This week (August 12) on Shabbat Night Live, Former Navy SEAL David Lopez teaches us the difference between cryptocurrency and digital currency — pay close attention to this episode! China’s social credit-driven digital currency will soon be the way of the West, and you need to know how it works!
Watch the episode — included in this blog post for your convenience — and learn how to take steps now to understand what it is and how to use it to your advantage before the system takes advantage of you.
While you watch, consider the questions below. The timeline for each discussion topic in the video is noted on each question — post your answers in the comments section and let’s get some discussion going!
- (VIDEO TIMELINE – 16:00) Despite its categorical immorality, sex trafficking remains a marginal issue throughout public awareness and in the mainstream media. What is the likely outcome for grassroots and faith-based efforts in places like Haiti? Will these apostolates produce only token success, or could they inspire the Holy Spirit to galvanize the larger denominational Christian world?
- (VIDEO TIMELINE – 20:00) How does a proactive approach to preventing the crime of kidnapping serve as a demonstration of both the pervasiveness of sex trafficking and the vulnerability of all women, regardless of race or class? What are some examples of how this particular crime has resisted politicization in public discourse and eradication through existing laws?
- (VIDEO TIMELINE – 24:00) How does the advent of cryptocurrency pose a challenge to the campaign against sex trafficking? In light of its controversial introduction and considerable public resistance, what is the potential for blockchain as an asset to anti-trafficking efforts? Will this remain a viable element, or is it vulnerable to abuse and exploitation by the very same criminal factions that are targeted by their opponents?
- (VIDEO TIMELINE – 28:00) Similarly, how might bitcoin be viewed by a growing body of users as a legitimate and practicable form of currency which undermines the corporate oversight and control of money that is exercised by banks and the government? How might its utilization in opposition to trafficking be interpreted in terms of Yeshua’s imperative to “render therefore to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s” (Matthew 22:21)?
- (VIDEO TIMELINE – 32:00) How does the potential of sex trafficking for creating division among ostensibly monolithic groups like radical feminists or academic supporters of the BDS movement also underscore the common moral ground of both believers and atheistic materialists? How might this ironic situation be resolved through decentralized currency and unmediated communication between disparate individuals?
- (VIDEO TIMELINE – 38:00) How does the controversy over cybercurrency dramatize the dynamic between security and enterprise? How might believers who exchange civil liberties or professional advancement for social safety nets or autocratic law enforcement eventually become guilty of such sins as laziness and inactivity, indifference to the well-being of their neighbor, or laxity in worship?
- (VIDEO TIMELINE – 42:00) Similarly, how are today’s faithful vulnerable to a level of state control that is comparable to the monolithic imperial oversight of the Roman Empire during the period of Yeshua’s ministry? How does the notion of governmental “social credit” surpass the power of a stationed army or sinecured bureaucrats to undermine and degrade the personal freedoms of a citizenry?
- (VIDEO TIMELINE – 46:00) What are some examples of longstanding infrastructures that could be rendered obsolete by the adoption of a decentralized cybercurrency? How could today’s faithful, faced with the rapid loss of corporate-level protection and restriction in their workday lives, view this as an opportunity for growing apostolates, whether entrepreneurial or service-oriented?
- (VIDEO TIMELINE – 50:00) Aside from the dangers of politicization and its tendency to encourage differences between individuals and groups, how does cybercurrency demonstrate the principle of how anything of value may become a means of exchange, especially in times of severe deprivation? How might today’s believers begin preparation for a survival scenario that could conceivably prioritize a natural resource over something like bitcoin?
- (VIDEO TIMELINE – 54:00) Conversely, how might our present-day climate of controversy and alarmism indirectly encourage a rediscovery of hard cash as an antidote to the vagaries of our credit-based and corporate-controlled economy? How might conscientious followers of YeHoVaH seek to avoid crippling debt and adopt a frugal lifestyle as an apostolate that is oriented toward “minding the pennies,” which ironically are still being coined after decades of premature eulogies?
