
Hacking State
Exploring how technology changes our relationship to power, each other, and ourselves.
Alex Murshak conducts in-depth interviews on the philosophy of technology. Hacking State is about doing more with less, pushing limitations, and finding gainful exploits at every level of the human operating system; from minds, to bodies, to tools, organizations, governments, and higher order social systems.
Heidegger describes the nature of technology as a kind of revealing. It remains to be seen where and whether technology gives us Nietzschean will-to-power-like mastery over nature and ourselves or, as Plato warns, we are liable to be lead astray by novel ideas. Our capacity to harness nature has never been greater. Science and technology have unlocked immense power. Yet the human animal remains remarkably similar across millennia. In such a situation, discernment is our greatest asset. It is our relationship to ourselves, our systems, and one another, that will determine our future.
Latest episodes

Aug 7, 2023 • 1h 10min
9 - Hannah Frankman: On the Education of Rebels
Hannah Frankman is the founder of Rebel Educator, an all-inclusive resource hub for parents, teachers, and entrepreneurs. We discuss her experiences in educational reform and alternative paths to education, Montessori education philosophy, her involvement in the education space, and the launch of Rebel Educator. We also cover criticisms of the educational system and popular alternatives, homeschooling, the potential benefits of accelerated and decelerated learning, the need for more localized, private, and independent schools, and the importance of values in education.
Hannah Frankman
Website: http://hannahfrankman.com/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/HannahFrankman
Podcast: https://www.youtube.com/@thehannahfrankmanpodcast
Rebel Educator: https://rebeleducator.co/
Twitter/X: https://twitter.com/rebelEducator
Support Hacking State: https://hackingstate.substack.com/subscribe
Listen on:
Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@alexmurshak
Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/hacking-state/id1689677076 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/1XB9XYULrAY4dp0qIJVvCg
RSS: https://feed.podbean.com/hackingstate/feed.xml

Jul 20, 2023 • 1h 13min
8 - Bo Winegard: Aporias of Human Nature
Bo Winegard on life after cancellation, why we should talk about group differences in intelligence, Aporia - a new magazine courting heterodox social science and philosophy, victimhood rhetoric, the tedious relationship of truth to justice, anonymity vs. identity, are we at peak wokeness?, noble lies, epistemic accelerationism, limits to academic discourse in public, and his proposal for a Republic; if you can keep it.
Bo Winegard is a Social Psychologist and Executive Editor of Aporia.
Bo Winegard on Twitter:
https://twitter.com/EPoe187
Aporia Magazine:
https://www.aporiamagazine.com/
Support Hacking State: https://hackingstate.substack.com/subscribe
Listen on:
Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@alexmurshak
Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/hacking-state/id1689677076
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/1XB9XYULrAY4dp0qIJVvCg
RSS: https://feed.podbean.com/hackingstate/feed.xml

Jul 7, 2023 • 1h 19min
7 - Mark Wilcox: 21e8 and Computational Data Markets
Mark Wilcox on 21e8, his information architecture company, computational data markets, why compute is money, Bitcoin’s role in all this, price discovery via compute, how AI is destroying people’s belief in the computer, deleveraging from the U.S. dollar, decision theory, the curse of dimensionality, and moving back to base primitives.
“The problem to solve is how much compute it takes to generate value.” - Mark Wilcox
Mark Wilcox on Twitter: https://twitter.com/mwilcox
21e8 (company):
Twitter - https://twitter.com/21e8ltd
N.Z. - https://21e8.nz/
U.S. - https://21e8.com/
Support Hacking State: https://hackingstate.substack.com/subscribe
Listen on:
Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@alexmurshak
Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/hacking-state/id1689677076
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/1XB9XYULrAY4dp0qIJVvCg
RSS: https://feed.podbean.com/hackingstate/feed.xml

Jun 29, 2023 • 1h 33min
6 - Jason Snyder: Growing Doomer Optimism
I speak with Doomer Optimist cofounder and faculty in the Department of Sustainable Development at Appalachian State University, Jason Snyder, about finding the others, using the internet to encourage localism, Balaji Srinivasan’s The Network State, homesteading, the value of embodied work, regenerative agriculture, resource independence, and our disagreement on degrowth.
Doomer Optimism is an eclectic metamodern movement building a template for post-collapse.
“I don’t think the industrial food system as its currently composed is sustainable.” - Jason Snyder
Jason Snyder on Twitter: https://twitter.com/cognazor
About Doomer Optimism:
Twitter: https://twitter.com/DoomerOptimism
Website: https://www.doomeroptimism.com/
Support Hacking State: https://hackingstate.substack.com/subscribe
Listen on:
Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@alexmurshak
Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/hacking-state/id1689677076
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/1XB9XYULrAY4dp0qIJVvCg
RSS: https://feed.podbean.com/hackingstate/feed.xml

Jun 22, 2023 • 1h 6min
5 -Jonah Davids: Mental Health is Unwell
Jonah Davids' new Substack, Mental Disorder, explores the science and politics of mental health from a data-driven perspective. Jonah is also Communications Director at the Center for the Study of Partisanship and Ideology.
We spoke about why being a psychologist has no noticeable effect on the efficaciousness of talk therapy, the lack of evidence in mental health treatment, how CBT became the gold standard and why its not more effective than other therapies, the case for fixing your material conditions to improve mental health, lowering barriers to entry for mental health workers, how mental health professionals are less mentally healthy than the general population, and more...
Jonah on Twitter:
https://twitter.com/jonahdavids1
Jonah on Substack:
https://mentaldisorder.substack.com/
Related writings:
On CBT:
https://mentaldisorder.substack.com/p/is-cbt-superior-jonah-davids
On the sadness of psychologists: https://www.mentaldisorder.ca/p/how-sad-are-psychologists
Whether loneliness should be considered a public health problem: https://www.mentaldisorder.ca/p/loneliness-public-health-problem-jonah-davids
Support Hacking State: https://hackingstate.substack.com/subscribe
Listen on:
Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@alexmurshak
Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/hacking-state/id1689677076
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/1XB9XYULrAY4dp0qIJVvCg
RSS: https://feed.podbean.com/hackingstate/feed.xml

Jun 16, 2023 • 1h 25min
4 - Cody Moser: The Science of Innovation, Core-Periphery Networks, Internet Polarization
Cody Moser is a PhD student in the Department of Cognitive and Information Sciences at University of California, Merced. His work focuses primarily on the evolution of human behavior and human institutions.
We spoke about his work generating formal network models with agent-based modeling, the life history of organizations, core-periphery dynamics and why "loser" nodes are necessary for network innovation, the tension between explore-exploit tradeoffs in organizations, generative adaptive systems, path dependency and organizational longevity, why we want hyper-hyper polarization on the internet, and more...
"Innovators come from the outside." - Cody Moser
Cody Moser's blog: https://culturologies.co/
His Twitter: https://twitter.com/LTF_01
UC Merced bio: https://cogsci.ucmerced.edu/content/cody-moser
Paper on core-periphery networks in innovation: https://culturologies.co/files/coreperiphery.pdf
All Intelligence is Collective Intelligence: https://www.neuralpress.org/_files/ugd/1dd990_f5fc8a4eef6142b48e387daa9c4454e7.pdf
The Ties That Bind Us: https://culturologies.co/files/HungarianConservative.pdf
Internet polarization: https://culturologies.substack.com/p/internet-polarization-reform-and?nthPub
Support Hacking State: https://hackingstate.substack.com/subscribe
Listen on:
Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@alexmurshak
Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/hacking-state/id1689677076
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/1XB9XYULrAY4dp0qIJVvCg
RSS: https://feed.podbean.com/hackingstate/feed.xml

Jun 7, 2023 • 1h 23min
3 - Jae Yang and John Bugnacki: Tacen and the Wild West of Tech
Jae Yang and John Bugnacki of Tacen join me to discuss financial sovereignty, the regulatory state of crypto in the United States, the Wyoming stabelcoin, and why you have to go to the frontier for better governance and technology.
Tacen is working on a crypto exchange that is fast, non-custodial, and cross-chain. Project TXA is a settlement network that allows cross-chain settlement.
Jae Yang is the founder and CEO of Tacen and the Chief Architect of Project TXA. John Bugnacki is Deputy General Counsel and Director of Regulatory Policy at Tacen.
Jae Yang: https://twitter.com/jae_tacen
Tacen: https://www.tacen.com/
Tacen Twitter: https://twitter.com/tacen_app
Project TXA: https://www.txa.app/
Project TXA Twitter: https://twitter.com/ProjectTXA
Support Hacking State: https://hackingstate.substack.com/subscribe
Listen on:
Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@alexmurshak
Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/hacking-state/id1689677076
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/1XB9XYULrAY4dp0qIJVvCg
RSS: https://feed.podbean.com/hackingstate/feed.xml

May 31, 2023 • 1h 1min
2 - Matthew Mehan: Classical Education & the Moral Training of Self-Government
Matthew Mehan is Associate Dean and Assistant Professor of Government for Hillsdale College’s Steve and Amy Van Andel Graduate School of Government in Washington D.C.
We spoke about the relationship of poetry to philosophy, the value of a classical liberal arts education, technology and the Tyranny of Velocity, raising children with social media, politicization of education, the moral training of self-government, and how to create leaders of tomorrow.
Hillsdale profile: https://dc.hillsdale.edu/Profiles/Matthew-Mehan/
Matthew Mehan is also the author of popular children's books:
Mr. Mehan's Mildly Amusing Mythical Mammals:
https://www.amazon.com/Mehans-Mildly-Amusing-Mythical-Mammals/dp/1505112494
The Handsome Little Signet:
https://www.amazon.com/Handsome-Little-Cygnet-Matthew-Mehan/dp/1505120608
Support Hacking State: https://hackingstate.substack.com/subscribe
Listen on:
Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@alexmurshak
Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/hacking-state/id1689677076
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/1XB9XYULrAY4dp0qIJVvCg
RSS: https://feed.podbean.com/hackingstate/feed.xml

May 25, 2023 • 1h 36min
1 - Robin Hanson: Prediction Markets & Futarchy
Robin Hanson and I discuss prediction markets, decision markets, Futarchy, and Demarchy.
We cover simple and more elaborate applications of prediction markets, common objections to them and barriers to implementation at the organization level, when a prediction market becomes a decision market, his vision for Futarchy--a proposed system of government whereby elected officials use prediction markets to inform policy decisions based on measurable objectives--and Demarchy, another alternative governance mechanism where policy-makers are chosen at random from among the population.
Professor Robin Hanson is Associate Professor of Economics at George Mason University and a research associate at the Future of Humanity Institute of Oxford University.
Robin Hanson's Twitter: https://twitter.com/robinhanson
Personal site: http://mason.gmu.edu/~rhanson/home.html
University bio: https://economics.gmu.edu/people/rhanson
On prediction markets: http://mason.gmu.edu/~rhanson/ideafutures.html
On Futarchy: http://mason.gmu.edu/~rhanson/futarchy.html
Support Hacking State: https://hackingstate.substack.com/subscribe
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