It’s funny how much modern professional sports remind me of the Roman Colosseum and gladiatorial games. Since discovering Bitcoin in 2020, I haven’t played fantasy football. I barely watch the NFL anymore. I couldn’t tell you much about my hometown team, its players, trades, or even how the season is going. And frankly, I couldn’t care less. What’s more interesting is my reaction when someone starts talking about football at a party. I almost immediately lose interest. Sometimes I even catch myself judging them. I’ve wondered why. I think Bitcoin fundamentally changed my hierarchy of what deserves my attention. It opened the door to monetary history, central banking, geopolitics, capital markets, incentives, and eventually a much broader understanding of the forces shaping society. Once you start understanding how the game actually works, it’s difficult to get excited about watching another game. And that’s where the Roman Colosseum analogy becomes interesting. Millions of people can explain the intricacies of a defensive formation, recite player statistics, debate trades, and spend countless hours analyzing the performance of their favorite teams. Yet many couldn’t explain how the Federal Reserve operates, how money is created, or why their purchasing power continues to erode. We’ve developed extraordinary expertise in entertainment while remaining remarkably ignorant about the systems that govern our economic lives. Bread and circuses. Now, I recognize there’s a danger in that perspective. Enjoying football doesn’t make someone intellectually inferior or oblivious to the world. People need entertainment, community, and opportunities to disconnect. And Bitcoin has its own Colosseum. Influencers, tribal rivalries, personality conflicts, price predictions, and endless arguments over who’s winning and losing. You can abandon one spectacle only to become consumed by another. Perhaps that’s the real distinction. Are we investing our attention in understanding the world around us, or simply finding increasingly sophisticated ways to distract ourselves from it? I don’t begrudge anyone their Sunday football. But I do wonder how different society might look if people devoted even a fraction of the energy they spend understanding professional sports to understanding the monetary and political systems shaping their children’s futures. Because unlike football, we’re all playing in that game, whether we understand the rules or not.