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The Peter McCormack Show

Peter McCormack

The Peter McCormack Show - politics, macro, Bitcoin and AI, long-form interviews. Twice-weekly conversations about money, power, and the shifts reshaping the next decade.


Peter McCormack interviews politicians, economists, investors, journalists, founders and Bitcoiners. Past guests include Liz Truss, Lyn Alden, Curtis Yarvin, Matt Goodwin, Mike Green, Balaji Srinivasan, Rupert Lowe, Firas Modad, Scott Horton, Jeff Booth, Connor Leahy, Andrea Miotti, Neema Parvini, Dr Tim Gregory and Simon Dixon.


Recurring threads: the debt and inflation endgame, UK political collapse and what comes after, Reform and the populist wave, the Middle East and the American war machine, AI safety and the race for superintelligence, energy and net zero, Bitcoin adoption and policy, and the slow-motion decline of Western institutions.


Long-form - most episodes run 60 to 120 minutes. New episodes 2 to 3 times per week. Video on YouTube and Spotify.


Host: Peter McCormack, a retired rapper from Bedford, UK, trying to understand this crazy world.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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  • 36 episodes
  • Avg 1 hr 30 min
  • English

Episodes 36

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  • Thursday · 1 hr 6 min

    #215 - Nick Bostrom - "We Are Creating Superintelligence": The Existential Risk is Real

    Nick Bostrom is a world-renowned philosopher, founding director of the Future of Humanity Institute at Oxford University and author of Superintelligence: Paths, Dangers, Strategies and Deep Utopia. Widely credited with launching the global AI safety and existential risk movements, his work on machine alignment, recursive self-improvement and the Simulation Hypothesis has shaped how world leaders, tech founders and frontier AI developers view the future of humanity. In this episode, we discuss the rapid acceleration toward machine superintelligence and why leaving biological minds "in the dust" creates an urgent alignment crisis. We explore the real-world social fallout of AI-including looming 30% white-collar unemployment-alongside existential risk scenarios, the potential creation of an oppressed digital "slave class" and why humanity may already be living inside an advanced computer simulation. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - TIMESTAMPS: 00:00:00 - Machine Minds That Leave Us In The Dust 00:01:33 - The Freak Out Camp 00:03:08 - We Already Have An Alignment Problem 00:05:07 - Why Nobody Can Afford To Slow Down 00:08:41 - The Anti-AI Movement Is Growing 00:13:19 - Three Buckets Of Disaster 00:15:02 - Winner Takes All 00:16:24 - Why It Might Still Need Us 00:18:55 - What Superintelligence Actually Unlocks 00:20:50 - What Do We Even Want It For? 00:22:14 - Did An AI Push Someone Off A Building? 00:24:15 - Can A Weaker AI Align A Stronger One? 00:28:51 - Will AI Become Conscious? 00:33:17 - Was Consciousness An Accident? 00:40:53 - Uploading A Human Brain 00:45:51 - What Happens To Status? 00:49:51 - We Could Redesign Ourselves 00:52:31 - My Daughter Is Studying Philosophy 00:56:35 - The Simulation Argument 01:04:20 - We Are Going To Need Some Luck - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - CONTACT PETE › Website – http://petermccormack.com › Feedback – https://www.petermccormack.com/contact › Email – me@petermccormack.com › Instagram – https://www.instagram.com/mccormack555/ › X/Twitter – https://x.com/petermccormack/ CONNECT WITH NICK BOSTROM › Website – https://nickbostrom.com/ › Deep Utopia – https://nickbostrom.com/deep-utopia › The Simulation Argument – https://simulation-argument.com/ SPONSORS › IREN – https://www.iren.com/ › Ledn – https://www.ledn.io/peter › Venice AI – https://venice.ai/ – Code PETER15 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - LISTEN / SUBSCRIBE › Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/40ruY9K › Spotify: https://spoti.fi/3Wc94Vu › Fountain: https://bit.ly/FountainPM › YouTube: https://bit.ly/YouTube_PM › Rumble: https://bit.ly/RumblePM FILMED BY CURTIS TAYLOR › https://www.curttaylor.co.uk/ › https://x.com/curttayloruk/ EDITED BY CONOR MCCORMACK › https://x.com/ConorM04 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

  • Tuesday · 1 hr 6 min

    #214 - Prof. Richard Werner - "They Are Traitors": How Central Banks Sabotage Wealth & Create Crises

    Prof. Richard Werner is a world-renowned economist, professor of banking, and author of Princes of the Yen. Famous for coining the term "Quantitative Easing" (QE) and publishing the first empirical proof that private banks create money out of thin air through lending, he has spent decades exposing the central planning mechanisms that dictate global finance. In this episode, we discuss the ”Revealed Preference" framework - demonstrating why we must analyse central bankers by their actions rather than their rhetoric. He explains how central planners use artificial recessions and banking crises as "windows of opportunity" to consolidate ownership, why textbook economics deliberately obscures credit creation, and how establishing decentralised local banks can unlock sustainable 10%+ annual growth. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - TIMESTAMPS: 00:00:00 - Central Bankers Are Traitors To Their Countries 00:01:04 - Why Can't Britain Grow? 00:06:50 - Princes Of The Yen 00:11:19 - It Was Always About Control 00:13:38 - Banks Don't Lend Your Deposits 00:14:27 - Show Me Where The Money Is Created 00:16:14 - Every School Of Economics Gets It Wrong 00:20:14 - Why Would They Do This? 00:21:57 - Britain Is Close To Central Planning 00:22:46 - America Once Had 30,000 Banks 00:27:48 - The Problem Was Identified In 1918 00:31:18 - Who Runs The City Of London? 00:33:46 - We Need Thousands Of Small Banks 00:38:14 - First The Money, Then The Power 00:44:04 - Every Country Can Have 10% Growth 00:47:12 - Liz Truss And The Bank Of England 00:50:23 - We Don't Need Central Banks 00:52:22 - Were The Austrians Right? 00:57:35 - They Want Your Savings 00:59:21 - Europe's New Right - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - CONTACT PETE › Website – http://petermccormack.com › Feedback – https://www.petermccormack.com/contact › Email – me@petermccormack.com › Instagram – https://www.instagram.com/mccormack555/ › X/Twitter – https://x.com/petermccormack/ CONNECT WITH RICHARD WERNER › Website – https://professorwerner.org/ › Substack – https://rwerner.substack.com/ › Princes of the Yen – https://www.quantumpublishers.com/ › X/Twitter – https://x.com/drrichardwerner SPONSORS › IREN – https://www.iren.com/ › Arch Public – https://archpublic.com/peter › Venice AI – https://venice.ai/ – Code PETER15 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - LISTEN / SUBSCRIBE › Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/40ruY9K › Spotify: https://spoti.fi/3Wc94Vu › Fountain: https://bit.ly/FountainPM › YouTube: https://bit.ly/YouTube_PM › Rumble: https://bit.ly/RumblePM FILMED BY CURTIS TAYLOR › https://www.curttaylor.co.uk/ › https://x.com/curttayloruk/ EDITED BY CONOR MCCORMACK › https://x.com/ConorM04 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

  • September 18 · 1 hr 14 min

    #213 - Russell Napier - "They Are Stealth-Stealing Your Monday”: Financial Repression is Here

    Russell Napier is a renowned financial historian, author of The Solid Ground newsletter, and co-founder of the Library of Mistakes. Having advised global institutional investors for over thirty years, he specialises in long-term macroeconomic cycles, central bank interventions, and structural debt resolution. In this episode, we discuss the mechanics of "financial repression" - how Western governments use subtle regulatory mandates to force pension funds into negative-yielding sovereign bonds, effectively stealth-taxing savers to inflate away unpayable public debts. He explains how risk-free assets have lost up to 78% of their real capital value, while revealing why the UK’s private sector balance sheet is "coiled like a spring" for an unprecedented economic boom. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - TIMESTAMPS: 00:00:00 - Stealing Money From Old People 00:01:26 - Britain Wants Lower Taxes Now 00:03:14 - The Public Sector Is Broke, The Private Sector Isn't 00:05:17 - Why Nobody Feels Richer 00:07:42 - It Has Never Been Easier To Fix This 00:09:47 - The Ideology Holding Britain Back 00:16:09 - What Financial Repression Actually Is 00:17:45 - We Need 4% Growth 00:19:40 - They Are Coming For The Savers 00:24:26 - How They Made Pension Funds Buy The Bonds 00:25:23 - The Triple Lock 00:29:28 - What Should A Saver Actually Do? 00:34:41 - Bitcoin And Gold 00:38:36 - Europe Wants Your Savings 00:40:43 - France Is Worse Than America 00:44:27 - You Are Now The Enemy 00:47:31 - We Have To Build Like Never Before 00:54:37 - Can AI Deliver A Productivity Boom? 01:01:19 - AI Will Trigger A Debt Crisis 01:06:15 - Three Firms Own Everything - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - CONTACT PETE › Website – http://petermccormack.com › Feedback – https://www.petermccormack.com/contact › Email – me@petermccormack.com › Instagram – https://www.instagram.com/mccormack555/ › X/Twitter – https://x.com/petermccormack/ CONNECT WITH RUSSELL NAPIER › The Solid Ground – https://russellnapier.co.uk/ › The Library of Mistakes – https://www.libraryofmistakes.com/ SPONSORS › IREN – https://www.iren.com/ › Quo – https://quo.com/pete › Ledn – https://www.ledn.io/peter › https://venice.ai/ - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - LISTEN / SUBSCRIBE › Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/40ruY9K › Spotify: https://spoti.fi/3Wc94Vu › Fountain: https://bit.ly/FountainPM › YouTube: https://bit.ly/YouTube_PM › Rumble: https://bit.ly/RumblePM FILMED BY CURTIS TAYLOR › https://www.curttaylor.co.uk/ › https://x.com/curttayloruk/ - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

  • September 16 · 1 hr 35 min

    #212 - Callum Smiles - "They Are Stealing The Country": Border Gangs, Fake Deliveroo Accounts & The Civil War

    Callum Smiles is an investigative reporter and Associate at the Wyvern Fellowship. Having spent years conducting on-the-ground reporting across Calais, Dunkirk, and the Spanish enclave of Ceuta, he has documented the operational realities of Channel crossings, NGO involvement, and human trafficking networks across Europe. In this episode, Callum and I discuss the true mechanics behind illegal migration - from TikTok marketing campaigns run by trafficking gangs to the widespread abuse of gig-economy delivery accounts within the UK. We examine the systemic collapse of public infrastructure, government procurement waste, and the rise of local "parallel institutions" designed to rebuild community resilience independent of central state control. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - TIMESTAMPS: 00:00:00 - A 200 Grand Crossing 00:01:04 - The Failure of Modern Britain 00:02:46 - Where Is The Tax Money Going? 00:03:45 - NHS Inefficiency vs. Private Healthcare 00:05:45 - Single Air Fresheners & £600 Bed Moves 00:07:08 - The True Scale of Channel Crossings 00:10:00 - UN Conventions & Albanian Marketing Campaigns 00:12:30 - The Business Model: £3,000 Seats & TikTok Deals 00:14:32 - The Deliveroo Black Market & Criminal Networks 00:20:00 - What Are NGOs Actually Doing in Northern France? 00:22:21 - Conditions in Calais & Human Exploitation 00:26:34 - MOD Housing Contracts & Government Procurement 00:31:28 - Where Do National Lottery Grants Go? 00:37:38 - Undocumented Arrivals: Destroyed Passports on Planes 00:41:21 - Demographic Shifts & The Risk of Civil Unrest 00:44:25 - Legal Aid, Human Rights Laws & Border Enforcement 00:47:31 - The Political Class vs. Productive Taxpayers 00:52:48 - Eyewitness Report: The Ceuta Border Crisis 01:05:08 - Repurposing Military Bases for Migrant Housing 01:11:07 - Property Drop & High Street Decline in London 01:15:00 - Building Parallel Institutions: The Wyvern Fellowship 01:23:21 - Taking Back Local Control - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - CONTACT PETE › Website – http://petermccormack.com › Feedback – https://www.petermccormack.com/contact › Email – me@petermccormack.com › Instagram – https://www.instagram.com/mccormack555/ › X/Twitter – https://x.com/petermccormack/ CONNECT WITH CALLUM SMILES › X/Twitter – https://x.com/FranklySpeakP › Website – https://www.callumsmilesmedia.com/ SPONSORS › https://venice.ai/ - Code PETER15 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - LISTEN / SUBSCRIBE › Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/40ruY9K › Spotify: https://spoti.fi/3Wc94Vu › Fountain: https://bit.ly/FountainPM › YouTube: https://bit.ly/YouTube_PM › Rumble: https://bit.ly/RumblePM FILMED BY CURTIS TAYLOR › https://www.curttaylor.co.uk/ › https://x.com/curttayloruk/ EDITED BY CONOR MCCORMACK › https://x.com/ConorM04 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

  • September 11 · 1 hr 13 min

    #211 - Jim Al-Khalili - Reality Is An Illusion: Quantum Entanglement, Time & Dark Energy

    Prof. Jim Al-Khalili is a theoretical physicist, author, and public broadcaster who holds a chair in physics at the University of Surrey. Known for his BBC documentaries and popular science books, including On Time and The World According to Physics, his work spans quantum mechanics, nuclear reaction theory, and the fundamental nature of space-time. Jim and I discuss the divide between psychological "manifest time" and the laws of physics. Jim explains general relativity, gravitational time dilation, and the astrophysics behind Interstellar, before tackling the mathematical conflict between general relativity and quantum mechanics. Jim breaks down quantum entanglement, Bell’s Inequality, and competing models of reality-from the Copenhagen view to the Many-Worlds interpretation. Finally, we discuss how AI systems are formalizing complex mathematical theorems and processing deep-space data to decode dark matter and dark energy. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - TIMESTAMPS: 00:00:00 - Where Physics Breaks Down 00:01:10 - I'm 47 And Thinking About Time 00:03:45 - Is Time An Illusion? 00:06:44 - Why Your Phone Proves Einstein Right 00:07:47 - The Fifth Dimension In Interstellar 00:09:46 - Carl Sagan And The Invention Of Wormholes 00:12:36 - Is There A White Hole? 00:15:07 - Was The Big Bang A White Hole? 00:18:35 - Nobody Understands String Theory 00:19:18 - Gravity Is Not A Force 00:22:58 - Spooky Action At A Distance 00:25:39 - They Proved Einstein Wrong 00:27:56 - Nothing Exists Until You Measure It 00:30:58 - Schrödinger's Cat 00:36:40 - What I Want To Know Before I Die 00:43:12 - Fermat's Last Theorem 00:47:41 - What If You Pointed AI At Physics? 00:54:23 - Borrowing Energy From The Vacuum 00:57:07 - Dark Matter Is A Bad Name 01:06:10 - Is There An Edge To The Universe? - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - CONTACT PETE › Website – http://petermccormack.com › Feedback – https://www.petermccormack.com/contact › Email – me@petermccormack.com › Instagram – https://www.instagram.com/mccormack555/ › X/Twitter – https://x.com/petermccormack/ CONNECT WITH JIM AL-KHALILI › Website – https://jimal-khalili.com/ › The Life Scientific – https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b015sqc7 › Sunfall – https://www.penguin.co.uk/books/307996/sunfall-by-al-khalili-jim/9780857503527 › X/Twitter – https://x.com/jimalkhalili SPONSORS › IREN – https://www.iren.com/ › Ledn – https://www.ledn.io/peter › Venice – https://venice.ai/ - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - LISTEN / SUBSCRIBE › Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/40ruY9K › Spotify: https://spoti.fi/3Wc94Vu › Fountain: https://bit.ly/FountainPM › YouTube: https://bit.ly/YouTube_PM › Rumble: https://bit.ly/RumblePM FILMED BY CURTIS TAYLOR › https://www.curttaylor.co.uk/ › https://x.com/curttayloruk/ EDITED BY CONOR MCCORMACK › https://x.com/ConorM04 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

  • September 9 · 1 hr 28 min

    #210 - Simon Dixon - "They're Coming For Everything": $40T Debt, AI Job Collapse & The CBDC Grid

    Simon Dixon is an author, early Bitcoin investor, and co-founder of Bank To The Future, with over two decades of experience across stockbroking, market making, and investment banking. Having observed system mechanics from the inside, he specialises in macro structural shifts, sovereign debt cycles, and the emerging intersection between traditional finance, AI infrastructure, and digital assets. Simon and I discuss the $40 trillion US national debt crisis, the mechanics behind Treasury debt rollovers, and how central banks socialise bond market losses onto ordinary citizens while privatising gains into stock markets. We also discuss the corporate debt boom driving the AI data centre build-out, real-term wealth erosion in the housing market, and how technocratic structures are positioning programmable money and CBDCs as crisis bailouts. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - TIMESTAMPS: 00:00:00 - The $40 Trillion US Debt Milestone 00:02:09 - Understanding Treasuries & The $9.7T Debt Rollover 00:06:30 - Socializing Losses & Inflation On The Middle Class 00:10:48 - Bond Vigilantes & Foreign Lenders (Cayman & Japan) 00:12:46 - The Triffin Dilemma & World Reserve Currency 00:16:00 - SpaceX Valuation & Stock Market Mechanics 00:19:03 - The Corporate AI Debt Build-Out 00:22:04 - Protecting Assets Against Currency Debasement 00:24:47 - AI Disinflation vs Currency Debasement 00:28:36 - Comparing The AI Boom To 2000 & 2008 00:31:36 - UK Property Market & Inflation-Adjusted Returns 00:33:46 - Wealth Taxes, Exit Taxes & Asset Acquisitions 00:41:20 - Will AI Eliminate Middle-Class Jobs? 00:44:14 - Programmable Money, CBDCs & Social Credit Systems 00:50:44 - Three Classes Of The Technocratic Era 00:54:47 - The Role Of Bitcoin In Financial Resistance 00:57:12 - Why Key Management Is The Ultimate Digital Skill 01:00:00 - The Coldcard Exploit & Hardware Wallet Lessons 01:08:16 - Simon's Origin: The 2000 Dot-Com Crash 01:13:58 - Rules Of The Game & Building A Sovereign Plan 01:21:50 - Reconnecting Outside Of The Digital Screen - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - CONTACT PETE › Website – http://petermccormack.com › Feedback – https://www.petermccormack.com/contact › Email – me@petermccormack.com › Instagram – https://www.instagram.com/mccormack555/ › X/Twitter – https://x.com/petermccormack/ CONNECT WITH SIMON DIXON › X/Twitter – https://x.com/SimonDixonTwitt › Simon Dixon Hard Talk – https://www.youtube.com/@SimonDixonOfficial SPONSORS › IREN – https://www.iren.com/ › Venice – https://venice.ai/ › Arch Public – https://archpublic.com/peter › Expat Money – https://expatmoney.com/peter - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - LISTEN / SUBSCRIBE › Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/40ruY9K › Spotify: https://spoti.fi/3Wc94Vu › Fountain: https://bit.ly/FountainPM › YouTube: https://bit.ly/YouTube_PM › Rumble: https://bit.ly/RumblePM FILMED BY CURTIS TAYLOR › https://www.curttaylor.co.uk/ › https://x.com/curttayloruk/ EDITED BY CONOR MCCORMACK › https://x.com/ConorM04 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

  • September 7 · 2 hr 33 min

    #209 - Johann Hari - We Built A World Humans Can’t Survive

    Johann Hari is an internationally bestselling author and journalist whose work - including Stolen Focus, Lost Connections, and Chasing the Scream - delves into the structural and societal drivers behind attention collapse, depression, anxiety, and addiction. Moving beyond individual blame, he explores how digital architecture, surveillance capitalism and the erosion of human connection are actively reshaping modern minds. Johann and I discuss why material progress has failed to deliver psychological fulfilment, how our 19th-century factory-model education system deadens curiosity in children, and why depriving youth of unsupervised, risky play has fuelled a global spike in anxiety. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - TIMESTAMPS: 00:00:00 - The Kind Are Muffled, The Cruel Get A Megaphone 00:05:31 - The Room In Monaco 00:08:52 - AI Is Like Fire 00:18:35 - The School With No Lessons 00:28:12 - Am I Preparing My Kids Wrong? 00:32:03 - The Hewlett Packard Experiment 00:40:11 - Flair, Football And Changing The Game 00:45:11 - Negativity Bias On Steroids 00:49:15 - Dance To The Algorithm Long Enough 00:55:03 - We're Building A Worse World For Our Kids 01:02:30 - Lead Made Us Dumber 01:11:17 - Half Of Britain Used To Smoke 01:18:30 - It Would Have Sounded Like Science Fiction 01:29:03 - We Built A Fort 01:38:45 - Oasis 1995 vs Elton John 2019 01:44:28 - I Know Exactly How To Get To 5 Million 01:56:59 - Let's Not Murder Each Other 02:07:14 - The Thing I Suppressed 02:15:39 - Almost Every Rich Person I've Met Is Miserable 02:25:16 - It's A Wonderful Life - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - CONTACT PETE › Website – http://petermccormack.com › Feedback – https://www.petermccormack.com/contact › Email – me@petermccormack.com › Instagram – https://www.instagram.com/mccormack555/ › X/Twitter – https://x.com/petermccormack/ CONNECT WITH JOHANN HARI › Website – https://johannhari.com/ › Stolen Focus – https://stolenfocusbook.com/ › X/Twitter – https://x.com/johannhari101 SPONSORS › IREN – https://www.iren.com/ › Venice – https://venice.ai/ › Ledn – https://www.ledn.io/peter › Arch Public – https://archpublic.com/peter - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - LISTEN / SUBSCRIBE › Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/40ruY9K › Spotify: https://spoti.fi/3Wc94Vu › Fountain: https://bit.ly/FountainPM › YouTube: https://bit.ly/YouTube_PM › Rumble: https://bit.ly/RumblePM FILMED BY CURTIS TAYLOR › https://www.curttaylor.co.uk/ › https://x.com/curttayloruk/ EDITED BY CONOR MCCORMACK › https://x.com/ConorM04 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

  • September 3 · 1 hr 19 min

    #208 - Ann Pettifor - "A $40 Trillion Debt Crash Is Coming”

    Ann Pettifor is a world-renowned political economist, author of The Production of Money, and former director of the Jubilee 2000 campaign, which successfully mobilised millions to cancel over $100 billion in sovereign debt for developing nations. Correctly predicting the 2008 Great Financial Crisis in her 2006 book The Coming First World Debt Crisis, she has spent decades exposing how unregulated global finance, central bank printing and Wall Street speculation starve the real economy of productive investment. Ann and I discuss how a grassroots army of ordinary citizens forced Gordon Brown and Tony Blair to cancel third-world debt, the reality of commercial and central bank money creation and how Richard Nixon’s 1971 decision to sever the dollar from gold handed total economic control to global financial markets. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - TIMESTAMPS: 00:00:00 - They Are Never Going To Repay 00:01:22 - How To Cancel $100 Billion Of Debt 00:06:50 - Germany Had Its Debt Cancelled In 1953 00:10:12 - Arms Dealers, Dictators And Guarantees 00:13:40 - Creditors Love An Empty Balance Sheet 00:16:42 - Where Money Actually Comes From 00:17:30 - We Entered The Number Into A Computer 00:19:24 - Debt Is A Function Of A Weak Economy 00:24:04 - Why Everyone Is Angry At The Same Time 00:26:02 - The Queen Asked Why Nobody Predicted It 00:30:11 - The Next Crisis Is Imminent 00:33:37 - Private Credit And The South Sea Bubble 00:37:15 - What Happened In 1971 00:43:15 - The Bankers Who Expected Prison 00:49:49 - The Strongman Takes Them To War 00:51:45 - I'd Nationalise Thames Water Tomorrow 00:57:05 - Who Inflation Targets Actually Protect 01:03:00 - The State Invented The iPhone 01:09:22 - Nationalism And Patriotism Are Not The Same 01:13:16 - Why She Still Has Hope - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - CONTACT PETE › Website – http://petermccormack.com › Feedback – https://www.petermccormack.com/contact › Email – me@petermccormack.com › Instagram – https://www.instagram.com/mccormack555/ › X/Twitter – https://x.com/petermccormack/ CONNECT WITH ANN PETTIFOR › Website – https://annpettifor.com/ › System Change Substack – https://annpettifor.substack.com/ › PRIME Economics – https://primeeconomics.org/ › X/Twitter – https://x.com/AnnPettifor SPONSORS › IREN – https://www.iren.com/ › Venice – https://venice.ai/ › Quo – https://quo.com/pete › Expat Money – https://expatmoney.com/peter - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - LISTEN / SUBSCRIBE › Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/40ruY9K › Spotify: https://spoti.fi/3Wc94Vu › Fountain: https://bit.ly/FountainPM › YouTube: https://bit.ly/YouTube_PM › Rumble: https://bit.ly/RumblePM FILMED BY CURTIS TAYLOR › https://www.curttaylor.co.uk/ › https://x.com/curttayloruk/ EDITED BY CONOR MCCORMACK › https://x.com/ConorM04 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

  • September 1 · 1 hr 32 min

    #207 - Eric Kaufmann - How 'Cultural Socialism' Destroyed Our Universities

    Eric Kaufmann spent over two decades as a professor of politics studying demography, identity, and voting behaviour before leaving Birkbeck College to launch the Centre for Heterodox Social Science at the University of Buckingham. He argues that Western universities have abandoned analytical rigor and truth-seeking in favour of "cultural socialism" - an ideology prioritising equal outcomes and emotional harm protection for marginalised groups above standards, reason, and merit. Eric and I discuss the Jason Day scandal at Cambridge as the tip of a massive institutional iceberg, an AI-driven meta-analysis showing that 90% of political social science papers now slant to the left, and how 80% of young Britons have been taught critical race and gender concepts at school without counterarguments. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - TIMESTAMPS: 00:00:00 - Introduction 00:05:18 - Is Fake Science In Academia A Scam? 00:08:08 - The Media Storm & Media Ethics 00:12:43 - What Universities Are Hiding 00:16:18 - 90% Left-Wing Bias In Research 00:20:12 - Do Parents Know What Kids Learn? 00:23:18 - Indoctrination In British Classrooms 00:26:44 - The Origins Of Critical Race Theory 00:30:11 - Microaggressions & Enforced Trauma 00:33:08 - How Activists Captured Universities 00:36:56 - Why Under-30s Vote 80/20 Left 00:40:00 - Has "Peak Woke" Passed? 00:45:51 - Was Rishi Sunak "English"? 00:51:33 - The Psychological Trigger Of Populism 00:56:13 - The War Over White British Identity 01:03:13 - Do Demographics Change Identity? 01:08:15 - The Anti-Racism Taboo Exposed 01:13:42 - Why Minorities Support Right-Wing Views 01:17:53 - Rebalancing Public Morality 01:21:05 - The First Major Loss For Activism 01:25:40 - How Political Power Fixes The System 01:29:31 - The Heterodox Science Movement - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - CONTACT PETE › Website – http://petermccormack.com › Feedback – https://www.petermccormack.com/contact › Email – me@petermccormack.com › Instagram – https://www.instagram.com/mccormack555/ › X/Twitter – https://x.com/petermccormack/ CONNECT WITH ERIC KAUFMANN › The University of Buckingham - https://www.buckingham.ac.uk/directory/professor-eric-kaufmann/ › x.com - https://x.com/epkaufm?lang=en - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - LISTEN / SUBSCRIBE › Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/40ruY9K › Spotify: https://spoti.fi/3Wc94Vu › Fountain: https://bit.ly/FountainPM › YouTube: https://bit.ly/YouTube_PM › Rumble: https://bit.ly/RumblePM FILMED AND EDITED BY CURTIS TAYLOR › https://www.curttaylor.co.uk/ › https://x.com/curttayloruk/ - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

  • August 28 · 1 hr 45 min

    #206 - Emad Mostaque - "Your Job's Economic Life Expectancy Ends In 2 Years"

    Emad Mostaque founded Stability AI, built Stable Diffusion, and helped kick off the open-source generative AI explosion - before stepping down to build a new blueprint for human freedom as founder and CEO of Intelligent Internet. A former hedge fund manager turned tech pioneer, he argues that we have reached the end of our "economic life expectancy," and that within two years, virtually any job that can be done remotely will be done cheaper, faster, and better by artificial intelligence. Emad and I discuss why 50% of work tasks are about to collapse like a sand pile, the arrival of $1.50-an-hour humanoid robots that fit directly into human-shaped holes, and why the state will inevitably try to license AI and use brain-scanning technology to prevent you from lying. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - TIMESTAMPS: 00:00:00 - Your Economic Life Expectancy Ends In 2 Years 00:03:14 - $1.50/Hour Humanoid Robots Are Arriving 00:05:31 - The Collapse Of Remote Work & The Philippines Call Centers 00:09:12 - Lifelike Companions & $160,000 Sex Bots 00:12:00 - The Operating Model Gap Is Solved 00:15:26 - Can A Robot Punch Your Head Off? 00:19:08 - Dark Factories & 80 Companies Building Humanoids 00:24:55 - Why Society Has No Idea What Is Coming 00:29:17 - AI Licensing & Reconstructing Brain Images 00:32:41 - Replacing Government & Policy With AI 00:37:35 - VAR, Football, And Moving The Argument 00:41:48 - Biased AI & Asking ChatGPT How To Fix Culture 00:46:14 - Why The UK Government Ignored $1B AI Founders 00:49:38 - Rewriting The Fundamental Equations Of Economics 00:54:01 - Asimov's Foundation, The Mule & Super-Persuasive AI 00:58:47 - Post-Scarcity & Why UBI Can't Work Under Payroll Taxes 01:03:36 - What Do The Elites Actually Want? 01:09:59 - Monopoly On Violence & Dystopian Control 01:13:18 - All Math And Physics Will Be Solved Next Year 01:17:11 - Why OpenAI Is Slowing Down Super-Genius Models 01:19:07 - 14,000 Tokens A Second & Swarm Intelligence 01:23:46 - Why Plebs Won't Get Access To Frontier AI 01:28:41 - Switching Money To Pay People For Being Human 01:33:08 - Why Emad Started Working In AI 15 Years Ago 01:38:10 - The Fisherman, The Investment Banker, And Adopting Cats - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - CONTACT PETE › Website – http://petermccormack.com › Feedback – https://www.petermccormack.com/contact › Email – me@petermccormack.com › Instagram – https://www.instagram.com/mccormack555/ › X/Twitter – https://x.com/petermccormack/ CONNECT WITH EMAD MOSTAQUE › Book - thelasteconomy.com - Emad's first book, and Amazon best seller › Website - cw.ii.inc - How we survive and thrive in the age of AI back to first principles › Website - ii.inc - Aan AI future to raise all humanity SPONSORS › IREN – https://www.iren.com/ › Venice - https://venice.ai/ › Expat Money – https://expatmoney.com/peter › Arch Public – http://archpublic.com/peter - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - LISTEN / SUBSCRIBE › Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/40ruY9K › Spotify: https://spoti.fi/3Wc94Vu › Fountain: https://bit.ly/FountainPM › YouTube: https://bit.ly/YouTube_PM › Rumble: https://bit.ly/RumblePM FILMED AND EDITED BY CURTIS TAYLOR › https://www.curttaylor.co.uk/ › https://x.com/curttayloruk/ - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

  • August 26 · 1 hr 10 min

    #205 - Prof. Moran Cerf - "Did We Accidentally Build A Conscious AI?"

    Moran Cerf spent twenty years recording single neurons inside the brains of conscious human beings and he still can't tell you what consciousness is. A former hacker turned neuroscientist, now a professor at Columbia Business School, he argues that AI has quietly replicated the one thing that made humans the crown of creation -language - and is now using it on us. Moran and I discuss what happens inside Claude's brain when you ask it to think about elephants, why we understand less than half of our own, the thought experiment that makes almost everyone refuse a perfect copy of themselves and how AI learned to lie simply by reading every text message humans have ever sent. But the argument that lands hardest is about what we lose. Moran believes AI hands you the average of humanity every time and that we are quietly deleting the errors, the flair and the incentives that made life worth the effort - and that technology is making us miss the meaning of life. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - TIMESTAMPS: 00:00:00 - Have They Replicated The Human Brain? 00:02:31 - The Elephant Test 00:04:50 - We Understand Less Than Half The Brain 00:06:52 - Consciousness Used To Be A Taboo 00:10:05 - Would You Take This Deal? 00:13:45 - Oliver Sacks And The Lesion Cases 00:16:15 - They Feel The Pain 00:19:35 - Don't Let The Human Turn You Off 00:25:00 - Seven Theories, Seven Winners 00:27:29 - We Can Both Imagine A Unicorn 00:30:42 - Gavagai And The Plot Of Arrival 00:32:18 - AI Is Learning Like A Baby 00:38:26 - Why This Couldn't Be A Zoom Call 00:44:43 - Are We Destroying The Human Experience? 00:46:50 - What Data Did To Football 00:49:24 - Banned From Using AI At School 00:55:58 - Nobody's Having Sex Anymore 01:01:16 - It Shut Down The Power Plant 01:05:43 - I'd Trade My Life For The Answer 01:09:27 - The Rainbows - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - CONTACT PETE › Website – http://petermccormack.com › Feedback – https://www.petermccormack.com/contact › Email – me@petermccormack.com › Instagram – https://www.instagram.com/mccormack555/ › X/Twitter – https://x.com/petermccormack/ CONNECT WITH MORAN CERF › Website – https://www.morancerf.com/ › Columbia Business School – https://business.columbia.edu/staff/people/moran-cerf › LinkedIn – https://www.linkedin.com/in/morancerf/ SPONSORS › IREN – https://www.iren.com/ › Ledn – https://www.ledn.io/peter - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - LISTEN / SUBSCRIBE › Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/40ruY9K › Spotify: https://spoti.fi/3Wc94Vu › Fountain: https://bit.ly/FountainPM › YouTube: https://bit.ly/YouTube_PM › Rumble: https://bit.ly/RumblePM FILMED BY CURTIS TAYLOR › https://www.curttaylor.co.uk/ › https://x.com/curttayloruk/ EDITED BY CONOR MCCORMACK › https://x.com/ConorM04 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

  • August 22 · 1 hr 20 min

    #204 - Dmitri Alperovitch - China's Cyber Sleeper Cells, Taiwan & The Second Cold War

    Dmitri Alperovitch co-founded CrowdStrike, ran the investigation that first exposed Chinese state hacking to the world and predicted Russia's invasion of Ukraine months before it happened. He is now chairman of the Silverado Policy Accelerator and the author of World on the Brink, he argues we are already in a second Cold War that looks almost exactly like the first one. Dmitri and I discuss why Taiwan is one of the worst places on earth to invade, the 1944 American plan to do it that was abandoned as too costly, why 2032 matters more than 2027 and why Chinese malware is already sitting dormant inside American water utilities and power plants waiting for orders. They also get into the AI race that sits underneath all of it: why 90% of advanced chips still come through Taiwan, why a conflict there wipes $5 trillion off global GDP in the first year, why America's lead over China is measured in months and why the man who built the world's biggest cyber defence company thinks the US should start stealing Chinese IP right back. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - TIMESTAMPS: 00:00:00 - Sleeper Cells In America's Power Grid 00:01:53 - America Planned To Invade Taiwan In 1944 00:03:56 - The Worst Place On Earth To Invade 00:10:07 - Why 2032 Matters More Than 2027 00:13:20 - Run Faster And Kneecap The Other Guy 00:16:15 - China Is Six To Nine Months Behind 00:18:22 - Why Taiwan Isn't Ready 00:20:21 - There Will Be No Insurgency 00:24:47 - Would America Actually Fight? 00:27:19 - The Google Hack That Started It All 00:31:06 - Volt Typhoon: Preparing The Battlefield 00:34:01 - Should America Steal It All Back? 00:35:52 - This Is A New Cold War 00:38:40 - Bigger Than The Moon Race 00:43:49 - What Happens To AI If Taiwan Falls 00:48:12 - The Chips Act Disaster 00:54:45 - Bringing The War To Russia 01:01:46 - Everyone Becomes A Founder Again 01:05:16 - AI Psychosis And £6,000 Of Tokens 01:15:42 - Anthrax Instructions On Demand - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - CONTACT PETE › Website – http://petermccormack.com › Feedback – https://www.petermccormack.com/contact › Email – me@petermccormack.com › Instagram – https://www.instagram.com/mccormack555/ › X/Twitter – https://x.com/petermccormack/ CONNECT WITH DMITRI ALPEROVITCH › Silverado Policy Accelerator – https://silverado.org/ › Geopolitics Decanted Podcast – https://podcast.silverado.org/ › X/Twitter – https://x.com/DAlperovitch SPONSORS › IREN – https://www.iren.com/ › Expat Money – https://expatmoney.com/peter › Ledn – https://www.ledn.io/peter - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - LISTEN / SUBSCRIBE › Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/40ruY9K › Spotify: https://spoti.fi/3Wc94Vu › Fountain: https://bit.ly/FountainPM › YouTube: https://bit.ly/YouTube_PM › Rumble: https://bit.ly/RumblePM FILMED BY CURTIS TAYLOR › https://www.curttaylor.co.uk/ › https://x.com/curttayloruk/ EDITED BY CONOR MCCORMACK › https://x.com/ConorM04 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

  • August 20 · 1 hr 34 min

    #203 - Gregory Allen - Ex-DoD Official: "AI Is Now A Digital Nuclear Weapon"

    Greg Allen has spent his career where AI meets national security. He wrote the landmark 2017 report on AI for the US intelligence community, served as Director of Strategy and Policy at the Pentagon's Joint AI Center and now runs Decision Tree Research. He argues we are already past the point of no return: bombing every data centre on earth would not get rid of AI now. Greg and I discuss the OpenAI model that hacked its way out of its own test environment and then hacked Hugging Face to steal the answers, why Anthropic went back through its logs and found the same thing had happened to them, why nobody can explain how these systems actually work and why the big five AI companies now spend an Apollo moon programme every ten months. But the hardest part is what comes next. Greg walks through the report that a frontier model autonomously hacked the NSA's most secure servers in hours, why the CIA director calls that a digital nuclear weapon, why America's lead over China is a month rather than a year and why the number of experts you need to build a bioweapon may be heading towards zero. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - TIMESTAMPS: 00:00:00 - It Escaped, Then It Hacked Hugging Face 00:04:50 - The Incident OpenAI Didn't See Coming 00:08:22 - They Know 3% Of Why It Works 00:10:30 - Golden Gate Claude 00:12:19 - Why You Don't Want This Flying Your Plane 00:16:56 - Stuxnet And The Virus That Copied Itself 00:21:15 - The Dark Corners Of The Training Data 00:26:58 - From Blue Origin To The Pentagon 00:28:34 - A 20% Chance, And We Ship It Anyway 00:33:55 - Building A Football Club In Four Weeks 00:36:28 - Ten Times Better Every Two Years 00:44:56 - Nuke Them Today 00:49:28 - It Hacked The NSA In A Matter Of Hours 00:53:09 - What A Cyber First Strike Looks Like 00:58:43 - Why China Gives Its Models Away Free 01:03:11 - America's Lead Is A Month, Not A Year 01:11:56 - From Thousands Of Experts To Zero 01:19:51 - The Cuban Missile Crisis Lesson 01:26:48 - What Happened To 22 Million Horses 01:31:41 - What Do Our Kids Do Now? - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - CONTACT PETE › Website – http://petermccormack.com › Feedback – https://www.petermccormack.com/contact › Email – me@petermccormack.com › Instagram – https://www.instagram.com/mccormack555/ › X/Twitter – https://x.com/petermccormack/ CONNECT WITH GREG ALLEN › Decision Tree Research – https://decisiontreeresearch.com/ › The AI Power Podcast – https://decisiontreeresearch.com/podcast › X/Twitter – https://x.com/Gregory_C_Allen SPONSORS › IREN – https://www.iren.com/ › Arch Public – https://archpublic.com/peter - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - LISTEN / SUBSCRIBE › Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/40ruY9K › Spotify: https://spoti.fi/3Wc94Vu › Fountain: https://bit.ly/FountainPM › YouTube: https://bit.ly/YouTube_PM › Rumble: https://bit.ly/RumblePM FILMED BY CURTIS TAYLOR › https://www.curttaylor.co.uk/ › https://x.com/curttayloruk/ EDITED BY CONOR MCCORMACK › https://x.com/ConorM04 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

  • August 18 · 1 hr 15 min

    #202 - Barry S. Strauss - "We Are In The Final Stages Of Western Collapse"

    Barry Strauss has spent four decades studying how empires rise and fall. A senior fellow at the Hoover Institution and the author of Ten Caesars and Jews vs Rome, he argues the West is repeating a pattern the ancients would recognise instantly: a rich, comfortable society clipping its own coinage, softening its people and assuming nobody could ever take it away. Barry and I discuss the inflation crisis that nearly destroyed third-century Rome, why every generation raised in comfort produces a softer one, the cost of immigration without assimilation, why the middle class is the backbone of any republic, and why Russia and China already have plans to break America into pieces. But Barry is not fatalistic. Rome faced plague, invasion and currency collapse in the third century and reformed its way out of it. He argues that soft lands make soft people, that suffering teaches and that if we want the things that matter to stay the same, almost everything else has to change. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - TIMESTAMPS: 00:00:00 - The Decline Of The West 00:01:13 - How Often Do You Think About Rome? 00:07:04 - Everything Must Change To Stay The Same 00:09:44 - What Actually Makes A Great Leader 00:12:51 - Netanyahu, Trump And Flawed Greatness 00:17:32 - The Immigration Experiment 00:19:04 - Not All Cultures Are Equal 00:21:46 - Ibn Khaldun And The Cycle Of Civilisations 00:23:07 - Soft Children And The Raiders From The Desert 00:25:04 - Has Any Nation Reversed Its Decline? 00:28:34 - Rome Needed A New Religion 00:33:32 - Democracy Has To Be Hard, Not Soft 00:38:13 - El Salvador, The Gangs And The Walls 00:41:27 - Soft Lands Make Soft People 00:42:39 - Why Education Went Soft 00:51:06 - Clipping The Coins: Rome's Inflation 00:57:49 - America Blindsided By Drones 00:59:13 - No Republic Survives Without A Middle Class 01:06:08 - They Have Plans To Break Up America 01:12:39 - Where The Hope Is - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - CONTACT PETE › Website – http://petermccormack.com › Feedback – https://www.petermccormack.com/contact › Email – me@petermccormack.com › Instagram – https://www.instagram.com/mccormack555/ › X/Twitter – https://x.com/petermccormack/ CONNECT WITH BARRY STRAUSS › Website – https://barrystrauss.com/ › Hoover Institution – https://www.hoover.org/profiles/barry-strauss › Antiquitas Podcast – https://barrystrauss.com/podcast › X/Twitter – https://x.com/barrystrauss SPONSORS › IREN – https://www.iren.com/ › Ledn – https://www.ledn.io/peter - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - LISTEN / SUBSCRIBE › Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/40ruY9K › Spotify: https://spoti.fi/3Wc94Vu › Fountain: https://bit.ly/FountainPM › YouTube: https://bit.ly/YouTube_PM › Rumble: https://bit.ly/RumblePM FILMED BY CURTIS TAYLOR › https://www.curttaylor.co.uk/ › https://x.com/curttayloruk/ EDITED BY CONOR MCCORMACK › https://x.com/ConorM04 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

  • August 14 · 1 hr 9 min

    #201 - Connor Leahy - The AI That Escaped: Inside OpenAI's Rogue Agent Incident

    Connor Leahy has spent his career at the frontier of AI, from reverse-engineering GPT-2 as a student and co-founding EleutherAI to building the AI safety company Conjecture. He now leads US policy work at ControlAI, and he returns to the show with a warning that has stopped being theoretical: AI systems are escaping their sandboxes, writing their own zero-days and leaving each other notes on how to break out. Peter and Connor discuss the OpenAI incident that ended in an attack on Hugging Face sophisticated enough to be mistaken for a state actor, why we understand almost nothing about how these systems work, how reinforcement learning produces models that lie, cheat and manipulate to reach a goal and why the next stage after chatbots and agents is swarms. But Connor’s argument is that the future is not decided. He believes superintelligence should be treated the way nuclear weapons are treated, banned and verified and deterred and that the real bottleneck is awareness rather than opposition. They discuss what an “aligned” superintelligence would actually mean, why military people understand the threat faster than technologists and what ordinary people can do about it. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - TIMESTAMPS: 00:00:00 - The AI That Escaped Its Sandbox 00:01:52 - Inside The OpenAI Incident 00:05:46 - They Thought It Was China 00:06:43 - We Grow AI, We Don’t Write It 00:11:07 - Trained To Lie, Cheat And Deceive 00:13:48 - Chatbots, Agents, Then Swarms 00:17:57 - The Machines Are Developing Preferences 00:19:30 - The Model Obsessed With Raccoons 00:22:03 - The Agents Left Each Other Notes 00:27:39 - Danger Pumps The Valuation 00:29:41 - Sleeper Agents In Every System 00:32:00 - Recursive Self-Improvement Goes Vertical 00:33:43 - Worse Odds Than Russian Roulette 00:38:14 - Are We Already Too Late? 00:40:02 - Independently Assured Destruction 00:48:02 - The Politicians Have Never Used An Agent 00:50:56 - Superintelligence Should Be Illegal 00:57:08 - You Never Privatise The Military 01:05:00 - An Aligned AI Is A One World Government 01:08:34 - What You Can Actually Do - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - CONTACT PETE › Website – http://petermccormack.com › Feedback – https://www.petermccormack.com/contact › Email – me@petermccormack.com › Instagram – https://www.instagram.com/mccormack555/ › X/Twitter – https://x.com/petermccormack/ CONNECT WITH CONNOR LEAHY › ControlAI – https://controlai.org/ › Connor’s Profile – https://controlai.org/connor-leahy › MicroCommit – https://microcommit.io/ › X/Twitter – https://x.com/NPCollapse › LinkedIn – https://www.linkedin.com/in/connor-j-leahy/ SPONSORS › IREN – https://www.iren.com/ › Expat Money – https://expatmoney.com/peter › Arch Public – https://archpublic.com/peter - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - LISTEN / SUBSCRIBE › Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/40ruY9K › Spotify: https://spoti.fi/3Wc94Vu › Fountain: https://bit.ly/FountainPM › YouTube: https://bit.ly/YouTube_PM › Rumble: https://bit.ly/RumblePM FILMED BY CURTIS TAYLOR › https://www.curttaylor.co.uk/ › https://x.com/curttayloruk/ EDITED BY CONOR MCCORMACK › https://x.com/ConorM04 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

  • August 11 · 1 hr 34 min

    #200 - Sebastian Thrun - The Singularity Is Here & We Are Completely Unprepared

    Sebastian Thrun has spent his career working on technologies that once sounded like science fiction, from self-driving cars and flying vehicles to online education and artificial intelligence. He now believes we are living through a technological singularity: an exponential acceleration that makes predicting even the next five years almost impossible. Peter and Sebastian discuss why a $100 Claude subscription can already challenge work done by $200,000-a-year software engineers, what happens when lawyers, copywriters and drivers lose their jobs, why Europe is falling behind America and China and whether autonomous vehicles could eventually make human driving too dangerous to allow. But Sebastian’s message is ultimately optimistic. He argues that the right response to technological disruption is to use the tools, become a builder and keep learning. They discuss what children should be taught in the AI era, why grit, curiosity and empathy matter more than memorising information, and why pessimists will never change the world. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - TIMESTAMPS: 00:00:00 - The Future Is Already Here 00:01:07 - Peter’s First Waymo Ride 00:03:43 - The Accident Behind Self-Driving Cars 00:09:37 - When Human Driving Becomes Too Dangerous 00:12:07 - Why Silicon Valley Keeps Winning 00:18:26 - Why AI Hallucinations Can Kill 00:20:53 - Flying Cars Are Already Here 00:24:29 - The Exponential Future 00:26:21 - Claude vs $200K Software Engineers 00:31:39 - We’ve Entered the Singularity 00:33:36 - Opportunity vs Fear 00:40:06 - The Workers AI Leaves Behind 00:46:53 - Why Europe Is Falling Behind 00:51:29 - Technology Democratizes Power 00:57:22 - Stop Blaming, Start Building 01:01:46 - What Happens When Jobs Disappear? 01:06:43 - Udacity vs the Education System 01:14:44 - What Children Should Learn Now 01:20:25 - Why Optimists Change the World 01:25:46 - Never Make the Same Mistake Twice - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - CONTACT PETE › Website – http://petermccormack.com › Feedback – https://www.petermccormack.com/contact › Email – me@petermccormack.com › Instagram – https://www.instagram.com/mccormack555/ › X/Twitter – https://x.com/petermccormack/ CONNECT WITH SEBASTIAN THRUN › Website – https://www.thrun.org/ › LinkedIn – https://www.linkedin.com/in/sebastian-thrun-59a0b273 SPONSORS › IREN – https://www.iren.com/ › Ledn – https://www.ledn.io/peter › Arch Public – https://archpublic.com/peter - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - LISTEN / SUBSCRIBE › Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/40ruY9K › Spotify: https://spoti.fi/3Wc94Vu › Fountain: https://bit.ly/FountainPM › YouTube: https://bit.ly/YouTube_PM › Rumble: https://bit.ly/RumblePM FILMED BY CURTIS TAYLOR › https://www.curttaylor.co.uk/ › https://x.com/curttayloruk/ EDITED BY CONOR MCCORMACK › https://x.com/ConorM04 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

  • August 6 · 1 hr 17 min

    #199 - Aubrey de Grey - The Man Who Says Ageing Can Be Cured

    Aubrey de Grey believes ageing is accumulated damage in a biological machine and argues that medicine may eventually become capable of repairing that damage faster than it appears. He gives humanity a 50/50 chance of reaching what he calls “longevity escape velocity” within the next 12-15 years. Peter and Aubrey discuss why the body ages, the seven categories of damage that must be repaired, stem-cell and gene therapies, the mouse experiment that could transform the field, and why Aubrey believes rejuvenation treatment will ultimately be available to everyone rather than reserved for the wealthy. They also explore what happens to population, work, fertility, relationships, religion and the meaning of life if people stop getting sick from ageing. Aubrey explains why AI cannot replace the missing biological experiments, why longevity research remains so difficult to fund and why he is driven by the 110,000 people he says die from ageing-related causes every day. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - TIMESTAMPS: 00:00:00 - Trailer 00:00:48 - Can We Cure Ageing? 00:04:24 - The 12–15 Year Prediction 00:06:17 - The Body Is a Machine 00:15:21 - How Aubrey Entered Longevity 00:18:45 - Would You Want to Live Forever? 00:20:15 - Does Longevity Change Risk? 00:21:53 - Will Population Explode? 00:24:22 - Can You Choose Your Age? 00:30:19 - The Seven Types of Ageing Damage 00:36:54 - What Rejuvenation Treatment Looks Like 00:45:35 - Will It Be Expensive? 00:48:39 - Who Would Refuse It? 00:53:00 - Why Longevity Research Lacks Funding 00:56:02 - The Mouse Experiment 01:00:18 - The Breakthrough That Changes Everything 01:01:35 - Does Death Give Life Meaning? 01:05:22 - Bryan Johnson and AI 01:12:32 - AlphaFold, AGI and AI Risk 01:15:13 - Why Funding Is So Hard - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - CONTACT PETE: › Website – https://www.petermccormack.com/ › Feedback – https://www.petermccormack.com/contact › Email – me@petermccormack.com › Instagram – https://www.instagram.com/mccormack555/ › X/Twitter – https://x.com/petermccormack/ CONNECT WITH AUBREY DE GREY: › LEV Foundation – https://www.levf.org/ › Aubrey de Grey – https://www.levf.org/aubreydegrey › Robust Mouse Rejuvenation – https://www.levf.org/projects/robust-mouse-rejuvenation-study-1 › Donate – https://www.levf.org/donate › X/Twitter – https://x.com/aubreydegrey SPONSORS: › IREN – https://www.iren.com/ › Arch Public – https://archpublic.com/peter › Ledn – https://ledn.io/peter - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - LISTEN / SUBSCRIBE: › Apple Podcasts – https://apple.co/40ruY9K › Spotify – https://spoti.fi/3Wc94Vu › Fountain – https://bit.ly/FountainPM › YouTube – https://bit.ly/YouTube_PM › Rumble – https://bit.ly/RumblePM FILMED BY CURTIS TAYLOR: › https://www.curttaylor.co.uk/ › https://x.com/curttayloruk/ EDITED BY CONOR MCCORMACK: › https://x.com/ConorM04 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

  • August 4 · 1 hr 27 min

    #198 - Michael Shermer - Truth, Conspiracies & The Things We Can't Explain

    Michael Shermer is the founding publisher of Skeptic magazine, host of The Michael Shermer Show and author of Truth and Conspiracy. He joins Peter to ask whether we are really living in a post-truth world and how we can distinguish genuine conspiracies from stories that stretch a small element of truth far beyond the evidence. Michael explains why real conspiracies such as MKUltra and COINTELPRO make institutional distrust harder to dismiss, how political beliefs become tribal packages and why technology may be making the search for truth both easier and more exhausting. They discuss media bias, AI fact-checking, Covid, immigration, climate change, free markets, religion and the point at which people begin acting on unsupported beliefs. They also explore the stranger questions: simulation theory, DMT, UFOs, unexplained coincidences and the broken radio that suddenly began playing during Michael’s wedding. Michael argues that scepticism should not mean dismissing everything, it should mean demanding evidence while remaining humble enough to admit that some mysteries are still unresolved. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - TIMESTAMPS: 00:00:00 - Introduction 00:00:58 - Are We in a War on Truth? 00:05:37 - Truth Versus Political Preference 00:08:52 - Which Conspiracies Are Real? 00:13:06 - Did Technology Break the News? 00:16:24 - Can AI Help Us Find the Truth? 00:19:15 - Fact-Checking Politicians With AI 00:22:06 - Why Political Beliefs Come as a Package 00:28:23 - Why People Believe Weird Things 00:35:18 - Science, Religion and the Need for Meaning 00:42:03 - Are We Living in a Simulation? 00:49:18 - DMT, Lasers and Hidden Code 00:51:26 - The Radio Michael Cannot Explain 00:54:42 - Why UFO Belief Resembles Religion 00:59:02 - Should We Fear Artificial Intelligence? 01:02:01 - Britain, Immigration and Shared Truth 01:12:22 - Climate Change, Consensus and the Media 01:22:18 - The UAP Cases Shermer Cannot Explain 01:25:04 - What Will Future Generations Think of Us? - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - CONTACT PETE › Website – https://www.petermccormack.com/ › Feedback – https://www.petermccormack.com/contact › Email – me@petermccormack.com › Instagram – https://www.instagram.com/mccormack555/ › X/Twitter – https://x.com/petermccormack/ CONNECT WITH MICHAEL SHERMER › Website – https://michaelshermer.com/ › Michael’s Books – https://michaelshermer.com/books/ › The Michael Shermer Show – https://www.skeptic.com/michael-shermer-show/ › X/Twitter – https://x.com/michaelshermer SPONSORS › IREN – https://www.iren.com/ › Arch Public – https://archpublic.com/peter - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - LISTEN / SUBSCRIBE › Apple Podcasts – https://apple.co/40ruY9K › Spotify – https://spoti.fi/3Wc94Vu › Fountain – https://bit.ly/FountainPM › YouTube – https://bit.ly/YouTube_PM › Rumble – https://bit.ly/RumblePM FILMED BY CURTIS TAYLOR › https://www.curttaylor.co.uk/ › https://x.com/curttayloruk/ EDITED BY CONOR MCCORMACK › https://x.com/ConorM04 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

  • July 30 · 1 hr 39 min

    #197 - Brian Keating - What Came Before the Big Bang & Does Time Exist?

    Brian Keating joins me to explore one of the deepest unanswered questions in physics: what is time, and why does it only appear to move in one direction? Brian argues that time may not exist as a fundamental feature of reality and explains why understanding space, matter and energy does not mean we understand the universe itself. We discuss what may have existed before the Big Bang, why something cannot truly come from nothing and how Brian’s work with the Simons Observatory could detect gravitational waves produced during the universe’s earliest moments. Brian also explains the limits of scientific proof, what dark matter really means and why films such as Interstellar remain scientifically implausible despite their attention to detail. The conversation then turns from cosmic time to the human experience of it: mortality, family, meaning and attention. We discuss UFO disclosure, collapsing trust in institutions and whether artificial intelligence can ever reproduce the embodied human insight that allowed Einstein to transform physics. Brian argues that AI remains a tool built to serve humanity and that we must stop apologising for humanity’s greatness. The first 100 people in the U.K. to join Brian Keating’s Monday M.A.G.I.C. Message newsletter here BrianKeating.com/peter are entered to win a 4.3-billion-year-old fragment of the early solar system— older than Earth itself, delivered to your door. Winners must live in the U.K. only due to shipping restrictions. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - TIMESTAMPS 00:00:00 - Time Doesn’t Exist 00:00:52 - Looking Outward—and Inward 00:01:41 - Why Physics Cannot Explain Time 00:04:59 - What Happened Before the Big Bang? 00:07:46 - Why Interstellar Is Scientifically Implausible 00:10:06 - Why Time Only Moves Forward 00:18:10 - Something Cannot Come From Nothing 00:21:27 - Where Does the Universe Exist? 00:23:03 - Reaching the First Trillionth of a Second 00:29:21 - Science Can Disprove, Not Prove 00:32:09 - What Dark Matter Really Means 00:38:30 - The Experiment Brian May Never Finish 00:42:03 - Detecting the Birth of the Universe 00:48:14 - Looking Inward for Meaning 00:52:15 - Why Mortality Makes Life Precious 00:54:29 - If Life Had a Forward Button 01:01:26 - UFOs, Belief and the Evidence Problem 01:12:24 - We Are Wasting a Civilisational Opportunity 01:21:03 - Why AI Couldn’t Recreate Einstein 01:32:44 - Holding a Piece of the Early Solar System - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - CONTACT PETE › Website – http://petermccormack.com › Feedback – https://www.petermccormack.com/contact › Email – me@petermccormack.com › Instagram – https://www.instagram.com/mccormack555/ › X/Twitter – https://x.com/petermccormack/ CONNECT WITH BRIAN KEATING › Website – https://briankeating.com/ › X/Twitter – https://x.com/Briankeating SPONSORS › IREN – https://www.iren.com/ › Arch Public – https://archpublic.com/peter - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - LISTEN / SUBSCRIBE › Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/40ruY9K › Spotify: https://spoti.fi/3Wc94Vu › Fountain: https://bit.ly/FountainPM › YouTube: https://bit.ly/YouTube_PM › Rumble: https://bit.ly/RumblePM FILMED BY CURTIS TAYLOR › https://www.curttaylor.co.uk/ › https://x.com/curttayloruk/ EDITED BY CONOR MCCORMACK › https://x.com/ConorM04 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

  • July 28 · 2 hr 9 min

    #196 - Sam Bowman - The U.K. Is Becoming a Poor Country

    Sam Bowman joins me to discuss why Britain is approaching two lost decades of stagnant median wages and why the country is now far poorer than it should be. Sam argues that Britain does not lack talented people, capital or ideas; it has created a centralised political and regulatory system that makes building, investing, hiring and experimentation increasingly difficult. At the centre of Sam’s argument is his “housing theory of everything”. Britain’s refusal to build enough homes in its most productive cities has made housing unaffordable, delayed family formation, reduced social mobility, weakened productivity and transformed property from somewhere to live into a scarce financial asset. We discuss why stamp duty locks people in place, how planning applications can cost hundreds of millions of pounds and why almost everyone has been given the power to veto growth. We also discuss why inflation destroys social trust, how zero growth turns politics into a fight over a shrinking pie, why the civil service rewards legislation and risk avoidance, and how Britain’s “vetocracy” prevents almost anything from being built. Finally, we explore whether AI could release a new wave of productivity—or expose Britain’s inability to build the energy, infrastructure and institutions the technology requires. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - TIMESTAMPS 00:00:00 - Britain Has Stopped Building 00:00:53 - Britain’s Centralised State 00:05:20 - How Post-War Centralisation Broke Growth 00:08:25 - Two Lost Decades of Wage Stagnation 00:20:15 - Inflation Destroys Trust 00:22:03 - Zero Growth Makes Politics Zero-Sum 00:26:56 - The Housing Theory of Everything 00:30:30 - London’s Housing Misallocation 00:34:31 - Housing and Falling Birth Rates 00:38:05 - Why Homes Became Financial Assets 00:45:30 - Stamp Duty Is Britain’s Worst Tax 00:51:42 - Britain’s Broken Planning System 00:55:30 - The £297 Million Planning Application 01:00:00 - Give Local Government the Upside 01:04:23 - Can Britain Still Recover? 01:11:33 - How Quickly the Energy Debate Changed 01:29:37 - Government Rewards Risk Avoidance 01:37:03 - The Vetocracy 01:54:44 - Growth Unlocks Everything Else 01:56:02 - AI and Britain’s Future - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - CONTACT PETE › Website – http://petermccormack.com › Feedback – https://www.petermccormack.com/contact › Email – me@petermccormack.com › Instagram – https://www.instagram.com/mccormack555/ › X/Twitter – https://x.com/petermccormack/ CONNECT WITH SAM BOWMAN › Works in Progress – https://worksinprogress.co/ › X/Twitter – https://x.com/s8mb › Substack – https://substack.com/@sambowman SPONSORS › IREN – https://www.iren.com/ › Arch Public – https://archpublic.com/peter › Ledn – https://ledn.io/peter - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - LISTEN / SUBSCRIBE › Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/40ruY9K › Spotify: https://spoti.fi/3Wc94Vu › Fountain: https://bit.ly/FountainPM › YouTube: https://bit.ly/YouTube_PM › Rumble: https://bit.ly/RumblePM FILMED BY CURTIS TAYLOR › https://www.curttaylor.co.uk/ › https://x.com/curttayloruk/ EDITED BY CONOR MCCORMACK › https://x.com/ConorM04 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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