WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:02.459 Welcome to the Deep Dive. Today, we are digging 00:00:02.459 --> 00:00:04.719 into a source document called the Alan Curtis 00:00:04.719 --> 00:00:07.919 Protocol, and it offers a completely new way 00:00:07.919 --> 00:00:12.220 of looking at American history from 1946 right 00:00:12.220 --> 00:00:15.279 up to today. It's a dense read, for sure. But 00:00:15.279 --> 00:00:17.239 our mission here is really to unpack its core 00:00:17.239 --> 00:00:20.320 argument. The protocol says that our old categories 00:00:20.320 --> 00:00:23.980 for society, things like race or even how we 00:00:23.980 --> 00:00:26.579 define capital, are, you know, they're outdated. 00:00:27.120 --> 00:00:29.539 So what should we use instead? It suggests we 00:00:29.539 --> 00:00:32.039 should analyze two basic units. The first is 00:00:32.039 --> 00:00:33.960 CHITs, which are just units of social capital. 00:00:34.100 --> 00:00:36.600 Earn trust. Okay, and the second? Subsidies. 00:00:36.619 --> 00:00:38.520 And that's your level of access to official state 00:00:38.520 --> 00:00:40.759 infrastructure. Think banks, city services, that 00:00:40.759 --> 00:00:42.439 kind of thing. And the takeaway from all this 00:00:42.439 --> 00:00:44.979 is, well, it's genuinely shocking. It connects 00:00:44.979 --> 00:00:47.219 the Great Migration directly to the gig economy. 00:00:47.359 --> 00:00:49.780 Exactly. The protocol states that the whole era 00:00:49.780 --> 00:00:52.560 of the white subsidy, you know, that built -in 00:00:52.560 --> 00:00:55.600 expectation of structural security, is over it's 00:00:55.600 --> 00:00:58.439 ended and we've entered a new age the age of 00:00:58.439 --> 00:01:01.119 the universal chit holder which leads to its 00:01:01.119 --> 00:01:04.540 most dramatic conclusion we are all black now 00:01:04.540 --> 00:01:07.780 what does that mean precisely it means that the 00:01:07.780 --> 00:01:12.780 economic precarity the reliance on informal labor 00:01:13.340 --> 00:01:15.340 Being locked out of the main banking system. 00:01:15.519 --> 00:01:17.280 And additions historically reserved for the black 00:01:17.280 --> 00:01:20.120 underclass. Right. The protocol argues those 00:01:20.120 --> 00:01:22.280 conditions have now been universalized to almost 00:01:22.280 --> 00:01:25.200 everyone through modern finance. That is a radical 00:01:25.200 --> 00:01:28.000 reframing. So to understand that, the source 00:01:28.000 --> 00:01:31.500 takes us back to the architect of this original 00:01:31.500 --> 00:01:34.859 system, a man named Nimrod Booker Allen. Yeah, 00:01:34.879 --> 00:01:37.099 in the early 20th century. What Nimrod Allen 00:01:37.099 --> 00:01:40.180 did in Columbus, starting around 1917 with the 00:01:40.180 --> 00:01:43.349 Urban League, is just fascinating. And the protocol 00:01:43.349 --> 00:01:45.750 reinterprets that work. It does. It sees the 00:01:45.750 --> 00:01:48.030 Urban League as a kind of clearinghouse for social 00:01:48.030 --> 00:01:50.890 chits. It was essentially the only central ledger 00:01:50.890 --> 00:01:53.170 of trust available. So for a migrant arriving 00:01:53.170 --> 00:01:55.709 with nothing. A letter of recommendation from 00:01:55.709 --> 00:01:58.209 Allen was like their Genesis block. It was the 00:01:58.209 --> 00:02:00.930 first verifiable proof of their character, which 00:02:00.930 --> 00:02:03.109 they could then trade for a job or a place to 00:02:03.109 --> 00:02:05.069 live. He was literally building a system of trust 00:02:05.069 --> 00:02:09.020 to bypass systemic exclusion. Precisely. And 00:02:09.020 --> 00:02:11.159 he didn't just stop with paper. Look at the big 00:02:11.159 --> 00:02:14.120 Walnut Country Club he founded in 1936. Which 00:02:14.120 --> 00:02:16.879 wasn't just about leisure. Not at all. The source 00:02:16.879 --> 00:02:20.219 calls it volumetric reclamation. It was a physical 00:02:20.219 --> 00:02:23.159 space that proved their internal chit ledger 00:02:23.159 --> 00:02:25.740 had real purchasing power, completely separate 00:02:25.740 --> 00:02:27.580 from the white subsidy system that shut them 00:02:27.580 --> 00:02:29.860 out. So from the social ledger, we move to the 00:02:29.860 --> 00:02:33.319 financial engine of this world, the underground 00:02:33.319 --> 00:02:37.330 numbers racket or policy wheel. Wait, are you 00:02:37.330 --> 00:02:39.310 saying the protocol treats a gambling ring like 00:02:39.310 --> 00:02:41.930 a sophisticated financial system? It does. Absolutely. 00:02:42.069 --> 00:02:45.469 It frames the policy wheel as an early decentralized 00:02:45.469 --> 00:02:48.889 finance or DeFi protocol, one built entirely 00:02:48.889 --> 00:02:52.319 on that trust density. A DeFi protocol. Yeah. 00:02:52.439 --> 00:02:55.159 But here's the twist. The algorithm that determined 00:02:55.159 --> 00:02:57.280 the winning numbers. How did that work? It was 00:02:57.280 --> 00:02:59.379 ironically pegged to the daily totals from the 00:02:59.379 --> 00:03:02.219 New York Stock Exchange. No way. A parasitic 00:03:02.219 --> 00:03:04.500 link to Wall Street? It was the only way for 00:03:04.500 --> 00:03:06.520 a black resident to get a lump sum liquidity 00:03:06.520 --> 00:03:09.759 event. You know, a $600 jackpot that no bank 00:03:09.759 --> 00:03:11.919 would ever lend them. And the runner, the person 00:03:11.919 --> 00:03:14.120 collecting the bets, was the essential trust 00:03:14.120 --> 00:03:16.819 node holding it all together. And the proof that 00:03:16.819 --> 00:03:20.080 this system actually worked. The 1947 blizzard. 00:03:20.590 --> 00:03:22.710 It was the perfect stress test. The official 00:03:22.710 --> 00:03:25.050 systems failed. Completely. The white subsidy, 00:03:25.270 --> 00:03:28.889 city, plows, banks, it all froze. But the black 00:03:28.889 --> 00:03:31.449 shit network, relying on runners, on pedestrian 00:03:31.449 --> 00:03:33.909 -scale neighborhoods, it showed much higher resilience. 00:03:34.550 --> 00:03:37.189 Commerce kept going on informal credit. High 00:03:37.189 --> 00:03:39.870 trust beat subsidized infrastructure. So let's 00:03:39.870 --> 00:03:43.389 connect that to now, the period from, say, 2010 00:03:43.389 --> 00:03:46.909 to today. How does that shit -based economy relate 00:03:46.909 --> 00:03:49.830 to our current lives? Well, the protocol is blunt. 00:03:50.319 --> 00:03:52.319 The gig economy is just a digital replication 00:03:52.319 --> 00:03:54.340 of that day labor structure. But for everyone 00:03:54.340 --> 00:03:57.000 now. For everyone. The worker across all demographics 00:03:57.000 --> 00:03:59.539 is basically a subcontractor paid in digital 00:03:59.539 --> 00:04:02.280 chits app credits. Wages with no pension, no 00:04:02.280 --> 00:04:04.740 security. That old promise of the subsidy has 00:04:04.740 --> 00:04:06.680 evaporated. Which brings us to the final piece. 00:04:07.159 --> 00:04:10.120 The 2025 Genius Act. It's all about regulating 00:04:10.120 --> 00:04:13.159 stable coins, our modern digital chits. This 00:04:13.159 --> 00:04:15.599 part is critical. The act formalizes the whole 00:04:15.599 --> 00:04:18.079 informal economy. It gives stability to the universal 00:04:18.079 --> 00:04:20.680 chit holder, which sounds good. But there's a 00:04:20.680 --> 00:04:24.040 catch. A huge catch. It prohibits the issuers, 00:04:24.040 --> 00:04:27.600 the big banks, the tech giants, from paying any 00:04:27.600 --> 00:04:29.360 interest to the people actually holding the stable 00:04:29.360 --> 00:04:32.040 coins. So who gets the interest on all that money? 00:04:32.259 --> 00:04:34.060 The issuers capture it. It's called the float. 00:04:34.459 --> 00:04:36.699 The interest earned on the massive reserves backing 00:04:36.699 --> 00:04:39.000 the stable coins. The worker gets stability, 00:04:39.259 --> 00:04:42.120 but the centralized issuer gets all the profit. 00:04:42.339 --> 00:04:44.800 So what's the ultimate conclusion here? What 00:04:44.800 --> 00:04:47.740 does this all mean? The protocol concludes the 00:04:47.740 --> 00:04:50.199 struggle was never really about race or even 00:04:50.199 --> 00:04:53.579 just money. It was always and still is about 00:04:53.579 --> 00:04:57.439 access to control. Control over the ledger. So 00:04:57.439 --> 00:04:59.579 the history of the segregated economy was just 00:04:59.579 --> 00:05:01.920 a rehearsal for the global gig economy we're 00:05:01.920 --> 00:05:04.920 all in now. And Nimrod Allen's lesson seems clearer 00:05:04.920 --> 00:05:07.300 than ever. The chit holder outnumbers the subsidy 00:05:07.300 --> 00:05:10.220 distributor. So for all this new unified class 00:05:10.220 --> 00:05:12.980 of chit holders, how can we organize our collective 00:05:12.980 --> 00:05:15.620 trust density to reclaim the volume that's being 00:05:15.620 --> 00:05:17.579 captured by the issuers? That's something to 00:05:17.579 --> 00:05:19.040 carry with you until the next deep dive.