we think of several things. One of the most popular is Facebook. You might love it, you might hate it, but there's no denying Facebook is a huge, gargangel and tremendous business, and it seems set to stay. It's just it's in us now, in our species. If you would like to learn more about what Facebook actually is, where it came from, and what it can do. Check out our earlier deep dives on the subject in previous episodes. You can also check out tech Stuff by Jonathan Strickland that has a great look at the nuts and bolts of Facebook as it stood. Of course, every Facebook episode needs to continually be updated because they are tricksy, they are clever little varmints, and they will they work to uh circumvent legislation, and two they would say address concerns, So we'll always have to do an update. We'll probably have to do an update on today's topic in a few months. So let's just get a real quick recap on Facebook and and all all this weird e currency stuff before diving into the newest, strangest Facebook ambition and why some people might tell you it is a conspiracy. So Facebook, here here the facts. Yeah, that's right. Facebook, primarily at its source is national multinational conglomerate. Now I'm just kidding. It's a social media platform, and it's also Instagram and a bunch of other things, all kinds of communication. Primarily, let's talk about Facebook, the social media platform which you know has seen a slow down in the number of users. But when we say slow down, we just mean it isn't at that extremely rapid rate that it was for you know, years and years. They currently have two point four billion billion monthly active users. And ben if it were a country, it would be where does it lie in our est there? Oh, it would be by far the largest country in the world by population, almost double the population of China, which is a little more than one point three billion people. So this is two point four billion, and it got to that number. It became the largest thing in terms of population very very quickly because it started originally restricted to college students in two thousand and four. From two thousand four two thousand nineteen, that's a that's a heck of a growth, even with that slow down that we mentioned earlier. We have to remember that the more people, the more access people in emerging economies have to the internet, uh, the more Facebook users are created. Yes, and it's a very important point there that Facebook is global. It's not just a that's what I was joking about, the multinational conglomerate thing, just the concept that it exists in every country that has access to the Internet, and people everywhere are using it. Now, here's the big question. Let's say you've got a giant social media platform like that. How do you leverage something like that that's free for people to come on and use however much they want? Yeah, how do you leverage that into making money as a giant corporation with overhead and employees and all the things you gotta pay for. Yeah, that's the thing. That's We've said it before on this show. Many other shows have said this. It's even at risk of becoming a cliche because it is true. If you do not pay for a service, you are the product. That is absolutely true. Uh, and unfortunate. But that's how Facebook makes a ton of cash. They sell the data they aggregate about you, your friends or perhaps your ex friends and your enemies and so on, and they package this to advertisers. They package this to research firms, Cambridge Analytica being one, and then they they sell this. You do not get a cut of this. Then your data. You can find different pundits estimating how much your data as an individual as worth. Uh, it's not very much, but it's still more than zero, and you get zero. That's not the only way Facebook makes money, though, they also have Facebook payments, so it's similar to like Venmo, those kind of peer to peer things. And Ben kind of mentioned this in that first go around with the selling you the users data essentially and leveraging it for advertisers, because that really is one of the primary ways that Facebook made money for a long time, which was just having ads essentially appear as posts within your feeds. Then one of the biggest reasons advertisers will use that is just like Ben said, because of the tremendous amount of information they have on you and they can target stuff to you so directly. And was this before they had to identify them as sponsored posts or something like that, or I think originally, Yeah, I think that's correct. So if we did it, if we looked at how this breaks down in six streams, we would say self serve advertge rising. Let's say you have a great show, um, like, let's say Paul makes an independent docuseries called the Age of Applebee's and wants to promote it on Facebook. Then you can give Facebook money and they will in their ad manager they will attempt to show more people who would be interested in the Age of Applebee's post about the Age of Applebee's. By the way, Paul really enjoyed that. He gave me a great smile. It's true. It's true. You have to have you have to have a mission. You gotta stand for something right. And then target advertisements, which you mentioned, Matt that be the second Facebook Messenger ads would be the third, video ads would be the fourth, Facebook Mobile would be the fifth. Uh. Facebook's mobile app in generated more than of their ad revenue, which surprising, right. And the the idea of data generation is tricky because they're not as far as we know, Facebook is not purposely purchasing and selling specifically like Matthew Frederick's data or Noel Brown's data. They're create their aggregating it in a way that they would argue as anonymous. Yeah, it's all nationalities or income brackets or all these you know, genders wherever they need to do separating about so that you can buy this swath of humanity. And as we record this, if you if you're listening, you're saying, all right, guys, to talk about this all the time. What does Facebook actually have on me? What do they know about me? You might be surprised, but you can still find out if you go to the Facebook setting page, find the tab for general or something like that. Eventually, the they'll change the click through that you need on on a pretty frequent basis. But eventually you will find an option that allows you to download a copy of your Facebook data and it will be everything. It will be more than you thought. Yeah, so you can also nominally control some of the ads that Facebook puts in your face. But that's I mean, that's the nature of the game. They're pretty clear about that. So, yeah, we know what Facebook is. We know what Facebook is. But oddly enough, and this this might be controversial, opinion, might be a hot take. Some people don't trust Facebook? Wait what I know? Right? They seems so friendly though, and they give you all this free content, And why wouldn't you trust someone who's giving you all this stuff? These games? Farm Bail, Farm Bail. If you can't, um, sop up that sarcasm that's dripping out of your headphones right now, I feel bad. I mean, get some bread, maybe UH can make use of it. Um, So Ben, why don't people trust Facebook? I'll play your reindeer games, Matt Let's and Paul, you ll have to edit me here, but this is the best way to say it there too categories. Let's divide into accidental cups and purposeful overs so it sounds good. The the accidental stuff would be the stuff that happens to any big company that is keeping so much stuff. Data leaks, right, identification of people in a way that may stymy their professional growth or literally endanger their lives. There's a story of a therapist who learned that their their patients, we're starting to show up in each other's people you May Know list, you know, the thing that tries to sort of nudge you into stalking folks. And then there was another case where members of law enforcement would see people they put in prison popping up on their people you May Know list, and if they're on your list, you're probably on their list. The abyss stairs back. Yeah. And then the purposeful stuff would be complaints of using or allegations of using aggregated data to target people who would be vulnerable to misinformation and propaganda so on. And in the age of deep fakes, that becomes more and more important. Right. And then there are all kinds of scams that exist online that sometimes use Facebook as a way to get you to click on a link. That's one way, But that's not necessarily Facebook of doing it, but it's Facebook allowing it to happen. There you go, And then with this goes into a conversation Nolan I had had briefly off air before, which is, how do you decide and we want to hear your take on this, two folks, how do you decide who to accept or who to ignore when it comes to friend request? M M. I typically, I think we talked about this. This is exactly what we talked about. Ben. If I have a few mutual friends with that person, then I I'm more likely to accept it if it's clearly someone that's just a fan of the show had more rather than follow me on Instagram than than on Facebook, because Facebook, to me, is more like for people that I actually no no and interact with, and that that's just to me seems like the Facebook rules. So I'm less likely to accept a Facebook friend request from somebody I don't know. But on Instagram you don't have to accept, they just follow you. So it's a little bit different game, you know. Yeah, you can only shut off everybody and make it private, or you can just keep it public and block individuals. You can block individuals yeah, yeah, I know exactly what you guys are talking about. No, I'm yeah, I mean I get it. Your fingers on the pulse, I can see. Yep, that's what it sounds like. Ye. So, so what you're saying an as you accept no outside friend requests or you don't even have a Facebook page, I might you neither confirm nor deny either, just kidding. I'm friends with you guys, that's true. Taking the same tax that the government in Israel it takes with nuclear weapons, right, yeah, yeah, I yeah, I am to social media as Ben is to everyday um, talking about what's occurring in his life. Does that make sense? Transparent? You is shoe? It entirely the kind of person who's like a m A, don't say anything. Yes, Uh, let's let's ask each other about cryptocurrency. We're promising we're going somewhere with this cryptocurrency. We did an episode with Jonathan Strickland on this right, two parter. It's two parter, that's right. Uh, And it's easy. It's easy to do a two parter on cryptocurrency because there are so many different and at times difficult angles to take here. But what what is a cryptocurrency? It's a cool name crypto, but why why do we call it that? Well, if you want to go deep dive beyond the topics that we discussed with Jonathan on so that I want you to know, you can check out text stuff, which has several fantastic episodes on the subject. But essentially, if for our purposes here, cryptocurrency is a digital or virtual currency that uses cryptography for security. And that's as simple as that. A cryp toocurrency is very difficult to counterfeit because of the fact that it is uh encrypted in this way. And many of these cryptocurrencies are decentralized systems based on something called blockchain technology. It's a little tough to go into deeply in a quick, you know, bite or two, but you really should check out that Strictlan episode or the tech stuff series to get a deeper understanding of what blockchain is. But essentially, it is a distributed ledger. Um. Yeah, the ledger just like a written down, you know and sell spreadsheet or just any kind of list of figures that is enforced by a disparate network of computers. Meaning that a defining feature of a cryptocurrency and arguably one of its biggest most powerful features is its organic nature. That it's not issued by any central authority, and that fact renders it theoretically immune to government interference or manipulation. But at the same time, as we know, it's still very volatile despite any government interaction. Right, just a simple by some of this stuff. This whole idea of the ledger is very powerful for cryptocurrency because imagine that if you've got a dollar in your wallet right now, or wherever you keep your your money, your fiat currency, you pull it out, and somehow by touching that dollar, just by interacting with it, you could see every single time this this piece of money has been spent since it was minted, since it was printed out and cut up right, right, That's how bitcoin works. We're using technology to create what once would have been relegated to the realm of psychic powers. One of my favorite psychic powers, by the way, psychometry, the idea that one can learn the history of an emotionally charged object through physically touching it. This power is perhaps most famous in the excellent movie Vibes starring Jeff Goldbloom and Cyndi Lauper, which I do have on DVD. If anyone's interesting. I've not heard of the masterpiece Vibes has okay, So in Vibes, Jeff Goldbloom and Cyndi Lauper's characters have psychic powers and they work at this research facility. They eventually go on on a wild misadventure to a mysterious object in Peru. I believe Jeff Goldbloom does catch Vibes and like he is in every movie except for arguably The Fly, He's just Jeff Goldbloom. Its smoldering with his with his powers, and so he can touch things and he can know what happened to them. Vibes. Can you may do a good Jeff Goldbloom impersonation? It's really hard to nail. It's easy to get to like an eight out of ten, but those extra two points are very different, true, because it's like fifty, it's like six stutter and then like the rest of the percent is pure charisma cadence. So I don't want to sideline us practicing my eight out of ten. It's not worth it. I'll get it up to at least eight point five and come back. But like like our Jeff gold Bloom impressions, bitcoin and cryptocurrency as a concept, has a number of pros and cons. One, as you mentioned Noll, it's decentralized. This means theoretically, one injury to the system or malfunction will not bring down the system and in its entirety. There's also no government manipulation of currency in theory legally because no government controls it. Right, So when we say currency manipulation, it's something you hear a lot with maybe despots, or people are in unstable times in the country and they say, well, now everything is, We're just gonna chop a zero off of everyone's bank accounts right to to get right internationally here or this is no longer the new currency, only this, but it also leads to cons the same. Lack of government over site means there's outside the self regulation in the way the system is built, which is very clever. And by the way, no one still no one knows who invented cryptocurrency. Uh, there's no oversight, and this could lead to volatility because cryptocurrency, by and large, like FII currency, has no basis intangible assets. It's none, it's done if it if it changed value tomorrow, if if every bitcoin, for example, the most famous cryptocurrency shot up in value by ten dollars were shot down in value to less than a penny per bitcoin. It would it would not be because a tangible asset changed. There's no gold in some sort of secret cryptocurrency Fort Knox, you know what I mean. And yet it's it's funny because it's been likened to the way gold miners essentially would function. When you're talking about the people that are actually doing the bitcoin mining and all of this, because as the price rises, more people are I think it's viable enough or they're going to make enough money doing the mining, right, because it's worth enough. And then when it falls, not many people will be mining them because it's too costly to actually perform the function. You're not going to make your money back. So it is this and there's this interesting analogy there with a tangible asset, even though it's literally, like you said, been attached to nothing right. Right, And now we have to also mention that cryptocurrency is very useful for crime. It's no one's opinion, that's just the fact. The things that make it good for some legal things also make it good for some illegal things. Now let's smash them together. In today's episode of What could go wrong. It's correct, folks. We didn't just decide to switch the plot halfway through the beginning of the show. Facebook, you see, wants to start its own currency. Some people, mostly people who work for face Book, where its corporate allies, think this is a fantastic idea. Other people fear it's something more sinister, something dangerous, even a conspiracy. And it's about to get crazy. Right after this word from our sponsor. Here's where it gets crazy. Enter libra libra, not the zoodiac sign. No libra libra. It's like zebra within with lee libra or book in some languages. Yeah, it reminds me of my favorite dead currency, Lira. Remember when Lira was a thing in Italy, right, it was a fun one. Now it's all boring euros. Well, there you go. What is libra? Oh yeah, hey, Matt, what's libra? It's uh, this is Facebook's cryptocurrency, or at least it's their attempt to get into this, uh, this game of cryptocurrenting. It's a it's a blockchain approach very similar to what you know we discussed there with how bitcoin functions or other cryptocurrencies. Uh. And again it's uh, it's an idea. But here's the deal. It's not like it's just you know, somebody pitching stuff around a boardroom anymore. It's actually happening. It is. Facebook has partnered with twenty eight different companies to create uh this, this proposed cryptocurrency network. They call themselves the Libra Association, which sounds like a real a real James Bond Roger Moore era name for uh uh consortium of villains, you know, like Specter, the Libra Association, and of course they have the scales emblazoned on all their stuff. These companies conclude companies you may have heard of, big big names, MasterCard Once In on the Game because credit Card has been worried for a while that they might lose those sweet sweet transaction fees, PayPal Once In on the Game, Uber Lift, and more like Vota, Phone Visa. It's there are no small players. These companies, financial companies, e commerce and venture capitalists, telecoms and so on are each gonna invest around ten million dollars that into this association that will be in charge of the Libra. The association wants to grow to a hundred members with an equal vote over time, and Facebook expects to quote maintain a leadership role through twenty nineteen. But what what what is this? It's a secretive project. It revolves around that digital coin, the Libra, and the ideas that users on Facebook or any of the other platforms like an uber app, for instance, could send Libra to each other in place of dollars and use it to make purchases on Facebook's platform and across the internet. That's right, And um, I'm saying that the appeal here is because of that decentralized approach and in this system. In this system, they use something called nodes. Right, So Facebook wouldn't directly control the coin, hence the decentralization, nor would the individual members of this consortium, which is known as the Libra Association. Some of the members could serve as these things called nodes. UM a system that verifies transactions and maintains records of them. That sounds familiar, creating a brand new payment network. According to the people that are familiar with the setup. Um, it's not a particularly new idea. That goes back to seen when an exact at Facebook named David Marcus had this kind of aha moment, right, yeah, he said, what if we could also control the currency, surprise, surprising, came from PayPal right right right before he worked on this project. David Marcus was the head of Facebook Messenger, which has been tremendously successful from their definition, and before his Facebook days, he worked at PayPal, and he says the idea came out of his early days over at the Big PP, the idea of a financial network that existed outside of the world of central banks, and central banks are, by the way, in charge of pretty much everything. Well, that's my question though, right, you can't generate this currency from nothing. You have to exchange actual accepted currency into the system and then you get it, you know, an e currency or whatever. So what's the benefit here of having a currency versus just having a platform like a PayPal or a Venmo or something like that. There are some for Facebook, right, So over the past two years, again this plan is not super old. Over the past two years, details of it gradually emerged. They bought Facebook, that is, bought a company that was working to make blockchain processes a lot faster. And the primary thought here was that Facebook would do remittance payments that's where you send money across borders overseas, and they would would on WhatsApp, and they would pilot it in India because in the subcond in the country of India, a lot of people in the diaspora live abroad and they send money either to their families like living in the UK or something, or they send money back to families or businesses living in India. So they thought this was a tremendous market. You know, the timeline matches up interestingly with you remember those stories coming out of India where certain currencies were outlawed, the smaller or the bigger currencies. Yes, due to corruption. Yeah, I don't know whatever happened to that. The explanation of the etymology is that libra is an homage to the French livra or that's French for pound. We should also mention here that David Marcus is a native French speaker. So why do it this way? Why partner with twenty something other companies instead of just being Facebook money? Why can't they just be facebooks? I mean, admittedly I'm typecasting here because I in love with that kind of idea. Go bend bucks the real alternative currency. How's it doing, By the way, it's great. Actually, it's on the up and up. So the simplest reason for Facebook to assemble these avengers is that they are very, very interested in not looking like Facebook to you too, why to anybody using this. So the decentralized approach helps them function via proxies. You may never have a Facebook page that you have created, although Facebook almost certainly as a shadow profile. View by now you might say, well, I've never messed with Facebook. I do have to use Uber, and Uber takes Libra or they offered me a deal, a discount in Libra instead of dollars, So all I have to do is sign up for a Libra account. So that sounds great, and it's basically just my Uber payment system, and that's all I'll use it for forevermore. But then secondly, there's a practical approach you might not try is Facebook, but you may trust Uber, right, and you do have to trust one of the other partners involved in this for this to work. Also, because they're restricting that network, they can speed up interactions within the network and keep it secure. They're big tech questions. Is this actually a blockchain? How does it function in comparison to you know, Bitcoin or ethereum or sending money on PayPal? Uh, it's faster, and it's easier because it's a high cost transaction on Bitcoin, You've got all this processing power you require to keep it running and secure and just really quick too. Before we get into fully into the block chain things, let's not forget that that whole decentralization thing. You bring in the twenty eight members and eventually one hundred members. Even though Facebook has, as we said now in two point four billion monthly active users, all of these other companies bring in their own chunks of portions of billions of users. And perhaps the people who use Uber who are a little you know, more savvy about one thing, or the people who have a certain credit card, or the people who are using a Vota phone or whatever, maybe they aren't Facebook users, and so it's literally pooling everybody. Right, There's another there's another issue that differentiates them. Reliability, volatility. To start with, the libra will be pegged one to one with the US dollar, So one libra one U S dollar. You'll open, uh, you open a happy Birthday card from your aunt as moral dean or whatever, and she gives you a gift card for twenty libra to spend on Facebook marketplace, like, oh thanks, because that's basically twenty dollars. So does it become an issue where it's like only certain vendors will take this, so you can't use it anywhere. So the idea is to centralize, like do you use this as a in a in a way where it forces people to shop, to narrow their shopping choices as well. Right, Yeah, that's that's part of That's definitely something that they would have to be discussing in the back rooms and internal meetings. It's not there yet, but we have to remember sesame credit used to be opt in and would never be mandatory, and now it is. So this is another slow boil situation. Eventually, Libra will be tagged from what they call a basket of currencies, which is how international economists talk about this pretty often. Facebook is still figuring out how this is gonna work, but their goal is to keep it keep the Libra from being unreliable, and that's why it is fully backed by a reserve of quote real assets named Libra reserved. Of course, when you say real assets in the world of economics, we're not necessarily talking like one horse for every two libra or something like that. It's also very very cheap price for a horse. We're talking about things like um, things like bonds or some something that generates this rate of return and debts and debts. So that is the basic elevator pitch that they're using for Libra. But how will they actually use this thing in the field? What do they want? Why are people excited at Facebook about it? Why are people worried pretty much everywhere else about it? We'll tell you after a word from our sponsors. All right, we're back. Let's get into this. Here we go. So the Libra Association is the only party, the only people involved in the whole process that we'll be able to create and destroy Libra. The terms there are to mint or to burn. Isn't that nice? Uh? And the coins are only minted when authorized resellers have purchased the coins from the association with those currencies that we've talked about, the basket currencies, those FIAD assets, and uh, they they actually back the coins fully. So this coin is backed directly by this portion of the basket. Right, Okay, But here's here's the issue. They're still trying to figure out exactly how they use this stability, and they have a troubling aim so we mentioned Originally this would be for payments across international borders, right, instantaneous payments across international border, and they would probably be cheaper than the fees levied by wire transfers. However, they also want this to be used in countries where the money supply and currency value is volatile or unreliable, essentially functioning as a viable alternative a parallel currency. Yes, so this means like Zimbabwe, for instance, has been waging economic warfare on its own people has been the subject of that economic warfare abroad, and the currency as hyper inflated. But what if instead of going through the government or going through um, another government's money, you could just pull up your app. Isn't that like almost like tantamount to like a financial coup? Yes? Right, yeah, I mean so it's like but they could disguise it as philanthropy, right and say, oh, no, we're doing a good job helping stabilize these countries, but they're obviously not doing it out of the goodness of their hearts, right right, right? What happens if people in these local economies dump all of their money into libra because it retains the same value the next from one day to the next and then no one uses the actual state currency. Wouldn't that cause more economic chaos in that community while also profiting Facebook and zizz Uck Mark Zuckerberg. It's jis Ck zizz Ck that's like is that like his like demon name. I love that he's like Malok and Ziska the Germans, but Zizouck. So this, this idea, this danger is real and the critics, the critics have differing varieties or degrees of extremism here. You know, some critics are saying this is a mistake that could happen, and other critics are saying you, you people are doing this on purpose. You know what's going to happen, and you just want your bottom line, you want more power. It's true, as you said, Matt, that the Association, members of the liber Association, the only people are only entities rather that can create and destroy coins, and the coins are only minted when people have purchased the when authorized resellers have purchased the coin from the association with assets that backed the coins fully, and the coins are only destroyed or burned when those resellers sell the coin to the Association in exchange for those underlying assets so high Libra Association, here is a horse, give me coins, and they'll create coins and they'll say, all right, we'll hold the horse. And then in theory then someone comes back and they say, okay, here are my coins, give me that horse, and I'll be like, all right, boom, and we'll destroy the coins because the asset for the coin no longer exists. That's the idea, A little bit like a shell game, you know what I mean, A lot of stuff could get could get shuffled out. So that's that's that's the concept. And here's an example. As a normal user. Let's say you had let's say you're Noel Brown. You have a hundred dollars worth of Libra and you got it because you spent a hundred dollars in cash. Now you can use this Libra on any of these platforms that play these reindeer games, or you can send it to a friend. You can say, you know, I've on the Patreon for Mission Controls age of Applebee's documentary, and I wanna I want to drop fifty Libra toward this cause, because let's get it in festivals. Let's take us on tour. People need to know about the bottomless chicken fingers or whatever. So that's the idea. The big question is how do these folks make money off of it? Because they are not, as you said, doing this out of the goodness of their hearts. The Libra Association, which is legally speaking a Swiss nonprofit, put your one hundred dollars into a bunch of low risk short term investments treasury bills, etcetera, etcetera. So, for example, in July of two thousand nineteen, a one month treasury bill was yielding two point one to five on a year on a yearly basis. So that means that since they bought those treasury bills with your money, they will earn two dollars and change on your one dollar per just but you're not necessarily entitled to those profits. You get none of that. And think about it this way. All of those member corporations are putting in ten million dollars of their own money as seed money for this thing, right, so that the Libor Association begins with two eight million dollars in that account, and then as they add in more members, they're adding ten million dollars more. And then as people are putting their money their actual fiat currency and exchanging it into libre dollars. That pool gets bigger and bigger and bigger that they're purchasing these things with, and that interest becomes massive. So the appeal on the users on the consumer side is the stability of the currency, whereas like with like Bitcoin, for example, you know it it tanked and then it went way high and it's really all over the place. This would not be that same kind of speculative gamble that people do with like other e coin. Right, that's the idea. Yes, that's what they're selling to the public, right, but what they're selling internally is a massive amount of profit, a huge pile of as you've said before, pony bones. To to size it up, let's let's look at an example. So the Federal Reserve tracks the u S money supply in a couple of ways. One, let's just call that M one Money one. Money one is what we would define the sum total of cash, coins, money, and checking accounts right now, that's about three point seven trillion dollars. M two would be everything in money one. Money two is everything in money one plus savings accounts, money market funds, co d s, other kinds of bank deposits. That number is more than fourteen trillion. So let's assume a few years go by, and this is a great example I believe in wired or Investipedia. Let's assume that after a couple of years have gone by, Libra has achieved about ten percent of what we would call money one, So about ten percent of the money and money one has been somehow adopted or associate with the cryptocurrency Libra. And let's also assume by this time Libra has sold a billion dollars worth of the investment token. Oh, which didn't mentioned. Libra is actually two currencies. Yeah, you've got the one that everybody like that we're basically talking about right now, the Libra, the one that you will eventually be able to use. Unless you are, let's say, a member of Facebook or you work with them or one of the associations. You get these things called investment tokens. And these investment tokens are much more expensive. You know, your company twenty nine, you're you're not buying Libra, you're buying at Libra investment tokens. And so let's let's assume that they sold a billion worth of those tokens and it cost a billion to run the network and manage their investments. And let's say that the Treasury bill holds the same little over two percent return over a year after all those expenses. With that, with ten percent of the US population using this libra would be generating just an interest about seven billion dollars a year. That yearly return on investment, just just to put that in perspective, is six hundred eight point five one percent. So that's ten the M one number, ten percent of the M one number, right, which was three point seven trillion dollars. That's that's I mean, that's a lot of money, but it's only ten percent of the known dollars that are going around almost a seven d percent return. Now that's if all those conditions we just outlined go through. Sure, why, how how can we allow this? That sounds just like members of the Federal Reserve Congress, because there are some controversies, like their hijacking the monetary system for their own personal games. It's like the one it's one of the few things that it seems people on the far right and the far left agree is dangerous. Maybe it's because no one in Congress has a sweet enough deal yet with it. Maybe when they're getting some investment tokens, they'll be okay with it. Oh, that is happening right now. So now, just today as we were recording this, uh, members of Facebook were testifying to Congress. They were speaking to Congress about this, and their questions were things like, Okay, you guys are essentially proposing to be a bank and call it cryptocurrency if you want, but what you're describing is not cryptocurrency. You're describing a bank. We have banks, and they have rules that they are theoretically supposed to follow. So you have to do regulations, right, Like, how are we going to work this out? But this is this one of those things where it's like a disruptive thing in the same way that Uber doesn't have to go into the same regulations as the taxi cab industry, etcetera. Until the laws catch up. But you know, for a while, it's like a feeding frenzy free for all. Right, So if they like pass this, yeah, maybe eventually the laws will catch up and they can, like you know, uncle Sam can get his due. But right off, the rip probably not gonna happen. It's gonna make a lot of a few people and a lot of money. This is also not a US based company. We have to remember's basically an offshore account. If it's Swiss with nonprofit everything about the stinks. I don't like it. Well, I mean it's pretty smart. Imagine if you could get just imagine if you could start a bank that's not a bank, get in the market, take over of all the currency, all before the regulations catch up to you, and then by the time they do, you're too big to fail. So it's just like, yeah, they got a play ball with you because you now own the system. It's that old, it's ill quote when you hear about very wealthy people getting away with financial crimes or robbing banks. Essentially, I heard a quote that I thought we would all enjoy, which is, uh, if you owe the bank a thousand dollars, that's your problem. If you owe the bank a hundred million dollars, that's the bank's problem. What about fd I C protection my my depositive wells Fargo is guaranteed up to dollars, That's what we're saying. Yeah, but I'm saying, like, does that apply here at all? No? Right, well it would it would have to. Again, this proposed it Uh, if it obeyed regulations. Yeah, one of those regulations would be being fd I C and short. But that's just one of the problems. Another problem is privacy. Given Facebook's frankly hilarious track record with privacy, you can understand why people, regardless of whatever their personal leanings are, might not trust it to have a finger in their personal finances or commercial finances. What happens when liber gets hacked? Oh seriously, because it doesn't even matter if you've clicked the little button that says share all of my Libra purchases on my timeline, because that will be a thing. It doesn't matter because people may find out, Like Ben said, if if Facebook gets hacked, if that private information is then sold to a third party at some time on determined time down the road, like your entire purchase history could and would very much be available right right. Uh, Facebook has become or the Libra Association excuse me? Is Jeff Goldblooman vibes they can touch a Libra and they can see everywhere it has been and that that could help to be fair, that could help combat some of the crimes that this will inevitably be used for. Is this also just another step towards moving us into a cashless economy. Yes, very much. So my question is this too, Like, it's a it's a balance, right, because on the one hand, getting rid of cash certainly cripples like some of the cartels and like illegal drug trade. Right, you can't buy cocaine at a bar with libro yet, Mike. But but that's my question. They're like, how how does this balance out? Like obviously one of the issues here too is there's a it's a haven for money laundering potentially, there's a lot of problems there. But also removing cash, you could argue, would cripple some of the very nefarious nastiness that comes in, you know, with with drug smuggling and the ability to like, you know, pay for that stuff with cash. That's true, but we also have to consider our species thought the same thing about bitcoin, and then bitcoin was used for illicit arms deals with terrorist organizations because of that and that difficulty tracing it. And let's just talk about you can venmo somebody at a bar snacks, So why would you not be able to libra something. You're totally right, You're totally right, I mean, yeah, you can, just couldn't know. I think what Matt's pointed, you can't call it anything. Yeah, you just do a little cute emoji from you know, like like thumbs up, you know, and in very much like a social media perhaps the only things that Libro would know is that this transaction occurred between these two wallets or Libra accounts. Essentially, it's not going to know what it was for because like a social media account, it knows what you tell it. But what happens when that person goes to jail for selling drugs and then you're in their transaction record? Does that mean you get in trouble for buying drugs? It's like the old Dangerous It's it's like the old dangerous Kevin Bacon game or the n s a leap frog surveillance, you know what I mean. It's it's a question that hasn't been answered yet and it could have found effects on global and local economic stability. This is an ongoing story, that's the thing. The details of this are going to change. President Donald Trump or current president Donald Trump. FED Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell and others have already been very concerned about this idea. Uh, they're talking about money launching, They're talking about manipulative trading, right. Uh. Some Democratic members of Congress called on Facebook to stop working on Libra until Washington is satisfied that this is not some sort of dystopian corporate ocracy replacing the state, right, and to push pause, you know, just long enough for them to buy all of those congressmen right, because there is not an insider trading law that really applies to Congress. So yeah, recently, as we said today, Marcus testified to Congress to address concerns about this, and he said the Libre Group will work with the Federal Reserve and other central banks to make sure Libra doesn't compete with sovereign currencies or interfere with monetary policy. How other what's the point then otherwise? How But that's what I'm saying, Like literally, I think he said they're not going to do is the thing that makes it profitable is the fact that it is doing that. Right. I don't understand the You could just color as skeptical on this one, because it does feel conspiratorial for him to be in Congress being like, look, guys, we made the Giant Sea Killer death ray as a safety measure because the oceans are being very polluted. We're not going to use it on you, though, I promise to insinuate that we would use the giant sea killer death ray too in any way harm the ocean is frankly offensive. This line of questioning. We're just we're just building this giant death ray thing for our own benefits because it generates us death ray interest. So check this out. This is the other thing Mr Marcus said. And I don't want to jump on this too hard, but I'm gonna add a tiny little bit to this. Yeah. Um, he's mentioning that Libra isn't necessarily an investment. He said, quote, people will not buy it to hold like they would a stock or a bond or another cryptocurrency. Will be doing that, sorry, that will be doing so. If this is important because if it isn't an investment, uh, the security an Exchange Commissioner SEC would be less likely to regulate it currently. As we recorded today, Facebook told Washington the Libra cryptocurrency would be regulated by Switzerland's financial overseers, and then it added that the digital money there would never compete with national currencies, never undermined central banks, and now we have to open it to you folks. What do you think should a privately owned consortium like this possess what could be the same powers as a government. Are the critics being alarmist? Or are this are these scary times? Are we? I mean, it hasn't happened yet. That's true, it hasn't happened yet. But how strange will it be for us to come back and record an episode next year? And uh and and you know have just walked in paying for lunch with Liebro. Yeah, I know it's impossible. I'd love to talk to Switzerland and their watchdog about whatever happened with HSBC, Like, what what went wrong there? I thought you guys were the watch dogs, remember that whole trug smuggling thing cartels? No, no, okay, y'all are good. Cool, It's all good, guys. It really does make notoriously non confrontational. Oh it's true. Yeah, you know what part of it. Peter Falk is also in vibes. I just want to add that Peter Falk that help. I love some Peter Falk vibes, dude. So I'm really really happy, honestly, Like, I can't tell you how happy I am with all of this occurring right now over the next few years. Like how excited I am that I took the day and got my e coin wallet in order, because I mean, gosh, it could have been chaos, like so quickly. You're on the up and up, my friends. So so tell us, tell us is this is this good? Is this bad? Uh? Is this little column a little column? B? If so? Why you can tell us this on the phone directly. We have a phone number. You can call us. We are one eight three three st d W y t K. Leave a message and uh, you know, talk to us about how corporations are becoming much much more powerful than governments. To us your best Peter falk And or Jeff Goldblum impersonation. How mash them up into one cool hybrid impersonation. I'd love to hear that. See if you get any vibes from hearing Ben when he does the outgoing message. You can also find us on Facebook and Twitter and Instagram. We're all over those places. Uh we we'd like to recommend before before the Libra's Institute did that you check out one of our favorite places on the internet. Here is where it gets crazy, you guys. I just thought of something. When liber comes through, we can leverage our here's where it gets crazy page and our stuff. They don't want you to know official show page, to institute a version of Libra that we will call ben Bucks. You know, it's its own thing, and we we could call it. We should. We should call it something more reflective of the show. Maybe, Okay, um, I just I. I respect you guys immensely, but ben Bucks is sort of my I don't want to split the pie. Was Okay, we'll call it the Conspiracy Sure, that's perfect. You can also find us in our individual lives and doing various misadventures. You can catch me on Instagram. I'm at ben Bulling. You can catch me as well. I am at how Now Noel Brown, and I'm working very hard to start a new account called Conspiracy Vibes. Really yeah, I'm really hoping it hasn't been taken. Oh man, that's wonderful. You cannot find me on Instagram. Actually, if you dig hard enough you probably can. But it's a private account, so I don't know. I'll have to look at your picture and make sure you look trustworthy and have a dog or a cat or something. Walk a walk, a walk. I'm just kidding, all right. If you don't want to do any of that stuff, you can still write to us, give us suggestions for the show, anything you want to talk to us about in the good old fashioned way. We are conspiracy at iHeart radio dot com. Stuff they Don't want you to Know is a production of iHeart Radio's How Stuff Works. For more podcasts from my heart Radio, visit the iHeart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.