Techno-Fascism, Climate Collapse & the End of Democracy | Nafeez Ahmed

Nafeez Ahmed, the investigative journalist and systems theorist whose background is in international security, discusses his book Alt Reich: The Network War to Destroy the West from Within. Ahmed says he had stepped back from tracking far-right and extremist groups because the work was traumatizing, then returned after a viral article on the British Conservative minister Michael Gove led his wife to push him to assemble years of reporting into a chronology. Laid out that way, he argues, a deliberate effort by a technology oligarchy to dismantle democratic foundations from the inside becomes legible. Pinchbeck connects this to the 1930s technocracy movement, Elon Musk's grandfather, and the Heritage Foundation's Project 2025 and its corporate donors, and both discuss AGI timelines announced by Sam Altman and Dario Amodei.

Guest: Nafeez Ahmed

In brief

• Ahmed argues there is no single master plan but a multiplicity of them, with the most prominent spearheaded by a technology oligarchy openly contemptuous of democracy.
• Ahmed says the failures of the orthodox liberal paradigm created the legitimate grievances these actors exploit and redirect toward ends most people do not understand.
• Ahmed found that the connections between the groups he had covered separately only became clear once he assembled his reporting into a single chronology.
• Pinchbeck argues the current US shift discards the remaining pretenses of democratic participation, replacing government services with AI and blockchain-based apparatus.
• Pinchbeck cites public statements by Sam Altman and Anthropic's Dario Amodei that artificial general intelligence is three to five years away, and argues this leaves a narrow window to build public awareness before most cognitive labor is eliminated.
• Ahmed closes by arguing that the public holds more power than it has been conditioned to believe, and that young people are drawn to dystopian visions only because no positive attractor is on offer.

Full text

um yes as people jump on maybe tell us a little bit about your backr background for people who don't know um so oh sorry lost video there um yeah so for people who don't know me um I'm a systems theorist investigative journalist uh have a background in International Security got really interested in in systems thinking and trying to understand um the kind of huge intersection of ecological energy environmental you know crisis and the way that these are influenced by our values and our world view so I started doing a lot of work in that space and I think you and I Daniel came across each other at some point um at during that point and um I remember sharing notes meeting quite a few times um and I think since then my um I've kind of been Ling these two Realms of uh trying to work in in in in the systems change space and thinking a lot about where we go from here as a civilization which I know you're also doing a lot of that Daniel um I'd also doing investigations like I've a few years ago I actually decided that I I'm too traumatized by the investigative work that I was doing um I was tracking a lot of far right groups um and extremist organizations and I just was looking at the impact of that and I was thinking you know I don't know where I'm going with this you know I really want to focus more on on on on the future and and how we get to a better space I don't know whether I'm having a good enough impact by exposing these stories so I tried to move away from that um and I don't know what happened last year um I wrote an article about a guy called Michael Gove um who is uh he was a senior minister in the cabinet in the previous conservative government and Michael Gove basically came out and said all this stuff about extremism and we need a new extremism definition and it's crazy because he's like a he's he's like a really properly like anti-muslim has said crazy things about black people in the past has toyed with Eugenics ideology which we can come back to later um but really kind of a interesting individual but definitely extreme so I wrote a piece about him drawing on all the work that I done saying this guy is Michael go the extremist it went viral and and then my wife said to me nef you need to take all that stuff that you've done and piece it together because people don't know about all this they don't know what's going on they don't know who these people are so she convinced me to write a book so I spent the next six months um putting together this book and then it came out at the end of last year and it's called alt right uh that's so that's the last kind of major kind of investigative project I've done and ult right is of course a play on the term alt right the alternative right I guess my subtitle of my book is the network War to destroy the west from within and I think I I'll say what I was shocked at by putting this book together is you know even when I was investigating these groups uh before I didn't really see the connections as clearly as I did when I actually wrote it all together like put it together as a chronology and then it became really clear that there's been a deliberate effort by some groups to literally tear down the foundations of democracy from inside and I would hesitate to say that there is one overarching kind of plan there isn't there's there's there's a multiplicity of these plans but one of the plans that is that that is becoming really prominent is being spearheaded by this kind of Technology oligarchy um and those guys seem to be really clear about their contempt for democracy and of course there are real problems with democracy um but I think the the failings of of of the kind of Orthodox liberal Paradigm have allowed these guys to come in exploit those sentiments is and and and many legitimate grievances but direct them into Direction with most people have no idea what where these guys are going and where these guys are going is pretty damn dangerous yeah um sure I mean we're all becoming aware I mean I've been writing about the technocracy movement and musk's grandfather was part of back in the 40s uh then he got inspired by AP paride and decided it was a good idea to to you know be part of that um yeah I I've also been you know if you look at the Heritage Foundation which created project 2025 I mean just last night I was talking about with a friend and I think they're you know they have like $300 million you know budget Revenue whatever it's just enormous and then you look at the you know the top corporate donors to Heritage and it's uh Kors Exxon W Walmart Coca-Cola I think not sure about Coca-Cola but definitely the other ones um so essentially it's like um yeah it's like it's it's like a corporate takeover uh and um you know while it's very clear that the US has long or maybe since its Origins even been kind of like an oligarchy and and the sort of pretend democracy uh for whatever reasons um in this this new um you know kind of instantiation uh it feels that all the pretenses of democratic participation are going to be uh thrown away and what we're seeing with the kind of integration of technology and government is uh yeah new model uh which is basically a technocratic model where government services will be replaced by kind of AI blockchain based kind of like um apparati apparatuses I know and yeah I think it's going to be really really um incredibly funky terrible for Humanity and um you know so I think we're in a bit of a Race Against Time personally because um you know what's looming on the horizon like if you watch the speeches of the of the leaders of the AI you know world like Sam Alman and Dario Modi from anthropic you know they're basically saying we're you know three to five years out from artificial general intelligence and you know basically already artificial intelligence is very smart um you know so like um you know yeah I've playing with Claude recently and and chat but the point is that um you know they think that within three to five years you know most jobs will be eliminated certainly all the cognitive labor jobs and then you know as AI evolves so that you know it starts to you know you AI augmented you know robots building AI augmented robots you know then you're in a takeoff point where um most human beings have no role in in in in the system that they're that they're imagining um so I I feel that what we need to do right now is build a movement around raising the awareness among the populace around this AI Teo fascist future and um stop it you know and I think this is what what's good about this as as a as a you know because it's like and the way and I'm sorry I'm talking a little bit but you seem interested so I'll keep going from it what's good about this threshold this juncture is like it's never been so clear and also it's like a it's like a huge power overreach so um while you do have this Global oligarchic Mafia um you know you also have many many people who are not on board you know and some of have resources some of them you know a lot of them are you know have knowledge and resource Capital um so I think there's the potential to actually build a much broader based movement um working with cognitive laborers knowledge workers and then also like you know laborers working-class people you know farmers in the global South and so on um the question is how to build such a movement at the speed uh you know with which we we need to build it before this thing just becomes um kind of indestructible you know because they're also building their drones and robots and all that stuff so that's my that's my thinking my my my my happy thoughts for this morning um I don't know where that takes you but happy thoughts yeah I mean I mean I think you're right you've painted a you've painted a picture which fits exactly I think what uh a lot of these guys are thinking so I don't know if you're listeners off I mean and I'm I'm pretty sure you've spoke you've been writing about these some of these weird ideas like the dark Enlightenment yes so I even interviewed Curtis yarvin recently I met him at this conference in Miami oh really yeah it's on You Tube and oh wow I haven't I missed that yeah so I mean you know it's like as a on a personto person level you know he was he was fine I kind of liked him you know he feels like a weird intellectual nerd who got interested like weird ideas um and um you know maybe has a little bit of a you know chip on his shoulder but he's got a very convoluted rhetorical style uh you know what I've discovered with these guys um is like they basically it doesn't matter how much time and space you give them in terms of a conversation they they will sort of aggregate all of it in these sort of convoluted rhetorics and never really get to the actual point uh what they're actually advocating and what he's advocating is insanity as far as I'm concerned so you're going to have like okay um he wants an absolute dictatorship of a tech CEO and I'm like Curtis like you know what if the guy decides he doesn't like you you know he could just like put you in Chains and torture you and carry you off maybe you know it's like why would you want this it's a kind of um I guess these people feel that if they're advocating for it they'll be the beneficiaries of it they'll be in the top ruling Echelon and carried carried up into into that uh I don't really understand that because for me um you know we did a lot of work to overthrow you know Kings and dictators and um it's quite surprising that um there's such enthusiasm to do this when you know we've seen it fail over and over again and also I mean there the um kind of uh intricate Fusion of the sort of libertarianism which should be about like decentralized control like they're all talking about like a network States and um you know seasteading like having your own little private city state where you're as the feudal Lord fight and then but at the same time they want to integrate that now with a complete uh kind of like centralized control yeah I think what's really interesting about this is is the way in which you if you go back over the last 15 years there's been like this radicalization process right and I think what's happened is like I think you know you've got this system this system of of predatory capitalism which has been rumbling along and it's creating a izational crisis I think what's happened is a lot of people in this Elite networks have been looking at this crisis and wondering what to do about it and there's been increasingly a rift so there's a bunch of people I think who are kind of more on the Bill Gates George Soros ENT who are kind of like you keep the system going make class concessions you know maybe sort out some issues around identity politics um keep them you know give give concessions to the masses you know yeah maybe inequality that could be a problem for the system we should deal with that how do we deal with it oh you know maybe we give some give a few rights here and there so those so those guys are like tinkering with the system but that doesn't work and I think what's happened is these guys are tinkering systems got worse we we've got inflationary crisis and you know getting you know deepening you've got you know ecological crisis worsening there's a looming energy crisis with the fossil fuel system which is not only driving the climate change crisis but behind the scenes the energy return on investment is hemorrhaging was the biggest Untold Stories of this system which is behind everything is energy right and the fact is is that studies there's a consensus in the field that the amount of energy that we're putting in to get the amount of energy out is that's going up and the IT returns of diminish and it's hemorrhaged like by around half over the last 50 to 60 years and it's only going down that's helping the prices go up it's creating this inflation crisis and then it's the system is rigged right because the fossil fuel companies they've been lobbying for years they've got their pors in all of the different structures and institutions of power and when the prices are high who makes money because of the way the market works the market doesn't recognize reality it just says oh the prices are up where should we invest or let's invest in oil and gas because that's where the money is and so it's kind of like this terrible kind of Racket um so I think what's happening is these guys are looking at this and there's and then there's been in the run up to 2016 with the rise of the Trump Administration since then that has created like a I call it like a like a rupture in the Deep state right so it's not like oh there you know there's there's here's the establishment and then and that's the Deep State and then these guys are outside so you you look at you map out exactly as you said who are these people who are the people backing Trump behind Trump these people are not radicals or outside the establishment they've been in the establishment for decades but they're a cross-section of the establishment and they've kind of coest around these weird ideas and what's interesting is like so people like C Curtis Yavin who was writing for some time writing for years you know wasn't really getting picked up in the mainstream who was reading him people like Peter teal people like JD Vance people like ELO musk other people in this technology oligarchy were reading him and they were thinking oh this makes sense actually that makes sense democracy is itself is the problem so what's happened here is now we've got this weird situation and and I think you guys s i remember us writing about this where the Biden Harris team came across like the status quo option like they looked like oh we're The Establishment option and the Trump guys and all these guys presented themselves as we're the disruptors we're coming in from outside and we're going to tear everything down and that sounded to most a lot of ordinary folks you know living from paycheck to paycheck you know they can't see an opportunity and all of the stuff Biden Harris was doing even though there were definitely some good things that they were doing but the fundamental Dynamics is this you know people weren't seeing the benefits there's so so many entrenched problems with capitalism that aren't being dealt with people aren't feeling the the benefits of those things right so when when these guys come in and say you know what we're just going to tear everything down it's all let's just tear everything down that feels appealing for a lot of people they're like actually yeah tear it all down this you're so you're feeling so disillusioned and apathetic and kind of marginalized that you just think actually yeah you just do it and obviously then there's you combine that with digital media disinformation collapsing people's ability to think and it's kind of become this mstom so I think you're right there's this I think what I'm really worried about is the fact is that as you said a lot of these guys have bought it like you look at some of the things that these guys are doing that it's like they literally read Curtis yin's blogs over the last 10 years years and they said you know what let's just do all of that like 10 years ago he was talking about rage retire all government employees and that's what they're doing now let's just gut the federal government completely and you know people who are looking at this they're looking at it in detail and they're saying wait a minute have are they actually dealing with corruption are they actually eliminating waste are they actually eliminating fraud no clear evidence of that instead musk is busy raking in contracts for himself uh meanwhile eliminating all these other things removing checks and balances so I think that's the thing right obviously something needed to change the system is broken but these guys don't want to fix the system they're worried about the system unraveling they're worried about the prospect of a popular Uprising and I think what these guys are trying to do is hedge that off as fast as they can by really leveraging all of their power all of their muscle to really Shore up these kind of te new techno oligarchic structures and centralized power even more than it already is and that's what I you know one of the things that they've been very explicit about if you're look looking at the books that they're reading stuff they're reading is democracy is the problem and our national sovereignty is the problem let's smash all of these and create these mini you know curtesy Arin calls it a patchwork you know Patchwork of these many sovereign states so I think you're right what we need to do is it's absolutely imperative that those of us who can see this I think we need to we need to start being more connected we need to start reaching back out to each other and and recreating those connections you know rekindling old friendships creating new friendships creating new lines of communication so that we can begin to create more awareness of what is going on almost like a kind of a new Grassroots collect intelligence you know where we're able to communicate with each other and sense make about what is happening and I don't think we're going to have the answers just like that but I think that first step is let's get how do we build some cognitive Clarity amongst those of us who are really seeing this and as we start to build that cognitive Clarity let's work together to see how can we really scale that sense of clarity to help other people begin to see wait a minute this is this is going wrong the one thing I would say which is that and then one thing I would say is that these guys are not indestructible because when you're looking from A System's point of view at the Dynamics and I think You' you do see this as well the problem is they're not indestructible because the the the system that they're building is fundamentally at odds with planet with with with the planet it is going to like this is this is the route to accelerated collapse probably within this Century so you know they build this technological oligarchy or whatever they're doing and then do all this stuff the danger is that they will accelerate um an ecological energy collapse that will drive all sorts of social and political extremism and collapse what I think is what what what I'm hopeful about is that in the coming years as we see these guys tear stuff down it will become clearer and clearer that what they're doing is not actually working that it's completely mad it's insane they're not actually going to improve the lives of America is going to make the lives of Americans much much worse the danger is that as people's minds get completely they they they they can't see it and they start gravitating more to kind of extremism and um divisive ideologies that these guys weaponize so I think there's this kind of Lial space that's beginning to open up where as these guys tear everything down and make things kind of really I mean Cory Doo calls it like and ification and I think he's right I think there is going to be an appetite for Alternatives and people are going to be looking at what so what else do we do and that's I think what we need to think about in terms of movement building how do we make sure that when people start looking around for those answers instead of gravitating to the next white supremacist Neo-Nazi kind of masquerading person instead they pick up some some some really interesting and exciting visions about what's possible you know that's what I think we I think we really need to think about how to do that there so much there that I wanted to uh unpack and ask about and talk about um yeah I mean um you know I think one element of it which I thought about but I wrote a book in 20166 called How Soon Is Now which I think you've written sort of similar books where we're like well actually guys like we could redesign our you know infrastructure and you know not go into tail spit and actually have like a better system for everybody and so on uh here would be a bunch of ways to do that but you know that book I was also thinking about how yeah like you know the the the sort of you know governance system of the nation state which was 18th century political technology is in a way kind of out moded and Obsolete and it is kind of true that um you know a dictator like Putin has been much you know with you know much less resources has been like 100x more effective than um you know the um US government with its separation of powers because you know new technology comes along like deep fakes or algorithmic capture on social media he's just oh he hackers go do it go go get them you know uh whereas everything in our system seems to be caught in this kind of bureaucratic morass and you know then an initiative starts then four years later you know the other the next Administration comes in they undo the initi of the last one you know there's a popular vote like something like brexit and then the whole system is like thrown as and so on so um so yeah so so you know it it did sort of feel I me the Democrats were you know yeah there were a few good things that Biden did I like the inflation reduction act I mean there was some effort to create more worker protective but it still just seemed everything seems stuck in this kind of like institutional cotton wool and this kind of like and you know there's you know there there's hardly anybody the Democratic party who's worth you know who's like a live player right now where you're like oh cool like that person I can't wait to hear what they have to say next you know they're not they're still not very you know they're not they're not responding you know spontaneously to what's happening in in in a in a moment by moments you know grab the moment kind of kind of way uh the way the Republicans have and do um so yeah so in a way like I don't personally think and I'd be you know I'd be happy to be proved wrong I don't I don't think that us is going to go back to the old constitutional system I think that that system is done so now we actually are in a revolutionary moment and also kind of like a a freef fall you know from the rule of law you know which is you know and it's kind of insane for these Tech Brar guys because you know T is worth 80 billion you know musk is worth 200 billion like you know they were set for life they could have private islands they could have their supermodels they could have everything you know they needed their private security um you know in a way they like it's like they're gamblers I mean I think in a way it's like dopamine where like um it wasn't enough just to have that if you could actually because it's annoying when you have so much power but then the government wants to regulate you and you know uh you know how dare they you know so why not just go in and take the thing over from the inside and then have procurement capture so you decide where the money goes or even you know how to make the money right like he's he's taking over the Treasury System and so on so so you know and I guess you know we know that absolute power corrupts absolutely but I definitely feel like we're kind of like feels like a Greek tragedy in a way like come to life or Shakespearean kind of like drama in a way um but yeah so for whatever reasons you know and another you know I've looked at it from different angles in my efforts to try to understand you know it may also be that they felt in some ways their ultimate power base was actually quite fragile uh because um you know China has kind of started to out compete the US technologically um and um you know so for instance you know byd which is the Chinese car company you know apparently makes much better much cheaper electric cars for like 10 11,000 that you can't even buy in the US but they're like you know all over the world people are buying them Tik Tok you know I out computed you know Facebook and then deep seek you know uh out competed you know chat chat GPT and so so I think these guys may have actually felt that their power base was quite fragile and um given this opportunity to because you know they were all Democrats like six years ago you know get you know they sort of took this opportunity to go for you know an All or Nothing kind of thing and yeah I mean Biden you know under um lenina Khan you know the whole idea was to break up the tech monopolies kind of like for the good of the tech sector um because you know when you have these monopolies they restrict um Innovation uh because there's no competition and you know so like like like Facebook and Instagram are just kind of stuck platforms like there's no there's no exciting new new anything really happening there I mean you know Zuckerberg's attempted to spend trillions of dollars on the metaverse thing was was a total catastrophe you know so it's like um yeah so they could have you know agreed to have limits imposed on their power have those Tech monopolies broken up you know allow for more competition and more Innovation but instead in their hubris they decided to double down on um you know control uh it's kind to me to me it's of similar uh and I suppose kind of on some level interconnected with what happened with the fossil fuel companies right because in the 70s and 80s you know they knew they had all the info about climate change and and and the Damage it was going to cause and they could have been like okay you know we we'll accept a limit on our you know billions and billions and billions at our power will diversify we we'll build you know robust Renewable Energy Systems you know it won't won't be as good for us uh in the short term but in the long term will actually allow people to survive uh but they double down on profit you know in short on shortterm goals so um yeah I mean as you say that you know the problem we have now is ideological capture um like you know the majority of people are not thinking uh they don't think systemically don't think strategically they don't put the time in to kind of um understand these types of dynamics that we're talking about I mean that's what's nice about substack is it does seem to be a community of people who are um G gaining that awareness but of course substack is also owned by andrees and harowitz or they major investor so we don't know how long it'll maintain itself in this independent form uh we may be forced to migrate like beehive or or these other platforms I mean which which just don't have the same kind of reach so um yeah I think we have to do what we can I mean you know among the things I I started this new thing Coalition for sanity we may change the name we just put out a letter yesterday I think it SED you I'd love love to get you involved so basically like let's see if we can and you know build a movement I think you know now that we're in the state of like you know Global fascism uh which you know they're going to try to take over you know every country in the same you they're building a model for the world in the same way America's you know Revolution the in the 18th century created a model for all the nation states they're trying to build the next iteration of that which is just purely corporate AI Control um we need to we need to offer a different model and we have to do it very strategically and in in a clever way because it cannot be like oh you know we against you we're trying to like you know tear you down I mean it's G to you know they have too much power for that with the surveillance and the drones it has to be more of a symbiotic uh move you know under underneath the system uh and so for instance like I'm thinking of something like a network state for all the people who have like moral values and decency that has maybe its own social network its own you know where where you know data is protected where people own their own data like like a separate Tech infrastructure that could include also ways to exchange value outside of the corrupt money system uh whereas at this point if the oligarchs just issuing the billions to themselves you know how you know what is the ultimate value of that money it's it's like let's let's just innovate do something else I mean you know if you look at Bitcoin you know people are like oh Bitcoin is a great alternative and you know it is an alternative the problem with Bitcoin is that uh you know when it was created when was like 2006 2008 I can't remember um you know the people who benefited from that were those who were already mainly white you know male Engineers who you know saw saw the idea and were able to have the technical chops to aggregate that for themselves so essentially anybody supporting Bitcoin is is supporting an oligarchic system that's as bad as North Korea as Bitcoin goes up you know these people are the top you know benefit tremendously most of them are also you know fully on board with Trump fashionism at this point so but there's no reason that something else like Bitcoin could not be created that is distributed far more equitably uh and also you know potentially me this I don't really know how to do but it's something I've thought about you know brooded on for a long time um it could have different values kind ofri inscribed in it you know like you you you actually aggregate it by you know doing decent things you know rather than terrible things so those are some of my like you know ideas I I've had these ideas for a while but um yeah you know you can respond to any of that but I also want to talk to you about the uh the energy situation and how energy and climate change are playing a major role in this so maybe maybe anything in that you want to respond to or should we go into the energy thing yeah absolutely I mean I think it's kind of Interlink anyway I mean um yeah I think to I totally um support the initiative that you're launching I think it's um we need we we just we need many more such initiatives um people need to step up we need to stand up and begin to reach out to each other and find new ways to create new things I would say that um you know I think I think it's interesting what the kind of issues you're talking about because the way that I like to think about how we navigate this this this this moment is recognizing the way that technology and Society are are mutually constituted like human beings are a tool making species um and you can't really reduce anything to something else there's no such thing as technology is going to save us but at the same time you need to you know we we use tools all the time what makes us distinct is that we're able to decide how why what's the purpose of the tools what's the context of the tools who benefits from the tools I think what's happening now is that we're seeing that and this is clear from the work that you've done with how soon as now is uh clear with some of the other work that I've been doing um and I have a paper about this called um the planetary phase shift and what I've tried to do is kind of look at how these two we've got these two intertwined areas right if technology and Society are essentially you know mut they're mutually constituted because in a way it's kind of like the way our Consciousness works and the way that way that we work physically are actually there's there's actually a Hess right it's not actually separate we think it's fragmented but it's not that's the problem in our perception if we then apply that to the way we look at technology what you see is you've got what these guys represent is a very specific specific reductionist Paradigm like it's taking very crude materialist reductionism and fragmentation and it's taking it to its logical conclusion right and it's you know everything is externalized everything is fundamentally materialist it's like maximalist consumerist materialist extractivist ideology and and everything is separate from everything and technology is the answer to and and in in fact we are going to become technology now that's the the driving thing is we're all going to become machines and we'll upload our mines into the cloud and there's going to be we'll be turned into a multiplanetary species and there will be plane sized it systems everywhere um and there'll be trillions of of us living as Ro robot machines in Virtual re powered by plane sized computers and this is the wonderful shage that's going to happen and anything which stands in its way is a catastrophic risk and that's that's the L you know they call it long-termism yeah and it's linked up with the whole effective altruism ideology and so you know welfare state democracy liberalism um equality all the things that normal ordinary human beings kind of care about are seen as catastrophic risks so we have to you know do anything we can to to stop that so I think there's that and there's I think it's it's very much ends justify the means uh ideology exactly and I think what I was shocked by when I wrote my book alt D was um was the extent to which that ideology is is actually linked with very traditional Nazi Eugenics and you can actually trace the influence of the ideas and the people um and a lot of these kind of big kind of long- termist philosophers like Nick Nick bostron who came from uh from Oxford he was funded by Elon Musk for his beti Humanity Institute he created the long- termist manifesto wrote all this stuff um he basically was is is a fan of eugenics um was reading work by Charles Murray um Charles Murray who wrote the belur the Bible of scientific racism which says black people are stupider than white people funed by funded by the coch brothers the Heritage Foundation funded by The coch Brothers F funded by he also and and you know and and all the research for that book was was based on stuff that was funded by the Pioneer fund which is a Nazi Eugenics Foundation established in the 1930s in New York and actually had Direct ties to Hitler's government um that's that's the kind of crazy that we're talking about and that's the direction that they're moving so so in terms of building coalitions um and kind of making sure that we have a a future the way I would I would suggest that we think about that is really there's there's two Moments One is what are the key technologies that we can use to to in a good way maybe there's some technologies where are just we don't want to use those right like fossil fuels we analyze these things scientifically we say you know what fossil fuels that's that's old technology it's industrial technology it's destroying the planet let's not use that let's use clean energy so for instance like with bitco with you know blockchain you can you know are these you know are do these technologies have the potential to to be used in a good way but and what comes part and parcel with that is the social organizing system that you use those Technologies in so when you're talking about blockchain there's good and bad ways of doing it so I think you're right like Bitcoin is has been developed in a in a structure which is the old industrial neoliberal economic power Paradigm right highly centralized very hierarchical freefor all it doesn't distribute the benefits it's got all of the problems of the you know that you know these up and down swing cycles of of the kind of the stock market and that's why Bitcoin has been used to massively centralized wealth hasen't really actually helped the vast majority of the people on the planet and and that's why the tech Bros want to use the blockchain as a tool against us I think we need to be able to do is look at how actually there's really good ways of using these Technologies if we organize it in the right way so that that's to me it's like the challenge that we've got really is what are these technologies that we that we can use in a good way um how do we optimize and distribute the benefits and I think you did a lot of work in how soon is now in looking at and looking at that the vision that you were uh advocating which which which I very much am aligned with and I've also been talking about is that there's a possible future of networked participatory decentralized um kind of high technology society which actually is regenerative Works within planetary boundaries and actually helps people to live decent lives and enjoyable lives fruitful lives wise lives where we're able to kind of recognize meaning um you know find uh find each other uh how you know so there there's a really Poss there's a future that that is there that is still possible um so being able to think really concretely as all of this collapse is happening but how we almost like an arc you know how do we create that kind of Ark like Network where we can continue to salvage the best ideas of humanity and actually experiment with them create them you know help each other to to to to to to really bring these things into the world because I think as that system this system is is going to is going into this hardening kind of kind of stage it's going to get really really bad for it gets better um we don't know what's going to happen but I think the the more that we do this kind of thing we we're kind of increasing the chances that as Things Fall Apart there is this there's this network which is there or multiple networks and networks which are operating which can give people really concrete ideas experiments uh which they can be using in their Community plug in they can plug into like here's a mutual Aid Network or uh you know resource sharing opportunities you know um yeah I really I I totally uh agree with what you are saying and it's great to chat again and yeah we should definitely work together on this because all hands on deck right now um yeah when I wrote that book I was very inspired by Oscar Wild's one political essay the soul of man under socialism which I think is an incredible read for the moment because he was basically saying that you know if you look at history you know only certain people had the opportunity to become artists and they were usually the ones who had like trust funds or family wealth so they were the ones who had the opportunity to cultivate like their unique individuality and everybody else is kind of crushed under drudgery and therefore they resent you know those people who represent this kind of like freedom and and uh you know emancipation of Consciousness and so which we're seeing now with the you know I mean America's always been very anti-intellectual and so on but I mean um you know if you could create a techn technological system that massively reduces intellectual drudgery and even like physical labor drudgery that could be you know more or less a utopian system uh because people would be liberated with their time you know if they're not starving and beaten so on to and that's so that's what's really exciting about the this whole idea of this whole thing with AI yeah I think it's really interesting it's kind of really highlighted this this fork in the road which is like there's one but there's one approach which these guys are doing which is you just basically cons you you the whole system is owned and controlled by a tiny minority of people the rest of us become disenfranchised you know it look it looks like those you know those dystopian movies right but the other opportunity is if you redesign the system so that all of us have a stake and and the fact is is that we all have a stake in AI because AI has been trained on the intellectual and creative Ingenuity of the human species yeah so we this is so we should all own and control and benefit from that and I think if you can if you then can create that Network decentralized approach then exactly like you said the the AI by removing because the one barrier to economic productivity is obviously like they talk about Labb productivity like that's the limit economists would say that's the fundamental limit if there's no barrier in terms of Labor because you've got your labor costs are literally reduced to zero because AI is able to do most of that drudgery then that means and if and if and if you make sure that in your system everyone is able to benefit from that then you've opened the door to kind of you know massive prosperity and massive creative and intellectual possibilities and remove moved that kind of that drudgery freed people up to live and express and explore creatively in ways that were literally Unthinkable uh you know like just even even now it's almost you know it's really difficult to even fathom something like that um and I think what these guys are trying to do actually is they they want to stop that right I think they are actually worried about this the decentralized possibilities of the Technologies that are emerging like you look go back to the energy question you asked you know that fossil fuels are inherently a centralized extractivist technology right it's based on a limited resource that is geographically kind of located in specific locations it requires pretty centralized structures of control um so it tends to I mean it doesn't have to be like that you could develop ways to distribute uh things distribute the benefits if you to but it's very it's inherently more hierarchical and centralized and the way that the whole Industrial Age Paradigm has evolved the economic system has kind of very much developed around this centralized control of these types of resources now the Clean Energy System is opening up a new type of possibility space again not saying that that technology by itself is all of the answer or going to save it there's all questions about there legitimate debate about you know how does that system look what does it look like can you maintain the same levels of consumption you know and I think my my fundamental View and I think where there's a consensus is that that new system is a fundamentally networked in decentralized system and it it's a different type of economy entirely it's one where you can't have massive endless amounts of material extractivism it's a different type of system but what's really interesting about it is that the uh you know once you understand how this technology works and the base of technology is you know yeah of course you need to manufacture these things blah blah blah but once you created it you have this endless supply of renewable energy from the Sun this just keeps coming solar energy wind energy all of this kind of stuff and the studies that I've that there's been a lot of recent studies looking at this issue and I think that there is a really strong case which shows that if you roll out clean energy in the right way you know there's good ways of doing it and there bad ways of doing it but the good ways of doing it will can can mean that you don't need as much critical minerals and you can design the system in such a way that it produces kind of like a really good surface of clean electricity which can be used to power lots of different things um and you know to use kind of some of these techn technological kind of possibilities that we've spoken about um to help Recycling and things like that so I think we're seeing this possibility of a of a a new type of system emerging that could help us solve the problems that we have now under the current system um and the good news is that with the Clean Energy System and we I mentioned ERI energy returnal investment this this kind of measure and we're seeing that with with fossil system that measure of Energy Efficiency is it's just plummeting and some of the studies are really like crazy like there's a there was a French study um in a very serious Journal called Applied Energy that came out a couple of years ago and they found that by 2050 um the fossil fuel system the oil the oil specific oil would use 50% of the energy that it's creating just to create more just to get more oil out which is completely insane and what these guys are doing is they're externalizing those costs so they're making tons of money out of the fact that the cost of as we're going into this scarcity and the the the price of the commodity is going up and so they're making tons of profits of of that but who's getting affected everyone because that is affecting the cost of energy then become so high then the cost of everything is going up in the system the cost of energy the cost of food the cost of Transport so we're facing I mean I mean food is also going up uh because of climate change and uh absolutely droughts loss of arable land flooding I think England lost 50% of its uh crop almost last year and you know we we probably are um you know going to be hitting a danger zone around um food supply um you know in many regions uh at some point very likely yeah yeah yeah yeah no I mean so I mean I mean look you know being dependent on fossil fuels means that we are driving this um exponential increase in carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and we it looks like 1.5c is not you know that was the safe limit it looks like that's breached most scientists that I've spoken to believe yeah that that's that's done right so we have to think about how do we get to a point where we can not only take emissions down to zero but start taking that carbon out of the atmosphere which is why I'm one of the reason why I'm a big advocate of roll out as much clean energy as you can so that you can use some of that clean energy to power new ways of getting carbon out and also also a big advocate of can we minimize livestock farming um and start using some of that land for regenerative agriculture and regenerative natural solutions to draw down carbon at scale what what what why are so many um I mean I guess I know the answer a little bit but it's interesting to kind of talk about it like you know Peter teal is a you know chess master he's obviously a great strategist I went to this conference that he put on in Miami called hereticon and uh you know this guy Michael shinberger was there who's a climate change skeptic somebody gave a talk about how fossil fuels are actually great and we need more of them um you know why would somebody you know that intelligent be kind of denying um you know climate change fossil fuel um effect on on the environment why why are they so I mean you know it feels like um you know yeah it's or even musk now who was Mr environmental you know we're gonna like fix climate global warming with electric cars which always total because the cars themselves are massively wasteful to produce and so on um yeah why why are they trapped in this ideological Foxhole is it just just because in the back channels they're so connected with like Exon and the oil company infrastructure or just as you say that it all ideologically kind of works together whereas um this vision of intense centralization and control is is best executed with a uh um kind of fossil fuel infrastructure yeah it's a really good question and don't have the I I guess I can make a guess an educated guess right I think that it's a combination of those things I think on the one hand you have a very powerful incumbent infrastructure Lobby right around the fossil field Industries which knew about climate change and clearly made a decision you know we've now got all the evidence Exon Mobile all of these other guys in the 60s and 70s doing scientific research and they knew that climate change was coming they warned about it and then they suppressed it internally prevented people from knowing and now all that those documents are coming out so we know that there's a powerful contingent of these guys who are just liars right they're just lying to us lie to themselves because they wanted to keep that system going and make loads of money out of it and they didn't care so there is a very you know that's what you call evil you know there's a very um anti-human ideology there I think what's interesting with these guys the technology technology oligarchy who have kind of evolved out off the back of the philosopy oligarchy and now they're coming up with these this new tech they I think there's I think it I think they've got a combination of things going on there some of them maybe might be in denial perhaps you know kind of self- delusion but I think a lot of it is about this crisis perception and this belief that they have I think they've got caught up in this long- termist ideology they really believe in this technological Singularity future they think that it's inevitable and that's why you have you know Elon Musk and some of the and you know the various kind of philosophers that he's been involved in in funding a lot of these guys are reading the same stuff they have this idea about humanity and the singularity and the way that Ai and humans are going to merge and they have this idea that the only way that we can survive ultimately is for human beings to become a multiplanetary species and kind of a techno like a transhumanist multiplanetary species where we we've merged machines and then we've kind of gone into space that's that's kind of what they believe so now if you think about that or actually maybe it's even simpler than that which is if they are you know rational I mean teal plays around with Christian Concepts and speaks about the Antichrist and other kind of ideas from Christianity in a very strange kind of kind of way but um if ultimately they're all materialist atheists who believe that death is the annihilation of self you know forever uh and their their main ideology is to sort of you know wi win win the simulation by attaining Immortal Life then they're just driving everything in that direction so they think that like you know whatever it takes to build artificial superintelligence yeah that'll that'll then you know fix uh you know the cellular mechanism and will you know and you know and I'm not even convinced that that won't happen you know knows my my guess is that's what musk why Trump just surrendered to musk because musk was like look dude you're 78 you eat big Mark Max all the time you're GNA Croak in a couple years you know put it all in my hands get out of the way and I'll see if I can give you like an immortal youthful body um I'm completely seriously when I went to hereticon I met somebody uh who has a kind of secret company that he wouldn't tell me much about or they're actually growing uh human bodies without brains you know oh my God yeah so they you know they they they they believe they're you know very close to um uh you know not only artificial superintelligence which you know may destroy us or may not um but also um Immortal Immortal Life in either physical body or digital Matrix you know yeah I think yeah so I think I think they I think these ideas converge right and I think there's there obviously there's obviously disagreement around like they all they're not all aligned on everything but I think one thing that they seem to be converging on is I think they know that this current trajectory means the Earth could be destroyed so they so I think there that's where it's like how do you if that's going to happen if the trajectory is destruction what do you do so what they're trying to do is essentially it's con the shared ideology is Gaslight everyone confuse the out of everyone so that they're fighting amongst themselves we're we're we we we're like mired in identity politics culture wars and all this stuff Meanwhile we're going to race towards building out this technology with no regulation because that's the future that's what we need some of them might be like we have to get off the planet some of them might be like we're going to create IM morality Here and Now um but there the same kind of idea right like they they're not sure they're not all agree on everything and some people are trying different things but where they agree is like yeah basically there's a crisis planet is going to um they probably know that climate change is going to get out of control so how do they protect themselves I you know we just lost you know a big chunk of North Carolina and a big chunk of Los Angeles so it's it's you know that's also obviously why they're planning the Takeover of Canada and Greenland um you know both for the you know natural resources and also to relocate whatever segment of the population they consider you know useful to their plans um but think about what's weird about it is think about the Coalition right like these guys are in Coalition with Christian fundamentalists and that's where it gets really interesting right like how does it so you know you've got you've got clearly people who are clearly like there's some some people who are just materialists atheists maybe pet does believe in Jesus you know maybe he has a very weird religious mystical cultish IDE and we know that there are these cult elements there right as well like mixed in with this so I think that's the other thing like other people on the outside might look at this and say well you know what if I don't believe in climate change anyway climate change is not human cause it's caused by God you kind of you know you end up in the same you end up in the same place because it's like oh that's not my fault anyway I can't do anything about that that's God's will for the for the Earth so how do we kind of attain this drive towards immortality is almost like a kind of Resurrection moment that you're aiming towards and all of the apocalyptic stuff is like oh well that's just that's all in the Bible that's what all the religious scriptures have said and that that I'm really worried about that kind of fusion of of of insane ideas and and where that takes you sure by the way I got a comment in the chat that I just wanted to comment on uh from PB pinski Val valuable discussion but would appreciate it if it stayed on track to how we organize the counterculture to not get driven off the clips Cliffs and DET Tech oligarchy end games so yeah we are discussing that uh Mr pinski U if you go to the last post I did on substack it was reposting this thing from Coalition for Humanity um we um ask you to subscribe to that to that uh newsletter and then also if you want to message us directly uh we can um add you to a group where we're going to look into methods and modalities and actions uh but I also think that yeah we we have to be you know careful here because a lot of the traditional you know protest ideas or you know efforts to uh you know today there's like a effort to um do a financial strike or whatever uh I don't know if those are helpful or actually counterproductive at this point not only because project 20 2025 has kind of anticipated all of that but they they want more Strife uh and you know there there is also um an idea which seems to be quite likely that um you know there there you know that one of the you know kind of uh ideas they're operating with is that it's actually kind of a good idea to crash the US economy and Destroy and destroy the dollar um because if you're a billionaire you know or multi-billionaire that would allow you to pick off you know whatever's left that you want uh like a private park or uh you know whatever looks nice to you you know a company you know nice cafe or whatever uh and um yeah so in that sense they'd be following the shock Doctrine disaster capitalism model where you engineer a mega crisis and then you profit from it and plunder from it um so I'm I'm afraid that you know protests that lead to violence that lead to martial law or um economic strikes that lead to you know kind of economic uh crashes and so on may only be feeding in so you know that that's why I mean um I think there are productive ways to um kind of approach the situation but it's going to require a little bit more of um mindset shift around what action means and and as I said before I don't think it's about you know and you know there will be people who go against and that's part of the the ecosystem but but I think also there needs to be and also you know and all all that you know like you know what could this be you know uh and can we get people moving in that direction and kind of like embodying uh let's say kind of like um a better world a better approach uh and that becomes like a a new attractor you know along with you know media memes and so on to um yeah make people more aware of what what's what's underway you know like's book alt right which you can all buy right now and share with your friends and colleagues thanks thanks for the plug I mean I think I mean just I mean to talk about the value of the book and the reason I wrote it is because it it I think it tells it's the only book I think which really explains how and why we got here um a lot of people weren't really expecting the way things have developed and I think you and I Daniel have kind of been worried about this kind of uh the people who've got their eye on the pulse been worried about this kind of trajectory I think we've all been taken by surprise um but by the speed at which like you said you know it's like we're in a revolutionary moment it's absolutely unprecedented I me I'm not I'm not surprised but I'm shocked shocked yeah that's it shock you know I I kind of expected all this but now you know now that that it's you know where it's at I'm like well I guess maybe I have to like leave my nice little cozy apartment in New York and you know try something else you know but um it all it ALS kind of feels though that it's not going to matter where you go like this thing has to be uh confronted um and um yeah you know but I think absolutely yeah no I I mean I I I think it's it's very important for people to understand that what we're seeing is not isolated to the United States this is a global project um it's a global project designed to basically remake World Order um and that's what and it's a total realignment um and that's why it's alarming I I think it's really what's what's what I see missing at the moment and that's why the conventional responses from the Democrats and from unions and all of that kind of stuff are going to be limited is that those guys are thinking that we can just go back to normal which is like like you said we can just go back you know let's just you know strike protest blah blah blah and then we can go back to something else it's it's way gone past that these guys are tearing things down at a rate at which it will not be possible to go back that's one thing number two there's no going back because what was before was part of what created this like this is this is emerged out of what was before we have to go through um but part of going through is kind of really staring into the face of the the abyss understanding who these people are and I won't hesitate to say me mean Elon Musk has been very vicious about doing his Nazi salutes um you know tweeting out U the number 14 the 14 words a very famous kind of white supremacist Neo-Nazi slogan and kind signaling white supremacist and then who'll laugh about it and say oh you know you're saying we're all Nazis um there are we're talking about actual Nazis here like we you know that that is absolutely probably one of the most shocking things for me when when putting the book together was was that there isise a hardcore movement of Na sympathizers here who have not gone away have' been agitating for decades and they're now finding new ways to launder their ideology into the mainstream and Curtis Yavin for instance is one of them Curtis Yavin um was is a reader of scientific racism and someone whose ideas were inspired by that idea and of that comes back to that same thing if you believe that everything inside Society can be explained by the fact that it's all the cognitive stratification due to genetics then of course you're not going to think that we should be investing in system change you're going to think no no no no no anyone who calls for that is is a threat actually um so I think understanding when you realize that you realize there's no going back so the question then is I'm not I'm not saying that I'm not I I don't know whether the answer is don't protest but I think the answer clearly has to be something very distinctive and I think what's missing from the current response is that it can't just be about oh federal workers need to have their rights back this has to be about how do we remake the system because this this is not we're not going to get federal workers just getting their rights back just like that this is a war these guys are literally fighting an Insurgency against democracy and I think that's the kind of the the initial mindset shift that I I I I think we need to kind of undergo is really recognizing that that's what's taking place that these guys are literally at war with us so we need to then think about how do you combat that because what are they at war with us about it's a it's a war about the system they they don't want they want to block off the possibility of of of a so far from improving democracy they want to choke off Democratic possibility what we want to do is not go back to the old failed limited liberal Democratic Paradigm we want to deepen and revolutionize true democracy with the tools that we have and I think that's that's the thing that is going to get people excited and hopeful and you know people who maybe have not you know they're there's going to be a lot of angry people people like and it's already started like people are federal you know ordinary Americans are like wait a minute I voted for this guy and medic Medicaid Medicaid's getting CH getting all all all the stuff that I was relying on social security all the stuff is being gutted what the hell is going on there are people who are coming out on X who who are like my my I saw another thing woman was a couple of weeks ago she was tweeting about how brilliant it is that El musk going to eliminate corruption waste then she's three weeks like a couple of days ago she's tagging Elon Musk in posts about how her daughter has been sacked from the federal government she's been working there for for for years uh she's a hardworking worker that people are now starting to realize that They Don't Care About Us so as much as things are looking grim and they're looking destructive I think it's really important for us to focus on the possibility of of Hope hope and I think it comes back to some of the other really exciting work that you've been doing Daniel um on on on the on you know the stuff about the mind and and reality and what is reality and how do we actually manifest reality throughout you know if if reality is consciousness you know and I think that the scientific evidence for this is is growing more then this is not just about what these guys want to use all of this stuff to Pummel us into despair they want us to narrow our scope of thinking because if we're narrow in our scope of thinking and we believe that it's hopeless then it's hopeless because we believe that but if we realize that actually it's all a kind of mind trick that you know the way that these guy everything these guys are doing is all based on their ability to literally weaponize absolutely so if we if we kind of see through that Mirage I me like you know as as Antonio negri the Italian political philosopher um shifted me in some ways um one thing he you know noted was that you know what is cap capital ultimately it's it's a social relation right it's like um you know the the the ideology that people have these billions and billions you know they're not like you know super superheroes they don't have it in their you know it's something that's ascribed to them through a whole set of like cultural parameters and you know kind of accepted ideologies and it's basically numbers twirling in Virtual systems you know um so so yeah um you know there there's always the possibility that that whole structure can just dissolve you know yeah and I think that's the I think that's the thing if we if we realize that um that actually we can we really do have that power right like if we're if we're kind of if we're if we're only envisioning terrible Futures that these guys have in mind for us then that's the attractor right but if we can get more people to begin to Envision what's actually possible yeah if you you know then then that can be the attractor and I think in a way that's what I think what is um what's what's unique about the Coalition that you're trying to develop and this I think is is something really important which you know there's lots of people going to do lots of different things but I think maybe something that can be unique about this is being very intentional about that that you know it's it's it's not just about the technology it's not just about you know the social organizing stuff it's also about really intentionally envisioning these positive Futures and how we create those those how how do we create attract new attractors that pull people in and help kind of open and kind of break the Matrix in a way you know help us just to break free of that I mean I think it is obviously the case that um these people are very uh wounded uh and hurt people uh I mean both musk and Trump their their fathers were narcissists so in ex their narcissistic extensions of narcissistic fathers who probably didn't get you know proper care and love and so on so they're always looking for validation they're incredibly insecure they're they're not happy people they're in this kind of like you know the whole relationship to women and The Feminine is completely broken um you know it's miserable it's a miserable state that they're all in um yeah um and and then that that leads this very dark dystopian kind of um ideology that that know that they're going to get this sort of grim satisfaction from psychosexual sadism and cruelty um a planetary scale yeah yeah I mean look what's just happened with the I mean it's so symbolic Andrew tape being flown over to the US is like a just a absolute kind archetype of what you're talking about you know yeah it has been interesting how um I mean you have like you know I was friends with Russell Brand um uh in retrospect I always had suspicions about Russell I mean he wrote about me in his book uh you know meeting me in his book Revolution uh you know we did a number of things together he called me his friend but we never really like hug out oneon-one it was more like friendship at a distance um I always had this weird suspicion that you know and I I think he actually you know he believed in the leftist ideas you know more than he believes in the ones that he's that he's putting out now but but I always felt there was something off about him and um also a narcissist Al also the son of a narcissist father um um but um I had another point about that that I'm losing for the second but but but but yeah I mean it's kind of um I find it a little dispiriting and sad that it just doesn't feel that there are like um you know I don't want to say leftist like I don't know you know Humane thinkers that are at the same level of kind of like you know Mass popularity at this point as like the Jordan Petersons I mean Russell I don't know what people think of him but he still has a large following Andrew Tate has a massive following um and I don't know if that's just the way the algorithms have worked against us or something I mean maybe we're not out there enough you know I mean you know I also feel like um you know like people I know who have the right ideas and right values you know we don't want to spend six hours a day at our basement like Steve Bannon does you know raging against uh the Deep State you know we want to like smell the flowers and you know explore Tantra like read poetry and stuff like that so it's like but these guys have kind of their their relentlessness has also helped them win I mean musk you know is worth $500 billion dollars everybody he's like sleeping on the White House floor who knows you know it's like um the the the the the the drive towards power compulsion uh when you're like a wounded personality structure that's substituting power for love I guess that's just such a powerful um like it's it's such a seduction but I I don't know it just feels like they've won you know the the you know and also yeah I've been kind of like um you know the the the counterculture left you know we used to sort of have maybe we never really had it the way we thought we did rock and roll you know like uh comedy standup comedy and somehow Rebellion you know you know the ideology of like a rebel against the system that was like a leftwing figure like Al Ginsburg or Timothy lirry or some someh the right has managed to co-opt all that energy uh um uh to the point where yeah I don't know what the statement of the other side is that is attractive to like all these like young men for instance who are just looking for better life so it's like are you going to go with like you know wimpy kind of liberal people who don't really have a plan for the future or you going to go for you know the Nazi you know athletic kickboxing champion you know who you know a million women a day or something like that you know yeah I think that's a really it's a really good point it's like these these guys have kind of very much played on that and I think what you're speaking about really speaks to the disruption that these guys represent right like they're moving really fast they move fast they have a massive amount of wealth um and I think we're not we're not really there like it's like you said like who are the cultural icons of the left that you can look up to and say yeah those guys are cool they're doing cool things I like Hassan Sai you know him the You Tuber yeah him yeah yes so there's some people from the gaming World who's maybe the best one um um but yeah in in in general um it feels like the um um yeah the progressive World lost its it Mojo you know um there's like almost nobody that I you know look up to I mean I watch like David Pacman and novaro media but I don't feel like wow like I can't wait to see the next thing these guys have to say you know yeah yeah yeah and I think that's that's something we should be thinking about like how do we fill that Gap how do we Inspire the Next Generation I mean I think it's that really I think about a lot is you know who is there for young people to get excited about to be like actually I'm I'm going to learn from these guys um I think it's an opportunity I think in a way we've been caught off guard by the way in which these digital platforms have geared towards elevating particular types of of people you know like I think it's definitely the algorithm but it's definitely like um you know that narcissistic wounded s has kind of almost got filtered into the algorithms and then elevated these narcissistic wounded people and it's become this thing that you know if you're if so many of us are are are wounded right and then you're you're thinking well that's the way let me just you know self maximize um and I think we need to kind of we've been caught of guard but I think we need to be able to be like okay okay how do we move forward and present a really confident inspiring kind of vision of the future and that's that's the challenge that we have and I think a lot of us it's been challenging because most of most ordinary people in the world have are going through a struggle right where we've gone through you know we we've come from wounded background come toed places unlike the technology oligarchy who have used that and created these you know the kind of exercised power um and used the kind of that narcissistic energy to kind of just whip their way into further power a lot of us have actually done a lot of soul searching a lot of reflection and I think you know that that you know that might not seem cool within the kind of conventional paradig but actually it's the pretty it's the coolest thing you can do as a human being is to be able to confront yourself and you know like Luke Skywalker you know and and come out the other side and be able to offer hope to the people around you for sure that resonates 100% with me because like I had I got famous in the Psychedelic world and I got very um addicted maybe to like you know uh opportunities that were like sexual and then um you know then I had to make a whole me too confession that I did publicly and ask people for forgiveness and so on but then it was like there was no forgiveness in the Progressive structure like everybody still you know for years just like negated me like you know I was never invited back to you know these different you know events and conferences and so on and I was like look I like I what do you want to you know what do you want to do you're just going to like you know um you know cast out people who actually try to make amends and try to speak publicly about it and you know so so like in the Progressive World men have been completely um in a way wrecked because yeah like you know if you if you're in your 50s or 60s you grew up in a different cultural context like when I was in my you know 20s and 30s like Harvey wees like I knew actresses who would like joke about oh like I'm going to see Harvey Weinstein like they knew what was going on or people who worked for Charlie Rose who were like yeah you know of course he does the interns you know it's like you know it was like it was just like part of this whole cultural millu uh and then the whole culture turned against that but didn't give men and out so like as a as a as a progressive man you know you were either just you know annihilated career-wise um and you could and and you even then you couldn't really talk publicly uh about you know the mistakes you made because of the legal repercussions your your your your your whole you know security could be taken away your family could be destroyed um you know and people who did try to speak out about it got ruined like Morgan Spurlock who made suiz me he had like a production company and he admitted like I did publicly that he made a bunch of mistakes that he never got as far as I know he never got to make another film that he like died of cancer you know probably out of being unhappy and so on you know so um yeah I mean um uh um I know Mr Pinsky really wants us to stay on track so Pinsky we don't have an answer for you today join the uh the newsletter as I mentioned um oh no maybe this is the same comment oh oh wow there's a million more comments I didn't even notice uh okay cool um hi K Mc Hugh and Lucen rhods and uh nice to see everybody okay anyway so yeah so so um you know I don't know like I mean uh I've struggle to figure out how to build back this bridge because also I think it's like um yeah like on the Progressive side unlike you know I've used the progressive I don't consider myself a progressive a mystical Anarchist but you know on the side of people who are not for white supremacism misogyny and Tech fascism you know we really should be trying to unite between men and women you know women in in in an antifascist movement have tremendous power because um yeah they're not going to want to like beat up and kill like tons of women you know if if they go March you know they're much more likely to beat up and kill a lot of men uh so so women actually have I think much more capacity to uh to make happen and also the regime in the US is um really TR trying to disenfranchise women I don't know if you heard about I think it's called the save act um so they're introducing this where basically if you uh if your birth certificate has a different name than you bear now you won't be able to vote so essentially every woman who changed name through marriage will no longer be able to vote and this completely fits in with Peter Teal's um stated ideology in the same essay where he wrote that freedom and democracy are incompatible he said that we need to take the vote away from women because they tend to vote more liberally uh which of course they didn't even do much in the last I they did to some extent but not enough um yeah we could also you know we could go down the rabbit hole whether the last election you know was also fairly uh educated you know first there's the voter suppression of like 3.5 million votes that Greg Palace uh covered and then also there's the question of whether musk was already hacking into the the systems um I guess uh yeah another issue around um sorry I'm just spitballing a few things here um you know going down this line where they've now broken all these laws um you know what happens in a fascist system is like you know for them there's like no going back because how could they seed power um you know they would be you know the next executive could use the power against them yeah again I think that's the yeah that's the biggest I think that's the biggest kind of signal of there's no going back it's exactly that after what these guys have done like we just had prosecutions of of the sixth January insurrectionists right people who were white supremacist neo-nazis violent thugs people who committed crimes and they've now been pardoned yeah Trump himself was under all of these criminal investigations um charges convictions u in in several cases should have gone to probably be J go go to jail all of that out the window what will a new go you know what does it look like to to reverse that will these guys let go of power and say it's okay and I think you know having Andrew Tate fly over here and get Sanctuary amidst the prosecutions that are going on ongoing against you know the UK government um has got live investigations based on on Witnesses who talked about how you know like like a minor a young girl who was raped anally by Andrew tape you know is one of the people who's been testifying um and and Trump and the administration have just taken this you complain about immigrants coming and causing crime and rape and now you've just imported two organized crime guys with who've been accused of human trafficking and rape on an industrial scale and brought them into the United States I mean that's impunity right like that that's I think that's that's what these guys are moving towards is total impunity are they going to be are they going to be able to let go and say you know what it's fine let the Democracy work and come what may you know if those guys come in and decide to exert the rule of law I don't think they're going to do that do I don't know they're going to do but that doesn't seem to me like you know a viable solution for those guys no yeah I don't see I don't know what's coming it's like it's scary right like I don't know what are they going to do is it going to be like a third term is it going to be just Fran democracy is it at some point Trump will kill over and die nothing gonna happen at some point yeah I mean you know maybe not too far in the future I mean there's a guy on Instagram who um eats the diet of various political figures uh for like a few days or a week and uh Trump's diet even for a couple days nearly killed him he he gets up in the morning he drinks Diet Cokes so he drinks like guzzles like gallons of Diet Coke a day um he uh eats his snacks are like Fritos Doritos he he loves Big Macs and Kentucky Fried Chicken like big baskets and you know like you know about the only the most healthy thing he eats is his Club he'll have like fried steak with like a little bit of like rock fruit salad which is basically lettuce with like sauce on it and um you know I mean you know that that can only bring about you know first of all mental deterioration because drinking tons of Diet Coke is going to lead to mental DET iritation But ultimately yeah how long can a body uh live on that yeah yeah the these guys do have an almost kind of like you know Supernatural kind of like they really do kind of feel like they're they're alien implant or something like like you know walk or something like if I I if I tried to live on that for like two weeks I think I would just Keel over like throw up how can you I don't understand how he's still functioning it's like insane I recommend that Instagram though it's quite amazing to see this guy just uh basically you know almost give up after trying to eat this diet yeah I'll check it I'll I'll check it out uh well listen we've been talking for a long time and it's been incredibly enjoying I feel that you and I are are completely in syn here um and I think that we should um figure out how we work together more absolutely yeah yeah so let's have another call um and yeah I think it's really coming up with a strategy that isn't like overthrow opposition it's more like symbiosis like how because you know these guys are saying they're for free speech therefore you know they it's Bullit of course they want free speech for themselves not for anybody else but you know there there there are contradictions within what they're saying uh where um you could build something like a sort of you know symbiotic for profit you know network uh value exchange system that um where you can maybe you know Corral people who have decent values that are not um you know haven't lost it uh including women in large quantities um you know um that's I think what we need to try to do right now yeah no I'm totally with you that's so guys read uh read ne's book alt Reich if you want more bad news uh oh I'm sure there's some good news in there somewhere uh go back to this last post the co co Coalition for sanity uh please uh subscribe there if you're interested in um being part of our little effort at a decentralized kind of a movement uh you can send us an email we provide the email the newsletter and uh yeah anything any Clos closing thoughts for today closing thoughts well I guess let's close on on the idea that we we actually have huge amount of power as some people in the comments also mentioned we we do hold the power but we've been we've been mind into believing we don't hold the power but we do so I think we work together to help us recognize our power um to really create new beautiful visions of a world based compassion of togetherness and love um I think that can be a new attractor and I think young people are desperately hungry for this um they they're not seeing a positive future that they're being they're being pulled by this vision of dystopia um so yeah we've got our work cut out for us guys but um what else is there to do kind of this is the only game in town right now I think it's the only game time okay if let's do this again uh in a couple weeks um I think if we get it in my afternoon time in in America uh we would get a lot we would get a lot of live people on board but um even so I think this was a great conversation I'll do my best to get it out there brilliant fantastic thanks so much Daniel thank you bye bye

Automatic transcript, lightly edited for readability. Originally published on the Liminal News channel.