Breaking Free from FIAT: Embracing the Radical Lens | Radical Pioneers Episode 5

Tullio Siragusa (00:00):

Hey everyone, welcome back to Radical World, the podcast. I'm Tullio Ragusa, speaking with the radical pioneers. I have Matt Perez and Jose Leal with me today. Welcome, welcome, welcome.

Jose Leal (00:24):

Thanks, Tulio.

Tullio Siragusa (00:25):

Good to be here. So, so far we've had an interesting conversation about the how radical started in episode one in this season. If you guys haven't looked at that, I encourage you to look at episode one. It talk gives you a little history about how radical started, and then we started to dig into living in a fiat world and what that means, and when did we realize we're in a fiat reality? What is the legacy? What is it like working in a fiat world? What's the educational system look like? Even fiat parenting and fiat companies? And so if you miss that, I encourage you to look at episode two. And then we went into more details in episode three to talk about how these lenses, the fiat lenses that we all wear for many, many years. And we've manifested a reality based on an non-reality view of things so, and how that's impacted our work structure and our organization, our policies. And really, we started to uncover this idea that perhaps it's not necessarily the people that are the problem, but it is the system that continues to generate an environment where the people kind of have to comply and in some cases forces use coercion, manipulation, all the things we all complain about. And then in episode four, we dug into how this system creates a lot of polarization and disengagement, both in communities at work and even across countries, and some of the problems that, that the fiat world has produced in terms of discontent and a lot of the blaming game. You know, it's because of that person or that political party and so on. And we really uncovered that it's really not, it's about the system that you could take a really great empathetic individual and put 'em into that system and they'll come out on the other side messed up. And today we're really going to talk about, okay, how do we get out of this crazy fiat reality? What's the alternative lenses, what we call the radical lens in which we can see things from more like the way nature works and perhaps begin to make different choices that reflects more a natural way of being. Because we definitely uncovered that the fiat world is not a natural way of being, it's actually quite artificial. So let's kick this off today. And we know that the fiat lenses have created tremendous dysfunction, as we've discussed in the previous podcasts, but how can we see the world differently? That's the big question.

Jose Leal (03:07):

Yeah. I like to think that there's two things that keep us in that world, in the fiat world, in one is the structures, as you pointed out, the system itself. It's very easy to just fall right back into the, to seeing the system as it is because it's all around us. Every return, everything that's built on a fiat mindset.

Matt Perez (03:32):

It's all we know.

Jose Leal (03:36):

It's all we know. On the other side, when people start talking about, well, let's change it to something else. Even when we're talking about something new, our minds are expecting something fiat. And so we end up having this fiat lens. And, and so that's the recognition of what, what is that we are trying to, to say here is, there's the world that's been manifest by the fiat lens and the fiat lens itself, which is our conditioning of that fiat world. And so the radical lens, which we like to talk about as as being flipping up this fiat lens, is really recognizing, I like to think of it as that we don't have to have a world that is based on fear, command and control, and a, a system of competition. And that's the world that we can look at. If you, Matt, last week we, I, I interviewed with Rachel, and she talked about the, the chairs, the musical chairs. I don't know Tullio if you saw that. But you know, we've had a world where there's less chairs than there are people. And so we end up having this fight end over who gets the last chair, right? And that's the fiat world that we've built. So the radical lens I like to think of is, it's a world where we don't think of it as there aren't enough chairs that only you can win. Pardon me. You can only win if somebody else loses. And so looking at ourselves, looking at each other through this lens of our nature, rather than looking at it from this outlook, hopefully that makes some sense.

Tullio Siragusa (05:52):

Yeah, I mean, it's kind of like, and I'd like to get to Matt's opinion on this. It's really, it talks to this idea so far, everything we've talked about, the fiat lens, it's all about what can I get out of it. It's a system based on what can I get out of it and how can I get the most out of it? There's no consideration for what I can give into it. So there's always going to be winners and losers in that system, and survivors and thrivers in that environment. Whereas the radical lens is more about like nature. Nature doesn't have a mindset of scarcity or limitation. It's in a constant state of giving into itself. It doesn't say the sun didn't shine enough today, so I'm not going to produce, produce enough of this. It just keeps giving. And the system continuously operates in a constantly state of giving and there's balance and harmony. So are you suggesting we ought to be thinking more the way nature operates? Oddly enough, we're part of nature, but we don't think the way nature does because of this fiat lens. And how do people step into that? 'cause like we said, like, like we said, we default to this model we've seen for a long time. Like, how do you disrupt the circuitry, if you will, to step out of that and say, Hey, there's another way we ought to be thinking about doing this. What are your thoughts Matt?

Matt Perez (07:15):

Yeah, I don't, I don't think that nature has a whole lot to do with it because we messed up everything. It's more of what Jose was saying. There's centralization, okay. And that, that's what causes most of the problems. And centralization is based on transparency, not, not disclosing everything, et cetera. If you think of that in nature, okay, then this nature. But I don't think that they can, in terms of nature or anything like that, it's more of, look, we created this world, why and all that stuff. I don't care. It doesn't matter. We created this world. We can create other worlds. And we created a world, like Jose said, a competition. People, you know, not enough chairs. I got to kill the guy next to me to get into a chair. And, and the ch the number of chairs is finally the most powerful. So whoever are the most powerful person is tells us how many shares there are, and then you can pay for 'em. And that's, that's what causing most of the problems that we have. So you know, worse are basically not enough chairs in terms of land and stuff like that. The, the, the stuff that Putin is in Ukraine is he wants to be the most powerful. He wants to eliminate what you call it Ukraine is, is part of the system of the West. And he wants to be the most powerful. So he has to do a work with Ukraine, make it part of Russia or part of part of Russia. Yeah, there's [inaudible] sorry, part of Russia and, and stuff like that. So that's, to me, boils down to centralization and transparency. Okay? If, if, if we concentrate on the problem, power me, I say, oh, there's only two shares. One of you two guys, not me. One of you two guys have to get up and leave. Why? Because I want you guys to compete so you don't have time to look at the injustices that I based upon you guys. So that's, that's the basis overall. So nature by, you said one thing that this strike court with me with just the nature is always giving and doesn't care what you need. I'm always giving. And you know, we eat some plants. We, we don't eat some other plants. We eat some animals. We don't eat some animals and stuff like that. But it's always giving. That's true. And and humans could be in the business of always giving to other humans to the community, but that's not the way that we set up. And this same way that we set up the old system, I exploit you by deciding to so in one chair, chair instead of two is a world that we can change. I mean, the good news is that we made it, we can't do some, we can't come up with another system and, and make the distinction of not replacing the current system, the current system's going on for a long time. It's going to fight itself to, to not be replaced. But so we show more of an alternative. And you know, so far we'll be happy with that term. We'll see how it goes.

Tullio Siragusa (11:28):

So we see manifestation, we see the manifestation of the fiat lenses. It's clear, right? Yeah. But it is a lens or perception that we sort of bought into. So likewise, there is a radical lens. How do we buy into the radical lens? Or maybe it's not about buying into it. What's the source of it that says you know, know I don't have to live in the scarcity model? 'cause The, the F model is a scarcity model, right? It's a mindset of scarcity. Whereas nature's not about scarcity, <laugh>. So what's the thinking? How do we, what's the source and origin of the radical lens that makes us step into a model where it's not about scarcity? Well, you know, how do we, how do we recognize the source of it so we can make proper decisions based on views of abundance, not scarcity?

Matt Perez (12:24):

Well, I don't, I don't know what the source of it is. It's something that Jose and I talking and stuff like that, we, we came up with this saying and, and my son Adrian Perez. But the, the simplest way we can put it is that it's got to be based on a foundation. Okay? And the foundation is meaning and belonging. You, you have to be willing to belong to. We all do, whether we say it or not, we have to part of something. We, we don't stand on our own. And decentralization and, and transparency I already talked about, and then experimentation for, for the things that we actually do. So I don't know what is going to end up, may end up in very different ways and all that stuff, but really think like an experiment, you know, sometimes. Tullio, okay, we keep things tight and all that stuff anyways. And treat everything like an ex accelerant, you know, it is not, it me off with the software. We say, oh, you estimated this three weeks and it happens to be four. You know, it went the way, the four weeks. And the thing is, everything is an experience in life. Going back to nature. We don't do the same thing twice. We don't, we do things that look the same at the macro level, but not the same. Sometimes we're with males, sometimes we with females from ULA, with white people and black people and Chinese people and, and all that stuff. So Asian people, I guess, and street, everything is inferred. You see, she comes out of it. So, so I don't, I don't know if there's a source per se that, oh, we discovered the gold in, in Brazil or whatever. It is more of a thinking of all the things that have gone wrong with the fear system, the worst. And the, the, we actually, we started by not trying to manipulate, well, we started by thinking of not coming up with, with fixes to the system. And the thing is, that can go on forever. So let's try a new system. Well, new system. And it was little by little, it wasn't one setting is we struggle, we argue and scream and, and all stuff. And eventually we said this and the system altogether, it's still a system, but it's new. It is different.

Tullio Siragusa (15:41):

So it sounds like there's no hope for us then, just having empty conversations then. So what's, what's, how do we step into the radical lenses? If there's, if there's no, you know, is there really no hope? I mean, to, to step out of this.

Jose Leal (15:56):

There is hope. I, I think there is hope and, and.

Matt Perez (15:59):

The foundation is hope is, is if you follow the, the things in the foundation, you will be at least closer to what we're thinking about. Is something that we pull out of our brands, as Jose likes to say. But but that's the way we do everything. Humans, you know, don't, don't look at this and go, oh, the blocks stick, that's going to make us rich. We, we sell blocks six in the mix of rich. So there's no, there's no source per se. Other than that, other than the, the, the wanting to create a better system. So this, I think that radical is a better system. We think that radical is a better system. But it's not the last one. There might be another one after that. And it's, it'll take another 400 years to figure out.

Tullio Siragusa (17:00):

What do you think Jose can, can people have, do people have the radical lenses within themselves that they can activate? What are your thoughts?

Jose Leal (17:08):

I think there that the radical lens is the way we are born. And that when we're born, like if you, you, all of us have seen children. When you see a 2-year-old child and they want to help mommy and daddy, nothing in them says, Nope, I won't do it, because, you know, that means work. And I don't want to work unless I get paid. Right? Right. Or you don't, give me, give me a raise, right? We're born being generous. We're born wanting to participate and contribute and, and all of that. But then we're taught, don't do that unless, don't let, don't do that. Unless the teacher tells you that she can't, that you can speak, don't do that unless the boss tells you, you can do it. Don't do that unless you're going to get paid. That would be dumb to work without pay. All of those things condition us away from seeing the world this way. Yeah. But it's really hard to lift these lenses because we're so conditioned that the world looks normal to us now. Right. It's just the way it is with this lenses down, it looks normal, right? But when we lift it up, then it looks really distorted. It looks really screwed up. And that's the fiat world that we've been talking about, is that it, if you look at it from our natural lenses, our radical lenses, then you realize it's screwed up. Like, this is not right. Why are we doing what we do to people? And it, and it becomes obvious to a lot of people, and that are working in this transformation world, that the way we do law is broken. The way we do business is broken. The way we do relationships is broken. The way we do governance is broken. And it's, it becomes evident when you look at, at it through the radical lens. So I do think the radical lens is a natural lens that we're born with. I also think that it's that getting to the radical lens is allowing ourselves to sense into the feelings we've had all along, but have learned to ignore. That when those people told us those things and it like raised our hair, for those of us who still have it, then it would, you would go like, why is a teacher telling me that I can't do the thing that I feel like I need to do.

Matt Perez (20:14):

Number one. Number two.

Tullio Siragusa (20:20):

Well, what I'm hearing though is and I think perhaps this is pro, the, the key takeaway is that we do have a choice, but we've been unbeknownst to us, because most of this happened when we were younger, we have continuously chosen to go down this path in the desire for survival and the desire to fit in. But at the end of the day, it's a choice. The programming happened when we were young, but now as adults, we're continuing to choose to where the fiat lens is. So how do you make a different choice? How do people make that choice?

Jose Leal (21:04):

I like to think that the way you make that choice is by not allowing the stuff that is fiat to be normal. To see it as the dysfunction that it is. And to lean into the things that Matt was talking about. I like to think about fiat as force. So when I exceed force, when somebody's exerting force by trying to centralize things to he or she, right? They're taking away our space to move, and they're pulling it towards them so that they have the control. That's a place where we feel that that doesn't feel right. But then we go, that's the way it is. He is the boss. Of course. That's the way it's right. That's the way it is. He's the teacher. That's the way, it's Oh, he's the governor. He's the mayor, he's the, whatever it is. And it's about sensing into the fact that none of us, like other people telling us what to do. But we've become used to it and we think that it's normal. And so we, we justify it. They have the power, therefore it's okay.

Tullio Siragusa (22:21):

But there is a vehicle that makes all that power po possible, right? And that vehicle is what allows me to eat. 'cause I'm hungry or I'm cold, and I need a place to live in. Right? Right, right. That's the controlling mechanism that empowers all this po to be possible, right? So, so that's how do you break that power? Yeah. The money. I need the money to eat, right? That's the controlling thing. Who's got the most money, has the most control, or is that the real case that, that, you know, how do you fix that? What's the thinking there?

Matt Perez (22:57):

You don't fix it.

Tullio Siragusa (22:58):

You don't. Right. You don't.

Matt Perez (23:01):

And, and now we go to the area of ownership. People have a really hard time not thinking of other models of ownership. The idea that this belongs to all of us is that, oh, you're a communist, you're a dreamer, you're a idealistic, I we call that. And you, you call a lot of names, but it's everything outside of the system. The fism is, is, yeah, it's nice to think about, but I got eight, so what do I do? So we got to come up with ways of not letting that be the primary motivator, if you will. Or, or, you know, getting, getting over that. And the books have, have plenty of examples of how you can do that. Capital is still needed, unfortunately. But as a loan, not as a, not as a power thing. It's like, I give you X dollars and I get 10% of your company for forever. I get the percentage of company, of course, the money that I give you dries out, right? But not the power that I sold. The power that I sold is 10% of my company. And of course you can sell 10% of your company. So then to this guy and to that guy, and to that guy and whatever, I got over a hundred percent. But all that stuff is forever. So they end up owning you as part of the business where they fired either way. So your, your livelihood is in the hands of other people. And I'll give you an example. So we're promoting in Mexico, we're promoting the application, which allows us to recognize other people contribution and stuff like that. And everybody, everybody to, to a person ha, has a hard time thinking of what results of that as, as anything but coins. Oh, so they generates coins. So you didn't change. No, no, no. It's not coins. And they can't get past that. They can't get past that because we're so used to coins and buying things to eat and, and stuff like that. So yeah, that's, that's one of the problems that's really in the book.

Jose Leal (25:54):

And I think the way that we can do it and, and I think have to do it is not trying to make people who have lived all their lives in fiat to, to become completely clearer of the fiat lens, but we have young people who are closer to the radical lens and are able to actually make a life from that place, not allow themselves to get buried into the, the fiat lens in the first place. And so being able to start new types of companies that are radical through a radical lens that are co-owned, co-managed, decentralized, the whole kit and caboodle, it makes for a viable transition. There are some people who are embedded deeply in the fiat lens, or pardon me yes, in the fiat lens, in the fiat world, that will be able to transition out of it. But for the most part, that's not who we're talking about. We're talking about younger people who are not yet embedded and know deeply that they don't want to go there. They're already rebelling, they're already pulling back this whole, they're disengaged. That work is the radical lens at work. It's the radical lens working. They're going, no, I don't want this. No, I don't want you to tell me what to do. No, I don't want to work in a place that has no meaning.

Tullio Siragusa (27:53):

The whole fiat lens and reality exists only for one reason, because we willingly give up agency. And the newer generation isn't buying into it. They don't want to give up agency. Yes. And it's easy to call 'em rebellious, however you want to call 'em, but realist, realistically, they just want to maintain their own agency. And I think hopefully with some collective intelligence, there could be some change. But it does require a massive amount of people with that similar consciousness to make that change. Yeah. And so, you know, we need to dig into more, what would that look like? How does, how is that possible? And explore. Maybe it's not about finding the answers as it is, asking more questions to awaken the mind to the possibility that we have given up our agency a long time ago and continue to do so collectively. So what if collectively we took it back? That's the big question, right?

Matt Perez (29:05):

I think as you pointed out, the agency driving us is coming out is there's no longer the fifties where you wear the same tie and the same shirt and different shirts, but they're all white and different ties, but they're all blue. And all that stuff has been little by little bit thrown by the wayside, but it's disorganized right now. It's kind of a free for all. And some people are a lot of people are concentrating on climate change because it's going to kill us. It won't kill us. We, we don't let anything kill us all. Right? But it's, it's a sign of this one to be different. We won't let the, the gas companies or petrol companies tell us what to do and, and gather our lives. We want to take control that misogyny is, is the whole thing with, and the whole thing with trans and gays and stuff like that, that's all come out, that's all coming out and schools are struggling with it. And, and that, and eventually the government will try to take control of that and, and do it their way. And that's what we don't, we don't want the go. The government is not help us. Government does not help us. They, they help the, the rich <inaudible> as they should. And the banking system is not helping us or anything. So we need to okay, we need to we need to organ, we need to give it a, we're organizing, and that's what we're missing. And that's what radical, the radical thing is all about, is how to organize what is the foundation. You build anything you want on top of the foundations, but you know, it is got to be centralized. It's got to be meaningful. It's got to be experimentation and stuff like that. And and, and just provide, provide direction. You, you can't, if you get into the business of, like, you see of all the, all the, what you call it, the self management directions. Some, some of 'em have 17 page constitutions. Some have, but they all have rules. And my thing is we're very bad at, at running rules, number one. But second of all, we don't want your rules. I want my rules. I want to do this according to my rules and have delivery of, of saying, this rule doesn't work anymore when I go to that rule. That's what, that's what we're hoping will happen, is that people will take control of the rules if there are any, and come up with systems that would be more gentle in themselves. You know, they, they, they will allow people to be people and communities to the communities. For example, the, you said an example at the beginning, I don't remember exactly, but it was, you had to do with individualism. I want the most for me, you know, I'm the king. I'm the, and the thing is, what happens during the catastrophe of some sort building comes down or there's too much snow that people just go out on the street and start helping the fellow man, they, they just do that. Nobody told them to it. Nobody told 'em how to do it or anything like that. They just do it. Well, we want a system that that works more like that. And that's not being a dreamer. I, we got a lot of descriptions on the books and stuff like that. That's not being a whatever a dream or whatever you want to call it. It's just that we have to organize a different way of doing it. And it took, so the thing that that we do, we did in this country a long time ago you forget about slavery for a second is that we actually implemented an instance of something that had been talked about for a long time. And enlightenment was basically what we tried to create our own way. And most of the people in Congress at the time were slavers, but they said we all created equal that them, but us we're all created equal. And, and that was very powerful. That was very powerful, is they created the first census and then the French tried to do the same thing and they fucked up and they got Napoleon to the act, and eventually they got it right. And but that's what we're going to do. We're going to, we, we want to create the first instance of this model, the regular model, and then people will come up with the European way and the African Way and, and the Asian way to do it. So we're going to work what will come out of it, but something has to give either we get more, more rigid about how things work. No, you have to put your right foot in front of the other foot and stuff like that, or, or we have to give ourselves, take back the agency that we've given up.

Tullio Siragusa (35:32):

Well, Eccle, enthusiastic eight, nine said, men has dominated man to his injury. So it is very true, those words. And we don't want to leave people with absolutely no hope that nothing can change, but there has to be a new way of doing things. You know, a radical world has to be introduced in order for things to change. And I think that's a worthwhile conversation in season two of the podcast of the Radical Pioneers. This brings an end to season one. So definitely come back in season two, as we dive into the radical world. What does that look like? What's the hope that that could bring? How could we look at and do things differently and step out of this feat lens? Because clearly it's in its existence, is to the ruin of man. And by man, I'm not just talking about males, I'm talking about the species. So so want you to come back for that in the interim. Next week we've got a new guest on this show. It's Rodney Evans, who's a steward of the Ready a Future of Work Consultancy. So come check out that show on the radical World Podcast. And until we see you again next time, looking forward to continuing this conversation with the Radical Pioneers. Stay well, everyone.