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  • 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.

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  • On January 8, 2024, Dave hosted a space on "X" (formerly Twitter) for an overview of what to expect in geopolitics in 2024. In this wide ranging monologue, Dave covers many topics including the US elections, Russia's war against Ukraine, the brewing conflict in the Middle East, and rising tensions in Asia between Taiwan, China, and Japan.

    Keywords: geopolitics, 2024, election, Russia, Ukraine, Putin, Iran, Israel, Gaza, Palestine, China, Taiwan, Japan, Trump, RFK Jr, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Red-Brown Alliance, Dugin, conscious evolution, history, atomic bomb, Leo Szilard, Robert Oppenheimer, Katechon, Eschaton, Eschatology, Nuclear War, Apocalypse, end times, Christian Nationalism, Barbara Marx Hubbard, New Age, cults.

  • 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 [email protected].

    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

  • The idea of leaving society to start up a new one isn't exactly new... history is full of people leaving to go start new countries. But the idea became especially fashionable in 20th century America and was jump-started as a reaction to the counterculture in the 1960's, and given new life by Silicon Valley entrepreneurs in the 2000's.

    Dave talks with Raymond Craib, professor of history at Cornell University, about his new book "Adventure Capitalism: A History of Libertarian Exit from the Era of Decolonization to the Digital Age" which covers the upsurge in these ideas in the 60's to today, and their connection to everything from Brexit to Seasteading.

    Learn more about Ray Craib's work on Twitter (@raycraib) and at his Cornell faculty page:

    https://history.cornell.edu/raymond-b-craib

    Adventure Capitalism (Book):

    https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/57700808

    Keywords: Libertarian exit, libertarianism, Murray Rothbard, Friedrich Hayek, Ludwig von Mises, Milton Friedman, Michael Oliver, Werner Stiefel, New Atlantis, Tonga, Minerva Reefs, Abaco, Bahamas, Mitchell WerBell, Andrew St. George, Phoenix Foundation, Azores, New Hebrides, Vanuatu, Stefan Mandel, Mondragon, David Duke, Bayou of Pigs, Peter Thiel, Seasteading, Joe Quirk, Patri Friedman, Balaji Srinivasan, Nick Land, Curtis Yarvin, Mencius Moldbug, Urbit, Hans-Herman Hoppe, James Dale Davidson, William Rees Mogg, Jacob Rees Mogg, Brexit, Sovereign Individual, Longtermism, Effective Altruism, Honduras, ZEDEs, Charter Cities, Liz Truss, Shankar Singham, Barbara Kolm, Mises Institute.

  • The New Apostolic Reformation is a Christian movement that most people have never heard of, but it has an out-sized influence in American, and even global, politics and culture. Bruce Wilson has been researching and writing about religion and its influence on politics and culture for decades, and Jennifer Cohn has been working to document threats to democracy and election integrity. They join Dave to discuss the NAR, what it is, where it came from, and the risks it may pose to pluralistic democracy.

    Read more:

    Underreported And Massive Theocratic Movement Joins Forces With Michael Flynn And Roger Stone by Jenny Cohn

    Fighting Demons, Raising The Dead, Taking Over The World by Bruce Wilson

    Twitter: @brucewilson @jennycohn1

    Keywords: New Apostolic Reformation, NAR, Charismatic, Pentecostal, Christian, right, libertarian, libertarianism, WCF, World Congress of Families, Peter Wagner, Lance Wellnau, Lauren Boebert, Jim Garlow, John Eastman, Seven Mountains, Dominionism, apostolic governance.

  • Most people have never heard of "Longtermism." Long term? That sounds like it might be a pretty good thing. But many critics are suggesting that it is a dangerous philosophy, with many societal and social risks connected with it. And it's also been adopted by many wealthy and influential people, including Elon Musk.

    In this episode Dave sits down with Émile Torres, a philosopher at Leibniz University in Hannover, Germany. Torres has been a leading critic of longtermism and its related philosophy of so-called "Effective Altruism," and has written multiple essays on why it may be one of the most dangerous secular belief systems.

    For more info: https://longtermism-hub.com

    Follow Émile Torres: https://twitter.com/xriskology

    Keywords: Longtermism, Bostrom, Musk, Lesswrong, Effective Altruism, Computronium, Phil Torres, William MacAskill, Leverage Research, Paradigm, Peter Thiel, Libertarianism, seasteading.

  • Amy Westervelt is an investigative journalist, radio reporter, and podcast storyteller who has been tracking the oil and gas industry's climate denialism for over twenty years. Her podcast series, "Drilled" and "Rigged" tell the story of how the oil industry and big business have used influence to shape public discourse, perception, and regulation. Dave talked with Amy about the history of Big Oil's deceptive practices, and what, if anything, we can do about it going forward.

    Learn more about Amy's work at https://criticalfrequency.org

    Keywords: oil, gas, climate, fascism, drilled, rigged, influence, Exxon, Mobil, Ivy Ledbetter Lee, Edward Bernays, PSYOPs, military intelligence, Herb Schmertz, Valdez, oil spills, environment, climate, warming, denialism, cults, public relations, Edelman, arctic, Putin, drilling, Ukraine.

  • For the last five years, Nate Mook has led World Central Kitchen, the ground-breaking humanitarian charitable organization founded by award-winning chef José Andrés. Helping to build the organization from scratch to over $400 million in projected 2022 revenues, Nate has been on the front lines of relief efforts around the world for years. And for the last six months, he's been in Ukraine helping to feed people reeling from Vladimir Putin's disastrous invasion. First on the Polish border, and then on the front lines in the east, Nate offers an invaluable first-hand perspective about what's really going on there, and what we might expect next.

    Dave and Nate are old friends, having produced TEDxMidAtlantic together in Washington D.C. since 2009 — which is how Nate met José and began his journey with World Central Kitchen. They sat down together in Washington D.C. on August 16, 2022, while Nate was in town, before starting his next mission.

    Read more about Nate and World Central Kitchen in the Washington Post here.

    Keywords: Nate Mook, José Andrés, World Central Kitchen, TEDx, Washington D.C., Ukraine, Gen. Milley, Amy Klobuchar, Lviv, Kherson, Kharkiv, Kiyv, Zaporizhia, Putin, Ukraine, war, humanitarian, food, relief, charity.

  • People talk about "horseshoe theory," but where does it come from? The idea of a "red-brown alliance" has been part of political discourse for decades, and plays up on the notion that the very far left and very far right have common interests in countering the status quo. Alexander Reid Ross is a geographer and political historian who has written about this phenomenon extensively. Tracing it back to its roots, he also has documented instances of where he has observed this in his own activism — which has sometimes earned him criticism. Dave talks with Alex about the history of this phenomenon and what we can do about it going forward.

    More info: https://alexanderreidross.net

    Keywords: Red-brown alliance, communism, fascism, Guenon, Dugin, Rene Girard, Bakunin, Yockey, Sorokin, Ilyin, Occupy, Horseshoe theory, dirtbag left, Willis Carto, David Icke, David Duke.

  • David Kertzer is the Pultizer-prize winning author of several books, including several about the rise of fascism in Europe and its interface with the Catholic Church. His latest book, The Pope at War: The Secret History of Pius XII, Mussolini, and Hitler, chronicles the complex history of the Church during World War II. Dave talks with Kertzer about his research, much of which was only possible because of new archival material released by the Vatican in 2020, and what this important history means for us today as we grapple with a global resurgence of Fascism and right-libertarianism.

    Buy the book:

    https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/60098361-the-pope-at-war

    Keywords: Mussolini, Hitler, Kertzer, Pope Pius XII, Pope Pius XI, Pope Francis, Pope John Paul II, Catholic Church, Fascism, World War II, Italy, History, Capitalism, Communism, P2, CIA, gold, Roosevelt, Nazis

  • What if January 6th was... all about gold?

    Sure, it sounds improbable at first, but since last year, Dave has been digging into the improbable backstory that got us here. From goldbugs to the "I AM" cult to libertarianism, crypto, and QAnon, this story has it all.

    In this episode, Dave continues his conversation with Hamilton Fish, editor of The Washington Spectator, which published his piece, "Paranoia on Parade: How Goldbugs, Libertarians and Religious Extremists Brought America to the Brink." Dave and Hamilton discuss the process for developing this story and some of the things they learned in reporting it.

    Keywords: New Deal, Libertarianism, gold, goldbugs, Roosevelt, John Birch Society, Jack Singlaub, Philippines, Michael Flynn, QAnon, Cryptocurrency, Bitcoin, Elon Musk, Peter Thiel, Reagan, anticommunist, Protocols of the Elders of Zion, Koch, Council for National Policy, CNP, Newsmax, Sovereign Individual, Agora Publishing, James Dale Davidson, William Rees-Mogg, Jacob Rees-Mogg, Technocracy, Occupy, Federal Reserve, National Association of Manufacturers, American Legion, American Liberty League, Silver Legion, "I AM", fascism, Moonies, VFW, QAnon, Brock Pierce, Steve Bannon, Ron Paul, Oathkeepers, January 6, Freedom School, Robert LeFevre, Hunt Brothers.

    Read "Paranoia on Parade" at Washington Spectator:

    https://washingtonspectator.org/paranoia-on-parade/