Reaction & Commentary
About that what’s happening right well it’s already it’s already happening here uh you know last year i wrote this paper very wise about that financial platform would be the next wave of online censorship i mean i was worrying about this last year because paypal that banana helped found
You know but we sold many years ago it’s now under new management um they are working with partisan left-wing groups like the adl and the splc to define lists of individuals and groups who they deem to have you know extremist or unacceptable views and they’re denied access to
Paypal accounts and there are other financial institutions who are following suit the collective effect of which is to shut people out of the financial system and if you think it’s bad to deny people the right to free speech and to participate in the online marketplace of
Ideas how much worse is it to design them access to the new economy to the way that they can buy food and medicine and other products for their families uh you know it is really a very severe form of punishment and social control and you know that is what we’re talking
About we talk about a social credit system we’re talking about a system that you know sort of pretends to allow political descent doesn’t just send you to the gulag but it conditions your ability to access the economy that and the benefits of society it conditions that on having the correct
Views on having the acceptable views and you know what did justin trudeau do he declared right out of the gate that these protesters had unacceptable views and then he proceeded to freeze their bank accounts and to shut off anybody who might contribute to them that is really terrifying the way the
Way he said you know we’re gonna we’re gonna shut down their accounts we’re gonna close the off ramps for bitcoin it’s not only them but it’s anybody who donated to them or quote helped them that’s right anybody anybody anybody who has quote indirectly directly or indirectly involved in the protest was now subject
To this this law in the you know this emergencies act that he invoked uh without really proper basis and you know anyone who you know quote unquote provided property to help facilitate the protests could now be swept up in the dragon head and so it’s
Not just if you’re say you know one of the organizers of the protest but if you’re you know a little grandma somewhere and you want to contribute 25 so that you know a trucker really a poor destitute trucker can buy a hot meal or some fuel to keep themselves from
Freezing at night if that’s your intent to make that donation you can still be swept up in this and you can have your bank account frozen and one of the you know incredible things about it is not just this unprecedented extension of aiding and abetting liability but also that it’s retroactive
That you know grandma who made the contribution at the time she did it was completely legal and yet under this order she can now have her account frozen as punishment and so what what is the point of this it is to signal and there’s going to be a chilling effect in
The future that even if you make a completely lawful donation to a political cause if that if justin trudeau doesn’t like that cause if he thinks there are quote-unquote unacceptable views that he has the power that he can invoke the power at some point in the future to
Freeze your bank account even though what you did is legal today that is the precedent they’ve created and i think the result of that must be a chilling effect on political defense oh big time there are um you know also including insurance companies i mean he took their license away their license to
Do business their trucks away their insurance away and their uh their banking having them debanked and then said even when this is over banks might want to consider not doing uh business with these people so basically i mean they’re lepers absolutely yes absolutely i mean they’re really creating a
Case of of untouchables there in canada i mean like you said they’re they’re towing their trucks they’re confiscating them the mayor of ontario even said let’s sell off these trucks we’ve seized them now sell them off we’re going to use them to pay our bills uh they want
To give these guys a criminal record so they can never work again they’ve taken away their insurance they’ve taken away the regulatory license and then on top of that because anybody who helps them who contributes to them can themselves now be frozen no one’s going to want to help them so
What what happens to those people david what happens to them you cut people’s licenses you cut people’s um money off you how do you survive they’re they’re creating a a group of destitute and desperate people and you have to wonder for what i mean the covet pandemic is is on the way in
This at an end even as justin trudeau was invoking these emergency powers the you know a number of the provinces were ending coven mandates they got the message he never got the message it’s just extreme intolerance you know i i have news for you though david i i don’t
You know even if it was waiting i mean i watched um uh occupy wall street i was in new york during occupy wall street as long as you’re not breaking the law or destroying property you you have a right to do that i never said we should sweep those people up that’s
Craziness that’s craziness and i should be even stronger on the people i disagree with i should fight for their right more than my right because who will fight for mine exactly i mean this is absolutely about the right of people to be able to engage in in speech
And political expression and to have the right to protest against their government and these were almost entirely peaceful protests um there was no violence and yet trudeau instantly denounced all the protesters as basically being terrorists you know what about terrorists yeah exactly which allowed them to apply
These anti-terrorist laws to you know to freeze their bank house that the the most extreme forms of um you know the most extreme powers that the government has which is to act on terrorist threat were thereby invoked to really go after these ordinary you know working class men and women
We’re talking to david sacks he’s the founding ce ceo of paypal and he is warning about the coming social credit system uh that is in canada and do we have time to stop it here you know one of the things david that i found um even well as shocking is
The fact that there was a hacker who went in hacked took all of these names doxxed everybody and the media published them and started humiliating them uh and pillaring them in public that’s right and it had real consequences there was a owner of a gelato shop who was exposed as having
Made a small contribution to the protesters that they got so many threats they had to shut down their shop there was a low-level government employee who donated a hundred dollars she was fired from her job because of that so there’s been real reprisals based on
That hack and you know i’m old enough to remember when social media cited as the reason they wouldn’t publish that they would suppress the hunter vine stories for the election that it came from hacked material right where was that policy implemented today right um you know this was this was a
Legally obtained material and the process reported it so david you know i don’t know if you’re up on esg but that is that’s what um trudeau has done without the emergency order um if you fall out of line with e s or g uh you’re going to be de-banked um or
You will start to uh feel the heat of the banking and uh financial and insurance system uh how far away from this system are we to have a a true credit score do you see this happening sooner rather than later and what do we do to stop it yeah
Well this is my main concern is you know at the end of the day i’m not a canadian and you know i watched with scientists and what’s happening over there but ultimately it’s going to be up to canadians to govern themselves what i’m mostly concerned about is the precedent that trudeau has set
That progressives here in america might look to and implement and let’s identify the elements of the ingredients of this toxic stew that already exist over here first of all you’ve got big tech companies like you know my alma mater paypal have been freezing accounts based on you know working with partisan
Political groups to you know to shut people out of the financial system that practice is already taking place second you’ve got state of emergencies in states like california where i live where the governor is still operating under a state of emergency he has invoked emergency powers that never seemed to
End even though we just had a super bowl where 30 000 people were sitting you know elbow to elbow without any mass on it yet we’re still in a state of emergency third we have recently the department of homeland security has now defined misinformation about hovid or the
Election to be a contributor to the terrorist threat level so in other words misinformation in their view can contribute to terrorism so we have now all the ingredients where you have politicians invoking fake state of emergencies you’ve got big tech companies shutting people out of the political system and you’ve got this
Very scary and dangerous redefinition of terrorism to effectively apply to domestic political dissent so you have all the ingredients there that justin trudeau was able to seize on and all you’re really lacking is the emergency necessary to invoke those powers um so that is what i’m afraid of
As i see all the precedents coming together and but we have one thing in the united states that canada doesn’t have which is a rich constitutional tradition we have the protections under the constitution and so i’m i’m hopeful that our supreme court would protect us against um
You know an authoritarian attack on our liberties this way however there are many in our you know political system who want to pack the supreme court as it stands today and and what would happen if the supreme court were packed they would water down these rights and
Liberties and protections that we have i think this is an issue that supersedes all others you know any political candidate who would give support to packing the supreme court should be instantly rejected i think by everybody across the political spectrum and furthermore i would say you know uh
Biden has a scotus pick coming up the republicans on the senate judiciary committee should make this topic number one what do they think about the use of these authoritarian powers these fake state of emergencies let’s hear from them you know i don’t think republicans will be able to stop the scotus pick but
Let’s put them on the record and um and discuss this issue are there any other people that have this point of view that is they’re in your business they’re in tech i mean it feels like uh as the average person it feels like we are just up against this monolithic monster
Yeah i mean glad it’s uh it’s rather scary i mean i’m definitely an outlier in the in the tech industry you know i’ve been involved in the tech industry for over 20 years uh first as a founder now as a investor and i can tell you that there are other
People who do share to one degree or another my concerns about civil liberties i mean i think it does extend across the political spectrum however they definitely feel intimidated into silence they believe that there will be reprisals for speaking out and so i would say
I’m not alone in my views but there are too many people speaking out and and that’s that’s pretty scary not that you would care at this point but have you have you paid a price for it um you know not that uh not that i can tell i mean i
Would say uh i mean i’m gonna but but here’s the thing was i’m at a stage in my career yeah where i don’t have to worry about it you know yeah if i never made another time frankly i’d be fine so for me speaking out is the most important thing
And you know if it cost me some business that i don’t know about them so be it you know um but so so far i’ve been i’ve been fine and you know what i’m trying to do i participate on this podcast probably all in pod with a few friends in tech
You know one of the main reasons why i’ve spoken out is to show people that you can speak out and and they should have a little bit more courage in doing so because i don’t think the majority of people acros you know across the political spectrum want to see our civil liberties eroded
This way i think it is a bipartisan issue certainly for uh republicans independents and i’d say even many democrats but there is a hard political left the sort of the progressive left that is driving all of this and one of the reasons why they’re successful at driving this is because moderates will
Not are too afraid to speak out and oppose it yeah so i don’t think there’s a majority but they are driving the agenda because no one will speak out against it and it’s really a very hypocritical agenda because i mean these people you look at trudeau his self-conception is completely at
Odds with the reality i mean he claims to be saving democracy preserving democracy even as he is invoking your authoritarian powers he claims to be the defender of the little guy of the working class and the disadvantage while you know crushing these you know poor working-class truck drivers under the
Sort of heel of of his government um you know they claim to be on the side of diversity and tolerance while insisting that there’s only one acceptable point of view and you know censoring all the alternatives is misinformation so you know these this hard progressive left is completely hypocritical um i don’t
Think most people support it but they’re kind of running unopposed right now because people are so afraid to speak out david thank you for speaking out thank you for being on the program um i hope uh i hope we can have you on again god bless you and and all the
Things that you’re doing right now david sacks founding ceo of paypal founder and general partner of craft ventures if you see what he has invested in uh he is on the cutting edge and god bless him for speaking out wait he produced the movie thank you for smoking that’s a great movie
How did we not talk to him about that i don’t know hopefully we’ll have him back on he’s he’s great you
