The Case for Authoritarianism | Vitalik Buterin & Noah Smith

What if the information anarchy of the internet spells the downfall of liberalism?

Economist Noah Smith and Ethereum Founder Vitalik Buterin join us for a fascinating discussion on why Authoritarianism might be the answer to the current information warfare. Yes, you heard that right.

We start the episode by defining liberalism, how it has brought excessive polarization and why totalitarianism might be the only solution left. We then steelman the case against this same argument and how blockchains and crypto could play a role in all this.

------ ✨ Mint the episode on Zora ✨ https://zora.co/collect/zora:0x0c294913a7596b427add7dcbd6d7bbfc7338d53f/20?referrer=0x077Fe9e96Aa9b20Bd36F1C6290f54F8717C5674E 

------ 📣STAKEWISE | LIQUID SOLO STAKING https://bankless.cc/Pod_StakeWise  

------ BANKLESS SPONSOR TOOLS:

🐙KRAKEN | MOST-TRUSTED CRYPTO EXCHANGE https://k.xyz/bankless-pod-q2    ⁠ 

🌐 TRANSPORTER | CROSS CHAINS WITH CONFIDENCE https://transporter.io/ 

🔗CELO | CEL2 COMING SOON https://bankless.cc/Celo 

🛞MANTLE | MODULAR LAYER 2 NETWORK https://bankless.cc/Mantle 

⚡️ CARTESI | LINUX-POWERED ROLLUPS https://bankless.cc/CartesiGovernance    ⚖️ARBITRUM | SCALING ETHEREUM ⁠https://bankless.cc/Arbitrum 

------ TIMESTAMPS

0:00 Intro 8:53 Defining Liberalism 21:50 Information Warfare 42:17 Summarizing the Argument 55:09 Could the Thesis be Wrong? 1:11:12 Information Leviathans 1:34:13 The Role of Blockchains 1:38:22 Closing & Disclaimers

------ RESOURCES

Vitalik Buterin https://x.com/VitalikButerin  

Noah Smith https://x.com/Noahpinion  

Noahpinion Blog https://www.noahpinion.blog/  

------ Not financial or tax advice. See our investment disclosures here: https://www.bankless.com/disclosures ⁠