The Thiel-Verse with Stavroula Pabst

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
WW (00:18):
Hey, and welcome back to Unlimited Hangout. I'm your host
Whitney Webb. The past few weekshave been very eventful for
American politics to say theleast. But today we're going to
focus on Peter Thiel, the manbehind Donald Trump's recent
vice presidential pick J.D.Vance, and has now outsized
influence on now very likelysecond Trump administration. As
noted in a recent articlepublished last week on unlimited

(00:39):
Hangout, Thiel is responsiblenot only for Vance's relatively
short political career, as wellas his once rocky but now cozy
relationship with Trump, butalso for Vance's venture capital
career that preceded it. Thiel,in my opinion, is one of the
most misunderstood billionairepolitical donors and kingmakers
in the United States. And Iwould argue that's by design. He
spent a small fortune to framehimself and have others frame

(01:02):
him as a libertarian and as antistate when his business
decisions, particularly thosethat made him a billionaire, as
well as many of his investmentspoint to him being of a very
different political persuasion.His biggest companies from
PayPal to Palantir incubatedclose ties with intelligence
agencies From their inception,aiding and abetting financial
and other forms of incrediblyinvasive and warrantless

(01:23):
surveillance against innocentAmericans. His investments
include companies tied toforeign intelligence that are
now taking over us 911 CallCenters to hoover up all of your
data from your smartphone andgive it to law enforcement, as
well as companies ushering in anera of AI powered mass murder
currently being piloted by theUkrainian military. And now the
IDF in Gaza. What will Thiel'sinfluence which was already

(01:47):
significant during Trump's firstterm, be an unlikely second term
particularly with his protegeJ.D. Vance as co pilot. Joining
me today to discuss this andmore Stavroula Papps Stavroula
is an unlimited hangoutcontributor who also contributes
to several other sites,including propaganda and focus
for doctress and the gray zonein addition to her own substack,
the link to which we will beputting in the show notes. She

(02:09):
is based in Greece and is also acomedian and a media PhD
student. Thanks so much forjoining me today. Steph, really
great to have you back onunlimited hangout.

SP (02:16):
Thanks so much for having me looking forward to it.

WW (02:19):
I am too because not a lot of people in alternative media
write about Peter Thiel, but youdefinitely have any written some
great ones for unlimitedHangout. So happy to get into
that later. But first off, Ithink, you know, for our
listeners, it would be good togive a quickly established the
connection between J.D. Vanceand Peter Thiel, which is the
subject of a recent article thatwe put out last week on

(02:39):
unlimited Hangout, as Imentioned earlier, entitled "The
Man Behind Trump's VP Pick, It'sWorse Than You Think." So in
that article, I discussed howPeter Thiel first recruited J.D.
Vance into his circle, whileVance was a student at Yale Law
School. And shortly thereafter,Vance joins Peter Thiel's
investment firm, one of several,but the one he joined was
mithril capital. He worked therefor two years before joining

(03:02):
revolution ventures, which isfrom one of the AOL cofounders
and running it's Rise of theRest Seed Fund. And Vance later
created his own venture capitalfirm called Narya. Capital,
which was heavily backed byPeter Thiel, as well as Google
CEO Eric Schmidt, who's actuallya major donor to Biden has been
paying a lot of staff in Biden'sWhite House like illegally, even

(03:24):
though it's been widely reportedon nothing was done about it.
And he basically directs notjust the entire Science and
Technology Policy of the Bidenadministration, but also of the
national security state byleading the National Security
Commission on AI pretty crazy.And he and Thiel, a Schmidt and
Thiel, rather, are both keymembers of the steering
committee of the Bilderbergconference, so they obviously

(03:46):
agree on a lot more than theydon't at least behind closed
doors like is the situation atBilderberg. And after that,
Thiel donated heavily to Vancehis political career which
launched during the 2022election cycle. He gave $15
million to Vance's then Senatecampaign. And that was the
largest donation ever given toone Senate candidate ever. So

(04:07):
that's pretty significantadvance when he ran for office,
and that cycle was a neverTrumper I believe, comparing
Trump to Hitler and things likethat, which was popular among
some Republicans at the time, ofcourse, now is not and Peter
Thiel was the person thataccompanied Vance to Trump's
Mar-a-Lago to sort of smoothover that rocky relationship.

(04:30):
And then it was to also connectadvance to a lot of other
prominent Silicon Valley donors,including David Sacks, who was
part of the so called PayPalMafia, along with Peter Thiel.
And now another PayPalco-founder, who created PayPal
with Thiel Elon Musk, had was abig factor in Trump's election
of Vance for VP along with DavidSacks as well. And yeah, I feel

(04:54):
like it's pretty clear and notjust from my reporting, but also
from you know, reporting prettymuch from Everywhere people. As
soon as the pic was announced alot of reports came out,
discussing expressly the closerelation relationship between
J.D. Vance and Peter Thiel. Andpeople have been calling him
essentially a protege of Thiel.So I guess it now would be a
good time to sort of get intoPeter Thiel himself and why he

(05:17):
matters, as well as perhaps adiscussion of Peter Thiel. Other
protegees, which Stavroula and Ihave both written about, well,
rather, you've written about SamAltman, I have not expressly but
he is an important one to keepin mind because of his role, not
just of in OpenAI, but also withWorld coin and the project that
that hopes to develop into. Butwe've both written about Palmer

(05:40):
Luckey, as well, who's behindthe defense contractor, Anduril.
So I guess there's a lot ofdifferent ways we could start
talking about Peter Thiel. Iknow Stavroula that you've done
some work on his politicalphilosophy and outlook. And I
think that's probably a goodplaces to start. So what can you
tell us? Sure.

SP (05:59):
And I think that this is a great place to start. Because
when people are discussing PeterThiel, okay, a lot of people
will comment that he'slibertarian, but I don't really
think anything he actually doesis in line with the supposedly
libertarian belief, right? Yeah.

WW (06:16):
not agree more. Yeah, like,

SP (06:18):
it's just, it's just not in line with that. Actually, I
think the best way to reallysummarize his worldview is when
I was doing research for thispodcast episode, I had found a
video clip where he wasessentially saying, technology,
he viewed technology as analternative to politics. Okay.

(06:39):
And the quote was essentiallyalong the lines of I still can't
believe he said this. No, Itotally can. But it's a wild
quote, he essentially was like,you know, in politics, you have
to beg and plead with people toconvince them to do things your
way. But what if we, you know,what if I didn't do that, what
if I and the few people whounilaterally agree with me,

(07:01):
could change things throughtechnology, right. And so he's
essentially saying, For thisreason, I see technology as this
amazing alternative politics.And to me, this type of quote,
explains pretty well, what hedoes, because if we see what
he's done over the last, youknow, however long a couple of

(07:21):
decades now, really is that hehas really prioritize putting
his name over essentiallyeverything prominent in the tech
industry, through Founders Fund,you know, through his venture
capital firm, he's essentiallygiven rise to some of the
biggest names in tech, includingStripe, SpaceX, Anduril,

(07:43):
Palantir, Meta, OpenAI, etc. Youknow, he's really decided he's
going to throw his weight thatway. And, you know, if he helps
found one of these companies, orif he gives them a substantial
amount of money, I'm I'm surethat he's bought, at least in

(08:03):
some respect, he's bought someamount of loyalty from them, and
some amount of influence fromthem forever, right. And so I
think that he kind ofunderstands or the way he
understands this is that if hecan invest in technology, if he
can make things happen that way,he can essentially become very

(08:23):
powerful and do things his way.And I think that that's a
reasonable way to describe him.Now. I think when researching
for this article, I thinkNewsweek had said that he and
Schmidt were two of the mostinfluential figures at
Bilderberg steering committeewhatsoever. I think the person
that had written a biography onThiel had described him as one

(08:46):
of the most powerful if not themost powerful person on earth.
And so what we have tounderstand is whether or not
technology as an alternative topolitics is ridiculous. It
doesn't really matter. Thielseems to have done this
successfully. And, you know,another thing that's worth
pointing out is that he justconsistently has so much money

(09:08):
to burn. And I would actuallyargue that he's essentially
applying the principles ofventure capital to politics and
geopolitics as we know it. Youknow, we're, yeah, we're, I
think, you know, if we seeventure capital is something
where, okay, I'm a venturecapitalist, I have a lot of
money to invest in companies. Iknow the vast majority of them

(09:32):
will fail. But a vast, the smallfew that will succeed will give
me extremely high rates ofreturns on my investments. He's
not just seeing this about thefinancial game. He's seeing this
to the extent that he can obtainpolitical power. And I think in
this respect, it's important tobring up Thiel's Fellowship,

(09:55):
which is I think, $100,000 tocollege age students. About a
very young age people that heessentially says to these
people, look, if I give you thisfellowship of $100,000, you can
develop whatever idea you wouldlike, I want you to do this, but
you have to drop out of college.So he's essentially, through

(10:17):
that he's been able to findpeople like Vitalik Buterin, and
the founder, the founder ofEthereum, right, or the creator
of Ethereum. So he's been ableto kind of pick out very young,
bright minds this way. Give themmoney to establish these maybe
very successful ideas. Andperhaps, I don't know,

(10:39):
necessarily exactly therelationship between the two,
the Tarik and Thiel right now.But I'd have to imagine that if
Thiel gives you this fellowship,he's essentially making this
career happen for you. It'sgoing to be very hard to speak
out when he does something thatyou disagree with politically,
and I think that when it comesnow to the Vance appointment,

(11:02):
for example, what we're alsoseeing is that Thiel, like
Schmidt is also very interestedin gaming, the standard
political sector so that he's onboth sides have deals at all
times. And, you know, just hejust wants to be on both sides
of everything. And with thisVance appointment, it's my
understanding that he Schmidtand many other like Marc

(11:25):
Andreessen of AndreessenHorowitz have, you know, they're
much more likely to support thisticket now that he's come out,
Trump has come out and pickedadvance. So what we're seeing is
though, even if to rejectstandard politics, he's still
going to gain both sides. He hasthe money and the influence to
be able to do it. And I thinkit's just snowballed. Right? So

(11:47):
many major companies are nowkind of in his debt, let's say
because he's helped them to thisextent.

WW (11:56):
Yeah, I think that's definitely fair to say,
actually, the last article Iwrote, which I co wrote with
Mark Goodwin for UnlimitedHangout, talked a lot about a
network that functions somewhatsimilarly to the Thiel
fellowship and how a lot ofthese Well, we in that article,
we talked about the crownfellowship at the Aspen
Institute, and also thisendeavor network that sort of
sponsors focuses on sponsoring,you know, startups in the

(12:20):
expressly in the emerging world.And it's also deeply tied to the
Pay Pal network, and how throughthat, specifically endeavor,
they've developed thesecompanies that are now partnered
up directly with eBay andPayPal, and are basically going
to be the rails on which thisnew financial system we're being
herded to runs on on LatinAmerica. So you know, it feel I

(12:41):
would argue, as part of thiswider network of influence, but
he's sort of spent a lot ofmoney I feel like in a lot of
has bankrolled a lot of peopleon alternative media. And also,
I would assume, in mainstreammedia as well, to sort of frame
him as this libertarian figure,who's anti state and sort of
more like, right leaning. Butwhen in reality, if you look at

(13:02):
a lot of you know, what he'sdone, he's definitely serviced
the national security state,regardless of the
administration. And has, likeyou said, sort of positioned
himself to essentially play bothsides, which you can see also in
his, some of his protegeescompanies, Palmer Luckey, for
example, Anduril, you know,promotes what they've done
during the Obama administrationhas praised by administration

(13:25):
for giving them a bunch ofcontracts and a bunch of money.
Right, and then at the sametimeframe themselves, as you
know, America first and PalmerLuckey, is now a big Trump
backers, particularly vocalafter the J.D. Vance appointment
as well on all of this. So Ithink, you know, it's fair to
say, you know, whichever ofthese to connected companies,
you know, whoever's in office,they definitely like to cater to

(13:45):
either side. I think that's why,like you pointed out in the
recent article, clear view, aguy this facial recognition
startup that has taken all this,all these pictures off of like
Facebook, for example, whichPeter Thiel essentially also
helped set up brags aboutsending AI, you know, helping
identify almost like 1000 peoplepresent at the Capitol on
January 6, some of whom havegone to prison. As a result of

(14:07):
that, obviously, that's a salespitch, not geared toward Trump
supporters, obviously. And thenPalantir itself has close ties
to people like you know, Biden'stop intelligence official, Avril
Haines, a longtime consultant ofPalantir. Alex Karp talks about
how he's used Palantir to stopthe far right and Europe, how he

(14:27):
is. His deepest worry about theUnited States is the rise of the
quote unquote, far right in theUnited States, while at the same
time you have Trump framinghimself, as you know, being in
the libertarian camp or moreright leaning, and of course,
now much more in the in theTrump sphere than perhaps
previously. And you know, as Imentioned in the intro, and also
in my recent article, PeterThiel was a huge part of the the

(14:51):
early days of the Trumpadministration, particularly its
transition team with an outsizedinfluence over the Pentagon,
which resulted in quote unquote,Bonanza of contracts for
Palantir, during the first Trumpadministration, so I think we're
likely to see that again. And asfar as the claim of this being,
you know, a libertarian and antistate guy, you know, not just

(15:11):
for the fact that he's given thestate some of the most powerful
and Orwellian. And like,horrible weapons and its
arsenal, both like literally andfiguratively. He's also been
pretty open that he viewscompetition in the free market
as a bad thing, and basicallysays that his business, or the
way he approaches business, isto find a niche in the market

(15:33):
and to corner that marketdominated and create a monopoly
because competition is bad forprofits. And you cannot be a
free market libertarian andbelieve that, right? You're
basically, you know, saying youwant a monopoly build. And if
you look at Peter, how PeterThiel has set up his companies,
whether it's PayPal or Palantir,getting right in bed with the

(15:54):
national security state from thevery beginning, so that they can
help you build and maintainthose monopolies and not come
after you for having a monopoly.That's not part of their
wheelhouse, essentially. So Iwould not call that libertarian
at all. You know, it'sdefinitely, at best technical
fascist, I don't know if youwant to comment on that or have

(16:16):
anything else to add?

SP (16:18):
Yeah, I mean, I think, yeah, I suppose I would agree that
techno fascist is probably thebest way to turn this
regardless, I just kind ofignore how Peter Thiel describes
himself in terms of libertarian,I just kind of ignore that
label, because I understand whatelse he's doing in the respect
of, its what you pointed out. Imean, he's definitely assisted

(16:42):
the surveillance state in anumber of ways. You know, in
previous decades, I would saythat, you know, he, he seems to
be quite on that, to be honest,considering, and we could get
into this if you'd like. But Ithink it would be worth pointing
out to people listening his rolein total information awareness,
for example, where heessentially helped facilitate

(17:06):
LifeLog, Facebook, essentially,is what it is. And then as well,
as you know, Palantir is exactlythat. I mean, it really, it
really is about significant dataprocessing, data manipulation.
And I think if we look at someof the other things he's funded,
such as Carbyne911, that isanother mess in terms of

(17:27):
surveillance, where I think, Imean, you've done more reporting
on this than I have, but myunderstanding of Carbyne911 is
that it's essentially thisIsraeli intelligence,
intelligence linked company thatThiel has also funded, that if
you make a call to it, it canextract any and all data from a

(17:48):
consumer smartphone. And so thisis kind of a way to just super
juice up surveillance, let's sayand I suppose the end goal of
that is to be able to try tobuild smart infrastructure, like
light post stuff like this thatwould eventually be able to call
the authorities and seven personbeing able to do that, you know,

(18:08):
and I think ClearView AI isdefinitely worth talking about
in that respect in terms of okayto do regardless about what
Thiel says, of his libertarianbeliefs. i Why would he fund
something like ClearView AI?This is definitely telling us
he's not actually interested infreedom, at least as average

(18:30):
people see it. And I thinkwhat's really scary about
ClearView AI, and I think you'vealluded to this is that I think
ClearView AI is essentiallyusing the war in Ukraine as kind
of this way to try to come backor have this like, public
relations moment where it cannormalize its image, because
obviously, it had been bannedfrom a lot of the private sector

(18:52):
in the past simply because itfreaked people out, a normal
person would see that ClearViewAI is just scraping social media
for your face. And it's storingthat data, a lot of people would
say I dislike this. And I thinkClearView AI, it's the same
thing with January 6, it's beenable to say see, we've been able

(19:12):
to use this war time moment inUkraine to be able to help out
the Ukrainian military. See,it's okay to use facial
recognition technologies becausewhen it comes to a crisis, or a
war or something like this, it'sactually very useful. Don't you
want Ukraine to win isessentially what they're trying

(19:32):
to say with that. So just PeterThiel's overall track record of
assisting these projects thatare definitely about
surveillance, um, you know,tells me very much that he's not
actually interested in anythinglibertarian and I think what's
important to say about that, isthat okay, maybe ClearView AI is

(19:54):
operating a lot and Ukraineright now, but that stuff is all
going to come back to the UnitedStates. states or, you know,
just the private domesticsphere, generally speaking, I
think um, the other thing that'sworth pointing out is Thiel's
support of Aduril in the sensethat Anduril is currently doing
this whole surveillance wall inAmerica that can detect people

(20:17):
from like, almost threekilometers away. I mean, just
them, you're learning the techto build this stuff that's
definitely going to be appliedin the private sector and the
domestic sphere, right?

WW (20:28):
Yeah, I think that's definitely true. And they are
deploying it or getting ready todeploy it on the domestic
sphere. I mean, people need tokeep in mind that a lot of the
stuff that was originallypiloted as part of the war on
terror, and of course, Palantiris privatized version of one of
those programs, which youmentioned earlier, Total
Information Awareness, theintent of that was always to

(20:48):
have it come home to roost andhave there be a war on domestic
terror. They tried to sort ofgin up support from that, during
the mid 1990s, after the wake ofthe Oklahoma City bombing. And
the target of that, quote,unquote, war has generally been
veterans, militia members,American gun owners, and
generally, those tend to be sortof right leaning pro

(21:10):
constitution. Conservatives,right. So what we've seen here,
in my opinion, through Thiel,and also, you know, through
other people that are sort of,you know, Allied in this same
sphere now is sort of to get thepeople who are to be targeted by
the surveillance to essentiallysort of cheer it on. And, as far
as you know, like Anduril'svirtual wall, goes that they're

(21:33):
building, you know, this hasbeen framed as the solution to
the mass migration issue withthe United States. Even though
it's been deployed for severalyears, and really has done
nothing to stem the tide of, youknow, migrants that are crossing
over the US Mexico border, andyou have Democrats for a long
time, you know, promoting theidea of a virtual quote unquote,

(21:53):
smart wall as opposed to aphysical barrier. That was their
answer to Trump's first campaignpromise or main promise, right?
During his first campaign ofbuilding a physical barrier, and
then when Trump was in office,he abandoned the policy of
building a physical barrier andinstead became a major advocate
of the smart wall. And the smartwall construction has also

(22:15):
continued under the Bidenadministration. And I think,
with Trump on the campaign trailthis time around, talking about
a how we desperately the UnitedStates desperately needs a
biometric entry exit system forthe country. Anduril has been
setting it up, ClearView AI hasthe facial recognition tech. And
they're not just going to rollit out on the border, it's going

(22:37):
to be all ports of entry. And Ithink there's going to be some
tie in there with the DHS effortto institute the new REAL ID
requirements for people. Andwe've seen people that have, you
know, claimed to be against thiskind of stuff like Ron DeSantis,
for example, promoting andpushing through digital IDs for
Floridians already the Floridasmart ID and all of that I think

(23:00):
it's very likely that we'regoing to see a big push for
that, under a second Trumpadministration with with these
Thiel funded companies areplaying an outsized role in
these systems systems to come.And unfortunately, this is a
global agenda, which again, Iwould like to remind people of
Peter Thiel's connection toBilderberg where a lot of these
global policies are sort ofdeveloped behind closed doors,
of course, not the only place,you know, the World Economic

(23:23):
Forum annual meeting, andthere's, you know, in several
other conferences they have,where these things are sort of
planned out and discussed. Butyou know, this is something that
is in line with the UN agenda2030 Sustainable Development,
global goals, particularly SDG16, which Interpol is the

(23:44):
implementing partner of and theycreated their global policing
goals. And the United States andpretty much most countries in
the world are members of ember,Interpol, and are implementing
this biometric digital ID systemglobally. And we saw, you know,
a lot of the beta testing forthat being run under, you know,
during COVID, web with vaccinepassports and all of that, but I

(24:06):
think these agendas are beinggoing to be sold, you know, more
to Trump's base, you know, as wego into this election in the
United States, and it seems likeit's being framed as a solution,
not just to the migration issue.But also it seems like the voter
ID thing is going to be, youknow, the idea of having

(24:27):
biometric ID to vote as opposedto like, if you wanted voter ID
wanting like a physical Id likea driver's license or something
like all the ideas we've hadbefore. You know, there's been
pushes from this within theTrump campaign. And I think it's
very much in line with whatyou're seeing these Silicon
Valley, big tech oligarchsbuilding, and unfortunately, I

(24:48):
think, you know, they've,they're able to frame it to
people on the quote, unquote,left and they're able to frame
it to people in the quoteunquote, right. And I think
Thiel in particular is a bigpart of that - selling this
technology in this this thesetechnocratic solutions to people
on the quote unquote, right,based on whatever, you know,

(25:09):
problems are bothering them themost. And what concerns me too
is that I mean, if you thinkabout Anduril in their virtual
border wall, you know, as you'vewritten about Anduril also, you
know, doesn't just create dronesfor border surveillance, they
create drones that murderpeople, and they're increasingly
becoming, you know, takinghumans out of the role of

(25:31):
decision making. And there'salso major efforts within this
space. And this militaryintelligence, Silicon Valley
complex that we have to also putthe tech in soldiers bodies and
all of this. So I know you'vewritten about that extensively.
You know, what do you see thissystem building? I mean, I don't
think it's going to stop withjust, you know, drone drones on

(25:54):
the border that are, you know,just watching people and
identifying people's faces withclear view AI or any other
number of potential facialrecognition algorithms. I think
it's likely to expand intosomething, you know, much more
Orwellian and potentiallydeadly. What are your thoughts?

SP (26:10):
Sure, I suppose I can talk a little bit in terms of
surveillance, but also, I cantalk a little bit about these
Thiel backed companies role inwartime, or at least how it's
playing out in Ukraine. Wouldyou like me to do a little bit
of both? Yeah, sure. I thinkit'd be great. Okay, that sounds
good. I think I think what'sreally critical is, if anybody's
interested in this topic,obviously, I've done some

(26:32):
reporting on it. But it's reallyworth your time to do some
reading about how AI iscurrently being implemented on
the battlefield, or at leastwhat plans a lot of these to
back companies and not to backto mean, it's not only Peter
Thiel, companies that are doingthis type of thing. But I think

(26:54):
what's really critical is that alot of the major companies that
are acting in Ukraine are Thielbacked. And we've already talked
a little bit about ClearView AI.And I think that that company is
really important to talk aboutin terms of the surveillance
component, and the normalizationof facial recognition
technologies and wartime anddomestic capacities. But you

(27:17):
know, if we think a little bitabout Anduril and Palantir, and
their work with AI poweredmachinery in the worst space,
that it I find this stuff to bereally shocking. And I really
don't think that it's beingdiscussed enough in, in the
public sphere whatsoever, to behonest, because if we look at

(27:38):
some of the current contracts,like Palantir has, for example,
or projects that they're workingon, um, you know, one project,
for example, I could tell you alittle bit would be Palantir is
artificial intelligence platformfor defense. And you can look up
their demo online. Butessentially, what's happened

(27:58):
here is that Palantir has usedessentially, its its skill is in
data, data synthesis, datacollection, processing, and
whatnot. So they're essentiallysaying, Look, we have this
ChatGPT, like chat bot, you caninteract with where our software

(28:20):
gives you the information, it'scollected about, let's say, your
enemy, that's three kilometersover there. We're compiling for
you suggestions based on thedata that we've collected, about
what you can do about thistarget. For example, our Chatbot
is now suggesting you could hitthem with this drone, do you

(28:41):
want to do that the person onthe other end could hit yes. And
then it would essentiallyexecute that, for example.
That's one of the more prominentthings I would suggest people
look into, for example, I thinka lot of people that are working
on military AI are working onsimilar models where AI is being

(29:01):
used to power militarytargeting, which is also being
done. Unfortunately, in the GazaStrip, right, where the gospel
and lavender systems are bothbeing used towards AI targeting
that can select targets muchfaster than human intelligence.
Yeah.

WW (29:19):
How do you feel about the accuracy of that targeting? Is
it more efficient and moreaccurate than human targeting as
proponents have claimed? No,

SP (29:28):
I in fact, I think it's not funny, but it's a little bit
funny how unreasonable thetechnology is in terms of some
of the accuracy. It's myunderstanding that a lot of the
tech isn't necessarily superaccurate. And I think what's
also it's not, it's not, firstof all, but what's important to
say on top of that, is that Idon't really think like in

(29:51):
Israel, for example, I think alot of the people that are using
these AI powered devices, youknow, it's often claimed there
is a human The loop which makesit more safe, which is such a
joke, but essentially what'shappened in practice is that no
one operating these AI poweredsystems actually goes and
checks. What is being suggestedas the military target. They're

(30:15):
just going along with what thesoftware is suggesting, oh,
this, this AI powered targetingsystem is suggesting I hit a
family. I don't know thatbecause I'm not even I'm not
even going in and checking.Right. So no, it's not accurate.
And I think what's reallydangerous about some of this is
that in the case of Israel, forexample, I think it's kind of

(30:37):
easy for them to use this. Aimade me do it type angle. I
don't know whether that wouldhold up in a court of law, not
that Israel cares. But this typeof stuff is really dangerous,
because I think they're tryingto say, they're trying to say
that this depersonalizes war, inthe sense that maybe humans
aren't doing so much of itanymore, but I think it's all

(31:00):
they're doing dying. Oh, they'redoing the dying, that's for
sure. They're definitely dying.But this is kind of a way for
people that are using thesemachines to essentially say, Oh,
see, we're using the software,that means not so many people
will die. That's not actuallytrue. But I think that they're
going to try to use this laterto skirt accountability. Right?

WW (31:23):
Yeah, it gives them plausible deniability, because
between the decision and theperson, there's the software,
and they can blame the software.And I think this is the plan,
not just for AI as well in themilitary, but also efforts to
put AI in charge of majoraspects of governance, and
there's a push for that as well.So if the government makes an
unpopular or catastrophicdecision, you know, they can be

(31:45):
like, Oh, well, this is what theAI said, and it's so much
smarter than us, or, you know,think that's like the Eric
Schmidt argument that AI islike, so superior to human
decision making, that it can'texplain how it reaches its
decisions to people. And that'slike a sign of it being super
intelligence. But really, itbecomes this reliance on
computer says, Yes, computersays now, and the people that

(32:06):
are supposedly in the loop, um,are just essentially executing
with these algorithms, you know,in software programs are telling
us and I think that's why it'sso important to pay attention to
the people that are funding andactually coding or funding the
coders of the software programs,because they're the ones that
are essentially deciding howthose algorithms work. And
there's not a lot of reallytesting on them, there's a lot

(32:28):
of sales pitches that tout aparticular figure of accuracy,
but those are not independentlyvetted almost all of the time.
And sometimes, you know, thefigures they promote are low in
terms of accuracy, you know, 75%on the sales pitch, or something
like that. And if it's life ordeath decision making, like
Shouldn't it be as close to 100as possible? I mean, 75 is

(32:49):
pretty bad, honestly. Yeah, um,for some of these, and I think
it's important to keep in mindtoo, as far as you know, the
Gaza situation goes, it's beenknown for a long time that it
you know, Israeli surveillanceof Palestinians, has been
extremely overreaching for avery long time and includes a
lot of, you know, surveillance,you know, sort of Palantir style
of sucking stuff, sucking upreally every aspect of a

(33:12):
Palestinians online activity andusing that to profile them, and
how much of that profiling justfrom their regular online
activity has been used to decidewho lives and who dies. And when
you consider that this is anarea that's tightly densely
populated. There's a lot ofinterrelation someone could be a
cousin of a Hamas member, butnot actually have anything to do
with them. Is that enough to getthem on the kill list? Given

(33:35):
what we've seen in Gaza, itcertainly seems that way. And it
sort of goes against the idea offraming this as a more just more
efficient war. But that's beenthe sales pitch, but I think
it's, um, you know, honestly,just a sales pitch and very,
very, you know, divorced fromfrom the reality. And I think
this is very concerning, becausethere have been calls, which

(33:56):
have grown in recent weeks forDonald Trump to put someone like
Erik Prince in charge of thePentagon, and Erik Prince is,
you know, best known for beingthe Blackwater founder, where he
essentially ran a CIA deathsquad in the Middle East during
the war on terror, but has sincesomewhat rebranded and gone
around sort of arguing that theUS Military Industrial Complex

(34:17):
privatize its wars. And herightly does point to the fact
that the military industrialcomplex complex is bloated, and
incompetent and very corrupt.But that doesn't mean that, you
know, perhaps putting in some ofthese leaner defense startups,
like Anduril, for example, orusing Palantir software like is
being used in Gaza, or you know,any of these other companies

(34:39):
that we've been talking about,they're being framed as leaner
and more efficient. That isexactly the Anduril sales pitch.
So if someone like Prince doesget in the Pentagon and
privatize off the wars, to quoteunquote, fight the deep state of
the military industrial complex,like is this actually going to
be any better? And I certainlythink that's not the case. I

(35:00):
think you know, we were losingthe rhetorical battle here, if
it becomes about AI poweredImperial wars, instead of no
more Imperial wars, I mean, Ithink across the left and right
in the United States, it's beenvery clear for some time that
people are tired of the Imperialwars. And so the idea of framing
them as leaner and cheaper,because of AI, they're going to

(35:20):
be aI powered, misses the wholepoint, it should be no Imperial
wars, because we know when thesewars are waged, they create
increased instability increase,you know, political violence
against Americans and otherpeople in the Middle East. It's
not in the US National. And Imean, just so many examples of
how it's just gone horribly,horribly wrong. And why are we
going to continue doing themwith AI, especially if that AI

(35:44):
we know isn't accurate andkilling innocent people, it has
the exact same result, maybeAmerican soldiers aren't dying,
because it's drones on thebattlefield. But is this really
what the best we can do? Andlike what we want it honestly
seems to me, you know, just sortof like a hoodwink, because the
same systems have, as you and Ihave, you know, sort of touched
on earlier are going to bedeployed back in the United

(36:06):
States for the purpose ofsurveillance and domestic
control. Because the war onterror and war on domestic
terror have always gone hand inhand. And that's why, you know,
the United States has been justas surveilled as the rest of the
world, by US intelligence. Andyou know, Palantir profiles,
Americans as well, profiles themof subversives, puts them on the

(36:26):
CIA's naughty list in case thecontinuity of government
protocols are ever formallyinvoked, and things like that,
you know, this is really not thekind of stuff that people should
be supporting. But there's a lotof support being drummed up for
it right now, unfortunately,because you know, every four
years, people that would knowabout the human, a party in the
left, right paradigm in the USseem to forget and start, you

(36:46):
know, playing Team sports again.But unfortunately, when it comes
to this whole idea of like aIpowered warfare, really what it
enables isn't a more efficientwar. I mean, I guess the only
way it makes the war machinemore efficient is that it can
kill more people more quickly.Is that what we want?

SP (37:06):
Yeah, that's the that's a great way to summarize it. I
think that in that, I think,actually, it's really important
to point that out. I mean, thistype of tech, if it's allowed to
go on in this private, Ultra,hyper privatized way, which this
possible, Trump pick wouldsuggest, right? I mean, they

(37:26):
seem really interested in makingthe most destructive technology
possible. And I think AI powertech is explicitly slated to do
that. And I think Anduril, forexample, has created this
lattice operating system thatcan, I think, it allows the
operator to command likehundreds of drones at once. So

(37:47):
sure, it may be cheaper for youto buy this type of equipment
than actually train soldiers todo XYZ. But what it's really
causing is it's paving the wayfor just mass robot powered AI
war. And I find that to be verydangerous. And I think that if
we put if politiciansunfortunately, continue to push

(38:10):
for this type of, let's say,further privatization of the
space, but also not reallyprioritize actually rethinking
our relationships with wargenerally, which seems to never
actually be a consideration or atalking points, you know, it's
only going to become more andmore destructive. Right. I think

(38:31):
that it's also just too bad.We're dealing with, again, now
that it's election time, we'reseeing, okay, the whole Joe
Biden dropping, dropping out isthis other fiasco, but, you
know, do I think Trump, KamalaHarris, or J.D. Vance are
actually interested inreconsidering America's war
policies in a meaningful way?No, I really don't I understand

(38:56):
that J.D. Vance has questionedat Ukraine. But in terms of his
support, or sorry, I support hisdiscussions, I guess, his
support of Israel, but also hisdiscussions about what he would
want to do to Iran where I guesshe would punch them hard is what
he said, you know,unfortunately, we're dealing
with an overall status quo whereno one is questioning, or a lot

(39:19):
of people at the very top arenot questioning any of this.
We're, you know, unfortunately,by dealing with the electoral
system in this matter, we'redealing I guess, we're just
dealing with the continuation ofthe system. And now if you plug
AI in, it's slated to just makethings all the more destructive.
I mean, I'm definitely concernedabout it. And it definitely

(39:41):
concerns me that Trump is beingdepicted as this anti
establishment candidate,especially with Vance's
appointment because going backto Thiel, I think that that is
essentially as far as I see it.I see it as kind of a ticket for
the military industrial complex.Next, or a ticket for Silicon
Valley. That's the way I seethis extensively. And I don't

(40:06):
think I think that anybody whowants to support Trump really
needs to be mindful of Thiel'ssupport of J.D. Vance in this
way. Because what it could meanis that much more influence for
someone like Thiel, who is verymuch interested in steering the
direction of technology to hisfavor. When it comes to war,

(40:27):
again, that just means we'redealing with a very destructive
environment that really, I thinkwe're reaching kind of a point
of no return, depending on wherethese technologies can go.

WW (40:40):
Yeah, I think that's absolutely true. And I
definitely agree with yourcharacterization of the tickets.
But I would consider people whowant to back to the quote
unquote, Silicon Valley ticketthat people keep in mind that
Silicon Valley in the militaryindustrial complex, and really,
it's more of a militaryintelligence industrial complex,
don't leave out the intelligenceagencies, they kind of tell the

(41:02):
military what to do sometimes.But, you know, they they're
fused Silicon Valley double iscontractors for military, the
military, and also intelligenceagencies. And that's
particularly true of this. Youknow, what I've called for
years, the Thiel verse thatincludes, I mean, other people
call it the PayPal Mafia, but Ifeel like to verse sort of

(41:22):
encompasses aspects of PayPalMafia, and also the Thiel
protegees, and Thiel fellows andall of that. And, you know,
they're all in to sort ofpromote a new version of the
military industrial complex. Andagain, I think it's a false
dichotomy to sort of be like,pick this one version of the
military industrial complex, andthis slightly different one, you

(41:43):
know, there, you're essentiallygetting the same thing at the
end of the day, but somethingI'd like to ask you, since it's
come up a few times, and I knowyou've written pretty
extensively about Peter Thiel,or rather, companies he's funded
or backed or co founded andtheir role in Ukraine. So a
major, you know, political issueright now is American funding
for the war in Ukraine,particularly, obviously, for the

(42:06):
backing the Ukrainian side. Andeven though Vance may have voted
against that, do you think it'slikely in an upcoming potential
second Trump administration thatPeter Thiel's influence could
prevent the you know, sort ofturning off the spigot for the
Ukrainian government since someof these tailback companies have

(42:26):
become or, you know, to foundedcompanies have become so
intimately involved in theUkrainian war effort?

SP (42:32):
I think this is something we'll have to see play out. Um,
you know, the way I do see it isthat a lot of candidates, a lot
of political candidates, andgenerally speaking, we'll be
quite clear about their stance,one way or another, like J.D.
Vance is clearly telling us hewould like to have a

(42:53):
reconsideration as to whetherUkraine receives funds from the
United States moving forward.But you know, as far as I can
tell what J.D. Vance says Now,versus what could happen if he
becomes Vice President, could betwo very different things. And I
think we can say that based onin general, there's a wide

(43:14):
disparity between whatpoliticians say before they get
into office, and then whathappens to them once they're in
office. And I think in thisrespect, again, I think we can
highlight a little bit ofThiel's just wide backing of
Vance throughout his career.Obviously, they're they're very
close. And so when we understandThiel's companies receive you

(43:40):
know, these companies Anduril,Palantir, ClearView AI
definitely benefit from the warin ways that are difficult to
calculate and articulate butdefinitely in big ways, they're
essentially able to use Ukraineas a testing ground. Is Thiel
going to want to say goodbye tothat testing ground considering

(44:00):
how much it would help hiscompanies? I don't know. I would
have to imagine if he reallywanted to try to influence
affairs regarding the war inUkraine to probably can just
simply based on the fact thathe's it's not just Vance. He's
helped. He's helped fund anumber of successful Republican

(44:20):
congressional candidates. He hasclear influenced the United
States Government at a number ofdifferent levels. So I would
have to assume that if he reallywanted to force a change in that
perspective, regarding theUkraine war, he would probably
try to do it. But even if heweren't successful, I think for
Peter Thiel, this is as far as Ican see it. I do think that this

(44:44):
is a bit of a long game forThiel. Again, I do think that he
thinks like a venturecapitalist. So even if Palantir
and your real ClearView AIaren't able to continue exactly
what they're doing in Ukraine.There will always be new law
opportunities for them to beable to test out various
technologies elsewhere. And Ithink unfortunately, that's just

(45:07):
the very powerful nature of thelife. I suppose Peter Thiel
lives, he has so many companiesright now that, you know, are in
some way indebted to him, justsimply due to his help. And so
even if these companies cannotcontinue their gaming out of
things in Ukraine, they will beable to succeed in other ways.

(45:29):
And even if something happens tothem, he will always have new
companies that he has worked toback that will take on something
else. So I guess my short answeris I would be curious to see if
this changes or advances stanceon Ukraine changes in relation
to his relationship with Thiel.But even if it doesn't, and even

(45:50):
if there is actually areconsideration about the United
States role in Ukraine, I thinkthat Thiel will still be
successful simply due to justthe amount of money influence
and power he has over today'slargest tech companies.

WW (46:06):
Yeah. So I absolutely agree with that. And I think we're
obviously going to have to seewhat happens. But my feeling is
that, you know, even if they doend up keeping the promise to
reduce or end Americanassistance to the Ukrainian
government, I think it's reallylikely they're going to have a
war pop up somewhere else wherethey can send the money to, in
the case of an upcoming Trumpadministration, it's most likely
to be ran at the end of the day,I think. And if you consider how

(46:29):
Ukraine even started, you know,it started soon after the
Afghanistan war had been, youknow, closed down by the Biden
administration. And I think, youknow, the, if you look at how
Afghanistan function for a longtime, I mean, I think the best
way to sort of sum it up is thisa relatively old now, Julian
Assange, quote, we're seeing thepoint isn't a successful war.

(46:53):
It's an endless war, justbecause of, you know, all the
money laundering that has goneon in US wars, arms,
trafficking, other types oftrafficking, etc, etc. And, you
know, various other geopoliticalobjectives that are accomplished
when the US goes to warsomewhere. And I think, you
know, the fact that Afghanistanafter 20 or so years, you know,

(47:16):
gets wound down and they startup anyone, I think it's most
likely that if they do choose towind down Ukraine, something
else will emerge elsewhere. AndI think a lot of the bellicose
rhetoric about Iranspecifically, you know, from
Trump, and also now Vance, eventhough just a few months ago,
before he was to be pick, VPpick, he was talking about like,
no to war with Iran, it's onQuincy Institute speech or

(47:37):
something. Um, it just shows youhow quickly these people get in
line when they, you know, are insort of the top echelon of
American politics. And if werecall how Trump the Trump's
biggest donor in his first term,Sheldon Adelson, you know, this
was the guy that is the reasonJohn Bolton was Trump's National

(47:58):
Security Adviser. His big thingwas preemptively nuking Ukraine.
Oh, yeah, it's insane. So Ithink, you know, unfortunately,
you know, a lot of donors thatTrump has now have similar
views, maybe not necessarily asbad, but there definitely is a
lobby, you know, that's backingTrump, and there has been a
lobby for some time in theRepublican weighing heavily

(48:20):
promoting the idea of going towar with Iran specifically. So
considering that, you know, youknow, there's the Gaza war, and
that's likely to expand Well,beyond Gaza, you know, there's
been talks for months about it,involving Hezbollah and
expanding to limit Lebanon andthen expanding into a whole
regional thing. You know, Ithink there's a high risk of
that, and I think that'ssomething that people should be

(48:41):
aware of. So maybe, you know,again, I think people shouldn't
just be like, Oh, as long as heends, you know, assistance to
Ukraine, that's enough, itshould really be no more
Imperial wars, that create allthis international instability.
But again, the instabilitybenefits a lot of people with
ties to Trump, a great examplewould be Larry Fink, and
BlackRock, which I know, You'vewritten about also having a role

(49:03):
with Ukraine. But, you know,they tend to sort of come up and
sweep up a lot of distresseddebt and assets in war torn
countries, and also not war torncountries, but you know,
countries that are, you know,not exactly stable for other
reasons, like Argentina, forexample. And, you know, I think
that stuff is also important toconsider as well. Anyway, moving

(49:28):
on from that, I do want to sortof come back and talk about some
of the steel founded companiesand how they're sort of
facilitating this push intopredictive policing, pre crime,
really, all of that, you know, Irecently tweeted out and
resurfaced some links toarticles that I've reported on
previously, back when I was areporter for MIT Press news

(49:48):
during the the first Trumpadministration about in the
aftermath of the El Paso Walmartshooting Trump calling on big
tech to develop software tosurveil its users in order to
stop shootings before they canhappen, or you know, easily can
be applied to stop crime beforeit happens. And given that the
Republican stance generally hasbeen where the tough on crime

(50:11):
party, I think there's a realthreat of that stuff sort of
being supercharged under asecond Trump term. And I think
Thiel's influence there isnoteworthy as well, since
Palantir, since its earliestdays was sort of set up to
develop into this pre crimeplatform that through data
mining and profiling Americansbased on their online activity

(50:34):
and other activity that'savailable, you know, deciding
who may or may not be a threat.And being able to classify
people that way, you know,ultimately feeds into the idea
of predictive policing, which issomething that Palantir has been
piloting in the United Statessince at least 2015. I believe,
they started piloting it, Ithink in New Orleans, and later

(50:54):
expanded beyond, but they'vebeen criticized for some time,
particularly, as far as theirrelationship with the Los
Angeles Police Department goesbut also elsewhere, for piloting
a lot of this predictivepolicing in low income
neighborhoods of predominantlyracial minorities, for some
time, and I've written in thepast that Palantir is a very

(51:14):
race aware and honestly raceobsessed company, which is an
interesting, I should say,interesting and quotes,
component of the company. Ifyou're interested on that, I
will put my article that talksabout that specifically in the
shownotes. That was an article Idid on Palantir as part of the
warp speed and race seriesduring Operation warp speed. But

(51:37):
unfortunately, that's actuallypretty relevant to the pre crime
discussion, because a lot of thepre crime stuff is being fused
with healthcare, and healthcaredata. And Palantir also,
basically runs most of Americanhealthcare data. And that was
something that happened again,during the Trump administration
during COVID-19. Through thecreation of these databases,

(51:59):
like HHS, HHS, protect theTiberius software marketed by
Palantir, to HHS. And there's,you know, that continued, again,
under the Biden administration,as well, they renewed all of
those contracts for Palantir andhealthcare data, and actually
expanded them, they now includethe CDC, and are gonna go on for

(52:19):
another several years, andprobably be renewed by whoever's
the next president sort ofunderscoring that this is a
bipartisan agenda. And there'ssort of this idea of, you know,
using pre crime, to, we're sortof combining the concerns about
mental health, with concernsabout pre crime or preventing

(52:40):
crime. And we're in, you cansort of see them come together
in Palantir. And also some ofthese programs that were being
pitched during the Trumpadministration that I've written
about before, like the safehomes program that was supposed
to be the flagship program ofthis Harpa agency, the health
care focused and DARPA agencythat was being pitched very

(53:00):
heavily to Trump during hisfirst term. And actually, Biden
made that agency, it's calledARPA H, they just moved the age
to the end, but the safe homesprogram was going to suck up all
these all of this data from youknow, consumer electronic
devices. So including wearables,so like Fitbits, Apple Watches,
also Amazon Echo, you know, theAlexa products, Google Home,

(53:22):
Apple TV, all of these things,as well, as you know, observe
the public online activities,like what you post on social
media, and use AI to profilethat to identify if people had,
were showing early signs ofneuro psychiatric violence, and
then could sort of be triaged,like it's a healthcare thing,
either, you know, go to see acourt ordered physician or house

(53:44):
arrest or preventativedetention, which means going to
prison without trial,essentially. So all sorts of
things are being developed bythese companies. And I think
it's, you know, even Orwellian.Selling it short, honestly, you
know, I don't really have a lotof faith, unfortunately, because
of Trump's first term, that thisstuff is going to slow down, or

(54:07):
be, you know, implemented slow,more slowly under a Trump
administration than any otheradministration. I think,
regardless of what party wins inNovember, you know, it's
ultimately, Silicon Valley, andits fusion with the national
security state is going to bethe winner. But Steve, Rola, do
you have any insight into sortof this effort to sort of bring

(54:29):
healthcare and and policingtogether or any sort of comment
on that setup and its, you know,its threat to privacy and
freedom? I

SP (54:41):
mean, I think the primary thing that needs to be said
about it is that clearly nothingis nothing is exempted from this
surveillance effort. Right.Nothing is exempted from that
and it's my understandingregarding like, COVID data,
those systems they still havelike that. COVID data on them,
they're not going to get rid ofit. But I think my my, my take

(55:05):
away from it is that they, theywant to collect information on
everything. That is becomenormalized through companies
Peter Thiel has founded andyou're right to point out that
Palantir specifically plays amajor role in a lot of this. I
think a critical point herethat's worth making is that it's
just become so normal that wehave this public private fusion

(55:31):
and all these arrangements,right. I mean, I suppose it's
fair to simply say that Palantiris kind of a CIA front anyways,
but sure, it's just, itbasically is a CIA fraud. But
you know, what's happening isthat it's just normal for the
government to say, I'm going towork with Palantir on this, it's

(55:52):
okay, that Americans healthcaredata is, um, you know, seen or
utilized by this company in thisway, no problem. It's kind of a
similar thing with okay, this isa separate conversation, but
it's a little bit similar withOracle, where Oracle, again, I
think it also has significantintelligence ties that would
need to be discussed, but Oraclein recent years has been

(56:15):
working, I think it literallyhas a partnership with Palantir.
Right now to operate cloudsoftware for governments across
the globe, I don't know to whatextent that has become the norm
or not, but they're kind ofworking on that as well. But
what we're seeing is that it'sokay for the government to, to

(56:36):
partner with the private sphere.But actually, in these two
examples I just referenced, itlooks like these private
companies are actually at leastheavily intelligence and fluids.
It's all bleeding together. AndI think that the bottom line is
that civilian data in anycapacity, whether it be health,
whether it be I don't know aboutyour private life in some way,

(57:00):
considering the capacity ofsurveillance systems. Everything
is okay to capture in thissense. And I think people like
Peter Thiel, through hisfinancial support of things like
Tia spinoffs, aka Palantir, akaFacebook, he, they've normalized
this type of thing. And so now,I think, unfortunately, anybody

(57:21):
in any country, but definitelyAmericans can now anticipate
that their data is now subjectedto mass collection by
authorities, and then that'sjust mine through companies at
all times.

WW (57:34):
Yeah, definitely makes sense to me. Um, as far as Palantir,
being a CIA front goes forpeople that aren't aware just
want to throw some info outthere for people in case they
haven't read, you know, my pastwork or someone else's work on
Palantir and their theirbeginnings. So Palantir is first
funder was the CIA's and quetal, the CIA was their only
client. For the first I don'tknow, four or five years of

(57:57):
their existence as a company.And from 2005 to 2009. They made
their top engineers made over200 visits to CIA headquarters
in Langley, Virginia. And sincethen, they have been a continual
contracting partner of the CIA,as well as now every single US
intelligence agency. There's 18of them now, if you add if you

(58:20):
include SpaceForce. And, youknow, probably can't really get
any deeper ties than that. Andagain, as I've noted before, in
my work, Palantir was the effortto privatize total information
awareness, which was reallyhoused at DARPA. It was being
run by an Iran Contra criminalfrom the Reagan administration
and John Poindexter, but he wasdoing that in close

(58:40):
collaboration with the CIA. Andso the CIA helped the
privatization effort as well.And that's why you have in Q
tel, involved, and I think it'sone of many examples, we're sort
of like this, quote, unquote,new right, that includes figures
like Trump and Peter Thiel, andmaybe even Erik Prince as well
and some of these other people.If you look at who they
associate with, it's thatconsistently, you're going to

(59:03):
find a lot of connections to theReagan Bush era. You know,
people like Ed Meese Reagan'sAttorney General, were was a big
adviser to Trump during hisfirst presidential run. For
example, Peter Thiel createdPalantir with the help of John
Poindexter and also RichardPearl, one of the architects of
the Iraq War from the George W.Bush administration, Erik Prince

(59:26):
teamed up with Oliver North,probably the most famous name
from the Iran Contra scandal ofthe Reagan era, to pitch Trump
on creating a private CIA andsomething that I've you know,
been warning about. And also mycolleague, Mark Goodwin and I
had been warning about oninterviews that we've done
together as sort of this effortto sort of into in terms of the
public private partnership likeyou brought up sort of move

(59:49):
people out of the public end ofthat and into the private end of
that. So instead of havingpublic private partnerships like
we've been having, you know, forfor decades now, moving into
just And of taking the publicout and having just the private
and acting like it's going to befundamentally different when in
practice, it's not. And I thinkthis is a big play that they're
sort of testing out in Argentinaright now under Malay. And I

(01:00:11):
think, you know, sort of Trump'sstance on CBDCs, for example, I
think is part of that too. It'snot going to be public sector
issued programmable sir bailablemoney, but he's definitely okay
with private sector issuedprogrammable sir bailable money
if it's coming from people likeJamie Dimon or, you know, some
other, you know, major figure onwall street that runs a

(01:00:31):
significant, you know, retailand commercial banking
operation. And I think also, alot of, you know, the theory and
for example, which as you'venoted in past reporting, has
significant Peter Thiel ties isvery easy to make programmable
answer bailable. And there'seven efforts to do the same with
the Bitcoin Blockchain throughgroups like rootstock that came

(01:00:53):
up in previous reporting aboutefforts to sort of create this
carbon market and impose it onLatin America and have it run on
on the Bitcoin Blockchain that,you know, unlimited hangout
reported on previously as well.So what are your thoughts on on
that as it relates to currency?And how do you sort of see the
same network fitting into thosedesigns?

SP (01:01:13):
Yeah, that's, that's a good question. And I have done some
crypto related reporting. Ithink unfortunately, what I've
learned through a lot of myreporting is that a lot of
digital finance infrastructureis something that the power
elite in some way are definitelytrying to exploit in any way

(01:01:33):
possible. And it's kind of mypersonal belief that most
cryptocurrencies maybe they werecompromised politically in some
way from the beginning. But whatwe're seeing, especially with
something like Ethereum, forexample, is that, you know, for
example, it's proof of work toproof of steak switch has made
it quite easy to compromise,generally speaking, hmm. Which

(01:01:57):
means that, you know, a numberof whales I think, is what
sorry, crypto experts, I'm, I'mtrying in this in this. But, you
know, a lot of whales areessentially trying to, to buy up
a lot of Ethereum stakes so thatthey can have a direction over
it right in the future. And Ithink that unfortunately, even

(01:02:18):
if these digital paymentinfrastructures are built in
ways, where perhaps the founderwas actually maybe trying to
build something that couldn't becorrupted, it's clear that the
powers that be are trying tofind any route through that they
can and that's important, Ithink, to point out what's
happening with Bitcoin as well.Absolutely. You know, where

(01:02:40):
people are trying to corruptedif they can do so. I think I
think also it's worth linkingthis back to Thiel, I think
what's worth saying is that he'sbeen interested in digital
finance or digital financialstructures, infrastructures for
a long time. And I think thatthis is a clear power grab, I

(01:03:01):
have the quote, pulled up here.But I think he literally said
something along the lines aboutPay Pal being about replacing
the US dollar, right. So he'ssaying, I, I'm going to build
financial infrastructure thatreplaces what we have, which
means I, if I run Pay Pal haveessentially an amount of power

(01:03:26):
and influence over societythat's quite difficult to to
explain really, right. I thinkhe's more powerful than
countries if he's able to besuccessful in this regard. And I
think that that's just,unfortunately, what a lot of
these elite people backing someof these currencies are,
unfortunately, trying to do withit. And I think what's

(01:03:47):
frustrating about that, and justgoing back to crypto generally,
is that a lot of people that areinterested in crypto are
interested in decentralizedfinance because they would like
to have financial freedom andfinancial privacy. So what's
happening is people are, youknow, a lot of innocent normal
people that are interested inthese infrastructures.

(01:04:07):
Unfortunately, that's beencorrected by people like Thiel
and a lot of people that aretrying to break into the crypto
space that are clearly trying touse this infrastructure for
their own ends. I think if you'dlike I can connect this a little
bit to Worldcoin because AltmanSam Altman OpenAI Sam Altman has

(01:04:28):
also been trying to break intothis space because apparently,
they all see this kind ofutility, let's say where if you
have this financialinfrastructure, it becomes
prominent, let's say and a lotof people use your
cryptocurrency. You know,depending on how far it goes,
you could kind of, I supposesubvert or displace the

(01:04:52):
financial system as weunderstand it, right. So I think
that that's what I've noticed ina lot of my crypto related
Reporting. But if you'd like Ican talk a little bit about
Worldcoin because this is,again, very connected to Peter
Thiel, because Peter Thiel andSam Altman, of course, are very
close. When I was reporting onmy Worldcoin article, I had kind

(01:05:15):
of learned more about therelationship where it sounds
like they're very, very closefriends. You know, and I think
Thiel has brought Altman acouple of different times to
Bilderberg, for example.Obviously, Thiel had also, if
you look at Founders Fundportfolio, a Founders Fund also
has assisted the the rise ofOpenAI. So obviously, they're

(01:05:39):
very good friends. I don't knownecessarily what they talk about
all the time. But I think thatthat close knit relationship is
really critical to talk aboutwhen we discuss anything that
Sam Altman does. And I thinkthat Sam Altman like Thiel, I
don't want to talk about thesepeople like they're completely
out of touch with reality, butwas, when we look at what Sam

(01:06:01):
Altman is proposing withsomething like Worldcoin, he's
essentially proposing a numberof kind of weird things. If
people are interested in readingmy article to learn how weird
Worldcoin is, I encourage it.But he's essentially saying, if
we can get everyone a world IDthrough scanning their irises,

(01:06:25):
which means there's proof thatthey are human, that means that
we can have a cryptocurrencyWorldcoin, become this prominent
all encompassing currency thateveryone uses. And then if AI
becomes prominent, and that ifAI becomes profitable enough, we

(01:06:47):
can then distribute the winds orthe profits of AI to everybody
through a UBI. Right, it soundsridiculous. Again, I'd like I'd
direct people to my article, andI think Worldcoin has kind of
played down the UBI claims morerecently. I think right now,
they're just trying to convincepeople to please scan their
irises so that they can get aworld ID and that they are now

(01:07:10):
siphoned into thisinfrastructure in some way. But
essentially, what I'm saying isthat Peter Thiel is working with
people like Altman and othertech billionaires that are very
interested in these types ofprojects that if they do become
successful, they would forceactually fundamental questions

(01:07:32):
of governance and how society orsociety operates. Because Sam
Altman wants billions of peopleto sign up for Worldcoin. If
billions of people sign up forWorldcoin and Bill, you know,
and Worldcoin becomes aprominent currency. That means
traditional financial structuresor infrastructures are being

(01:07:55):
challenged in a critical way ifthey're not being made toast,
right. So to me what I'm seeingthrough not just Thiel's own
actions, but through the actionsof people that Thiel has
supported like Altman, is thatthere's just a constant. Um,
let's say, let's say it this waythat I think there's a constant

(01:08:16):
effort to develop these projectsthat if they are successful,
could overturn everything. Idon't think that there's any
real democracy in this Worldcoinis proposing that we operate not
we live our lives with itscryptocurrency and that we
receive money through Worldcoin,you know, these, they're

(01:08:38):
essentially saying ourinfrastructure should be the
center of society, literally thecenter of society, not just the
center of money. They'reproposing these types of things
that really, no one on earth isreally being asked about truly.
What's also happening withWorldcoin is, again, people

(01:08:58):
aren't really being asked,what's happening is that people
are being given free crypto toscan their irises. And so maybe
if you have money, it's easy tobe like, I'm not scanning my
eyes and your weird orb thing.But you know, I think it's taken
off, for example, in Argentina,because people need instant
money. So they know that if theygo to one of these orbs, they'll

(01:09:20):
get about $50 of Worldcoincrypto, okay, well, even if they
don't try to use the systeminfrastructure ever again.
Worldcoin has that and Worldcoinhas added another person to
their infrastructure. So they'rekind of imposing. They're
imposing themselves on people inthis way that's not really

(01:09:42):
democratic. And I think thatthat goes back to who Thiel is
and who a lot of these techbillionaires are. They're not
actually interested in havingreasonable conversations as to
what the ramifications of theirtechnology are for everybody.
They're essentially saying,okay, Hopefully people will take
interest in this, hopefully thistakes off, therefore, we will be

(01:10:05):
able to expand our product andthen from a political angle, get
whatever political gain comesfrom that.

WW (01:10:13):
Yeah, I think that's a fair assessment. And I also think
that, you know, essentially, Ifeel like projects like
Whirlpool, and basically whatthey're doing is trying to be
the sort of like the privatesector entity that is pushing
the same thing that like the UNis pushing in terms of like
biometric digital ID,intertwined intimately with a

(01:10:33):
digital wallet, which is like akey part and really, arguably,
like the foundation of the wholething regarding the sustainable
development goals and agenda,2030, and all of that. So if you
don't, you know, if you're like,for example, on the American
quote, unquote, right, you don'tlike the UN, the UN's part of
the NWO, etc, etc. But you'll bemore receptive to a private

(01:10:56):
sector entity pitching that, youknow, particular policy, right,
or offering that as a product.And if you look at how the
digital ID stuff has been setup, through the UN through like
public private partnerships,like ID 2020, which is now
merged with another publicprivate partnership about
digital ID that's also sponsoredby essentially all the same

(01:11:17):
people in the UN, they push thiswhole idea of interoperability,
and the way they're going toimplement, it isn't going to be
like this one global system ofbiometric digital ID and finance
in you know, wallet tiedtogether. Initially, anyway,
it's going to be sort of like amosaic of all these different
private sector vendors, butultimately, the data that can be

(01:11:39):
harvested from that digitalwallet, and that digital ID that
goes with it can be exportedinto the same formats, and then
those formats can be exportedand sent to a centralized
database somewhere. And I thinkthat's essentially what we're
going to get and Worldcoin isobviously lobbying to be a
significant part of that at somepoint in the future, but they're

(01:12:01):
framing themselves, you know,however, they think, you know,
with whatever talking pointsthat are more likely to stick,
right. So I think that's whythey've sort of shifted away
from the UBI pitch that they hadinitially, when they thought
that UBI people might bereceptive to the idea of UBI.
Now, there's criticisms of UBI.And they're, you know, sort of

(01:12:23):
in this Thiel network, so theywant to appeal to people that,
you know, don't like that stuff,right, and don't like dei and
all of these things. But youknow, I think that's, that's
part of the the play here. And Ithink people need to keep that
in mind, digital ID is going tobe imposed on people as sort of
this, it's going to seem likeit's decentralized, but only the

(01:12:45):
public facing part isdecentralized, the back end
where all the data goes and likethe centralized database is
centralized. And there's so muchof this happening not just for
digital ID, but also in, in theFinTech world, where it's really
decentralized in name only. Andthey're they're trying to really
take all of the cryptoinfrastructure and make it that

(01:13:07):
way. And I think what youmentioned earlier about Pay Pal
is very interesting, as far asto having talked about replacing
the dollar because PayPal haslaunched their PYUSD Pay Pal,
stablecoin, dollar stablecointhat's meant to compete with
like Tether, USDT and USDCcircle. Which by the way, USDC
was actually originally a SamAltman idea that was posted on

(01:13:28):
his blog some time ago, the ideaof making a USD coin $1
stablecoin, that could beprogrammable and all of this and
it was emailed to Trump sec,Treasury Secretary Steve
Minuchin, by Jared Kushner,Trump's son in law was like, Oh,
look, we should probably dosomething like this, you know.
And, you know, as JusticeTrump's about to come in, for a

(01:13:49):
second term, you have all thestablecoin legislation being
written about to be passed andwho's on the Senate Banking
Committee, that's going to playa huge role in deciding the
winners and losers of postregulation. It's J.D. Vance is
one of those figures, along withyou know, people that have co
written a lot of the legislationlike Cynthia Lummis, for

(01:14:11):
example. And again, I think it'simportant to to consider J.D.
Vance and his upcoming influenceas it relates to that and also
consider that right off of theright on the tail of the RNC
convention, is the BitcoinConference will trump will be
speaking Erik Prince is havingdinner hosted in Nashville
around the same time you know,like a lot of these guys are

(01:14:32):
going to be there. I will not beI was there last year, but I'm
not really not really sure if Iwant to go to RNC 2.0 this year.
and also have some other reasonswhy I'm not doing but I'm
definitely going to beinteresting to see what Trump
says about Bitcoin, it's verylikely there's going to be an
effort to yoke Bitcoin to the USdollar, since Bitcoin sort of

(01:14:54):
functions like digital credit,and can enable, you know, it can
do a lot of things. Butunfortunately, in the hands of
these people, you know, there'stalks about them using it
basically as a sink for us moneyprinting and inflation, and
allowing, you know, quantitativeeasing and all this
irresponsible central bankpolicy to go on forever, because

(01:15:15):
you can just use Bitcoin as asink for all of the
hyperinflation that wouldnormally result from it, as
opposed to actually being a youknow, something that will end
you know, Central Bank,irresponsibility or government
fiscal irresponsibility, it'spoised to become its biggest
enabler in the hands of thesepeople. So I would can consider

(01:15:36):
anyone interested in thesetopics to give those things.
Keep an eye on those thingsgoing forward. And one thing I
would like to add about Pay Pal,too, is that, you know, early
on, you know, some big WallStreet guys, like the former
head of city, during the 1990stalked about, you know, if I
wanted to, you know, get intothe business of surveillance,

(01:15:57):
surveilling people, you know,I'd make a bank like I've used
finances because he was talkingabout like city back in the 80s,
and 90s. And saying, like, wehave so much data on people's
transactions, we know they'regetting a divorce before they
even do, because like, you know,their soon to be ex wife is
blowing out their credit card,and all of this stuff, like

(01:16:19):
they're able to surveil peoplemore effectively than anything
else. So the idea of, of that,combined with how, you know,
Peter Thiel and the other peoplethat created PayPal, did so in
direct connection withintelligence agencies, talking
to them as they were setting upPayPal, and trying to sort of,
you know, make that happen. Andnow they're trying to make this

(01:16:41):
dollar stablecoin and are poisedto have it be really the the
king made stablecoin of this newlegislation. I think people need
to pay very close attention tothat, especially when you
consider that all all thedifferent things we talked about
today, all these differentpieces of Peter Thiel and his
different protegees in likemoney in defense, and like all

(01:17:02):
of these, you know, US lawenforcement and just all these
different sectors. I mean, it'samazing, and terrifying, really
the empire that these peoplehave been able to develop. And
again, you know, Peter Thiel isa huge part of it. But really,
the PayPal crowd in general,which again, includes Elon Musk,
I know a lot of people love him,but remember, he's a pentagon

(01:17:25):
intelligence contractor,building brain chips. So people,
I don't know, need to stopworshipping the billionaires,
man. I don't know. If sometimesI feel like Batman was just
propaganda for billionaires,like the billionaires are gonna
save us all and they're secretlysuperheroes at night. You know?
I don't know. Because it's, ifyou actually look what they're

(01:17:46):
doing, that's not what they'redoing. But the narrative they've
put out has sort of likehypnotized. So many Americans, I
feel like to think that they'relike, you know, these superhero
esque figures. I mean, you seethat with musk so much. It's
really unsettling. Maybe they'lldo it with Peter Thiel, and
he'll become a superhero now,too. I don't know. Anyway,

(01:18:08):
sorry, I got a little rambleythere at the end. But is there
anything you'd like to add tosome of the stuff I brought up
as it relates to either, youknow, py, USD or, you know,
stablecoins or you know,anything about the digital ad?
Worldcoin stuff? Well, I think,

SP (01:18:24):
I guess one comment I have about stablecoins. And I think
you've said this before, but Ireally feel that it bears
repeating is I do think a lot ofpeople have kind of understood
the dangers regarding somethinglike a cbdc, right, that the
central bank would be operatingthis and that it would have more
centralized access, at least toyour finances. And in the case

(01:18:49):
that money becomes programmable,who knows it could shut things
off or otherwise manipulatethings. I think that people are
increasingly starting tounderstand the dangers of that.
I'm not saying we shouldn't beon alert, because we should. But
I think unfortunately, it's it'skind of what we said. I think
once these things are kind ofspun off in a private sector

(01:19:09):
direction, like stablecoins, Ithink, unfortunately, it's
harder to convince people. Look,you know, do you really want the
private sector to be able to dothe same thing? I think,
unfortunately, that's going tohave to become a major talking
point. And I thinkunfortunately, this point has

(01:19:30):
not been driven home in the wayit needs to be. I think that
anybody who is thinking thatstablecoins are decentralized
shouldn't be mistaken. I mean, Ithink that that's another
problem is that I thinkdecentralization as a word in
terms of finance, generallyspeaking, I think a lot of
things claimed to bedecentralized when they're not

(01:19:52):
actually decentralized. And ifpeople aren't careful, this
stuff is going to be rolled outin a wide Spread weigh, as
you've noted, a lot ofstablecoins are essentially
competing to capture, let's say,the market for stablecoins and
what governments may or may notchoose to use as like the US

(01:20:14):
dollar stablecoin or othercountries, stablecoins, etc. I
think unfortunately, some ofthat is going on with critical
without critical discussionwithout critical debate. And I
find that to be a significantproblem. And I think that a lot
of tech billionaires are kind ofaware of this vaguely or not
vaguely like they're very awareof this. And so I think that

(01:20:37):
that's why a lot of effort hasgone into creating private,
digital financialinfrastructure. They understand
that that can give them a lot ofpower. But who can really do a
lot about it right now?

WW (01:20:51):
I think those are some good points. Well, I guess it's
probably best to maybe wrap upthere because we've been going
for for a bit. Is there anythingelse you'd like to add on the
topic?

SP (01:21:00):
I suppose my only real comment is that, you know, if
people are portraying themselvesas anti establishment, it's
really critical to ask you know,questions, especially
considering you know, J.D. Vancecan portrays himself as anti
establishment. Thiel has reallyhelped his rise. I think,

(01:21:20):
something worth pointing out isthat Thiel has helped fund a
number of media companies,including rumble, including, I
guess, Tucker, Carlson's newmedia company, as well. And so
when we see things like that, itmakes me question to what extent
this type of how do I say this?You know, it makes me question

(01:21:42):
to what extent any of this canbe trusted. And I think a lot of
seeing a lot of quote unquote,alternative media become
completely uncritical of J.D.Vance and Trump, I, I fear that
there won't really be a lot ofcritical coverage of this
appointment, considering Thielfunding, right. And so I'm in

(01:22:03):
general, kind of, I don't wantto say jaded, I don't like to
say it that way. But it'sdefinitely disheartening to see
that people aren't reallycritiquing this in the way that
they should. And it's the samething with like, Elon Musk. I
think a lot of people felt thathe's done a couple positive
things with Twitter X. But thereality is that x censors quite

(01:22:25):
a lot, right? And I think,unfortunately, a lot of people
are blinded to that, becausethey think Elon Musk has somehow
stood up to the establishment.In reality, I think journalists
are getting censored more on Xthan ever. So I think if
somebody portrays themselves asanti establishment, please think
twice. I mean, if there areconnections like to behind it,

(01:22:48):
all we can really say is, look,at least be critical moving
forward. I don't know. I amdisheartened by a little bit of
that, to say the least. Butotherwise, no, I think this was
a great discussion.

WW (01:22:59):
Well, I can understand feeling disheartened about it. I
think this particularbillionaire faction has spent a
lot of money trying to influenceindependent media coverage of
them, and to sort of paint themas, as rogue billionaires, when
if you look at what they do intheir companies and what they've
done, you know, that definitelyis not the case. As far as Elon

(01:23:21):
Musk goes, I think people needto keep in mind that he was he
wanted to buy Twitter, he saidwas to verify all humans, that
means linking a governmentissued ID to your Twitter
account. And he also his goal isto turn you know, he's already
done, it turned Twitter into Xwith the goal of having x be, he
says half of the financialsystem. So there's, they've been

(01:23:43):
gobbled up obtaining all ofthese money transmitter
licensees, and now a majority ofUS states, it's only a matter of
time until they try and become abank as well. And I think
there's been efforts to sort of,you know, rope in a lot of
people in independent media,because of the X monetization
thing, which by the way, I donot participate in and was given

(01:24:04):
a blue check against my willbecause of a follower count. And
I don't even have Twitterpremium. This was something that
Elon Musk chose to do toeveryone. So a lot of people
that were critical of blue,check Scotland without asking
for it, just want to make thatreally clear, but getting people
that are, you know, onindependent meter in independent
media dependent on money from xare like, you know, oh, look how

(01:24:27):
much money I'm making on X, youknow, you're going to alter your
speech and, you know, selfcensor, choose to not cover
certain things that may not makeElon happy or might affect your
monetization, right. And also,it also helps to sort of onboard
you as an influencer and thenhelp onboard other people onto
you know, using x as some sortof like financial app, right,

(01:24:48):
which is ultimately the end goalthere. And it's very similar
when you consider you know, wetalked about with Worldcoin,
this idea of like, linking yourID to your digital wallet and
all of that. It's very clear. Ithink that x aims to be Do
something quite similar in thatregard. And then, you know, you
consider the brain machineinterface and all the Pentagon
spy contracts and all of that,you know, I definitely would

(01:25:11):
consider people to be very,very, very wary of what's going
on there. And but I also thinkpart of the disheartening thing
is it has to do with themanipulation of social media, we
can't really trust what we'reseeing anymore. The algorithms
are so manipulated, we know thatfor more than probably like 15
years now, but at least 10years, the US military again,
Musk is a good contractor forthem, has been heavily funding

(01:25:32):
how to manipulate Americans,what people generally really
around the world on social mediaframing it as a new Battlefield,
the US Air Force in one, youknow, one program, they said
that the goal of the program wasto control people through social
media, like, you control drones,right. So that basically just
like hypnotize people, I mean, Imean, I will see read that. So I

(01:25:55):
think a lot of what we see onsocial media now, and remember
the big competitor to Twitter,what is Facebook, which Peter
Thiel essentially made, right? Imean, because he was the first
early out, outside investor, andwithout him Facebook would not
exist, right. So, um, you know,these things, manipulate our

(01:26:16):
perceptions. And so, you know,we're told that what we see,
there's the opinion of people,but these are manipulated
algorithms. A lot of them arebought accounts, the military,
just the US military alone, butdefinitely other militaries too,
have also invested 10s ofmillion dollars in developing
highly sophisticated bots,OpenAI is ChatGPT. Again, Sam

(01:26:36):
Altman, Elon has superchargedall of that this is a perception
manipulation machine. And Ithink those of us that try and
be level headed and objective,regardless of what the hype is,
or who's an office or who'srunning for office, whatever,
you know, can be disheartened bythe stuff. And I think part of
that is also by design, becausethese people have profiled us.
And remember, when Facebook was,got caught manipulating people's

(01:26:57):
newsfeeds to try and manipulatethem to make them feel sad and
depressed, I think they tailorthe algorithm to you and your
user profile, and theymanipulate you whoever they
think is most effective fortheir purposes, right. So I
think that's important to keepin mind. And again, anyone
listening, please take that toheart, if you want to stay sane
between now and like theelection in the US, probably

(01:27:22):
like Be careful about your likesocial media consumption,
because again, it's there tomanipulate perception. And when
you successfully manipulateperception, you manipulate
people's behavior, which isultimately what they want. And
that's a big part of the EricSchmidt, Henry Kissinger AI book
is about how AI is ultimately atool to manipulate perception,
and also to diminish uscognitively. So that we become

(01:27:45):
dependent on AI and can'tfunction without it. And when
you consider that Eric Schmidtand Peter Thiel or buddy, buddy
at Bilderberg, and all of theseSilicon Valley guys are building
the tools for that. And the AIalgorithms doing that, to us,
this is something that needs tobe considered. And I think
people need to takeresponsibility for how they use
these products and how they, youknow, use these mediums or

(01:28:05):
social media or whatever. Notsaying don't use it at all. And
maybe for some people, it is theright choice. Other people can't
do that because of work,whatever, you know, I kind of
fall in that category, at leastright now. But I definitely will
not be linking a governmentissued ID to my Twitter account,
ever. But you know, I thinkpeople need to sort of keep this
stuff in mind. And because, youknow, there's a lot of

(01:28:27):
perception manipulation goingon, it sort of reminds me back,
like, in the first time Trumpran for president, there were
all those polls from themainstream media that were
saying Hillary's gonna win 98%probability, it's hopeless for
Trump. You know, that was aperception manipulation
campaign, they do this stuff allthe time. And our dependence on
social media makes it easierthan ever for them. And this

(01:28:48):
perception of Twitter acts aslike the Free Speech platform.
Now everyone is free to talk,like you said, That's not true
at all. And if anything, thealgorithms are more manipulated
than ever, because it's not likePentagon contractor, Elon Musk
is going to say no to thePentagon using all their
sophisticated bots and theirperception, manipulation weapons
that they've developed expresslyfor social media, he's gonna

(01:29:09):
allow them probably to let themuse them more than they were
previously, you know. So again,important to keep in mind hard
to keep a level head these daysfor some people, but I think
several your reporting hasdefinitely been important in
that fight. And I definitelycommend to you and appreciate
your work. Very happy to haveyou contribute to unlimited
hangout. Is there any well?Where can people find and follow

(01:29:36):
your work and support you?

SP (01:29:38):
Well, first of all, thank you for saying that. I suppose
the main thing I do, I do have xI will say I can give my handle
for that. It's just my name. Idon't really tweet there so
often, the more because I'vekind of not enjoyed the
platform, but the main thing isthat people can I just don't
enjoy tweeting like I don't,people need to log off. But the

(01:29:59):
main thing So the main placethat people can find me is my
sub stack where I do publish, Ipublish a newsletter where I
cover the intersection ofgeopolitics and technology. And
then I post my other reportingupdates there. So that's just a
rule a pax.substack.com. Sothat's probably the best way to

(01:30:19):
follow my work. Otherwise, Idon't know, send smoke signals
or something. I should probablybe easier to find than that. But
that's a good place to find me.Yeah.

WW (01:30:30):
All right. Great. And thank thanks so much for a great
conversation. And thanks foreverybody that tuned in to
listen to this podcast. Pleaseshare it widely if you found it
informative. Hopefully you did.And a special thank you as
always, to the people thatsupport this podcast and support
Unlimited Hangout and help meallow us to publish people like
Stavroula, who were just again,couldn't be happier to have a

(01:30:53):
contributor like her and also mywork and those of everyone else
that contributes to UnlimitedHangout, and of course, this
podcast itself so thanks verymuch and catch you on the next
episode.

All Episodes

Episode Transcript

Popular Podcasts

On Purpose with Jay Shetty

24/7 News: The Latest

Crime Junkie

.css-15opob5{left:0;position:absolute;top:0.8rem;} All Episodes

.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}The Thiel-Verse with Stavroula Pabst

Episode Transcript

Popular Podcasts

.css-r6mb8g{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:1;overflow:hidden;}On Purpose with Jay Shetty

24/7 News: The Latest

Crime Junkie

All Episodes

The Thiel-Verse with Stavroula Pabst

On Purpose with Jay Shetty