Episode 12: Alexander Bard

This week ⁠Daniel⁠ and ⁠Chase⁠ are joined by ⁠Jack Ek⁠ and his friend, the legendary ⁠Alexander Bard⁠, who describes himself as a “philosopher who writes f***ing books" and who is according to his ⁠Wiki⁠: a Swedish musician, author, lecturer, artist, songwriter, music producer, ⁠TV personality⁠, religious and political activist, one of the founders of the ⁠Syntheist religious movement⁠, and member of the bands ⁠Army of Lovers⁠ & ⁠BWO⁠, amongst numerous other projects. More recently, he cofounded a secret society called ⁠The Grey Robes⁠, AKA the “Freemasons of Decentralization”.

We cover:

How Jack and Bard met through Euroburner culture
Is Bucharest the next Berlin? Or…can there never be a ‘next Berlin’
Property ownership as lynchpin for scene building
The secrets of disproportionate Swedish soft power
America as theater for the rest of the world
Lessons from Urbit: too Kantian
Philosophy’s role in engineering
Behavioral Economics and ‘Nudge Units’
The need for spirituality when grappling with the ramifications of AI
AI as a fundamentally truth seeking technology and therefore a threat to authoritarian governments
The devolution of the internet from Open and flat into a tribal, feudal dark forest.
Decentralization vs Centralization as the only important political axis
Navigating community building in a decentralized world (parallelize it)

Artwork: J.F. Clemens after Nicolai Abildgaard, “Ossian’s Swan Song”, 1787

Reflexion und Reportage vom 24. Juni 2025