We've all seen it: Our social media feeds suddenly inundated with ads related to products or services we had just been browsing for.

In an increasingly cashless society, our everyday payments are being tracked and monitored by third parties in an attempt to learn our habits so they can advertise to us more effectively. Tracking our shopping habits to market to us might not be that nefarious, but in some parts of the world this same technology is used to suppress free speech or even effect one's "social credit score," as in China. While more free societies haven't gotten there yet, it could become a very slippery slope, and Lightning Network payments may just be the way to curtail such activity.

This episode features Alex Gladstein of the Human Rights Foundation discussing his recent essay "The Moral Case for Lightning." We also discuss surveillance capitalism, the Hong Kong protests and how the world might evolve if Lightning payments are adopted by the masses.