Fair point — anyone claiming Bitcoin (or anything else) will mean literally “no more wars ever” would be delusional.

War has existed as long as humans have, and it probably always will in some form because of human nature and evil. No serious person expects nirvana or utopia from a money.

What Saifedean actually says in the exact clip you’re replying to is that fiat money printing gave governments the ability to fight “a lot more war” — and that’s why people now think endless war is normal.

Pre-1914 (under hard money like gold), rulers ran out of real resources fast, so wars were smaller, shorter, and needed real public buy-in.

Fiat removed that limit, letting states print indefinitely and hide the cost through inflation.

That’s how we got the century of total war and hundreds of millions dead. Bitcoin simply restores the hard limit: no more infinite printer to fund permanent conflict at the state level.

On the refugee/warlord point: You’re right that in pure barbarism, torture and killing happen — they always have, whether people hold gold, cash, jewelry, or bank passwords. Brutal actors don’t suddenly become nice because of Bitcoin.

But here’s the practical difference Saifedean highlights — and why this actually changes the game:
• Your entire wealth can live in just 12 memorized words — nothing physical to find, seize at a checkpoint, or loot makes it much more difficult costly than ever before. Even impossible with multi sig / collaborative custody.

• Plunder has been the fuel of war and power for all of human history. With Bitcoin, attackers can’t even know who has value or efficiently steal it. They’d have to torture and kill on a scale unseen for uncertain (often zero) returns.

Many people throughout history have chosen death over capture, enslavement, or giving up their savings — Bitcoin makes that resistance even more effective because there’s often literally nothing left to extract.

• Plausible deniability + (as mentioned above) tools like multisig make extraction far harder than with suitcases of cash or gold.

• We’ve already seen it work in real crises: people in Venezuela, Lebanon, Ukraine, and Afghanistan used Bitcoin to escape when banks froze accounts, borders seized assets, or inflation wiped out savings.

It’s not perfect protection against psychopaths (nothing is), but it’s historically the most seizure-resistant form of wealth ever created.

And unlike fiat governments, warlords can’t just print more money to fund endless campaigns either.

And yeah, some Bitcoin Twitter gets overly zealous and can sound cult-like — I’ll give you that. But the core argument isn’t “Bitcoin fixes human evil".

It’s an incentive argument: sound money stops governments from quietly stealing wealth to fund endless war and welfare without voter backlash.

Saifedean is actually pretty pessimistic about states — he just thinks removing the money printer is the single biggest structural fix we have.

Curious: if you don’t think the ability to print infinite money is a major driver of modern permanent war, what do you see as the main cause? Happy to hear your take.

Guys, honest discourse helps everyone. Please enlighten me, what do you disagree with, what "is not the way"? Others might learn from your take too

Great question! Wars did happen long before modern money printing — Saifedean has addressed this directly in his books and talks.

Under hard money (like the classical gold standard), governments could only fund wars with actual gold/silver or real taxes. That meant wars were usually much smaller in scale, shorter, and required genuine public commitment.

Rulers had to melt down their own treasures, raise visible taxes, or borrow real savings — resources that ran out fast. It was more difficult and more obvious to force populations into war, though of course it still happened.

Over time people stood against conscription (like in France and England), but printing money made endless war — and war against the population — possible.

The government could now extract wealth from its citizens through inflation and fund war until its people were in financial ruin. You couldn’t have endless, world-spanning conflicts without bankrupting the state or facing revolt.

They were more like limited battles between armies (often “take it outside” and leave civilians mostly alone) rather than total societal destruction.

What Saifedean is explaining in the clip you saw (the one about the money printer and unending wars) is that fiat money printing changed everything.

After governments ditched gold convertibility to fund WWI (and kept printing through the 1920s inflation → Great Depression → WWII), they gained the ability to fund permanent war through hidden inflation — a silent tax that doesn’t require immediate public approval. That’s why he says we got hundreds of millions dead in the last century and why people now think endless war is “normal".

The clip nails it: printing + restricting gold movement = ability to fight “a lot more war".

Bitcoin flips the script and can actually help end (or at least defund) this cycle. With sound money like Bitcoin, governments can’t just print infinite supply to pay for perpetual conflict — they’d have to rely on real taxation again, which quickly hits limits (exactly like pre-1914).

Saifedean has said things like “If we go to Bitcoin… No more war. Game over” because it removes the fuel for the war machine.

Even better, Bitcoin protects individuals in ways no other money can:
• Your entire wealth can be stored in your head as just 12 words (a seed phrase). No vaults, no banks, no suitcases of cash/gold that can be seized.
• Governments literally can’t steal what they can’t find or confiscate — it’s just math in your brain.
• This changes everything for people in war zones (refugees can flee with their life savings memorized, no checkpoints can take it), travelers (cross any border undetected), folks in dangerous neighborhoods or authoritarian regimes (hide it from gangs or the state without needing physical assets), and anyone living under instability.

Saifedean calls Bitcoin “money for peace” for exactly these reasons. It restores the natural brake on state aggression that hard money used to provide, while giving every person real sovereignty. Wars didn’t start with printing, but printing turned them into the endless nightmare we see today — and Bitcoin is the off-switch.

Highly recommend his book The Bitcoin Standard or the full Lex Fridman interview (#284) if you want the deeper dive.