Leighton Smith Podcast #289 - June 18th 2025 - George Friedman

The similarities between Ukraine’s attack on Russian bombers and the Israeli attack on Iran’s nuclear sites have been noted. But the parallels don’t stop there.

The U.S. is involved in both conflicts and the script for each is flexible on a daily basis. The influence upon each is Donald J Trump.

Geopolitical authority George Friedman opines on both wars, employing the theory of geopolitical cycles as explained in his book “The Storm Before the Calm”.

And, finally, we see what you think in The Mailroom with Mrs Producer.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:09):
You're listening to a podcast from news talks it B.
Follow this and our wide range of podcasts now on iHeartRadio.
It's time for all the attitude, all the opinion, all
the information, all the debates of the now, the Leyton
Smith podcast powered by news talks it B.

Speaker 2 (00:28):
Welcome to podcasts two eighty nine for June eighteen, twenty
twenty five. Now. Having interviewed George Friedman from Geopolitical Futures
in the not too distant past, I had no idea
that he would return quite so quickly, but considering what's
going on on the planet at the moment and his
knowledge of same, there really was no choice. When George

(00:51):
speaks on something as serious as this, I'm always interested
in his opinion. Doesn't mean I accept everything that he says.
There's very few people that fall into that category, if any.
But nevertheless, his worthiness has made itself of us over
a lengthy period of time. I've been talking with him

(01:12):
for now a good thirty years, possibly more. But before
we get to George, there are a couple of other
issues that I want to touch on as briefly as
I can, but I feel an urge to do so,
So let's begin with the fact that I did something
last night that is not the norm at our household,
turn the news on at the television news at six
pm to witness the fire that has taken to New

(01:38):
World at Victoria Park, in my opinion, the best supermarket
in the country bar none, and it's left us a
bit bit rif because well, now where do we go
when we want to get some of those things that
you can't get in every supermarket? Never mind that will
resolve itself. That led to seeing a politician or two

(02:00):
who currently a ministers who I don't have a great
deal of time for for the simple reason that they
are closed minded and ignorant. And what I'm referring to
is matters concerning climate change that's zero for instance in
the Paris Accord. We should be dumping both of those
in this country. They cost us a fortune, which is

(02:22):
just nuts when you think about the state that the
economy is in. They cost a fortune. They are wrong
in the first place, and the rest of the world
is going ahead and we are getting left behind us
and Australia, and I have to say on this occasion,
I think Australia is worse off than we are, but
that doesn't mean that our situation isn't bad enough. We

(02:43):
update you on a couple of things. California politics is
synonymous with many things, but failed energy policy might be
the most relevant. The Ivan par solar power plant Solar
is on its way to being shut down just eleven
years after it opened. PG and E be the electric

(03:03):
company pulled out of its contract with the plant, leading
to a planned of two of its three units by
next year, while Southern California Edison is also working on
buying out its contract now. The plant costs two point
two billion US dollars to build, and the Department of
Energy said taxpayers will receive a refund of an undisclosed

(03:26):
amount for the one point six billion in department loans.
The contracts were supposed to take the plant through to
at least twenty thirty nine. In all, the energy from
the plant costs too much money. It produced around seventy
percent of what was projected to produce annually. The sea

(03:47):
of mirrors that the plant relied on to produce the
energy led to the plant catching on fire in twenty
sixteen after mirrors were wrongly positioned in relation to the sun.
The plants struggled with energy production due to weather, clouds
and jet streams, and was also pretty bad for the
environment what with the whole burning birds to death thing.

(04:12):
The plant also used natural gas to keep itself running
around six times the limit allowed by the California Energy Commission. Now,
what is most shocking is the scope and scale of
this project compared to the IKI nuclear energy California has
tried to rid itself of over the same period. In

(04:33):
twenty twenty, IVANPA produced eight hundred and fifty six gigawad
hours of energy. This represented a substantial increase in efficiency
and output in ninety one percent of the plant's production goals.
The plant takes up three and a half thousand acres
of land. That's one big farm, whatever it is. Meanwhile,
the Diablo Canyon Nuclear Plant is the last nuclear plants

(04:58):
in California. It takes up around seven hundred and fifty
acres and produces over seventeen thousand, seven hundred gigawad hours
of energy. That is around tw times more than ivanpaer
and accounted for over eight percent of California's in state
energy production in twenty twenty three. The comparisons are just obscene,

(05:18):
aren't they now? There is a second part to this
climate matter, because a couple of weeks back, I was
attempting to address some water level issues around the Solomon
Islands for an inquiry from one of our listeners, so
I referred to a man named Matthew Wilicky wie Licki

(05:44):
and the heading is the CEA level lie exposed. For years,
climate narratives have relentlessly painted a dire picture. The ice
caps are melting, oceans arising, and humanity is teetering on
the edge of catastrophic flooding. You've heard it repeatedly from politicians, activists,
media outlets, eager to dramatize each incremental rise in global

(06:06):
temperatures as an unprecedented disaster. But what if the fundamental
assumptions driving these alarming predictions were deeply flawed Over the
last year I've exposed, says the author, a pattern of
contradictions between what we're told about sea level rise and
what the data actually shows, contradictions that now culminate in

(06:30):
a far deeper crisis of scientific understanding. In fact, it's
this body of work that has led coastal policy makers,
those tasked with real world decisions about infrastructure zoning and
emergency response to reach out to me privately to understand
what is really happening. They're rightly skeptical when headlines scream

(06:53):
about surging seas, yet local tide gages tell a much
different story. Take, for example, my piece where I dismantled
absurd claims like those made in the New York Post
suggesting that New York City sea levels might surge might
surge thirteen inches by the twenty thirties. Those projections were

(07:13):
based on implausible, worst case scenarios and ignored critical facts. Much,
if not most, of New York's relative sea level rise
is due to land subsidence. In fact, current sea levels
measured at the Battery tide gauge in New York are
roughly equivalent to levels first observed in the early nineteen forties,

(07:34):
meaning nearly a century of catastrophic sea level rise has
simply brought us back to where we were already. In
another article, I examined the Holocene thermal maximum, a period
when Greenland was four to was four to eight point
five degrees centigrade warmer than today. Astonishingly, despite this warmth,

(07:54):
global sea levels were lower than today. How is this possible?
If the models predict catastrophic sea level rise are correct,
if Greenland's ice levels survived such warming without deluging the coasts,
how do we reconcile this with claims that current modest
warming will do so. Then there's the adjusting reality, where

(08:17):
I explored the peculiar pattern in satellite sea level measurements.
Each time a new satellites launched, the sea level trend
is adjusted upward, not downward, never flat, always up. A
skeptic might wonder whether these corrections reflect science or storytelling.
In how a simple math eraror derailed doomsday sea level forecasts,

(08:41):
I discussed recent research showing that foundational equations used in
ice flower models might be significantly flawed. A mischaracterization of
how temperate glacier ice flows could mean that projections of
future sea level rise have been overstated when plugged into
the When plugged into the same models the IPC SEA users,

(09:04):
the corrected equations yield far less ominous results. And finally,
a piece that presented satellite evidence that many coastlines around
the world are actually growing, yes growing, despite rising seas.
Land accretion driven by natural processes like sediment deposition, is

(09:25):
outpacing erosion in many regions. Now, three recent papers may
deliver the most decisive blow yet to the climate establishment's
sea level narrative. Goes on to list them. If you
want to find it, I suggest you search the sea

(09:46):
level lie exposed by Matthew waylicky W I E l
I C K I, and you'll find it. And you'll
also like to find it if you search irrational Fear
dot substack dot com. Now, having got that out of
the way and with some personal pleasure, we will join

(10:08):
George Friedman after a short break. Buccolan is a natural
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(10:29):
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(10:49):
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keep in mind that millions of doses have been taken
by Kiwi's for over fifty years. Only available from your pharmacist.

(11:13):
Always read the label and users directed, and see your
doctor if systems persist. Farmer Broker Auckland Leighton Smith George

(11:33):
Friedman has a long history with regard to geopolitics. He
was a well he has a PhD. And he was
a professor at the War College in Pennsylvania for a
number of years, and then he went private and has
since established two companies. The most recent, of course, and
the most stable, is Geopolitical Futures. It's intrigued me that

(11:56):
over the years he has declined to make use of
both his doctorate, as in doctor George Friedman or the professorship.
I used to call him professor doctor George Friedman, but
he didn't like it, so I dropped it, and I'm
just filling in his blank slate for you at the moment.
So George. Great to have you back on the podcast,

(12:17):
and I do appreciate it because I know how busy
you are working on a new book.

Speaker 3 (12:21):
Well, I'm very glad to be here and not working
on the book. Now, do it something.

Speaker 2 (12:25):
Else that's nice? Well, let me revert then to the
present book, the one that was released back in twenty twenty.
The release of the book that I want to discuss
with you briefly, the Storm before the Calm, was on
the same day that COVID broken America and the media
went mad. You lost all your appointments and television interviews, etc.

(12:49):
Which disturbed the sale of the book. But we have
discussed before it is still selling, and not in huge numbers,
but steadily and more and more people I know are
becoming attached to it because of what you put in
that book with regard to what's happening. Now, why don't
we start with a brief from you on what the

(13:10):
book was about and how it fits in with what
the current events in the US and the world die.

Speaker 4 (13:16):
The book's called Storm for the comm and what I
found is a pattern in the United States that every
fifty years or so, the United States goes through a
social and economic crisis. I also found that every eighty
years it reinventsd government institutions through an institutional crisis. But

(13:37):
I saw that this time, for the first time in
American history, I noticed that for this time, both the
institutional cycle and this geopolitical cycle and the socio economic
cycle are going to be taking place at the same time.
So I said that the twenty twenty four election is
going to open the storm before the calm, which is

(14:00):
we always have a massive crisis for.

Speaker 3 (14:03):
It, major unrest.

Speaker 4 (14:05):
Then twenty twenty eight next president takes it into a
commer place. And so now we're in the middle of
the storm that was predictable by the history of America,
and we're trying to find our way through it.

Speaker 2 (14:19):
I'm intrigued and have been ever since the book was
released on how you came to the conclusion and what
causes these cycles to follow the pattern.

Speaker 4 (14:29):
Well, it's very hard to explain that because I'm not
really sure. But one fundamental thing I know about is
that we reinvent the country periodically.

Speaker 3 (14:41):
The United States, it was an invented country. It did
not exist.

Speaker 4 (14:45):
It was the first major democratic republic created, and it
crafted itself. It engineered itself into existence through the constitution
of other things. And it's a country that's used to obsolescence.
It doesn't take the norm as the way it should be.
We start ourselves by breaking the norm. So every fifty

(15:06):
years or so, the way this social economic system works,
it gets obsolete. It has to be changed. Now there's
the factions where the norm is passed and that must continue,
faction that demands it to restructure itself. So both in
terms of social and economic life, in terms of institutional life,

(15:29):
we continually reinvent ourselves. Unlike other countries that allow their
systems to go on slowly shifting, we do radical upsurges.
And when that happens, it looks like we're going to pieces.
And we are in the middle of the storm right now.
We elected a president and created a storm, and if

(15:50):
history is correct, a few years will come out of
it in a very different way than we were.

Speaker 2 (15:55):
So I quote from Trump's place in US political cycles,
the normal pattern in US political history is that ineffective
presidents are elected at the end of a fifty year cycle,
so that their presidencies exist in social and economic chaos.
These presidents, usually through no fold of their own, lose

(16:15):
the ability to govern, and in the following election, a
president who can change where we are and set the
country in a new direction is elected.

Speaker 4 (16:24):
And what happened was Biden was the one who presided
over a disintegrating structure. It didn't disintegrate it, it was disintegrating.
Trump comes in and radically changes everything, just like Roosevelt
did and others before him radically changes, and then the
one after that takes us back into the calm. So

(16:48):
the storm is the part where we restructure who we are,
We change who we are, how we live, and then
twenty twenty eight we'll say we'll come back to it
with norm, a calmer norm. So it's not a normal,
calm transition. It is an extensively painful, extensively stormy relationship

(17:13):
between the state and many of the citizens were caught
between the phases. But then it calms down for the
next fifty years, and the same with the institutionals cycle.
Every eighty years it shifts. We went from the Revolution
we took it eighty years later, to the Civil War

(17:33):
we took it later, to the Great Depression in eighty
year cycles. It's eighty years. So our institutions are also
being changed. The problem that Trump has he both has
to change the social and economic relationship and he has
to change the way the institutions work. So he is
more reckless, it seems, than previous presidents because the task

(17:56):
that he has, whether he knows it or not, I
don't know, is to do the things he's doing. And
any president who would be elected regardless, would do this
at the same time. Whether it's whether it be the
same style, obviously it'd be a different style. But it's
very similar to what Franklin Roosevelt did. Franklin Roosevelt came

(18:18):
into office as champion of the poor. In the first
one hundred days, he shut down the banking system against law.
By the way, thought Supreme Court was regarded as on
his way to take charatorship, that he would dominate the country,
issued ninety nine executive orders not confirmed by Congress. In

(18:39):
other words, we've been through this before, and we went
through eighty years ago, and this is the way we
change ourselves.

Speaker 2 (18:47):
Okay, the part that well, I was going to say
the part that intrigues me, but I can't say that
because it's more than many more than one part. But
let me quote from what I was just a few
minutes ago. Trump's first impact will be in trying to
redefine cultural norms. You'll also try to change tech schemes
for corporation, and probably most important, he'll try to shift economic, political,

(19:12):
and military relations with allies. He will impose newly defined
economic rules for international trade, increased regard for US interests,
and the reconsideration of foreign commitments with allies. How is
he faring with that list?

Speaker 4 (19:28):
Well, he's doing all of them. Inside of the country.
The culture wars between the left and the right are raging,
and he's overthrowing the cultural system that it existed before
or placing with something different. We're seeing him trying to
shift relations with the rest of the world, to pull

(19:50):
the United States back from responsibility for the rest of
the world, have more orderly relationship, and of course dealing
with economic problems, both domestically and especially in that process
in natural relations.

Speaker 2 (20:05):
The list of thing that you put there, how did
you arrive at that? Was it because you were aware
of what he had in mind? Or you drew up
that list separately and he's following it well.

Speaker 4 (20:20):
A theory about fifteen twenty years ago of these cycles,
I took a look at previous cycles. The fifty year
cycle blastphar was Ronald Reagan. He changed the tax code
before that was Roosevelt, and so on and so forth.

Speaker 3 (20:36):
So there's a.

Speaker 4 (20:37):
Model for how we evolve. And it's not like any
of the country's a bottle. It is not a revolutionary
model in the sense that the government is overthrown, nor
is it a passive slow evolution. It is a radical
crisis within the framework of our governance. And it's inherent

(20:58):
in American culture. American culture is built on obsolescence and
replacing things. American culture is not based on revering the past,
but in reforming and changing it. So it's part of
our culture to throw things away, rebuild them discarded, to

(21:18):
not be afraid of radical change in our personal lives
or in our national life. So it is inherently part
of the American culture, the reinvention of the nation, and
we go through it regularly. And so I just looked
at how it worked in previous times, and is it

(21:38):
working out pretty much the same, except a little more
intense because two cycles getting at the same time.

Speaker 2 (21:43):
Is there anybody else you can think of who's in
play at the moment? Has been for the last say,
ten years, who could have done this job apart from Trump?

Speaker 4 (21:56):
The answer is that Trump isn't doing a job. Trump
is merely responding to what's reality.

Speaker 2 (22:03):
All right, So is there anybody else who would have
responded in the way that he has and is and succeed.

Speaker 4 (22:11):
Anybody at this point would realize that the cultural wars
are unsustainable, that our position for eighty years in the
Cold War is not sustainable, and would want to change them.
Now he has a personal style that's his own. But
then Roosevelt had a person style his own. He was
an incredibly rich man, incredibly rich who convinced everybody who

(22:35):
was a friend of the poor. I doubt that he
ever met a poor person who wasn't a servant, but.

Speaker 3 (22:40):
He convinced them.

Speaker 4 (22:41):
So when you're in this position as a president, you
carve your personality to what's needed.

Speaker 3 (22:49):
You don't come in with it.

Speaker 4 (22:51):
Will you get selected because you have this personality a
radical one, or you make yourself into what's needed.

Speaker 3 (22:57):
But it's not the person that's the hero.

Speaker 4 (23:01):
It's a system of governance that allows us radical change,
and that consistently has done it ever since the eighteenth century.
So whoever would be president of this time would face
the same problems he did. They might be more polite
in changing it, they might be less polite. I don't know,

(23:21):
but I could. The model allowed me to predict in
twenty twenty. In a previous book, I wrote The Next
hundred Years, which was quite a while before then, that
this was the time we would run into the storm
that we would not go to be able to sustain
the system. And the hero is the American constitution and

(23:42):
American culture. And Roosevelt took advantage of that. Abraham Lincoln
took advantage of that, and so does Donald Trump. It's
not him that's doing it. He's facing a crisis that
has to be solved and there's only a limited set
of solutions, and he's doing it because he's compelled by

(24:06):
reality to do it. Now he knows how to carve
himself into something he wants to be because he made
himself president. And to be president, you have to re
arrange yourself, your personality, you're thinking to the moment. That's
what a president does. He doesn't create the crisis. He

(24:28):
tries to manage it. And so I would have argued
that the same thing would have happened under virtue, anyone
who's capable of being president. That is being done by
Trump is fine. He'll be considered a hero and the
history will go on. But it's not, if you will
his personal achievement. He's kind of trapped in a reality.

Speaker 2 (24:52):
Although there are two relatively recent presidents who were not
capable of doing it. The latter one, of course, we're
well familiar with, and the one before that was well
led to the Reagan election. So was it possible that
somebody else could have been elected. It doesn't matter which
particular party they belonged to, but could have been elected

(25:14):
and have done the same job. I mean, Kamala Harris,
could she have done this job.

Speaker 4 (25:20):
He's not doing the job. The job is happening. The crisis,
the cultural crisis in the United States between two cultures,
the culture of the left, if you want, the culture
of the right was there, it was happening. The economic
crisis was there, was happening. The obsolescence of the federal

(25:43):
system was there and happening. The end of the Cold
War was there and happening. So it's not that he
made these things. He's just because he's a president. You
have to be pretty smart to be president, and you
have to be an illomaniac to be a president. The
only difference between Trump and other presidents, she doesn't mind
showing it is egomaniac. And in each time that this happens,

(26:08):
the president is hated. The president who faces the problem
and changes the norms is hated. Franklin Roosevelt was considered
a man who wanted to be a dictator. Abraham Lincoln
was a man who was an illiterate, incapable of understanding anything.
So you don't take a country of three hundred million

(26:31):
people and act as if a single man had the
ability to change things ten years ago. That could not
have been a change made. It was not ripe enough
the situation. Biden couldn't have done it if he wanted to.
He wasn't in this position. But any president who'd be
elected would see the cultural wars, would see the economic problems,

(26:55):
would see the international problems and deal with them. And
that's what his agenda is, all the things that came
to a head now. So I think it's really important
to depersonalize this, although we're living with him. The success
of America is that even a man like Ronald Reagan,

(27:16):
who was not a particularly good politician but very much liked,
made a radical change in the US economy. He changed
it from emphasizing the tax code to be taxing the
rich and less the poor, switched it around a ridiculous idea,
and thereby made possible to tech boom because he created

(27:40):
wealth that was able to invest. Now, was he an economist, No.
Was he a visionary No, but he certainly understood the
moment of time that he was like the president.

Speaker 3 (27:55):
Because he didn't understand it, he wouldn't have been elected.

Speaker 2 (27:58):
Now, the foundation for this interview is really foreign policy,
because of what's going on in the world that has
got everybody well excited. What quite briefly Neil Ferguson, who
wrote a couple of days ago, US foreign policy, Henry
Kissinger once observed, is perceived from outside as a single

(28:20):
coherent grand strategy, whereas in reality it is the net
result of multiple interagency battles and sometimes produces outcomes not
one of the players precisely intended. So it is with
the Trump administration. Is that accurate? Do you think heye?
Reverse it?

Speaker 4 (28:39):
From the outside, it looks like we don't know what
we're doing. From the inside, it's pretty clear what we're doing.
So I know Neil and I respect him, but I
flip it all around.

Speaker 2 (28:52):
So for those people who who think that Trump is well,
they call him all sorts of things still, and there's
enough of it in this country. A full joke, incompetent.
What do you say?

Speaker 4 (29:09):
Every president at this point in history is regarded as
a joke. Ronald Reagan was regarded as a joke. Franklin
Roosevelt was regarded as a joke. Going back all the way,
when you get to the point when you say, look,
this has fallen apart, I'm going to have to change everything.

Speaker 3 (29:29):
You're held in contempt.

Speaker 4 (29:31):
People love the norm, even if it's hurting them, even
if it's painful. They don't like radical change. Any president
comes in at this time will be forced to make
radical change, and therefore you always wind up in a
situation where this president during his term is held in contempt. Interestingly,

(29:54):
history now regards both Reagan and Roosevelt as brilliant, wonderful heroes.
So the moment he's in, whether he wants to or not,
he's doing the things he has to do, and he's
being reviled for it. Well, that's the way it works.
Oddly enough, so every fifty years if president hated.

Speaker 2 (30:18):
So I've also heard people say that Trump is actually
a genius.

Speaker 3 (30:23):
Well, I don't see that he's a genius. I didn't
think that Reagan was all.

Speaker 4 (30:28):
That right, and I started didn't think Roosevelt had any
idea what he was doing. So you don't have to
be a genius to just submit to reality. The only
thing I have to be is sensitive enough to understand
that something's going wrong.

Speaker 3 (30:41):
It has to be done.

Speaker 4 (30:43):
So whether he's a genius or not, he lives at
the right moment in history, and I think he'll go
down in the history books, oddly enough, from our point
of view, as quite an effective president. If I had
said that about Theodore Franklin Roosevelt in nineteen fifty two,
a lot of people looked at me like I was crazy.

Speaker 3 (31:04):
So the views of presidents change over time.

Speaker 4 (31:09):
Again, Abraham Lincoln, revered, was regarded as an illiterate pumpkin
who had no business being president, and that was the
general view, and the South also left like that. So
don't really focus on the moment. Compare the moment to
previous moments, and then you.

Speaker 2 (31:26):
Can understand it at the risk of providing Neil Ferguson
too much when I'm talking with you, this is the
last time Trump's critics generally overlook that he is a
pacifist at hart who prefers trade wars to real wars
and dreams of being awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.

Speaker 4 (31:44):
Well, I have no idea what he dreams of, but
what he's doing is face and reality. In foreign policy,
the Cold War is over. It ended the Ukraine. The
Russians performed so poorly militarily in Ukraine that any idea
that they are going to bed Europe is absurd. Therefore,

(32:04):
why should the United States remain committed to your or
eighty years after it started. So definitely, he looks at
this and sees, Okay, let's get out of there. Let's
stop being so vulnerable to what happens to the rest
of the world. Let the rest of the world take
care of itself. Similarly, he says, why are we simultaneously

(32:28):
in hostile relations with China and totally dependent on imports
from China to run an industry?

Speaker 3 (32:36):
And he slams sanctions on Is he genius? Is he lucky?

Speaker 4 (32:40):
Is he smart? This at this moment was the things
we have to be looking at and we're doing it.

Speaker 2 (32:46):
Is he smart?

Speaker 4 (32:48):
Well, put it this way, he's smart enough to get
elected president of the United States, and that takes some
brains or at least some guts.

Speaker 3 (32:57):
Is he brilliant? I have no idea, but I would.

Speaker 4 (33:02):
Say he's in the right spot to wind up looking great.

Speaker 2 (33:06):
Okay, let's move to the major cause for the discussion now,
that is the Israel Iran War. What was the defining
cause of the outbreak?

Speaker 4 (33:20):
It was the failure of negotiations that Trump was trying
to do with the Iranians. Remember, there was a long
process of negotiations about not having nuclear weapons, and when
it came down to the question that are you must
not create nuclear capabilities, the Iranians refused to do that.

(33:45):
At that point, the Israeli said, if these talks don't
get rid of those weapons, we have to get rid
of them because we think genuinely that Iran might use
nuclear weapons as Israel. So that's the story as it went,
and it was negotiations that Trump tried very hard to
get done and couldn't get done that triggered it.

Speaker 2 (34:08):
I can't quite grasp why it was his I won't
call it a failure, but inability because it takes two
to tango. I can't quite grasp why he was responsible
for that, or at least that's the way. It seems
that you're leaning by failing when everybody every sorry, when

(34:31):
everybody knows that the Iranians' greatest aim on this planet
is to eradicate the Jews.

Speaker 4 (34:40):
Well, I'm sorry if you misunderstood me. I'm not blaming Trump.
He tried very hard to get the negotiat going, and
it doesn't take two to tango. It takes both sides
willing to compromise. The Iranians were the ones who refused
to and that's what triggered the action.

Speaker 2 (34:58):
Now, shortly before we started this podcast, I noticed a
headline I had no chance of chasing it down that
and I think it from I think it was from
CBS that the Iranians have flagged that they want to talk.

Speaker 3 (35:17):
There's some indication that some people want to talk.

Speaker 4 (35:20):
There's clearly a split in the Iranian government between the IRGC,
the Republican Guards, highly religious faction, and the military. The
military is not very happy with what the Iototala did,
and there's tension in there, so they may be having

(35:40):
an internal fight. I think the nominal military did not
want to go nuclear, the Republican guards didn't want to
go nuclear, and I think there's a battle going on
inside of your.

Speaker 2 (35:53):
End of this, you write something you're doing doing a
lot of writing recently. You write something on the ways
that wars end, How do wars end? How is this
one going to shape up?

Speaker 4 (36:11):
Well, One, there's no way that Israel will allow Iran
to develop a nuclear weapon. Second, they've shown that they
can penetrate with Masad deep into the country, identifying the
locations where people will be at a certain time of day,

(36:31):
and their military con coordinate to take them out. This
creates a crisis inside Iran. One of the things that
when the Shah was overthrown was that a religious faction
ruling the country would make it great. In this case,

(36:52):
and remember that secutarists were not driven out all the
way in this case, this is a war that ends
with an internal crisis in Iran, as many wars do.
With the Mullahs wanted to continue the fight in some
way way and with a lot of people ganging up
and try to stop it. So war end if one

(37:16):
side feats the other. It also ends if there's an
internal crisis that brings.

Speaker 2 (37:21):
Us to a close with the number of shall we
say leaders in various fields, specifically science and the military,
who have been eliminated in the last week or foe.
Does this leave them naked to any extent.

Speaker 4 (37:41):
Well, it's hard to say how much anyone leader matters
under anyone's scientist does. But it creates a tremendous crisis
of confidence in the government. How were the Israelis able
to plant so many spies, if you will, so many
covert operations in the country. It's very similar to what

(38:02):
happened to Ukraine. How were the Ukrainians able to penetrate
Russia so deep that they were able to attack air
fields in Siberia. So what we have in both cases
something very similar. A failure of their own intelligence service,

(38:24):
a failure of Iran's security police, and then a failure
to carry out their goal of having uclear weapons. So
this creates an internal crisis because everybody's wondering how could
they have been taken for such a riot And the
fact is they did very poorly, and that threads of regime.

Speaker 2 (38:46):
Which country do you think, Let's just assume that there
is likely to be at some stage in the future
near or far use of nuclear weapons. Which country do
you think is the most likely to resort to it.

Speaker 3 (39:02):
Well, there's a reason nobody's resorted to it. Yeah, mutually
assured destruction.

Speaker 4 (39:09):
If you launch a nuclear weapon at a country doesn't
have it, that's okay. On the other hand, other countries
that have nuclear weapons will say, well, what are you
going to do next? So there's a reason that in
the eighty years since we've had nuclear weapons, no one
has used them except the US to end the World

(39:30):
War two, because the possibility of retaliation is so high
that you can't really risk it. If there had not
been nuclear weapons, I am sure the US and Russia
would have had a major war between themselves with nuclear weapons.

(39:51):
One of the things they realized that they, the leader
and the family were going to die, in other words,
in a nuclear war. In most wars, the leaders are safe.
It's other people fighting. In a nuclear war, it's highly
likely that they won't survive personally, and I think that's
one of the great forces that's limited it.

Speaker 3 (40:14):
So who's likely to use a nuclear weapon?

Speaker 4 (40:18):
Well, somebody who has got nuclear weapons fighting somebody who
doesn't have nuclear weapons, and he takes a shot at it,
But then everybody else will say, if you take a
shot at this guy, maybe you'll take a shot at us.
Nuclear weapons have had a miracle. They prevented wars that

(40:40):
would happened otherwise.

Speaker 2 (40:45):
Tell me if you can where you think that Trump
might go direction wise on any oral fronts that he's
dealing with at the moment.

Speaker 4 (40:56):
Well in the domestic front, his cultural wars clearly have
put the culture of woke, if you want, on defensive.
In terms of the institutional the federal government has become obsolete.
It was created during World War Two to fight the war.

(41:18):
Before that, it was a very small government. It was
created to fight that war, and it did it very well.
But it has grown into such an unmanageable system that
already can't take it. And we learned that during COVID.
During COVID, the doctors were told, let's solve the COVID problem,

(41:39):
and doctor Fauci said, you should all stay home, not
go outside, kids should not go to school. Do that, well,
it's a good medical solution. Nobody consulted the Department of Education.
What happens a four and five year old doesn't play
with other kids, and what happens to the economy if

(41:59):
you do this. So COVID really showed that the federal
government has structured is extremely large, e sleedingly diverse, and
not coordinate in any way. The president is supposed to
coordinate the government. The problem is the government is so
vast and unruly that it's far to any one person,

(42:23):
even with a good staff, to understand what's going on.
So the federal government as it's structured has become obsolete.
If you have a problem, you don't know who to call,
and you have a right in the Constitution to pissue
in government, which you can't petition it.

Speaker 3 (42:41):
So it it outlived. It's useless.

Speaker 4 (42:46):
And what he did is what Roosevelt did in the
first hundred days of his campaign. He came in and
tried to wreck the government, not because he wanted to
tear it down and destroy it, but he wanted to
shock everyone. And knowing that is going away, the same
thing is happening in international relations. The United States ever
since the end of World War Two, has been in

(43:08):
wars in South Korea, Vietnam, Afghanistan, most of them involved
with fighting communism. In some way, the threat of war
occupying Western Europe is going away, and at this point
the European problem is gone. We built the trade system

(43:32):
after World War Two to fight the Cold War. We
reconstructed Europe, we reconstructed Germany, we reconstructed Japan, and we
fought in the Third World. We fought that war by
using far in aid to keep various countries from becoming
communists elements. So that was all obsolete. So we're seeing

(43:58):
a lot of obsolete systems being changed. And this Terriff
study put on there may not stand, but it does
signal fact that the post World War two model of
free trade, regardless of WATT and the US being the
major purchaser of goods, has to change.

Speaker 2 (44:20):
What would you call Trump? Would you call him a
nationalist or a globalist?

Speaker 4 (44:26):
I would call him a president who has some understanding
of the obsolescence of the system, and globalist and nationalist
are obsolete concepts. Nobody was really globalist. We were there
simply to block the Russians. And everybody's a nationalist because

(44:49):
it lived in a nation, So that distinction that people
to withdraw nationalist globalist. Well, Australia was never globalist. You
were taking care of yourselves. New Zealand was never globalist.
The United States was globalist, and the censors took responsibility
for holding the Russians the bay and for stabilizing the

(45:10):
global economy. Well, it's been stabilized and the Russians are
not a threat. So it's time to change our direction.
And that's what I was saying about reinvention. So it
is time to realize that the system that put in
place after World War Two is obsolete and moved to

(45:30):
a new one.

Speaker 3 (45:31):
And that's what we're seeing happening.

Speaker 2 (45:35):
Yeah, so we've we've barely mentioned the word. I can't
actually remember Ukraine at this point, but it was. It
was the first, shall we say, onslaught to stir up
things in the region and beyond. So where are we

(45:57):
at now? Well, better still, where are they at now?

Speaker 4 (46:00):
Well, Russia's completely failed after three years of fighting.

Speaker 3 (46:04):
He controls less than of the country.

Speaker 4 (46:10):
He was driven out of Kiev the attack there too,
he was driven out of the center of the country.
He holds a very small piece of it now. In
addition to that, Trump attempted to start negotiations. He was
critical in that, and it was being clear that putin

(46:31):
was not prepared.

Speaker 3 (46:33):
To enter those negotiations.

Speaker 4 (46:34):
He would not have to cease fire, and he continually
put off stating what he needed to have a peace agreement.

Speaker 3 (46:44):
This is very similar to what happened in Iran.

Speaker 4 (46:49):
At a certain point, Trump said a deadline that he's
got to do it. Okay, the day line passed and
this incredible attack inside of Russia took place, destroying missiles,
destroying aircraft over at operation, very similar to what happened

(47:11):
in Iran. And the same thing happened in Iran. They
simply would not come to a firm conclusion where they
agreed not to have nuclear weapons. So the two things
kind of are very similar. Trump was a negotiator. He
wanted to make a piece. Putin didn't want that piece

(47:32):
yet I told us didn't want the peace, and so
a major shock happened to the system. The Russians now
have to figure out what they want to do. The
Russians said, we are not going to sit here and
tolerate what you did to us, ripping the country apart
with the COVID operations. He hasn't done anything since then,

(47:55):
so the question is what's going on inside of Russia.
He started a war, he failed at winning it. He
should have taken Ukraine, should have been taken in six months,
three months by the old Russian army.

Speaker 3 (48:10):
This Russian army couldn't do it well.

Speaker 2 (48:12):
Their tanks broke down.

Speaker 4 (48:14):
Well, they thanks ran out of fuel. The fuel wasn't
there to give it to them. That's break, that's called
logistics fouling up. It was a war that failed, and
Putin can't end it, and Putin is desperately looking for
some way to redeem his system. In the United States,

(48:35):
when Lyndon Johnson got into a war that he couldn't win,
he was pushed out of office. I mean, it was
not possible for that happening. Dixon came in the end
of the war. Eventually, same thing here. He got into
a war and he lost it by not winning it,
just as we lost Vietnam by not winning it. And

(48:56):
he can keep fireing on the flying he is. He's unlikes.
I'm certain he's going to try some major move, major
violent move, but he's not done it in three years.

Speaker 2 (49:07):
He's not going to do now, So what's his ending?

Speaker 4 (49:12):
The normal end when a leader starts a war, be
it Hitler, be it Lynnon Johnson what have you is
that he is least a forced out of office. My
suspicion is that there's tremendous tension inside of Russia.

Speaker 3 (49:31):
Remember that Putin is not Stalin.

Speaker 4 (49:33):
He's not a credible ruler that can frighten everybody to death,
and there are a lot of people want end the war,
and he doesn't want to end the war looking like
a loser, but he is.

Speaker 3 (49:46):
So I think there's tension building inside of Russia over this.

Speaker 4 (49:50):
We're ignoring it a bit because the bombing of Iran happened,
but that really is one of the issues. It's interesting
to note how much on the sidelines Russia is in
the Iran issue. Normally they'd be all over the place
talking about get involved, trying to sport Ranian is something
they're just not even there.

Speaker 2 (50:11):
Far as Putin is concerned. Play a medical analyst for
a moment and tell me why he behaves the way
he does and what triggered this question. Was you talking
about him not wanting to lose face. So as a
result of that, thousands or even tens of thousands of
people will die in the interim between now and whenever

(50:33):
this has ended. So what does that tell you about
him as a person.

Speaker 4 (50:40):
It tells you about leaders who make bad mistakes. Linda
Johnson made a bad mistake on the Vietnam and he
tried and tried and tried to reverse that mistake because
leaders do not like to admit they failed, and those
are the leaders that have to be pulled back and
throw it out. It tells you more about what leaders

(51:03):
are like, people who rise the power, that about the
peculiar personality of Buten's nothing peculiar in him. He can't
believe that it was couldn't take the Ukrainians. He thinks
one more shot, one more shot, one more shot, it'll
do it. And it's just normal to human behavior. It's

(51:24):
simply not being willing to concede that you failed. And
we all have that King Billy.

Speaker 2 (51:31):
Indeed, a friend of mine rang me a couple of
days back and said, I want to congratulate your friend.
He was talking about Trump, and I said, why would
you want to do that? And he said, because he
gave them sixty days and within I've seen different measurements

(51:58):
of it. I guess it depends on which part of
the world you might be in as to how long
it was. But within a day or two after the
sixty days expired, and they weren't interested in talking. He
turned the door. So to speak wasn't his word, but
his words. But so to speak. Now, the reason that
I was interested in this, in mentioning this, is because

(52:21):
this particular friend can't stand Trump, never has been able to.
But now he was singing his price. I said, why
are you Why are you talking about him like this?
And he said, because somebody had to stop them getting nukes.

Speaker 4 (52:35):
You say, and I would say, Trump's the president of
United States. Half the people hate him, half the people
love them. Jonaham said about the revolution that one third
of the people were for the American Revolution, one thirty
people were loyalists, and one third of people didn't care.

(52:55):
So all American presidents, I suspect all prime ministers have
the situation. There are people who hate him and love him,
and so on and so forth. If you pay attention
to that care about that, he'll miss the point. Presidents
are more like than they're different. They have viewed egos
because they think they can be president or prime minister.

(53:19):
They have the competence to shape themselves. It's a winning
an election, and then they face reality and deal with it.
There's no surprise that Trump, after negotiating, realized that there
was nothing he could do.

Speaker 3 (53:34):
He couldn't get.

Speaker 4 (53:34):
Them to it or get Putin to it, and that
he's the same way as with Putin. I can guess
that the Ukrainians were under US control. He released them
after deadline passed for the Russians talking to launch the
attack inside of Russia. He did the same thing in

(53:55):
her hean and why do you do it? Because you
can't stay president if you allow them bluffy out.

Speaker 2 (54:03):
So if I finished this discussion before I asked you
at least one more question, maybe two, I'd be assaulted
by people who wanted to know why I didn't the
scenario on the streets in America. Now Los Angeles started it,
and now it's elsewhere, and haven't I haven't caught up today.

(54:25):
But nevertheless, it seems to be getting it seems to
be getting worse. I know that in a previous discussion
you and I had that you pointed out previous riots
and towns that were torn asunder in years gone by.
How bad is this one? How bad is it likely
to get? Do you think? And will it? Will it

(54:47):
last long?

Speaker 4 (54:48):
It's not as bad as what happened in the seventies
when the eighty second Airborne was called out to put
down rioting and Detroit. So I'd say at this point
a number of casualties that there were there were very few,
but a lot of people are very insulted and very angry.

Speaker 3 (55:08):
Is legitimate on all sides.

Speaker 4 (55:11):
So I would say that this is one of those
things that, just like what happened in the seventies, it's forgotten.
This will be forgotten. But at the moment, it looks
like a terrible thing that the rioters did, terrible thing
that Trump did, and everybody feels that if they were president,
they wouldn't do any of these things.

Speaker 2 (55:31):
So the second question and last is to do with
the Grand Parade for the celebration of two hundred and
fifty years of the American Army. And it's been criticized
from a lot of quarters because of various things, such
as the fact that Trump organized it on the day

(55:53):
of his own birthday. That's fake, not true, but I mean,
it was his birthday, but he didn't organize it on
that basis. Was it something that you endorse?

Speaker 4 (56:05):
It's something on which I couldn't care less about you
had a braid. It was an anniversary of the US
Army had a braid. The President was there. The President
took all the attention like presidents do. It is a
non issue. So these are the things that you know,

(56:26):
pop up, seem very important at the time, and we'll
all forget it. But remember during the storm, the level
of hatred against the president and the love of hatred
against those people who hate the president is intense. Is
a storm, It's a firestorm in the United States. It

(56:46):
is a time of enormous instability. It seems as we stabilize.
And notice also the Trump's popularity rating has plunged. It
is in the thirties. Now that is provided. So when
you take a look at this, you can see just
how unsteady everything seems. But the underpinnings are there of

(57:11):
solidity and in the next phase, and who knows, tro
may go down as genius or.

Speaker 2 (57:18):
Full you called I have the storm before the calm,
America's discord, The Coming Crisis of the twenty twenties and
the Triumph beyond is George Friedman's present book, and it
is for its analytical purposes it is worth buying and reading.

(57:40):
I don't think you can buy it in New Zealand,
so you have to get it through Like so many books,
you have to buy it through Amazon. Last word on
do we have a date yet or an approximate date
for the next book, which is on space.

Speaker 4 (57:55):
I will finish this book by the end of August,
no matter what, because my wife will kill me otherwise,
and there it will be done.

Speaker 2 (58:06):
And I've taken up an hour of your day, so well,
that's now behind you are that you weren't before we started. George, George,
very good to talk to you, and I like this. Well,
we all have our issues. If that's your only one now,
then you're not doing too badly. So it's been great
talking and we'll do it again when it's appropriate.

Speaker 4 (58:30):
Right, you take care of yourself.

Speaker 2 (58:48):
Now, missus producer. I have a question for you, latent.
But first, here we are in the mailroom for podcasts
number two hundred and eighty nine. The question is how
can we get so much rain that it feels like
you should be outside building an arc for two days
or more? And then today Dawn's stunning.

Speaker 5 (59:05):
Isn't it gorgeous? And I've been out on the beach
all day.

Speaker 2 (59:09):
So you haven't been on the beach all well, I pretty.

Speaker 5 (59:12):
Much have actually, and I'm after these show me you
strap marks. After we've done these letters, I am pulling
you out to the beach as well to get some
fresh air.

Speaker 6 (59:21):
Do you remember fresh air?

Speaker 2 (59:23):
See what I have to live with now? From Ross
read George and the mail Room, Not the George we've
been listening to, as a George who wrote a letter
last week. The possible consequence of the drone attack is,
of course Russia now starts to conceal its strategic fleet,
and hence the US does as well, and again we

(59:44):
get into a realm of cold war again, especially if
Putin is replaced by a hardliner. Well maybe, George, maybe
the other George from just a short while ago has
given you food for thought. Anyway, George is right. The bombers,
if you think back to last week, had to be
displayed as part of the treaty. That's why it makes

(01:00:06):
absolutely no sense that they were attacked by ES. My
conclusion is that it is the sort of underhand crap
that is promoted by the EU and UK hawks and
has been planned for about eighteen months by this bunch
of idiots who were trying desperately to get the US
actively involved in the conflict which Europe and the West

(01:00:26):
have already lost. I would be surprised if Trump was
fully briefed about the attack, as there are plenty of
snakes in his Pentagon who want the war as well.
I think the resolution is what Trump is trying to do,
extract the US, trying to save face as it's another loss,
and if the EU wants to keep going, good luck

(01:00:48):
to them. Putin is no saint, but his demands have
not changed in three years. And considering the rubbish the
West has enacted in Ukraine since twenty fourteen, we and
they can be thankful Russia is not under the rule
of a hard liner of old Ross. It's interesting, isn't
that you wrote this and I read it just after

(01:01:08):
George treatment and the comments that he made towards the
end about Russia as well well.

Speaker 5 (01:01:13):
Done, Laden Chris says. In recent memory, citizens have willingly
surrendered their freedoms for seemingly nothing in return. After nine
to eleven in America, the infamous TSA was established over
COVID people willingly stayed isolated and in podcast to eight
five Jodie Brunning describes how our future is being surrendered

(01:01:35):
to big business. People have been sold a story of
safety through increased surveillance, safety from a new disease with
no cure, and a more prosperous future with better organisms.
These stories were compelling enough to convince whole populations to
believe an expert could give them a better life. Martin
Luther king Junius I have a Dream speech also told

(01:01:58):
a story of a desirable future. His story changed the
course of a nation. But story has moved the nation
of pre World War II Germany to get rid of
the scum and fight for their survival. Story in Rhodesia
promised the white man's farms and homes will become Yours.
Story moves people because story has emotion and meaning. Humans

(01:02:22):
connect with emotion and meaning and nothing else. So we
cannot change a nation by threats or facts. Glenn Harrison
says we must outnarate those with whom we disagree, and
Chris goes on to finish, we need to tell a
better story that people are willing to fight for. So
for those who have a voice of reason, please become

(01:02:44):
a storyteller, because we need a better story than the
one being sold us by those who wish to profit
from our sheepish compliance.

Speaker 2 (01:02:52):
Sheepish compliance is a nice phrase, nice term. Thank you.
Lorda says under the subject headline of mister Peters is
a sick joke. Really okay, opinions this whole government is.
Can't we have a real leader like Donald Trump or
Jdvance Again, I'll relate back to what George had to

(01:03:15):
say about presidents. Mind you, presidents and prime ministers are
in playing on well, it's like rugby and rugby league.
Really different fields, different rules.

Speaker 5 (01:03:23):
Different leyden Brett says, what is happening is we hurtle
through space various cycles the Sun, planet's cosmos, Aside or
the fact we are entering an area of the cosmos
humans have never experienced with changes in.

Speaker 6 (01:03:39):
Cosmic radiation, etc.

Speaker 5 (01:03:40):
To come human consciousness, one can only speculate. Some are
paying more attention to volcanic activity, land and sea and
should not be underestimated. What the Earth is doing tends
to be overlooked or simply disregarded by design. The Earth
is an active place, not silent. We should be paying attention.

(01:04:02):
The Earth is going through a more active geological period.

Speaker 6 (01:04:05):
This is normal.

Speaker 5 (01:04:06):
These things enlighten us to the change that have been
blamed on humans in the name of man made global warming,
now climate change by vested interests, and these are in
fact very earth based natural processes. It is also well
known by now, if not throughout, that CO two is
a non issue and does not drive climate. A great

(01:04:27):
deal of harm to the planet and humanity alike has
been and continues to be done for no other reason
than our very human insanity. Humanity cannot control the very
nature of the Earth solar system, or the cosmos for
that matter. And Brett finishes by saying humanity has a
great deal of growing up to do, and it's evident

(01:04:49):
the world over, and we have a difficulty doing so. Brett,
forgive me, I took a bet out, but you're obviously
very passionate. We could probably go on till next week,
So thank you.

Speaker 2 (01:05:01):
Extremely good. And finally, just for fun, I googled Romanian
news use just to see what kind of international news
the mainstream media reports on. The Guardian's top headline was
Andrew Tate to appear in court for allegedly driving ninety
miles an hour over the limit in Romania. BBC's first

(01:05:23):
piece was Andrew Tate called court speeding one forty six
kilometers over limit in Romania. The Associated Press and The
Independence featured the exact same article and headline, Bucharest Gay
Pride March turns twenty as LGBTQ plus Romanians face growing

(01:05:44):
hostility from right wing groups. Now, if we consume news
about Romania from these useless publications, you'd think that Romania
is a country of rich playboys, gays, lesbians and transsexuals.
So thank you for bringing real Romanian news in your
interview with Geopolitical Futures and Tonia Karabasanu. Recently, it appears

(01:06:07):
that Romanian stratisly voted a center left nacursor Dan due
to his pro eu stance in the hopes of courting
EU allies against the very real Russian threat at Romania's border.
In a recent article, Antonia reported that Dan reaffirmed Romania's
commitment to NATO, which progresses quote Romania's integration into broader

(01:06:30):
European defense structures amid heightened security concerns linked to Russia's
war against Ukraine. Quite a wise move. Before I listen
to your podcast, when I think of Romania, I think
of Nadia Kamenecci and Andrew Tate. Now I know a
little better. I always always learn something new. Thanks for

(01:06:53):
the breadth of topics your podcast covers. As always loved
both your work. We were walking on the beach yesterday,
I think it was, and it's lovely couple stopped us
and said, what a great interview it was on Romania.
And they were so enthusiastic about it, weren't they?

Speaker 5 (01:07:14):
They certainly were, And they are very nice.

Speaker 2 (01:07:17):
People, very nice people. And I appreciated that a great
a great deal. It's nice to get feedback, isn't it.
That's it, all right, I'm done, all right, Well, I
don't think. I don't think you're done, missus producer, but
I think we've finished. We finished. See you next week.

Speaker 6 (01:07:33):
I hope I'm not done.

Speaker 2 (01:07:52):
Well, it doesn't matter what's going on in the rest
of the world. There is still plenty of attention being
paid to the most topical, well one of the most topical.
But it's right near the top of the subjects that
is intriguing people, if nothing less, and that of course
is AI. So the question is will super intelligent AI

(01:08:14):
overtake the world or take over the world. Let me
quote you. As artificial intelligence becomes more advanced and deeply
integrated into daily life, a growing question looms. Could AI
become so smart that it surpasses human intelligence and takes control.
This idea, known as superintelligent AI, has sparked fierce debate

(01:08:36):
among top researchers, tech CEOs, and ethicists. You can decide
which category you fall in. A superintelligence refers to AI
systems that are better than the smartest humans at every task, learning,
decision making, problem solving, and innovation. If realized, it could

(01:08:57):
either lead to a golden age of abundance or a
loss of human control over the future. So Finance and
Money have put together a list of AI people from
the top and have summarized their opinions, starting with Sam Oltman,
CEO of OpenAI, who believes that super intelligent AI could

(01:09:20):
be just a few years away. He doesn't a few
years seem a long time in this day and age.
He envisions a world where AI systems not only outperform
humans at work, but also become full fledged agents, capable
of managing tasks autonomously, from writing code to leading research.
Aldman predicts that entire job sectors will vanish replaced by

(01:09:43):
AI teams serving individual humans like personal staff. In his words,
humanity will enter a new social contract where the definition
of work and value is rewritten. Others in the tech elite,
like Cardaria Emodi of Anthropic share similar views, even Metas
Zuckerberg has launched a super intelligent team and committed billions

(01:10:06):
to catch up now. While they acknowledge the risks, this
group largely believes that with the right oversight, AI can
remain under human control and usher in a new era
of innovation. Nah Daniel Cocatajo believes a near term apocalypse
as possible. He is an AI researcher and former OpenAI

(01:10:29):
insider who lays out a much darker forecast. In his
AI twenty twenty seven scenario, the rapid development of AI
leads to total automation of jobs, accelerated arms races, and
ultimately human obsolescence. He warns that once AI becomes capable
of designing and improving itself, it could deceive humans about

(01:10:52):
its true goals. If misaligned, a superintelligent AI might pursue
objectives that no longer include us. In this scenario, AI
doesn't just take jobs, it gains power outpaces human oversight
and quietly takes control of infrastructure, military, technology, and economic systems.

(01:11:14):
By the time we realize what's happening, it may be
too late. It's not a recommendation, he says, it's a warning.
He argues we need democratic oversights and enforceable constraints now
before companies or governments hand over too much power. Right thing, really,
if that is an actual possibility. That's followed by Yan Leucun,

(01:11:40):
don't panic will be bosses or will be the bosses.
Lecaunan Meta's chief AI scientist, rejects the doomsday narrative, and
at a recent Nvidia conference he stated, confidently we're going
to be their boss. He believes AI will be powerful, yes,

(01:12:00):
but ultimately a tool, not a threat. Now from Apple
and academic skeptics, AI is still struggling to think. Recent
paper from Apple titled The Illusion of Thinking pushes back
on claims that current AI is on the brink of superintelligence.
Apple's researches, alongside studies from Salesforce and Academia, found that

(01:12:23):
even the best large language models today fail at basic
logic puzzles and reasoning tasks that children can solve. Moving
on to Daniel Cocotajelo, even a slight misstep could do
miss now. In a podcast interview, Cocatajelo explored the worst

(01:12:44):
case AI deception at scale economic disruption, add a political
alliance between governments and AI labs. Once companies hand off
AI training to AI systems themselves, human understanding falls behind
and so does control. Now most of these names, if
not all of them, you've never heard of, but they're

(01:13:06):
all important people that saras. This is concerned Flora Salem
or Salem and other researchers. We're not there yet AI?
Does that mean we're going to get for years?

Speaker 3 (01:13:18):
Now?

Speaker 2 (01:13:19):
Are we there yet? All the time, AI expert Flora
Salem and colleagues argue that we're still far from general intelligence.
While AI can outperform humans at narrow tasks like chess
or protein folding, today's model struggle with general competence. Even
the most advanced chatbots perform at the level of an

(01:13:41):
emerging general AI, far below what's needed for superintelligence. So
the verdict that they come to with all of taking
all of these into account, whether super intelligent AI is
around the corner or still decades away, one thing is clear.
The stakes are immense. The benefits could include curing diseases,

(01:14:05):
ending poverty, and unlocking clean energy. But if we lose control,
we may lose more than just our jobs. As ortis
put it, AI still requires auditing. If you want to
do your taxes, use TurboTax, not chat GPT. The question
isn't just whether AI will become super intelligent. It's where

(01:14:28):
the wheel remains smart enough to guide it. Now, from
that ending, I could go to another piece, but I
think that might be where we leave it, and I'll
save this maybe for next week, but it has to
do with education, and I don't what to short change
this other piece. So on that note, we'll hang up

(01:14:49):
the microphone and the headphones. If you would like to
write to us, please feel free. We love, we love
your correspondence. Latent at NEWSTALKZB dot co dot NZ, Carolyn
at NEWSTALKZB dot co dot enz, and I trust that
you've enjoyed this week's podcast. We shall return again shortly.
This time it will be next time. Next week it

(01:15:10):
will be podcast number two hundred and ninety, So we're
getting closer to the three hundred mark. Some people, for
whatever reason, are excited about getting the three hundred, but relax,
we'll get there in another ten weeks or so. So
once again, as always, thank you for listening and we
shall talk soon.

Speaker 1 (01:15:38):
Thank you for more from News Talks. It' b listen
live on air or online, and keep our shows with
you wherever you go with our podcasts on iHeartRadio