NFT volume plummets, California's overreach, FBI meddling, climate change & national security

The host opens episode 94 by calling it a "summer unprepared episode": there is not much news, so the group plans to wing it. He introduces Sacks, in a golfing cap, and the early banter is about taping on a Wednesday during what they call a slow news week. One speaker suggests the odd schedule is tied to Burning Man, and the conversation drifts there.

Asked who has been, one speaker says he has gone a couple of times and thinks it is worth doing once or twice, though not every year. He notes that many people return annually and are "really into it". Another host says he has not been and has no desire to go, partly because he dislikes long car rides, and a third answers no as well.

One host says his lack of interest is partly that he no longer wants to do "a ton of drugs", then adds that the draw is really art and music. The others push back with jokes. Another speaker says he likes art, claims to collect it, and says the scale of the art at the event is extraordinary, comparing it to going to Frieze or the biennale.

A skeptical speaker says the event began as a festival celebrating art and creativity but became mass market, and that people should simply admit it is a very fun party where you can "rage" for a weekend or a week. He objects to attaching labels about intellectual superiority. Another voice says it is fine to go and do drugs, which others contest.

A defender replies that the real point is community: large numbers of people build camps together, and the atmosphere is about dancing, creativity and art rather than drugs. Others respond that it sounds like a rave with a lot of neon, and one says such experiences are best done sober, citing EDC, although he says he has never been.

One speaker argues that the event has a built-in filter: you drive six or seven hours into the desert, bring everything in and out, including water, food and toilets, and endure temperatures he puts at over 100 degrees by day and about 40 at night. Another says it used to be that hard, and a third interjects that it is hard to survive.

The speaker who went describes going with a group that had yurts, running water and a kitchen, which he calls glamping. Others observe that this takes organization, the right people and months of setup, and he agrees the group spent a year preparing something elaborate. He recalls a New York Times article saying such camps were ruining the event by making it too nice.

The group jokes that this means Sacks is the one who ruined Burning Man, and the speaker laughs that he went to the "too nice" version. The segment ends with a stray line about open sourcing something to fans before the show moves on.

The host introduces the NFT story. He says OpenSea, which he likens to the eBay of NFTs, saw daily volume fall about 99% from a May 1 peak of $406,000,000 to roughly $5,000,000 on August 28, citing the tracker "DAP radar". Monthly volume is down 90% by his reading of Dune Analytics, and he says the floor price of what the transcript renders as "a board 8" has dropped 53%. These are figures the host reads out and are not verified here.

He reminds the group that OpenSea raised $300,000,000 at a $13,300,000,000 valuation in December 2021, and notes that was nine months earlier. He asks how everyone will look back on NFTs. One host shrugs that humans have had many bubbles and this is another; a second complains that the show was meant to stop covering market crashes.

The host presses Sacks on whether this ends the category or whether anything interesting was ever there, noting that both of them heard many pitches claiming NFTs would change everything. A voice replies that the question is not funny, and a speaker moves to offer a broader view.

Friedberg's argument is that what separates humans from other species is the ability to tell stories, which creates collective belief and in turn changes behavior. He says religion, government, money, art and markets all run on narrative. His example is an art dealer, who first lets you appreciate the work and then supplies a story about the artist and prices, such as one artist at $6,800,000 and another at $3,200,000, leading you to feel you should pay for a piece in the belief it will be worth more.

He contends this has shifted how markets work. Buyers once wanted a stake in a productive asset that returned more cash than was put in, but now the majority of decisions are driven by the idea that what is bought for x can be sold to someone else for y. In his telling, the same story has repeated with ICO tokens, the tulip bubble and every art market.

Friedberg adds that the abundant liquidity of the last two years leached into the stock market, where behavior is supposed to be more rational and tied to cash flows. Instead, he says, much buying was about the price going up, with no view on the business's productivity or returns. He treats NFTs as one example among many and expects more as long as humans can communicate.

Asked for a view, the speaker says Friedberg is mostly right and that the Burning Man and Coachella comparison is the best way to describe it: many of these things are the same. His point is that early participants are often too insecure to admit something resembles what came before, so they spend effort on a narrative about why it is different.

He recalls a Buffett-style line that when someone says this time is different, it is probably not, and another saying that history does not repeat but rhymes. Outside fundamental leaps of science, he argues, little is truly new. One thing repeated is the social capital people gain from making certain choices and having others validate them, which he thinks happened in NFTs and likely in the early phases of art movements.

His conclusion is that these cases are more similar than different: Coachella and Burning Man are the same, and NFTs are in part the art market again. He advises taking a grain of salt with anyone insisting their version is different, and says there is no need to be different, you can simply enjoy it because you think it is cool.

The host offers two stories, California fast food wages or Goldman Sachs staff quitting over a five-day office requirement, and asks where to go. A speaker chooses California, listing three actions from the past week. First, as he describes it, the state banned sales of new internal combustion cars by 2035, the first in the country to do so; he notes California is the largest US auto market and has long clashed with Trump over tougher emission standards.

Second, he says California will create a state-sponsored body to set minimum wages for fast food workers. Third, he says a legislator named Buffie Wicks passed a law through both chambers that would hold social media companies liable for the mental health of children. His framing is that, depending on your views, the state has become very active in imposing its will on free markets.