Dave Troy Presents

The secretive Catholic sect Opus Dei seems to be popping up everywhere. But what is it? Many people are familiar with it from depictions in fiction like "The Davinci Code," but the reality is both more mundane and in many ways, more sinister. Dave is joined by financial journalist Gareth Gore, who got into the story by covering the failure of Spanish bank Banco Popular. He found that the bank led to a rabbit hole — and in the center of it was Opus Dei. Part classic authoritarian mind control cult, part spiritual organization, part fraud, and part geopolitical powerhouse, Gore's new book "Opus: The Cult of Dark Money, Human Trafficking, and Right-Wing Conspiracy inside the Catholic Church" is a page-turning account of one of the most influential groups in the last 100 years.

Gary Marcus, an AI expert and psychologist, delves into the current state of generative AI and its limitations. He highlights the disconnect between hype and reality in AI advancements, questioning the economic sustainability of AI companies. The discussion touches on the importance of ethical AI development and risk management, as well as the potential for breakthroughs through neuromorphic AI and biomimicry. They advocate for a serious reevaluation of AI governance to mitigate societal impacts, emphasizing the need for meaningful regulatory measures.

It's shaping up to be the hottest July on record, and things couldn't be more strange in the political realm. From multiple bombshell rulings from the Supreme Court to widespread speculation about whether Joe Biden should step aside after his halting debate performance, it feels like things couldn't get any crazier. Yet, that's entirely possible. Dave talks with Jack Bryan, director of the film ACTIVE MEASURES and creator of the podcasts AMERICAN PSYOP and LAWYERS, GUNS, and MONEY about what's happened, what's at stake, and where things might go next. Recorded during the July 4th holiday, at the beach in Delaware. Keywords: SCOTUS, Immunity, Chevron, SEC, Jarkesy, debate, Biden, convention, institutions, rule of law, democracy, autocracy, authoritarianism, Trump, fascism.

For decades, a highly entrepreneurial group of researchers, scientists, and journalists has been at the center of the movement to “disclose” the existence of extraterrestrial visitors to Earth — and they’ve scored what may be their biggest legislative victory yet. The 2024 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), passed in December, includes a provision that requires the federal government to provide any and all records on UAP. Activists hope that a deluge of new UAP information will be disclosed later this year — smack in the middle of election season. The new law requires that all UAP-related records created more than 25 years ago must be made public — unless personally blocked by President Biden. Dave talks with researcher Jack Brewer and veteran journalist Art Levine in two separate interviews, to hear each of their perspectives on what's going on. It's a rich, detailed conversation you won't want to miss. Is a UFO Hoax a Ticking Time Bomb for Biden by Dave Troy, Washington Spectator Spaceship of Fools by Art Levine, Washington Spectator AARO Historical Report (March 2024) Expanding Frontiers Research Keywords: Danny Sheehan, NDAA, Robert Bigelow, Brandon Fugal, Skinwalker Ranch, Luis Elizondo, Hal Puthoff, Russell Targ, Institute of Noetic Sciences, Christopher Mellon, Timothy Mellon, RFK Jr., Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Donald Trump, Michael Flynn, Roger Stone, Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, Noosphere, Vladimir Vernadsky, Vladimir Putin, KGB, UFO, UAP, Noosphere.

American society seems to be devolving into two bitterly opposed and diametrically polarized camps. Not just around politics, but around culture as well. Jonathan Stray studies conflict, and tries to identify ways in which we can learn to conflict with each other more productively. He is a researcher at the Center for Human Compatible AI at the University of California Berkeley, where his work looks at a range of scientific and academic study of conflict and online behaviors. He talks with Dave about his work, why Americans are so divided, and what we might do about it. They also discuss where some of his funding comes from, and the messy world of think tanks. Keywords: conflict, polarization, social media, online interaction, CHAI, Center for Human Compatible AI, Jonathan Stray, Better Conflict Bulletin, University of California Berkeley, Mercatus Center.

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.