In Episode 228 of Hidden Forces, Demetri Kofinas speaks with Kazakhstan-based journalist Joanna Lillis, author of “Dark Shadows: Inside the Secret World of Kazakhstan,” about the recent protests and unrest that unfolded in Kazakhstan over the past two weeks and how this ties into the larger geopolitical chess match currently underway in Eastern Europe. This is the multi-polar world in action. It’s no longer some theoretical thing that we’ve read about or that we’re moving towards—we are in it. This is the world we live in, and in this world, everything is up for grabs. Every crisis, every border skirmish, every negotiation is an opportunity for any and all of the major powers to change the status quo and to change the rules of the game to their advantage. And this starts with taking control of the story and telling a narrative about events before the facts emerge and before people have had a chance to even begin to form an educated opinion about whatever it is that’s happening. Today’s episode is meant to provide you with a sense of where and how the events in Kazakhstan fit into this new global disorder of nation states, non-state actors, mercenaries, agitators, hackers—pretty much everyone interested in exercising influence on an international stage that is fluid and where power is constantly up for grabs. The world is becoming ever more complex and if you want to exercise a level of agency over your own sense of reality and be anything other than a spectator in someone else’s story you need to step back from all the noise and all the hustles and exercise a level of informed skepticism without simply resorting to questioning everything and therefore believing in nothing. This is what Hidden Forces is all about. You can access the full episode, transcript, and rundown to this week’s conversation by going directly to the episode page at HiddenForces.io and clicking on "premium extras." All subscribers gain access to our premium feed, which can be easily added to your favorite podcast application. If you enjoyed listening to today’s episode of Hidden Forces you can help support the show by doing the following: Subscribe on Apple Podcasts | YouTube | Spotify | Stitcher | SoundCloud | CastBox | RSS Feed Write us a review on Apple Podcasts & Spotify Subscribe to our mailing list at https://hiddenforces.io/newsletter/ Producer & Host: Demetri Kofinas Editor & Engineer: Stylianos Nicolaou Subscribe & Support the Podcast at https://hiddenforces.io Join the conversation on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter at @hiddenforcespod Follow Demetri on Twitter at @Kofinas Episode Recorded on 01/11/2022

In Episode 227 of Hidden Forces, Demetri Kofinas speaks with Saagar Enjeti and Marshall Kosloff, the co-hosts of “The Realignment,” an absolutely phenomenal podcast that consistently produces some of the best conversations at the intersection of politics and society that you will find anywhere. They are both successful entrepreneurs and thought leaders in their own rights—Saagar Enjeti interviewed former president Donald Trump four separate times in his capacity as Chief Whitehouse Correspondent for the Daily Caller and currently co-hosts the immensely popular “Breaking Points” with Krystal Ball. Marshall Kosloff is an executive producer at “On Deck” where he also hosts “The Deep End,” a podcast where he interviews visionary builders, creators, and experts with world-changing ideas related to the futures of commerce, higher education, governance, longevity, art, and more. Demetri asked them both to come onto the podcast in order to help him better understand the forces driving dysfunction in American politics, along with phenomenon of rising public mistrust of institutions, and a deeping sense of paranoia in the body politic. Saagar, Marshall, and Demetri spend the first hour of their conversation discussing how we got here, why the so-called “political experts” whose job it is to explain what’s happening have consistently failed to do so, what the new political consensus is that’s forming in American life, and what it is that the majority of Americans want—what in other words, would constitute a popular platform on which to not only run a successful campaign but from which to govern successfully or are these two things fundamentally incompatible in today’s celebrity-driven, fake it till you make it culture that seems to reward the aesthetics over power in place of power itself? The second hour of their conversation is spent discussing what Kofinas suggests may be a multi-decade breakdown in belief systems driven by a series of recurring failures, covered up by lies, succeeded by more failures like the occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan, the 2008 financial crisis and its culture of never-ending bailouts, and most recently the Covid-19 pandemic and the confusing directives and open disregard by health authorities of legitimate public concerns around the vaccines, the risks associated with taking them, mandating who should take them, etc. This also opens the door to a conversation about the changing media landscape and the growing power of independent voices like Joe Rogan’s to influence public opinion and force issues into the public square that would otherwise be deemed off-limits by those in positions of public authority.   You can access the second part of this episode, as well as the transcript and rundown to this week’s conversation through the Hidden Forces Patreon Page. All subscribers gain access to our premium feed, which can be easily added to your favorite podcast application. For those interested in gaining early access to the new Hidden Foces subscription platform on Supercast, please email info@hiddenforces.io for a discount link. If you enjoyed listening to today’s episode of Hidden Forces you can help support the show by doing the following: Subscribe on Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Stitcher | SoundCloud | YouTube | CastBox | RSS Feed Write us a review on Apple Podcasts Subscribe to our mailing list through the Hidden Forces Website Producer & Host: Demetri Kofinas Editor & Engineer: Stylianos Nicolaou Subscribe & Support the Podcast at https://patreon.com/hiddenforces Join the conversation on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter at @hiddenforcespod Follow Demetri on Twitter at @Kofinas Episode Recorded on 01/04/2022

In Episode 226 of Hidden Forces, Demetri Kofinas speaks with Dmitri Alperovitch, the former CTO and co-founder of CrowdStrike, the world’s largest cybersecurity company, which has been involved in investigations of several high-profile cyberattacks including the 2014 Sony Pictures hack, the 2015–2016 cyber-attacks on the Democratic National Committee (DNC), and the 2016 email leak involving the DNC. Alperovitch currently serves as Chairman of the non-profit Silverado Policy Accelerator, where he focuses on advancing American prosperity and global leadership by working directly with both the executive branch and Capitol Hill on issues related to cyber, trade & industrial security, and ecological & economic security. What prompted this conversation was a Twitter thread that Dmitri published recently, in which he explained why he believes the Kremlin has already made its decision to invade Ukraine later this winter—in late January or possibly early February—and that military confrontation is in fact the preferred route for Putin at this point. It’s a fascinating thread and we encourage you all to read through it after listening to today’s episode. Kofinas and Alperovitch spend the first half of their conversation discussing the various signals that Dimitri believes point to the increased likelihood of a military invasion of Ukraine and the partitioning of the country by Russia in the next several months, as well Putin’s possible motivations and objectives in doing so. The second part of their conversation, which is available to premium subscribers focuses on the cyber component of this conflict, including evidence of increased cyber intrusions into the Ukrainian government and civilian networks, what the targets have been, and what can be further inferred about the Kremlin’s objectives based on the nature of those targets. Alperovitch also shares his views on how he thinks the Biden administration can credibly respond to the mounting pressure on Ukraine’s defenses, the effectiveness of sanctions as a tool for dissuading Russian aggression as well as for punishing Kremlin leadership after the fact, and the similarities between Ukraine and Taiwan and what lessons the Chinese communist party may be drawing from our response or failure to respond to mounting Russian aggression on Ukraine’s eastern border. You can access the second part of this episode, as well as the transcript and rundown to this week’s conversation through the Hidden Forces Patreon Page. All subscribers gain access to our premium feed, which can be easily added to your favorite podcast application. If you enjoyed listening to today’s episode of Hidden Forces you can help support the show by doing the following: Subscribe on Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Stitcher | SoundCloud | YouTube | CastBox | RSS Feed Write us a review on Apple Podcasts Subscribe to our mailing list through the Hidden Forces Website Producer & Host: Demetri Kofinas Editor & Engineer: Stylianos Nicolaou Subscribe & Support the Podcast at https://patreon.com/hiddenforces Join the conversation on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter at @hiddenforcespod Follow Demetri on Twitter at @Kofinas Episode Recorded on 12/27/2021

In Episode 225 of Hidden Forces, Demetri Kofinas speaks with Ryan Holiday, a popular author whose books have made philosophy and the writings of the ancients interesting and accessible to millions of people. He’s done this with bestselling books like “The Obstacle is the Way” and “Ego is the Enemy” and he continues to do this with his latest book “Courage is Calling.”  Demetri and Ryan discuss what courage is, why it matters, and if we can learn to live and act courageously. We are living in a time when people would rather stand on the sidelines than speak out against injustice, go along with convention, or bet on their own talents and abilities. And yet, Ryan would argue that we need courage now more than ever. Our hope is that today’s conversation with Ryan will give cause to reflect on how you want to meet the challenges in your own life and what will give you the courage to face your fears and to make choices in this new year from a place of integrity that honors who you are and who you aspire to be. If you want access to this week’s premium episode with Ryan Holiday, as well as the transcript and rundown to his conversation with Demetri, you can access all of those through the Hidden Forces Patreon Page. All subscribers gain access to our premium feed, which can be easily added to your favorite podcast application. If you enjoyed listening to today’s episode of Hidden Forces you can help support the show by doing the following: Subscribe on Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Stitcher | SoundCloud | YouTube | CastBox | RSS Feed Write us a review on Apple Podcasts Subscribe to our mailing list through the Hidden Forces Website Producer & Host: Demetri Kofinas Editor & Engineer: Stylianos Nicolaou Subscribe & Support the Podcast at https://patreon.com/hiddenforces Join the conversation on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter at @hiddenforcespod Follow Demetri on Twitter at @Kofinas Episode Recorded on 12/22/2021

In Episode 224 of Hidden Forces, Demetri Kofinas appears as a guest on the Mining Stock Daily, a podcast by Trevor Hall which focuses on the junior mining and mineral exploration sector. Their conversation centers on the macro, big-picture themes of society, polity, economy, and culture that preoccupy most of Demetri’s attention, as well as on his own approach to investing. You can find more information about Trevor’s podcast at miningstockdaily.com where you can listen to the entire, original episode, which mainly includes stories from Demetri’s time working in media and his thoughts about the difference between mediums like radio, TV, and podcasting.  There is no overtime to this episode, but you can still subscribe to our premium content and gain access to all past and future overtimes, transcripts, and rundowns through the Hidden Forces Patreon Page. All subscribers gain access to our premium feed, which can be easily added to your favorite podcast application. If you enjoyed listening to today’s episode of Hidden Forces you can help support the show by doing the following: Subscribe on Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Stitcher | SoundCloud | YouTube | CastBox | RSS Feed Write us a review on Apple Podcasts Subscribe to our mailing list through the Hidden Forces Website Producer & Host: Demetri Kofinas Editor & Engineer: Stylianos Nicolaou Subscribe & Support the Podcast at https://patreon.com/hiddenforces Join the conversation on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter at @hiddenforcespod Follow Demetri on Twitter at @Kofinas Episode Recorded on 12/09/2021

In Episode 223 of Hidden Forces, Demetri Kofinas speaks with Doomberg, an anonymous publisher and the proprietor of a bespoke consulting firm that provides advisory services to family offices and c-suite executives. The firm’s principals apply their decades of experience across heavy industry, private equity, and finance to deliver innovative thinking and clarity to complex problems. In the first hour of today’s conversation, Demetri and Doomberg discuss how to build a successful publishing company and what it takes to cultivate an audience in today’s decentralized, networked economy and fragmented media ecosystem. They discuss what that process has been like for the Doomberg team, what goes into building a brand from scratch, and the opportunities that have emerged for independent voices, and how to capitalize on them. In the second hour, they transition into a conversation about cancel culture, the power of platforms vs. audiences, and what it means to have a dedicated group of followers who are willing to go to defend you in the event that you end up in the crosshairs of the censors or a mob of activists. Demetri and Doomberg also discuss some of the topics that he writes about on his doomberg.substack.com page, including America’s and Europe’s energy policies, why he thinks they don’t work, and what it will take in order to fix them. The two end with a more macro-oriented conversation about inflation and the influence of the economy on asset markets vs. the influence of monetary policy and which one is really in the driver’s seat. You can access the second part of this episode, as well as the transcript and rundown to this week’s conversation through the Hidden Forces Patreon Page. All subscribers gain access to our premium feed, which can be easily added to your favorite podcast application. If you enjoyed listening to today’s episode of Hidden Forces you can help support the show by doing the following: Subscribe on Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Stitcher | SoundCloud | YouTube | CastBox | RSS Feed Write us a review on Apple Podcasts Subscribe to our mailing list through the Hidden Forces Website Producer & Host: Demetri Kofinas Editor & Engineer: Stylianos Nicolaou Subscribe & Support the Podcast at https://patreon.com/hiddenforces Join the conversation on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter at @hiddenforcespod Follow Demetri on Twitter at @Kofinas Episode Recorded on 12/06/2021

In Episode 222 of Hidden Forces, Demetri Kofinas speaks with Gregg Easterbrook. Gregg was a staff writer, national correspondent, and contributing editor at The Atlantic and has authored thirteen books about a variety of subjects including climate change, globalization, philosophy, and American football. Demetri and Gregg explore the subject of Easterbrook’s latest book, “The Blue Age.” They discuss the extraordinary transformation of the international trading order that we’ve been living through over the last seventy years and the unique role that the US Navy and advancements in naval architecture and marine engineering have played in making all of that possible. It’s difficult to appreciate just how unprecedented this long period of peace on the oceans has been and how extraordinary the deflationary pressures are that this peace has unleashed. It has also had huge implications for the expansion of credit, the reduction of volatility, and the growth in asset values in Western markets—topics that we’ve explored from a variety of different angles on the Hidden Forces podcast. What it might mean for our economies and for our lives if the Blue Age comes to an end is a question that is addressed directly during the first hour of today’s episode. In the second half of today’s episode, which is available to premium subscribers only, Gregg and Demetri focus on the economic and geopolitical aspects of the Blue Age, the likelihood of conflict on the high seas, the incentives for and against it, and its consequences for the global economy. They also discuss some of the factors driving the current bottlenecks in global supply chains, the shipping industry’s contribution to this, and why Gregg feels that those bottlenecks will be largely resolved before the end of next year. You can access the second part of this episode, as well as the transcript and rundown to this week’s conversation through the Hidden Forces Patreon Page. All subscribers gain access to our premium feed, which can be easily added to your favorite podcast application. If you enjoyed listening to today’s episode of Hidden Forces you can help support the show by doing the following: Subscribe on Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Stitcher | SoundCloud | YouTube | CastBox | RSS Feed Write us a review on Apple Podcasts Subscribe to our mailing list through the Hidden Forces Website Producer & Host: Demetri Kofinas Editor & Engineer: Stylianos Nicolaou Subscribe & Support the Podcast at https://patreon.com/hiddenforces Join the conversation on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter at @hiddenforcespod Follow Demetri on Twitter at @Kofinas Episode Recorded on 11/30/2021

In Episode 221 of Hidden Forces, Demetri Kofinas speaks with Jim Grant, the founder of Grant's Interest Rate Observer: a legend in the business of investor education and financial media. What separates Jim from millions of his fellow financial journalists, commentators, and authors is the historical perspective that he brings, informed not just by the immense volume of books and periodicals that he’s consumed over the course of his lifetime, but primarily by the wisdom of his own lived experiences and lessons learned from the experiences of others that he’s had the privilege to know and interview over the course his life. Given the ongoing controversy around inflation—its causes and consequences—we couldn’t think of anyone better to talk to than Jim Grant. Jim has been warning his readers about the unintended consequences of overly-accommodative Fed policy and dollar debasement for as long as we have known him and he is uniquely positioned to provide us with the historical context to understand where we find ourselves in the present cycle. What we came to this conversation wanting to know from Jim, as someone who has lived through at least 3 major credit cycles, is if in fact he feels that this inflation is not transitory. If in fact, he thinks that we are in the process of up-anchoring inflation expectations and what this means for the Fed’s policy options, with important implications for assets like stocks, bonds, cryptocurrency, etc., whose prices have depended on the free-flow of credit that becomes less readily available in an environment of rising consumer and producer prices. This is a phenomenal conversation that will help you integrate the history of inflation and what we know about its causes into the unique circumstances of our modern political-economy, which is characterized by historically high debt levels, aging demographics, and technology-driven deflation, in a way that can make you a better, more thoughtful investor.  Topics discussed during the Overtime include precious metals, cryptocurrency, meme stocks, ethics in journalism, and more. You can access that part of the conversation, as well as the transcript and rundown to this week’s episode through the Hidden Forces Patreon Page. All subscribers gain access to our premium feed, which can be easily added to your favorite podcast application. If you enjoyed listening to today’s episode of Hidden Forces you can help support the show by doing the following: Subscribe on Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Stitcher | SoundCloud | YouTube | CastBox | RSS Feed Write us a review on Apple Podcasts Subscribe to our mailing list through the Hidden Forces Website Producer & Host: Demetri Kofinas Editor & Engineer: Stylianos Nicolaou Subscribe & Support the Podcast at https://patreon.com/hiddenforces Join the conversation on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter at @hiddenforcespod Follow Demetri on Twitter at @Kofinas Episode Recorded on 11/18/2021

In Episode 220 of Hidden Forces, Demetri Kofinas speaks with Julius Krein, the editor of American Affairs, a quarterly journal of policy and political-economy that delves into the deeper sociopolitical, cultural, and economic issues facing America and other Western countries. The episode is broken into two parts, the first hour of which focuses on issues of political-economy, policy, and market dynamics that have driven the American economy into a state of “proletarianization,” where its citizens are increasingly ruled by an oligarchy of global elites whose insatiable appetite for wealth and power is endangering the very systems of free-market capitalism and liberal democracy that this kakistocracy claims to uphold. It’s an outcome that Julius Klein would refer to as “capitalism without competence and feudalism without nobility.” The second hour of today’s conversation is, unsurprisingly, the most satisfying insofar as Demetri and Julius tackle the socio-political and cultural dimensions and manifestations of the problems created by the perversions of what was earlier described as the “proletarianization” or conversion of the American economy and political system into a more corrupt, upwardly sclerotic, and extractive system of governance than anything experienced in America since at least the Gilded Age. You can access the second part of this episode, as well as the transcript and rundown to this week’s conversation through the Hidden Forces Patreon Page. All subscribers gain access to our premium feed, which can be easily added to your favorite podcast application. If you enjoyed listening to today’s episode of Hidden Forces you can help support the show by doing the following: Subscribe on Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Stitcher | SoundCloud | YouTube | CastBox | RSS Feed Write us a review on Apple Podcasts Subscribe to our mailing list through the Hidden Forces Website Producer & Host: Demetri Kofinas Editor & Engineer: Stylianos Nicolaou Subscribe & Support the Podcast at https://patreon.com/hiddenforces Join the conversation on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter at @hiddenforcespod Follow Demetri on Twitter at @Kofinas Episode Recorded on 11/15/2021

In Episode 219 of Hidden Forces, Demetri Kofinas speaks with Matt Ridley and Alina Chan. Alina is a Canadian molecular biologist specializing in gene therapy and cell engineering at the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard and Matt is a British science journalist who has written countless bestselling books on subjects ranging from evolution, to innovation, to genomic science. They are the co-authors of an electrifying new book titled “Viral” that grapples with the mystery of how Covid-19, a virus whose closest known relatives live in bats residing in subtropical southern China, somehow managed to begin spreading among people more than 1,500 kilometers away in the city of Wuhan, while leaving none of the expected traces that such outbreaks usually create. Instead, nearly two years into this pandemic we’re presented with a trail of evidence that increasingly points towards the Wuhan Institute of Virology and the so-called “Lab Leak Hypothesis” as the most plausible source of the outbreak. This is a critically important conversation to be having and Matt and Alina have made an invaluable contribution to it by working tirelessly and at great risk to themselves and to their careers in order to bring clarity to many of the facts and much of the evidence in support of the lab leak hypothesis—a theory that was consistently attacked and discredited by various actors, both wittingly and unwittingly, in the earliest days of the pandemic. We normally release the second half of our episodes for our subscribers only, but because of how important this conversation is and because of how much Matt and Alina have sacrificed in order to educate us all on the origins of Covid-19, we thought it was only right to do as much as we can to share as much of their work as possible. If you enjoy today’s episode, please take a moment to write us a review on Apple Podcasts and consider being a premium subscriber, if you haven’t already. There's no commitment. You can cancel at any time and the entire library of Hidden Forces subscriber content going all the way back to Episode 1 becomes instantly available to you, including the transcripts, and rundowns, to this episode and every other episode we’ve ever done. You can access the second part of this episode, as well as the transcript and rundown to this week’s conversation through the Hidden Forces Patreon Page. All subscribers gain access to our premium feed, which can be easily added to your favorite podcast application. If you enjoyed listening to today’s episode of Hidden Forces you can help support the show by doing the following: Subscribe on Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Stitcher | SoundCloud | YouTube | CastBox | RSS Feed Write us a review on Apple Podcasts Subscribe to our mailing list through the Hidden Forces Website Producer & Host: Demetri Kofinas Editor & Engineer: Stylianos Nicolaou Subscribe & Support the Podcast at https://patreon.com/hiddenforces Join the conversation on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter at @hiddenforcespod Follow Demetri on Twitter at @Kofinas Episode Recorded on 11/09/2021