Let's Know Things

This week we talk about Venezuela, Maduro, and international law.

We also discuss sour crude, extrajudicial killings, and Greenland.

Recommended Book: The Keep by F. Paul Wilson

Transcript

Back in mid-November of 2025, I did an episode on extrajudicial killings, focusing on the targeting of speedboats, mostly from Venezuela headed toward the United States, by the US military. These boats were allegedly carrying drugs meant for the US m...

This week we talk about prediction markets, incentives, and gambling addiction.

We also discuss insider trading, spot-fixing, and Gatorade.

Recommended Book: The Kingdom, the Power, and the Glory by Tim Alberta

Transcript

Prediction markets are hundreds of years old, and have historically been used to determine the likelihood of something happening.

In 1503, for instance, there was a market to determine who would become the next pope, a...

This week we talk about energy consumption, pollution, and bipartisan issues.

We also discuss local politics, data center costs, and the Magnificent 7 tech companies.

Recommended Book: Against the Machine by Paul Kingsnorth

Transcript

In 2024, the International Energy Agency estimated that data centers consumed about 1.5% of all electricity generated, globally, that year. It went on to project that energy consumption by data centers co...

This week we talk about NVIDIA, AI companies, and the US economy.

We also discuss the US-China chip-gap, mixed-use technologies, and export bans.

Recommended Book: Enshittification by Cory Doctorow

Transcript

I’ve spoken about this a few times in recent months, but it’s worth rehashing real quick because this collection of stories and entities are so central to what’s happening across a lot of the global economy, and is also fundamenta...

This week we talk about in-game skins, investment portfolios, and Counter-Strike 2.

We also discuss ebooks, Steam, and digital licenses.

Recommended Book: Apple in China by Patrick McGee

Transcript

Almost always, if you buy an ebook or game or movie or music album online, you’re not buying that ebook, or that game, or whatever else—you’re buying a license that allows you access it, often on a specified device or in a specified way, and...

This week we talk about floods, wildfires, and reinsurance companies.

We also discuss the COP meetings, government capture, and air pollution.

Recommended Book: If Anyone Builds It, Everyone Dies by Eliezer Yudkowsky and Nate Soares

Transcript

The urban area that contains India’s capital city, New Delhi, called the National Capital Territory of Delhi, has a population of around 34.7 million people. That makes it the most populous city...

This week we talk about radioactive waste, neutrons, and burn while breeding cycles.

We also discuss dry casks, radioactive decay, and uranium.

Recommended Book: Breakneck by Dan Wang

Transcript

Radioactive waste, often called nuclear waste, typically falls into one of three categories: low-level waste that contains a small amount of radioactivity that will last a very short time—this is stuff like clothes or tools or rags that have be...

This week we talk about Venezuela, casus belli, and drug smuggling.

We also discuss oil reserves, Maduro, and Machado.

Recommended Book: Dungeon Crawler Carl by Matt Dinniman

Transcript

Venezuela, which suffered all sorts of political and economic crises under former president Hugo Chávez, has suffered even more of the same, and on a more dramatic scale, under Chávez’s successor, Nicolás Maduro.

Both Chávez and Maduro have ruled over au...

This week we talk about OxyContin, opium, and the British East India Company.

We also discuss isotonitazene, fentanyl, and Perdue.

Recommended Book: The Thinking Machine by Stephen Witt

Transcript

Opioids have been used as painkillers by humans since at least the Neolithic period; there’s evidence that people living in the Iberian and Italian Peninsulas kept opium poppy seeds with them, and there’s even more evidence that the Ancient G...

This week we talk about Mach 1, the Bell X-1, and the Concorde.

We also discuss the X-59, the Tu-144, and Boom Supersonic.

Recommended Book: Red Team Blues by Cory Doctorow

Transcript

The term “supersonic,” when applied to speed, refers to something moving faster than the speed of sound—a speed that is shorthanded as Mach 1.

The precise Mach 1 speed of sound will be different depending on the nature of the medium through which an object...

This week we talk about robots, call center workers, and convenience stores.

We also discuss investors, chatbots, and job markets.

Recommended Book: The Fourth Consort by Edward Ashton

Transcript

Though LLM-based generative AI software, like ChatGPT, Gemini, and Claude, are becoming more and more powerful by the month, and offering newfangled functionality seemingly every day, it’s still anything but certain these tools, and the chatbo...

This week we talk about entanglements, monopolies, and illusory money.

We also discuss electrification, LLMs, and data centers.

Recommended Book: The Extinction of Experience by Christine Rosen

Transcript

One of the big claims about artificial intelligence technologies, including but not limited to LLM-based generative AI tech, like ChatGPT, Claude, and Gemini, is that they will serve as universal amplifiers.

Electricity is another univ...

This week we talk about trade wars, TACO theory, and Chinese imports.

We also discuss negotiation, protectionism, and threat spirals.

Recommended Book: More Than Words by John Warner

Transcript

In January of 2018, then first-term US President Trump announced a slew of tariffs and trade barriers against several countries, including Canada, Mexico, and those in the European Union.

The most significant of these new barriers and tariffs wer...

This week we talk about Electronic Arts, 3DO, and the Saudi Arabian Public Investment Fund.

We also discuss Jared Kushner, leveraged buyouts, and loot boxes.

Recommended Book: Bandwidth by Dan Caruso

Transcript

Electronic Arts, often shorthanded as EA, was founded in 1982 in California by a former Apple employee named Trip Hawkins, who also went on to found the ill-fated 3DO company, which made video game hardware, and the somewhat mor...

This week we talk about Article 4, big sticks, and spheres of influence.

We also discuss Moldova, super powers, and new fronts.

Recommended Book: More Everything Forever by Adam Becker

Transcript

The North Atlantic Treaty Organization, or NATO, was originally formed in 1949 in the wake of World War 2 and at the beginning of the Cold War.

At that moment, the world was beginning to orient toward what we might think of as the modern global...

This week we talk about corruption, influencers, and pro-monarchy protests.

We also discuss Nepalese modern history, Gen Z, and kings.

Recommended Book: Superagency by Reid Hoffman and Greg Beato

Transcript

The Federal Democratic Republic of Nepal, usually referred to as just Nepal, is a country located in the Himalayas that’s bordered to the northeast by China, and is otherwise surrounded by India, including in the east, where there’s...

This week we talk about stablecoins, crypto assets, and conflicts of interest.

We also discuss the crypto industry, political contributions, and regulatory guardrails.

Recommended Book: Throne of Glass by Sarah J. Maas

Transcript

A cryptocoin is a unit of cryptocurrency. A cryptocurrency is a type of digital currency that uses some kind of non-central means of managing its ledger—keeping track of who has how much of it, basically.

There...

This week we talk about cyberespionage, China, and asymmetrical leverage.

We also discuss political firings, hardware infiltration, and Five Eyes.

Recommended Book: The Fourth Turning Is Here by Neil Howe

Transcript

In the year 2000, then-General Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party, Jiang Zemin (jong ZEM-in), approved a plan to develop so-called “cyber coercive capabilities”—the infrastructure for offensive hacking—partly as a con...

This week we talk about the RSF, coups, and the liberal world order.

We also discuss humanitarian aid, foreign conflicts, and genocide.

Recommended Book: Inventing the Renaissance by Ada Palmer

Transcript

In 2019, a military government took over Sudan, following a successful coup d'état against then-President Omar al-Bashir, who had been in power for thirty years. al-Bashir’s latter years were plagued by popular demonstrations against ...