In this podcast, Dave discusses the geopolitical outlook for 2024, covering topics such as the US elections, Russia's war against Ukraine, conflicts in the Middle East, and tensions in Asia. He explores the emergence of worldviews, grievances driving political movements, the reliability of TikTok, strategic actions to shape the world, a programmable society, and the influence of Elon Musk. Other topics include the dangers of drug use, China's actions towards Taiwan, debates about Trump and violence calls, the formation of networks for global security, and the importance of maintaining connections despite political differences.

Psychedelic drugs are having a moment, like SSRI's and Valium did decades before. What if there's a simple way for people to feel happier and more connected to the world while ushering in world peace at the same time? That's what many advocates of psychedelic drugs claim, but the reality is a lot more complicated. Dave talks with Neşe Devenot, a writer and early psychedelics advocate who has increasingly become a critic of the attitudes and capital that are lining up behind the popularization of these drugs. While they do hold some promise, some are advocating that they be used as a salve to dampen the negative externalities caused by crony capitalism and extractive resource use. Devenot and her co-authors on multiple papers think that's not okay — and we get to explore all the reasons why. TESCREAL hallucinations: Psychedelic and AI hype as inequality engines Dark Side of the Shroom: Erasing Indigenous and Counterculture Wisdoms with Psychedelic Capitalism, and the Open Source Alternative ‘More evolved than you’: Evolutionary spirituality as a cultural frame for psychedelic experiences Right-Wing Psychedelia: Case Studies in Cultural Plasticity and Political Pluripotency "Starseed," by Timothy Leary Spirituality & Psychedelics with Rick Doblin (The Marianne Williamson Podcast) Keywords: Rick Doblin, MAPS, Marianne Williamson, Neşe Devenot, LSD, Ketamine, MDMA, DMT, Ecstasy, Rebekah Mercer, Elizabeth Koch, Elon Musk, Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies, Barbara Marx Hubbard, Conscious Evolution, Fundamentalism, Jules Evans, Teilhard, Vernadsky, Noosphere, Psilocybin, Magic Mushrooms, Ayahuasca, Mescaline, TESCREAL, AI, Longtermism, Artificial Intelligence, Silicon Valley, hierarchy, aristocracy, metanoia, overview effect.

No discussion of the ways that the dollar and the United States are under attack would be complete without a contemporary exploration of the world of cryptocurrencies. Zeke Faux, an investigative journalist with Bloomberg News, joins Dave to discuss his new book, "Number Go Up: Inside Crypto's Wide Rise and Staggering Fall," which is part research, part travelogue, and filled with bizarre schemes and colorful characters. Number Go Up on Goodreads Zeke Faux on X NumberGoUpBook.com Keywords: Bitcoin, Tether, NFTs, Crypto, FTX, Sam Bankman Fried, Axis, Brock Pierce, Pig Butchering, El Salvador, Bukele, Binance, CZ, Giancarlo Devasini, Jean Chalopin, Jean-Louis van der Velde, Inspector Gadget, Steve Bannon, Miami, Bored Ape, Libertarian, Gold Standard, Gamestop, Russia, Musk.

The League of Nations was established in the wake of The Great War to prevent another war like it from ever happening again. While it was a noble effort, it became clear as Hitler and Mussolini rose to power, that such a design would not be capable of curbing rampant nationalism and conflicting national interests. And Clarence Kirschman Streit saw it all unfold before his eyes. As a journalist for the New York Times covering the League of Nations in Geneva, he observed its operations in detail. At first, he thought he could offer ideas on how to fix it. But he came to realize that a new design was needed. He settled on a federated union, and wrote up his proposal in a book published in 1939 called "Union Now." It was well-received, but too late to prevent the horrors of World War II from unfolding. In this episode, Dave talks with Dr. Tiziana Stella, Executive Director of the Streit Council, which works to help advance Clarence Streit's ideas. The fundamental design flaws he outlined in the 1930's are still threatening us today, and have left a door open for autocratic leaders like Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping. If we want a peaceful, democratic future, we would do well to listen to the lucid analysis of Clarence Streit. More info: https://www.streitcouncil.org/ https://twitter.com/tizistella Union Now: https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.262135

Everyone's talking about AI, how it will change the world, and even suggesting it might end humanity as we know it. Dave is joined by Dr. Timnit Gebru and Émile Torres, two prominent critics of AI doomerism, to cut through the noise, and look at where these ideas really came from, and offer suggestions on how we might look at these problems differently. And they also offer a picture of the darker side of these ideas and how they connect to Eugenics and other ideologies historically. Together Émile and Timnit coined an acronym called TESCREAL, which stands for Transhumanism, Extropianism, Singularitarianism, Cosmism, Rationalism, Effective Altruism, and Longtermism — and yeah, that's a lot of -isms. But it ties into other topics that we have covered in this series, including Russian Cosmism and Longtermism. Dr. Gebru came to prominence in 2020 after she was fired from Google for speaking up about the company's lack of ethical guardrails in its AI development work. Émile Torres studies existential risk and has been a critic of the "longtermist" movement for several years. Dave last spoke with them last year in Season 1, Episode 23. Here are some relevant articles from Timnit and Émile. On the Dangers of Stochastic Parrots: Can Language Models Be Too Big? (Bender, Gebru, McMillan-Major, Schmitchell) https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3442188.3445922 The Acronym Behind Our Wildest AI Dreams and Nightmares https://www.truthdig.com/articles/the-acronym-behind-our-wildest-ai-dreams-and-nightmares/ Longtermism and Eugenics: A Primer, by Émile Torres https://www.truthdig.com/articles/longtermism-and-eugenics-a-primer/ The Wide Angle: Understanding TESCREAL — the Weird Ideologies Behind Silicon Valley’s Rightward Turn, by Dave Troy https://washingtonspectator.org/understanding-tescreal-silicon-valleys-rightward-turn/ Google Researcher Says She Was Fired Over Paper Highlighting Bias in A.I. (New York Times; Cade Metz, Daisuke Wakabayashi) https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/03/technology/google-researcher-timnit-gebru.html Keywords: existential risk, artificial intelligence, TESCREAL, Yudkowsky, Sam Altman, Elon Musk, Peter Diamandis, Ray Kurzweil, Timnit Gebru, Émile Torres, Gary Marcus, OpenAI, Google, doomerism.

As the United States faces yet another showdown over the federal debt ceiling, we examine the roots of the conflict by looking at the "North/Paul Strategy," a decades-old plan to provoke a financial collapse and then seize power. Rooted in libertarian economic theory and Christian Reconstructionist doctrine, Gary North and Ron Paul's ideas laid the foundation for the Tea Party and later, January 6th. Dave chats with James Scaminaci III, a scholar and expert on Fourth Generation Warfare, and Frederick Clarkson, who has been studying religious extremism for decades, and is an expert on the New Apostolic Reformation. They look at why economic eschatology is a persistent feature of American political life, and how we might break the vicious "cycle of doom." James Scaminaci III TwitterNorth/Paul Strategy Paper Frederick Clarkson TwitterThe Spirit Of January 6th

SEASON 2, "The War on the Dollar" We begin season two by following the ongoing assaults on the dollar by Xi, Putin, and the BRICS nations, and looking at how that might play into Elon Musk's long game with Twitter. Rich with clips from across the media spectrum, we'll be exploring the underlying forces that shape our world — and what we might do to respond to them. Segments: The End of Twitter, The War on the Dollar, the Grinding Nuclear Threat, Katechon vs. Eschaton. Keywords: Twitter, dollar, X.com, Elon Musk, Jack Dorsey, Michael Flynn, Alex Jones, Foster Gamble, Jack Lew, Robert Kiyosaki, BBC, Donald Trump, Lance Wallnau, John Trump, nuclear war, Alexandria Ocasio Cortez, AOC, Steve Bannon, Wall Street Bets, Gamestop, AMC, GME. Source of Musk and Dorsey clips: https://www.thebword.org/c/track-2-Bitcoin-As-A-Tool-For-Economic-Empowerment

Dave wraps up 2022 with a roundup of the most important stories in meta-politics. This is the show to listen to if you want to get ramped up on what to expect in 2023. Topics covered include Ukraine, Elon Musk, Russian Cosmism, Twitter, Dollar, Crypto, Debt Ceiling, Noosphere, Politics, the "how to fix it" part, Mastodon, and honestly a whole lot more. Along with some interesting audio clips that help put things into context! Paper: Disinformation and its effects on social capital networks Keywords: Ukraine, Musk, Dollar, Crypto, Debt Ceiling, Noosphere, Politics, Mastodon, Social Capital, Disinformation, Omnibus, HIMARS, Patriot, Golden Billion, Putin, Eurasianism, Cosmism, Traditionalism, Nuclear, SXSW, Tsiolkovsky, Longtermism, Multiplanetary species, Tesla, Saudi Arabia, COVID, oil/gas, Twitter, Rogozin, Roscosmos, Fiona Hill, Burnt Hair, Hierarchy, Dollar, Foster Gamble, Thrive, BRICS, gold, Zoltan Pozsar, Bretton Woods III, Golden Ruble 3.0, Sergey Glazier, Petroyuan, China, GCC, Taiwan, mBridge, CBDC, Bitcoin, Luna, FTX, NFTs, Trump, Debt Ceiling, Tom Emmer, Gold, Noosphere, Jeffrey Sachs, Sacha Stone, Sustainable Development Goals, SDG, MDG, New Earth, Shock therapy, Barrick Gold, David Sacks, Metaphysics, DeStantis, January 6, Mastodon, Toad Social, Wide Angle, Washington Spectator, Medium.

Russian Nationalism — a heady mix of Eurasianism, Russian Cosmism with esoteric and occult beliefs — is reflected in the Putin regime's information warfare. In recent episodes we covered a diverse range of topics, from longtermism to libertarian exit, to Bucky Fuller. But what do these things have in common, and what does it all mean? Dave is joined by Joe Szimhart who helps unpack the details behind Eurasianism, Russian Cosmism, and many other syncretic religious and occult ideas at the heart of Russia's war on the West. The picture helps provide a framework for better understanding what's going on, how to respond, and why this conflict is difficult to resolve. This episode is long and packed with information — you may find that it's useful to listen more than once to pick up on all the details. Feel free to send questions for future episodes to davetroy@icloud.com. Follow Joe on Twitter at @jszimhart, and Dave at @davetroy. Relevant books and papers: Mysteries of Eurasia by Jafe Arnold Russian Nationalism: Imaginaries, Doctrines, and Political Battlefields Books Instead of Lineage: Mystic Underground in the USSR (1960s–1980s) Don’t Immanentize the Eschaton: Against Right-Wing Gnosticism Keywords: Syncretism, Eurasianism, Cosmism, Noosphere, Putin, Noocracy, Anton Vaino, Nooscope, Gnosticism, System 1 and 2 thinking, Völkisch Occultism, Russian Orthodox Church, Shambhala, Atlantis, Yuzhinsky Circle, Alexander Dugin, Yuri Mamleev, Psychotronics, Initiation, Libertarian Exit, Ayn Rand, Galt's Gulch, Hyperborea, Thule Society, Vril, Hitler, UFOs, Guenon, Fascism, Evola, Gurdjieff, Ahnenerbe, Tsiolovsky, Chizevsky, Fyodorov, Vernadsky, Teilhard De Chardin, Eduoard LeRoy, Gaia, Lovelock, Margulies, Sagan, Theosophy, Anthroposophy, Hare Krishnas, Hindu Nationalism, Gandhi, Nehru, Barbara Marx Hubbard, Marilyn Ferguson, Aquarian Conspiracy, Stepanov, Harmonic Convergence, Jose Arguelles, Birth 2012, Michael Beckwith, NESARA/GESARA, QFS, QAnon, The Event, Eschaton, Eschatology, Immanentize, Omega Point, Kurzweil, Russia 2045, Transhumanism.

Buckminster Fuller was a designer, inventor, thinker, and a true American original. Alec Nevala-Lee is the author of a new detailed and deeply honest biography of Fuller, "Inventor of the Future: The Visionary Life of Buckminster Fuller." Dave talks to Alec about Bucky's life, the unusual cast of characters he attracted, and starts to get into some questions that help inform why Bucky's outsized personality might have attracted people who later went on to become attracted to various kinds of disinformation campaigns — a topic we'll explore in some later episodes. Follow Alec on Twitter at @nevalalee — and buy the book wherever books are sold. https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/59571984-inventor-of-the-future Keywords: Buckminster Fuller, Bucky Fuller, Inventor of the Future, Alec Nevala-Lee, Margaret Fuller, Geodesic Dome, Tensegrity, Gurdjieff, Roerich, Montreal Expo, Spaceship Earth, EPCOT, Bare Maximum, Dymaxion, 4D, Trim Tab, Robert Kiyosaki, Critical Path, Synergetics, Grunch of Giants, Werner Erhard, est training, John Denver, Ellen Burstyn, The Hunger Project, Stewart Brand, Whole Earth Catalog, Rich Dad Poor Dad, Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos