Silicon Reich: The Unholy Matrimony of Big Tech & Big Brother

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It's time for you and me to
stand up for ourselves.

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Welcome to Unwashed and Unruly
because it's all bullshit and

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it's bad for you.
Today we're diving into the long

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standing ties between Big Tech
and the US government, military

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and intelligence agencies.
I'm your host Lola Michaels here

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with comrade Know it All, Ezra
Saeed.

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Hi, everybody.
Hi, Lola.

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And our not so Pixie dream girl
Cam cruise.

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What's up, everybody?
Check out our website

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unwashedun-ruly.com.
You can find all our episodes,

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extra content, join our mailing
lists, shout at us or praise us.

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And don't forget, we're battling
the big tech algorithms too, so

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please rate and review us today.
From the beginning, the tech

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industry wasn't about
communication or empowerment for

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the masses.
The Internet and the tech that

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came with it were born of Cold
War spy networks and defense

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research.
The tech industry has always

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been tied to surveillance and
counterinsurgency.

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Big Tech was built in
collaboration with the State

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Department, Google, Amazon,
Meta, Microsoft, Apple, Oracle.

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The Machiavellis who dream of a
Silicon Reich are deeply woven

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into the military and
intelligence web.

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Every cloud contract, every
algorithm, every new smart

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device brings the government,
Pentagon, and Silicon Valley

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closer together.
We're living in a surveillance

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empire where privacy is dead,
where predictive technology

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targets black and brown people
and immigrants, where digital

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profiling is a tool for
political repression,

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imperialist war, and colonial
projects.

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Every click, every message,
every search we make fuels that

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system.
Our phones are tracking devices,

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apps and algorithms know our
habits, our location, our

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health, our money, our
relationships, our political

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views.
What does freedom look like in a

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world where everything can be
monitored, stored and analyzed

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by tech oligarchs and the state?
The tragedy isn't the technology

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itself, it's how it's been
weaponized for profit and

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control.
The Internet could have been

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something different, but in the
hands of authoritarian

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technocrats, we're left living
inside the high tech dystopia

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that science fiction warned us
about.

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So when we talk about power
today, it's not just armies or

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weapons.
It's really about who controls

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digital infrastructure, who
dominates the markets, and who

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holds the patents.
The tech oligarchs have an

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unprecedented concentration of
economic power as well as being

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the owners of the mass media,
and this started before their

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cozy relationship and contracts
with the Trump administration.

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Now, of course, they're trusted
allies and it's all out in the

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open.
Over the last two decades,

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especially after 911, Big Tech
has become a permanent fixture

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of U.S. military and
intelligence strategy.

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Modern militaries can't function
without the messianic overlords

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of Big Tech Palantir, NVIDIA,
Intel, Open AI, and all the

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others.
These companies provide the

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cloud networks, the predictive
algorithms, the infrastructure,

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the data systems.
So they're not just contractors

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or suppliers, but essential
partners in the execution of

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state power.
So let's start there.

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How did we get to a point where
private tech companies have

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become such indispensable
players in the machinery of

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capitalist state power,
repression and more?

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I think there was never a time
when they weren't tied to the

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state.
They were always part of the

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state structure from the
beginning.

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And as the technology advanced
and became more powerful and

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more intrusive, those ties
became deeper because they

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became more useful to the state
and the government.

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So anytime you talk about the
tech industry from its very

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origins to the present, you
really cannot divorce it from

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the state.
Now, how it expresses itself

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over the years differs.
There was a time when they would

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try to hide the fact that they
were essentially tools of the

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government.
And there was a time when they

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would talk about, you know, as
Google put it, don't be evil and

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things like that.
But the fundamental starting

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point has always been that these
guys are in mesh with the state.

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And in fact, as we go further in
this episode and talk about it,

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you'll see that a lot of the
technologies that they deployed

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today are technologies that were
worked out with the US

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government in particular, in
order to advance American

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government interests.
And then they get taken over by

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private companies.
And these companies then

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advance, of course, their
interest, which is also to make

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massive amounts of profit.
Yeah, I think they did in the

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past at least try to downplay
their involvement.

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Google did actually delete Don't
Be Evil from its global contract

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very explicitly.
But yeah, they're bending over

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backwards to get their piece of
the action, and they have an

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excessive amount of classified
information at their fingertips

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and all the raw data from
tracking and surveilling us.

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Yeah, one of the things you
should bear in mind is it's

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virtually impossible to live as
a human being in the modern

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world today without being
completely tracked in everything

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that you do.
You can view it as something

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that started in a somewhat
superficial way, but not

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entirely incorrect.
Something that started with

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Google in the late 90s and how
they crawled the web, and then

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how they figured how to use that
to then crawl and extract as

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much data as they can from their
users.

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All these free services that
Google provides in terms of

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e-mail, documents and other free
services are not really free.

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What you're giving up in
exchange for them is your entire

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life you're advertising
yourself.

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And then around 2007 eight, with
the introduction of the iPhone

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from Apple, that took the
intrusion to a whole new level

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because what used to be an
intrusion based on what you did

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on the Internet now became an
intrusion based on what you did

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every moment of your life
because the phone was with you

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at all times.
And we have gone so far beyond

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just the phone.
Now there's this whole category,

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the Internet of Things.
Well, that means simple

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appliances from refrigerators to
microwaves to toasters, to

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televisions, heaters, etcetera.
They're all now connected to the

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Internet and basically sharing
data about your every moment of

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existence.
And that data is collated and

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that data is then sold to other
companies.

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And it's used in the first
instance by these companies for

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advertisement.
And one of the lines that a lot

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of these companies would in
particular Google used to do

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this, would say is, well, better
us to have that data than the

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government.
The problem is that dichotomy is

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false.
Data being in the hands of

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Google or in the hands of Meta
or Facebook or any of those

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companies is the equivalent of
data being in the hands of the

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government.
Yeah, the line between the tech

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executives and military
officials and the police and the

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government and these
intelligence agencies has

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completely blurred over.
And of course the media

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executives, because let's not
forget the Jeff Bezos and the

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Larry Ellison's and everyone who
are in control of the mass media

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and what's being produced, what
algorithms are, what censorship

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there is, etcetera.
So the person running the war

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and selling the weapons is the
same person, and there was a

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bunch of executives from Meta,
Open AI and Palantir who were

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literally sworn in as Army
Reserve officers.

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I think you can say this with
almost everything the Trump

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administration is doing.
The groundwork was laid down by

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the Democratic Party and Trump,
as is the case usually with

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Trump and the Republicans more
generally, then takes it to the

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NTH degree.
This open relationship between

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the Titans of tech and the US
government.

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It's very naked and flagrant
right now, but it's not really

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something that just started
under the Trump administration.

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If listeners don't remember, in
2013 or so, there were these

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revelations that were brought
out by Edward Snowden.

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He was a contractor working for
the NSA, and he showed that the

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NSA was using a project called
PRISM to basically use the data

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collected by Google and other
companies to spy on whoever they

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wanted to spy on.
Yeah, I remember that being a

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big deal, that they were
collecting phone records from

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pretty much every American.
Yeah, they were basically

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collecting whatever data they
wanted.

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And it's interesting what the
response to that was.

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Yes, Snowden was a big deal.
What he did was very courageous.

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He was driven out of the country
for what he did when he's now

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living in Russia.
Now, this is under the Obama

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administration.
What was the government's

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response to that?
The way it came out, the prison

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project, the way it came out was
that the government was forcing

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Google and Facebook and other
companies to share their data,

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that it was something that was
imposed by the government on

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these private companies.
The reality, it's probably more

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complex than that, But what the
Obama administration's response

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to this was, let's actually make
the relationship more open.

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Let's actually try to just tear
down that wall, this idea that

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this is something that we force
on you.

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So one of the books I read in
preparation for this was this

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book called Unit X, How the
Pentagon and Silicon Valley Are

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Transforming the Future of War.
And it's by two guys, Raj M Shah

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and Christopher Kerchoff.
And the both of them were the

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first leaders of this thing
called Unit X, which is better

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known as the Defense Innovation
Unit or DIU, which was the

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brainchild of the Obama
administration and in particular

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the deputy Secretary of Defense
at the time, Ash Carter.

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And the fundamental premise of
the book is that quote, sometime

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in the 1990s, Silicon Valley and
the Pentagon stop talking to

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each other.
The two decade explosion of

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consumer electronics that began
in the 2000 somehow became

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invisible to the Pentagon.
Now, that's I think is bullshit.

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But what it is getting at is
that sometime beginning in the

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late 90s to early 2000s, their
relationship between the

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Pentagon and the intelligence
agencies and the US government

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more broadly, and these giant
tech companies became something

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that you kept behind a secret
veil.

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And basically this program was
to say, let's bring it out in

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the open, guys.
We all share the same values,

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the values of supposedly human
rights, democracy, freedom.

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Monopoly, surveillance, Complete
power.

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Exactly.
And remember, this was in the

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wake of things like Twitter
revolutions, as they were

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calling them.
These are all things we can all

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work together on.
There's no reason to project it

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as an adversarial relationship.
And so weapons programs,

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intelligence sharing programs,
etcetera, should be something we

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proudly do rather than something
we do in the dark.

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And Trump has simply taken that
to the NTH degree.

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Let's talk a little bit about
some of those contracts that

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exist that we've seen.
So these were initially marketed

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as counterterrorism partnerships
and they are these massive

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procurement deals, these multi
billion dollar cloud contracts

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with Amazon, Microsoft, Google
and Oracle.

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There's AI programs like Project
Maven.

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That's where Amazon and
Microsoft were contracted by the

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Department of Defense to develop
AI technologies for improving

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image recognition and military
drones.

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We know that open AI, Sam
Altman's organization won 200

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million with AUS defense
contract in June.

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Amazon Web Services, they
provide their computing services

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to U.S. intelligence agencies
and the Department of Defense.

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Microsoft is supplying augmented
reality advisors.

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Those are those HoloLens for
military activities and digital

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tools for armored vehicles.
Alphabet, Amazon, Microsoft, and

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Oracle have all been awarded
contracts for defense cloud

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infrastructure under projects
like joint war fighting, cloud

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capacity, The Ukraine, Spacex's
Starlink, That's Elon Musk.

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They keep the army online.
And then of course there's

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Israel, which is the big one,
right?

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So in Gaza, Amazon and Google's
project Nimbus, they supply

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Israel with AI driven facial
recognition and object tracking

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tools that's woven into their
military operations in order to

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murder, massacre Palestinians in
the West Bank.

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They use facial recognition for
tracking and monitoring every

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single Palestinian person in the
occupied territories.

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Israel also has a lot of big AI
projects with NVIDIA.

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So it's just it's all of the
map.

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Yeah.
And one company that you didn't

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mention is Apple, which doesn't
really do much in terms of the

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cloud services, but they do
provide the military with a lot

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of hardware.
And so like the hardware that

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Apple sells to the military is
not the iPhone that you're going

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00:13:32,320 --> 00:13:34,640
to buy.
It's specially made for the US

233
00:13:34,640 --> 00:13:37,480
military.
They also have some of their

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00:13:37,560 --> 00:13:42,160
biggest R&D systems, especially
for their advanced chips in

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00:13:42,200 --> 00:13:44,880
Israel itself.
The other thing is about AI.

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00:13:44,880 --> 00:13:47,840
I mean, AI now sort of presents
a whole other thing that people

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00:13:47,840 --> 00:13:50,120
have been talking about AI in
terms of jobs and things like

238
00:13:50,120 --> 00:13:52,400
that.
And that's all very important.

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00:13:52,400 --> 00:13:55,640
There's also the whole element
of how much resources of tech it

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00:13:55,640 --> 00:13:58,080
takes to build it to maintain
these data centers.

241
00:13:58,240 --> 00:14:00,480
And again, that's all very
important, but I want to

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00:14:00,480 --> 00:14:04,600
approach it from a whole other
side, which is where as before,

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00:14:04,600 --> 00:14:08,200
these companies had to work to,
to extract your data and share

244
00:14:08,200 --> 00:14:11,840
it with AI.
We are basically giving it away

245
00:14:12,360 --> 00:14:14,800
in a way that's that we hadn't
done before.

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00:14:14,840 --> 00:14:18,520
The amount of information that's
being shared on AI is really

247
00:14:18,520 --> 00:14:21,920
quite extraordinary in the
intimacy of that information and

248
00:14:21,920 --> 00:14:25,320
the depth of that information,
maybe not quantitatively, but

249
00:14:25,320 --> 00:14:29,120
qualitatively.
And the thing about AI is AI in

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00:14:29,120 --> 00:14:32,000
the military have been linked
from the very beginning.

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00:14:32,080 --> 00:14:35,640
They basically grew up together,
but going back to the 1950s and

252
00:14:35,640 --> 00:14:38,320
60s.
So the US Department of Defense,

253
00:14:38,320 --> 00:14:42,080
now Department of War,
specifically this organization

254
00:14:42,080 --> 00:14:46,560
called ARPA, Advanced Research
Project Agency, which would

255
00:14:46,560 --> 00:14:50,760
later become in 1972, DARPA,
same name, just add Defense in

256
00:14:50,760 --> 00:14:54,240
the beginning was bankrolling
the first wave of artificial

257
00:14:54,240 --> 00:14:56,440
intelligence research.
There were a number of

258
00:14:56,440 --> 00:15:00,680
characters, John McCarthy,
Barbara Minsky at the Herbert

259
00:15:00,680 --> 00:15:03,360
Simon and Carnegie Mellon.
We're all working on projects

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00:15:03,360 --> 00:15:06,760
funded by Cold War defense money
that government wanted computers

261
00:15:06,760 --> 00:15:09,760
that could translate languages,
recognize patterns, help make

262
00:15:09,760 --> 00:15:13,520
battlefield decisions faster.
By the 80s, DARPA had a

263
00:15:13,520 --> 00:15:17,480
strategic computing initiative
trying to build smart vehicles

264
00:15:17,480 --> 00:15:21,000
and digital Co pilots, basically
early versions of the autonomous

265
00:15:21,000 --> 00:15:24,720
systems we talked about today.
So from day one, AI wasn't a

266
00:15:24,720 --> 00:15:27,680
curiosity, it was about
security, national security.

267
00:15:28,240 --> 00:15:30,440
And that connection only has
intensified.

268
00:15:30,480 --> 00:15:34,040
So it's really interesting to
learn that so much of this

269
00:15:34,040 --> 00:15:36,600
technology is a result of
military money because one of

270
00:15:36,600 --> 00:15:40,160
the only places the US invests
money is into the military.

271
00:15:40,440 --> 00:15:46,040
So to think that this is one of
the last places where America is

272
00:15:46,040 --> 00:15:49,040
kind of leading the pack in
terms of AI technology and all

273
00:15:49,040 --> 00:15:52,600
of these algorithms that are
like pattern finding algorithms,

274
00:15:52,600 --> 00:15:55,520
of course there has to be
military dollars involved in it.

275
00:15:55,520 --> 00:15:58,400
It only makes sense.
Yeah, and war is really good for

276
00:15:58,400 --> 00:16:00,640
business.
They get a ton of money from

277
00:16:00,640 --> 00:16:04,360
these military contracts and
defense industry is considered

278
00:16:04,360 --> 00:16:07,920
for these tech giants to be
recession proof and very stable.

279
00:16:08,320 --> 00:16:11,400
And you know, if they don't get
enough profits from customers

280
00:16:11,400 --> 00:16:14,680
because people aren't able to
invest in tech as much or people

281
00:16:14,680 --> 00:16:18,200
aren't buying the new VR headset
or whatever, the military is

282
00:16:18,200 --> 00:16:20,880
like the perfect customer for.
Them a government contract.

283
00:16:20,880 --> 00:16:22,520
You can't beat a government
contract, Yeah.

284
00:16:23,120 --> 00:16:24,800
Yeah.
So to give you just a couple of

285
00:16:24,800 --> 00:16:27,640
examples, the CIA started
something called Operation

286
00:16:27,640 --> 00:16:30,480
Keyhole.
Keyhole is what became Google

287
00:16:30,480 --> 00:16:35,960
Maps that we all use today.
The CIA also had another AI

288
00:16:35,960 --> 00:16:41,480
based rudimentary research which
became a private company through

289
00:16:41,480 --> 00:16:45,480
its in Q Tel.
In Q Tel is ACIA front sort of

290
00:16:45,480 --> 00:16:49,120
venture capitalist investment
front that the CIA has.

291
00:16:49,400 --> 00:16:54,160
That's what became initially
Siri and then Alexa and whatever

292
00:16:54,160 --> 00:16:56,280
digital assistant you want to
mention.

293
00:16:56,280 --> 00:16:59,200
That literally just straight
line from the CIA straight into

294
00:16:59,200 --> 00:17:01,840
that.
The founders of Google, I don't

295
00:17:01,920 --> 00:17:05,119
think you can say they were
directly CIA or military, but

296
00:17:05,119 --> 00:17:07,839
the research that they were
doing and when they came up

297
00:17:07,839 --> 00:17:10,280
there with their system of web
crawling and how to rank the

298
00:17:10,280 --> 00:17:13,240
results that they were getting,
that was directly funded by

299
00:17:13,240 --> 00:17:15,880
DARPA.
So when your funding is coming

300
00:17:15,880 --> 00:17:19,079
from a particular source, you're
going to tend to do the thing

301
00:17:19,119 --> 00:17:22,920
that that source thinks is
interesting, even if it's in

302
00:17:22,920 --> 00:17:25,640
your mind, not the thing you
think is interesting.

303
00:17:25,880 --> 00:17:29,800
See, with the tech industry,
people have this image of these

304
00:17:29,800 --> 00:17:33,520
two innovators sitting in a
garage working together coming

305
00:17:33,520 --> 00:17:37,960
up with the next great thing.
That's not really how it works.

306
00:17:38,040 --> 00:17:41,080
There may have been two guys
sitting in a garage coming up

307
00:17:41,080 --> 00:17:43,680
with the next great thing, but
behind them was massive

308
00:17:43,680 --> 00:17:46,720
investments coming from venture
capitalists.

309
00:17:46,760 --> 00:17:50,760
And behind those, a lot of times
were military guys were saying,

310
00:17:50,920 --> 00:17:54,720
yeah, that's what we want, so
invest in it or that's not what

311
00:17:54,720 --> 00:17:57,840
we want.
So this is not really priority

312
00:17:57,840 --> 00:18:00,680
investment for us.
So you're getting an interaction

313
00:18:00,680 --> 00:18:03,880
here between some fairly
brilliant minds on the ground

314
00:18:03,880 --> 00:18:08,360
who are coming up with ideas,
but also the directionality of

315
00:18:08,360 --> 00:18:13,520
those ideas by the military,
intelligence services and and

316
00:18:13,520 --> 00:18:16,440
other governmental services that
want certain things.

317
00:18:16,800 --> 00:18:19,920
And I would say the thing that
they want the most is

318
00:18:19,920 --> 00:18:22,080
surveillance.
They want to know what is

319
00:18:22,080 --> 00:18:26,880
happening, both for their real
or perceived enemies abroad, but

320
00:18:26,920 --> 00:18:29,920
also the ultimate enemy, which
is the people at home.

321
00:18:30,600 --> 00:18:33,240
That's.
The the biggest threat of all,

322
00:18:33,320 --> 00:18:35,640
yeah, yeah.
And like you say, the crazy part

323
00:18:35,640 --> 00:18:38,400
is that we just sign it away
willingly when we sign up for

324
00:18:38,400 --> 00:18:41,640
all these apps.
Well, but it's become impossible

325
00:18:41,680 --> 00:18:44,600
to live in the modern world
without it, and I don't think

326
00:18:44,600 --> 00:18:46,880
that's an accident.
Yeah, I think you were alluding

327
00:18:46,880 --> 00:18:49,640
to that before when you were
talking about how, you know you

328
00:18:49,640 --> 00:18:52,800
had a choice of being on
Facebook or Geo Tag or whatever.

329
00:18:53,040 --> 00:18:55,640
But then at a certain point you
get a smartphone and it's

330
00:18:55,640 --> 00:18:59,000
tracking you, and then your
dishwasher is like giving

331
00:18:59,000 --> 00:19:01,560
information and you don't really
have a choice of opting out

332
00:19:01,560 --> 00:19:03,280
anymore.
It just becomes inherently a

333
00:19:03,280 --> 00:19:05,520
part of the world.
As you guys probably know, I had

334
00:19:05,520 --> 00:19:09,200
an argument with one of my
friends who saw the contract

335
00:19:09,200 --> 00:19:12,000
between Open AI and the
Department of Defense and said

336
00:19:12,000 --> 00:19:15,840
that this is a clear reason
never to use ChatGPT whatsoever.

337
00:19:15,840 --> 00:19:18,480
And I said, OK, so then have you
closed your Gmail account?

338
00:19:18,480 --> 00:19:20,880
Have you closed every single app
that's spying on you?

339
00:19:21,320 --> 00:19:24,760
You never buy from Amazon, You
never go to Whole Foods even

340
00:19:24,760 --> 00:19:28,320
because Amazon and Whole Foods
are together and they're doing

341
00:19:28,320 --> 00:19:31,400
all these military contracts.
I mean, you basically have an

342
00:19:31,400 --> 00:19:36,000
entire generation of tech Bros
who are controlling and have a

343
00:19:36,000 --> 00:19:39,640
say in who gets drone striked.
I mean, that's how close the

344
00:19:39,680 --> 00:19:43,160
collaboration is.
And you're right, Ezra, that all

345
00:19:43,160 --> 00:19:46,380
of this surveillance technology
that's designed for quote UN

346
00:19:46,380 --> 00:19:49,720
quote, counterterrorism or
counterinsurgency abroad is

347
00:19:49,720 --> 00:19:53,320
really being used to conduct
neighborhood dragnets and to go

348
00:19:53,320 --> 00:19:56,240
after immigrants, black people,
you know, anyone who's

349
00:19:56,240 --> 00:20:00,040
considered a political dissident
or oppositionist in any way.

350
00:20:00,040 --> 00:20:03,720
So it's really like a tool of.
Domestic control, including on

351
00:20:03,720 --> 00:20:06,800
the predictive policing, which
is the big part of Palantir's

352
00:20:06,840 --> 00:20:07,760
whole thing.
Yeah.

353
00:20:07,760 --> 00:20:11,400
So to talk about Palantir for a
second, it's become very well

354
00:20:11,400 --> 00:20:13,680
known in the last couple of
years or in the last year,

355
00:20:13,680 --> 00:20:15,360
especially under the Trump
administration.

356
00:20:15,360 --> 00:20:18,320
But it goes back.
It was founded in 2003.

357
00:20:18,400 --> 00:20:22,520
It came out of in Q Tel is one
of those companies that came out

358
00:20:22,520 --> 00:20:24,640
of in Q Tel.
I will refer to it a lot

359
00:20:24,840 --> 00:20:27,160
throughout this episode because
I think it's emblematic,

360
00:20:27,160 --> 00:20:29,760
including the people who are
associated with it.

361
00:20:30,400 --> 00:20:34,560
But it's kind of emblematic in
the sense also of it's one of

362
00:20:34,560 --> 00:20:37,480
those companies that that so
many people have heard of, yet

363
00:20:37,480 --> 00:20:40,600
nobody has used any of their
products because they don't make

364
00:20:40,640 --> 00:20:44,800
products for the consumer.
This is not Apple or Google or

365
00:20:44,840 --> 00:20:47,840
Meta or something like that.
This is a company that from day

366
00:20:47,840 --> 00:20:51,240
one was founded for one purpose
and one purpose only, which was

367
00:20:51,680 --> 00:20:55,800
to work with the US government,
first of all, and foremost, but

368
00:20:55,800 --> 00:20:58,960
also allies of the US government
like Israel and Britain and

369
00:20:58,960 --> 00:21:02,640
others to sift through data.
So one of the points that I, if

370
00:21:02,640 --> 00:21:06,240
I remember correctly, that
Edward Snowden made in his book

371
00:21:06,240 --> 00:21:10,560
on the revelations is that you
are collecting so much data and

372
00:21:10,560 --> 00:21:13,520
metadata that at a certain level
it becomes not very useful.

373
00:21:13,600 --> 00:21:16,520
And well, Palantir is the answer
to that because their whole

374
00:21:16,520 --> 00:21:18,880
model, they don't collect the
data.

375
00:21:19,000 --> 00:21:21,120
Their whole model is data
analysis.

376
00:21:21,480 --> 00:21:24,080
And they take the data that
anyone has collected, doesn't

377
00:21:24,080 --> 00:21:28,240
matter who and whatever it is,
and use it to determine how it

378
00:21:28,240 --> 00:21:31,800
should be collated, how it's
best to analyze and to determine

379
00:21:31,800 --> 00:21:34,680
predictiveness.
Where is this going to go?

380
00:21:34,760 --> 00:21:37,640
And it's truly frightening
because they have their hands on

381
00:21:37,640 --> 00:21:41,320
data coming out of the health
industry because they collate

382
00:21:41,320 --> 00:21:44,800
and organize data for the health
industry all the way to most

383
00:21:44,800 --> 00:21:48,240
recently ICE immigrations and
custom enforcement to the to

384
00:21:48,240 --> 00:21:51,640
straight out the military.
I have no doubt how much they

385
00:21:51,640 --> 00:21:54,040
work with the state of Israel
because they say they do.

386
00:21:54,040 --> 00:21:56,480
I mean, they took out a full
page New York Times ad that said

387
00:21:56,480 --> 00:22:01,080
Palantir stands with Israel.
So and they basically have

388
00:22:01,120 --> 00:22:05,600
access to everything and are
sworn to work with the American

389
00:22:05,600 --> 00:22:07,280
government.
One of the clips I'd like to

390
00:22:07,280 --> 00:22:10,680
play is of a recent Palantir
quarterly report meeting.

391
00:22:10,680 --> 00:22:12,400
Now, this was something that was
leaked.

392
00:22:12,560 --> 00:22:14,480
We're not supposed to have it.
No one is supposed to have it

393
00:22:14,480 --> 00:22:18,280
but it got leaked.
It's Yeah day for leakers.

394
00:22:18,320 --> 00:22:20,000
Yeah.
Now this is Palantir, which was

395
00:22:20,000 --> 00:22:24,240
founded by the likes of Peter
Thiel, who will come to again.

396
00:22:24,240 --> 00:22:27,600
And he is not the CEO.
He's not an official officer per

397
00:22:27,600 --> 00:22:29,600
SE, but he's the chairman of the
company's board.

398
00:22:29,680 --> 00:22:32,920
And Alex Karp, who is the CEO of
Palantir.

399
00:22:32,920 --> 00:22:35,240
The clip itself is Alex Karp
speaking.

400
00:22:35,280 --> 00:22:38,120
Is he going to be killing a cat?
I honestly can't even imagine.

401
00:22:38,120 --> 00:22:41,480
Like this guy openly talks about
killing people so easily.

402
00:22:41,520 --> 00:22:45,160
So like I said, this is from a
leaked quarterly report, a

403
00:22:45,160 --> 00:22:48,880
quarterly report to investors
where they did stellar, made

404
00:22:48,880 --> 00:22:52,560
tons of money.
I'm very happy to have you along

405
00:22:52,560 --> 00:22:55,080
for the journey and you are
partners for us.

406
00:22:55,480 --> 00:22:57,680
Every paletarian, we are
crushing it.

407
00:22:58,440 --> 00:23:02,920
Everyone else who's listening,
we are dedicating our company.

408
00:23:02,920 --> 00:23:05,560
We've dedicated our company to
the service of the West of the

409
00:23:05,560 --> 00:23:08,000
United States of America.
And we're super proud of the

410
00:23:08,000 --> 00:23:10,440
role we play, especially in
places we can't talk about.

411
00:23:10,800 --> 00:23:14,400
And we love our success in the
US and globally also, you know,

412
00:23:14,400 --> 00:23:17,160
we are doing what in the United
Kingdom and any other places.

413
00:23:18,080 --> 00:23:22,840
Alan Tier is here to disrupt and
make our the decisions.

414
00:23:22,840 --> 00:23:26,000
We partner with the very best in
the world and when it's

415
00:23:26,000 --> 00:23:29,280
necessary to scare enemies and
on occasion kill them.

416
00:23:31,160 --> 00:23:35,360
Kill the enemies.
Yeah, it's literally Palantir

417
00:23:35,360 --> 00:23:38,080
has talked about as the CIA's
private equity firm.

418
00:23:38,080 --> 00:23:41,360
And it's another one of those
tech companies that there's a

419
00:23:41,360 --> 00:23:44,360
revolving door of staff, which
just shows the intersection

420
00:23:44,360 --> 00:23:46,680
where you actually have, like,
CIA officials sitting on the

421
00:23:46,680 --> 00:23:48,400
board and vice versa.
And.

422
00:23:48,400 --> 00:23:49,800
It's only the most successful
one.

423
00:23:49,800 --> 00:23:51,680
There's several.
It just happens to be the most

424
00:23:51,680 --> 00:23:53,280
successful one.
This is.

425
00:23:53,360 --> 00:23:56,200
A really depraved system too,
where the investors are paying

426
00:23:56,200 --> 00:23:58,040
for blood.
Like the more blood the better.

427
00:23:58,400 --> 00:24:01,080
Well, that that is literally the
whole point of this company.

428
00:24:01,160 --> 00:24:05,040
The whole point of this company
is so that the US abroad has a

429
00:24:05,040 --> 00:24:09,200
better sense of who to aim that
drone at, and at home has a

430
00:24:09,200 --> 00:24:11,440
better sense of who to round up
and disappear.

431
00:24:11,440 --> 00:24:15,800
Yeah, their surveillance
infrastructure is massive and it

432
00:24:15,800 --> 00:24:19,280
has data systems for the
Pentagon, ICE, Yeah, although

433
00:24:19,280 --> 00:24:21,360
they're intelligence agencies
across the world.

434
00:24:21,600 --> 00:24:24,760
America's allies, America's
allies, and as long as they

435
00:24:24,760 --> 00:24:27,880
remain America's allies.
OK, so I want to talk a little

436
00:24:27,880 --> 00:24:30,840
bit, Ezra, about how far back
this really goes.

437
00:24:30,840 --> 00:24:34,120
You mentioned DARPA, the Defense
Advanced Research Projects

438
00:24:34,120 --> 00:24:36,400
Agency.
One of the books that you read

439
00:24:36,400 --> 00:24:39,160
was Annie Jacobson's The
Pentagon's Brain.

440
00:24:39,200 --> 00:24:43,720
And also another book you read
was Yasha Levine's Surveillance

441
00:24:43,720 --> 00:24:45,280
Valley, which I highly
recommend.

442
00:24:45,560 --> 00:24:49,280
And in both of those books, you
get a real sense of the history

443
00:24:49,280 --> 00:24:53,240
of DARPA emerging in the Cold
War as the Center for military

444
00:24:53,240 --> 00:24:56,440
innovation and how it helped
produce and create everything

445
00:24:56,520 --> 00:25:00,360
from GPS and the early Internet
to chemical defoliants, the

446
00:25:00,360 --> 00:25:03,280
first drones.
And it really, I think, gives

447
00:25:03,280 --> 00:25:07,040
you a sense that this technology
was never about expanding

448
00:25:07,040 --> 00:25:10,360
freedom, but taking it away.
So how far back does this

449
00:25:10,360 --> 00:25:13,760
collaboration actually go?
Well, it goes back to the

450
00:25:13,760 --> 00:25:16,200
beginning.
So you mentioned The Pentagon's

451
00:25:16,200 --> 00:25:19,280
Brain by Annie Jacobson, and I
guess I want to use this

452
00:25:19,280 --> 00:25:21,480
opportunity to say a lot of the
books that are written on the

453
00:25:21,480 --> 00:25:26,040
subject celebrate the ties
between the US and the tech

454
00:25:26,040 --> 00:25:28,480
industries.
So Annie Jacobson's book, The

455
00:25:28,480 --> 00:25:32,480
Pentagon's Brain is not really a
critical book, by which I mean,

456
00:25:32,680 --> 00:25:34,600
I mean, I recommend it.
People should read it.

457
00:25:34,600 --> 00:25:37,720
There's a lot of useful history
in it, but it's not a book that

458
00:25:37,720 --> 00:25:40,040
says, oh, look how terrible this
is.

459
00:25:40,040 --> 00:25:42,720
This is a book that says more of
this, please.

460
00:25:43,520 --> 00:25:46,760
The other book I mentioned, Unit
X, again, it's the same thing.

461
00:25:47,200 --> 00:25:51,440
Interestingly, Yasha Levine's
book, A Surveillance Valley, The

462
00:25:51,440 --> 00:25:54,360
Secret Military History of the
Internet, which I I very highly

463
00:25:54,360 --> 00:25:59,120
recommend as well, came out in
2017, I believe to the opposite

464
00:25:59,120 --> 00:26:01,640
of rave reviews.
It was trashed.

465
00:26:01,800 --> 00:26:04,800
Now I if you look at the
reviews, none of them really

466
00:26:04,800 --> 00:26:08,760
trash the facts because the
facts are in there and they're

467
00:26:08,760 --> 00:26:12,600
not really disputable.
Exactly what they trash is the

468
00:26:12,600 --> 00:26:14,640
interpretation.
Fair enough.

469
00:26:14,640 --> 00:26:17,120
You can trash anyones
interpretation of the facts

470
00:26:17,480 --> 00:26:18,160
they.
Accused.

471
00:26:18,160 --> 00:26:20,680
They accused him of being a
conspiracy theorist,

472
00:26:20,720 --> 00:26:22,760
essentially.
Of course, of course, of course.

473
00:26:22,800 --> 00:26:26,480
The problem is there's this old
saying that time reveals

474
00:26:26,480 --> 00:26:29,760
everything, and between the time
that he published this book in

475
00:26:29,760 --> 00:26:34,920
2017 and what we have today, I
think things show that Yasha

476
00:26:34,920 --> 00:26:39,040
Levine's interpretation of the
facts have held up very, very

477
00:26:39,040 --> 00:26:43,680
well. 100% as you see, one tech
Titan after another fall over

478
00:26:43,680 --> 00:26:48,360
themselves to pledge their
allegiance to the US government

479
00:26:48,360 --> 00:26:51,760
and the American way.
So before we get into this, I

480
00:26:51,760 --> 00:26:54,600
just want to play another clip.
Are we going to get to see how

481
00:26:54,600 --> 00:26:56,560
all the tech Titans kiss the
ring?

482
00:26:56,640 --> 00:26:59,800
Yes, so this this is the clip of
them all kissing the ring, the

483
00:26:59,800 --> 00:27:04,160
ring of the orange one.
And this is from a recent dinner

484
00:27:04,160 --> 00:27:07,480
that the Trump administration
organized with leaders of the

485
00:27:07,480 --> 00:27:10,080
tech industry.
And who you'll hear speaking

486
00:27:10,080 --> 00:27:13,600
here besides the orange one is
Mark Zuckerberg, the CEO of

487
00:27:13,600 --> 00:27:18,160
Meta, David Sachs, the Cryptozar
in the White House, Sergey Brin,

488
00:27:18,160 --> 00:27:24,800
the Co founder of Google, Sundar
Panchay, CEO of Google, Lisa SU,

489
00:27:24,960 --> 00:27:30,200
CEO of AMD or Advanced Micro
Devices, Satya Nadella, CEO of

490
00:27:30,200 --> 00:27:35,280
Microsoft, Tim Cook, CEO of
Apples, Sam Altman, CEOCEO of

491
00:27:35,280 --> 00:27:40,520
Open AI, Safra Cuts, CEO of
Oracle, and the one and only

492
00:27:40,520 --> 00:27:42,600
Bill Gates, Co founder of
Microsoft.

493
00:27:43,280 --> 00:27:46,080
That is a who's who.
Yeah, that's that's the A list

494
00:27:46,080 --> 00:27:48,440
right there.
Right, so let's just listen to

495
00:27:48,440 --> 00:27:52,440
them kissing the ring.
Mark, would you like to say a

496
00:27:52,440 --> 00:27:55,120
few words about the company?
Well, thanks for for hosting us.

497
00:27:55,120 --> 00:27:56,640
And this is quite a group to get
together.

498
00:27:56,640 --> 00:27:59,560
Thank you, Mr. President, it's a
great honor to to work here at

499
00:27:59,560 --> 00:28:01,200
the White House and to to work
for you.

500
00:28:01,320 --> 00:28:03,320
Very grateful for your
administration support.

501
00:28:03,320 --> 00:28:05,160
We look forward to working
together and thanks for your

502
00:28:05,160 --> 00:28:06,680
leadership.
We're so grateful for that

503
00:28:06,680 --> 00:28:08,880
support.
Thank you so much obviously for

504
00:28:08,880 --> 00:28:13,360
bringing us all together and the
policies that you have put in

505
00:28:13,360 --> 00:28:14,720
place.
Thank you very much.

506
00:28:14,720 --> 00:28:17,760
And also I wanted to thank Madam
First Lady for hosting.

507
00:28:18,000 --> 00:28:20,280
I want to thank you for
including me this evening.

508
00:28:20,960 --> 00:28:24,600
It's incredible to be among
everyone here, particularly you

509
00:28:24,600 --> 00:28:28,880
and the First lady.
I also want to thank you for

510
00:28:28,880 --> 00:28:31,920
helping American companies
around the world for stalls to

511
00:28:32,040 --> 00:28:33,960
echo the comments of Tim and
others.

512
00:28:33,960 --> 00:28:35,960
Thank you so much for getting us
all together, and thank you for

513
00:28:35,960 --> 00:28:38,880
being such a Probusiness Pro
Innovation president.

514
00:28:38,920 --> 00:28:41,160
Thank you.
Thank you for everything you're

515
00:28:41,160 --> 00:28:43,360
doing.
Thank you for incredible

516
00:28:43,360 --> 00:28:46,120
leadership, including getting
this group together.

517
00:28:46,560 --> 00:28:48,120
Thank you, Bill.
That is very nice.

518
00:28:50,160 --> 00:28:53,400
And that was live from the Dick
sucking collective.

519
00:28:53,400 --> 00:28:57,720
Yeah, And I thought actually Tim
Cook and Sam Altman set up very

520
00:28:57,720 --> 00:29:00,000
well.
Tim Cook says thank you for

521
00:29:00,160 --> 00:29:02,960
standing up for American
companies because Apple faces a

522
00:29:02,960 --> 00:29:05,520
lot of regulation charges all
over Europe.

523
00:29:05,560 --> 00:29:08,600
And Sam Altman, this whole thing
about innovation, you know, in

524
00:29:08,600 --> 00:29:11,400
other words, thank you for
cutting down regulations so we

525
00:29:11,400 --> 00:29:13,760
can do what we need to do,
building these data centers.

526
00:29:13,760 --> 00:29:16,800
So, you know, it's good business
to work with the government.

527
00:29:16,800 --> 00:29:19,080
It's good business to work with
the military.

528
00:29:19,360 --> 00:29:22,400
And it's also useful because for
the military itself, it's a

529
00:29:22,480 --> 00:29:24,840
very, how do you say, symbiotic
relationship.

530
00:29:25,400 --> 00:29:28,760
Yeah, symbiotic relationship.
And there's also a very strong

531
00:29:28,760 --> 00:29:32,360
syphilitic chain, I might add.
With the amount of tech

532
00:29:32,360 --> 00:29:36,280
journalists who genuflect toward
these CEO's without any

533
00:29:36,280 --> 00:29:40,520
criticism and don't have any
sense of what this actually

534
00:29:40,520 --> 00:29:44,760
means in terms of their own
acceptance and complicity with

535
00:29:44,760 --> 00:29:47,960
the system that is backing these
guys and giving them ultimate

536
00:29:47,960 --> 00:29:52,000
power is just outstanding to me.
Yeah, I agree with that.

537
00:29:52,000 --> 00:29:55,640
I really don't see any criticism
about this or any fear about

538
00:29:55,640 --> 00:29:58,720
this in the American media.
No, I think the American media,

539
00:29:58,920 --> 00:30:02,840
Stewart Brandt, who we'll come
back to later on in the 1970s,

540
00:30:02,840 --> 00:30:05,160
he used to have a saying, we are
as gods.

541
00:30:05,160 --> 00:30:08,320
I think the tech industry
believes that about themselves,

542
00:30:08,400 --> 00:30:11,120
and I believe the tech
journalists and the media in

543
00:30:11,120 --> 00:30:13,400
general believes that about the
tech industry.

544
00:30:13,640 --> 00:30:17,040
Yeah, and they promote the idea
that they are these genius

545
00:30:17,040 --> 00:30:18,640
innovators who do no wrong.
Yeah.

546
00:30:18,720 --> 00:30:22,120
Now, as to the history, I want
to actually go back ridiculous

547
00:30:22,120 --> 00:30:24,600
amount of time, which is the
late 19th century.

548
00:30:24,680 --> 00:30:28,760
The first time the US used what
you can call a rudimentary

549
00:30:28,760 --> 00:30:32,760
computer, which was at the time
a tabulation machine, was in

550
00:30:33,480 --> 00:30:36,440
late 19th century when counting
the census.

551
00:30:36,480 --> 00:30:39,640
And one of the problems they had
was there was a huge amount of

552
00:30:39,640 --> 00:30:42,200
immigration coming into the US,
which was increasing the

553
00:30:42,200 --> 00:30:45,160
American population.
And so you needed to count these

554
00:30:45,160 --> 00:30:48,120
people more quickly.
You needed to also categorize

555
00:30:48,120 --> 00:30:51,440
people, where they're coming
from and what their ethnicity

556
00:30:51,440 --> 00:30:52,880
is.
They were very concerned about

557
00:30:52,880 --> 00:30:54,960
this.
Now, most of these immigrants

558
00:30:54,960 --> 00:30:57,400
were coming from Europe.
It's just they were parts of

559
00:30:57,400 --> 00:31:00,640
Europe that hadn't been
considered white yet, you know,

560
00:31:00,760 --> 00:31:04,240
Eastern Europe, Greece, Jews,
Spain, Italy.

561
00:31:04,400 --> 00:31:09,960
And the head of the census in
1900, the 1900 census, was a guy

562
00:31:09,960 --> 00:31:15,280
named Newton Dexter, N He was a
wool industry lobbyist.

563
00:31:15,280 --> 00:31:18,920
And he has this quote about how
important these tabulation

564
00:31:18,920 --> 00:31:22,000
machines were, which took work
that would have taken years to

565
00:31:22,000 --> 00:31:23,800
accomplish and reduced it to
months.

566
00:31:23,920 --> 00:31:27,960
He saw these tabulation machines
as a weapon, so he said, quote,

567
00:31:28,600 --> 00:31:32,720
this immigration is profoundly
affecting our civilization, our

568
00:31:32,720 --> 00:31:35,920
institutions, our habits and our
ideals.

569
00:31:36,320 --> 00:31:41,640
It has transplanted here alien
tongues, alien religions and

570
00:31:41,640 --> 00:31:46,160
alien theories of government.
It has been a powerful influence

571
00:31:46,400 --> 00:31:51,480
in the rapid disappearance of
the puritanical outlook of life,

572
00:31:51,720 --> 00:31:54,840
he went on to say.
Without it, it being the

573
00:31:54,840 --> 00:31:59,120
technology, we could never hope
to lay bare all the truth we

574
00:31:59,120 --> 00:32:03,280
must have if we are to cope
successfully with the problems

575
00:32:03,280 --> 00:32:08,280
growing out of the heterogeneous
commingling of races which our

576
00:32:08,280 --> 00:32:11,640
defective immigration laws are
forcing upon us.

577
00:32:12,320 --> 00:32:16,920
So from very early on, advances
in technology in the US we're

578
00:32:16,920 --> 00:32:20,600
seen as something to counter the
threat of the other, in this

579
00:32:20,600 --> 00:32:22,920
case the other being what the
Nazis would call the

580
00:32:22,920 --> 00:32:26,720
untermention.
Now where it comes to something

581
00:32:26,720 --> 00:32:30,480
more recognizable to what we see
today is really in the post

582
00:32:30,480 --> 00:32:34,120
World War 2 era.
One of the questions I would

583
00:32:34,120 --> 00:32:37,120
actually like people to think
about is why is it that most

584
00:32:37,120 --> 00:32:39,840
technology companies, almost all
the technology companies in the

585
00:32:39,840 --> 00:32:42,080
world, at least the big ones,
are all American?

586
00:32:43,640 --> 00:32:47,560
And, and really the reason for
this is they all emerged and

587
00:32:47,560 --> 00:32:51,120
became sort of the dominant
force because of their work with

588
00:32:51,120 --> 00:32:54,760
the defense and other American
governmental agencies in the

589
00:32:54,760 --> 00:32:58,200
wake of the Second World War,
when really nobody else was left

590
00:32:58,200 --> 00:33:00,880
standing in terms of the
powerful imperialist countries

591
00:33:00,880 --> 00:33:04,200
outside of the US.
So prior to the war, you did

592
00:33:04,200 --> 00:33:07,800
have IBM, which actually grew
out of these tabulation machines

593
00:33:07,800 --> 00:33:10,880
that were developed in the late
19th century working with the

594
00:33:10,880 --> 00:33:13,200
American government.
They also worked with the Nazis

595
00:33:13,200 --> 00:33:17,120
to tabulate how many Jews were
being annihilated in the

596
00:33:17,120 --> 00:33:20,080
concentration camps, how many
Jews were being put into forced

597
00:33:20,080 --> 00:33:23,800
labor, etcetera.
But what happened was everything

598
00:33:24,120 --> 00:33:27,280
the US did in terms of
technological and military

599
00:33:27,280 --> 00:33:31,280
innovation in the post World War
2 era was colored by the Cold

600
00:33:31,280 --> 00:33:35,080
War with the Soviet Union and by
a technological race with the

601
00:33:35,080 --> 00:33:38,400
Soviet Union.
And one of the first things they

602
00:33:38,400 --> 00:33:41,600
did was this thing called
Operation Paper clip, which was

603
00:33:41,600 --> 00:33:45,080
an operation to rescue Nazi
scientists and bring them to the

604
00:33:45,120 --> 00:33:49,600
US to work with the US in NASA
and other institutions to bring

605
00:33:49,600 --> 00:33:52,120
their research and know how to
the Americans.

606
00:33:52,160 --> 00:33:55,880
I think they quote UN quote,
rescued something like 1600 Nazi

607
00:33:55,880 --> 00:33:57,560
scientists.
And they were actually quite

608
00:33:57,600 --> 00:33:59,960
pivotal, particularly in missile
research.

609
00:34:00,000 --> 00:34:03,200
And that missile research was
very much tied to the space race

610
00:34:03,240 --> 00:34:05,840
that, if you remember, was
happening between the US and the

611
00:34:05,840 --> 00:34:10,320
Soviet Union in the Cold War.
So when in the late 1950's, the

612
00:34:10,320 --> 00:34:14,199
Soviets launched Sputnik, which
was the first manned satellite,

613
00:34:14,239 --> 00:34:17,440
and successfully brought back
that first person into space,

614
00:34:17,520 --> 00:34:20,719
back to Earth alive, there was
huge panic in the United States

615
00:34:20,760 --> 00:34:22,320
under the Eisenhower
administration.

616
00:34:22,320 --> 00:34:23,760
There had to be an answer to
this.

617
00:34:23,840 --> 00:34:25,600
And the answer was the founding
of ARPA.

618
00:34:26,840 --> 00:34:30,159
And this was because the belief
was the US had fallen behind in

619
00:34:30,159 --> 00:34:32,639
the technology race with the
Soviets, and it was given a

620
00:34:32,639 --> 00:34:35,280
massive budget for its time.
The problem is, within a year,

621
00:34:35,280 --> 00:34:37,400
that budget was basically
slashed and it was kind of

622
00:34:37,400 --> 00:34:40,159
forgotten about.
What really reinvigorated ARPA

623
00:34:40,159 --> 00:34:41,520
were two things.
One was the Kennedy

624
00:34:41,520 --> 00:34:43,800
administration and the other one
was the Vietnam War.

625
00:34:44,080 --> 00:34:46,440
And the Vietnam War at that
point and when we talk about

626
00:34:46,440 --> 00:34:50,760
1961 or so, was mainly fought by
the French against the

627
00:34:50,760 --> 00:34:53,800
Vietnamese fighters.
And ARPA was brought in there.

628
00:34:53,800 --> 00:34:57,800
This name, this guy named
Goodell and from ARPA was sent

629
00:34:57,960 --> 00:35:02,720
in there and his main task was
to come up with innovative ways

630
00:35:02,720 --> 00:35:05,320
to pursue the war.
And those innovative ways

631
00:35:05,720 --> 00:35:09,320
revolves around the use of
technology to better equip the

632
00:35:09,320 --> 00:35:12,680
South Vietnamese government,
which was the pro US side to

633
00:35:12,680 --> 00:35:14,560
fight the North Vietnamese
communists.

634
00:35:14,880 --> 00:35:18,800
So William Goodell was his name,
launched something called

635
00:35:18,800 --> 00:35:21,720
Project Agile.
ARPA under his leadership

636
00:35:21,720 --> 00:35:24,880
developed things like the things
that are still used to this day,

637
00:35:24,880 --> 00:35:29,200
like the AR15 and the M16 rifles
which are more agile.

638
00:35:29,800 --> 00:35:32,640
They developed sophisticated
electronic surveillance system.

639
00:35:32,640 --> 00:35:35,920
They funded all manner of
conflict related intelligence.

640
00:35:35,920 --> 00:35:38,680
This was done in the name of,
you might know it better as

641
00:35:38,680 --> 00:35:41,440
winning the hearts and minds of
the Vietnamese peasants.

642
00:35:41,440 --> 00:35:44,680
They developed improved military
communication technology,

643
00:35:44,680 --> 00:35:46,880
including to make it work in
dense forest.

644
00:35:46,960 --> 00:35:49,600
They would develop portable
radar installations that could

645
00:35:49,600 --> 00:35:53,440
be floated onto balloons, which
was then commercially backed up

646
00:35:53,440 --> 00:35:55,920
by the US.
Almost immediately used to

647
00:35:55,920 --> 00:35:59,680
monitor border crossings in the
US, they developed prototypes of

648
00:35:59,720 --> 00:36:03,320
of four legged robots that you
see today being used in

649
00:36:03,880 --> 00:36:06,000
policing.
They developed autonomous

650
00:36:06,160 --> 00:36:10,560
drones, again, very rudimentary,
but all this was developed by

651
00:36:10,600 --> 00:36:14,720
ARPA in its war in Vietnam.
Now the US, they lost the war.

652
00:36:15,080 --> 00:36:17,720
The Vietnamese peasants and
workers beat them.

653
00:36:17,840 --> 00:36:20,440
But this technology didn't just
go to waste.

654
00:36:20,480 --> 00:36:23,680
This technology was all about
surveillance, and it was brought

655
00:36:23,680 --> 00:36:27,040
to a vengeance at home.
One of the problems they had in

656
00:36:27,040 --> 00:36:29,880
Vietnam was figuring out these
fighters, which were

657
00:36:29,880 --> 00:36:32,320
indistinguishable from the
peasants themselves.

658
00:36:32,320 --> 00:36:34,440
And how do you track them?
How do you know where they are?

659
00:36:34,440 --> 00:36:36,680
Where is the Ho Chi Minh trail?
Where do they hide?

660
00:36:36,840 --> 00:36:40,200
Now, in the end, the US just
took the route of just napalming

661
00:36:40,240 --> 00:36:42,760
and using Agent Orange on
everybody, which by the way,

662
00:36:42,800 --> 00:36:44,800
ARPA, they developed Agent
Orange too.

663
00:36:44,920 --> 00:36:46,160
That was one of the things they
developed.

664
00:36:46,160 --> 00:36:48,960
So it was basically different
ways of surveillance to try to

665
00:36:48,960 --> 00:36:51,720
figure out how to root out these
fighters.

666
00:36:51,720 --> 00:36:54,760
Of course, in the end it all
failed, but that technology was

667
00:36:54,760 --> 00:36:58,360
then brought home to the US and
it was brought home to the US

668
00:36:58,360 --> 00:37:01,960
against our population that was
convulsed in protests against.

669
00:37:01,960 --> 00:37:05,080
The Vietnam War.
Against the Vietnam War for

670
00:37:05,080 --> 00:37:10,080
civil rights and black rights
and women's rights and other

671
00:37:10,080 --> 00:37:13,480
social rights in the country and
it was seen as a way to

672
00:37:13,480 --> 00:37:17,080
basically track all the
population and help spy.

673
00:37:17,240 --> 00:37:22,360
Well, I think the main thing
that was notable to me about how

674
00:37:22,360 --> 00:37:25,880
prevalent this was in the
Vietnam counterinsurgency

675
00:37:25,880 --> 00:37:29,200
movement was also that the
population at the time, which

676
00:37:29,200 --> 00:37:33,680
there was a tremendous amount of
leftist political movement, that

677
00:37:33,680 --> 00:37:37,800
they saw this as a threat.
They saw that Lockheed Martin

678
00:37:37,800 --> 00:37:40,200
was behind, was behind the
Internet in some way.

679
00:37:40,200 --> 00:37:42,480
They knew that the surveillance
was taking place, that it would

680
00:37:42,480 --> 00:37:45,720
come home domestically.
And so on the college campuses

681
00:37:45,720 --> 00:37:49,600
where you had this development,
MIT and Stanford and so on, you

682
00:37:49,600 --> 00:37:54,320
actually had a lot of public
outrage because they saw what

683
00:37:54,320 --> 00:37:57,640
this was.
And that seems so different from

684
00:37:57,640 --> 00:37:59,280
the world that we're living in
today.

685
00:37:59,280 --> 00:38:01,720
Yeah, this is the late 60s
wouldn't it wasn't called the

686
00:38:01,720 --> 00:38:03,440
Internet yet, but it was the
ARPANET.

687
00:38:03,440 --> 00:38:07,440
So one of the things, again, if
you're younger than a dinosaur,

688
00:38:07,480 --> 00:38:09,800
that you have to remember,
computers at that time were the

689
00:38:09,800 --> 00:38:13,480
size of huge rooms.
They were incredibly difficult

690
00:38:13,480 --> 00:38:15,600
to operate.
You didn't just sit and click

691
00:38:15,600 --> 00:38:17,560
things or didn't even type
commands.

692
00:38:17,600 --> 00:38:20,640
It was using punch cards and
they were very slow and all

693
00:38:20,640 --> 00:38:23,120
these things.
And each computer basically had

694
00:38:23,120 --> 00:38:26,200
its own language.
And so they're collecting data.

695
00:38:26,200 --> 00:38:29,640
They're collecting data abroad.
They're collecting data at home

696
00:38:29,640 --> 00:38:33,080
about protesters and and so on.
How do you share this data?

697
00:38:33,080 --> 00:38:35,880
How do you talk to each other?
And the first thing they

698
00:38:35,880 --> 00:38:39,240
developed was the ARPANET, what
was called the ARPANET.

699
00:38:39,240 --> 00:38:40,080
And it was.
Yeah.

700
00:38:40,080 --> 00:38:43,360
And you're right, in the late
60s there were protests at MIT,

701
00:38:43,360 --> 00:38:46,920
at Harvard, elsewhere by
Students for Democratic Society

702
00:38:46,920 --> 00:38:49,880
and other left wing
organizations that saw it as

703
00:38:50,320 --> 00:38:53,320
this massive intrusive.
Threat to privacy?

704
00:38:53,680 --> 00:38:55,600
Threat to privacy, spying
threat.

705
00:38:55,600 --> 00:38:57,960
Threat to Third World
nationalists abroad.

706
00:38:57,960 --> 00:39:00,760
Threat to organizing?
Threat to exactly threat to

707
00:39:00,760 --> 00:39:03,200
organizing.
They saw it as a means that the

708
00:39:03,200 --> 00:39:07,320
government was using to
strengthen its power against

709
00:39:07,560 --> 00:39:10,400
opponents at home and abroad.
And you have to understand, most

710
00:39:10,400 --> 00:39:13,240
of these people sympathize with
the opponents of the US abroad

711
00:39:13,640 --> 00:39:16,680
as well as at home.
But one of the sort of more

712
00:39:16,680 --> 00:39:20,960
interesting things as this
ARPANET grew and became

713
00:39:21,280 --> 00:39:23,520
connecting different computers
in different systems and sharing

714
00:39:23,520 --> 00:39:27,320
information became more
prevalent in different, mainly

715
00:39:27,320 --> 00:39:31,760
academic institutions was it
became, how do you make this

716
00:39:31,760 --> 00:39:35,320
easier to use?
And throughout all this, all

717
00:39:35,320 --> 00:39:38,760
these processes, the things like
ARPA are, they're not just it's

718
00:39:38,760 --> 00:39:41,120
not just engineers and ARPA
coming with this stuff.

719
00:39:41,120 --> 00:39:44,560
It's ARPA working with private
companies and saying, OK, here's

720
00:39:44,560 --> 00:39:47,120
a bunch of money, develop this
because we're going to need it

721
00:39:47,120 --> 00:39:49,320
to do this.
And so in terms of becoming

722
00:39:49,320 --> 00:39:53,560
easier to use in the 1970s, they
go to the Xerox Corporation and

723
00:39:53,560 --> 00:39:57,240
the Xerox had the Palo Alto
Research Center and they

724
00:39:57,240 --> 00:40:00,760
developed what is essentially
the GUI, the graphical user

725
00:40:00,760 --> 00:40:02,760
interface that we used to this
day.

726
00:40:03,000 --> 00:40:04,320
Yeah.
So it goes way back.

727
00:40:04,320 --> 00:40:08,360
I think also feel like there are
these kind of focal point

728
00:40:08,360 --> 00:40:14,400
moments in history after the
Vietnam War between 75 and 90s,

729
00:40:14,400 --> 00:40:17,400
when you have the tech companies
that are able to still sell

730
00:40:17,400 --> 00:40:23,720
themselves as the innovators and
the protectors and that the

731
00:40:23,920 --> 00:40:27,080
personal computer and the
Internet is going to open the

732
00:40:27,080 --> 00:40:29,840
world and to empower you as a
user and stuff like that.

733
00:40:29,840 --> 00:40:33,520
And that starts to disintegrate
like in the late 90s to a

734
00:40:33,520 --> 00:40:36,240
certain extent.
Yeah, 1 can make an argument

735
00:40:36,240 --> 00:40:39,400
that the illusions in tech
continued into the 2000s.

736
00:40:39,640 --> 00:40:43,280
I think you can see some of that
even in the so-called Twitter

737
00:40:43,280 --> 00:40:46,680
revolutions that, you know, tech
can be used for organizing, tech

738
00:40:46,680 --> 00:40:49,160
can be used.
For yeah, from my recollection

739
00:40:49,160 --> 00:40:53,760
of it, there was this real like
utopian idea of liberation

740
00:40:53,760 --> 00:40:56,720
around it, that it was going to
be this great tool of leveling

741
00:40:56,720 --> 00:40:58,600
things.
And there was even almost a kind

742
00:40:58,600 --> 00:41:02,520
of anarchy spirit about it where
it was like, you know, it's free

743
00:41:02,520 --> 00:41:04,880
for all.
This belongs to the people kind

744
00:41:04,880 --> 00:41:07,600
of attitude about it.
Yeah, they and they devised even

745
00:41:07,600 --> 00:41:10,840
a term for Internet freedom and
then it becomes just all full

746
00:41:10,840 --> 00:41:15,560
out the use of this technology
after 911 to implement the

747
00:41:15,560 --> 00:41:19,040
Patriot Act and to go after
terrorists domestically and

748
00:41:19,040 --> 00:41:22,880
abroad and to use that kind of
predictive technology, web

749
00:41:22,880 --> 00:41:26,240
searching, data scraping and
everything to try to, you know,

750
00:41:26,240 --> 00:41:29,160
to justify their wars and also
to socially control the

751
00:41:29,160 --> 00:41:31,240
population.
People started to question

752
00:41:31,320 --> 00:41:34,840
Google too with Gmail because
Gmail was selling itself.

753
00:41:34,840 --> 00:41:37,880
As you know, this easy way to
integrate everything, but Google

754
00:41:37,880 --> 00:41:40,760
gets the right to look at all of
your information, all of your

755
00:41:40,760 --> 00:41:43,000
emails and everything else in
exchange.

756
00:41:43,000 --> 00:41:45,320
And that's like one of the first
big consolidations.

757
00:41:45,320 --> 00:41:47,080
Right.
But isn't it interesting that we

758
00:41:47,080 --> 00:41:50,360
can remember these little
instances where people

759
00:41:50,360 --> 00:41:53,240
questioned Google on this and
yet nothing changed.

760
00:41:53,520 --> 00:41:57,800
It just kept propelling forward
as though nothing changed.

761
00:41:57,800 --> 00:41:59,880
And then I can't help but think
of this line.

762
00:42:00,000 --> 00:42:03,520
It's from Jobs, Steve Jobs, when
he was launching the Mac in 84,

763
00:42:03,720 --> 00:42:06,880
Apple included a disk in the
Mac, the original Mac, that

764
00:42:06,880 --> 00:42:08,720
explained what a mouse is and
how to use it.

765
00:42:08,800 --> 00:42:11,040
And one of the engineers said,
well, maybe we should have a

766
00:42:11,040 --> 00:42:14,120
disk to explain what type touch
typing because, you know, most

767
00:42:14,120 --> 00:42:16,000
people didn't know how to type.
You know this was a.

768
00:42:16,120 --> 00:42:17,840
How to use it like how to use a
keyboard?

769
00:42:17,840 --> 00:42:20,880
Yeah, how to use a keyboard.
And Steve Jobs dismissively

770
00:42:20,880 --> 00:42:22,680
replied, Death will take care of
that.

771
00:42:23,000 --> 00:42:25,000
Jesus.
The old generation will have to

772
00:42:25,000 --> 00:42:26,440
adapt.
Or you know.

773
00:42:26,520 --> 00:42:27,760
Tough shit.
That's not our market.

774
00:42:27,760 --> 00:42:30,000
We don't care about those.
People well, well, you could

775
00:42:30,000 --> 00:42:31,800
sell to that market.
They'll just have to adapt.

776
00:42:31,880 --> 00:42:35,040
It's such class bias too, yeah.
It's absolutely class bias.

777
00:42:35,040 --> 00:42:37,920
And so, yeah, there's a whole
layer of people object.

778
00:42:37,920 --> 00:42:41,360
I don't want Google reading my
emails, but there's a new

779
00:42:41,360 --> 00:42:43,200
generation that thinks it's
normal.

780
00:42:43,720 --> 00:42:46,200
And if you're Google and you
just stick at it and you're

781
00:42:46,200 --> 00:42:48,720
going to, we're going to give
you better features and make it

782
00:42:48,720 --> 00:42:51,560
a better e-mail system.
But in exchange, we're going to

783
00:42:51,560 --> 00:42:54,480
keep reading your emails.
They're going to win out and

784
00:42:54,480 --> 00:42:57,200
they have been winning out.
And I think too, maybe people

785
00:42:57,200 --> 00:43:00,320
don't or people didn't realize
the big implications of all of

786
00:43:00,320 --> 00:43:02,840
this stuff because there was the
Yellow Pages, right?

787
00:43:02,840 --> 00:43:06,640
We used to disclose our name and
our address and our phone number

788
00:43:06,640 --> 00:43:09,440
kind of willingly, and that was
something that we were willing

789
00:43:09,440 --> 00:43:11,560
to hand out.
And it's just a snapshot.

790
00:43:11,560 --> 00:43:13,960
But I think what makes this data
collection really, really

791
00:43:13,960 --> 00:43:17,720
dangerous or what makes it so
valuable and personalized, It's

792
00:43:17,720 --> 00:43:20,480
just like a constant snapshot of
everything we're doing all the

793
00:43:20,480 --> 00:43:23,120
time, everything we've
purchased, every place we go,

794
00:43:23,120 --> 00:43:26,320
everybody we interact with.
And the accumulation of all of

795
00:43:26,320 --> 00:43:28,920
that information is like we've
given away everything.

796
00:43:28,920 --> 00:43:31,320
There's nothing private anymore.
Yeah, I mean, think of it this

797
00:43:31,320 --> 00:43:33,080
way.
Yeah, you can put out your name

798
00:43:33,080 --> 00:43:36,560
and address in the Yellow Pages
or the white pages or whatever,

799
00:43:37,080 --> 00:43:40,160
but if you ask somebody, are you
willing to put out what kind of

800
00:43:40,160 --> 00:43:43,680
pornography you watch?
People will say no, except it's

801
00:43:43,680 --> 00:43:46,120
already out there.
Yeah, I mean, I don't even want

802
00:43:46,120 --> 00:43:48,040
my wife to know the kind of
pornography I watch.

803
00:43:48,480 --> 00:43:51,880
OK, but so here's the thing.
Your wife may not know, but your

804
00:43:51,880 --> 00:43:54,600
Internet service provider does.
Tech Bros know.

805
00:43:54,600 --> 00:43:57,880
Google does every.
The government does.

806
00:43:58,000 --> 00:44:00,880
Everybody does.
Everybody who wants to know

807
00:44:00,920 --> 00:44:04,040
knows, except the people in your
intermittent circle.

808
00:44:06,120 --> 00:44:08,840
Terrible.
Another book that we looked at

809
00:44:08,840 --> 00:44:12,920
was Shoshanna Zuboff's book
called Surveillance Capitalism.

810
00:44:12,920 --> 00:44:15,440
And one of the things that she
talks about is the behavioral

811
00:44:15,440 --> 00:44:19,640
surplus, which is like the data
exhaust of our lives that tell

812
00:44:19,640 --> 00:44:22,920
all these tech companies we are
what we want, what we'll do

813
00:44:22,920 --> 00:44:25,000
next.
And so it's the the basis of

814
00:44:25,000 --> 00:44:28,320
surveillance capitalism where
these private corporations are

815
00:44:28,320 --> 00:44:32,240
using this extensive data
collection and analysis to

816
00:44:32,640 --> 00:44:35,680
influence our consumer behavior
and decision making.

817
00:44:35,680 --> 00:44:38,920
And, you know, we look at that
as sometimes just, oh, targeted

818
00:44:38,920 --> 00:44:41,280
ads, you know, oh, they know
that I'm looking for a pair of

819
00:44:41,280 --> 00:44:44,320
shoes.
But what if your search for what

820
00:44:44,320 --> 00:44:47,680
kind of ailment you have is
going to affect your next

821
00:44:47,680 --> 00:44:50,320
insurance policy?
Or your, or your ability to get

822
00:44:50,320 --> 00:44:52,880
a job or any, you know, the
Google model is we're going to

823
00:44:52,880 --> 00:44:55,960
give you something for free and
in exchange, you're going to

824
00:44:55,960 --> 00:44:59,400
give us your life.
Now we're going to make you pay

825
00:44:59,400 --> 00:45:02,120
for something and you're still
going to give us your life.

826
00:45:02,320 --> 00:45:05,920
So these services that you pay
for, whether it's a washing

827
00:45:05,920 --> 00:45:09,880
machine like a Internet of
Things or even online services

828
00:45:09,880 --> 00:45:12,960
like you.
Streaming services also Spotify.

829
00:45:13,440 --> 00:45:17,200
These tech companies are all in
bed with these big AI giants and

830
00:45:17,240 --> 00:45:19,000
everyone's.
So you're paying for it.

831
00:45:19,000 --> 00:45:23,160
This isn't free and they're
still vacuuming up your data and

832
00:45:23,160 --> 00:45:26,480
selling it and as needed, making
it available to the government

833
00:45:26,480 --> 00:45:29,920
when the government demands it.
So we were talking about how

834
00:45:29,920 --> 00:45:33,000
Palantir is like kind of the
shady company that doesn't

835
00:45:33,000 --> 00:45:35,800
really interact with the
American public and the average

836
00:45:35,800 --> 00:45:37,000
person wouldn't really know
about.

837
00:45:37,000 --> 00:45:39,160
I recently learned about a data
broker.

838
00:45:39,160 --> 00:45:42,040
Do you want to tell us anything
about how data brokers work?

839
00:45:42,160 --> 00:45:46,400
Well, all data brokers are is
people who buy and sell your

840
00:45:46,400 --> 00:45:47,680
data.
Probably one of the most

841
00:45:47,680 --> 00:45:51,520
notorious companies in this is
Meta or Facebook, because Google

842
00:45:51,520 --> 00:45:54,680
claims that they don't sell your
data per SE.

843
00:45:54,880 --> 00:45:59,200
Advertisers buy from them and
they determine they Google

844
00:45:59,200 --> 00:46:01,800
determine when to throw the ad
in your face.

845
00:46:01,960 --> 00:46:04,800
So they claim you know, who
knows, but Facebook sells your

846
00:46:04,800 --> 00:46:06,360
data.
There's and no qualms about it,

847
00:46:06,400 --> 00:46:08,040
and so does basically everyone
else.

848
00:46:08,160 --> 00:46:11,160
And basically data brokers are
guys who just buy and sell your

849
00:46:11,160 --> 00:46:12,960
data.
As Shoshanna Zubaf put out,

850
00:46:12,960 --> 00:46:16,120
you're not even a product,
you're just exhaust and your

851
00:46:16,120 --> 00:46:19,400
life is just exhaust that's
vacuumed up and bought and sold.

852
00:46:19,480 --> 00:46:22,640
Now, I do highly recommend
reading the book Surveillance

853
00:46:22,640 --> 00:46:25,120
Capitalism, but one of the
problems I have with it is that

854
00:46:25,120 --> 00:46:27,960
she presents it as one.
That's just something that

855
00:46:27,960 --> 00:46:31,800
started with Google in the late
90s, early 2000s, though she

856
00:46:31,800 --> 00:46:34,520
points out that, you know, it
was accelerated by 911 and the

857
00:46:34,520 --> 00:46:35,920
reaction to it by the
government.

858
00:46:35,920 --> 00:46:40,560
But as she puts it, surveillance
capitalism is profoundly anti

859
00:46:40,560 --> 00:46:43,920
democratic.
But it's remarkable power does

860
00:46:43,920 --> 00:46:47,520
not originate in the state as
has historically been the case.

861
00:46:47,640 --> 00:46:49,800
I would very strongly dispute
that.

862
00:46:50,000 --> 00:46:53,200
This is the whole thesis of this
podcast episode is that this

863
00:46:53,200 --> 00:46:56,920
very much does originate in the
state, is very much tied to the

864
00:46:56,920 --> 00:47:00,000
state, and is very much
intertwined with the state.

865
00:47:00,680 --> 00:47:03,960
And she sort of presents it as
the surveillance capitalists are

866
00:47:03,960 --> 00:47:06,800
plowing ahead with these things
and the US government's

867
00:47:06,840 --> 00:47:09,720
democratic institutions can't
pull them back because they're

868
00:47:09,720 --> 00:47:12,000
moving too fast and so on.
Right?

869
00:47:12,000 --> 00:47:13,760
No.
There's no checks and balances.

870
00:47:13,920 --> 00:47:15,840
Right.
No, that's, you know, I'm sure

871
00:47:15,840 --> 00:47:18,680
there's members of Congress that
wish it could be pulled back.

872
00:47:18,680 --> 00:47:21,600
And that's not one of my point.
My point is, the US government

873
00:47:21,600 --> 00:47:24,920
as a force, as an institution,
they're OK with this.

874
00:47:24,960 --> 00:47:27,720
They share their interests.
They need them.

875
00:47:27,720 --> 00:47:29,840
It is a.
They are part of the architects

876
00:47:29,840 --> 00:47:31,160
of.
This yeah it.

877
00:47:31,160 --> 00:47:33,200
Is a.
It is a completely codependent

878
00:47:33,200 --> 00:47:36,120
relationship. 100%, yeah.
Exactly.

879
00:47:36,120 --> 00:47:38,760
And that's again why I keep
going back to Palantir, because

880
00:47:39,080 --> 00:47:42,120
Palantir is kind of the most
naked expression of that.

881
00:47:42,960 --> 00:47:47,440
It exists only to sell itself to
governments, essentially the US

882
00:47:47,440 --> 00:47:50,880
government and governmental
institutions, and it was created

883
00:47:51,040 --> 00:47:52,800
by the government to do this
job.

884
00:47:53,480 --> 00:47:57,080
Well, I think that you're
pointing to a false dichotomy or

885
00:47:57,080 --> 00:47:59,400
a false division.
Like the main problem is raining

886
00:47:59,400 --> 00:48:02,240
in the big corporations and have
the government and the spy

887
00:48:02,240 --> 00:48:05,280
agencies come in to protect the
citizens, which is now a

888
00:48:05,280 --> 00:48:09,560
complete liberal falsehood.
But there is this point where

889
00:48:09,600 --> 00:48:12,760
big Tech, at least the owners of
big Tech, used to be more

890
00:48:12,760 --> 00:48:17,040
associated with the liberal wing
of the Democratic Party and

891
00:48:17,760 --> 00:48:21,360
where you had a big layer of
Silicon Valley selling itself as

892
00:48:21,360 --> 00:48:24,800
kind of the land of libertarian
rebels, you know, the wild

893
00:48:24,800 --> 00:48:26,760
frontier.
And there's no rules and there's

894
00:48:26,760 --> 00:48:30,720
no red tape, and there's just
freedom and innovation and even

895
00:48:30,720 --> 00:48:32,960
disruption.
And I think somewhere along the

896
00:48:32,960 --> 00:48:37,560
way, that story did start
feeling very different, that it

897
00:48:37,560 --> 00:48:41,320
wasn't about innovation.
It was about, you know, mass

898
00:48:41,320 --> 00:48:43,920
destruction.
And you have someone like Peter

899
00:48:43,920 --> 00:48:47,360
Thiel, who you mentioned in
Palantir, calling himself a

900
00:48:47,360 --> 00:48:50,840
techno libertarian, so
supposedly someone who believes

901
00:48:50,840 --> 00:48:53,400
that technology should free
people from governments and

902
00:48:53,400 --> 00:48:55,840
bureaucracy.
But of course, Palantir does the

903
00:48:55,840 --> 00:48:58,720
exact opposite.
You have someone like Elon Musk

904
00:48:58,720 --> 00:49:00,840
coming into the Trump
administration.

905
00:49:00,840 --> 00:49:02,760
Is he talking about shaking up
the system?

906
00:49:02,760 --> 00:49:06,200
Well, he's working hand in hand
with it with the Department of

907
00:49:06,200 --> 00:49:10,000
Government Efficiency Doge in
cutting agencies and shaping

908
00:49:10,000 --> 00:49:12,720
federal policies.
So what is how is like the tech

909
00:49:12,720 --> 00:49:17,880
world's ideology shifting from
this libertarian rebellion type

910
00:49:18,120 --> 00:49:22,320
image to the neo con explicit
neo con right?

911
00:49:22,600 --> 00:49:25,080
I'm not sure that there's how
much of A shift there is, to be

912
00:49:25,080 --> 00:49:28,800
perfectly honest.
I think what you're seeing is

913
00:49:28,800 --> 00:49:31,560
different expressions of the
same thing, and it's something

914
00:49:31,560 --> 00:49:33,760
that's has always been there in
its core.

915
00:49:33,760 --> 00:49:38,000
I would argue that when you look
at the big Titans of tech, you

916
00:49:38,000 --> 00:49:42,640
have sort of two primary
political ideologies expressed.

917
00:49:42,680 --> 00:49:46,160
1 is sort of standard
neoliberalism of the kind that

918
00:49:46,160 --> 00:49:49,440
you would find with a Hillary
Clinton or, you know, a Barack

919
00:49:49,480 --> 00:49:52,760
Obama or something like that.
I think someone like Tim Cook

920
00:49:52,840 --> 00:49:56,400
perfectly captured.
These guys aren't too fond of

921
00:49:56,400 --> 00:49:59,800
regulation.
These guys do believe in America

922
00:49:59,800 --> 00:50:01,320
the good.
They're not.

923
00:50:01,480 --> 00:50:04,880
Also not too concerned about
building up American industry.

924
00:50:04,880 --> 00:50:07,320
We'll never write a book about
how to build American industry

925
00:50:07,320 --> 00:50:10,000
or anything like that.
Their main thing is profit.

926
00:50:10,000 --> 00:50:12,200
They are private companies.
They want to make profit.

927
00:50:12,400 --> 00:50:15,720
And so if working with the
Democrats will make them

928
00:50:15,720 --> 00:50:17,280
profitable, they'll work with
the Democrats.

929
00:50:17,280 --> 00:50:20,080
If working with the Republicans
will make them profitable, still

930
00:50:20,120 --> 00:50:22,240
work with the Republicans.
Yeah, these are partnerships,

931
00:50:22,240 --> 00:50:25,840
and to assume that they're not
equally mutually beneficial

932
00:50:25,840 --> 00:50:28,720
partnerships is to assume that
the tech giants have some sort

933
00:50:28,720 --> 00:50:30,840
of moral principles.
No, no.

934
00:50:30,840 --> 00:50:33,120
They're only guiding principle
is profit.

935
00:50:33,600 --> 00:50:35,400
Right.
But there is an ideology behind

936
00:50:35,400 --> 00:50:38,880
the profit.
So there's the neocons like Tim

937
00:50:38,880 --> 00:50:41,920
Cook and others, but there's
also this sort of historic

938
00:50:41,960 --> 00:50:46,600
libertarian ideology to the tech
industry, and it goes back to

939
00:50:46,600 --> 00:50:51,200
the 60s, sort of the counter to
the guys who were protesting

940
00:50:51,200 --> 00:50:54,520
ARPANET in the at MIT and other
institutions.

941
00:50:55,120 --> 00:50:59,440
They were counterculture
libertarians who consciously and

942
00:50:59,440 --> 00:51:04,360
purposely rejected the leftist
protest movements of the time

943
00:51:04,360 --> 00:51:09,720
and instead position themselves
as fighters for individualism,

944
00:51:09,760 --> 00:51:13,160
and they saw technology and
technological advances as the

945
00:51:13,160 --> 00:51:16,880
harbinger of the highest form of
individual freedom.

946
00:51:17,080 --> 00:51:22,240
These were the Ann Rand type
people and so they were very

947
00:51:22,240 --> 00:51:26,040
much afraid of anything that's
smacked of collectivism.

948
00:51:26,960 --> 00:51:30,720
And so therefore they were very
anti communist and that's how

949
00:51:30,720 --> 00:51:33,640
they viewed a lot of the the
leftist in the protest movement.

950
00:51:33,760 --> 00:51:38,720
One of their luminaries in the
1960s, and he's still alive to

951
00:51:38,720 --> 00:51:43,800
this day, is Stewart Brand.
He is was known in particular

952
00:51:43,960 --> 00:51:48,120
for a work he used to publish in
the 70s called the Whole Earth

953
00:51:48,120 --> 00:51:52,040
Catalog, which celebrated
decentralization, individual

954
00:51:52,040 --> 00:51:55,760
empowerment through tools.
And these tools were more often

955
00:51:55,760 --> 00:51:59,120
than not technological tools
that were originated in the Cold

956
00:51:59,120 --> 00:52:03,240
War military and ARPA funded
research and later DARPA funded

957
00:52:03,320 --> 00:52:06,880
research.
His libertarian ethos opposed

958
00:52:06,880 --> 00:52:11,240
state bureaucracy, collectivist
politics, and at the same time

959
00:52:11,240 --> 00:52:14,360
it aligned him with the Cold War
logic that equated centralized

960
00:52:14,360 --> 00:52:17,560
control with communism and
technological expansion with

961
00:52:17,560 --> 00:52:21,280
freedom.
So that overlap made it very

962
00:52:21,280 --> 00:52:25,000
easy for him to, on the one
hand, say, get these government

963
00:52:25,000 --> 00:52:28,720
bureaucracies off our backs
while at the same time working

964
00:52:28,720 --> 00:52:33,360
with government bureaucracies in
the military like Arpa.

965
00:52:33,840 --> 00:52:37,280
Yasha Levine recounts a very
famous article he did for

966
00:52:37,280 --> 00:52:40,920
Rolling Stone in the 1970s where
he was talking about the really

967
00:52:40,920 --> 00:52:46,600
cool guys who were working in
ARPA doing research in various

968
00:52:46,600 --> 00:52:50,960
campuses, and how they don't fit
the image of the stuffy IBM

969
00:52:50,960 --> 00:52:52,840
engineer.
And these guys, they like to

970
00:52:52,840 --> 00:52:55,480
play video game.
You know that counterculture

971
00:52:55,840 --> 00:53:00,200
image of the computer scientist
as not a stuffy scientist, but

972
00:53:00,200 --> 00:53:02,480
as an innovator?
Yeah, but they're, but they're,

973
00:53:02,600 --> 00:53:06,160
they're fucking state agents.
They are state agents.

974
00:53:06,160 --> 00:53:07,840
Their paycheck is coming from
the state.

975
00:53:08,120 --> 00:53:10,800
Yeah, but he was just a state.
Agent with long hair and a tie

976
00:53:10,800 --> 00:53:12,040
dye T-shirt?
Yes.

977
00:53:12,400 --> 00:53:14,080
Yeah, exactly.
This whole thing about the

978
00:53:14,080 --> 00:53:16,440
Pentagon, oh, there's just a
side, you know, that's just,

979
00:53:16,440 --> 00:53:19,120
that's not who they really are.
Just a JOB.

980
00:53:19,320 --> 00:53:23,200
Yeah, except their whole thing
was that, but you could justify

981
00:53:23,200 --> 00:53:27,880
it because of the Soviet threat.
That was the thing when you

982
00:53:27,880 --> 00:53:31,840
pushed out into the late 70s
into the 80s, Stewart Brand, who

983
00:53:31,840 --> 00:53:34,440
sort of, again, it's sort of a
central figure for a lot of

984
00:53:34,440 --> 00:53:38,720
these guys, becomes a techno
libertarian of his own kind who

985
00:53:38,760 --> 00:53:42,440
positions himself as part
counterculture, part

986
00:53:42,440 --> 00:53:44,800
entrepreneur.
And he's part of the whole

987
00:53:44,800 --> 00:53:49,440
entrepreneur generation of the
guys like Steve Jobs and others

988
00:53:49,480 --> 00:53:53,240
and Bill Gates and others who
sort of viewed themselves as

989
00:53:53,240 --> 00:53:55,800
bringing this massive new
technology to the world and

990
00:53:55,800 --> 00:53:58,360
changing the world.
One of his biggest fans was

991
00:53:58,360 --> 00:54:01,040
Steve Jobs.
Now he comes from a few years

992
00:54:01,040 --> 00:54:02,560
later.
He wasn't at the same generation

993
00:54:02,560 --> 00:54:07,320
as Stuart Brent and like things
like the famous 1984 Apple

994
00:54:07,400 --> 00:54:12,040
advertisement denouncing IBM as
Big Brother, the Super Bowl ad,

995
00:54:12,480 --> 00:54:16,000
things like that.
These were very much inspired by

996
00:54:16,000 --> 00:54:19,360
the Stewart brand outlook.
By the time you get to the late

997
00:54:19,360 --> 00:54:22,880
80s, early 90's, the Cold War is
over, the Soviet Union has

998
00:54:22,880 --> 00:54:25,280
collapsed.
And it's part of that actually

999
00:54:25,280 --> 00:54:28,640
comes the deregulation of the
the Arpanet, the Internet, and

1000
00:54:28,640 --> 00:54:31,000
it becomes a commercial free for
all.

1001
00:54:31,080 --> 00:54:34,120
A bunch of different companies
are created, but again, by the

1002
00:54:34,120 --> 00:54:37,680
government to become your
Internet service providers, and

1003
00:54:37,840 --> 00:54:42,400
you start to have a change.
So now you have a generation of

1004
00:54:42,640 --> 00:54:46,000
libertarians, particularly
expressed by the likes of Peter

1005
00:54:46,000 --> 00:54:49,520
Thiel, who sort of espouse a
similar ideology but without any

1006
00:54:49,520 --> 00:54:52,600
of the counterculture appeal.
They're just, you know.

1007
00:54:53,200 --> 00:54:55,360
So there's like no pretense of
humanity.

1008
00:54:55,680 --> 00:54:57,400
Right.
They're naked bloodthirsty

1009
00:54:57,400 --> 00:55:00,640
monopolist.
I mean they strongly believe in

1010
00:55:00,960 --> 00:55:07,280
a obscure neo fascist philosophy
where world corporate power is

1011
00:55:07,280 --> 00:55:10,360
the only power in the world and
the it's actually called the

1012
00:55:10,360 --> 00:55:11,960
Dark Enlightenment that they
call it.

1013
00:55:12,160 --> 00:55:13,920
Yeah, the one that Peter Thiel
in particular follows.

1014
00:55:13,960 --> 00:55:18,280
So for example, when you look at
like stuff by Jobs and Apple and

1015
00:55:18,280 --> 00:55:21,040
those guys in the 80s and into
the 90s and even a little bit

1016
00:55:21,040 --> 00:55:24,640
into the early 2000s, they'll
talk about all these devices are

1017
00:55:24,640 --> 00:55:28,280
meant to empower people, right?
Nobody today talks about that.

1018
00:55:28,960 --> 00:55:30,720
We're done with that empowerment
stuff.

1019
00:55:30,760 --> 00:55:34,120
And see, this is not such a
break as people might think.

1020
00:55:34,120 --> 00:55:37,520
It is because the empowerment
talk was based on this idea of

1021
00:55:37,520 --> 00:55:42,400
meritocracy that it will empower
those who can be empowered

1022
00:55:42,480 --> 00:55:44,080
again.
Think of that line about death

1023
00:55:44,080 --> 00:55:45,720
will take care of that.
Right.

1024
00:55:45,720 --> 00:55:48,240
If you don't have enough money
to go to school to take a typing

1025
00:55:48,240 --> 00:55:50,720
class and you don't know, then
you're at the bottom of society

1026
00:55:50,720 --> 00:55:52,240
anyway so you don't need the
tech.

1027
00:55:52,280 --> 00:55:56,280
So think about that line.
You have this meritocracy idea.

1028
00:55:56,320 --> 00:55:59,080
The best ideas when that's the
free market, right?

1029
00:55:59,080 --> 00:56:02,000
They all love the free market.
Well, by the same token, the

1030
00:56:02,000 --> 00:56:05,360
best people win.
The brightest and widest.

1031
00:56:05,920 --> 00:56:08,160
Well, who loses the worst
people?

1032
00:56:08,480 --> 00:56:10,760
Those at the bottom deserve to
be at the bottom.

1033
00:56:11,480 --> 00:56:14,200
If the best people win, well,
then it means the worst people

1034
00:56:14,200 --> 00:56:15,800
lose.
That's the logic.

1035
00:56:15,840 --> 00:56:19,360
And so you have, for example, if
I can just find the quote that

1036
00:56:19,480 --> 00:56:24,600
Peter Thiel progress would
quote, necessarily make the

1037
00:56:24,600 --> 00:56:28,080
world more unequal, that's a
good thing for him.

1038
00:56:28,440 --> 00:56:31,840
That's a sign of progress.
It's like justice.

1039
00:56:31,840 --> 00:56:34,120
Everybody's getting what they
deserve in the world and it's a

1040
00:56:34,120 --> 00:56:36,680
natural order kind of mentality.
Right.

1041
00:56:36,720 --> 00:56:40,760
And this is very much in line
with that libertarian ideology

1042
00:56:40,760 --> 00:56:43,520
from its beginning.
It's just it looks uglier now

1043
00:56:43,680 --> 00:56:47,280
because there isn't this
pretense anymore of we're

1044
00:56:47,280 --> 00:56:50,120
empowering people.
It's just you either go with

1045
00:56:50,120 --> 00:56:52,600
what we're doing or we're just
going to smash you.

1046
00:56:53,160 --> 00:56:57,000
So again, to keep go back to
Peter Thiel, What are Peter

1047
00:56:57,000 --> 00:56:59,840
Thiel's most well known
students?

1048
00:57:00,520 --> 00:57:02,200
And Peter Thiel is an incredibly
smart man.

1049
00:57:02,200 --> 00:57:07,320
German American, grew up in a
South African colony under

1050
00:57:07,320 --> 00:57:10,160
apartheid region that is now
part of Namibia.

1051
00:57:11,000 --> 00:57:16,600
He went to school in a in
Swakopmund, which was notorious

1052
00:57:16,600 --> 00:57:19,240
as probably the last place on
the planet where people still

1053
00:57:19,240 --> 00:57:22,640
openly greeted each other with
Heil Hitler and celebrated

1054
00:57:22,640 --> 00:57:25,640
openly Hitler's birthday.
Wow, that's really scary.

1055
00:57:25,960 --> 00:57:30,760
And so this is where he grew up.
Now one of his most well known

1056
00:57:30,760 --> 00:57:34,920
students in terms of like people
he formed is the Vice President

1057
00:57:34,920 --> 00:57:38,680
of the United States, JD Vance.
JD Vance is a creature of Peter

1058
00:57:38,680 --> 00:57:40,680
Thiel.
Was he a student of Peter

1059
00:57:40,680 --> 00:57:43,200
Thiel's?
No, he saw Peter Thiel speak in

1060
00:57:43,200 --> 00:57:45,640
2011.
He reached out to Peter Thiel.

1061
00:57:45,640 --> 00:57:50,080
Peter Thiel, who has no charisma
and doesn't have the idiotic

1062
00:57:50,080 --> 00:57:52,520
flamboyance of someone like Elon
Musk.

1063
00:57:52,920 --> 00:57:57,600
He sort of smart to know, to be
behind the scenes, spotted

1064
00:57:57,600 --> 00:58:00,760
talent and thought this is
somebody with a future.

1065
00:58:00,840 --> 00:58:04,360
I would argue that JD Vance is
Vice president because of Peter

1066
00:58:04,360 --> 00:58:05,760
Thiel.
That's probably true.

1067
00:58:06,200 --> 00:58:09,480
That is probably true.
And so this is a clip of Peter

1068
00:58:09,480 --> 00:58:12,960
Thiel from 2010 speaking at a
libertarian conference,

1069
00:58:13,760 --> 00:58:19,200
basically saying, you know, if
our ideas are so out there, this

1070
00:58:19,200 --> 00:58:21,440
dark enlightenment, we're not
going to be able to win the

1071
00:58:21,440 --> 00:58:23,720
masses with it and win elections
with it.

1072
00:58:23,720 --> 00:58:26,960
And, you know, well, we can use
technology to get around this

1073
00:58:26,960 --> 00:58:29,880
idea of having to win the people
over.

1074
00:58:31,760 --> 00:58:37,080
The basic idea was that we could
never win an election on getting

1075
00:58:37,200 --> 00:58:39,920
certain things because we were
in such a small minority.

1076
00:58:40,080 --> 00:58:43,440
But maybe you could actually
unilaterally change the world

1077
00:58:43,560 --> 00:58:46,680
without having to constantly
convince people and beg people

1078
00:58:46,680 --> 00:58:48,920
and plead with people who are
never going to agree with you

1079
00:58:49,320 --> 00:58:51,640
through technological means.
And this is where I think

1080
00:58:52,560 --> 00:58:56,360
technology is this incredible
alternative to politics.

1081
00:58:57,560 --> 00:59:00,720
Is this where they unveiled
their Men in Black Mind Eraser

1082
00:59:00,720 --> 00:59:03,840
machine?
Give it time, Give it time.

1083
00:59:03,880 --> 00:59:07,280
The other person I wanted to
talk about as part of this very

1084
00:59:07,360 --> 00:59:10,080
dangerous cabal is Larry
Ellison.

1085
00:59:10,200 --> 00:59:15,800
Larry Ellison was the Co founder
of Oracle and with his son David

1086
00:59:16,240 --> 00:59:18,760
they've moved into the media
space where of course they have

1087
00:59:18,760 --> 00:59:23,320
a tremendous amount of influence
over Paramount and CBS and are

1088
00:59:23,360 --> 00:59:27,800
responsible for creating a new
algorithm for TikTok for US

1089
00:59:27,800 --> 00:59:31,920
users.
This is a guy who literally says

1090
00:59:31,920 --> 00:59:36,240
out loud that citizens will be
on their best behavior because

1091
00:59:36,240 --> 00:59:38,440
we are reporting everything
going on.

1092
00:59:40,240 --> 00:59:43,600
Citizens will be on their best
behavior because we're

1093
00:59:43,600 --> 00:59:46,000
constantly recording and
reporting everything that's

1094
00:59:46,000 --> 00:59:49,760
going on.
One of the things I was thinking

1095
00:59:49,760 --> 00:59:53,680
about in preparing for this
podcast was just how normal all

1096
00:59:53,680 --> 00:59:57,320
of this feels right now.
Privacy feels very dead.

1097
00:59:57,720 --> 01:00:01,440
I feel like there was some
opening for some outrage after

1098
01:00:01,440 --> 01:00:05,360
the Snowden revelations and that
privacy is now it had a funeral

1099
01:00:05,360 --> 01:00:07,680
and like no one showed up to the
funeral, kind of.

1100
01:00:08,360 --> 01:00:12,120
And it also feels like there's
no way out because every single

1101
01:00:12,120 --> 01:00:16,120
app that we use, everything we
type into Google, every smart

1102
01:00:16,120 --> 01:00:18,480
device is all part of this
invisible way.

1103
01:00:18,560 --> 01:00:21,360
Web of surveillance that we've
agreed to live inside.

1104
01:00:21,480 --> 01:00:23,680
It is genuinely frightening.
No, dude.

1105
01:00:23,680 --> 01:00:26,360
And I think when I was looking
into this, what really shocked

1106
01:00:26,360 --> 01:00:30,480
and scared me was how much of A
shadowy ecosystem there is that

1107
01:00:30,480 --> 01:00:33,680
is happening with the data
brokers, like people just buying

1108
01:00:33,680 --> 01:00:36,240
or selling our data to like all
these different things and

1109
01:00:36,240 --> 01:00:39,320
collecting like any single data
point because it's valuable to

1110
01:00:39,320 --> 01:00:41,760
somebody.
Yeah, because we like search for

1111
01:00:41,760 --> 01:00:44,960
things so randomly and in a haze
all the time.

1112
01:00:44,960 --> 01:00:47,320
And then we're searching for
things that are based on, you

1113
01:00:47,320 --> 01:00:50,240
know, what someone else is
asking, asking us, and we're

1114
01:00:50,280 --> 01:00:52,560
looking.
But the thing about it is, look

1115
01:00:52,560 --> 01:00:55,200
at your search history over the
course of a year, which is

1116
01:00:55,200 --> 01:00:57,800
something very hard to do for a
human being, but it's very.

1117
01:00:57,920 --> 01:01:00,440
Easy to do, that's why AI is
getting all those patterns.

1118
01:01:00,680 --> 01:01:02,920
And most people do fit into
patterns.

1119
01:01:03,040 --> 01:01:05,840
Most people are not random.
Totally.

1120
01:01:05,840 --> 01:01:08,800
It's like, I don't realize it,
but I am actually like buying a

1121
01:01:08,800 --> 01:01:11,120
shirt every three months or
something like that, you know

1122
01:01:11,120 --> 01:01:13,720
what I mean?
And these companies are very

1123
01:01:13,720 --> 01:01:15,800
good at wedding out those
patterns.

1124
01:01:15,800 --> 01:01:18,880
So they may anonymize it in a
sense, but what they'll do is

1125
01:01:18,880 --> 01:01:22,240
they'll take similar patterns
and put them together and sell

1126
01:01:22,240 --> 01:01:24,240
that.
And what they've found is, yeah,

1127
01:01:24,240 --> 01:01:27,600
they're anonymous, but you can
pretty easily triangulate if you

1128
01:01:27,600 --> 01:01:30,000
want to know.
And that's takes effort, but

1129
01:01:30,000 --> 01:01:30,960
that's where the government
comes.

1130
01:01:31,080 --> 01:01:33,120
Well, if I.
Want to know if I you could

1131
01:01:33,120 --> 01:01:35,120
triangulate?
That I wake up in my house every

1132
01:01:35,120 --> 01:01:37,560
day, you know, like.
If you want to know, you can

1133
01:01:37,560 --> 01:01:39,240
triangulate who the person is,
yeah.

1134
01:01:39,280 --> 01:01:41,680
Of course, of course.
One of the things that I think

1135
01:01:41,680 --> 01:01:46,120
Shoshanna Zubov mentioned was in
when Google was doing the Google

1136
01:01:46,120 --> 01:01:48,400
Maps, the Street View, I think
it was in Germany.

1137
01:01:48,400 --> 01:01:52,240
I forget what city in Germany.
So this car is driving and it's

1138
01:01:52,240 --> 01:01:54,880
taking all these pictures, but
in the course of taking all

1139
01:01:54,880 --> 01:01:57,800
these pictures as it's driving
by apartment buildings and

1140
01:01:57,800 --> 01:02:03,640
homes, it's just literally just
sucking up all the Internet

1141
01:02:03,640 --> 01:02:07,400
Wi-Fi data of these homes.
Oh wow, what a nice secondary

1142
01:02:07,400 --> 01:02:10,040
function that.
It's just a totally secondary

1143
01:02:10,040 --> 01:02:13,200
function that has nothing to do.
And in that case, it doesn't

1144
01:02:13,200 --> 01:02:16,720
matter if you're on Google, if
you're on Bing, if you're not on

1145
01:02:16,720 --> 01:02:20,120
any websites, if you're
streaming something, it's just

1146
01:02:20,120 --> 01:02:22,400
sucking it.
All up, it's so crazy that all

1147
01:02:22,400 --> 01:02:25,160
of this stuff is legal, man.
And that was another shocking

1148
01:02:25,160 --> 01:02:26,240
part.
There was this woman I was

1149
01:02:26,240 --> 01:02:29,080
listening to named Janine
Matthews, who was a computer

1150
01:02:29,080 --> 01:02:31,920
science professor, and she was
saying that there's no legal

1151
01:02:31,920 --> 01:02:35,280
bounds for any of this stuff.
So like an insurance company can

1152
01:02:35,280 --> 01:02:39,120
like have access to your buying
and then they can raise your

1153
01:02:39,120 --> 01:02:41,280
premiums if you buy a plus size
clothing.

1154
01:02:41,360 --> 01:02:44,000
There's no law stopping them
from doing that and there's no

1155
01:02:44,000 --> 01:02:45,840
way to know if they were doing
that and.

1156
01:02:46,000 --> 01:02:47,320
It's like that's the other
thing, a free.

1157
01:02:47,320 --> 01:02:49,720
Fetal, you know.
You don't have a way to know

1158
01:02:49,720 --> 01:02:51,760
what they're doing.
Yeah, she said.

1159
01:02:51,760 --> 01:02:54,160
Your interest rates could go up
if you sign up for marriage

1160
01:02:54,160 --> 01:02:57,320
counseling like and that can
just happen and you would have

1161
01:02:57,320 --> 01:02:58,680
no way of knowing or controlling
it.

1162
01:02:59,520 --> 01:03:03,680
And it's just absolutely, you
know, you watch something like

1163
01:03:03,680 --> 01:03:06,560
Mad Men, it's like an ad guy's
dream come true.

1164
01:03:07,800 --> 01:03:10,480
Yeah, but it's being used for so
much more than selling us

1165
01:03:10,480 --> 01:03:13,440
jackets, man.
But even even if it was just

1166
01:03:13,440 --> 01:03:16,520
selling us jackets, it's so
fucking intrusive.

1167
01:03:16,520 --> 01:03:20,560
Who the fuck are these people to
watch my every move so they can

1168
01:03:20,560 --> 01:03:23,480
throw an ad in my face?
Yeah, like even if it was

1169
01:03:23,520 --> 01:03:26,560
completely, even if it was kind
of whatever, you know?

1170
01:03:26,920 --> 01:03:30,320
Even if it was Google and not
the government, who the fuck are

1171
01:03:30,320 --> 01:03:33,160
these people?
Yeah, to basically know

1172
01:03:33,200 --> 01:03:36,240
everything about me, everything
about my family, everything

1173
01:03:36,240 --> 01:03:40,320
about everyone around my your
most private intimate habits.

1174
01:03:40,320 --> 01:03:43,600
I mean even now there's Kohler
just released a thing where

1175
01:03:43,600 --> 01:03:46,360
it'll analyze your poop.
It's so crazy.

1176
01:03:46,400 --> 01:03:48,600
Yeah, they fucking have
everything.

1177
01:03:48,600 --> 01:03:50,000
And you get this thing, you
know?

1178
01:03:50,560 --> 01:03:52,000
Do you have anything to hide?
Why?

1179
01:03:52,280 --> 01:03:53,960
Well, everybody has something to
hide.

1180
01:03:54,240 --> 01:03:56,240
Everybody has a past.
Everyone.

1181
01:03:56,960 --> 01:03:59,200
If you're a human being, you
have something to hide.

1182
01:03:59,440 --> 01:04:01,960
All this stuff with
surveillance, you have to

1183
01:04:01,960 --> 01:04:04,880
collect all this data.
What makes it useful is to be

1184
01:04:04,880 --> 01:04:08,360
able to predict what someone is
going to do in one case with the

1185
01:04:08,440 --> 01:04:11,080
targeted ads is to predict
whether they'll buy this product

1186
01:04:11,080 --> 01:04:13,840
or not, or whether they're
opposed to the government or

1187
01:04:13,840 --> 01:04:17,520
not, whether they might organize
something, an action against a

1188
01:04:17,520 --> 01:04:21,600
government policy or not.
It's a horrifying, dystopian

1189
01:04:21,600 --> 01:04:25,560
reality that we're in.
They have full control and they

1190
01:04:25,560 --> 01:04:28,080
brag about.
It Is there a realistic way to

1191
01:04:28,080 --> 01:04:31,120
reclaim privacy?
Or if we just completely crossed

1192
01:04:31,120 --> 01:04:35,280
a line where surveillance is a
permanent backdrop to our life.

1193
01:04:35,400 --> 01:04:38,080
I would say yes and no.
Let me start with a no.

1194
01:04:38,360 --> 01:04:43,640
Any view of this of I am going
to install this application,

1195
01:04:43,640 --> 01:04:46,840
which is going to protect my
privacy or I'm going to buy this

1196
01:04:46,840 --> 01:04:50,120
product which is better at
privacy than others and there

1197
01:04:50,120 --> 01:04:52,640
are products that are like that
doesn't really address the

1198
01:04:52,640 --> 01:04:56,080
fundamental issue.
So let's look at the Tor

1199
01:04:56,160 --> 01:05:00,080
Project, The Onion Router as
it's known Tor was touted for a

1200
01:05:00,080 --> 01:05:04,520
long time and still is, though
less so today, as a way to

1201
01:05:04,720 --> 01:05:09,040
travel the Internet while
concealing your your path,

1202
01:05:09,200 --> 01:05:11,040
basically to give you protection
as.

1203
01:05:11,080 --> 01:05:14,440
Does it kind of like mask your
IP address or just mask your

1204
01:05:14,440 --> 01:05:16,840
activity?
It masks your IP address.

1205
01:05:16,840 --> 01:05:21,240
It masks other identifiers of
who you are or attempts to, and

1206
01:05:21,240 --> 01:05:23,400
it does it.
It does a relatively good job of

1207
01:05:23,400 --> 01:05:26,240
doing that when someone is not
trying to break it down.

1208
01:05:26,640 --> 01:05:29,440
You know, so it was touted as
something that can really

1209
01:05:29,440 --> 01:05:32,560
protect you from either
government spying or snooping

1210
01:05:32,640 --> 01:05:35,680
various companies.
The funny thing is, Tor was

1211
01:05:35,680 --> 01:05:37,720
developed by the NSA, by the
American government.

1212
01:05:37,840 --> 01:05:40,800
It was a project developed by
the American government.

1213
01:05:41,240 --> 01:05:43,200
And so why?
Well, the reason it was

1214
01:05:43,400 --> 01:05:45,640
developed by the American
government is that if you're an

1215
01:05:45,640 --> 01:05:48,680
American spy and you want to spy
on China, and the Internet is

1216
01:05:48,680 --> 01:05:51,360
pretty open, it's easy to
identify who's who.

1217
01:05:51,520 --> 01:05:55,200
Well, China can see that you are
an American spy spying on China.

1218
01:05:55,200 --> 01:05:57,720
For example, let's say you're in
Shanghai and you're checking

1219
01:05:57,720 --> 01:06:01,400
your e-mail.
You know when you go to cia.gov?

1220
01:06:01,680 --> 01:06:04,840
Well, boom, they know.
They know everything about you.

1221
01:06:05,080 --> 01:06:09,120
You need to be anonymous.
So by having a way to anonymize

1222
01:06:09,120 --> 01:06:12,000
who you are, you're being
anonymous to, for example, in

1223
01:06:12,000 --> 01:06:13,160
this case, the Chinese
government.

1224
01:06:13,160 --> 01:06:16,240
The problem is if the only
people using Tor are American

1225
01:06:16,240 --> 01:06:19,160
agents, every time the Chinese
government sees a Tor network,

1226
01:06:19,200 --> 01:06:21,520
well, they know that's an
American agent and so you need

1227
01:06:21,520 --> 01:06:23,160
more people to use it.
I see.

1228
01:06:23,160 --> 01:06:26,880
So by inviting citizens or other
people in, now they're creating

1229
01:06:26,880 --> 01:06:30,000
all these like decoys or red
herrings, and you can't identify

1230
01:06:30,000 --> 01:06:33,160
who the government officials are
and who are just the normal

1231
01:06:33,160 --> 01:06:34,920
people.
Right, so you want as many

1232
01:06:34,920 --> 01:06:38,360
people as possible to use Tor
and eventually was able to get

1233
01:06:38,360 --> 01:06:41,160
quite a bit of traction.
Part of the tour thing, too, was

1234
01:06:41,160 --> 01:06:44,560
the US government needed to be
able to operate really using the

1235
01:06:44,560 --> 01:06:49,920
TOUR project, but it was also to
try to win over dissidents in

1236
01:06:49,920 --> 01:06:53,640
countries of US enemies.
I mean, the majority of their

1237
01:06:53,640 --> 01:06:56,280
funding is U.S. government
Pentagon money, yeah.

1238
01:06:56,400 --> 01:06:58,600
So they wanted to win over
Dissident, Yes.

1239
01:06:58,760 --> 01:07:03,480
They also saw it as a way to, I
think, to train their own guys.

1240
01:07:03,480 --> 01:07:06,240
So you had one wing, some group,
some section of the government

1241
01:07:06,240 --> 01:07:08,480
working on developing tour.
You also had another section

1242
01:07:08,480 --> 01:07:12,120
working on hacking tour because
it was hard to hack and so you

1243
01:07:12,120 --> 01:07:15,440
want to be able to hack it.
It was also it acted as a honey

1244
01:07:15,440 --> 01:07:18,480
trap of sorts.
So if spies in other countries

1245
01:07:18,480 --> 01:07:21,760
start using it to maybe spy in
the US, well, and the US can

1246
01:07:21,760 --> 01:07:24,040
hack it or crack it, well, all
the better.

1247
01:07:24,040 --> 01:07:26,160
So this is all a long way of
saying one thing.

1248
01:07:26,160 --> 01:07:30,520
Any tool, any lock that you
develop, you can unlock.

1249
01:07:30,520 --> 01:07:32,480
Somebody can figure out a way to
unlock it.

1250
01:07:32,480 --> 01:07:34,240
Now, some are harder to unlock
than others.

1251
01:07:34,440 --> 01:07:37,840
Tor is hard to unlock, I'm not
denying that, but anything can

1252
01:07:37,840 --> 01:07:40,400
be unlocked.
It doesn't really resolve the

1253
01:07:40,400 --> 01:07:42,640
issue.
The issue is the government

1254
01:07:42,640 --> 01:07:45,440
spies, and it works with
corporations to spy.

1255
01:07:45,760 --> 01:07:49,240
And there's an unprecedented
amount of data that is being

1256
01:07:49,240 --> 01:07:52,320
collected by the government and
by these corporations as they

1257
01:07:52,320 --> 01:07:56,080
work together on the entirety of
the population of the US and

1258
01:07:56,080 --> 01:07:58,760
arguably the whole world,
certainly any part of the world

1259
01:07:58,800 --> 01:08:00,600
that is connected to the
Internet.

1260
01:08:01,520 --> 01:08:04,600
So what you're dealing with is
not a technical question

1261
01:08:04,600 --> 01:08:06,440
fundamentally, but a social
question.

1262
01:08:06,840 --> 01:08:10,360
Technology, I would argue
technology is good, progress is

1263
01:08:10,360 --> 01:08:14,560
good, productivity is good.
What is bad is a social system

1264
01:08:14,560 --> 01:08:18,200
based on profits that twists
every advance of the human race

1265
01:08:18,200 --> 01:08:21,319
for the interests of suppressing
the human spirit, which is what

1266
01:08:21,319 --> 01:08:23,000
we're dealing with right now,
right now.

1267
01:08:23,000 --> 01:08:26,520
So think of what an indictment
of capitalism this is.

1268
01:08:26,520 --> 01:08:29,200
You have some of the most
brilliant mind in terms of

1269
01:08:29,200 --> 01:08:32,520
engineers and computer
scientists and others out there

1270
01:08:32,600 --> 01:08:35,040
in the world working in these
companies.

1271
01:08:35,040 --> 01:08:38,279
And what are they working on?
They're being made to work on

1272
01:08:38,279 --> 01:08:41,520
spying on you and fucking
throwing ads in your face.

1273
01:08:41,680 --> 01:08:43,399
They're not working on curing
cancer.

1274
01:08:43,600 --> 01:08:46,720
They're not working on
eliminating hunger, eliminating

1275
01:08:46,720 --> 01:08:48,279
homelessness or any of that
stuff.

1276
01:08:48,439 --> 01:08:52,160
They're working on how to give
you personalized ads, vacuum

1277
01:08:52,160 --> 01:08:55,279
your data, and work with the
government for the victory of

1278
01:08:55,279 --> 01:08:57,399
America.
The good against the people, the

1279
01:08:57,399 --> 01:08:59,960
bad.
They're working on how to round

1280
01:08:59,960 --> 01:09:03,560
up little old ladies selling
Mexican food at the side of the

1281
01:09:03,560 --> 01:09:05,600
road.
And Palestinian kids.

1282
01:09:05,800 --> 01:09:09,439
And killing Palestinians and
spying on everything you do,

1283
01:09:09,600 --> 01:09:13,359
that's what they're working on.
Manufacture weapons, kill

1284
01:09:13,359 --> 01:09:15,479
citizens.
I mean, yeah.

1285
01:09:15,720 --> 01:09:18,640
Even though they have the
brilliance to work on so much

1286
01:09:18,640 --> 01:09:21,200
more.
What a waste that capitalism has

1287
01:09:21,200 --> 01:09:23,560
produced.
Just raw privatization,

1288
01:09:23,560 --> 01:09:27,520
monopolization, and the
concentration of wealth and

1289
01:09:27,520 --> 01:09:32,000
power in the handful of a few
who have only their interests in

1290
01:09:32,000 --> 01:09:34,279
mind.
So what you're talking about is

1291
01:09:34,359 --> 01:09:35,880
these social systems.
So you want to talk about a

1292
01:09:35,880 --> 01:09:39,040
solution, you have to talk about
a solution where capitalism is

1293
01:09:39,040 --> 01:09:42,040
swept aside as a social system.
That's the solution.

1294
01:09:42,080 --> 01:09:43,120
Here, here.
Agreed.

1295
01:09:43,600 --> 01:09:47,160
Yeah, You know, as a young when
I before I became a dinosaur,

1296
01:09:47,200 --> 01:09:50,560
there were a couple of shows and
movies I remember watching in

1297
01:09:50,560 --> 01:09:53,080
the 80s before the Internet was
Max Headroom.

1298
01:09:53,080 --> 01:09:56,760
And so there it was, a dystopian
future of technology and

1299
01:09:56,760 --> 01:09:59,160
computers being expressed mainly
through television, because this

1300
01:09:59,160 --> 01:10:02,120
is before the Internet you had.
Those were the targeted ads,

1301
01:10:02,160 --> 01:10:03,720
like it was always selling you
something.

1302
01:10:03,880 --> 01:10:06,680
And and was monitoring you at
all times that there was 1

1303
01:10:06,680 --> 01:10:10,320
episode where a woman had an off
switch for ATV and police

1304
01:10:10,320 --> 01:10:12,280
officer sees and says she'll get
years for that.

1305
01:10:12,680 --> 01:10:14,480
You're not allowed to have an
off switch for ATV.

1306
01:10:15,280 --> 01:10:18,000
There was the film in the late
90s, there was the film Enemy of

1307
01:10:18,000 --> 01:10:20,320
the State with Gene Hackman and
Will Smith.

1308
01:10:20,960 --> 01:10:25,360
Later there was Minority Report.
All these movies sort of painted

1309
01:10:25,360 --> 01:10:30,240
a future that was dystopian and
almost like a warning.

1310
01:10:30,240 --> 01:10:33,240
This should not happen.
It's all happened, guys.

1311
01:10:33,600 --> 01:10:36,080
Absolutely.
It's happened, and it's actually

1312
01:10:36,080 --> 01:10:37,880
far worse than any of those
movies.

1313
01:10:53,450 --> 01:10:57,090
For this episode's installment
of Stranger Than the Twilight

1314
01:10:57,090 --> 01:11:00,050
Zone, we're introducing a new
segment, Y'all, where we can

1315
01:11:00,050 --> 01:11:02,450
talk about what gets our blood
boiling.

1316
01:11:02,690 --> 01:11:05,050
It's a 5 minute rant just for
our audience.

1317
01:11:05,410 --> 01:11:09,160
Ezra, take it away.
So imagine you're in the

1318
01:11:09,160 --> 01:11:13,040
Twilight zone and it's going to
be the football twilight zone

1319
01:11:13,240 --> 01:11:17,160
and also the Israel Twilight
Zone and also the European

1320
01:11:17,160 --> 01:11:22,040
hypocrisy twilight Zone.
It's November 2024.

1321
01:11:22,440 --> 01:11:27,240
An Israeli football club named
Maccabee Tel Aviv goes to play

1322
01:11:27,240 --> 01:11:30,680
against IAX, a Dutch club in
something called the Europa

1323
01:11:30,680 --> 01:11:32,600
League.
The Europa League is essentially

1324
01:11:32,600 --> 01:11:34,760
the second tier of the European
Championships.

1325
01:11:35,040 --> 01:11:36,720
So some of you might go, wait a
minute.

1326
01:11:36,920 --> 01:11:39,400
I thought Israel was the only
democracy in the Middle East.

1327
01:11:39,680 --> 01:11:43,040
What's the only democracy in the
Middle East doing playing in the

1328
01:11:43,040 --> 01:11:45,960
European Championship or the
second tier of the European

1329
01:11:45,960 --> 01:11:48,840
Championship?
Well, because it really stinks

1330
01:11:48,840 --> 01:11:52,800
itself as a European country.
So they go, they play.

1331
01:11:52,840 --> 01:11:55,080
I believe they lose because they
always lose.

1332
01:11:55,560 --> 01:11:58,920
And riots break out.
Riots break out before the game,

1333
01:11:59,080 --> 01:12:02,680
during the game, after the game.
And these riots consisted of

1334
01:12:02,920 --> 01:12:07,280
supporters of Maccabee Tel Aviv
charging throughout the city of

1335
01:12:07,280 --> 01:12:12,880
Amsterdam looking for homes with
Palestinian flags hanging out

1336
01:12:12,920 --> 01:12:16,400
and ripping them down.
Arabs or Arab looking people,

1337
01:12:16,680 --> 01:12:19,600
Muslims or Muslim looking people
to beat up.

1338
01:12:20,000 --> 01:12:22,760
And they find a bunch and they
beat the shit out of them.

1339
01:12:22,920 --> 01:12:26,880
And then what happens?
The Arabs, the Palestinians, the

1340
01:12:26,880 --> 01:12:31,520
Muslims in Amsterdam and their
allies mobilize and fight back

1341
01:12:31,760 --> 01:12:35,280
and give as good as they got.
So what's the reaction?

1342
01:12:35,600 --> 01:12:41,440
The reaction is Oh my God an
anti-Semitic pogrom broke out in

1343
01:12:41,640 --> 01:12:45,880
Amsterdam and the poor just
lovely people who are around the

1344
01:12:45,880 --> 01:12:49,440
Maccabee Tel Aviv football club
just got the hell being out of

1345
01:12:49,440 --> 01:12:52,600
them just for being Jews.
And that's the story that broke

1346
01:12:52,600 --> 01:12:57,160
out everywhere.
So Fast forward to today, this

1347
01:12:57,160 --> 01:13:00,040
is being recorded a few days
before November 6th.

1348
01:13:00,200 --> 01:13:03,080
November 6th is Thursday.
There's a game on Thursday

1349
01:13:03,080 --> 01:13:06,320
between Aston Villa and English
Football Club based in

1350
01:13:06,320 --> 01:13:10,760
Birmingham, England and again,
Maccabee Tel Aviv.

1351
01:13:11,040 --> 01:13:15,000
The police in Birmingham as well
as the club and the organizers

1352
01:13:15,000 --> 01:13:18,280
of the venue know what happened
in Amsterdam.

1353
01:13:18,520 --> 01:13:22,560
As opposed to the bull that was
promoted by the politicians, the

1354
01:13:22,560 --> 01:13:25,160
Dutch, the British, the American
politicians about an

1355
01:13:25,160 --> 01:13:28,520
anti-Semitic pogrom.
And so they decide they don't

1356
01:13:28,520 --> 01:13:30,160
want to have this happen in
Birmingham.

1357
01:13:30,560 --> 01:13:34,120
A rather reasonable thing, not
least because Birmingham has a

1358
01:13:34,160 --> 01:13:39,480
large South Asian, mainly Muslim
and black population and so they

1359
01:13:39,480 --> 01:13:43,320
would rather not have these
hooligans and thugs coming to

1360
01:13:43,320 --> 01:13:45,880
their city.
So they decide that the game is

1361
01:13:45,880 --> 01:13:49,600
not going to have any Maccabee
Tel Aviv supporters at it.

1362
01:13:50,960 --> 01:13:54,240
Cue the Pearl clutching and
outrage.

1363
01:13:54,560 --> 01:13:59,160
The Prime Minister steps forward
and says we will not tolerate

1364
01:13:59,440 --> 01:14:02,440
anti-Semitism in Britain, but
imagine a British accent.

1365
01:14:02,880 --> 01:14:05,840
The minister of this and the
minister of that and the

1366
01:14:05,840 --> 01:14:08,960
secretary of this and the
secretary of that all make the

1367
01:14:08,960 --> 01:14:12,440
same pronouncements.
They hold hearings in parliament

1368
01:14:12,440 --> 01:14:14,520
about it.
It's a fucking football game.

1369
01:14:14,720 --> 01:14:17,240
Since when does parliament give
a damn about a football game?

1370
01:14:17,520 --> 01:14:22,080
And almost as though on cue,
there's a game between Maccabee

1371
01:14:22,080 --> 01:14:25,800
Tel Aviv and their local rival
called Hap O El Tel Aviv.

1372
01:14:26,160 --> 01:14:31,680
Now Maccabee Tel Aviv is known
as the ultra right wing team in

1373
01:14:31,680 --> 01:14:33,840
Israel along with Betar
Jerusalem.

1374
01:14:34,240 --> 01:14:35,920
Now we're talking about Israel
here.

1375
01:14:36,040 --> 01:14:40,000
This is Israeli society, a
society made-up of ultra right

1376
01:14:40,000 --> 01:14:44,200
wing insanity to begin with and
they are the right wing of the

1377
01:14:44,200 --> 01:14:46,760
right wing.
Hap Oil Tel Aviv is kind of

1378
01:14:46,760 --> 01:14:49,960
known as the team that's
supported by a lot of Arabs in

1379
01:14:49,960 --> 01:14:54,440
Israel as well as more left wing
and anti Zionist Jews.

1380
01:14:54,640 --> 01:14:59,320
The game doesn't even begin.
It can't begin because the

1381
01:14:59,320 --> 01:15:03,960
McAfee Tel Aviv supporters go on
a riot throughout the city and

1382
01:15:03,960 --> 01:15:07,640
in the stadium and there is
video of them running throughout

1383
01:15:07,640 --> 01:15:12,080
the city looking for Arabs or
left wing Jews to beat the shit

1384
01:15:12,080 --> 01:15:13,920
out of.
And that's who the Prime

1385
01:15:13,920 --> 01:15:17,240
Minister of England wanted to
bring to Birmingham as.

1386
01:15:17,240 --> 01:15:19,960
It's going to happen.
The game is going to proceed and

1387
01:15:20,000 --> 01:15:22,400
no Maccabee Tel Aviv supporters
will be there.

1388
01:15:22,840 --> 01:15:28,760
But we live in a world where
politicians are praising fucking

1389
01:15:28,760 --> 01:15:33,360
racist football hooligans
because they're Israeli.

1390
01:15:33,960 --> 01:15:38,360
Now I want to end on two things.
One, I'm not a fan of Manchester

1391
01:15:38,360 --> 01:15:43,000
City, but I can't deny that
Erlin Holland is one of the most

1392
01:15:43,000 --> 01:15:45,040
prolific goal scorers in the
world.

1393
01:15:45,640 --> 01:15:49,600
And I did appreciate that when
Norway was forced to play Israel

1394
01:15:49,880 --> 01:15:54,120
for World Cup qualifiers, Erlin
Holland used an Israeli defender

1395
01:15:54,120 --> 01:15:58,360
essentially as a human shield to
force an on goal by the Israeli

1396
01:15:58,360 --> 01:16:00,960
defender.
The second thing is, I think it

1397
01:16:00,960 --> 01:16:07,520
would be useful to hear one of
the most popular songs sung by

1398
01:16:07,760 --> 01:16:10,040
the Maccabee Tel Aviv
supporters.

1399
01:16:10,440 --> 01:16:14,440
I won't actually sing it, but I
will just give you the lyrics to

1400
01:16:14,440 --> 01:16:18,480
give you a sense of who all
these politicians from all over

1401
01:16:18,480 --> 01:16:21,240
Europe and the United States
were falling over themselves to

1402
01:16:21,240 --> 01:16:23,760
defend.
The lyrics are directed at their

1403
01:16:23,760 --> 01:16:27,400
rival Hapoel Tel Aviv.
Like I said, it's a team that's

1404
01:16:27,720 --> 01:16:30,840
got the support of leftists and
Arabs in Israel.

1405
01:16:32,880 --> 01:16:36,920
You play extreme, sing songs
about the Holocaust and also

1406
01:16:36,920 --> 01:16:38,960
think it's funny to deny the
state.

1407
01:16:39,240 --> 01:16:42,800
You are Arab whores.
We are ashamed of you.

1408
01:16:43,160 --> 01:16:47,080
At the end of the day, gate 5,
we will fuck you.

1409
01:16:47,080 --> 01:16:50,320
Gate 5 is the gate that Happoel
Tel Aviv uses.

1410
01:16:50,520 --> 01:16:53,520
At the end of the day, Gate 5,
we will fuck you.

1411
01:16:53,800 --> 01:16:57,160
We will fuck you and then we
will drink your blood.

1412
01:16:57,360 --> 01:17:01,520
And in the town square we will
hang every communist who comes

1413
01:17:01,520 --> 01:17:04,080
here.
We will take your girls who love

1414
01:17:04,080 --> 01:17:07,720
to go wild.
Then we will rape them and we

1415
01:17:07,720 --> 01:17:10,640
will shout today is the day of
death.

1416
01:17:10,920 --> 01:17:13,320
Today is the day of death for
Hap OL.

1417
01:17:13,320 --> 01:17:28,860
But we don't love
anybody who doesn't love us.

1418
01:17:29,480 --> 01:17:32,920
Thank you for listening to our
episode on Silicon Reich.

1419
01:17:33,040 --> 01:17:35,880
If you decided to delete all
your Google and social media

1420
01:17:35,880 --> 01:17:38,440
accounts after this episode,
please write us a review.

1421
01:17:38,720 --> 01:17:42,040
We like making an impact.
As always, you can reach us at

1422
01:17:42,080 --> 01:17:46,120
unwashedunruly@gmail.com.
Deleting all these things won't

1423
01:17:46,120 --> 01:17:48,200
make a difference.
I know, but it's just funny

1424
01:17:48,200 --> 01:17:48,520
anyway.