Podcasts about rockefeller foundations

00:04:20 - 00:14:25: FBI's Role in January 6 and Lack of TransparencyKash Patel and Dan Bongino's evasive responses on FBI's involvement in January 6, suggesting a deep state operation. Critique of their alignment with the party line, lack of clarity, and distrust in forthcoming information being filtered through Congress. Mentions Jeffrey Epstein's death as a non-suicide, reflecting broader skepticism of official narratives.00:31:50 - 00:42:13: Media Manipulation and PropagandaDiscussion of Caitlin Johnstone's article on how Western media uses distortions, emphasis, and omissions to shape narratives, particularly on Israel-Palestine. Emphasis on the need to focus on raw data to counter manipulation, with examples of underreported issues like starvation in Gaza versus overreported stories like Russia-Ukraine.00:46:29 - 00:59:40: Lab-Grown Meat as a Control MechanismCritique of lab-grown meat as a tool for corporate control, removing self-sufficiency in food production. Discussion of its ethical and environmental claims as hollow, with concerns about engineered scarcity and dependence on conglomerates. Mentions the unappetizing nature of lab-grown products like the “world's largest cultivated chicken nugget.”01:13:29 - 01:17:16: Montana's Ban on Warrantless Data PurchasesMontana's Senate Bill 282 prohibits law enforcement from buying personal data (e.g., geolocation, financial records) without a warrant, closing the data broker loophole. Critique of government's data buying/selling practices, with DMVs profiting millions (e.g., Florida: $77M, California: $52M in 2017).01:19:55 - 01:26:01: Meta's Facial Recognition Glasses and Surveillance RisksMeta plans to integrate facial recognition into Ray-Ban smart glasses, enabling real-time identification of passersby, raising severe privacy concerns. Unlike fixed cameras, mobile glasses are harder to detect, potentially enabling mass surveillance by individuals or government.01:27:35 - 01:37:47: Transphobia Investigation Over Lucy SkeletonBrazilian woman faces up to three years in prison for calling Lucy the skeleton female, deemed transphobic by activists who argue ancient fossils could have had modern gender identities. Critique of this as an attack on objective reality and scientific fact.01:55:04 - 02:00:25: Israel's Ethnic Cleansing and Occupation of GazaNetanyahu admits to ethnic cleansing goals in Gaza, citing destruction of homes and lack of countries accepting Palestinian refugees. Israel's blockade and use of food to lure starving civilians criticized as inhumane, with growing disapproval even among Republicans (Pew: 37% unfavorable views by 2025).02:00:42 - 02:12:27: Measles Panic and Vaccine DangersMedia exaggerates measles as the “world's most infectious disease” (e.g., one DC case, 300 in Texas out of 31 million). Child's death misattributed to measles was due to medical error (delayed antibiotics for pneumonia). Critique of vaccine schedules causing autism/allergies and mercury (thimerosal) in vaccines, requiring hazmat cleanup but injected into children.02:17:42 - 02:34:50: Susan Monterey's CDC Appointment and Biosecurity ConcernsSusan Monterey, appointed CDC director, criticized for biosecurity ties (ARPA-H, BARDA, DARPA) and vaccine advocacy. RFK Jr.'s endorsement as a Maha supporter questioned as a betrayal, given her support for AI-driven health projects (e.g., predicting diseases from personal data) and high-risk biomedical research, likened to pandemic manufacturing.02:34:50 - 02:42:09: NGOs and Government Funding Woke IdeologyUS government (CIA, USAID) and NGOs (Ford, Rockefeller Foundations) funded gay pride and transgenderism since the 1980s, evolving into woke ideology. Framed as a satanic agenda to destroy Western civilization, driven by spiritual forces beyond earthly institutions, with government as a tool of higher powers.02:47:22 - 03:03:14: Biological Computers and Brain-Computer InterfacesCortical Labs' Cow One uses human brain cells for neural networks, trained to play Pong, with potential for drug testing. DARPA, NIH, and Obama's BRAIN Initiative fund BCIs for military applications (e.g., memory transfer, neuro-weapons), raising concerns about mind control, transhumanism, and technocratic control via public-private partnerships.Follow the show on Kick and watch live every weekday 9:00am EST – 12:00pm EST https://kick.com/davidknightshow Money should have intrinsic value AND transactional privacy: Go to https://davidknight.gold/ for great deals on physical gold/silver For 10% off Gerald Celente's prescient Trends Journal, go to https://trendsjournal.com/ and enter the code KNIGHT Find out more about the show and where you can watch it at TheDavidKnightShow.comIf you would like to support the show and our family please consider subscribing monthly here: SubscribeStar https://www.subscribestar.com/the-david-knight-showOr you can send a donation throughMail: David Knight POB 994 Kodak, TN 37764Zelle: @DavidKnightShow@protonmail.comCash App at: $davidknightshowBTC to: bc1qkuec29hkuye4xse9unh7nptvu3y9qmv24vanh7Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-david-knight-show--2653468/support.

00:04:20 - 00:14:25: FBI's Role in January 6 and Lack of TransparencyKash Patel and Dan Bongino's evasive responses on FBI's involvement in January 6, suggesting a deep state operation. Critique of their alignment with the party line, lack of clarity, and distrust in forthcoming information being filtered through Congress. Mentions Jeffrey Epstein's death as a non-suicide, reflecting broader skepticism of official narratives.00:31:50 - 00:42:13: Media Manipulation and PropagandaDiscussion of Caitlin Johnstone's article on how Western media uses distortions, emphasis, and omissions to shape narratives, particularly on Israel-Palestine. Emphasis on the need to focus on raw data to counter manipulation, with examples of underreported issues like starvation in Gaza versus overreported stories like Russia-Ukraine.00:46:29 - 00:59:40: Lab-Grown Meat as a Control MechanismCritique of lab-grown meat as a tool for corporate control, removing self-sufficiency in food production. Discussion of its ethical and environmental claims as hollow, with concerns about engineered scarcity and dependence on conglomerates. Mentions the unappetizing nature of lab-grown products like the “world's largest cultivated chicken nugget.”01:13:29 - 01:17:16: Montana's Ban on Warrantless Data PurchasesMontana's Senate Bill 282 prohibits law enforcement from buying personal data (e.g., geolocation, financial records) without a warrant, closing the data broker loophole. Critique of government's data buying/selling practices, with DMVs profiting millions (e.g., Florida: $77M, California: $52M in 2017).01:19:55 - 01:26:01: Meta's Facial Recognition Glasses and Surveillance RisksMeta plans to integrate facial recognition into Ray-Ban smart glasses, enabling real-time identification of passersby, raising severe privacy concerns. Unlike fixed cameras, mobile glasses are harder to detect, potentially enabling mass surveillance by individuals or government.01:27:35 - 01:37:47: Transphobia Investigation Over Lucy SkeletonBrazilian woman faces up to three years in prison for calling Lucy the skeleton female, deemed transphobic by activists who argue ancient fossils could have had modern gender identities. Critique of this as an attack on objective reality and scientific fact.01:55:04 - 02:00:25: Israel's Ethnic Cleansing and Occupation of GazaNetanyahu admits to ethnic cleansing goals in Gaza, citing destruction of homes and lack of countries accepting Palestinian refugees. Israel's blockade and use of food to lure starving civilians criticized as inhumane, with growing disapproval even among Republicans (Pew: 37% unfavorable views by 2025).02:00:42 - 02:12:27: Measles Panic and Vaccine DangersMedia exaggerates measles as the “world's most infectious disease” (e.g., one DC case, 300 in Texas out of 31 million). Child's death misattributed to measles was due to medical error (delayed antibiotics for pneumonia). Critique of vaccine schedules causing autism/allergies and mercury (thimerosal) in vaccines, requiring hazmat cleanup but injected into children.02:17:42 - 02:34:50: Susan Monterey's CDC Appointment and Biosecurity ConcernsSusan Monterey, appointed CDC director, criticized for biosecurity ties (ARPA-H, BARDA, DARPA) and vaccine advocacy. RFK Jr.'s endorsement as a Maha supporter questioned as a betrayal, given her support for AI-driven health projects (e.g., predicting diseases from personal data) and high-risk biomedical research, likened to pandemic manufacturing.02:34:50 - 02:42:09: NGOs and Government Funding Woke IdeologyUS government (CIA, USAID) and NGOs (Ford, Rockefeller Foundations) funded gay pride and transgenderism since the 1980s, evolving into woke ideology. Framed as a satanic agenda to destroy Western civilization, driven by spiritual forces beyond earthly institutions, with government as a tool of higher powers.02:47:22 - 03:03:14: Biological Computers and Brain-Computer InterfacesCortical Labs' Cow One uses human brain cells for neural networks, trained to play Pong, with potential for drug testing. DARPA, NIH, and Obama's BRAIN Initiative fund BCIs for military applications (e.g., memory transfer, neuro-weapons), raising concerns about mind control, transhumanism, and technocratic control via public-private partnerships.Follow the show on Kick and watch live every weekday 9:00am EST – 12:00pm EST https://kick.com/davidknightshow Money should have intrinsic value AND transactional privacy: Go to https://davidknight.gold/ for great deals on physical gold/silver For 10% off Gerald Celente's prescient Trends Journal, go to https://trendsjournal.com/ and enter the code KNIGHT Find out more about the show and where you can watch it at TheDavidKnightShow.comIf you would like to support the show and our family please consider subscribing monthly here: SubscribeStar https://www.subscribestar.com/the-david-knight-showOr you can send a donation throughMail: David Knight POB 994 Kodak, TN 37764Zelle: @DavidKnightShow@protonmail.comCash App at: $davidknightshowBTC to: bc1qkuec29hkuye4xse9unh7nptvu3y9qmv24vanh7Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-real-david-knight-show--5282736/support.

In recent years, condemnations of racism in America have echoed from the streets to corporate boardrooms. At the same time, politicians and commentators fiercely debate racism's very existence. And so, our conversations about racial inequalities remain muddled. In Metaracism, Brown University Professor of Africana Studies Tricia Rose cuts through the noise with a bracing and invaluable new account of what systemic racism actually is, how it works, and how we can fight back. She reveals how—from housing to education to criminal justice—an array of policies and practices connect and interact to produce an even more devastating “metaracism” far worse than the sum of its parts. While these systemic connections can be difficult to see—and are often portrayed as “color-blind”—again and again they function to disproportionately contain, exploit, and punish Black people. By helping us to comprehend systemic racism's inner workings and destructive impact, Rose shows how to create a more just America for us all. Tricia Rose is Chancellor's Professor of Africana Studies and the director of the Center for the Study of Race and Ethnicity in America at Brown University. She has received fellowships from the Ford and Rockefeller Foundations, and her research has been funded by the Mellon and Robert Wood Johnson Foundations. She co-hosts with Cornel West the podcast The Tight Rope. She is the author of Longing to Tell: Black Women's Stories of Sexuality and Intimacy, The Hip Hop Wars: What We Talk About When we Talk About Hip Hop—and Why it Matters, Black Noise: Rap Music and Black Culture in Contemporary America, and her new book Metaracism: How Systemic Racism Devastates Black Lives—and How We Break Free. Shermer and Rose discuss: the policies, practices, laws, and beliefs that are racist in 2024 America and what can be done about them • racism, structural racism, systemic racism, metaracism • Rose's working-class background growing up in 1960s Harlem • deep-root cause-ism •being “caught up in the system” • Trayvon Martin, Kelley Williams-Bolar, and Michael Brown • Rose's response to Black conservative authors like Shelby Steele and Thomas Sowell • why she believes Coleman Hughes is wrong about color-blindness • Obama, George Floyd and race relations today • reparations.

Join TNS Host Michael Lerner for a reading and conversation with poet Jane Hirshfield. A lay-ordained practitioner of Soto Zen and also the founder, in 2017, of Poets for Science, Jane's newest book holds fifty years of her life and work. The conversation will be similarly ranging, touching on the taproots of creative permeability and attention, the alliance between the seeing of poems and that of science, what poems might bring to addressing our current crises of biosphere and community, and the sense of shared fate and of intimacy with all beings central to finding our way to a viable future. Jane Hirshfield Writing “some of the most important poetry in the world today” (The New York Times Magazine), Jane Hirshfield has become one of American poetry's central spokespersons for concerns of the biosphere and interconnection. Her ten poetry books include The Asking: New & Selected Poems (Knopf, 2023), holding fifty years of poems, and she is the author also of two now-classic collections of essays on poetry's infrastructure and craft and four books presenting world poets from the deep past. Her honors include fellowships from the Guggenheim and Rockefeller Foundations, the Poetry Center Book Award, and the California Book Award. An interactive traveling installation she founded in 2017, Poets For Science, has appeared across the country at universities, museums, research centers, conferences, and the National Academy of Sciences. A former chancellor of the Academy of American Poets, Hirshfield was elected in 2019 into the American Academy of Arts & Sciences. #commonweal #poetry #newschoolcommonweal #janehirshfield #findingmeaning

In conversation with award-winning journalist and broadcaster Tracey Matisak Acclaimed for her study of the intersections of pop music, contemporary Black U.S. culture, and sex and gender, sociologist Tricia Rose is the author of Longing to Tell, The Hip Hop Wars, and, most notably, Black Noise, which is considered a foundational text for the academic study of hip hop. She is the Chancellor's Professor of Africana Studies and the director of the Center for the Study of Race and Ethnicity in America at Brown University, and she has presented seminars and workshops on a wide range of topics to scholarly and general audiences. The recipient of grants and fellowships from the Mellon, the Robert Wood Johnson, the Ford, and the Rockefeller Foundations, Rose has been widely profiled and featured on several national media outlets. In Metaracism, she presents a definitive map of the vast and often obscured practices, policies, and beliefs that proliferate systemic racism in the United States. Because you love Author Events, please make a donation to keep our podcasts free for everyone. THANK YOU! (recorded 4/10/2024)

With the new 50 in 5 program, the United Nations and the Gates and Rockefeller Foundations are attempting to get 50 countries within 5 years to go fully digital on all information – payments, tracking, tracing, recording, and monitoring of every citizen. Censorship, surveillance, and retaliation are the three primary components the elites are implementing to trap all who seek freedom in a digital prison. Once a digital ID, CBDC, and a global data-sharing network are added to their arsenal of weapons, all resistance will be easily crushed. If we do not push back now and organize to set up parallel systems, resistance will almost be impossible. --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/curtisbowers/message Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/curtisbowers/support

Jane Hirshfield is the author of ten collections and is one of American poetry's central spokespersons for concerns of the biosphere. Hirshfield's honors include fellowships from the Guggenheim and Rockefeller Foundations, the Poetry Center Book Award, the California Book Award, and finalist selection for the National Book Critics Circle Award. She's also the author of two now-classic collections of essays on the craft of poetry, and edited and co-translated four books presenting world poets from the deep past. Hirshfield's work, which has been translated into seventeen languages, appears in The New Yorker, The Atlantic, The New York Review of Books, The Times Literary Supplement, and ten editions of The Best American Poetry. A former chancellor of the Academy of American Poets, she was elected to the American Academy of Arts & Sciences in 2019. Her newest book is The Asking: New & Selected Poems. Order your copy of The Asking here: https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/715681/the-asking-by-jane-hirshfield/ Review the Rattlecast on iTunes! https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/rattle-poetry/id1477377214 As always, we'll also include live open lines for responses to our weekly prompt or any other poems you'd like to share. A Zoom link will be provided in the chat window during the show before that segment begins. For links to all the past episodes, visit: https://www.rattle.com/rattlecast/ This Week's Prompt: Write a poem set in the first place you ever worked. Next Week's Prompt: Write an assay—a poem that breaks down an idea or topic into it's constituent parts. (See Jane's assays, "Silence" and "To Judgment.") The Rattlecast livestreams on YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter, then becomes an audio podcast. Find it on iTunes, Spotify, or anywhere else you get your podcasts.

Welcome to a journey down the rabbit hole of modern society. In this podcast, we dive into the controversial and often overlooked topics that impact our daily lives. From the rising threat of Chinese spy balloons to the ongoing J.K Rowling/ Harry Potter Video Game controversy, we examine the facts and challenge popular beliefs. We also shed light on how industrialized school systems may be indoctrinating future generations and explore the dark side of the music industry with the recent "satanic" Grammy performance by pop artist Sam Smith. Join us as we uncover the truth and spark thought-provoking discussions around current events.    Subscribe and leave a 5-star review! ----more---- Donate to support the show by going to https://givesendgo.com/redpillrevolution   Our website https://redpillrevolution.co/    Podcast Companion: https://redpillrevolution.substack.com   ----more---- Full Transcription    Welcome to the Revolution. Hello and welcome. It's Red Pill Revolution. My name is Austin Adams and thank you so much for listening today. I appreciate it. We're gonna jump right into it. We have some very interesting articles that we're gonna discuss from current events, and then we are going to talk all about the topic of the week, which is this week is going to be the education system and the industrialization of the education system more primarily. So we're gonna go back and talk about actually when the Amer Modern American education system came to be. What it is today, how it came to be, what it is today, who the money was provided by through the General Education Board for it to become what it is today, which is an industrialized factory pushing out children and literally, Programming you to become a conformist and somebody who is passive and somebody who is non-creative and a factory worker, just as the man who funded it himself said. So we will discuss that. Before we discuss that though, we are also going to discuss the Satanic performance during the Grammys by performer Sam Smith. All right. Sam Smith performed his hit song, unholy, right? Starting off to a good start there, unholy in a Satanic outfit with, uh, women in bondage all around him with flames all around him. And uh, yeah. And then immediately after that, there's a certain company that was promoting this and sponsoring this show, which is hilarious, and we will talk about who that was once we get into it. After that, we're also going to discuss the Pentagon coming out and saying that  talking about the Chinese spy. Which is probably, if nothing else, just great comedy. I cannot believe that this, the white balloon floating through the sky became the, the biggest hit story for how many days . And we'll talk about what my thoughts are on that and why I think it was just a huge distraction for something else that was bigger going on. Uh, so we'll talk about what that is, and then we are also going to discuss the controversy that is surrounding the very new Harry Potter game. Now, I, for one, am stoked about this game. I read my daughter Harry Potter every single night. I love JK Rowling. I posted about her last week. I really appreciate her opinions on the, uh, current events that are going on surrounding the trans movement and some things like that that she's spoken out on, uh, protecting actual women's rights. So there's been some controversy surrounding that. We'll talk about why, but. Just know this. JK Rowling is on the good side, , she is on the good side, and there's not too many of us, right? Especially when it comes to, you know, authors and generally creative people in the the large spotlight of the world. So holding down the Fort JK Rowling, I appreciate you. All right. Then, like I said, we're gonna jump into our main topic of the week, which is all gonna be about how the education system is just indoctrinating your children and turning them into factory workers and how that started, who founded it, why, and how to correct it for you and your family moving forward. So without further ado, let's jump into it. But first things first, I need you to hit that subscribe button if you're new here. I appreciate you so much from the bottom of my heart. I love ya. Thank you for listening. If you're already here around with me every single. I love you too. Thank you. I appreciate you. I love these conversations with you guys. So go ahead and hit that subscribe button. If you are already subscribed, leave a five star review and tell me why you love the podcast. Tell me your favorite episode. Tell me something we should talk about, whatever it is. Tell me a guest that I should have on the show, which is the direction that we're moving here shortly, um, is we will be adding in additional shows with interviews. So tell me who that is, um, or who you think I should have on the show, but. Leave a review, then head over to the red pill revolution.dot com. You'll be able to get a free podcast companion every single week directly through your email, which will include all of the links, all of the articles that are discussed here. It will also include all of the subtopic videos, the full video podcast, the podcast directly to your email every week. And it's free. If you can imagine. Last week I released three different articles that we wrote, um, surrounding the topics that we were talking about that week. So I'll have an article out this week about JK Rowling and Harry Potter's video game In the controversy around that. We will have a article out about the spy balloons, and then we will have a article out as well about Sam Smith at the Grammy's. So, and then obviously we're gonna be writing and putting stuff out about the education system, so at least three, maybe four articles this week directly to your inbox on top of the podcast companion. So what the hell are you doing if you are not subscribed? What are you doing? Just head over there right now, red pill revolution.dot com and follow us on, uh, social media at Red Pill Revolt. All right, that's all I got. Go ahead and subscribe. Five star review. Love ya. Let's jump into it. Welcome to Red Pill Revolution. My name is Austin Adams. Red Pill Revolution started out with me, realizing everything that I knew, everything that I believed, everything I interpreted about my life is through the lens of the information I was spoonfed as a child. Religion, politics, history, conspiracies, Hollywood medicine, money, food, all of it. Everything we know was tactfully written to influence your decisions and your view on reality by those in power. Now I'm on a mission, a mission to retrain and reeducate myself to find the true reality of what is behind that curtain. And I'm taking your ass with me. Welcome to the Revolution. All right. All right. All right. And my best Matthew McConaughey impression, the very first thing we're gonna talk about today is Sam Smith's Grammy performance, where he was dressed as the devil on primetime television with women around him dancing in what appeared to be bondage materials with the flames all around them. it's like in primetime, televis. Right children watching this, uh, in, in one of the most celebrated Hollywood events right now, you have people out there like Alex Jones, who have been talking about Hollywood being satanic, calling them Satanists for decades, and everybody for how long has pointed to Alex Jones and called him a conspiracy theorist, and all of a sudden it's just rubbed in our face constantly from the artwork that was on the wall of Freaky Friday. Mom's, uh, business meeting office that we talked about last week to Sam Smith's Grammy performance to. Basically everything that comes out of Hollywood from the, uh, the cosmetic lines of the Kardashians to, uh, uh, there's basically nothing that you can point to that is not satanic at this point in Hollywood. that's an exaggeration, but this is probably one of the most egregious ones. So we're, there's a lot, a lot of pushback on this, and let's find out why. So this article comes from Yahoo News and it says, did we really need a satanic bondage show at the Grammys? And this again, comes from Yahoo News, which is kind of surprising to me because Yahoo News is primarily left-leaning and even they're critiquing this. All right, so it goes on to say that, wanna know why so many people are giving up on mainstream pop culture? Take a look at Sam Smith and Kim Petra's performance of their hit song, unholy at the Grammy Awards on Sunday night, in case you missed it. Variety described the performance as including Petras dancing in a cage, flanked by some dominatrices wearing satanic headgear. Smith also dawned a satanic top hat as huge flames heated up the stage, you know, wholesome family entertainment, . Uh, now it looks totally possible for a mature adult to watch this and see it for what it is, an aggressive reach for attention through controversy, right? And, and that's what some people have done is like a defense to this, right? When it came to Balenciaga, when it came to even this, you'll see a lot of people are just saying, oh, it's just they're, they're trying to push controversy. Well, here's the thing about. Right When we're talking about people's religions, when we're talking about like the actual good verse e like maybe this isn't the time when Balenciaga is literally subtweeting pedophilia and satanic ritualistic, I don't know, endeavors through their ad campaigns. And then Jamie Lee Curtis gets called out for having a, a, a pedophilia based artwork on her wall. And then, uh, you know, all, all of these things, all of these things that are happening simultaneously over the last, I don't know, two to three years maybe now's not the time to have a Satanic ritual on stage during the Grammys. That's all I'm saying. Maybe , maybe, maybe there's a better time for that and maybe it's not immediately after Balenciaga, Jamie Lee Curtis and all of these people. Epstein like maybe now is not the. Right. Maybe there's a better time for that or maybe there's no reason for it all when you're pushing it during mainstream hours, right? You have children watching the Grammys. It's the Grammys. It's like literally like going to watch American Idol and then all of a sudden they're pushing satanism down your throat and everybody's acting like satanism isn't an actual thing, right? I watched something on Joe Rogan. I was watching the, a recent Joe Rogan episode where it was, ah, gosh, what's the guy's name? Let me see if I can find it. The guy was on Joe Rogan and he was talking about how ridiculous it is that the, the right takes, the idea that there's satanism within high up political positions and within Hollywood and all of these things. Seriously, right? Like Kyle Kolinsky, Kyle Kolinsky, which wasn't, you know, wasn't, wasn't the most crazy positions that he held during this, and I would be happy to speak with him. Um, but. His position was this. He, he went on to Joe Rogan and said something along the lines of the fact that there's real conspiracies out there, right? There's things like Epstein Island are real, but things like the Q Conspiracy, which, yes, there's definitely some crazy weird, unrealistic, bizarre and far reaching positions within the Q movement, but one of them that he called out specifically was that there is, uh, satanic rituals happening in high up positions of Hollywood and government political positions. Right. He, he alluded to the idea that, oh, that's just a conspiracy and everybody wants to call them out. But, you know, Joe Rogan has talked about this specifically, that there's actually things going on like Bohemian Grove, where you have people who are in high political positions, who are in, who are multi-billionaires, who all meet each other at a certain little club. In California, in burn EFS that are supposed to be child sacrifices to a owl God at Bohemian Grove, which again, going back to Alex Jones, he actually went and did undercover work to be there during one of these and saw the whole thing go down. This is real right now. He talked about the comet ping pong pizza thing and like pizza gate and all of that, and how crazy that is. And maybe, maybe so. Maybe that's crazy, but you cannot tell me that there is not satanists riddled within high political and positions within high, uh, societal positions like Hollywood, like music, like politics. You cannot tell me that that is not a thing. It's already been proven in places like Bohemian Grove, and then these things just compound on top of it. Right. So when we see people like Bill Clinton riding on Epstein's plane to go to Epstein Island, bill Gates being best friends, it seems like with Epstein during all of this, right, all of these people having their own islands, and then you look at the, the altars sitting on the top of Epstein Island, you cannot tell me that there is not a deeper issue going on there at all. That is not motivated in some sort of anti, uh, anti Christianity, anti-God satanic ritualistic thing going on there that is self-admitted, in be the Bohemian Grove situation. We already know that to be true. So it's frustrating to me that everybody is still trying to say that you're crazy for saying that these things exist. If you tell me that I'm crazy for believing that Christians exist, everybody would look at you and go, yeah, you're done. And, but you tell people that there's actual satanism in high positions in politics or, or even that they just exist in general. And people all of a sudden think you're a wild conspiracy theorist. It's like, no, there is a good and there is an evil, there is a light and there is a dark it. It's a real thing, guys. Okay? Now that all kind of goes back to the music conversation here, right? The conversation here is that maybe this was a cry for attention. Maybe this was a cry for controversy. Maybe they wanted to get more eyes on the Grammys cuz nobody gives a shit about it at all anymore. Nobody watches the Grammys, at least not that I know. Nobody wa, nobody cares about any of these shows anymore. They're completely irrelevant. So maybe it is a cry for attention and all publicity is good publicity, even if it is Satanic, right? Maybe that's the case, but maybe now is not the time to do that with all these things coming out, like Balenciaga and all of these other campaigns that have been rearing their ugly heads during this time, right? So, . There's my thought on that. All right. It moves on to say that this, um, it says that there was the 1980s satanic panic when politicians wives were able to get congressional hearings held to tackle the supposed scourge of heavy metal bands that seemed harmlessly campy. With the passage of time and last night's Satan bonded show reminded me of that onion headline from 22 years ago. Marilyn Manson now goes door to door trying to shock people . But even if you see the Satanic shtick as more schlocky than disturbing, it's hard to make the case that images of women grinding in cages are appropriate for network television on a Sunday night during prime time, a time when the broadest audience available, including children are watching. Again, we are talking about the Grammy Awards mainstream Pop Music's Oscars, which aired on CBS b s from 8:00 PM Now, one thing about it too is c b s before the show said, ready. What did they say? They said in a tweet, ready to worship. CBS b s, the same CBS b s that you watched Arthur on, pretty sure that was Cbs b s, the same c b s that you throw on kids' cartoons is saying, ready to worship the devil with Sam ha Sam Smith at the Grammy Awards. Now to piggyback off of that and make things even worse on the transition out of the performance, the very next thing that pops on the screen with flames in the background is sponsored by none other than Pfizer, who would have thought, , you cannot write this. Why would they do that? Why would they do that? If I was, if I was sponsoring, you know, how much that ad position costs? Do you know how much Pfizer paid out to have that specific position during the Grammy? On the backs of a Satanic ritual music performance that was going on, whether it was for shock factor or if it was really what happened. Now some people are also showing and talking about the 2000 plus people that died from an earthquake the day following. I'm not saying anything about that, but it's an interesting coincidence. Um, but what in the world, right? So, um, this is not, it goes on to say, this is not to say art shouldn't be provocative. Petris whose past hits include, treat me like a slut. During her acceptance speech, after winning the Grammy best pop duo performance for unholy proclaimed that she was the first transition or transgender woman to win the award. And later backstage explained that she grew up wondering about religion and wanting to be a part of it, but slowly realizing it didn't want me to be a part of it. So it's a take on not being able to choose religion and not being able to live the way that people might want you to live. Because as a trans person, I'm already not kind of wanted in religion. So we were doing a take on that and I was kind of, hell keep Kim, what kind of bullshit response is that? That's the best you got for that. Like, oh, I'm trans. That was literally . Literally her response is, well, don't be mad at me. I'm trans. What a perfect response. What , as far as I'm concerned, this says, Willing. Adults can watch this if they want, but last night's TV audience didn't buy a ticket for this. Indeed, on a show intended for general audiences, it was meant to provoke, to push boundaries and very possibly designed to offend a good portion of the audience. At least 30, 40% of the audience is somebody not far left liberal. Which the fact that you even have to say that like the idea that being a associated with trans or the left is inherently makes you much closer to being on the side of the satanic ritualistic performance is kind of comical. Right. And I don't think that very many people would agree with that, that are on the left that would like this to be happening. Like I, I don't think that's, but the mainstream is trying to say that. Right. Anyways, all right, let's go ahead and read on, it goes on to say, All right. And when you're sticking your finger in the eye of millions of people, it's really hard to argue with those saying that Hollywood produces a mainstream popular culture that is openly intolerant of their values. It's also harder to tell them they're wrong and intolerant. If you would prefer to check out, unplug the TV and homeschool your kids, which we'll get to at the end of this choice is a two-way street. And many are making the informed choice to tune out while they still can. I may be attuned to this, more, attuned to this than some. Almost every Sunday, my wife and I sit back at the pew of a conservative church about once a month. The pastor preaches about how bad things are in America and how our culture is. So Deb botched and depraved. Um, so this must be a very opinionated piece from Yahoo that nobody approved cuz they would never let somebody who goes to church be a part of Yahoo All right. Anyways, uh, and then they have the actual performance here. Let's see if we can see the last. Minute there. So 30 seconds. Or not? Or not. All right. Um, moving on. Moving on. All right. The next thing that we're gonna discuss here is going to be, and I'd be interested to see your guys' thoughts. Do you think that they were being real? Do you think that it was all a ploy for controversy? I don't know. Either way, do better. That's like, that's so like, can't be is the right term. Like just cheap. Cheap. If that's what you're doing for controversy, right? That's like you can just maybe be better at singing and writing songs. You don't have to do satanic stuff to get people's attention. All right. Now the next thing discussed here is that the, the . So if you had been under a rock over the last week, there was a big white balloon floating over the United States for days, and allegedly it was a Chinese spy balloon. Now, if you were to engineer a Chinese spy balloon, a spy balloon, why would you make it white Why? Why is the first color that comes to mind in the sky going to be like they just didn't expect there to be clear skies? I don't know, but it was so easy to see. It looked like, like there was everybody who was zooming in on this, this spy balloon thought it was. They're like, there's the moon and what the hell is that? Right? If, if you're truly spending billions of dollars to spy on the United States, I don't think you're doing it by painting a white balloon and then sending it across the country at 14 miles an hour. , it seems like if China already has all of the information they ever need, you know what they needed to do, even if they're flying over Montana for the, the nuke bases that are there, or whatever's going on there that they were trying to gather data and intel for. You know what they had to do? They had to go to TikTok and they had to flip. You know what? They didn't even have to flip a switch. What is this? 1980. They had to search in the search bar, Montana, nuke site, military personnel, and then they would've had a list of every single person ever, and they would've all been actively scrolling, TikTok, talking about everything they would ever have wanted to know. Why in the hell would China need a spy balloon of all things  in 20 2023 to spy on the United States? This seems so comical that they captivated the entire country with this and still managed somehow to make Biden look Incom even more incompetent than he already was in weak. But the fact that this balloon floated over the United States at four miles an hour with some type of solar panels underneath it for days. Days, and we're expected to believe that that was some type of spy balloon. To me, there's absolutely more going on here. Whether it was something to divert the public's attention away from other things that were going on, you know, like Pfizer being tried for crimes against humanity simultaneously. Hmm. Maybe that, which I think, uh, Marjorie Taylor Green brought up within some of the hearings that were going on during that time. Uh, how there was like ungodly amounts of money that were being funneled out of the covid relief sacks going to, you know, all types of horrible things. Um, so I I, I don't see how it was in the diversion. If it was, it worked and the fact that our, the American attention span, it's like, oh, a balloon. There must be nothing else going around that's worthy of news at this time. Like that's the best that they had to divert our attention. And it worked. Right? Like, how is the why? Why are we so easily fooled? Right? What , and if that was true, how, like, there's one of two options here. Option one is that we were truly, truly captivated by a balloon with no other information besides just the fact that there was a balloon. It would've been better if it was like a balloon with like the Chinese flag on it that said like, fuck you, United States or something, That would've been far more entertaining. Like that would've caught my attention better, at least have some good comedy involved. Uh, but it was just a white balloon and just everybody stopped to see what was going on. And somehow we knew it was Chinese before the Chinese even agreed with us. I heard some people saying potentially maybe it was diversion or, or it was some type of test to see if they floated these balloons across the United States simultaneously and like launched E em P attacks. They wanted to test the waters to see how capable we were of tracking them and finding them and how far into the US they would get. Maybe, maybe. But I also think that that, like, just the fact that news companies picked this up so quickly, social media picked this up so quickly. It just seems bizarre to me. Seems bizarre. I don't know, again, I'd be interested to see what your guys' thoughts are. I do not see how this balloon was the best way that China was going to surveil the United States. I, I don't buy it. They already have assets in every single military installation. They have them at every top university. They have every single person including mine, their phone bugged right now to where they're listening to this conversation of me making fun of them. , right? They can hear everything. They know everything. They can look at pictures of my dick on my phone or something. I don't know, right? They, they, they know everything about you. They know everything you're saying when you're saying it. Why the hell, anybody at all would believe they need to float a big white balloon over the United States to actually get any information that they needed is just puzzling and comical to me right now. I put something out there that was a little Babylon esque , which was like, it's my take because the Babylon bee missed on this one. They could have done better, so I put my own out there. Um, but which was that, uh, military too, too busy paying attention to completely harmless TikTok app to notice Chinese spy balloon, which is like kind of a double hit, right? Like the fact that we're gonna all sit and complain about China spying on us with this balloon. Yet every single one of you is sitting there with TikTok on your phone right now, right? Almost everybody. If you don't, and you're still holding all on TikTok, One of two things. You're either over 60, 50, maybe, maybe 45. And if you're under that and you don't got it, you lame, you gotta have TikTok, even if you're showing them off, you know, all your pictures, all your life, telling 'em everything, you know, holding outs, holding out. So just, just give your, give your life over to China. They already, they already have everybody else's information. They might as well own you too. Right. So I, I just, okay, so here's the next thing that came up. As a result of this, the Pentagon came out and said they did not detect previous Chinese spy balloons. Right? So, so the Biden administration came out and tried to say that during the Trump administration there was at least three times that Chinese spy balloons flew over the United States. which then Trump denied. Right. And that was after a top US general said that the Pentagon did not detect them, but there were, the Biden administration was trying to say, well, well it wasn't just us. Trump had two of these or three of these balloons too, right? Which is like just he said, she said H hilarity. Now it goes on and said that we did not detect any of those threats. Um, the Intel community after the fact, I believe, as has been briefed, already assessed those threats from additional means of collection and made us aware of these balloons that were previously approaching North America or transited North America. President Biden ordered the latest Chinese surveillance balloon, which spent days in US Aerospace to be shot down off the coast of South Carolina on Saturday. I highly doubt he had anything to do with that, but the US is currently trying to recover the debris, hoping to gain intelligence from the wreck. After a senior in this article is coming from the Hill. Um, after a senior defense official said over the weekend that the US was aware of at least three different times, such balloons flew over the US During the Trump administration, the former president and his intelligence officials came out to deny the claim. Now they are putting out that the balloon was put up by China during the Trump administration in order to take the heat off the slow moving Biden Fools Trump said in the post untruth social, China has had too much respect for Trump for this to have happened, and it never did just fake disinformation. The clash between the Biden administration and Trump and his former officials prompted rep, uh, representative Marjorie Taylor Green to call for a probe into why Trump was not made aware of the balloons during his presidency if they were detected. If it's true, the Pentagon purposefully did not tell Trump of Chinese spy balloons during his administration. Then we had a serious breach of command during the Trump administration. She said on Twitter, Senior administration officials cited Sunday in Bloomberg reporting said that the US didn't learn about the previous balloons until after Trump had left the Oval Office. It is unclear how the Biden administration learned about the previous flights. Alright, that's my take on the fricking spy balloon , like there's oh oh seven, there's, you know, like, and then there's the Chinese white spy balloon, like the, the, this just shows you how, how far the US has fallen. And then last but not least in the current events trained here is going to be that JK Rawling and the Harry Potter video game are taking heat for seemingly no reason at. Okay. JK Rowling wrote the Harry Potter series, and I put out a, a, a post a couple days ago, few days ago now, um, talking about how JK Rowling has been vehemently posting about how she is against the movement of men wearing wigs pretending to be women and moving into female spaces under the guise of being trans. Okay? She has been very public in her, her disavowing of this movement, of calling out the people that were allowed to be moved into jail. Cells who were like actual six foot four murderers going into jail with women, like, because they were calling themself trans and wearing a wig. So she's been very, very public about this and, and, and, Fully, we, there's, there's actually some people with the balls to do this that are, have this big of a platform because she's taken a ton of heat for it, right? And now here's the, here's what's going on with it. It says, why is Hogwarts legacy a Harry Potter video game so controversial right now? The, the, the, the cliff notes of this is going to be that she doesn't agree with the trans agenda, and she believes in encroachment on feminine spaces and on femininity as a whole, right? Men putting on a wig saying they feel like a woman wearing makeup, watching some YouTube contouring classes, and then all of a sudden going to pee in a women's bathroom. As a result, she doesn't agree with it. Okay? So now everybody's calling for boycotts of the Harry Potter game and like everybody's, like from Twitter perspective and all of these, like people trying to review Harry Potter. Like towing the line, but also really pissed that this video game is just crushing it. It's a sweet looking video game. I can't wait to play it. Um, and I haven't played video games in quite a while, uh, but this one is one that I will almost go out and buy a new gaming system just to be able to play. It looks incredible. So it's a role-playing game of Harry Potter. You start out as if you are a new stu, well, not a new student, a fifth year student at Hogwarts. And then you go through and, and you can create your character, you can go on missions, you get it's, it looks amazing and. Like, for all of us that grew up on Harry Potter, like this is a dream come true. That you have something like this incredible technology like the, the, the picture that I'm looking at of Harry flying a hippogriff right now, which is like a eagle mixed with a horse. If you don't know, the Harry Potter series just looks unbelievable. Like it looks beautiful, all right? And now they're calling for people to boycott it over her position on trans ideology. Now, here's what I have to say, just as like a metapoint over all of this is that I just got done. I've been on a little bit of a fiction kick recently. I haven't read very much fiction in my life at all. So I'm going back and reading like all the OG stuff, right? Like I I the first, this started a little bit, well, I actually say it started with fairy. Um, I just start, I just finished probably a month ago. Uh, Stephen King's new book. That was the number one book of 2022, which was Fairytale, which is an incredible, incredible book. I would highly recommend you go read it. It's a bit thick. It's like 700 pages. It was a bit thick for me to read for my very first fiction book and probably 10 years Um, but it was very good. Captivated my attention. It's an incredible story, beautifully written. Like, so much like it's, it's great. I would highly, highly recommend it. Fairytale by Stephen King. Go check it out. Um, literally if you have a, a library card and, and just go buy it from Amazon anyways, cause it's like 15 bucks. Um, but here's the deal. I don't agree with the things that Stephen King said about politics. I don't agree with his positions on politics. I don't. He he's constantly calling out the right, he's, he's very liberal in his ideology. He does not agree with the Second Amendment. I could give two shits what Stephen King thinks about politics. You know what? He's an incredible writer, and I don't care what he thinks about politics. He's an amazing artist, and regardless of his political stance, just like I, I would be friends with anybody who's on the, any side of the spectrum, right? I don't think that you need to condemn somebody's life work because they disagree with you politically then that that literally means that you're gonna take 50%, 50% of the, maybe not 50% of the artist, just with the way that personality traits lie when it comes to being leaning left or being right, but, A good portion of the talented people in the world. And if you're on the right and you have a problem with artists who are left leaning, then you literally are like, out of 75% of the conversations when it actually comes to enjoying art, enjoying music, enjoying Hollywood, like Hollywood movies. Like you're just out of the conversation and the whole, so like maybe in part this is just like self-preservation in, in my appreciation of art in this lifetime, but I, I just don't see how you can take somebody's political opinion and, and just completely discount their life's work and, and, and discount something that they, this universe that they built beautifully and incredibly over how much of their, their life that you. Like made my childhood at points, it was probably one, it was the only fiction books I really read growing up that I was just like, really Remember reading? I read almost, I read all the Harry Potter books. My grandma gave them to me every year that they came out and I read them every year. I loved Harry Potter, loved all the movies, right? And, and if it was Stephen King that wrote it, I would still enjoy it. And if the game was badass and looked like this, I would still play it. I don't care about, that's like, that's the difference to me between the left and the right is that the left is going to like, and, and maybe that's a powerful thing and for the left at least, maybe that's something that you can give 'em. It's like, man, they're really sticking by it. If you're not gonna go play this sick Gary Potter game because she spoke out against women being, or men being allowed in women's prison.  after they murdered people. Like, that's your position then, you know, you're pretty, you're sticking to your guns pretty hard because I'll, I would still play this game for sure. Right. So let, let's read this article. We'll see what the actual, this is coming from Polygon. Not sure what the hell that website is, um, but let's read it. It says, Hogwarts legacy on the face of it, should have been the pure wish fulfillment for millions of fans who have been enchanted by the Lord of Harry Potter's world over the last 25 years in the video game launching next week, players will live the life of mystery and adventure that comes with being a student at pop culture's. Foremost school of witchcraft and wizardry still Hogwarts legacy and the Harry Potter franchise trouble. Many fans for reasons outside the video game, story or context. Why is that? We'll now go further behind the wizarding world curtains to explain the controversy. The game, which was announced at PlayStation State of Play event in September, 2020. Hogwarts legacy is an open world action r PPG adventure in which the player enrolls in Hogwarts school of witchcraft and witchy. Uh, the player character is user generated, however, they're a fifth stu, fifth year student, so they'll begin this, the game with some advanced magical aptitude. Why is the game controversial? Mainly because the public stances that author and series creator JK Rowling has chosen to take regarding gender identity. Going back to 2018, her views came into full display in the summer of 2020. At the time, Scotland Row, as a resident of Edenberg writing most Harry Potter series, there was considering changing its laws to allow individuals to change the gender assign in their birth certificates without a medical diagnosis. After a couple years of Corey's social media adjusters and replies on the subject, on June 10th, 2020 Row, published a confrontational 3,600 word essay on her personal website, spelling out her views on gender identity, her skepticism of transgender inclusive laws and policies, and the new trans activism row invoked her own survival of domestic abuse and surv sexual assault, while also raising a discredited hypothetical about male, a discredited hypothetical about male sexual predators being allowed into restrooms for girls and women as long as they identify as women. There is nothing hypothetical about that. There's literally countless articles out there of people predators. There's literally a school where they silence the girl and their parents for talking about this boy that was coming into the women's locker room and and preying on. I'm pretty sure raped them in this locker room. And then they were, the school was standing up for the man, the boy who was identifying as a girl and literally raped these girls. And, and like this's, not a high, a discredited hypothetical to say that this is happening. Like if you are a predator, why would you not do that? It's literally a backdoor like workaround, loophole to being able to be a fucking creep. And all you have to do is throw a wig on it and nobody gets to say anything to you like that. Yeah. Not a discredited hypothetical. Anyways, since the June, 2020 editorial rolling has continued to engage with the subject of transgender identity from the same point of view, her crime trouble, or crime crime novel, it's the Wine Troubled Blood, also published in 2020 under the Nome Day Plume, Robert Galbraith. Well, that was pretty good. Huh um, tells the story of a serial killer who dresses as a woman when he carries out his murders. LGBTQ plus advocacy organizations condemned it in Rowing's other writings as harmful and subor the harm and discrimination of transgender persons. Although some of Rowing's celebrity colleagues publicly came to her defense, um, is she developing it reportedly? Not immediately after Hogwarts legacy worldwide revealed in September, 2020, publishers, Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment Post, they frequently asked questions that distance the project from rolling. Hogwarts legacy is not a new story from rowing. Um, adding that rolling is not directly involved in the creation of the game. All right. It says, obviously, however it is built on the Harry Potter Kenos in concepts that Rolling had has developed since the book Harry Potter and The Philosopher Stone, which was published in 1997. Warner Bro's. Interactive Entertainment put its Utah based studio Avalanche software on Hogwarts legacy. W B I E acquired Avalanche. Who cares? All this said Rollings inevitably benefits from the publication in sale of ho like, yeah, of course. Whether that's in the form of royalty is a specific payment to adapt to her work. Who cares? Who cares? Um, yeah, who cares? Yes, she's involved. She literally created this entire universe in her head, along with all of the characters, all of the games, all of the spells, the entire school that you're going to all of it. And if you care to put a political statement down to not play it, she does not give a flying shit, as she said on Twitter. Um, literally actually said that on Twitter. I'll, I'll read you verbatim. She said. Uh, you're not required to buy it as she, oh, she retweeted this from Solomon Rushdi. Um, you're not required to buy it. The truth is the truth, whether you buy it or not, the planet is round. Even if you don't buy that and insist it's flat. But I'm, it, the, whoever tweeted that or retweeted somebody talking about it, um, deleted this. So I can't tell what the context of that was, but it seems to be about the video game, I would assume it is. Um, but another tweet by JK Rowling said, I don't know about you, but excluding women from women's prisons just because they've got penises, male pattern baldness and have committed a couple rapes, seems awfully turfy to me. . And that was a response to, does Scotland's first prime Minister believe all trans women are women? Uh, yeah, because they recently in Scotland said that men could not go live in women's prisons just because they think they're a girl. So, Anyways, let's go back and see if there's anything of merit on this. Here's something that Jesse Earl said, no idea who that is, but don't really care. Um, any support of the Harry Potter franchise current projects while JK Rowling is in charge of it and using her ongoing platform to target and also justify her continued targeting of trans people is harmful to trans people. I will not begrudge anyone their love of past works or things they've already owned that they take comfort in. I own the first nine movies and all seven books myself, but any support of something like Hogwarts legacy is harmful. It's so harmful to say that men who raped women should not be in prison with women. Um, and then JK Rowling said deeply disappointed. Jesse Granger doesn't realize, pure think is incompatible with owning anything connected with me in any form. The true righteous wouldn't just burn their books in movies, but the lo local library, anything with an owl on it. And their own bad dogs do better. Um, way to go JK Rowling. Um, yeah, so it's the fact that they're like, trying to say that you should just outright not play this game at all, to me, is like comical. Like I said, I read Stephen King's book. I I think that you should go read Stephen King's book regardless of his political opinion. It's a phenomenal book. Harry Potter's a phenomenal, apparently a video game now. Uh, it's phenomenal books. Who cares about their political ideology? You should appreciate good art regardless of what they think. And, and in a world where, you know, like 50 years ago, you would've never even known these things to begin with. So like, who cares? Go read Stephen King. Go read JK Rowling. Who cares? Uh, appreciate good art and art for what it is. And, and if you don't agree with their political opinions, then don't follow them on Twitter. Who gives a shit right? Those are my thoughts. All right, and last but not least, the very last thing we're gonna discuss is going to be the American education system. All right, now we'll see how long we get into this, cuz I have quite the lengthy article here that we're gonna read through, which goes into all of it, the history, who funded it, all of it. But before I do that, the first thing I need you to do is if you didn't listen to me the first time, I'm just gonna assume you like, you know, I don't know your, your earbuds fell out while you were cleaning your house. You fell outta your car for 15 to 20 seconds, jumped up, opened the door, and got back in there. And just so happened to miss the first part where I asked you to subscribe . But if you could and you didn't already, please hit that subscribe button, I would appreciate it from the bottom of my heart. I truly would. If you already subscribe, please leave a five star review and then go sign up for the ck. All right, here's the deal with the CK and here's why I'm pushing this so heavily and here's why I'm going to be putting out so much more content there. The sub is the only place that I have a direct connection with you. Okay? Nobody's taking away my sub. Nobody's taking away the email list that I download a CSV file of nobody. I will always have access to your email. 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Um, there's nothing below the paywall, but there is the appreciation of my warmest, heartfelt appreciations. All right, so, But eventually we will be doing something with that. So for now it's free. Go ahead and sign up. All right, now moving on. Here we go. This is an article that was written up by the soul jam.com. All right. Now, I've been diving into this for a pretty long time now, the, the reason that I'm going into this today is because I believe wholeheartedly in the idea of educating your children. Right. I believe that as a society as a whole, we have been abdicating far too much of the responsibility of raising our children to corporations, governmental entities, and screens. Okay? That's what we've been doing, and we've been doing it in the name of like, easier, like, like just. Go away from me. Right? It's easier if your kid goes off to school every day and you don't have to deal with them. It's easier if you turn on a TV and the first thing in the morning when they wake up, so you don't have to deal with them. It's easier if you, you know, X, Y, and Z and, and fill it in. Every single thing that we do today in the modern society is for the ease of the parents and the, the lack of the child, right? So in school's, one of the biggest ones of that, my children that are of school age are all homeschooled by my wife. Okay? We sat down, we figured up a cur, figured out a curriculum. This is not something that I'm just. Talking about, and as a hypothetical, I live this every day, okay? And it's not easy to homeschool your children. It is not easy. But you know what else is not easy? Is knowing that your child is being indoctrinated in a school system that doesn't align with your belief systems. It's also knowing that your child is being indoctrinated in a school system, that there's 25 other children in the room where your child's getting very little, if any attention, and you could give them the same amount of quality of education, if not far greater in the fraction amount of the time. And all we're doing with public schools is literally just pushing our children into a glorified daycare, okay? Especially in an age where technology gives you the ability to educate yourself better than you can. Go online right now and take free Harvard courses. No problem. You can go online to YouTube right now and go find the single best person, and it's already curated for you. YouTube's already done all the legwork. They've found the single best person at teaching you something in, in, in the most engaging and entertaining way you can go find it, search literally anything, and you'll be able to find it. It's all done for you. That's how easy our lives are, but we've forgotten that. We're so far from that now that just because we have access to the information, we're still shoving our children off to schools just because it's easier. So there's my preempt. Let's read this article. It says, the Ugly Truth about the education system that You Were Never Told, quote by Alo Einstein says, education is not the learning of facts, but the training of minds. And Albert Einstein said, ever since I've gotten deeper, and, and this is an article written by, um, again, the Soulja. Um, it says, ever since I've gotten deeper into spirituality, meditation, and metaphysics, a lot of my views in the variety of subjects have changed dramatically. But something that hasn't changed since the time I was a kid is my views on the education system. We usually think of schools as environments to stimulate learning, but it ironically, ironically, manages to stifle the innate curiosity and the eagerness to learn that are present in all of us as children. It promotes mindless conformity and conveniently ignores the fact that we are all unique individuals with different talents, inclinations, and aspirations. Schools curtail independent thinking and inputs all of us through standardized tests and sees it as a good indicator to determine someone's level of intelligence. The system frankly never made sense to me, and I would often sit in class and wonder how most of what I was taught in class would have any real life application. But upon exploring the origins of the current education system, it has finally started to make perfect sense, and I've discovered that it is serving the very purpose it was designed to accomplish. What if I told you that it was never meant to, to meant for the objective of the current education system to nurture, learning, curiosity, critical thinking and creativity in students, but in fact, to do quite the opposite. In this post, I'd like to share with you a compilation of writings that reveal the veracity of the above statements by uncovering the startling origins and purpose of the education system, the factory model of education. Um, the famous author and futurist, Alwin Toffler describes the origins of the current education system in his 1970s book, future Shock, which goes on to say, pause for Wine, which goes on to. The American, the American education system,  education system, as well as the system practiced here in India and around the world, was actually copied from the 18th century Prussian model designed to create docile subjects in factory workers. Mass education was the Indi or the ingenious machine, constructed by industrialism to produce the kind of adults that needed how to preap children for a new world, a world of repetitive indoor toil, smoke noise machines, crowded living conditions, collective discipline in a world in which time was to be regulated, not by the cycle of the sun and the moon, but by the factory whistle and the clock. The solution was an education system that in its very structure, simulated this new world. This new system did not emerge instantly, even today. It remains throwback elements from the pre-industrial society, yet the whole idea of assembling masses of a students to be processed by teachers in essentially located school. Was a stroke of industrial genius. The whole administration hierarchy of education as it grew up, followed the model of the industrial bureaucracy. The very organization of knowledge into permanent disciplines was grounded on industrial assumptions. Children's children's marched from place to place and sat in the signs stations bells rang to announce changes of time. The inner life of the school became an anticipatory mirror, a perfect introduction to industrial society. The most criticized feature of education today, the regimentation, lack of indus or individualization, the rigid systems of seating, grouping, grading and marking. The authoritarian rule of the teacher are precisely those that made mass public education so effective in instrument of adaptation for its place. And. Built on the factory model, mass education, taught basic reading, writing, and arithmetic, A bit of history and other subjects. The overt curriculum beneath it was the covert curriculum that was far more basic. It consisted of three courses, punctuality, obedience, and repetitive work. The basic training requirements to produce reliable, productive factory workers. Factory labor demanded workers who would take orders from a management hierarchy without questioning, and it demanded men and women prepared to slave away at machines or in offices performing brutally repetitive tasks. And that was a paraphrased article from Alan Toffler s Future Shock Book. All right, so now what we go on to find was that the model that was modeled off of the Prussian model of the 18th century was implemented by none other than the Rockefeller family, John d Rockefeller implemented. Using 129 million, the general education board, and provided major funding for schools across the nation and was very influential in shaping the school systems. He didn't exactly conceal his interests and motive in being actively involved in promoting the widespread adaptation of the education system. And once stated, and I quote, I don't want a nation of thinkers, I want a nation of workers, Frederick t. T Gates, a prominent member of the General Education Board, also stated, we shall not try to make these people or any of their children into philosophers or men of learning or men of science, we have not to raise up from among them, authors, editors, poets, or men of letters. We shall not search for embryo, great artists, painters, musicians, nor lawyers, doctors, preachers, politicians, statements of whom we have an ample supply. There are even reports that Rockefeller and Industrial Giant, Andrew Carnegie played a significant role to influence the American education agenda to direct what students were taught in school. In 1914, the National Education Association alarmed by the activity of the Carnegie and Rockefeller Foundation stated in their annual meeting, we view with alarm the activity of the Carnegie and Rockefeller Foundations agencies not in any way responsible to the people in their efforts to control the policies of our state education institutions to fashion after their contraception, conception,  to factor after their conception, and to standardize our courses of study and to surround the institutions with conditions which menace true academic freedom and defeat the primary purpose of democracy as here to four, preserved and violate in our common schools, normal schools and universities. So, Very interesting. It goes on to say that don't miss how one man brainwashed humanity to be mindless consumers, which was an excerpt from a brief History of education published in Psychology Today by Research Professor Peter Gray. So what we find there is the John, the, the Rockefeller Foundation implemented the general education board and the general education board. The idea, and, and, and then we talked about this when we almost go back to our very first episode, right? Um, ins, uh, uh, assassinations. Um, go, go back to the very first episode, and we find out that during the 1920s, 1930s, 1940s, the, the whole movement away from allopathic mess or towards allopathic medicine from osteopathic and homeopathic medicine was all because of the Rockefeller Foundation. They pumped money in and, and made certifications and basically pushed out anybody that didn't align with the allopathic way of medicine. The allopathic way of medicine being the fact that your body. It has nothing to do with what's fighting the diseases and all you need is our pharmaceuticals, and that makes a much more profitable model. Right. So it was about structuring the way of education and medical pharmaceuticals in a way that allowed them to profit from it and, and to profit from you being a worker, not by you being a good thinker. Right. So with this article goes on to say from Psychology Today, um, says, if we want to understand why standard schools are what they are, we have to abandon the idea that they are products of logical necessity or scientific insight. They are instead, products of history. Schooling as it exists today only makes sense if we view it from a historical perspective. The idea and practice of universal compulsory public education developed gradually in Europe from the early 16th century on into the 19th century. It was an idea that had many supporters who all had their own agendas concerning the lessons that children should learn. Employers in the industry saw schooling as a way to create better workers. To them, the most crucial lessons were punctuality, following directions. Tolerance for long hours of tedious work and a minimal ability to read and write. So you guys can read more into that, but, but here's my position on all of it. We're, we're in a position now as a society where, where we can gain control, right? We, we have such an ease of access to information, such an ease of access to education. You don't need a school system. You don't need to go to public school to, to learn how to do math. You can find a hundred TikTok channels that'll teach you in, in a hundred million times more interesting ways how to do basic math. You can learn history by going to the history channel and watching a a hundred documentaries and learning 10 times more than you're gonna learn from some boring ass history professor who forgot everything from college and just is pushing papers at you so they can make an income. Everybody has the one, one teacher that they remember. Everybody. Shout out Mr. Perry. Everybody has the one teacher that they remember that actually cared about their students, that actually cared about their education. Right. And you remember them for a reason, right? You remember the impact that they made because they actually cared. But 90% of the teachers that you had didn't give a shit and probably don't remember you. Right? And so once we realized that we are so far gone from the times where the, the, the school library held the information and, and the, the universities were able to gate, keep knowledge, we're so far away from that. And there's far more information out there that you can leverage the technology that we have to move away from where you're, you have to be like, my, my sister goes to a university and she's taking a basic composition class and every single assignment that she's. Done. Every single paper that she's written has been interwoven in the fabric of indoctrination towards liberal ideology. And I talk with her about it almost every time I see her. She has to write a paper about why pronouns are a good thing. She has to write a paper about, uh, why, um, anti-racism is, is, is good for society, right? The idea of like white, uh, guilt, right? Like all of these things that she has to write papers on to learn how to, I don't know, have proper grammar and write a paper. I like, I don't buy the idea that I have to wholeheartedly buy into your political ideology to learn how to write a paper, right? It's, it's just horseshit. It's a way for you to pay money into the education system for them to teach your child things and indoctrinate them the way that they wanna push their political ideologies. Right? And, and, and so what, and, and so what this allude you to know too is that that's, that's the fundamentals of education. The fundamentals of education that lie in the idea that you have to follow their thought processes. Because if you think of education as a whole, right? You think of a baby just like a computer, right? Or, or, or a, a system, like an application that you're trying to program, right? You're, you're programming a child on how to think, right? The framework of, in structuring of thought is what you're teaching a child from the time you take them at literally four years old, five years old, you're putting them in a full-time job. This is one of the biggest reasons me and my wife decided to homeschool our children. There is no reason that my child needs a literal eight to 4:00 PM job Monday through Friday. There's no reason that my child needs that. I make enough money, thankfully, that my wife can stay home and teach my children. And if you don't have that, I get it, right? But you should strive for that independence and freedom, right? You should strive for that for your family. And so, And if your wife doesn't wanna do that, that's fine too. That's cool. But for me, that's important, right? I can give my wife and my children the ability to be around each other, and my child does not have to go get a full-time job to learn how to write English. My child does not have to get a full-time job eight to four every single day, Monday through Friday to learn how to read. No. There's hundreds of things that you can utilize. There's books. I have hundreds of books in my home right now that my child can use to learn how to read. There's however many applications on an iPad that is specifically built for your child to learn how to read, to learn how to do math, to learn how to write right. All of these tools are out there. Yet the reason that we as a country, as, as a society, as a culture are not utilizing them is because we've spent so ourselves indoctrinated into the idea that you turn five, you go to school now as a parent, you can throw your hands up, your job's easier. , right? But what you're missing by that is you are no longer the driver of your child's programming. How many articles, how many times have we seen teachers who have, who have been caught with far more explicit things than what we're talking about here? But even just pushing bad thoughts, right? Pushing bad ideology, pushing, you know, the, the L G B T Q stuff within a, a fifth, fourth, third, first grade class. There's no reason for that. You don't need to teach my child about sexuality. You don't need to teach, which is inherently from the root word of sex, right? You don't need to teach my child that, right? But by abdicating the responsibility of that eight to four timeframe every single day, you give them the right to do. So here's my thought is why not take that power back? Why not realize that it is easier now than ever to take control of your child's education, to take control of your child's programming? Because that is what is happening, is the programming. When you're teaching a child math, when you're teaching them science, when you're teaching them the scientific method, you're teaching them how to think. You're teaching them the framework of thought with math, it's the same reason the Gates Foundation was pushing hundreds of millions of dollars trying to confuse your children with common core for what you think. Bill Gates gives a shit about how your child divides 16 by 70, right? Like he doesn't care. You know what he does wanna do? He wants to program the way that your child's underlying programming and thought processes work for the remainder of their life. Right. That is why he's pushing hundreds of millions of dollars in the common core math. He wants to muddy up the waters of what's going on between your ears, your child's ears. Right? And you're allowing it. We're allowing it because we wanna make our lives easier. Homeschooling is easier than ever. There's so many resources, so many resources that you can utilize to teach your child and not give the, the ability for the state to literally program your child into a walking, talking factory worker from the rest of their lives. It's just so wild to me. It's so wild that that's how it goes. Like five years old. Five years old, you're gonna send your child to school, nine to five, eight to. , right? Like a full-time job at four years old. And you wonder why your kid's crabby and you have troubles with them at night, and they're acting up at school is because you want them to sit their butt in the chair all day when they should be running outside in the grass and playing. That's what your child should be doing, not sitting there trying to learn Bill Gates common core. So it's a really interesting topic that I want to dive deeper into. I'm gonna be finding somebody that I can pull into this conversation that knows far more about it than I do. But I do think that there's a really interesting conversation around the Prussian model, um, about how the, uh, Rockefeller Foundation pushed 129 million into formulating our current structure for school systems, right? Even if it's just the, the alarms of the factory, right? The bell. There's literally

Producers/Hosts: Charlotte Warren and Zoe Brokos Music credits: Emma Reynolds. Music – Samuel James. Justice Radio is a WMPG production Justice Radio: Tackling the hard questions about our criminal legal system in Maine. This week: How do we End the War on Drugs in Maine? Join co-hosts Charlotte Warren and Zoe Brokos as they discuss the harm of the Drug policy in Maine and what changes are needed. Guest/s: n/a About the hosts: The Justice Radio team includes: Leo Hylton is currently incarcerated at Maine State Prison, yet is a recent Master's graduate, a columnist with The Bollard, a restorative and transformative justice advocate and activist, a prison abolitionist, and a Visiting Instructor at Colby College's Anthropology Department, co-teaching AY346 – Carcerality and Abolition. Catherine Besteman is an abolitionist educator at Colby College. Her research and practice engage the public humanities to explore abolitionist possibilities in Maine. In addition to coordinating Freedom & Captivity, she has researched and published on security, militarism, displacement, and community-based activism with a focus on Somalia, post-apartheid South Africa, and the U.S. She has published nine books, contributed to the International Panel on Exiting Violence, and received recent fellowships from the American Council of Learned Societies and the Guggenheim and Rockefeller Foundations. MacKenzie Kelley is a formerly incarcerated woman in long term recovery. She is a teachers assistant for inside-out courses through MIT. MacKenzie works at the Maine Prisoner Reentry Center as a reentry specialist, peer support and recovery coach. She is the program director for Reentry Sisters, a program designed to assist women reentering the community from prison. Zoe Brokos (she/her) is the executive director of the Church of Safe Injection, a comprehensive harm reduction program that operates in Southern and Central Maine. Zoe is a person who uses drugs, a mom, a wife, and has led harm reduction programs in Maine for 15 years. She is part of the Maine Drug Policy Coalition, sits on the board of Decriminalize Maine and joined Justice Radio to promote compassionate conversations and drug user-led advocacy efforts that focus on evidence-based, public health responses to the housing and overdose crises in Maine. Marion Anderson: Before joining The National Council for Incarcerated and Formerly Incarcerated Women and Girls in January of 2022, Marion worked as a harm reductionist, housing navigator, certified intentional peer support specialist, CCAR recovery coach, and a re-entry coach for a diverse range of non-profit organizations. Charlotte Warren is a former State Representative. She served on the Legislature's Criminal Justice and Public Safety Committee for eight years – six as the house chair. Warren previously served on the Judiciary Committee and as the house chair of Maine's Mental Health Working Group and the house chair of the Commission to Examine Reestablishing Parole. Previous to her time in the legislature, Charlotte served as Mayor of the city of Hallowell. Linda Small is the founder and executive director of Reentry Sisters, a reentry support organization specializing in a gender-responsive and trauma-informed approach for women, serving Maine and beyond. She is a Project Coordinator for the Maine Prisoner Advocacy Coalition. Linda serves on the Maine Prison Education Partnership board at UMA and the New England Commission for the Future of Higher Education in Prison through The Educational Justice Institute at MIT. The post Justice Radio 2/2/23: Ending the War on Drugs in Maine, Part 1 first appeared on WERU 89.9 FM Blue Hill, Maine Local News and Public Affairs Archives.

Producers/Hosts: Linda Small and Mackenzie Kelley Music credits: Emma Reynolds. Music – Samuel James. Justice Radio is a WMPG production Justice Radio: Tackling the hard questions about our criminal legal system in Maine. This week: What’s it like to come home from prison? Join cohosts Linda Small and Mackenzie Kelley as they discuss the stigma in housing, jobs, and the daily life of returning citizens and their children. Guest/s: Rebecca Kurtz, Peer Services and Recovery Manager of Maine's National Alliance on Mental Illness Wendy Allen of the Restorative Justice Institute of Maine About the hosts: The Justice Radio team includes: Leo Hylton is currently incarcerated at Maine State Prison, yet is a recent Master's graduate, a columnist with The Bollard, a restorative and transformative justice advocate and activist, a prison abolitionist, and a Visiting Instructor at Colby College's Anthropology Department, co-teaching AY346 – Carcerality and Abolition. Catherine Besteman is an abolitionist educator at Colby College. Her research and practice engage the public humanities to explore abolitionist possibilities in Maine. In addition to coordinating Freedom & Captivity, she has researched and published on security, militarism, displacement, and community-based activism with a focus on Somalia, post-apartheid South Africa, and the U.S. She has published nine books, contributed to the International Panel on Exiting Violence, and received recent fellowships from the American Council of Learned Societies and the Guggenheim and Rockefeller Foundations. MacKenzie Kelley is a formerly incarcerated woman in long term recovery. She is a teachers assistant for inside-out courses through MIT. MacKenzie works at the Maine Prisoner Reentry Center as a reentry specialist, peer support and recovery coach. She is the program director for Reentry Sisters, a program designed to assist women reentering the community from prison. Zoe Brokos (she/her) is the executive director of the Church of Safe Injection, a comprehensive harm reduction program that operates in Southern and Central Maine. Zoe is a person who uses drugs, a mom, a wife, and has led harm reduction programs in Maine for 15 years. She is part of the Maine Drug Policy Coalition, sits on the board of Decriminalize Maine and joined Justice Radio to promote compassionate conversations and drug user-led advocacy efforts that focus on evidence-based, public health responses to the housing and overdose crises in Maine. Marion Anderson: Before joining The National Council for Incarcerated and Formerly Incarcerated Women and Girls in January of 2022, Marion worked as a harm reductionist, housing navigator, certified intentional peer support specialist, CCAR recovery coach, and a re-entry coach for a diverse range of non-profit organizations. Charlotte Warren is a former State Representative. She served on the Legislature's Criminal Justice and Public Safety Committee for eight years – six as the house chair. Warren previously served on the Judiciary Committee and as the house chair of Maine's Mental Health Working Group and the house chair of the Commission to Examine Reestablishing Parole. Previous to her time in the legislature, Charlotte served as Mayor of the city of Hallowell. Linda Small is the founder and executive director of Reentry Sisters, a reentry support organization specializing in a gender-responsive and trauma-informed approach for women, serving Maine and beyond. She is a Project Coordinator for the Maine Prisoner Advocacy Coalition. Linda serves on the Maine Prison Education Partnership board at UMA and the New England Commission for the Future of Higher Education in Prison through The Educational Justice Institute at MIT. The post Justice Radio 1/26/23: Creating Windows Not Bars first appeared on WERU 89.9 FM Blue Hill, Maine Local News and Public Affairs Archives.

Producers/Hosts: Marion Anderson and Craig Williams Music credits: Emma Reynolds. Music – Samuel James. Justice Radio is a WMPG production Justice Radio: Tackling the hard questions about our criminal legal system in Maine. This week: From courtrooms to convictions and everything in between join co-hosts Marion Anderson and Craig Williams as they share their perspectives having been directly impacted by our criminal legal system. They take a deeper look at their own experiences and ask the question – was this helpful or harmful? Guest/s: n/a About the hosts: The Justice Radio team includes: Leo Hylton is currently incarcerated at Maine State Prison, yet is a recent Master's graduate, a columnist with The Bollard, a restorative and transformative justice advocate and activist, a prison abolitionist, and a Visiting Instructor at Colby College's Anthropology Department, co-teaching AY346 – Carcerality and Abolition. Catherine Besteman is an abolitionist educator at Colby College. Her research and practice engage the public humanities to explore abolitionist possibilities in Maine. In addition to coordinating Freedom & Captivity, she has researched and published on security, militarism, displacement, and community-based activism with a focus on Somalia, post-apartheid South Africa, and the U.S. She has published nine books, contributed to the International Panel on Exiting Violence, and received recent fellowships from the American Council of Learned Societies and the Guggenheim and Rockefeller Foundations. MacKenzie Kelley is a formerly incarcerated woman in long term recovery. She is a teachers assistant for inside-out courses through MIT. MacKenzie works at the Maine Prisoner Reentry Center as a reentry specialist, peer support and recovery coach. She is the program director for Reentry Sisters, a program designed to assist women reentering the community from prison. Zoe Brokos (she/her) is the executive director of the Church of Safe Injection, a comprehensive harm reduction program that operates in Southern and Central Maine. Zoe is a person who uses drugs, a mom, a wife, and has led harm reduction programs in Maine for 15 years. She is part of the Maine Drug Policy Coalition, sits on the board of Decriminalize Maine and joined Justice Radio to promote compassionate conversations and drug user-led advocacy efforts that focus on evidence-based, public health responses to the housing and overdose crises in Maine. Marion Anderson: Before joining The National Council for Incarcerated and Formerly Incarcerated Women and Girls in January of 2022, Marion worked as a harm reductionist, housing navigator, certified intentional peer support specialist, CCAR recovery coach, and a re-entry coach for a diverse range of non-profit organizations. Charlotte Warren is a former State Representative. She served on the Legislature's Criminal Justice and Public Safety Committee for eight years – six as the house chair. Warren previously served on the Judiciary Committee and as the house chair of Maine's Mental Health Working Group and the house chair of the Commission to Examine Reestablishing Parole. Previous to her time in the legislature, Charlotte served as Mayor of the city of Hallowell. Linda Small is the founder and executive director of Reentry Sisters, a reentry support organization specializing in a gender-responsive and trauma-informed approach for women, serving Maine and beyond. She is a Project Coordinator for the Maine Prisoner Advocacy Coalition. Linda serves on the Maine Prison Education Partnership board at UMA and the New England Commission for the Future of Higher Education in Prison through The Educational Justice Institute at MIT. The post Justice Radio 1/19/23: From Our Perspective: Voices of the Directly Impacted first appeared on WERU 89.9 FM Blue Hill, Maine Local News and Public Affairs Archives.

Producers/Hosts: Leo Hylton and Catherine Besteman Music credits: Dino Raymond. Music – Samuel James Justice Radio is a WMPG production Justice Radio: Tackling the hard questions about our criminal legal system in Maine. This week: Are prisons the answer? What makes us safe? How should we address harm? Join co-hosts, Leo Hylton and Catherine Besteman as they address the hard questions about justice, accountability, harm, safety, and repair. #communitybuilding leads to #communitysafety Guest/s: Jonathan Sahrbeck, former Cumberland County District Attorney Jeremy Pratt, Defense Attorney About the hosts: The Justice Radio team includes: Leo Hylton is currently incarcerated at Maine State Prison, yet is a recent Master's graduate, a columnist with The Bollard, a restorative and transformative justice advocate and activist, a prison abolitionist, and a Visiting Instructor at Colby College's Anthropology Department, co-teaching AY346 – Carcerality and Abolition. Catherine Besteman is an abolitionist educator at Colby College. Her research and practice engage the public humanities to explore abolitionist possibilities in Maine. In addition to coordinating Freedom & Captivity, she has researched and published on security, militarism, displacement, and community-based activism with a focus on Somalia, post-apartheid South Africa, and the U.S. She has published nine books, contributed to the International Panel on Exiting Violence, and received recent fellowships from the American Council of Learned Societies and the Guggenheim and Rockefeller Foundations. MacKenzie Kelley is a formerly incarcerated woman in long term recovery. She is a teachers assistant for inside-out courses through MIT. MacKenzie works at the Maine Prisoner Reentry Center as a reentry specialist, peer support and recovery coach. She is the program director for Reentry Sisters, a program designed to assist women reentering the community from prison. Zoe Brokos (she/her) is the executive director of the Church of Safe Injection, a comprehensive harm reduction program that operates in Southern and Central Maine. Zoe is a person who uses drugs, a mom, a wife, and has led harm reduction programs in Maine for 15 years. She is part of the Maine Drug Policy Coalition, sits on the board of Decriminalize Maine and joined Justice Radio to promote compassionate conversations and drug user-led advocacy efforts that focus on evidence-based, public health responses to the housing and overdose crises in Maine. Marion Anderson: Before joining The National Council for Incarcerated and Formerly Incarcerated Women and Girls in January of 2022, Marion worked as a harm reductionist, housing navigator, certified intentional peer support specialist, CCAR recovery coach, and a re-entry coach for a diverse range of non-profit organizations. Charlotte Warren is a former State Representative. She served on the Legislature's Criminal Justice and Public Safety Committee for eight years – six as the house chair. Warren previously served on the Judiciary Committee and as the house chair of Maine's Mental Health Working Group and the house chair of the Commission to Examine Reestablishing Parole. Previous to her time in the legislature, Charlotte served as Mayor of the city of Hallowell. Linda Small is the founder and executive director of Reentry Sisters, a reentry support organization specializing in a gender-responsive and trauma-informed approach for women, serving Maine and beyond. She is a Project Coordinator for the Maine Prisoner Advocacy Coalition. Linda serves on the Maine Prison Education Partnership board at UMA and the New England Commission for the Future of Higher Education in Prison through The Educational Justice Institute at MIT. The post Justice Radio 1/12/23: Are Prisons the Answer? first appeared on WERU 89.9 FM Blue Hill, Maine Local News and Public Affairs Archives.

Podcast: The Lunar Society (LS 37 · TOP 2.5% )Episode: Nadia Asparouhova - Tech Elites, Democracy, Open Source, & PhilanthropyRelease date: 2022-12-15Nadia Asparouhova is currently researching what the new tech elite will look like at nadia.xyz. She is also the author of Working in Public: The Making and Maintenance of Open Source Software.We talk about how:* American philanthropy has changed from Rockefeller to Effective Altruism* SBF represented the Davos elite rather than the Silicon Valley elite,* Open source software reveals the limitations of democratic participation,* & much more.Watch on YouTube. Listen on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or any other podcast platform. Read the full transcript here.Timestamps(0:00:00) - Intro(0:00:26) - SBF was Davos elite(0:09:38) - Gender sociology of philanthropy(0:16:30) - Was Shakespeare an open source project?(0:22:00) - Need for charismatic leaders(0:33:55) - Political reform(0:40:30) - Why didn't previous wealth booms lead to new philanthropic movements?(0:53:35) - Creating a 10,000 year endowment(0:57:27) - Why do institutions become left wing?(1:02:27) - Impact of billionaire intellectual funding(1:04:12) - Value of intellectuals(1:08:53) - Climate, AI, & Doomerism(1:18:04) - Religious philanthropyTranscriptThis transcript was autogenerated and thus may contain errors.Nadia Asparouhova 0:00:00You start with this idea that like democracy is green and like we should have tons of tons of people participating tons of people participate and then it turns out that like most participation is actually just noise and not that useful. That really squarely puts SPF into like the finance crowd much more so than startups or crypto. Founders will always talk about like building and like startups are like so important or whatever and like what are all of them doing in their spare time? They're like reading books. They're reading essays and like and then those like books and essays influence how they think about stuff. Dwarkesh Patel 0:00:26Okay, today I have the pleasure of talking with Nadia Asperova. She is previously the author of Working in Public, the Making and Maintenance of Open Source Software and she is currently researching what the new tech elite will look like. Nadia, welcome to the podcast. Thanks for having me. Yeah, okay, so this is a perfect timing obviously given what's been happening with SPF. How much do you think SPF was motivated by effective altruism? Where do you place them in the whole dimensionality of idea machines and motivations? Nadia Asparouhova 0:01:02Yeah, I mean, I know there's sort of like conflicting accounts going around. Like, I mean, just from my sort of like character study or looking at SPF, it seems pretty clear to me that he is sort of inextricably tied to the concepts of utilitarianism that then motivate effective altruism. The difference for me in sort of like where I characterize effective altruism is I think it's much closer to sort of like finance Wall Street elite mindset than it is to startup mindset, even though a lot of people associate effective altruism with tech people. So yeah, to me, like that really squarely puts SPF in sort of like the finance crowd much more so than startups or crypto. And I think that's something that gets really misunderstood about him. Dwarkesh Patel 0:01:44Interesting. Yeah, I find that interesting because if you think of Jeff Bezos, when he started Amazon, he wasn't somebody like John Perry Barlow, who was just motivated by the free philosophy of the internet. You know, he saw a graph of internet usage going up into the right and he's like, I should build a business on top of this. And in a sort of loopholy way, try to figure out like, what is the thing that is that is the first thing you would want to put a SQL database on top of to ship and produce? And I think that's what books was the answer. So and obviously, he also came from a hedge fund, right? Would you play somebody like him also in the old finance crowd rather than as a startup founder? Nadia Asparouhova 0:02:22Yeah, it's kind of a weird one because he's both associated with the early computing revolution, but then also AWS was sort of like what kicked off all of the 2010s sort of startup. And I think in the way that he's started thinking about his public legacy and just from sort of his public behavior, I think he fits much more squarely now in that sort of tech startup elite mindset of the 2010s crowd more so than the Davos elite crowd of the 2000s. Dwarkesh Patel 0:02:47What in specific are you referring to? Nadia Asparouhova 0:02:49Well, he's come out and been like sort of openly critical about a lot of like Davos type institutions. He kind of pokes fun at mainstream media and for not believing in him not believing in AWS. And I think he's because he sort of like spans across like both of these generations, he's been able to see the evolution of like how maybe like his earlier peers function versus the sort of second cohort of peers that he came across. But to me, he seems much more like, much more of the sort of like startup elite mindset. And I can kind of back up a little bit there. But what I associate with the Davos Wall Street kind of crowd is much more of this focus on quantitative thinking, measuring efficiency. And then also this like globalist mindset, like I think that the vision that they want to ensure for the world is this idea of like a very interconnected world where we, you know, sort of like the United Nations kind of mindset. And that is really like literally what the Davos gathering is. Whereas Bezos from his actions today feels much closer to the startup, like Y Combinator post AWS kind of mindset of founders that were really made their money by taking these non-obvious bets on talented people. So they were much less focused on credentialism. They were much more into this idea of meritocracy. I think we sort of forget like how commonplace this trope is of like, you know, the young founder in a dorm room. And that was really popularized by the 2010s cohort of the startup elite of being someone that may have like absolutely no skills, no background in industry, but can somehow sort of like turn the entire industry over on its head. And I think that was sort of like the unique insight of the tech startup crowd. And yeah, when I think about just sort of like some of the things that Bezos is doing now, it feels like she identifies with that much more strongly of being this sort of like lone cowboy or having this like one talented person with really great ideas who can sort of change the world. I think about the, what is it called? The Altos Institute or the new like science initiative that he put out where he was recruiting these like scientists from academic institutions and paying them really high salaries just to attract like the very best top scientists around the world. That's much more of that kind of mindset than it is about like putting faith in sort of like existing institutions, which is what we would see from more of like a Davos kind of mindset. Dwarkesh Patel 0:05:16Interesting. Do you think that in the future, like the kids of today's tech billionaires will be future aristocrats? So effective altruism will be a sort of elite aristocratic philosophy. They'll be like tomorrow's Rockefellers. Nadia Asparouhova 0:05:30Yeah, I kind of worry about that actually. I think of there as being like within the US, we were kind of lucky in that we have these two different types of elites. We have the aristocratic elites and we have meritocratic elites. Most other countries I think basically just have aristocratic elites, especially comparing like the US to Britain in this way. And so in the aristocratic model, your wealth and your power is sort of like conferred to you by previous generations. You just kind of like inherit it from your parents or your family or whomever. And the upside of that, if there is an upside, is that you get really socialized into this idea of what does it mean to be a public steward? What does it mean to think of yourself and your responsibility to the rest of society as a privileged elite person? In the US, we have this really great thing where you can kind of just, you know, we have the American dream, right? So lots of people that didn't grow up with money can break into the elite ranks by doing something that makes them really successful. And that's like a really special thing about the US. So we have this whole class of meritocratic elites who may not have aristocratic backgrounds, but ended up doing something within their lifetimes that made them successful. And so, yeah, I think it's a really cool thing. The downside of that being that you don't really get like socialized into what does it mean to have this fortune and do something interesting with your money. You don't have this sort of generational benefit that the aristocratic elites have of presiding over your land or whatever you want to call it, where you're sort of learning how to think about yourself in relation to the rest of society. And so it's much easier to just kind of like hoard your wealth or whatever. And so when you think about sort of like what are the next generations, the children of the meritocratic elites going to look like or what are they going to do, it's very easy to imagine kind of just becoming aristocratic elites in the sense of like, yeah, they're just going to like inherit the money from their families. And they haven't also really been socialized into like how to think about their role in society. And so, yeah, all the meritocratic elites eventually turn into aristocratic elites, which is where I think you start seeing this trend now towards people wanting to sort of like spend down their fortunes within their lifetime or within a set number of decades after they die because they kind of see what happened in previous generations and are like, oh, I don't want to do that. Dwarkesh Patel 0:07:41Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, it's interesting. You mentioned that the aristocratic elites have the feel that they have the responsibility to give back, I guess, more so than the meritocratic elites. But I believe that in the U.S., the amount of people who give to philanthropy and the total amount they give is higher than in Europe, right, where they probably have a higher ratio of aristocratic elites. Wouldn't you expect the opposite if the aristocratic elites are the ones that are, you know, inculcated to give back? Nadia Asparouhova 0:08:11Well, I assume like most of the people that are the figures about sort of like Americans giving back is spread across like all Americans, not just the wealthiest. Dwarkesh Patel 0:08:19Yeah. So you would predict that among the top 10 percent of Americans, there's less philanthropy than the top 10 percent of Europeans? Uh, there's... Sorry, I'm not sure I understand the question. I guess, does the ratio of meritocratic to aristocratic elites change how much philanthropy there is among the elites? Nadia Asparouhova 0:08:45Yeah, I mean, like here we have much more of a culture of like even among aristocratic elites, this idea of like institution building or like large donations to like build institutions, whereas in Europe, a lot of the public institutions are created by government. And there's sort of this mentality of like private citizens don't experiment with public institutions. That's the government's job. And you see that sort of like pervasively throughout all of like European cultures. Like when we want something to change in public society, we look to government to like regulate or change it. Whereas in the U.S., it's kind of much more like choose your own adventure. And we don't really see the government as like the sole provider or shaper of public institutions. We also look at private citizens and like there's so many things that like public institutions that we have now that were not started by government, but were started by private philanthropists. And that's like a really unusual thing about the U.S. Dwarkesh Patel 0:09:39There's this common pattern in philanthropy where a guy will become a billionaire, and then his wife will be heavily involved with or even potentially in charge of, you know, the family's philanthropic efforts. And there's many examples of this, right? Like Bill and Melinda Gates, you know, Mark Zuckerberg. Yeah, yeah, exactly. And Dustin Moskovitz. So what is the consequence of this? How is philanthropy, the causes and the foundations, how are they different because of this pattern? Nadia Asparouhova 0:10:15Well, I mean, I feel like we see that pattern, like the problem is that what even is philanthropy is changing very quickly. So we can say historically that, not even historically, in recent history, in recent decades, that has probably been true. That wasn't true in say like late 1800s, early 1900s. It was, you know, Carnegie and Rockefeller were the ones that were actually doing their own philanthropy, not their spouses. So I'd say it's a more recent trend. But now I think we're also seeing this thing where like a lot of wealthy people are not necessarily doing their philanthropic activities through foundations anymore. And that's true both within like traditional philanthropy sector and sort of like the looser definition of what we might consider to be philanthropy, depending on how you define it, which I kind of more broadly want to define as like the actions of elites that are sort of like, you know, public facing activities. But like even within sort of traditional philanthropy circles, we have like, you know, the 5.1c3 nonprofit, which is, you know, traditionally how people, you know, house all their money in a foundation and then they do their philanthropic activities out of that. But in more recent years, we've seen this trend towards like LLCs. So Emerson Collective, I think, might have been maybe the first one to do it. And that was Steve Jobs' Philanthropic Foundation. And then Mark Zuckerberg with Chan Zuckerberg Initiative also used an LLC. And then since then, a lot of other, especially within sort of like tech wealth, we've seen that move towards people using LLCs instead of 5.1c3s because they, it just gives you a lot more flexibility in the kinds of things you can fund. You don't just have to fund other nonprofits. And they also see donor advised funds. So DAFs, which are sort of this like hacky workaround to foundations as well. So I guess point being that like this sort of mental model of like, you know, one person makes a ton of money and then their spouse kind of directs these like nice, feel good, like philanthropic activities, I think is like, may not be the model that we continue to move forward on. And I'm kind of hopeful or curious to see like, what does a return to like, because we've had so many new people making a ton of money in the last 10 years or so, we might see this return to sort of like the Gilded Age style of philanthropy where people are not necessarily just like forming a philanthropic foundation and looking for the nicest causes to fund, but are actually just like thinking a little bit more holistically about like, how do I help build and create like a movement around a thing that I really care about? How do I think more broadly around like funding companies and nonprofits and individuals and like doing lots of different, different kinds of activities? Because I think like the broader goal that like motivates at least like the new sort of elite classes to want to do any of this stuff at all. I don't really think philanthropy is about altruism. I just, I think like the term philanthropy is just totally fraud and like refers to too many different things and it's not very helpful. But I think like the part that I'm interested in at least is sort of like what motivates elites to go from just sort of like making a lot of money and then like thinking about themselves to them thinking about sort of like their place in broader public society. And I think that starts with thinking about how do I control like media, academia, government are sort of like the three like arms of the public sector. And we think of it in that way a little bit more broadly where it's really much more about sort of like maintaining control over your own power, more so than sort of like this like altruistic kind of, you know, whitewash. Dwarkesh Patel 0:13:41Yeah. Nadia Asparouhova 0:13:42Then it becomes like, you know, there's so many other like creative ways to think about like how that might happen. Dwarkesh Patel 0:13:49That's, that's, that's really interesting. That's a, yeah, that's a really interesting way of thinking about what it is you're doing with philanthropy. Isn't the word noble descended from a word that basically means to give alms to people like if you're in charge of them, you will give alms to them. And in a way, I mean, it might have been another word I'm thinking of, but in a way, yeah, a part of what motivates altruism, not obviously all of it, but part of it is that, yeah, you influence and power. Not even in a necessarily negative connotation, but that's definitely what motivates altruism. So having that put square front and center is refreshing and honest, actually. Nadia Asparouhova 0:14:29Yeah, I don't, I really don't see it as like a negative thing at all. And I think most of the like, you know, writing and journalism and academia that focuses on philanthropy tends to be very wealth critical. I'm not at all, like I personally don't feel wealth critical at all. I think like, again, sort of returning to this like mental model of like aristocratic and meritocratic elites, aristocratic elites are able to sort of like pass down, like encode what they're supposed to be doing in each generation because they have this kind of like familial ties. And I think like on the meritocratic side, like if you didn't have any sort of language around altruism or public stewardship, then like, it's like, you need to kind of create that narrative for the meritocratically or else, you know, there's just like nothing to hold on to. So I think like, it makes sense to talk in those terms. Andrew Carnegie being sort of the father of modern philanthropy in the US, like, wrote these series of essays about wealth that were like very influential and where he sort of talks about this like moral obligation. And I think like, really, it was kind of this like, a quiet way for him to, even though it was ostensibly about sort of like giving back or, you know, helping lift up the next generation of people, the next generation of entrepreneurs. Like, I think it really was much more of a protective stance of saying, like, if he doesn't frame it in this way, then people are just going to knock down the concept of wealth altogether. Dwarkesh Patel 0:15:50Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, that's really interesting. And it's interesting, in which cases this kind of influence has been successful and worse not. When Jeff Bezos bought the Washington Post, has there been any counterfactual impact on how the Washington Post has run as a result? I doubt it. But you know, when Musk takes over Twitter, I guess it's a much more expensive purchase. We'll see what the influence is negative or positive. But it's certainly different than what Twitter otherwise would have been. So control over media, it's, I guess it's a bigger meme now. Let me just take a digression and ask about open source for a second. So based on your experience studying these open source projects, do you find the theory that Homer and Shakespeare were basically container words for these open source repositories that stretched out through centuries? Do you find that more plausible now, rather than them being individuals, of course? Do you find that more plausible now, given your, given your study of open source? Sorry, what did? Nadia Asparouhova 0:16:49Less plausible. What did? Dwarkesh Patel 0:16:51Oh, okay. So the idea is that they weren't just one person. It was just like a whole bunch of people throughout a bunch of centuries who composed different parts of each story or composed different stories. Nadia Asparouhova 0:17:02The Nicholas Berbaki model, same concept of, you know, a single mathematician who's actually comprised of like lots of different. I think it's actually the opposite would be sort of my conclusion. We think of open source as this very like collective volunteer effort. And I think, use that as an excuse to not really contribute back to open source or not really think about like how open source projects are maintained. Because we were like, you know, you kind of have this bystander effect where you're like, well, you know, someone's taking care of it. It's volunteer oriented. Like, of course, there's someone out there taking care of it. But in reality, it actually turns out it is just one person. So maybe it's a little bit more like a Wizard of Oz type model. It's actually just like one person behind the curtain that's like, you know, doing everything. And you see this huge, you know, grandeur and you think there must be so many people that are behind it. It's one person. Yeah, and I think that's sort of undervalued. I think a lot of the rhetoric that we have about open source is rooted in sort of like early 2000s kind of starry eyed idea about like the power of the internet and the idea of like crowdsourcing and Wikipedia and all this stuff. And then like in reality, like we kind of see this convergence from like very broad based collaborative volunteer efforts to like narrowing down to kind of like single creators. And I think a lot of like, you know, single creators are the people that are really driving a lot of the internet today and a lot of cultural production. Dwarkesh Patel 0:18:21Oh, that's that's super fascinating. Does that in general make you more sympathetic towards the lone genius view of accomplishments in history? Not just in literature, I guess, but just like when you think back to how likely is it that, you know, Newton came up with all that stuff on his own versus how much was fed into him by, you know, the others around him? Nadia Asparouhova 0:18:40Yeah, I think so. I feel I've never been like a big, like, you know, great founder theory kind of person. I think I'm like, my true theory is, I guess that ideas are maybe some sort of like sentient, like, concept or virus that operates outside of us. And we are just sort of like the vessels through which like ideas flow. So in that sense, you know, it's not really about any one person, but I do think I think I tend to lean like in terms of sort of like, where does creative, like, creative effort come from? I do think a lot of it comes much more from like a single individual than it does from with some of the crowds. But everything just serves like different purposes, right? Like, because I think like, within open source, it's like, not all of open source maintenance work is creative. In fact, most of it is pretty boring and dredgerous. And that's the stuff that no one wants to do. And that, like, one person kind of got stuck with doing and that's really different from like, who created a certain open source projects, which is a little bit more of that, like, creative mindset. Dwarkesh Patel 0:19:44Yeah, yeah, that's really interesting. Do you think more projects in open source, so just take a popular repository, on average, do you think that these repositories would be better off if, let's say a larger percentage of them where pull requests were closed and feature requests were closed? You can look at the code, but you can't interact with it or its creators anyway? Should more repositories have this model? Yeah, I definitely think so. I think a lot of people would be much happier that way. Yeah, yeah. I mean, it's interesting to think about the implications of this for other areas outside of code, right? Which is where it gets really interesting. I mean, in general, there's like a discussion. Sorry, go ahead. Yeah. Nadia Asparouhova 0:20:25Yeah, I mean, that's basically what's for the writing of my book, because I was like, okay, I feel like whatever's happening open source right now, you start with this idea that like democracy is green, and like, we should have tons and tons of people participating, tons of people participate, and then it turns out that like, most participation is actually just noise and not that useful. And then it ends up like scaring everyone away. And in the end, you just have like, you know, one or a small handful of people that are actually doing all the work while everyone else is kind of like screaming around them. And this becomes like a really great metaphor for what happens in social media. And the reason I wrote, after I wrote the book, I went and worked at Substack. And, you know, part of it was because I was like, I think the model is kind of converging from like, you know, Twitter being this big open space to like, suddenly everyone is retreating, like, the public space is so hostile that everyone must retreat into like, smaller private spaces. So then, you know, chats became a thing, Substack became a thing. And yeah, I just feel sort of like realistic, right? Dwarkesh Patel 0:21:15That's really fascinating. Yeah, the Straussian message in that book is very strong. But in general, there's, when you're thinking about something like corporate governance, right? There's a big question. And I guess even more interestingly, when you think if you think DAOs are going to be a thing, and you think that we will have to reinvent corporate governance from the ground up, there's a question of, should these be run like monarchy? Should they be sort of oligarchies where the board is in control? Should they be just complete democracies where everybody gets one vote on what you do at the next, you know, shareholder meeting or something? And this book and that analysis is actually pretty interesting to think about. Like, how should corporations be run differently, if at all? What does it inform how you think the average corporation should be run? Nadia Asparouhova 0:21:59Yeah, definitely. I mean, I think we are seeing a little bit, I'm not a corporate governance expert, but I do feel like we're seeing a little of this like, backlash against, like, you know, shareholder activism and like, extreme focus on sort of like DEI and boards and things like that. And like, I think we're seeing a little bit of people starting to like take the reins and take control again, because they're like, ah, that doesn't really work so well, it turns out. I think DAOs are going to learn this hard lesson as well. It's still maybe just too early to say what is happening in DAOs right now. But at least the ones that I've looked at, it feels like there is a very common failure mode of people saying, you know, like, let's just have like, let's have this be super democratic and like, leave it to the crowd to kind of like run this thing and figure out how it works. And it turns out you actually do need a strong leader, even the beginning. And this, this is something I learned just from like, open source projects where it's like, you know, very rarely, or if at all, do you have a strong leader? If at all, do you have a project that starts sort of like leaderless and faceless? And then, you know, usually there is some strong creator, leader or influential figure that is like driving the project forward for a certain period of time. And then you can kind of get to the point when you have enough of an active community that maybe that leader takes a step back and lets other people take over. But it's not like you can do that off day one. And that's sort of this open question that I have for, for crypto as an industry more broadly, because I think like, if I think about sort of like, what is defining each of these generations of people that are, you know, pushing forward new technological paradigms, I mentioned that like Wall Street finance mindset is very focused on like globalism and on this sort of like efficiency quantitative mindset. You have the tech Silicon Valley Y company or kind of generation that is really focused on top talent. And the idea this sort of like, you know, founder mindset, the power of like individuals breaking institutions, and then you have like the crypto mindset, which is this sort of like faceless leaderless, like governed by protocol and by code mindset, which is like intriguing to me. But I have a really hard time squaring it with seeing like, in some sense, open source was the experiment that started playing out, you know, 20 years before then. And some things are obviously different in crypto, because tokenization completely changes the incentive system for contributing and maintaining crypto projects versus like traditional open source projects. But in the end, also like humans are humans. And like, I feel like there are a lot of lessons to be learned from open source of like, you know, they also started out early on as being very starry eyed about the power of like, hyper democratic regimes. And it turned out like, that just like doesn't work in practice. And so like, how is CryptoGhost or like Square that? I'm just, yeah, very curious to see what happened. Dwarkesh Patel 0:24:41Yeah, super fascinating. That raises an interesting question, by the way, you've written about idea machines, and you can explain that concept while you answer this question. But do you think that movements can survive without a charismatic founder who is both alive and engaged? So once Will McCaskill dies, would you be shorting effective altruism? Or if like Tyler Cowen dies, would you be short progress studies? Or do you think that, you know, once you get a movement off the ground, you're like, okay, I'm gonna be shorting altruism. Nadia Asparouhova 0:25:08Yeah, I think that's a good question. I mean, like, I don't think there's some perfect template, like each of these kind of has its own sort of unique quirks and characteristics in them. I guess, yeah, back up a little bit. Idea machines is this concept I have around what the transition from we were talking before about, so like traditional 5.1c3 foundations as vehicles for philanthropy, what does the modern version of that look like that is not necessarily encoded in institution? And so I had this term idea machines, which is sort of this different way of thinking about like, turning ideas into outcomes where you have a community that forms around a shared set of values and ideas. So yeah, you mentioned like progress studies is an example of that, or effective altruism example, eventually, that community gets capitalized by some funders, and then it starts to be able to develop an agenda and then like, actually start building like, you know, operational outcomes and like, turning those ideas into real world initiatives. And remind me of your question again. Dwarkesh Patel 0:26:06Yeah, so once the charismatic founder dies of a movement, is a movement basically handicapped in some way? Like, maybe it'll still be a thing, but it's never going to reach the heights it could have reached if that main guy had been around? Nadia Asparouhova 0:26:20I think there are just like different shapes and classifications of like different, different types of communities here. So like, and I'm just thinking back again to sort of like different types of open source projects where it's not like they're like one model that fits perfectly for all of them. So I think there are some communities where it's like, yeah, I mean, I think effective altruism is maybe a good example of that where, like, the community has grown so much that I like if all their leaders were to, you know, knock on wood, disappear tomorrow or something that like, I think the movement would still keep going. There are enough true believers, like even within the community. And I think that's the next order of that community that like, I think that would just continue to grow. Whereas you have like, yeah, maybe it's certain like smaller or more nascent communities that are like, or just like communities that are much more like oriented around, like, a charismatic founder that's just like a different type where if you lose that leader, then suddenly, you know, the whole thing falls apart because they're much more like these like cults or religions. And I don't think it makes one better, better or worse. It's like the right way to do is probably like Bitcoin, where you have a charismatic leader for life because that leader is more necessarily, can't go away, can't ever die. But you still have the like, you know, North Stars and like that. Dwarkesh Patel 0:27:28Yeah. It is funny. I mean, a lot of prophets have this property of you're not really sure what they believed in. So people with different temperaments can project their own preferences onto him. Somebody like Jesus, right? It's, you know, you can be like a super left winger and believe Jesus did for everything you believe in. You can be a super right winger and believe the same. Yeah. Go ahead. Nadia Asparouhova 0:27:52I think there's value in like writing cryptically more. Like I think about like, I think Curtis Yarvin has done a really good job of this where, you know, intentionally or not, but because like his writing is so cryptic and long winded. And like, it's like the Bible where you can just kind of like pour over endlessly being like, what does this mean? What does this mean? And in a weird, you know, you're always told to write very clearly, you're told to write succinctly, but like, it's actually in a weird way, you can be much more effective by being very long winded and not obvious in what you're saying. Dwarkesh Patel 0:28:20Yes, which actually raises an interesting question that I've been wondering about. There have been movements, I guess, if I did altruism is a good example that have been focused on community building in a sort of like explicit way. And then there's other movements where they have a charismatic founder. And moreover, this guy, he doesn't really try to recruit people. I'm thinking of somebody like Peter Thiel, for example, right? He goes on, like once every year or two, he'll go on a podcast and have this like really cryptic back and forth. And then just kind of go away in a hole for a few months or a few years. And I'm curious, which one you think is more effective, given the fact that you're not really competing for votes. So absolute number of people is not what you care about. It's not clear what you care about. But you do want to have more influence among the elites who matter in like politics and tech as well. So anyways, which just your thoughts on those kinds of strategies, explicitly trying to community build versus just kind of projecting out there in a sort of cryptic way? Nadia Asparouhova 0:29:18Yeah, I mean, I definitely being somewhat cryptic myself. I favor the cryptic methodology. But I mean, yeah, I mean, you mentioned Peter Thiel. I think like the Thielverse is probably like the most, like one of the most influential things. In fact, that is hard. It is partly so effective, because it is hard to even define what it is or wrap your head around that you just know that sort of like, every interesting person you meet somehow has some weird connection to, you know, Peter Thiel. And it's funny. But I think this is sort of that evolution from the, you know, 5163 Foundation to the like idea machine implicit. And that is this this switch from, you know, used to start the, you know, Nadia Asparova Foundation or whatever. And it was like, you know, had your name on it. And it was all about like, what do I as a funder want to do in the world, right? And you spend all this time doing this sort of like classical, you know, research, going out into the field, talking to people and you sit and you think, okay, like, here's a strategy I'm going to pursue. And like, ultimately, it's like, very, very donor centric in this very explicit way. And so within traditional philanthropy, you're seeing this sort of like, backlash against that. In like, you know, straight up like nonprofit land, where now you're seeing the locus of power moving from being very donor centric to being sort of like community centric and people saying like, well, we don't really want the donors telling us what to do, even though it's also their money. Like, you know, instead, let's have this be driven by the community from the ground up. That's maybe like one very literal reaction against that, like having the donor as sort of the central power figure. But I think idea machines are kind of like the like, maybe like the more realistic or effective answer in that like, the donor is still like without the presence of a funder, like, community is just a community. They're just sitting around and talking about ideas of like, what could possibly happen? Like, they don't have any money to make anything happen. But like, I think like really effective funders are good at being sort of like subtle and thoughtful about like, like, you know, no one wants to see like the Peter Thiel foundation necessarily. That's just like, it's so like, not the style of how it works. But you know, you meet so many people that are being funded by the same person, like just going out and sort of aggressively like arming the rebels is a more sort of like, yeah, just like distributed decentralized way of thinking about like spreading one's power, instead of just starting a fund. Instead of just starting a foundation. Dwarkesh Patel 0:31:34Yeah, yeah. I mean, even if you look at the life of influential politicians, somebody like LBJ, or Robert Moses, it's how much of it was like calculated and how much of it was just like decades of building up favors and building up connections in a way that had no definite and clear plan, but it just you're hoping that someday you can call upon them and sort of like Godfather way. Yeah. Yeah, that's interesting. And by the way, this is also where your work on open source comes in, right? Like, there's this idea that in the movement, you know, everybody will come in with their ideas, and you can community build your way towards, you know, what should be funded. And, yeah, I'm inclined to believe that it's probably like a few people who have these ideas about what should be funded. And the rest of it is either just a way of like building up engagement and building up hype. Or, or I don't know, or maybe just useless, but what are your thoughts on it? Nadia Asparouhova 0:32:32You know, I decided I was like, I am like, really very much a tech startup person and not a crypto person, even though I would very much like to be fun, because I'm like, ah, this is the future. And there's so many interesting things happening. And I'm like, for the record, not at all like down in crypto, I think it is like the next big sort of movement of things that are happening. But when I really come down to like the mindset, it's like I am so in that sort of like, top talent founder, like power of the individual to break institutions mindset, like that just resonates with me so much more than the like, leaderless, faceless, like, highly participatory kind of thing. And again, like I am very open to that being true, like I maybe I'm so wrong on that. I just like, I have not yet seen evidence that that works in the world. I see a lot of rhetoric about how that could work or should work. We have this sort of like implicit belief that like, direct democracy is somehow like the greatest thing to aspire towards. But like, over and over we see evidence that like that doesn't that just like doesn't really work. It doesn't mean we have to throw out the underlying principles or values behind that. Like I still really believe in meritocracy. I really believe in like access to opportunity. I really believe in like pursuit of happiness. Like to me, those are all like very like American values. But like, I think that where that breaks is the idea that like that has to happen through these like highly participatory methods. I just like, yeah, I haven't seen really great evidence of that being that working. Dwarkesh Patel 0:33:56What does that imply about how you think about politics or at least political structures? You think it would you you elect a mayor, but like, just forget no participation. He gets to do everything he wants to do for four years and you can get rid of in four years. But until then, no community meetings. Well, what does that imply about how you think cities and states and countries should be run? Nadia Asparouhova 0:34:17Um, that's a very complicated thoughts on that. I mean, I, I think it's also like, everyone has the fantasy of when it'd be so nice if there were just one person in charge. I hate all this squabbling. It would just be so great if we could just, you know, have one person just who has exactly the views that I have and put them in charge and let them run things. That would be very nice. I just, I do also think it's unrealistic. Like, I don't think I'm, you know, maybe like modernity sounds great in theory, but in practice just doesn't like I really embrace and I think like there is no perfect governance design either in the same way that there's no perfect open source project designer or whatever else we're talking about. Um, uh, like, yeah, it really just depends like what is like, what is your population comprised of? There are some very small homogenous populations that can be very easily governed by like, you know, a small government or one person or whatever, because there isn't that much dissent or difference. Everyone is sort of on the same page. America is the extreme opposite in that angle. And I'm always thinking about America because like, I'm American and I love America. But like, everyone is trying to solve the governance question for America. And I think like, yeah, I don't know. I mean, we're an extremely heterogeneous population. There are a lot of competing world views. I may not agree with all the views of everyone in America, but like I also, like, I don't want just one person that represents my personal views. I would focus more like effectiveness in governance than I would like having like, you know, just one person in charge or something that like, I don't mind if someone disagrees with my views as long as they're good at what they do, if that makes sense. So I think the questions are like, how do we improve the speed at which like our government works and the efficacy with which it works? Like, I think there's so much room to be made room for improvement there versus like, I don't know how much like I really care about like changing the actual structure of our government. Dwarkesh Patel 0:36:27Interesting. Going back to open source for a second. Why do these companies release so much stuff in open source for free? And it's probably literally worth trillions of dollars of value in total. And they just release it out and free and many of them are developer tools that other developers use to build competitors for these big tech companies that are releasing these open source tools. Why did they do it? What explains it? Nadia Asparouhova 0:36:52I mean, I think it depends on the specific project, but like a lot of times, these are projects that were developed internally. It's the same reason of like, I think code and writing are not that dissimilar in this way of like, why do people spend all this time writing, like long posts or papers or whatever, and then just release them for free? Like, why not put everything behind a paywall? And I think the answer is probably still in both cases where like mindshare is a lot more interesting than, you know, your literal IP. And so, you know, you put out, you write these like long reports or you tweet or whatever, like you spend all this time creating content for free and putting it out there because you're trying to capture mindshare. Same thing with companies releasing open source projects. Like a lot of times they really want like other developers to come in and contribute to them. They want to increase their status as like an open source friendly kind of company or company or show like, you know, here's the type of code that we write internally and showing that externally. They want to like recruiting is, you know, the hardest thing for any company, right? And so being able to attract the right kinds of developers or people that, you know, might fit really well into their developer culture just matters a lot more. And they're just doing that instead of with words or doing that with code. Dwarkesh Patel 0:37:57You've talked about the need for more idea machines. You're like dissatisfied with the fact that effective altruism is a big game in town. Is there some idea or nascent movement where I mean, other than progress ideas, but like something where you feel like this could be a thing, but it just needs some like charismatic founder to take it to the next level? Or even if it doesn't exist yet, it just like a set of ideas around this vein is like clearly something there is going to exist. You know what I mean? Is there anything like that that you notice? Nadia Asparouhova 0:38:26I only had a couple of different possibilities in that post. Yeah, I think like the progress sort of meme is probably the largest growing contender that I would see right now. I think there's another one right now around sort of like the new right. That's not even like the best term necessarily for it, but there's sort of like a shared set of values there that are maybe starting with like politics, but like ideally spreading to like other areas of public influence. So I think like those are a couple of like the bigger movements that I see right now. And then there's like smaller stuff too. Like I mentioned, like tools for thought in that post where like that's never going to be a huge idea machine. But it's one where you have a lot of like interesting, talented people that are thinking about sort of like future of computing. And until maybe more recently, like there just hasn't been a lot of funding available and the funding is always really uneven and unpredictable. And so that's to me an example of like, you know, a smaller community that like just needs that sort of like extra influx to turn a bunch of abstract ideas into practice. But yeah, I mean, I think like, yeah, there's some like the bigger ones that I see right now. I think there is just so much more potential to do more, but I wish people would just think a little bit more creatively because, yeah, I really do think like effective altruism kind of becomes like the default option for a lot of people. Then they're kind of vaguely dissatisfied with it and they don't like think about like, well, what do I actually really care about in the world and how do I want to put that forward? Dwarkesh Patel 0:39:53Yeah, there's also the fact that effective altruism has this like very fit memeplex in the sense that it's like a polytheistic religion where if you have a cause area, then you don't have your own movement. You just have a cause area within our broader movement, right? It just like adopts your gods into our movement. Nadia Asparouhova 0:40:15Yeah, that's the same thing I see like people trying to lobby for effective altruism to care about their cause area, but then it's like you could just start a separate. Like if you can't get EA to care about, then why not just like start another one somewhere else? Dwarkesh Patel 0:40:28Yeah, so, you know, it's interesting to me that the wealth boom in Silicon Valley and then tech spheres has led to the sound growth of philanthropy, but that hasn't always been the case. Even in America, like a lot of people became billionaires after energy markets were deregulated in the 80s and the 90s. And then there wasn't, and obviously the hub of that was like the Texas area or, you know, and as far as I'm aware, there wasn't like a boom of philanthropy motivated by the ideas that people in that region had. What's different about Silicon Valley? Why are they, or do you actually think that these other places have also had their own booms of philanthropic giving? Nadia Asparouhova 0:41:11I think you're right. Yeah, I would make the distinction between like being wealthy is not the same as being elite or whatever other term you want to use there. And so yeah, there are definitely like pockets of what's called like more like local markets of wealth, like, yeah, Texas oil or energy billionaires that tend to operate kind of just more in their own sphere. And a lot of, if you look at any philanthropic, like a lot of them will be philanthropically active, but they only really focus on their geographic area. But there's sort of this difference. And I think this is part of where it comes from the question of like, you know, like what forces someone to actually like do something more public facing with their power. And I think that comes from your power being sort of like threatened. That's like one aspect I would say of that. So like tech has only really become a lot more active in the public sphere outside of startups after the tech backlash of the mid 2010s. And you can say a similar thing kind of happened with the Davos elite as well. And also for the Gilded Age cohort of wealth. And so yeah, when you have sort of, you're kind of like, you know, building in your own little world. And like, you know, we had literally like Silicon Valley where everyone was kind of like sequestered off and just thinking about startups and thinking themselves of like, tech is essentially like an industry, just like any other sort of, you know, entertainment or whatever. And we're just kind of happy building over here. And then it was only when sort of like the Panopticon like turned its head towards tech and started and they had this sort of like onslaught of critiques coming from sort of like mainstream discourse where they went, oh, like what is my place in this world? And, you know, if I don't try to like defend that, then I'm going to just kind of, yeah, we're going to lose all that power. So I think that that need to sort of like defend one's power can kind of like prompt that sort of action. The other aspect I'd highlight is just like, I think a lot of elites are driven by these like technological paradigm shifts. So there's this scholar, Carlotta Perrins, who writes about technological revolutions and financial capital. And she identifies like a few different technological revolutions over the last, whatever, hundred plus years that like drove this cycle of, you know, a new technology is invented. It's people are kind of like working on it in this smaller industry sort of way. And then there is some kind of like crazy like public frenzy and then like a backlash. And then from after that, then you have this sort of like focus on public institution building. But she really points out that like not all technology fits into that. Like, not all technology is a paradigm shift. Sometimes technology is just technology. And so, yeah, I think like a lot of wealth might just fall into that category. My third example, by the way, is the Koch family because you had, you know, the Koch brothers, but then like their father was actually the one who like kind of initially made their wealth, but was like very localized in sort of like how he thought about philanthropy. He had his own like, you know, family foundation was just sort of like doing that sort of like, you know, Texas billionaire mindset that we're talking about of, you know, I made a bunch of money. I'm going to just sort of like, yeah, do my local funder activity. It was only the next generation of his children that then like took that wealth and started thinking about like how do we actually like move that onto like a more elite stage and thinking about like their influence in the media. But like you can see there's like two clear generations within the same family. Like one has this sort of like local wealth mindset and one of them has the more like elite wealth mindset. And yeah, you can kind of like ask yourself, why did that switch happen? But yeah, it's clearly about more than just money. It's also about intention. Dwarkesh Patel 0:44:51Yeah, that's really interesting. Well, it's interesting because there's, if you identify the current mainstream media as affiliated with like that Davos aristocratic elite, or maybe not aristocratic, but like the Davos groups. Yeah, exactly. There is a growing field of independent media, but you would not identify somebody like Joe Rogan as in the Silicon Valley sphere, right? So there is a new media. I just, I guess these startup people don't have that much influence over them yet. And they feel like, yeah. Nadia Asparouhova 0:45:27I think they're trying to like take that strategy, right? So you have like a bunch of founders like Palmer Luckey and Mark Zuckerberg and Brian Armstrong and whoever else that like will not really talk to mainstream media anymore. They will not get an interview to the New York Times, but they will go to like an individual influencer or an individual creator and they'll do an interview with them. So like when Mark Zuckerberg announced Meta, like he did not get grant interviews to mainstream publications, but he went and talked to like Ben Thompson at Strategory. And so I think there is like, it fits really well with that. Like probably mindset of like, we're not necessarily institution building. We're going to like focus on power of individuals who sort of like defy institutions. And that is kind of like an open question that I have about like, what will the long term influence of the tech elite look like? Because like, yeah, the human history tells us that eventually all individual behaviors kind of get codified into institutions, right? But we're obviously living in a very different time now. And I think like the way that the Davos elite managed to like really codify and extend their influence across all these different sectors was by taking that institutional mindset and, you know, like thinking about sort of like academic institutions and media institutions, all that stuff. If the startup mindset is really inherently like anti-institution and says like, we don't want to build the next Harvard necessarily. We just want to like blow apart the concept of universities whatsoever. Or, you know, we don't want to create a new CNN or a new Fox News. We want to just like fund like individual creators to do that same sort of work, but in this very decentralized way. Like, will that work long term? I don't know. Like, is that just sort of like a temporary state that we're in right now where no one really knows what the next institutions will look like? Or is that really like an important part of this generation where like, we shouldn't be asking the question of like, how do you build a new media network? We should just be saying like, the answer is there is no media network. We just go to like all these individuals instead. Dwarkesh Patel 0:47:31Yeah, that's interesting. What do you make of this idea that I think, let's say, that these idea machines might be limited by the fact that if you're going to start some sort of organization in them, you're very much depending on somebody who has made a lot of money independently to fund you and to grant you approval. And I just have a hard time seeing somebody who is like a Napoleon-like figure being willing long term to live under that arrangement. And that so there'll just be the people who are just have this desire to dominate and be recognized who are probably pretty important to any movement you want to create. They'll just want to go off and just like build a company or something that gives them an independent footing first. And they just won't fall under any umbrella. You know what I mean? Nadia Asparouhova 0:48:27Yeah, I mean, like Dustin Moskovitz, for example, has been funding EA for a really long time and hasn't hasn't walked away necessarily. Yeah. I mean, on the flip side, you can see like SPF carried a lot of a lot of risk because it's your point, I guess, like, you know, you end up relying on this one funder, the one funder disappears and everything else kind of falls apart. I mean, I think like, I don't have any sort of like preciousness attached to the idea of like communities, you know, lasting forever. I think this is like, again, if we're trying to solve for the problem of like what did not work well about 5.1c3 foundations for most of recent history, like part of it was that they're, you know, just meant to live on to perpetuity. Like, why do we still have like, you know, Rockefeller Foundation, there are now actually many different Rockefeller Foundations, but like, why does that even exist? Like, why did that money not just get spent down? And actually, when John D. Rockefeller was first proposing the idea of foundations, he wanted them to be like, to have like a finite end state. So he wanted them to last only like 50 years or 100 years when he was proposing this like federal charter, but that federal charter failed. And so now we have these like state charters and foundations can just exist forever. But like, I think if we want to like improve upon this idea of like, how do we prevent like meritocratic elites from turning into aristocratic elites? How do we like, yeah, how do we actually just like try to do a lot of really interesting stuff in our lifetimes? It's like a very, it's very counterintuitive, because you think about like, leaving a legacy must mean like creating institutions or creating a foundation that lasts forever. And, you know, 200 years from now, there's still like the Nadia Asparuva Foundation out there. But like, if I really think about it, it's like, I would almost rather just do really, really, really good, interesting work in like, 50 years or 20 years or 10 years, and have that be the legacy versus your name kind of getting, you know, submerged over a century of institutional decay and decline. So yeah, I don't like if you know, you have a community that lasts for maybe only last 10 years or something like that, and it's funded for that amount of time, and then it kind of elbows its usefulness and it winds down or becomes less relevant. Like, I don't necessarily see it as a bad thing. Of course, like in practice, you know, nothing ever ends that that neatly and that quietly. But, but yeah, I don't think that's a bad thing. Dwarkesh Patel 0:50:44Yeah, yeah. Who are some ethnographers or sociologists from a previous era that have influenced your work? So was there somebody writing about, you know, what it was like to be in a Roman Legion? Or what it was like to work in a factory floor? And you're like, you know what, I want to do that for open source? Or I want to do that for the New Tech Elite? Nadia Asparouhova 0:51:02For open source, I was definitely really influenced by Jane Jacobs and Eleanor Ostrom. I think both had this quality of, so yeah, Eleanor Ostrom was looking at examples of common pool resources, like fisheries or forests or whatever. And just like, going and visiting them and spending a lot of time with them and then saying like, actually, I don't think tragedy of the commons is like a real thing, or it's not the only outcome that we can possibly have. And so sometimes commons can be managed, like perfectly sustainably. And it's not necessarily true that everyone just like treats them very extractively. And just like wrote about what she saw. And same with Jane Jacobs sort of looking at cities as someone who lives in one, right? Like she didn't have any fancy credentials or anything like that. She was just like, I live in the city and I'm looking around and this idea of like, top down urban planning, where you have like someone trying to design this perfect city that like, doesn't change and doesn't yield to its people. It just seems completely unrealistic. And the style that both of them take in their writing is very, it just it starts from them just like, observing what they see and then like, trying to write about it. And I just, yeah, that's, that's the style that I really want to emulate. Dwarkesh Patel 0:52:12Interesting. Nadia Asparouhova 0:52:13Yeah. I think for people to just be talking to like, I don't know, like Chris just like just talking to like open source developers, turns out you can learn a lot more from that than just sitting around like thinking about what open source developers might be thinking about. But... Dwarkesh Patel 0:52:25I have this, I have had this idea of not even for like writing it out loud, but just to understand how the world works. Just like shadowing people who are in just like a random position, they don't have to be a lead in any way, but just like a person who's the personal assistant to somebody influential, how to decide whose emails they forward, how they decide what's the priority, or somebody who's just like an accountant for a big company, right? It's just like, what is involved there? Like, what kinds of we're gonna, you know what I mean? Just like, random people, the line manager at the local factory. I just have no idea how these parts of the world work. And I just want to like, yeah, just shadow them for a day and see like, what happens there. Nadia Asparouhova 0:53:05This is really interesting, because everyone else focuses on sort of like, you know, the big name figure or whatever, but you know, who's the actual gatekeeper there? But yeah, I mean, I've definitely found like, if you just start cold emailing people and talking to them, people are often like, surprisingly, very, very open to being talked to because I don't know, like, most people do not get asked questions about what they do and how they think and stuff. So, you know, you want to realize that dream. Dwarkesh Patel 0:53:33So maybe I'm not like John Rockefeller, and that I only want my organization to last for 50 years. I'm sure you've come across these people who have this idea that, you know, I'll let my money compound for like 200 years. And if it just compounds at some reasonable rate, I'll be, it'll be like the most wealthy institution in the world, unless somebody else has the same exact idea. If somebody wanted to do that, but they wanted to hedge for the possibility that there's a war or there's a revolt, or there's some sort of change in law that draws down this wealth. How would you set up a thousand year endowment, basically, is what I'm asking, or like a 500 year endowment? Would you just put it in like a crypto wallet with us? And just, you know what I mean? Like, how would you go about that organizationally? How would you like, that's your goal? I want to have the most influence in 500 years. Nadia Asparouhova 0:54:17Well, I'd worry much less. The question for me is not about how do I make sure that there are assets available to distribute in a thousand years? Because I don't know, just put in stock marketers. You can do some pretty boring things to just like, you know, ensure your assets grow over time. The more difficult question is, how do you ensure that whoever is deciding how to distribute the funds, distributes them in a way that you personally want them to be spent? So Ford Foundation is a really interesting example of this, where Henry Ford created a Ford Foundation shortly before he died, and just pledged a lot of Ford stock to create this foundation and was doing it basically for tax reasons, had no philanthropic. It's just like, this is what we're doing to like, house this wealth over here. And then, you know, passed away, son passed away, and grandson ended up being on the board. But the board ended up being basically like, you know, a bunch of people that Henry Ford certainly would not have ever wanted to be on his board. And so, you know, and you end up seeing like, the Ford Foundation ended up becoming huge influential. I like, I have received money from them. So it's not at all an indictment of sort of like their views or anything like that. It's just much more of like, you know, you had the intent of the original donor, and then you had like, who are all these people that like, suddenly just ended up with a giant pool of capital and then like, decided to spend it however they felt like spending it and the grandson at the time sort of like, famously resigned because he was like, really frustrated and was just like, this is not at all what my family wanted and like, basically like, kicked off the board. So anyway, so that is the question that I would like figure out if I had a thousand year endowment is like, how do I make sure that whomever manages that endowment actually shares my views? One, shares my views, but then also like, how do I even know what we need to care about in a thousand years? Because like, I don't even know what the problems are in a thousand years. And this is why like, I think like, very long term thinking can be a little bit dangerous in this way, because you're sort of like, presuming that you know what even matters then. Whereas I think like, figure out the most impactful things to do is just like, so contextually dependent on like, what is going on at the time. So I can't, I don't know. And there are also foundations where you know, the dono

Nadia Asparouhova is currently researching what the new tech elite will look like at nadia.xyz. She is also the author of Working in Public: The Making and Maintenance of Open Source Software.We talk about how:* American philanthropy has changed from Rockefeller to Effective Altruism* SBF represented the Davos elite rather than the Silicon Valley elite,* Open source software reveals the limitations of democratic participation,* & much more.Watch on YouTube. Listen on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or any other podcast platform. Read the full transcript here.Timestamps(0:00:00) - Intro(0:00:26) - SBF was Davos elite(0:09:38) - Gender sociology of philanthropy(0:16:30) - Was Shakespeare an open source project?(0:22:00) - Need for charismatic leaders(0:33:55) - Political reform(0:40:30) - Why didn't previous wealth booms lead to new philanthropic movements?(0:53:35) - Creating a 10,000 year endowment(0:57:27) - Why do institutions become left wing?(1:02:27) - Impact of billionaire intellectual funding(1:04:12) - Value of intellectuals(1:08:53) - Climate, AI, & Doomerism(1:18:04) - Religious philanthropyTranscriptThis transcript was autogenerated and thus may contain errors.Nadia Asparouhova 0:00:00You start with this idea that like democracy is green and like we should have tons of tons of people participating tons of people participate and then it turns out that like most participation is actually just noise and not that useful. That really squarely puts SPF into like the finance crowd much more so than startups or crypto. Founders will always talk about like building and like startups are like so important or whatever and like what are all of them doing in their spare time? They're like reading books. They're reading essays and like and then those like books and essays influence how they think about stuff. Dwarkesh Patel 0:00:26Okay, today I have the pleasure of talking with Nadia Asperova. She is previously the author of Working in Public, the Making and Maintenance of Open Source Software and she is currently researching what the new tech elite will look like. Nadia, welcome to the podcast. Thanks for having me. Yeah, okay, so this is a perfect timing obviously given what's been happening with SPF. How much do you think SPF was motivated by effective altruism? Where do you place them in the whole dimensionality of idea machines and motivations? Nadia Asparouhova 0:01:02Yeah, I mean, I know there's sort of like conflicting accounts going around. Like, I mean, just from my sort of like character study or looking at SPF, it seems pretty clear to me that he is sort of inextricably tied to the concepts of utilitarianism that then motivate effective altruism. The difference for me in sort of like where I characterize effective altruism is I think it's much closer to sort of like finance Wall Street elite mindset than it is to startup mindset, even though a lot of people associate effective altruism with tech people. So yeah, to me, like that really squarely puts SPF in sort of like the finance crowd much more so than startups or crypto. And I think that's something that gets really misunderstood about him. Dwarkesh Patel 0:01:44Interesting. Yeah, I find that interesting because if you think of Jeff Bezos, when he started Amazon, he wasn't somebody like John Perry Barlow, who was just motivated by the free philosophy of the internet. You know, he saw a graph of internet usage going up into the right and he's like, I should build a business on top of this. And in a sort of loopholy way, try to figure out like, what is the thing that is that is the first thing you would want to put a SQL database on top of to ship and produce? And I think that's what books was the answer. So and obviously, he also came from a hedge fund, right? Would you play somebody like him also in the old finance crowd rather than as a startup founder? Nadia Asparouhova 0:02:22Yeah, it's kind of a weird one because he's both associated with the early computing revolution, but then also AWS was sort of like what kicked off all of the 2010s sort of startup. And I think in the way that he's started thinking about his public legacy and just from sort of his public behavior, I think he fits much more squarely now in that sort of tech startup elite mindset of the 2010s crowd more so than the Davos elite crowd of the 2000s. Dwarkesh Patel 0:02:47What in specific are you referring to? Nadia Asparouhova 0:02:49Well, he's come out and been like sort of openly critical about a lot of like Davos type institutions. He kind of pokes fun at mainstream media and for not believing in him not believing in AWS. And I think he's because he sort of like spans across like both of these generations, he's been able to see the evolution of like how maybe like his earlier peers function versus the sort of second cohort of peers that he came across. But to me, he seems much more like, much more of the sort of like startup elite mindset. And I can kind of back up a little bit there. But what I associate with the Davos Wall Street kind of crowd is much more of this focus on quantitative thinking, measuring efficiency. And then also this like globalist mindset, like I think that the vision that they want to ensure for the world is this idea of like a very interconnected world where we, you know, sort of like the United Nations kind of mindset. And that is really like literally what the Davos gathering is. Whereas Bezos from his actions today feels much closer to the startup, like Y Combinator post AWS kind of mindset of founders that were really made their money by taking these non-obvious bets on talented people. So they were much less focused on credentialism. They were much more into this idea of meritocracy. I think we sort of forget like how commonplace this trope is of like, you know, the young founder in a dorm room. And that was really popularized by the 2010s cohort of the startup elite of being someone that may have like absolutely no skills, no background in industry, but can somehow sort of like turn the entire industry over on its head. And I think that was sort of like the unique insight of the tech startup crowd. And yeah, when I think about just sort of like some of the things that Bezos is doing now, it feels like she identifies with that much more strongly of being this sort of like lone cowboy or having this like one talented person with really great ideas who can sort of change the world. I think about the, what is it called? The Altos Institute or the new like science initiative that he put out where he was recruiting these like scientists from academic institutions and paying them really high salaries just to attract like the very best top scientists around the world. That's much more of that kind of mindset than it is about like putting faith in sort of like existing institutions, which is what we would see from more of like a Davos kind of mindset. Dwarkesh Patel 0:05:16Interesting. Do you think that in the future, like the kids of today's tech billionaires will be future aristocrats? So effective altruism will be a sort of elite aristocratic philosophy. They'll be like tomorrow's Rockefellers. Nadia Asparouhova 0:05:30Yeah, I kind of worry about that actually. I think of there as being like within the US, we were kind of lucky in that we have these two different types of elites. We have the aristocratic elites and we have meritocratic elites. Most other countries I think basically just have aristocratic elites, especially comparing like the US to Britain in this way. And so in the aristocratic model, your wealth and your power is sort of like conferred to you by previous generations. You just kind of like inherit it from your parents or your family or whomever. And the upside of that, if there is an upside, is that you get really socialized into this idea of what does it mean to be a public steward? What does it mean to think of yourself and your responsibility to the rest of society as a privileged elite person? In the US, we have this really great thing where you can kind of just, you know, we have the American dream, right? So lots of people that didn't grow up with money can break into the elite ranks by doing something that makes them really successful. And that's like a really special thing about the US. So we have this whole class of meritocratic elites who may not have aristocratic backgrounds, but ended up doing something within their lifetimes that made them successful. And so, yeah, I think it's a really cool thing. The downside of that being that you don't really get like socialized into what does it mean to have this fortune and do something interesting with your money. You don't have this sort of generational benefit that the aristocratic elites have of presiding over your land or whatever you want to call it, where you're sort of learning how to think about yourself in relation to the rest of society. And so it's much easier to just kind of like hoard your wealth or whatever. And so when you think about sort of like what are the next generations, the children of the meritocratic elites going to look like or what are they going to do, it's very easy to imagine kind of just becoming aristocratic elites in the sense of like, yeah, they're just going to like inherit the money from their families. And they haven't also really been socialized into like how to think about their role in society. And so, yeah, all the meritocratic elites eventually turn into aristocratic elites, which is where I think you start seeing this trend now towards people wanting to sort of like spend down their fortunes within their lifetime or within a set number of decades after they die because they kind of see what happened in previous generations and are like, oh, I don't want to do that. Dwarkesh Patel 0:07:41Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, it's interesting. You mentioned that the aristocratic elites have the feel that they have the responsibility to give back, I guess, more so than the meritocratic elites. But I believe that in the U.S., the amount of people who give to philanthropy and the total amount they give is higher than in Europe, right, where they probably have a higher ratio of aristocratic elites. Wouldn't you expect the opposite if the aristocratic elites are the ones that are, you know, inculcated to give back? Nadia Asparouhova 0:08:11Well, I assume like most of the people that are the figures about sort of like Americans giving back is spread across like all Americans, not just the wealthiest. Dwarkesh Patel 0:08:19Yeah. So you would predict that among the top 10 percent of Americans, there's less philanthropy than the top 10 percent of Europeans? Uh, there's... Sorry, I'm not sure I understand the question. I guess, does the ratio of meritocratic to aristocratic elites change how much philanthropy there is among the elites? Nadia Asparouhova 0:08:45Yeah, I mean, like here we have much more of a culture of like even among aristocratic elites, this idea of like institution building or like large donations to like build institutions, whereas in Europe, a lot of the public institutions are created by government. And there's sort of this mentality of like private citizens don't experiment with public institutions. That's the government's job. And you see that sort of like pervasively throughout all of like European cultures. Like when we want something to change in public society, we look to government to like regulate or change it. Whereas in the U.S., it's kind of much more like choose your own adventure. And we don't really see the government as like the sole provider or shaper of public institutions. We also look at private citizens and like there's so many things that like public institutions that we have now that were not started by government, but were started by private philanthropists. And that's like a really unusual thing about the U.S. Dwarkesh Patel 0:09:39There's this common pattern in philanthropy where a guy will become a billionaire, and then his wife will be heavily involved with or even potentially in charge of, you know, the family's philanthropic efforts. And there's many examples of this, right? Like Bill and Melinda Gates, you know, Mark Zuckerberg. Yeah, yeah, exactly. And Dustin Moskovitz. So what is the consequence of this? How is philanthropy, the causes and the foundations, how are they different because of this pattern? Nadia Asparouhova 0:10:15Well, I mean, I feel like we see that pattern, like the problem is that what even is philanthropy is changing very quickly. So we can say historically that, not even historically, in recent history, in recent decades, that has probably been true. That wasn't true in say like late 1800s, early 1900s. It was, you know, Carnegie and Rockefeller were the ones that were actually doing their own philanthropy, not their spouses. So I'd say it's a more recent trend. But now I think we're also seeing this thing where like a lot of wealthy people are not necessarily doing their philanthropic activities through foundations anymore. And that's true both within like traditional philanthropy sector and sort of like the looser definition of what we might consider to be philanthropy, depending on how you define it, which I kind of more broadly want to define as like the actions of elites that are sort of like, you know, public facing activities. But like even within sort of traditional philanthropy circles, we have like, you know, the 5.1c3 nonprofit, which is, you know, traditionally how people, you know, house all their money in a foundation and then they do their philanthropic activities out of that. But in more recent years, we've seen this trend towards like LLCs. So Emerson Collective, I think, might have been maybe the first one to do it. And that was Steve Jobs' Philanthropic Foundation. And then Mark Zuckerberg with Chan Zuckerberg Initiative also used an LLC. And then since then, a lot of other, especially within sort of like tech wealth, we've seen that move towards people using LLCs instead of 5.1c3s because they, it just gives you a lot more flexibility in the kinds of things you can fund. You don't just have to fund other nonprofits. And they also see donor advised funds. So DAFs, which are sort of this like hacky workaround to foundations as well. So I guess point being that like this sort of mental model of like, you know, one person makes a ton of money and then their spouse kind of directs these like nice, feel good, like philanthropic activities, I think is like, may not be the model that we continue to move forward on. And I'm kind of hopeful or curious to see like, what does a return to like, because we've had so many new people making a ton of money in the last 10 years or so, we might see this return to sort of like the Gilded Age style of philanthropy where people are not necessarily just like forming a philanthropic foundation and looking for the nicest causes to fund, but are actually just like thinking a little bit more holistically about like, how do I help build and create like a movement around a thing that I really care about? How do I think more broadly around like funding companies and nonprofits and individuals and like doing lots of different, different kinds of activities? Because I think like the broader goal that like motivates at least like the new sort of elite classes to want to do any of this stuff at all. I don't really think philanthropy is about altruism. I just, I think like the term philanthropy is just totally fraud and like refers to too many different things and it's not very helpful. But I think like the part that I'm interested in at least is sort of like what motivates elites to go from just sort of like making a lot of money and then like thinking about themselves to them thinking about sort of like their place in broader public society. And I think that starts with thinking about how do I control like media, academia, government are sort of like the three like arms of the public sector. And we think of it in that way a little bit more broadly where it's really much more about sort of like maintaining control over your own power, more so than sort of like this like altruistic kind of, you know, whitewash. Dwarkesh Patel 0:13:41Yeah. Nadia Asparouhova 0:13:42Then it becomes like, you know, there's so many other like creative ways to think about like how that might happen. Dwarkesh Patel 0:13:49That's, that's, that's really interesting. That's a, yeah, that's a really interesting way of thinking about what it is you're doing with philanthropy. Isn't the word noble descended from a word that basically means to give alms to people like if you're in charge of them, you will give alms to them. And in a way, I mean, it might have been another word I'm thinking of, but in a way, yeah, a part of what motivates altruism, not obviously all of it, but part of it is that, yeah, you influence and power. Not even in a necessarily negative connotation, but that's definitely what motivates altruism. So having that put square front and center is refreshing and honest, actually. Nadia Asparouhova 0:14:29Yeah, I don't, I really don't see it as like a negative thing at all. And I think most of the like, you know, writing and journalism and academia that focuses on philanthropy tends to be very wealth critical. I'm not at all, like I personally don't feel wealth critical at all. I think like, again, sort of returning to this like mental model of like aristocratic and meritocratic elites, aristocratic elites are able to sort of like pass down, like encode what they're supposed to be doing in each generation because they have this kind of like familial ties. And I think like on the meritocratic side, like if you didn't have any sort of language around altruism or public stewardship, then like, it's like, you need to kind of create that narrative for the meritocratically or else, you know, there's just like nothing to hold on to. So I think like, it makes sense to talk in those terms. Andrew Carnegie being sort of the father of modern philanthropy in the US, like, wrote these series of essays about wealth that were like very influential and where he sort of talks about this like moral obligation. And I think like, really, it was kind of this like, a quiet way for him to, even though it was ostensibly about sort of like giving back or, you know, helping lift up the next generation of people, the next generation of entrepreneurs. Like, I think it really was much more of a protective stance of saying, like, if he doesn't frame it in this way, then people are just going to knock down the concept of wealth altogether. Dwarkesh Patel 0:15:50Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, that's really interesting. And it's interesting, in which cases this kind of influence has been successful and worse not. When Jeff Bezos bought the Washington Post, has there been any counterfactual impact on how the Washington Post has run as a result? I doubt it. But you know, when Musk takes over Twitter, I guess it's a much more expensive purchase. We'll see what the influence is negative or positive. But it's certainly different than what Twitter otherwise would have been. So control over media, it's, I guess it's a bigger meme now. Let me just take a digression and ask about open source for a second. So based on your experience studying these open source projects, do you find the theory that Homer and Shakespeare were basically container words for these open source repositories that stretched out through centuries? Do you find that more plausible now, rather than them being individuals, of course? Do you find that more plausible now, given your, given your study of open source? Sorry, what did? Nadia Asparouhova 0:16:49Less plausible. What did? Dwarkesh Patel 0:16:51Oh, okay. So the idea is that they weren't just one person. It was just like a whole bunch of people throughout a bunch of centuries who composed different parts of each story or composed different stories. Nadia Asparouhova 0:17:02The Nicholas Berbaki model, same concept of, you know, a single mathematician who's actually comprised of like lots of different. I think it's actually the opposite would be sort of my conclusion. We think of open source as this very like collective volunteer effort. And I think, use that as an excuse to not really contribute back to open source or not really think about like how open source projects are maintained. Because we were like, you know, you kind of have this bystander effect where you're like, well, you know, someone's taking care of it. It's volunteer oriented. Like, of course, there's someone out there taking care of it. But in reality, it actually turns out it is just one person. So maybe it's a little bit more like a Wizard of Oz type model. It's actually just like one person behind the curtain that's like, you know, doing everything. And you see this huge, you know, grandeur and you think there must be so many people that are behind it. It's one person. Yeah, and I think that's sort of undervalued. I think a lot of the rhetoric that we have about open source is rooted in sort of like early 2000s kind of starry eyed idea about like the power of the internet and the idea of like crowdsourcing and Wikipedia and all this stuff. And then like in reality, like we kind of see this convergence from like very broad based collaborative volunteer efforts to like narrowing down to kind of like single creators. And I think a lot of like, you know, single creators are the people that are really driving a lot of the internet today and a lot of cultural production. Dwarkesh Patel 0:18:21Oh, that's that's super fascinating. Does that in general make you more sympathetic towards the lone genius view of accomplishments in history? Not just in literature, I guess, but just like when you think back to how likely is it that, you know, Newton came up with all that stuff on his own versus how much was fed into him by, you know, the others around him? Nadia Asparouhova 0:18:40Yeah, I think so. I feel I've never been like a big, like, you know, great founder theory kind of person. I think I'm like, my true theory is, I guess that ideas are maybe some sort of like sentient, like, concept or virus that operates outside of us. And we are just sort of like the vessels through which like ideas flow. So in that sense, you know, it's not really about any one person, but I do think I think I tend to lean like in terms of sort of like, where does creative, like, creative effort come from? I do think a lot of it comes much more from like a single individual than it does from with some of the crowds. But everything just serves like different purposes, right? Like, because I think like, within open source, it's like, not all of open source maintenance work is creative. In fact, most of it is pretty boring and dredgerous. And that's the stuff that no one wants to do. And that, like, one person kind of got stuck with doing and that's really different from like, who created a certain open source projects, which is a little bit more of that, like, creative mindset. Dwarkesh Patel 0:19:44Yeah, yeah, that's really interesting. Do you think more projects in open source, so just take a popular repository, on average, do you think that these repositories would be better off if, let's say a larger percentage of them where pull requests were closed and feature requests were closed? You can look at the code, but you can't interact with it or its creators anyway? Should more repositories have this model? Yeah, I definitely think so. I think a lot of people would be much happier that way. Yeah, yeah. I mean, it's interesting to think about the implications of this for other areas outside of code, right? Which is where it gets really interesting. I mean, in general, there's like a discussion. Sorry, go ahead. Yeah. Nadia Asparouhova 0:20:25Yeah, I mean, that's basically what's for the writing of my book, because I was like, okay, I feel like whatever's happening open source right now, you start with this idea that like democracy is green, and like, we should have tons and tons of people participating, tons of people participate, and then it turns out that like, most participation is actually just noise and not that useful. And then it ends up like scaring everyone away. And in the end, you just have like, you know, one or a small handful of people that are actually doing all the work while everyone else is kind of like screaming around them. And this becomes like a really great metaphor for what happens in social media. And the reason I wrote, after I wrote the book, I went and worked at Substack. And, you know, part of it was because I was like, I think the model is kind of converging from like, you know, Twitter being this big open space to like, suddenly everyone is retreating, like, the public space is so hostile that everyone must retreat into like, smaller private spaces. So then, you know, chats became a thing, Substack became a thing. And yeah, I just feel sort of like realistic, right? Dwarkesh Patel 0:21:15That's really fascinating. Yeah, the Straussian message in that book is very strong. But in general, there's, when you're thinking about something like corporate governance, right? There's a big question. And I guess even more interestingly, when you think if you think DAOs are going to be a thing, and you think that we will have to reinvent corporate governance from the ground up, there's a question of, should these be run like monarchy? Should they be sort of oligarchies where the board is in control? Should they be just complete democracies where everybody gets one vote on what you do at the next, you know, shareholder meeting or something? And this book and that analysis is actually pretty interesting to think about. Like, how should corporations be run differently, if at all? What does it inform how you think the average corporation should be run? Nadia Asparouhova 0:21:59Yeah, definitely. I mean, I think we are seeing a little bit, I'm not a corporate governance expert, but I do feel like we're seeing a little of this like, backlash against, like, you know, shareholder activism and like, extreme focus on sort of like DEI and boards and things like that. And like, I think we're seeing a little bit of people starting to like take the reins and take control again, because they're like, ah, that doesn't really work so well, it turns out. I think DAOs are going to learn this hard lesson as well. It's still maybe just too early to say what is happening in DAOs right now. But at least the ones that I've looked at, it feels like there is a very common failure mode of people saying, you know, like, let's just have like, let's have this be super democratic and like, leave it to the crowd to kind of like run this thing and figure out how it works. And it turns out you actually do need a strong leader, even the beginning. And this, this is something I learned just from like, open source projects where it's like, you know, very rarely, or if at all, do you have a strong leader? If at all, do you have a project that starts sort of like leaderless and faceless? And then, you know, usually there is some strong creator, leader or influential figure that is like driving the project forward for a certain period of time. And then you can kind of get to the point when you have enough of an active community that maybe that leader takes a step back and lets other people take over. But it's not like you can do that off day one. And that's sort of this open question that I have for, for crypto as an industry more broadly, because I think like, if I think about sort of like, what is defining each of these generations of people that are, you know, pushing forward new technological paradigms, I mentioned that like Wall Street finance mindset is very focused on like globalism and on this sort of like efficiency quantitative mindset. You have the tech Silicon Valley Y company or kind of generation that is really focused on top talent. And the idea this sort of like, you know, founder mindset, the power of like individuals breaking institutions, and then you have like the crypto mindset, which is this sort of like faceless leaderless, like governed by protocol and by code mindset, which is like intriguing to me. But I have a really hard time squaring it with seeing like, in some sense, open source was the experiment that started playing out, you know, 20 years before then. And some things are obviously different in crypto, because tokenization completely changes the incentive system for contributing and maintaining crypto projects versus like traditional open source projects. But in the end, also like humans are humans. And like, I feel like there are a lot of lessons to be learned from open source of like, you know, they also started out early on as being very starry eyed about the power of like, hyper democratic regimes. And it turned out like, that just like doesn't work in practice. And so like, how is CryptoGhost or like Square that? I'm just, yeah, very curious to see what happened. Dwarkesh Patel 0:24:41Yeah, super fascinating. That raises an interesting question, by the way, you've written about idea machines, and you can explain that concept while you answer this question. But do you think that movements can survive without a charismatic founder who is both alive and engaged? So once Will McCaskill dies, would you be shorting effective altruism? Or if like Tyler Cowen dies, would you be short progress studies? Or do you think that, you know, once you get a movement off the ground, you're like, okay, I'm gonna be shorting altruism. Nadia Asparouhova 0:25:08Yeah, I think that's a good question. I mean, like, I don't think there's some perfect template, like each of these kind of has its own sort of unique quirks and characteristics in them. I guess, yeah, back up a little bit. Idea machines is this concept I have around what the transition from we were talking before about, so like traditional 5.1c3 foundations as vehicles for philanthropy, what does the modern version of that look like that is not necessarily encoded in institution? And so I had this term idea machines, which is sort of this different way of thinking about like, turning ideas into outcomes where you have a community that forms around a shared set of values and ideas. So yeah, you mentioned like progress studies is an example of that, or effective altruism example, eventually, that community gets capitalized by some funders, and then it starts to be able to develop an agenda and then like, actually start building like, you know, operational outcomes and like, turning those ideas into real world initiatives. And remind me of your question again. Dwarkesh Patel 0:26:06Yeah, so once the charismatic founder dies of a movement, is a movement basically handicapped in some way? Like, maybe it'll still be a thing, but it's never going to reach the heights it could have reached if that main guy had been around? Nadia Asparouhova 0:26:20I think there are just like different shapes and classifications of like different, different types of communities here. So like, and I'm just thinking back again to sort of like different types of open source projects where it's not like they're like one model that fits perfectly for all of them. So I think there are some communities where it's like, yeah, I mean, I think effective altruism is maybe a good example of that where, like, the community has grown so much that I like if all their leaders were to, you know, knock on wood, disappear tomorrow or something that like, I think the movement would still keep going. There are enough true believers, like even within the community. And I think that's the next order of that community that like, I think that would just continue to grow. Whereas you have like, yeah, maybe it's certain like smaller or more nascent communities that are like, or just like communities that are much more like oriented around, like, a charismatic founder that's just like a different type where if you lose that leader, then suddenly, you know, the whole thing falls apart because they're much more like these like cults or religions. And I don't think it makes one better, better or worse. It's like the right way to do is probably like Bitcoin, where you have a charismatic leader for life because that leader is more necessarily, can't go away, can't ever die. But you still have the like, you know, North Stars and like that. Dwarkesh Patel 0:27:28Yeah. It is funny. I mean, a lot of prophets have this property of you're not really sure what they believed in. So people with different temperaments can project their own preferences onto him. Somebody like Jesus, right? It's, you know, you can be like a super left winger and believe Jesus did for everything you believe in. You can be a super right winger and believe the same. Yeah. Go ahead. Nadia Asparouhova 0:27:52I think there's value in like writing cryptically more. Like I think about like, I think Curtis Yarvin has done a really good job of this where, you know, intentionally or not, but because like his writing is so cryptic and long winded. And like, it's like the Bible where you can just kind of like pour over endlessly being like, what does this mean? What does this mean? And in a weird, you know, you're always told to write very clearly, you're told to write succinctly, but like, it's actually in a weird way, you can be much more effective by being very long winded and not obvious in what you're saying. Dwarkesh Patel 0:28:20Yes, which actually raises an interesting question that I've been wondering about. There have been movements, I guess, if I did altruism is a good example that have been focused on community building in a sort of like explicit way. And then there's other movements where they have a charismatic founder. And moreover, this guy, he doesn't really try to recruit people. I'm thinking of somebody like Peter Thiel, for example, right? He goes on, like once every year or two, he'll go on a podcast and have this like really cryptic back and forth. And then just kind of go away in a hole for a few months or a few years. And I'm curious, which one you think is more effective, given the fact that you're not really competing for votes. So absolute number of people is not what you care about. It's not clear what you care about. But you do want to have more influence among the elites who matter in like politics and tech as well. So anyways, which just your thoughts on those kinds of strategies, explicitly trying to community build versus just kind of projecting out there in a sort of cryptic way? Nadia Asparouhova 0:29:18Yeah, I mean, I definitely being somewhat cryptic myself. I favor the cryptic methodology. But I mean, yeah, I mean, you mentioned Peter Thiel. I think like the Thielverse is probably like the most, like one of the most influential things. In fact, that is hard. It is partly so effective, because it is hard to even define what it is or wrap your head around that you just know that sort of like, every interesting person you meet somehow has some weird connection to, you know, Peter Thiel. And it's funny. But I think this is sort of that evolution from the, you know, 5163 Foundation to the like idea machine implicit. And that is this this switch from, you know, used to start the, you know, Nadia Asparova Foundation or whatever. And it was like, you know, had your name on it. And it was all about like, what do I as a funder want to do in the world, right? And you spend all this time doing this sort of like classical, you know, research, going out into the field, talking to people and you sit and you think, okay, like, here's a strategy I'm going to pursue. And like, ultimately, it's like, very, very donor centric in this very explicit way. And so within traditional philanthropy, you're seeing this sort of like, backlash against that. In like, you know, straight up like nonprofit land, where now you're seeing the locus of power moving from being very donor centric to being sort of like community centric and people saying like, well, we don't really want the donors telling us what to do, even though it's also their money. Like, you know, instead, let's have this be driven by the community from the ground up. That's maybe like one very literal reaction against that, like having the donor as sort of the central power figure. But I think idea machines are kind of like the like, maybe like the more realistic or effective answer in that like, the donor is still like without the presence of a funder, like, community is just a community. They're just sitting around and talking about ideas of like, what could possibly happen? Like, they don't have any money to make anything happen. But like, I think like really effective funders are good at being sort of like subtle and thoughtful about like, like, you know, no one wants to see like the Peter Thiel foundation necessarily. That's just like, it's so like, not the style of how it works. But you know, you meet so many people that are being funded by the same person, like just going out and sort of aggressively like arming the rebels is a more sort of like, yeah, just like distributed decentralized way of thinking about like spreading one's power, instead of just starting a fund. Instead of just starting a foundation. Dwarkesh Patel 0:31:34Yeah, yeah. I mean, even if you look at the life of influential politicians, somebody like LBJ, or Robert Moses, it's how much of it was like calculated and how much of it was just like decades of building up favors and building up connections in a way that had no definite and clear plan, but it just you're hoping that someday you can call upon them and sort of like Godfather way. Yeah. Yeah, that's interesting. And by the way, this is also where your work on open source comes in, right? Like, there's this idea that in the movement, you know, everybody will come in with their ideas, and you can community build your way towards, you know, what should be funded. And, yeah, I'm inclined to believe that it's probably like a few people who have these ideas about what should be funded. And the rest of it is either just a way of like building up engagement and building up hype. Or, or I don't know, or maybe just useless, but what are your thoughts on it? Nadia Asparouhova 0:32:32You know, I decided I was like, I am like, really very much a tech startup person and not a crypto person, even though I would very much like to be fun, because I'm like, ah, this is the future. And there's so many interesting things happening. And I'm like, for the record, not at all like down in crypto, I think it is like the next big sort of movement of things that are happening. But when I really come down to like the mindset, it's like I am so in that sort of like, top talent founder, like power of the individual to break institutions mindset, like that just resonates with me so much more than the like, leaderless, faceless, like, highly participatory kind of thing. And again, like I am very open to that being true, like I maybe I'm so wrong on that. I just like, I have not yet seen evidence that that works in the world. I see a lot of rhetoric about how that could work or should work. We have this sort of like implicit belief that like, direct democracy is somehow like the greatest thing to aspire towards. But like, over and over we see evidence that like that doesn't that just like doesn't really work. It doesn't mean we have to throw out the underlying principles or values behind that. Like I still really believe in meritocracy. I really believe in like access to opportunity. I really believe in like pursuit of happiness. Like to me, those are all like very like American values. But like, I think that where that breaks is the idea that like that has to happen through these like highly participatory methods. I just like, yeah, I haven't seen really great evidence of that being that working. Dwarkesh Patel 0:33:56What does that imply about how you think about politics or at least political structures? You think it would you you elect a mayor, but like, just forget no participation. He gets to do everything he wants to do for four years and you can get rid of in four years. But until then, no community meetings. Well, what does that imply about how you think cities and states and countries should be run? Nadia Asparouhova 0:34:17Um, that's a very complicated thoughts on that. I mean, I, I think it's also like, everyone has the fantasy of when it'd be so nice if there were just one person in charge. I hate all this squabbling. It would just be so great if we could just, you know, have one person just who has exactly the views that I have and put them in charge and let them run things. That would be very nice. I just, I do also think it's unrealistic. Like, I don't think I'm, you know, maybe like modernity sounds great in theory, but in practice just doesn't like I really embrace and I think like there is no perfect governance design either in the same way that there's no perfect open source project designer or whatever else we're talking about. Um, uh, like, yeah, it really just depends like what is like, what is your population comprised of? There are some very small homogenous populations that can be very easily governed by like, you know, a small government or one person or whatever, because there isn't that much dissent or difference. Everyone is sort of on the same page. America is the extreme opposite in that angle. And I'm always thinking about America because like, I'm American and I love America. But like, everyone is trying to solve the governance question for America. And I think like, yeah, I don't know. I mean, we're an extremely heterogeneous population. There are a lot of competing world views. I may not agree with all the views of everyone in America, but like I also, like, I don't want just one person that represents my personal views. I would focus more like effectiveness in governance than I would like having like, you know, just one person in charge or something that like, I don't mind if someone disagrees with my views as long as they're good at what they do, if that makes sense. So I think the questions are like, how do we improve the speed at which like our government works and the efficacy with which it works? Like, I think there's so much room to be made room for improvement there versus like, I don't know how much like I really care about like changing the actual structure of our government. Dwarkesh Patel 0:36:27Interesting. Going back to open source for a second. Why do these companies release so much stuff in open source for free? And it's probably literally worth trillions of dollars of value in total. And they just release it out and free and many of them are developer tools that other developers use to build competitors for these big tech companies that are releasing these open source tools. Why did they do it? What explains it? Nadia Asparouhova 0:36:52I mean, I think it depends on the specific project, but like a lot of times, these are projects that were developed internally. It's the same reason of like, I think code and writing are not that dissimilar in this way of like, why do people spend all this time writing, like long posts or papers or whatever, and then just release them for free? Like, why not put everything behind a paywall? And I think the answer is probably still in both cases where like mindshare is a lot more interesting than, you know, your literal IP. And so, you know, you put out, you write these like long reports or you tweet or whatever, like you spend all this time creating content for free and putting it out there because you're trying to capture mindshare. Same thing with companies releasing open source projects. Like a lot of times they really want like other developers to come in and contribute to them. They want to increase their status as like an open source friendly kind of company or company or show like, you know, here's the type of code that we write internally and showing that externally. They want to like recruiting is, you know, the hardest thing for any company, right? And so being able to attract the right kinds of developers or people that, you know, might fit really well into their developer culture just matters a lot more. And they're just doing that instead of with words or doing that with code. Dwarkesh Patel 0:37:57You've talked about the need for more idea machines. You're like dissatisfied with the fact that effective altruism is a big game in town. Is there some idea or nascent movement where I mean, other than progress ideas, but like something where you feel like this could be a thing, but it just needs some like charismatic founder to take it to the next level? Or even if it doesn't exist yet, it just like a set of ideas around this vein is like clearly something there is going to exist. You know what I mean? Is there anything like that that you notice? Nadia Asparouhova 0:38:26I only had a couple of different possibilities in that post. Yeah, I think like the progress sort of meme is probably the largest growing contender that I would see right now. I think there's another one right now around sort of like the new right. That's not even like the best term necessarily for it, but there's sort of like a shared set of values there that are maybe starting with like politics, but like ideally spreading to like other areas of public influence. So I think like those are a couple of like the bigger movements that I see right now. And then there's like smaller stuff too. Like I mentioned, like tools for thought in that post where like that's never going to be a huge idea machine. But it's one where you have a lot of like interesting, talented people that are thinking about sort of like future of computing. And until maybe more recently, like there just hasn't been a lot of funding available and the funding is always really uneven and unpredictable. And so that's to me an example of like, you know, a smaller community that like just needs that sort of like extra influx to turn a bunch of abstract ideas into practice. But yeah, I mean, I think like, yeah, there's some like the bigger ones that I see right now. I think there is just so much more potential to do more, but I wish people would just think a little bit more creatively because, yeah, I really do think like effective altruism kind of becomes like the default option for a lot of people. Then they're kind of vaguely dissatisfied with it and they don't like think about like, well, what do I actually really care about in the world and how do I want to put that forward? Dwarkesh Patel 0:39:53Yeah, there's also the fact that effective altruism has this like very fit memeplex in the sense that it's like a polytheistic religion where if you have a cause area, then you don't have your own movement. You just have a cause area within our broader movement, right? It just like adopts your gods into our movement. Nadia Asparouhova 0:40:15Yeah, that's the same thing I see like people trying to lobby for effective altruism to care about their cause area, but then it's like you could just start a separate. Like if you can't get EA to care about, then why not just like start another one somewhere else? Dwarkesh Patel 0:40:28Yeah, so, you know, it's interesting to me that the wealth boom in Silicon Valley and then tech spheres has led to the sound growth of philanthropy, but that hasn't always been the case. Even in America, like a lot of people became billionaires after energy markets were deregulated in the 80s and the 90s. And then there wasn't, and obviously the hub of that was like the Texas area or, you know, and as far as I'm aware, there wasn't like a boom of philanthropy motivated by the ideas that people in that region had. What's different about Silicon Valley? Why are they, or do you actually think that these other places have also had their own booms of philanthropic giving? Nadia Asparouhova 0:41:11I think you're right. Yeah, I would make the distinction between like being wealthy is not the same as being elite or whatever other term you want to use there. And so yeah, there are definitely like pockets of what's called like more like local markets of wealth, like, yeah, Texas oil or energy billionaires that tend to operate kind of just more in their own sphere. And a lot of, if you look at any philanthropic, like a lot of them will be philanthropically active, but they only really focus on their geographic area. But there's sort of this difference. And I think this is part of where it comes from the question of like, you know, like what forces someone to actually like do something more public facing with their power. And I think that comes from your power being sort of like threatened. That's like one aspect I would say of that. So like tech has only really become a lot more active in the public sphere outside of startups after the tech backlash of the mid 2010s. And you can say a similar thing kind of happened with the Davos elite as well. And also for the Gilded Age cohort of wealth. And so yeah, when you have sort of, you're kind of like, you know, building in your own little world. And like, you know, we had literally like Silicon Valley where everyone was kind of like sequestered off and just thinking about startups and thinking themselves of like, tech is essentially like an industry, just like any other sort of, you know, entertainment or whatever. And we're just kind of happy building over here. And then it was only when sort of like the Panopticon like turned its head towards tech and started and they had this sort of like onslaught of critiques coming from sort of like mainstream discourse where they went, oh, like what is my place in this world? And, you know, if I don't try to like defend that, then I'm going to just kind of, yeah, we're going to lose all that power. So I think that that need to sort of like defend one's power can kind of like prompt that sort of action. The other aspect I'd highlight is just like, I think a lot of elites are driven by these like technological paradigm shifts. So there's this scholar, Carlotta Perrins, who writes about technological revolutions and financial capital. And she identifies like a few different technological revolutions over the last, whatever, hundred plus years that like drove this cycle of, you know, a new technology is invented. It's people are kind of like working on it in this smaller industry sort of way. And then there is some kind of like crazy like public frenzy and then like a backlash. And then from after that, then you have this sort of like focus on public institution building. But she really points out that like not all technology fits into that. Like, not all technology is a paradigm shift. Sometimes technology is just technology. And so, yeah, I think like a lot of wealth might just fall into that category. My third example, by the way, is the Koch family because you had, you know, the Koch brothers, but then like their father was actually the one who like kind of initially made their wealth, but was like very localized in sort of like how he thought about philanthropy. He had his own like, you know, family foundation was just sort of like doing that sort of like, you know, Texas billionaire mindset that we're talking about of, you know, I made a bunch of money. I'm going to just sort of like, yeah, do my local funder activity. It was only the next generation of his children that then like took that wealth and started thinking about like how do we actually like move that onto like a more elite stage and thinking about like their influence in the media. But like you can see there's like two clear generations within the same family. Like one has this sort of like local wealth mindset and one of them has the more like elite wealth mindset. And yeah, you can kind of like ask yourself, why did that switch happen? But yeah, it's clearly about more than just money. It's also about intention. Dwarkesh Patel 0:44:51Yeah, that's really interesting. Well, it's interesting because there's, if you identify the current mainstream media as affiliated with like that Davos aristocratic elite, or maybe not aristocratic, but like the Davos groups. Yeah, exactly. There is a growing field of independent media, but you would not identify somebody like Joe Rogan as in the Silicon Valley sphere, right? So there is a new media. I just, I guess these startup people don't have that much influence over them yet. And they feel like, yeah. Nadia Asparouhova 0:45:27I think they're trying to like take that strategy, right? So you have like a bunch of founders like Palmer Luckey and Mark Zuckerberg and Brian Armstrong and whoever else that like will not really talk to mainstream media anymore. They will not get an interview to the New York Times, but they will go to like an individual influencer or an individual creator and they'll do an interview with them. So like when Mark Zuckerberg announced Meta, like he did not get grant interviews to mainstream publications, but he went and talked to like Ben Thompson at Strategory. And so I think there is like, it fits really well with that. Like probably mindset of like, we're not necessarily institution building. We're going to like focus on power of individuals who sort of like defy institutions. And that is kind of like an open question that I have about like, what will the long term influence of the tech elite look like? Because like, yeah, the human history tells us that eventually all individual behaviors kind of get codified into institutions, right? But we're obviously living in a very different time now. And I think like the way that the Davos elite managed to like really codify and extend their influence across all these different sectors was by taking that institutional mindset and, you know, like thinking about sort of like academic institutions and media institutions, all that stuff. If the startup mindset is really inherently like anti-institution and says like, we don't want to build the next Harvard necessarily. We just want to like blow apart the concept of universities whatsoever. Or, you know, we don't want to create a new CNN or a new Fox News. We want to just like fund like individual creators to do that same sort of work, but in this very decentralized way. Like, will that work long term? I don't know. Like, is that just sort of like a temporary state that we're in right now where no one really knows what the next institutions will look like? Or is that really like an important part of this generation where like, we shouldn't be asking the question of like, how do you build a new media network? We should just be saying like, the answer is there is no media network. We just go to like all these individuals instead. Dwarkesh Patel 0:47:31Yeah, that's interesting. What do you make of this idea that I think, let's say, that these idea machines might be limited by the fact that if you're going to start some sort of organization in them, you're very much depending on somebody who has made a lot of money independently to fund you and to grant you approval. And I just have a hard time seeing somebody who is like a Napoleon-like figure being willing long term to live under that arrangement. And that so there'll just be the people who are just have this desire to dominate and be recognized who are probably pretty important to any movement you want to create. They'll just want to go off and just like build a company or something that gives them an independent footing first. And they just won't fall under any umbrella. You know what I mean? Nadia Asparouhova 0:48:27Yeah, I mean, like Dustin Moskovitz, for example, has been funding EA for a really long time and hasn't hasn't walked away necessarily. Yeah. I mean, on the flip side, you can see like SPF carried a lot of a lot of risk because it's your point, I guess, like, you know, you end up relying on this one funder, the one funder disappears and everything else kind of falls apart. I mean, I think like, I don't have any sort of like preciousness attached to the idea of like communities, you know, lasting forever. I think this is like, again, if we're trying to solve for the problem of like what did not work well about 5.1c3 foundations for most of recent history, like part of it was that they're, you know, just meant to live on to perpetuity. Like, why do we still have like, you know, Rockefeller Foundation, there are now actually many different Rockefeller Foundations, but like, why does that even exist? Like, why did that money not just get spent down? And actually, when John D. Rockefeller was first proposing the idea of foundations, he wanted them to be like, to have like a finite end state. So he wanted them to last only like 50 years or 100 years when he was proposing this like federal charter, but that federal charter failed. And so now we have these like state charters and foundations can just exist forever. But like, I think if we want to like improve upon this idea of like, how do we prevent like meritocratic elites from turning into aristocratic elites? How do we like, yeah, how do we actually just like try to do a lot of really interesting stuff in our lifetimes? It's like a very, it's very counterintuitive, because you think about like, leaving a legacy must mean like creating institutions or creating a foundation that lasts forever. And, you know, 200 years from now, there's still like the Nadia Asparuva Foundation out there. But like, if I really think about it, it's like, I would almost rather just do really, really, really good, interesting work in like, 50 years or 20 years or 10 years, and have that be the legacy versus your name kind of getting, you know, submerged over a century of institutional decay and decline. So yeah, I don't like if you know, you have a community that lasts for maybe only last 10 years or something like that, and it's funded for that amount of time, and then it kind of elbows its usefulness and it winds down or becomes less relevant. Like, I don't necessarily see it as a bad thing. Of course, like in practice, you know, nothing ever ends that that neatly and that quietly. But, but yeah, I don't think that's a bad thing. Dwarkesh Patel 0:50:44Yeah, yeah. Who are some ethnographers or sociologists from a previous era that have influenced your work? So was there somebody writing about, you know, what it was like to be in a Roman Legion? Or what it was like to work in a factory floor? And you're like, you know what, I want to do that for open source? Or I want to do that for the New Tech Elite? Nadia Asparouhova 0:51:02For open source, I was definitely really influenced by Jane Jacobs and Eleanor Ostrom. I think both had this quality of, so yeah, Eleanor Ostrom was looking at examples of common pool resources, like fisheries or forests or whatever. And just like, going and visiting them and spending a lot of time with them and then saying like, actually, I don't think tragedy of the commons is like a real thing, or it's not the only outcome that we can possibly have. And so sometimes commons can be managed, like perfectly sustainably. And it's not necessarily true that everyone just like treats them very extractively. And just like wrote about what she saw. And same with Jane Jacobs sort of looking at cities as someone who lives in one, right? Like she didn't have any fancy credentials or anything like that. She was just like, I live in the city and I'm looking around and this idea of like, top down urban planning, where you have like someone trying to design this perfect city that like, doesn't change and doesn't yield to its people. It just seems completely unrealistic. And the style that both of them take in their writing is very, it just it starts from them just like, observing what they see and then like, trying to write about it. And I just, yeah, that's, that's the style that I really want to emulate. Dwarkesh Patel 0:52:12Interesting. Nadia Asparouhova 0:52:13Yeah. I think for people to just be talking to like, I don't know, like Chris just like just talking to like open source developers, turns out you can learn a lot more from that than just sitting around like thinking about what open source developers might be thinking about. But... Dwarkesh Patel 0:52:25I have this, I have had this idea of not even for like writing it out loud, but just to understand how the world works. Just like shadowing people who are in just like a random position, they don't have to be a lead in any way, but just like a person who's the personal assistant to somebody influential, how to decide whose emails they forward, how they decide what's the priority, or somebody who's just like an accountant for a big company, right? It's just like, what is involved there? Like, what kinds of we're gonna, you know what I mean? Just like, random people, the line manager at the local factory. I just have no idea how these parts of the world work. And I just want to like, yeah, just shadow them for a day and see like, what happens there. Nadia Asparouhova 0:53:05This is really interesting, because everyone else focuses on sort of like, you know, the big name figure or whatever, but you know, who's the actual gatekeeper there? But yeah, I mean, I've definitely found like, if you just start cold emailing people and talking to them, people are often like, surprisingly, very, very open to being talked to because I don't know, like, most people do not get asked questions about what they do and how they think and stuff. So, you know, you want to realize that dream. Dwarkesh Patel 0:53:33So maybe I'm not like John Rockefeller, and that I only want my organization to last for 50 years. I'm sure you've come across these people who have this idea that, you know, I'll let my money compound for like 200 years. And if it just compounds at some reasonable rate, I'll be, it'll be like the most wealthy institution in the world, unless somebody else has the same exact idea. If somebody wanted to do that, but they wanted to hedge for the possibility that there's a war or there's a revolt, or there's some sort of change in law that draws down this wealth. How would you set up a thousand year endowment, basically, is what I'm asking, or like a 500 year endowment? Would you just put it in like a crypto wallet with us? And just, you know what I mean? Like, how would you go about that organizationally? How would you like, that's your goal? I want to have the most influence in 500 years. Nadia Asparouhova 0:54:17Well, I'd worry much less. The question for me is not about how do I make sure that there are assets available to distribute in a thousand years? Because I don't know, just put in stock marketers. You can do some pretty boring things to just like, you know, ensure your assets grow over time. The more difficult question is, how do you ensure that whoever is deciding how to distribute the funds, distributes them in a way that you personally want them to be spent? So Ford Foundation is a really interesting example of this, where Henry Ford created a Ford Foundation shortly before he died, and just pledged a lot of Ford stock to create this foundation and was doing it basically for tax reasons, had no philanthropic. It's just like, this is what we're doing to like, house this wealth over here. And then, you know, passed away, son passed away, and grandson ended up being on the board. But the board ended up being basically like, you know, a bunch of people that Henry Ford certainly would not have ever wanted to be on his board. And so, you know, and you end up seeing like, the Ford Foundation ended up becoming huge influential. I like, I have received money from them. So it's not at all an indictment of sort of like their views or anything like that. It's just much more of like, you know, you had the intent of the original donor, and then you had like, who are all these people that like, suddenly just ended up with a giant pool of capital and then like, decided to spend it however they felt like spending it and the grandson at the time sort of like, famously resigned because he was like, really frustrated and was just like, this is not at all what my family wanted and like, basically like, kicked off the board. So anyway, so that is the question that I would like figure out if I had a thousand year endowment is like, how do I make sure that whomever manages that endowment actually shares my views? One, shares my views, but then also like, how do I even know what we need to care about in a thousand years? Because like, I don't even know what the problems are in a thousand years. And this is why like, I think like, very long term thinking can be a little bit dangerous in this way, because you're sort of like, presuming that you know what even matters then. Whereas I think like, figure out the most impactful things to do is just like, so contextually dependent on like, what is going on at the time. So I can't, I don't know. And there are also foundations where you know, the donor like, writes in the charter like, this money can only be spent on you know, X cause or whatever, but then it just becomes really awkward over time because

Professor Inderjeet Parmar discusses U.S. Empire and how America is on the brink of a serious abyss, though it still remains very powerful. On one level there is a resurgent triumphalism in the West, and on another there are a deep series of crises both in Washington and of the globalized order. We see a rise of the Global South and "in-system powers"which are not part of the West. He discusses the consensus building project of the core elites and knowledge network or "empire of the mind," the U.S.-China relationship, how U.S. Empire has viewed China as a great asset to the Western world since the 1950s and how Beijing has emerged as a major power under the auspices of the West. Ruling classes of different countries get together as cartels due to shared interests. Multipolarity is messy but has had a democratizing effect. Watch On BitChute / Brighteon / Rokfin / Rumble Geopolitics & Empire · Inderjeet Parmar: America on Brink of Abyss, Western Global Order Faces Deep Crisis #300 *Support Geopolitics & Empire! Become a Member https://geopoliticsandempire.substack.comDonate https://geopoliticsandempire.com/donationsConsult https://geopoliticsandempire.com/consultation **Visit Our Affiliates & Sponsors! Above Phone https://abovephone.com/?above=geopoliticseasyDNS (use code GEOPOLITICS for 15% off!) https://easydns.comEscape The Technocracy course (15% discount using link) https://escapethetechnocracy.com/geopoliticsPassVult https://passvult.comSociatates Civis (CitizenHR, CitizenIT, CitizenPL) https://societates-civis.comWise Wolf Gold https://www.wolfpack.gold/?ref=geopolitics Websites Professor Inderjeet Parmar https://www.city.ac.uk/about/people/academics/inderjeet-parmar#about-link Global Webinar Series https://mediaspace.city.ac.uk/playlist/details/1_rga6fgkw Twitter https://twitter.com/USEmpire Foundations of the American Century: The Ford, Carnegie, and Rockefeller Foundations in the Rise of American Power https://www.amazon.com/Foundations-American-Century-Carnegie-Rockefeller/dp/0231146299 'A new type of great power relationship'? Gramsci, Kautsky and the role of the Ford Foundation'stransformational elite knowledge networks in China. https://openaccess.city.ac.uk/id/eprint/23576/1/ANON%203%20FINAL%20FINALarticle.docx%EF%BC%88%E6%9C%80%E7%BB%88%E7%89%88%E7%9A%84%E4%B8%89%E6%AC%A1%E4%BF%AE%E6%94%B9.pdf About Inderjeet Parmar Professor Inderjeet Parmar read Sociology at the London School of Economics, and Political Sociology at the University of London. His doctorate, from the University of Manchester, was in the fields of political science and international relations. Prior to appointment at City, University of London in 2012, he taught at the University of Manchester (1991-2012), mainly in its Department of Government which, between 2006-09, he served as Head of Department. Professor Inderjeet Parmar is past president, chair and vice chair of the British International Studies Association. He is currently Visiting Professor at LSE (2019-2022) and a Visiting Research Fellow at the Rothermere American Institute, Oxford. 2013 – 2014 he was Visiting Research Scholar at the Empires Research Community, Princeton UniversityHe held visiting fellowships at Princeton and Oxford (1998, 1999, 2010). He is co-editor of a book series, Routledge Studies in US Foreign Policy. He served as Principal Investigator and co-ordinator of the AHRC Research Network on the Presidency of Barack Obama. He is currently working with colleagues to establish the Trump Project: http://ucdclinton.ie/trump-project/ Professor Parmar was a member of the Working Group on Think Tanks of the Social Science Research Council, New York, 2007, and co-convenor of the BISA Working Group on US Foreign Policy, 2005-09. Professor Parmar appears regularly on numerous TV and radio stations, including Al Jazeera, CNN, BBC, RT,

BIO: John Spence is an author, international executive coach, professional development educator, virtual trainer, strategic planning facilitator, keynote speaker, and developer of online learning programs. STORY: When John was a young CEO of one of the Rockefeller Foundations, he invested in the trappings of a CEO, such as big houses, boats, wines, artwork, etc., all in the name of impressing people. All these things were lost in days when Hurricane Andrew hit Miami. LEARNING: Don't let material things define you. The ultimate freedom is the freedom of mind. The accumulation of things is uncorrelated to happiness.   “Be grateful for everything you have now.”John Spence  Guest profilehttps://www.linkedin.com/in/johnbspence/ (John Spence) is an author, international executive coach, professional development educator, virtual trainer, strategic planning facilitator, keynote speaker, and developer of online learning programs. John is recognized as one of the top business thought leaders and leadership development experts in the world and was named by the American Management Association as one of America's Top 50 Leaders to Watch, along with Sergey Brin and Larry Page of Google and Jeff Bezos of Amazon. As a consultant and coach to organizations worldwide, from startups to the Fortune 10, John is dedicated to helping people and businesses be more successful by “Making the Very Complex… Awesomely Simple.” Worst investment everJohn became the CEO of one of the Rockefeller Foundations when he was 26 years old. This saw him earn a significant salary. John decided to use his earnings to invest in houses, boats, artwork, wine collections, and everything else that were the trappings of being the CEO of a multinational company. At a young age, John thought that those were the things that would impress other people. In 1989, Hurricane Andrew hit Miami and destroyed everything John owned. In just a matter of days, all his properties and belongings were gone. John had invested so much time, energy, effort, and ego in all that stuff, and it was all taken away in one day. Lessons learnedEven when you suffer a significant loss, stay focused on your values and remember that others have been through worse. Material things are lovely, but they don't define you. You're stronger than you think you are. Be grateful for everything you have now. Andrew's takeawaysThe ultimate freedom is the freedom of mind—the freedom to think and detach. The accumulation of things is uncorrelated to happiness. Actionable adviceLook at the things that are truly important and valuable in your life. No.1 goal for the next 12 monthsJohn's goal for the next 12 months is to learn more and meet more people. Parting words  “Just live by your values, treat other people with love and have fun.”John Spence  [spp-transcript]   Connect with John Spencehttps://www.linkedin.com/in/johnbspence/ (LinkedIn) https://twitter.com/awesomelysimple (Twitter) https://www.facebook.com/johnspenceleadership/ (Facebook) https://www.instagram.com/johnspencespeaker/ (Instagram) https://www.youtube.com/user/flycasterjbs (YouTube) https://johnspence.com/ (Website) https://amzn.to/39BdVdd (Books) Andrew's bookshttps://amzn.to/3qrfHjX (How to Start Building Your Wealth Investing in the Stock Market) https://amzn.to/2PDApAo (My Worst Investment Ever) https://amzn.to/3v6ip1Y (9 Valuation Mistakes and How to Avoid Them) https://amzn.to/3emBO8M (Transform Your Business with Dr.Deming's 14 Points) Andrew's online programshttps://valuationmasterclass.com/ (Valuation Master Class) https://academy.astotz.com/courses/how-to-start-building-your-wealth-investing-in-the-stock-market (How to Start Building Your Wealth Investing in the Stock Market) https://academy.astotz.com/courses/finance-made-ridiculously-simple (Finance Made Ridiculously Simple) https://academy.astotz.com/courses/gp (Become a Great Presenter and Increase Your Influence)...

Rosiak says education degrees are jokes, with the lowest SAT's and highest GPA's. No standards and education majors are just brainwashing. Records show professors leading education conferences mention CRT 157 times, reading only 53 times. Schools are teaching 3 R's racism, racism and racism but not reading, writing and arithmetic. Rosiak says that many of the CRT ideas come from the Ford, Kellogg and Rockefeller Foundations, whose early histories are racist, even pushed eugenics just as they now push CRT. GUEST:  LUKE ROSIAK,  AUTHOR “RACE TO THE BOTTOM”

Hello Interactors,I ran into a friend last week who shared a bit of neighborly news. A border dispute is brewing in our neighborhood and you can bet maps are soon to be weaponized. It’s nothing new in border disputes around the world, but do maps really lead to a shared understanding of people and their interaction with place? It may be time cartography gets radical. As interactors, you’re special individuals self-selected to be a part of an evolutionary journey. You’re also members of an attentive community so I welcome your participation.Please leave your comments below or email me directly.Now let’s go…COMMUNITIES DEMANDING IMPUNITIESI step quietly as I near the end of the private lane. Ahead there’s a beige colored fence, barely six feet high, blocking the pathway. It’s attached adjacently to a fence bordering the owner’s yard. As I gently approach the fence I see a dingy string innocently dangling from a small hole in the upper right corner near the fence post. A slight tug on the string and I hear a metal latch release on the other side. It’s not a fence after all, but a secret gate.I push it open and slither through sheepishly looking around to see if I’d been caught. I’m careful to lift the cold black metal latch to silence it as I gently close the gate behind me. I scurry past the driveway glancing at the house. My pace quickens down the remainder of the private lane before me. I self-consciously scurry by neighboring homes and scamper up a steep hill before triumphantly stepping onto the territory of public domain: a city street.This secret passage along a private drive is known to longtime locals in the neighborhood like me. The gate sits on private property connecting two private lanes that connect two public parks at each end. Adventurous out-of-towners looking to walk or bike from one park to the other usually see the gate masquerading as a fence and turn around. But for as long as these roads have existed, locals have hastily snuck through the graciously placed gate.But the fate of this gate is a question as of late. Do they have the right to block a pedestrian route that connects public parks even though it’s on private land? Or do they have the duty to honor the traditions of a community that has relied on this path for decades if not centuries? To answer these questions, governments, corporations, and individuals turn to legally binding property maps. Instead of arming themselves with their own maps in a race to the court, perhaps they should join arms around one map seeking mutual support.The word map is a shortened version of the 14th century middle English word, mapemounde. That’s a compound word combining latin’s mappa, “napkin or cloth”, and mundi “of the world” and was used to describe a map of the world that was most likely drawn on an ancient cloth or papyrus.This etymology resembles cartography from latin’s carta "leaf of paper or a writing tablet" and graphia "to scrape or scratch" (on clay tablets with a stylus)”.Given modern cartography’s reliance on coordinates, the word cartography easily could have emerged from the word cartesian. That word is derived from the latin word cartesius which is the Latin spelling of descartes – the last name of the French mathematician, René Descartes. Descartes merged the fields of geometry and algebra to form coordinate geometry. It was a discovery that, as Joel L. Morrison writes in the History of Cartography, formed the”foundation of analytic geometry and provided geometric interpretations for many other branches of mathematics, such as linear algebra, complex analysis, differential geometry, multivariate calculus, and group theory, and, of course, for cartography.”This two dimensional rectangular coordinate system made it easy for 17th century land barons and imperial governments to more easily and accurately calculate distance and area on a curved earth and communicate them on a flat piece of paper. The increased expediency, accuracy, durability, and portability of paper allowed Cartesian maps to accelerate territorial expansionism and colonization around the world.But rectangular mapping of property, Cadastral Mapping, dates back to the Romans in the first century A.D. Cartography historian, O. A. W. Dilke writes,“One of the main advantages of a detailed map of Rome was to improve the efficiency of the city's administration...”Even as Descartes was inventing analytical geometry in the 1600s, European colonizers in the Americas were using rectilinear maps in attempts to negotiate land rights with Indigenous people. For example, between 1666 and 1668 a land deed clerk filed a copy of a map detailing a coastal area in what is now as Massachusetts near Buzzards Bay. The original map was drawn by a Harvard educated Indigenous man named John Sassamon who was also a member of the Massachusett tribe.Sassamon was respected by colonizers because he represented the ideal of an assimilated native but he was also held in high regard by local tribes…including the Wampanoag for which this map served as a legal document. He was an asset to both populations and served as an interpreter in a wide range of negotiations between tribes and colonizers.This map was used by the Plymouth colonists to negotiate terms over Wampanoag land with their leader Metacom (or as he was also known as, King Phillip). It shows a rectangle featuring a river on the left side of the map labeled, “This is a river”, a line drawn at the top and the bottom labeled, “This line is a path”, and on the right side is a vertical line that encloses the rectangle. Surrounding the area are names of tribes and a body of text at the bottom describing the terms of the deal.Herein lies a controversy, the intention of the map, and the fate of the mapped land. The text can be read one of two ways:“Wee are now willing should be sold” or “Wee are not willing should be sold”.The full statement in the records reads:“This may informe the honor Court that I Phillip arne willing to sell the Land within this draught…I haue set downe all the principal! names of the land wee are not willing should be sold. ffrom Pacanaukett the 24th of the 12th month 1668PHILLIP [his mark]”Nine years later, in January of 1675, Sassamon warned the governor of the Plymouth Colony, Josiah Winslow, that Metacom (King Phillip) was planning an attack. The Wampanaog, and other tribes, had become frustrated and threatened by encroaching colonists. Days later Sassamon’s body was found in a pond.At first many thought he had drowned fishing, but further evidence revealed his neck had been violently broken. A witness came forth claiming to have seen three Wampanoag men attack Sassamon. The three men were tried before the first mixed jury of Indigenous people and European settlers. They ruled guilty and all three men were hung.This created increased tensions and mistrust between Metacom and the Puritans leading to the King Phillips War in the summer of 1675. The battle lasted three years, most of which was without Metacom. In August of 1676 he was hunted down and shot by another Indigenous man who had converted, forcibly or voluntarily, to Puritan ways. Metacom’s wife and children were captured and sold as slaves in Bermuda. Metacom was cut into quarters and his limbs were hung from trees. His head was put on a post at the entrance to the Plymouth colony where it remained for two decades.LABORERS MAPPING WITH NEIGHBORSViolence against and dispossession of Indigenous people by colonists and industrialists usually involves a map. That’s as true today as it has been at least since the Romans. But it hasn’t stunted attempts over the years to reduce or eliminate these injustices. For example, at the end of World War I, while U.S. President Woodrow Wilson and his Inquiry team were remapping Europe at the Paris Peace Conference, the League of Nations was born.Out of this organization came the International Labor Organization (ILO) with representatives from Belgium, Cuba, Czechoslovakia, France, Italy, Japan, Poland, the United Kingdom and the United States. It was chaired by the head of the American Federation of Labor (AFL), Samuel Gompers. Founding members were made of representatives from government, employers, and workers. In the interest of creating a peaceful, safe, and just world, they intended to establish fair labor practices around the world, including fair pay for women – a provision Gompers brought to the table himself. Two lines of their founding preamble stand out amidst today’s international social disorder,“Whereas universal and lasting peace can be established only if it is based upon social justice…Whereas also the failure of any nation to adopt humane conditions of labour is an obstacle in the way of other nations which desire to improve the conditions in their own countries.”Social justice and historic income inequality are conditions that need improved among most countries today as they did in 1918. But when it came time to ratify the permanent ILO members, the U.S. Congress voted to deny Gompers a seat at the ILO table. U.S. politicians were suspect of the League of Nations and many feared these international labor rights may interfere with privatized labor in the United States. It wasn’t until 1934 that the U.S., with the urging of FDR, was allowed to take a seat at the ILO by the U.S. Congress.Nonetheless, during the 1920s the ILO conducted several studies concerning labor conditions around the world. That including the subjugation of Indigenous Peoples as a result of widespread colonization. In 1930 ILO 29 was passed drawing much needed attention on forced labor of Indigenous and Afro-descendant people.For the next two decades the ILO continued to conduct research and create programs throughout their conventions. In 1951 the ILO Committee of Experts on Indigenous Labour devised a 20 year blueprint that addressed land and labor rights of Indigenous populations. They brought together various UN organizations like the World Health Organization, the Food and Agriculture Organization, and UN Educational Scientific and Cultural Organization. It culminated in the publishing of a 1953 report on the core social and economic conditions facing Indigenous Peoples in the Americas.Four years later this work made its way into the passing of ILO 170 as part of the Indigenous and Tribal Populations Convention of 1957. The preamble includes language that admits there exists,“in various independent countries indigenous and other tribal and semi-tribal populations which are not yet integrated into the national community and whose social, economic or cultural situation hinders them from benefiting fully from the rights and advantages enjoyed by other elements of the population…”This was the world’s first attempt to codify Indigenous rights into international law through a binding convention. These conventions included government made maps that were used as legally binding documents. Up to this point in history almost all legally binding maps were produced by governments. But with the spread of neoliberalism around the globe in the 1950s, mapping efforts began to be outsourced from governments to private firms and corporations. This shift was amplified by U.S. President Harry S. Truman’s Point Four Program that offered technical assistance to developing countries, especially Latin America, and was largely funded by private institutions like the Ford and Rockefeller Foundations.Neoliberal economists out of the University of Chicago, Chicago Boys, were also embedded in Latin American governments in hopes of spreading neoliberal policies that favored U.S. industries. Conservative politicians, emboldened by the Cold War, also feared these countries may turn to socialism or communism; especially given the majority of the founding members of the ILO and the League of Nations favored social programs as a means of protecting and providing social justice and stability. The U.S. stood alone in opposition to these principles and policies, but remained influential nonetheless given the U.S. military and monetary domination.But the privatization of legal and technical documents by neoliberals, including maps, resulted in unintended consequences. If within the ILO trifecta of “government, employers, and workers” governments and employers could provide legally binding maps and documents, so could workers. This opened an opportunity for Indigenous communities, and their advocates, to provide their own maps that countered centuries-old border claims and land rights made by expansionist governments and industrialists, both of which are inextricably linked.The language in ILO 170, while groundbreaking, was still drenched in paternalistic chauvinism and assumed assimilation of Indigenous Peoples as the binding element. One example is shown in the preamble above, “not yet integrated into the national community.” Over the course of the following 40 years Indigenous Peoples worked with the international community to revise the language. In 1989 the ILO passed ILO 169 which “takes the approach of respect for the cultures, ways of life, traditions and customary laws of Indigenous and tribal Peoples who are covered by it. It presumes that they will continue to exist as parts of national societies with their own identity, their own structures and their own traditions. The Convention presumes that these structures and ways of life have a value that needs to be protected.”However, the word Indigenous Peoples was footnoted. In a compromise to include language of Indigenous self-determination, the ILO asked that the United Nations take up the matter on self-determination claiming it was beyond the scope of the ILO.Indigenous people continue to advocate for their rights as “workers” through labor organizations in the ILO trio of “government, employers, and workers.” Only 23 of the 187 countries in the ILO have ratified ILO 169 and the United States and Canada are not among them. Most all are in Latin America and one of the most lethal legal weapon Indigenous people have continue to be counter-maps – maps that counter centuries of exploitive hegemonic colonialism.FROM FALLABLE MAPS TO TANGIBLE RAPS After decades at successful attempts at counter-mapping, it may have run its course. Governments and corporations have come to use maps to gain further legal control over Indigenous lands through abundant resources and political maneuvering. If the courtrooms of international law were a knife fight, governments and corporations show up with laser guided missiles. Labor unions in those 23 countries that ratified ILO 169 struggle for leverage, representation, and a voice – especially unions representing Indigenous and Afro-descendant communities. And if they’re suffering, imagine the masses of unrepresented workers in the remaining 164 countries who have not ratified ILO 169.Meanwhile more and more natural resources are sought in increasingly sensitive environmental areas, like the Amazon forests, where the majority of biodiversity and CO2 sucking vegetation is protected by Indigenous communities and their way of life. And as global warming increases, their living conditions will likely lead to more dispossession and even extinction.Mapping technologies since 1989 have also become progressively democratized. They’ve empowered even more people to take to cartography to get their voices heard, claim their land, and their way of life. There has also been a steady increase in members of these Indigenous populations earning degrees in science, social science, technology, and law. They’ve also found increasing numbers of likeminded scholars, intellectuals, activists, and practitioners from the around the world to help.Bjørn Sletto, Joe Bryan, Alfredo Wagner, and Charles Hale are four such examples. They are editors of a recent book called Radical cartographies : participatory mapmaking from Latin America published by the University of Texas Press. It “sheds light on the innovative uses of participatory mapping emerging from Latin America’s marginalized communities”. It’s a “diverse collection” of maps and mapping techniques that “reconceptualize what maps mean”. They argue what is missing, even in counter-mapping, are “representations of identity and place”.The lead editor, Bjørn Sletto, is a native of Norway, was educated in the United States, and has lived and researched in Indigenous communities and border cities in Latin America. He writes in the introduction that“Beyond making claims on the state, Indigenous and Afro-descendant communities appropriate participatory mapping technologies to strengthen self-determination, local governance, and resource management within their own territories…”What he’s found over decades of experience is that,“This fundamental rethinking of the role of maps and the different ways they can be created, analyzed, and remade is driven in large part by inhabitants of the territories themselves, rather than by Western scholars or NGOs.”These scholars have compiled a book that gives these Ingenious people voice and representation through their own methods of cartography. They’ve been allowed to describe geographies “in their own language and on their own terms.” By “describing and depicting the natural and built environments emerging from Indigenous, Black, and other traditional groups in Latin America” they are able to “demonstrate that these radical mapping practices are as varied as the communities in which they take place”.María Laura Nahuel is one contributor in the book. She is a resident of the Mapuce Lof (Community) Newen Mapu, Neuquén, Argentina and received her undergraduate degree in geography from the Department of Humanities at the National University of Comahue, Argentina. She writes that,“the current political, economic, cultural, and judicial context of our work has led us to think carefully about how the state’s historic monopoly over cartography has served to subjugate the ancestral and millenary wisdom of our people, the Mapuce. In particular, new multinational resource extraction projects, which are endorsed by the Argentine government, threaten our livelihood and subject us to a constant state of tension and uncertainty. This reality has led us to develop territorial defense strategies as well as plans for achieving kvme felen, or a state of good living. Mapuce participatory cultural mapping plays a key role in this process.”Co-editor Joe Bryan is another contributor in the book. He is the associate professor in geography at the University of Colorado, Boulder where he focuses on Indigenous politics in the Americas, human rights, and critical cartography. He asks in the book’s concluding commentary:“What is a territory? The question pops up repeatedly across the chapters in this volume. After all, what are mapping projects if not attempts to define territory? The problem, as several of the authors suggest, is that mapping affords a partial understanding of territory at best. At worst, mapping runs completely counter to Black and Indigenous concepts of territory with potentially devastating results. That outcome makes the question of what a territory is all the more pressing...”He goes on to observe that,“We are used to thinking of territory as a closed object, a thing that can be mapped, recognized, and demarcated. The dominance of this concept is reinforced by mapping, beginning with the use of GPS units and other cartographic technologies to locate material instances of use and occupancy... Legal developments reinforce this approach, pushing titling and demarcation as a remedy to the lack of protection…”The owner of the property on which that gate I sometimes sneak through wants to build a new home. Their plans don’t leave room for a gate nor are they particularly interested in maintaining a right of way for the public. It’s caused a kerfuffle in the neighborhood. Home owners on this private lane want their privacy while their neighbors want to maintain access between parks.It’s a battle of territory and maps are the weapon. Individual home owners show title maps that reveal there is no public easement on the private lane. The city acknowledges there is no easement in their maps either, but are acting in the interest of the majority and asking owners to grant easements so the path may remain. It may come down to the courts to decide and you can bet maps will be involved. But as Joe Bryan says, maps afford only a partial understanding of territory.I’m not suggesting the problems of affluent suburban property owners are of equal consequence to the existence and rights of Indigenous and Black communities or the protection of vanishing natural resources. But what they do have in common is the insufficiency of traditional Cartesian maps to adequately represent interests of governments, corporations, and individuals in battles over borders and territories. Especially when their weaponized.A primary trigger of the King Phillip War in 1675 was the encroachment of European colonizers. This led to misrepresentation, misunderstanding, and miscommunication of territory use and rights on a Cartesian map drawn by an Indigenous member of the Massachusett tribe supposedly seeking shared understanding between cultures. Here we are in 2022 where technology and enlightened cultural sensitivity abounds, and rigid Cartesian maps are still leading to dispossession and violence of under-represented and vulnerable communities.But like the Europeans that colonized these lands over 500 years ago, we are turning to Indigenous people for guidance on how best to map and understand territories. We are again asking them to use maps as a way to best interact with people and place through what the editors of that book call radical cartography. Perhaps it’s time we put down our weapons of maps destruction and draw a map together. It just may draw us all closer together. How radical is that? This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit interplace.io

Hello Interactors,This post is part three of my three week experiment. I’ve divided my topic into three parts each taking a bit less time for you to read or listen to. They each can stand on their own, but hopefully come together to form a bigger picture. Please let me know what you think.Maps are such a big part of our daily lives that it’s easy to let them wash over us. But they’re also very powerful forms of communication that require our attention and scrutiny. If we don’t, we run the risk of being hypnotized and even deluded.As interactors, you’re special individuals self-selected to be a part of an evolutionary journey. You’re also members of an attentive community so I welcome your participation.Please leave your comments below or email me directly.Now let’s go…THE GIPPER AND CAP MAKE A MAPOn the top of the geography building at the University of California Santa Barbara (UCSB) was a high security floor the CIA helped to fund…or so I heard. I never set foot in there, but I know both the CIA and the FBI routinely recruited geography students when I was there in the late 80s. They still do. The geography department was, and still is, buzzing with research in cartography, satellite imaging, and Geographic Information Science (GIS). I remember learning how to detect a hidden nuclear missile silo camouflaged in the Russian landscape using stereoscopic glasses pointed at two LANDSAT images produced from orbiting satellites. Special imaging software was also being developed at the university to better filter and detect these patterns, and more, in remote sensing imagery.But the kind of mapping I was most interested in was thematic mapping. I was mostly interested in computer graphics and animation, but I could also see the allure of bending cartography to serve creative means. For my senior project I converted a digital USGS topographic map of Santa Barbara into a 3D model so I could fly a camera over the terrain as a logo rose from behind the foothills. It was used as an intro animation for videos made for the newly formed National Center for Geographic Information and Analysis (NCGIA). This was, after all, the real focus of the geography department – and the U.S. government.The influential chief geographer for the U.S. State Department from the 1920s through the 1940s, Samuel Whittemore Boggs, had settled on this cartographic dichotomy I was experiencing as a student. He surmised maps could be either rhetorical tools of delusion and propaganda (like fancy 3D animated video bumpers) or scientific instruments of knowledge and understanding (like Geographical Information Science). These two sides of a single coin were present 40-odd years later as I was studying geography at UCSB.By the time I was studying cartography as an undergrad the Cold War was well embedded into the culture of all Americans, including institutions and universities. Some of my youngest memories as a kid were nuclear fallout drills at school. They weren’t all that different from tornado drills common to Iowa kids, but the films they showed us of the effects of nuclear blasts made me wish tornados were our only worry.I also have memories of propaganda making its way into our school work as well. I remember math problems that compared missile lengthy between the U.S. and the U.S.S.R. – a nod to male anatomical one-upmanship. Our culture was infused with geopolitical agendas and competitions pitting Americans against Soviets. I recall the ‘Miracle on Ice’ when the U.S. hockey team unexpectedly beat the U.S.S.R. in the 1980 Olympics. That was when the U-S-A chant was popularized. I was 15 and remember having a basketball game that day. The gym was electric with pride.We all lived under constant fear and threat that the Soviet government could launch an intercontinental ballistic missile at any minute, so anything that felt like a victory was celebrated. The fear was all well communicated and orchestrated using cartohypnotic techniques Boggs had warned of. This fear mongering wasn’t unique to the United States. University of Richmond professor Timothy Barney writes, “An ominous arrow-filled 1970 map forecasts the logistics of a Greece and Turkey invasion, while another encircles Denmark and Northern Europe. The secret Warsaw Pact exercise ‘Seven Days Over the River Rhine’ from 1979 used cartography extensively to chart, complete with red mushroom clouds strewn about the continent, an all-too probable nuclear clash between Cold War powers.”The United States has a long history and practice of thematic political cartography dating back to the Paris Peace Conference in 1919. This inspired the formation of a thematic mapping division in the State Department. After World War II, in concert with the Department of Defense, Cold War propaganda elevated to a new level — including in cartography. It was cartohypnosis through government sponsored osmosis that created widespread prognosis of Soviet-American neurosis.When Ronald Reagan became president in 1980, he had campaigned on increased military spending to ward off what he believed to be encroaching communism and military threat from the U.S.S.R. Reagan’s Secretary of Defense was his California friend, businessman, and politician Casper Weinberger, or ‘Cap’ as he was called. Weinberger shared the same fear Reagan did over evidence that cash-starved Russia was pouring much of their GDP into military spending.To convince the American public that Reagan’s so-called ‘small government’ required ‘big spending’ on defense, he pulled a page from the 1918 State Department assembling a team of researchers, artists, illustrators, and cartographers to build his own ‘Inquiry’ into Soviet military weaponry and strategies. They produced a 100-page pamphlet called ‘Soviet Military Power’ out of the U.S. Defense Department that was intended to ‘alert’ the public to the ‘threat’ of the Soviet Union and the Soviet Armed Forces.  The first publications were distributed in 1981 across the country and were sold in Post Offices for $6.50 or $20 today. These were printed every year from 1981 to 1991 as what some government officials refer to as ‘public diplomacy’. However, scholars use ‘public diplomacy’ and ‘propaganda’ interchangeably because it’s often hard to discern which is which.The fact is, these publications worked. They were a perfect compliment to Reagan’s public speeches that routinely referred to his Reagan Doctrine which was “to defy Soviet-supported aggression and secure rights which have been ours from birth.” This included funding overt and covert anti-communist resistance groups around the world – many of which illegally used acts of terror.The Iran–Contra affair provided ample evidence of the malicious intents and actions behind Reagan’s Doctrine – funneling money from Iranian missile sales to fund militant guerilla fighters overthrowing the government in Nicaragua. Fourteen people in Reagan’s administration were indicted. Weinberger was indicted on five felony charges including accusations he lied to Congress and obstruction of investigation. Another four charges were brought against him but his cases were never tried. He was pardoned by then President George H. W. Bush, Reagan’s former Vice President.Many of these sovereign nations the United States involved themselves in were seeking independence from reliance on foreign powers like the U.S. and the Soviet Union. However, because their forms of government often leaned toward social and communal inspired governments, Reagan assumed they’d fall under the control of the communist Soviet Union. It also meant Western corporations could lose out to state sponsored corporations.The U.S. State Department had been attempting to spread Western economic and political propaganda around the world from at least the 1950s. President Truman’s Point Four Program (funded by the Ford and Rockefeller Foundations) and the Chicago Boys (programs involving neoliberal University of Chicago economists, including Milton Friedman) were efforts to spread right-wing libertarianism around the world. That included backing a military dictatorship in Chile.REVERSING CARTOHYPNOSISBy the 1980s these strategies helped instill fear in Americans that the Soviet Union could one day envelope the world. Decades of claims that communism spreads like a disease – Latin America today, Anglo America tomorrow – laid the groundwork in the 1980s for the ‘Soviet Military Power’ propaganda publications to have maximum impact. The fear in many is still there to this day and is heightened by Putin’s aggression via the Kremlin. Another example of an imperialist state department aggressively meddling in the business of a sovereign nation seeking their independence from an all-powerful overlord.Author Tom Gervasi spent years in the late 80s researching the government’s claims made in these publications. He read the CIA’s annual reports to Congress, Military Posture Statements of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, sworn testimony from chiefs of the military services and Defense Department officials before the Armed Services and Appropriations Committees of Congress, as well as documents provided by NATO governments. He also consulted the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London, the Union of Concerned Scientists, the Federation of American Scientists, and the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute.In 1988 he republished the 1987 issue of Weinberger’s ‘Soviet Military Power’ with annotations in the margins debunking many claims made by the U.S. State and Defense Departments. He also highlighted salient examples and techniques of propaganda, including cartohypnotic maps.One shows the land mass connecting Europe with the former Soviet Union. The Soviet territory is covered with a blue blob overlaying its boundaries. Flowing south into Europe are massive arrows encroaching on Europe. The map gives the impression the U.S.S.R. not only has the opportunity to expand by land into all of Europe but that they also have the means to do so and a plan to do it.Gervasi comments in the margins asking us to “Imagine opening a book and seeing the arrows going the other way, thrusting deep into the Soviet Union. The average American or West European reader would feel surprised and quite possibly indignant, finding it a complete misrepresentation of our intentions. That is how the average Soviet citizen would feel opening this book to this page. But this is powerful propaganda, immediately imprinting on our memory the vision of one possibility, without imprinting the reverse possibility, and so reinforcing allegations of Soviet intent made repeatedly, without any evidence to support them.”And in echoes of Boggs’ suggestion that cartohypnosis can be reversed, Gervasi reminds us that “Indeed, images like the ones below are so deeply ingrained in the American psyche that if the propagandists can ever be silenced, it will take several decades of raising clear-sighted new generations to erase all our artificial fears and suspicions of the USSR.”Another map shows the entirety of the former U.S.S.R. in a simple outline with radiant cones stretched in every direction emanating from Moscow and other major cities. The title of the map is Ballistic Missile Early Warning, Target-Tracking, and Battle Management Radars. It suggests the U.S.S.R. had advanced radar systems ready to defend against attack.Gervasi notes, “This may give the impression that only the Soviets have such radars. A splendid map could be drawn of the U.S. radar system, stretching from Scotland to Hawaii, including the 12 large phased-array radars of our Ballistic Missile Early Warning System, the four large phased-array radars of our PAVE, PAWS system, the 75 radars of our DEW Line and North Warning System, our Perimeter Acquisition Radar Attack Characterization System, the three radars of our Navy’s Space Surveillance System, the 16 radars of our Air Force Spacetrack and other systems, and of course, our over-the-horizon backscatter radars. All of these are already fully operational, whereas the Soviet system shown here, as the text below acknowledges, will not be operational until the mid-1990s at the earliest.”Gervasi isn’t the only one to critique claims made in these publications. Even the conservative think-tank, The National Interest, debunks the ‘Pentagon’s exaggerations’ made in the these publications. In 2016 they took aim at what became Reagan and Weinberger’s pride and joy, the Strategic Defense Initiative – or as its was commonly referred to as, Star Wars. This was a space and ground-based laser program envisioned to obliterate threatening Soviet nuclear missiles. They write that Weinberger’s,“Soviet Military Power made ominous predictions about Soviet lasers, lasers powerful enough to shoot down incoming nuclear missiles, or disable satellites in orbit…[the publication stated] ‘in the late 1980s, (the Soviet Union) could have prototype space-based laser weapons for use against satellites.’ It went on to imply that there were working anti-satellite lasers at [a] Soviet research complex…”In 1989 a group of Americans, including engineers and physicists, visited this research site. They concluded the Soviets could only produce a two-kilowatt laser beam. For comparison, experts claim 250 kilowatts are needed to destroy a weapon. It took until last year, 2021, for the U.S. to demonstrate a 300 kilowatt laser weapon. But means to consistently control this device keep it from being deployed.The representative from Virginia, Jim Olin, a former electrical engineer at GE was on that tour in 1989 and said, “It seems to me it pretty clearly is not a power laser and doesn’t represent any threat as a weapon.”In 1942, the librarian at the American Geographical Society, John Kirtland Wright, who is an authority on the history of geography, wrote on the power of maps: “Like bombers and submarines, maps are indispensable instruments of war. In the light of the information they provide, momentous strategic decisions are being made today: ships and planes, men and munitions, are being moved. Maps help to form public opinion and build public morale. When the war is over, they will contribute to shaping the thought and action of those responsible for the reconstruction of a shattered world. Hence it is important in these times that the nature of the information they set forth should be well understood.”We live in a time when someone can go to their favorite search engine, type ‘map of Bering Straight’, copy and paste the image into an image editor, type in big red letters “RUSSIA” on one side of the maritime border and “USA” on the other, and voila…a map made to persuade public opinion. They can then feed it into the social media mass distribution machine and off it goes through a global network to be seen by more eyeballs than Casper Weinberger and Ronald Reagan could ever have imagined. If Boggs thought maps could be weaponized as hypnotic mind benders in the 1940s, imagine what he’d say now?We’ve reached a point where making your own map has never been more accessible. And it’s only going to get easier. I’ve dwelled on the negative aspects of maps as propaganda, but I’m inspired by Boggs’ notion of reverse cartohypnosis. The threat of physical war has never been more real than it is today as the West continues to push an unpredictable dictator into a corner. A corner defined on territorial maps drawn in 1919 by American’s that defined boundaries between Russia and Ukraine. Maps that were made to persuade. Putin is a man deluded by attachments to past maps that drew borders around a union of socialist republics. He has grown hateful of those who challenge that past, him, or his beliefs. His delusions are so grand that he may only be satisfied when he ‘wins’ or everyone else ‘looses’.Like Biden and most presidents before him, he is both a victim of and an contributor to decades of cartohypnotism and through waring propaganda between two super powers seeking imperial domination.With maps as weapons of war in an global battle for information superiority, I ask that we check our own delusions, aversions, and desires before becoming entranced by the seduction of a map. Arm our self-made mental radar and defense systems that warn us of intentions to exaggerate, placate, and sedate our vulnerability to bombs of persuasion. And should we decide to become a cartographer and make our own map one day, make sure we’re doing our best to reverse the effect of cartohypnosis. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit interplace.io

Celebrated poet Jane Hirshfield joins Banyen Books for an hour of poetry and conversation on her new book, Ledger: Poems. Jane Hirshfield is one of our most celebrated contemporary poets. Her books have received the Poetry Center Book Award, the California Book Award, and the Donald Hall-Jane Kenyon Prize in American Poetry and have been finalists for The National Book Critics Circle Award and England's T. S. Eliot Prize and long-listed for the National Book Award. Hirshfield has received fellowships from the Guggenheim and Rockefeller Foundations, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the Academy of American Poets, and she presents her work at literary and interdisciplinary events worldwide. Her poems appear in The New Yorker, The Atlantic, The New York Review of Books, The Times Literary Supplement, The Washington Post, The New York Times, The New Republic, Harper's Magazine, and Poetry, and have been selected for ten editions of The Best American Poetry. She is a 2019 elected member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and a former chancellor of the Academy of American Poets.

Sara Farley is Managing Director of the Rockefeller Foundations food team. The foundations aim is to deliver transformed food systems that optimize human and planetary health. By the year 2050 60% more food will be required to cater for the growing global population. The foundation offers financial support to innovative projects that aspire to meet the worlds future demands.

Laurie Van Wieren has been a creative force in the Twin Cities for 30+ years. Her choreography has been shown in the Twin Cities, nationally, and in Europe. 9x22 Dance/Lab, her monthly showcase, is the pre-eminent performance platform for local and visiting choreographers. She’s developed work for the Walker Art Center’s Open Field performance, which highlighted 100 local choreographers.Van Wieren has curated performance for the Southern, Ritz, Bryant Lake Bowl Theaters and Soo Visual Art Center. She is a recipient of fellowships/grants from McKnight, Jerome, Bush, NEA, Rockefeller Foundations and Mn State Arts Board. She has received a Special Citation SAGE Award and a SAGE Award for Outstanding Performance. Van Wieren received a City Pages Artists of the Year in 2016 for her solo dance Temporary Action Theory and her ongoing curation. She is currently making site-specific ensemble dance performances for parks and large spaces and a series of solo works for small spaces. 

April 30, 2020, featured visual artists Bruce Farnsworth and Sheila Wyne. Bruce Farnsworth is an Anchorage based writer, artist and community organizer. He founded and directed MTS Gallery in Anchorage and Light Brigade, a multimedia collaboration of artists who stage site specific art interventions in the built and natural environment. He is Co-Lead of the Pan-Arctic 8Boxes Project. Farnsworth was the recipient of the first ever “President’s Award” from the Rasmuson Foundation, an award created by the foundation’s President and CEO to honor his work in neighborhood revitalization through the arts.Sheila Wyne is a visual artist based in Anchorage. Her studio work has been shown across the state, the Lower 48 and overseas. Her work is in permanent collections of several Alaska museums, and she has designed over 20 public artworks. Wyne has worked as a set designer with theatre companies in Alaska and the Northwest and she is core Member of The Light Brigade. Wyne has been awarded a national NEA/TCG Fellowship in set design, a Rasmuson Artist Fellowship and grants from Alaska State Council on the Arts, the NASE Development Program, the Andy Warhol and Rockefeller Foundations as well as the Governor’s Award for Individual Artist. more.

JOSEPH MAZUR is Professor Emeritus of Mathematics at Marlboro College, in Marlboro, Vermont.He holds a Ph.D. in Mathematics from M.I.T., is a recipient of fellowships from the Guggenheim, Bogliasco, and Rockefeller Foundations, among others. His works have appeared in Nature, The New York Times, The Guardian, The Wall Street Journal, Slate, Science, and other publications. He has been profiled in media venues such as NPR's "The Hidden Brain" and PRI's "Innovation Lab", CBS, the BBC, Vox, Radio Australia, Radio Ireland, and dozens of others. He is the author of Euclid in the Rainforest: Discovering Universal Truth in Mathematics (Finalist of the 2005 PEN/Martha Albrand Award and chosen as one of Choice’s 2005 Outstanding Academic Titles of the Year); The Motion Paradox: The 2,500-Year Old Puzzle Behind All the Mysteries of Time and Space (Choice’s 2007 Outstanding Academic Titles of the Year); What’s Luck Got to Do with It? The History, Mathematics, and Psychology behind the Gambler’s Illusion; Enlightening Symbols: A Short History of Mathematical Notation and Its Hidden Powers; and, his most recent book, Fluke: The Math and Myth of Coincidence. His books have been translated into over a dozen languages.

JOSEPH MAZUR is Professor Emeritus of Mathematics at Marlboro College, in Marlboro, Vermont.He holds a Ph.D. in Mathematics from M.I.T., is a recipient of fellowships from the Guggenheim, Bogliasco, and Rockefeller Foundations, among others. His works have appeared in Nature, The New York Times, The Guardian, The Wall Street Journal, Slate, Science, and other publications. He has been profiled in media venues such as NPR's "The Hidden Brain" and PRI's "Innovation Lab", CBS, the BBC, Vox, Radio Australia, Radio Ireland, and dozens of others. He is the author of Euclid in the Rainforest: Discovering Universal Truth in Mathematics (Finalist of the 2005 PEN/Martha Albrand Award and chosen as one of Choice’s 2005 Outstanding Academic Titles of the Year); The Motion Paradox: The 2,500-Year Old Puzzle Behind All the Mysteries of Time and Space (Choice’s 2007 Outstanding Academic Titles of the Year); What’s Luck Got to Do with It? The History, Mathematics, and Psychology behind the Gambler’s Illusion; Enlightening Symbols: A Short History of Mathematical Notation and Its Hidden Powers; and, his most recent book, Fluke: The Math and Myth of Coincidence. His books have been translated into over a dozen languages.

Do good people discriminate more often than they think? That is exactly what a team of researchers found when they analyzed the thoughts and reactions of millions of people around the world.   Harvard University Professor of Social Ethics, Mahzarin Banaji, author of the book, Blindspot: Hidden Biases of Good People, shares surprising findings from Implicit Association Tests taken by over 18 million people from over 30 countries. What she reveals may surprise you. Banaji is the recipient of fellowships from the Guggenheim and Rockefeller Foundations, as well as the Radcliffe and Santa Fe Institutes. She and her co-author Anthony Greenwald, Professor at Washington University, have spent their careers uncovering the hidden biases we all carry when it comes to issues like race, gender, age, and socioeconomics. In this interview, we talk about: How knowing our blindspots can help us innovate How we can measure the extent of our biases with the Implicit Association Test How the implicit association test can launch a dialogue around bias Who we say is American versus who we really believe is American How our tendency is to be curious and to want to learn about ourselves How much we want to know is a measure of our smart we are The role competition and social knowledge play in motivation to learn and grow Why we need to get beyond learning about it to doing something about it The importance of what we are willing to do to address our biases Knowledge of bias helps us rethink hiring, law, admissions, medicine, and more Bias in our minds hurts us, too The fact that implicit bias starts as young as 6 years old Disappointing differences in explicit vs implicit love of our ethnic or racial group What is not associated with our groups in society gets dropped from our identities Bias and discrimination can come from who we help How referral programs can reinforce bias and lack of diversity A tip on how to ensure referral programs cultivate diversity The fact that we all like beautiful people and how that harms us Ways to outsmart our biases What symphony orchestras can teach us about overcoming bias in hiring The fact that good people can and do have bias How we will be perceived by future generations if we can address our biases Whether Mahzarin likes science fiction Selected Links to Topics Mentioned @banaji http://www.people.fas.harvard.edu/~banaji/ Anthony Greenwald Implicit Association Test Fitbit Inclusion Conference 2016 What Works by Iris Bohnet Social imprinting Group identity Stanley Milgram Abu Ghraib My Lai Massacre If you enjoy the podcast, please rate and review it on iTunes. For automatic delivery of new episodes, be sure to subscribe. As always, thanks for listening! Thank you to Emmy-award-winning Creative Director Vanida Vae for designing the Curious Minds logo, and thank you to Rob Mancabelli for all of his production expertise! www.gayleallen.net LinkedIn @GAllenTC

Natonne Elaine Kemp welcomes author Sydney Nathans, Ph.D. for a discussion of his book TO FREE A FAMILY! TO FREE A FAMILY is the story of Mary Walker, an enslaved woman from North Carolina who escaped bondage in 1848, left her children and mother behind, and spent seventeen years seeking to recover them through ransom, ruse, or rescue.  Using the records of her one-time owners, the vast and vivid letters of the white antislavery couple who befriended and helped her, and an arsenal of social history sources, the book reconstructs her experience in bondage and brings to life the anguished but unrelenting quest to liberate her family.  Her story illustrates a hidden epic of emancipation--the secret striving of refugees from slavery to redeem one family at a time--which paralleled the great social movement to end slavery altogether. TO FREE A FAMILY is the 2013 recipient of the Darlene Clark Hine Award of the Organization of American Historians as the best book in African-American Women's and Gender History.  The Gilder Lehrman Center for the Study of Slavery,Resistance, and Abolition at Yale University jury for the Center’s Frederick Douglass Book Prize has selected  To Free a Family: The Journey of Mary Walker, as one of three finalists for this year’s award. Sydney Nathans, Ph.D. is the Professor Emeritus of History at Duke University and a recipient of fellowships from the Guggenheim and Rockefeller Foundations.

Join Melissa Studdard for an insightful conversation with prize-winning poet, translator, and essayist, Jane Hirshfield.  We’ll be focusing on Hirshfield’s most recent collection, Come, Thief and discussing other works as well. Hirshfield is the author of seven collections of poetry and a book of essays, and co-editor and co-translator of four books. Her work, which is frequently anthologized in places such as The Best Spiritual Writing, The Best American Poetry, and The Pushcart Prize Anthology, deals with subjects that range "from the metaphysical and passionate to the political, ecological, and scientific to subtle unfoldings of daily life and experience.” Her honors include The Poetry Center Book Award; the Donald Hall-Jane Kenyon Prize in American Poetry; fellowships from the Guggenheim and Rockefeller Foundations, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the Academy of American Poets; Columbia University’s Translation Center Award; and the Commonwealth Club’s California Book Award and the Northern California Book Reviewers Award. In fall 2004, she was awarded the 70th Academy Fellowship for distinguished poetic achievement by The Academy of American Poets, an honor formerly held by such poets as Robert Frost, Ezra Pound, William Carlos Williams, and Elizabeth Bishop. In 2012, she was elected a Chancellor of the Academy. The Christian Science Monitor calls Hirshfield’s poems, “An evocative mix of control and wildness, stunning beauty and unseen forces.” Tiferet Journal has recently published a compilation of twelve of our best transcribed interviews. To purchase The Tiferet Talk Interviews book, please click here.

Inderjeet Parmar‘s Foundations of the American Century: The Ford, Carnegie, and Rockefeller Foundations in the Rise of American Power (Columbia University Press, 2012) navigates the history of US foreign policymaking in the twentieth century. Parmar is President of the British International Studies Association and Professor in the Department of International Politics School of Social Sciences, City University London. His new book examines foreign policy making from the perspective of philanthropic foundations and the ways foundations sought to influence policy through the creation of foreign policy ideas and institutions. Parmar dissects the role foundations played in US foreign policy toward Indonesia, Chile, and elsewhere through institutions such as the Council of Foreign Relations and various University-based international relations programs. The book ends with an examination of the development of the “democratic peace” doctrine and post 9/11 foreign policy making. Foundations have increasingly moved to the center of political science research (see recent podcast with Sarah Reckhow). Dr. Parmar's wide-ranging book follows in this approach and is a major contribution to scholarship on philanthropy and public policy making.

Inderjeet Parmar‘s Foundations of the American Century: The Ford, Carnegie, and Rockefeller Foundations in the Rise of American Power (Columbia University Press, 2012) navigates the history of US foreign policymaking in the twentieth century. Parmar is President of the British International Studies Association and Professor in the Department of International Politics School of Social Sciences, City University London. His new book examines foreign policy making from the perspective of philanthropic foundations and the ways foundations sought to influence policy through the creation of foreign policy ideas and institutions. Parmar dissects the role foundations played in US foreign policy toward Indonesia, Chile, and elsewhere through institutions such as the Council of Foreign Relations and various University-based international relations programs. The book ends with an examination of the development of the “democratic peace” doctrine and post 9/11 foreign policy making. Foundations have increasingly moved to the center of political science research (see recent podcast with Sarah Reckhow). Dr. Parmar's wide-ranging book follows in this approach and is a major contribution to scholarship on philanthropy and public policy making. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Inderjeet Parmar‘s Foundations of the American Century: The Ford, Carnegie, and Rockefeller Foundations in the Rise of American Power (Columbia University Press, 2012) navigates the history of US foreign policymaking in the twentieth century. Parmar is President of the British International Studies Association and Professor in the Department of International Politics School of Social Sciences, City University London. His new book examines foreign policy making from the perspective of philanthropic foundations and the ways foundations sought to influence policy through the creation of foreign policy ideas and institutions. Parmar dissects the role foundations played in US foreign policy toward Indonesia, Chile, and elsewhere through institutions such as the Council of Foreign Relations and various University-based international relations programs. The book ends with an examination of the development of the “democratic peace” doctrine and post 9/11 foreign policy making. Foundations have increasingly moved to the center of political science research (see recent podcast with Sarah Reckhow). Dr. Parmar’s wide-ranging book follows in this approach and is a major contribution to scholarship on philanthropy and public policy making. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Inderjeet Parmar‘s Foundations of the American Century: The Ford, Carnegie, and Rockefeller Foundations in the Rise of American Power (Columbia University Press, 2012) navigates the history of US foreign policymaking in the twentieth century. Parmar is President of the British International Studies Association and Professor in the Department of International Politics School of Social Sciences, City University London. His new book examines foreign policy making from the perspective of philanthropic foundations and the ways foundations sought to influence policy through the creation of foreign policy ideas and institutions. Parmar dissects the role foundations played in US foreign policy toward Indonesia, Chile, and elsewhere through institutions such as the Council of Foreign Relations and various University-based international relations programs. The book ends with an examination of the development of the “democratic peace” doctrine and post 9/11 foreign policy making. Foundations have increasingly moved to the center of political science research (see recent podcast with Sarah Reckhow). Dr. Parmar’s wide-ranging book follows in this approach and is a major contribution to scholarship on philanthropy and public policy making. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Inderjeet Parmar‘s Foundations of the American Century: The Ford, Carnegie, and Rockefeller Foundations in the Rise of American Power (Columbia University Press, 2012) navigates the history of US foreign policymaking in the twentieth century. Parmar is President of the British International Studies Association and Professor in the Department of International Politics School of Social Sciences, City University London. His new book examines foreign policy making from the perspective of philanthropic foundations and the ways foundations sought to influence policy through the creation of foreign policy ideas and institutions. Parmar dissects the role foundations played in US foreign policy toward Indonesia, Chile, and elsewhere through institutions such as the Council of Foreign Relations and various University-based international relations programs. The book ends with an examination of the development of the “democratic peace” doctrine and post 9/11 foreign policy making. Foundations have increasingly moved to the center of political science research (see recent podcast with Sarah Reckhow). Dr. Parmar’s wide-ranging book follows in this approach and is a major contribution to scholarship on philanthropy and public policy making. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

--{ Ecology -- Eugenics Covers for Depopulation Lovers: "Study the Religion of Ecology, Masquerading as Science, Makes No Apology, A Political Movement under Cloak of Green, The Eugenics Society with Their Dream Of Culling the Herd Without a Fight, By Dumbing the Masses, the End's in Sight, With Their Advisors Over Every Government, Agenda being Implemented for Furtherment Towards Their Golden Age when We are Gone, A World for Elitists, Fittest and Strong" © Alan Watt }-- Living in the "Now" - Programming through Entertainment - Gnostic Groups, "Perfection" through Selective Breeding, Darwin-Wedgwood-Huxley Family - Survival of the "Fittest". Ecology, Economy of Nature - Masses are "Junk Genes" (Their Job is Over) - Royal and Middle Class Revolutions - Fabian Strategy - Rapid Change, Eradication of Past. Agenda of Elimination of Opposition - Carnegie, Ford, Rockefeller Foundations, CFR/RIIA - Teddy Goldsmith, Green Party, Environmentalist Movement - Eugenicist Elitists - Sir Crispin Tickell, John Holdren - Introduction of World Totalitarian Regime, United Nations - C.G. Darwin - Harrison Brown - Categorization of People, "Hereditary" Defects, "Degenerate" Stock, Prevention of Breeding by the "Unfit" - Sterilization-Depopulation Agenda - Nazi-Soviet Mass Killings - Don Scott, Books on Biowarfare, Brucellosis Triangle. Sects and Freemasonry, Brotherhood of Man, Masonic Lodges. Brainwashing by Soap Opera, Behaviour Modification. (Articles: ["Obituary: Teddy Goldsmith, founder of The Ecologist magazine and the Ecology Party, which later became the Green Party" (telegraph.co.uk) - Aug. 25, 2009.] ["John Holdren and Harrison Brown - Lifelong intellectual infatuation with eugenics-minded futurist casts shadow over Science Czar Holdren's worldview" (zombietime.com).] ["LOWERING THE BOOM: POPULATION ACTIVIST BILL RYERSON IS SAVING THE WORLD - ONE 'SOAP' AT A TIME" by Pamela Polston (populationmedia.org) - Aug. 21, 2005.]) *Title/Poem and Dialogue Copyrighted Alan Watt - Aug. 25, 2009 (Exempting Music, Literary Quotes, and Callers' Comments)

In 2001, well-known food activist Vandana Shiva spoke to an audience in Vancouver at an event sponsored by the Basmati Action Group. It was during that time that the company RiceTec, had recently attempted to patent basmati rice, a staple of Indian and Pakistani livelihoods and diets. The Basmati Action Group was formed to launch a North American-wide boycott on all products produced by the company. Vandana's lecture addresses the patenting of life and the genetic modification of food. She speaks of the crisis in India that continues today, where over 40,000 farmers have taken their lives as a result of what she refers to as genocide by the multinational pesticide and seed companies. The broadcast explores the new Green Revolution being pushed onto the African continent by the Bill and Melinda Gates and Rockefeller Foundations. We explore the company Bayer, and their role in the recent contamination of the global supply of rice with an unapproved variety that had been genetically modified. The segments of Vandana Shiva's lecture were recorded by the Vancouver-based Necessary Voices Society. Speakers Vandana Shiva, Founder - Research Foundation for Science, Technology and Ecology / Navdanya (New Delhi, India) - Vandana has been involved in the protection of ecosystems, farmers, and food security for well over 2 decades. Shiva studied philosophy at the University of Guelph in the late 70's and moved on to complete her Ph.D in Quantum Theory Physics at the University of Western Ontario. Using her background in physics and her love of nature, she began questioning how science technology has impacted the environment In 2001 she founded a program called Navdanya, formed to provide education and training on subjects such as biodiversity, food, biopiracy, sustainable agriculture, water and globalization. She is the author of dozens of books.