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Riley Waggaman on Russian Technocracy | Jerm Warfare · UK Column Radio

• 0:30
  Speaker 1: My name is Jim. This is gim Warfare The Battle
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: of Ideas. Riley Wagman aka Edwards Love Squat. Thank you
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: for joining me in the trenches.
• 0:40
  Speaker 2: Thanks for having me on.
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: Yes, we were just saying a moment ago. It's taken
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: quite a long time to get this recording, going months
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: in the making.
• 0:52
  Speaker 2: Yeah, just a scheduling issue. Yeah, you reached out to me.
• 0:55
  Speaker 2: I guess it was what in October maybe or November.
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: Well, it was when you were going through that Russian
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: thing which I want to chet you about.
• 1:03
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it was. It was after I had left Russia.
• 1:05
  Speaker 2: But basically I was living in Egypt and I had
• 1:07
  Speaker 2: very very poor internet, so I didn't want to subject
• 1:11
  Speaker 2: you to that.
• 1:12
  Speaker 1: So yeah, I like the fact that you were on
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: my continent for a little bit.
• 1:18
  Speaker 2: I was. I was, although I never I never got
• 1:20
  Speaker 2: so south. It was you know what I loved Egypt?
• 1:24
  Speaker 2: It was it was, it was life changing. I hated,
• 1:27
  Speaker 2: I hated. I didn't really like you know, I did
• 1:29
  Speaker 2: the normal tourist stuff and it was great to see
• 1:31
  Speaker 2: the temples, but actually what I really loved was Alexandria,
• 1:33
  Speaker 2: which is not really often visited by tourists, but it
• 1:36
  Speaker 2: was an amazing city, and I would love to go back,
• 1:39
  Speaker 2: and maybe even I don't know, like live part time there.
• 1:42
  Speaker 2: Maybe I was, I was, I really fell in love
• 1:45
  Speaker 2: with Alexandria.
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: Yeah, Egypt is a strange country in terms of Africa.
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: I mean, it's it's geographically part of Africa, but it's
• 1:56
  Speaker 1: not really Africa.
• 1:58
  Speaker 2: Fair enough, fair enough. Yeah, incredible country though, and I
• 2:02
  Speaker 2: think you talk about it. Yeah. I was just going
• 2:05
  Speaker 2: to say, if you're if you smoke shisha, it's like
• 2:07
  Speaker 2: the best country in the world.
• 2:09
  Speaker 1: So now I was gonna say, if you talk about Africa,
• 2:13
  Speaker 1: I think for the most part you kind of think
• 2:15
  Speaker 1: about Sub Saharan Africa. You don't really think about the
• 2:18
  Speaker 1: the the northern region.
• 2:21
  Speaker 2: Sure.
• 2:21
  Speaker 1: Yeah, but nonetheless it's still Africa. So congratulations on being
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: part of the continent for a little bit. That's more
• 2:28
  Speaker 1: than what most Americans can say. Yeah, the next time around,
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: next time around, head head quite fast south and I
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: might might end up meeting and meeting up with you.
• 2:40
  Speaker 2: Yeah, sure, why not.
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: You've got a very a very very interesting story. First
• 2:47
  Speaker 1: and foremost, let's just talk about your background and your
• 2:50
  Speaker 1: connection to Russia.
• 2:53
  Speaker 2: Yeah, sure, I lived in Russia. Was actually, by the
• 2:57
  Speaker 2: time I left, I was on and off for a
• 3:00
  Speaker 2: little more than a decade. I first arrived in I
• 3:03
  Speaker 2: always get the exact date wrong, but it was basically
• 3:06
  Speaker 2: six to eight months before before the Edward Snowden thing,
• 3:10
  Speaker 2: and then shortly after that my don in Ukraine. And
• 3:13
  Speaker 2: that's sort of important because ironically had come to Russia
• 3:16
  Speaker 2: after I worked very briefly in media in Washington, d C.
• 3:20
  Speaker 2: I absolutely hated it. I said, I'm never returning to
• 3:24
  Speaker 2: this horrible, cynical, disgusting industry. I did what many young
• 3:29
  Speaker 2: Americans do when they don't know what to do with
• 3:31
  Speaker 2: their lives, which is I just packed my bags and
• 3:33
  Speaker 2: moved abroad to teach English. At the time, I worked
• 3:36
  Speaker 2: a bit in Czechia, the Czech Republic, and after doing
• 3:39
  Speaker 2: that for a little bit, I said, I gotta do
• 3:41
  Speaker 2: something with my life. I got it. I got to
• 3:42
  Speaker 2: mix it up. I ended up getting another teaching job,
• 3:45
  Speaker 2: this one in bash Gortustan of bush Gortustan, which is
• 3:49
  Speaker 2: part of the Russian Federation capital UFA. I actually lived
• 3:54
  Speaker 2: in a relatively small town that was actually closer to
• 3:56
  Speaker 2: Tatar stand so on the other side of the Republic,
• 4:00
  Speaker 2: and that was when it was so funny, because when
• 4:02
  Speaker 2: I got there, I was like, I'm done with politics.
• 4:05
  Speaker 2: I'm just sitting in bush gorgous dan chill on. And
• 4:07
  Speaker 2: that didn't turn out that way because apparently, you know,
• 4:11
  Speaker 2: things really popped off in Russia. It's hard to remember,
• 4:13
  Speaker 2: but back then twenty twelve, Russia really wasn't on. It
• 4:17
  Speaker 2: wasn't headline making news at the time, not really nowhere
• 4:21
  Speaker 2: going We're going to totally from universe now, And so
• 4:26
  Speaker 2: things really started popping off, the My Dawn crisis and
• 4:31
  Speaker 2: then reunific, the Crimean reunification, of course, worly after and
• 4:35
  Speaker 2: I decided, you know, I guess I should go to
• 4:37
  Speaker 2: Moscow and start writing again because I'm in Russia and
• 4:42
  Speaker 2: I feel like Russia's not getting a fair shake, you know,
• 4:46
  Speaker 2: from just from the stuff that I was reading. So
• 4:48
  Speaker 2: I did move to Russia. I worked for several outlets
• 4:51
  Speaker 2: which I think you can safely say expoused the sort
• 4:55
  Speaker 2: of I mean, in reality, a sort of more Kremlin
• 4:58
  Speaker 2: sympathetic narrative. At first for a little startup site called
• 5:02
  Speaker 2: Russia Insider, which was run by some expats who had
• 5:05
  Speaker 2: been living in Russia. Then I moved on to PRESTV,
• 5:08
  Speaker 2: which is actually Iranian state news. I was with Moscow
• 5:10
  Speaker 2: Correspondent for about a year and then I got a
• 5:13
  Speaker 2: job at ART working for the website, and I did
• 5:16
  Speaker 2: that for several years. Yeah, and then when COVID came around, unfortunately,
• 5:20
  Speaker 2: I had to accept that many of my preconceived notions
• 5:25
  Speaker 2: about Russia, or basically, I guess the way that I
• 5:27
  Speaker 2: approached Russia, which was I really really hate the West
• 5:31
  Speaker 2: and NATO, and so I'm willing to you know, share
• 5:35
  Speaker 2: the Russian so called Russian perspective with Westerners to show
• 5:39
  Speaker 2: there are other viewpoints on these topics, which is still
• 5:43
  Speaker 2: true today. The problem, of course, is that now that
• 5:45
  Speaker 2: I was living in Russia and I was experiencing what
• 5:47
  Speaker 2: the Russian garment was doing to its own people. Unfortunately,
• 5:50
  Speaker 2: during COVID it was exactly the same as you know,
• 5:54
  Speaker 2: the way that Western governments were treating Westerners. Unfortunately, though
• 5:58
  Speaker 2: working for ART, I was not allowed to share this
• 6:00
  Speaker 2: information with anyone. And actually it was very odd because
• 6:04
  Speaker 2: I would approach people in you know, sort of big
• 6:09
  Speaker 2: talking heads who are apparently Russia experts, and uh, yeah,
• 6:13
  Speaker 2: no really wanted to talk about it. We're admit the
• 6:15
  Speaker 2: very very serious anti human policies that were being implemented
• 6:20
  Speaker 2: in Russia just as they were being implemented around the world.
• 6:24
  Speaker 2: So I decided that I just couldn't continue working for
• 6:27
  Speaker 2: our tea. I left, and incredibly that that was in
• 6:30
  Speaker 2: the summer of twenty twenty one, and actually the situation
• 6:35
  Speaker 2: just got worse. So by autumn of twenty twenty one,
• 6:39
  Speaker 2: that's when actually the whole country was in They were
• 6:43
  Speaker 2: imposing QR codes, you know, compulsory sort of QR code,
• 6:47
  Speaker 2: health passes, CR tests again into hospitals. There was mandatory
• 6:52
  Speaker 2: vaccination or some form of it in every single region
• 6:55
  Speaker 2: of Russia. And so then I was like, well, I
• 6:57
  Speaker 2: guess it's time to really start writing about this, and
• 7:00
  Speaker 2: so I started a blogging substack where I focused primarily
• 7:04
  Speaker 2: on COVID related stuff. And then of course the SMO
• 7:07
  Speaker 2: comes and that's when things got really wild, because we
• 7:10
  Speaker 2: had a situation where Russia had taken a series of
• 7:14
  Speaker 2: legitimate grievances and had taken action, which unfortunately, I think
• 7:18
  Speaker 2: we see now now that we're in the fifth year
• 7:20
  Speaker 2: of this war that the last four years heavenly exacerbated
• 7:27
  Speaker 2: all the problems that existed prior to the launch of
• 7:30
  Speaker 2: this military conflict, a very tragic military conflict that's killed
• 7:34
  Speaker 2: an enormous amount of brotherly Slavs, and so I started
• 7:37
  Speaker 2: covering that a little bit. But really the big change
• 7:40
  Speaker 2: was after the SMO started. I moved to a little
• 7:45
  Speaker 2: village in Novgorod Oblast, which is between Moscow and Saint
• 7:49
  Speaker 2: Petersburg with my partner. We just set up a little farm.
• 7:53
  Speaker 2: We had cows and goats and chickens. I think that
• 7:57
  Speaker 2: my readers enjoyed my periodic updates on just very very
• 8:02
  Speaker 2: rural Russian life. I mean, we didn't have, for example,
• 8:05
  Speaker 2: running water, so when we wanted to take a bath,
• 8:08
  Speaker 2: we start a banya, you know, you light the big
• 8:10
  Speaker 2: bonya you know pot, and then you wait for it
• 8:13
  Speaker 2: to heat up, and you sit in the bonnie and
• 8:15
  Speaker 2: steam and beat each other with the with the branches.
• 8:18
  Speaker 2: I mean, it was wild, it was. That was really
• 8:20
  Speaker 2: a life changing experience and one that I feel so
• 8:23
  Speaker 2: privileged to have experienced, because it was a life that
• 8:26
  Speaker 2: I hope that I'll be able to live again. But
• 8:27
  Speaker 2: I don't know if I'll ever be able to live
• 8:29
  Speaker 2: such a such a simple, pure, difficult and dirty life,
• 8:33
  Speaker 2: but it was wonderful. Unfortunately, more recently, just to wrap
• 8:36
  Speaker 2: up this very long summary, last summer wait now, oh yeah, yeah,
• 8:41
  Speaker 2: So in of last last July, I had gone to
• 8:45
  Speaker 2: the United States with my partner and my son for
• 8:47
  Speaker 2: my son's birthday. We come back to Russia. My son
• 8:50
  Speaker 2: and I enter Russia without a problem. My partner comes
• 8:53
  Speaker 2: back a few days later. When she lands in Moscow,
• 8:56
  Speaker 2: they pull her aside for additional questioning. She is in tear,
• 9:00
  Speaker 2: irrigated for several hours. They revoke her entry stamp and
• 9:05
  Speaker 2: tell her that she's deported. She doesn't know why. Her
• 9:09
  Speaker 2: name's Katya, is that right, Well, that's that's her alias
• 9:12
  Speaker 2: that she goes by. But actually she's an American who
• 9:15
  Speaker 2: had lived in Russia basically her entire adult life, worked
• 9:18
  Speaker 2: as a professional translator. Yeah. Anyway, yeah, long story short,
• 9:23
  Speaker 2: she was deported from Russia even though she had through
• 9:27
  Speaker 2: a previous marriage, she had a she has a daughter
• 9:30
  Speaker 2: who lives in Russia, is a Russian citizen. Again, had
• 9:33
  Speaker 2: lived her whole life, worked in Russia, primarily in Saint Petersburg.
• 9:37
  Speaker 2: And yeah, it was just all gone in an instant,
• 9:41
  Speaker 2: and unfortunately it's basically because they went through her telegram
• 9:45
  Speaker 2: idental like she didn't like the things that she was saying,
• 9:47
  Speaker 2: like with me specifically, I guess that she had committed
• 9:50
  Speaker 2: too many thought crimes and uh, it's really sad. And
• 9:53
  Speaker 2: we hired a lawyer after and to get some answers,
• 9:57
  Speaker 2: and we'd never really got any answers that to the
• 9:59
  Speaker 2: specific reasons for this twenty five year ban. But we
• 10:02
  Speaker 2: did end up finding out that she had been banned
• 10:05
  Speaker 2: because before that, when she was deported, we had no
• 10:07
  Speaker 2: idea like can she return to Russia? What happened? Why
• 10:10
  Speaker 2: did this happen? And so now we're in an appeals process.
• 10:13
  Speaker 2: We have the same lawyer. He's trying to get more
• 10:16
  Speaker 2: answers and try to, you know, challenge this I think
• 10:19
  Speaker 2: rather remarkable decision. But anyway, again, very wide story short.
• 10:23
  Speaker 2: I lived in Russia for more than a decade. We
• 10:26
  Speaker 2: worked for Russian state media. I think, I guess that
• 10:29
  Speaker 2: I'm most well known for writing, and I think and
• 10:32
  Speaker 2: quite I mean, I would say, compelling detail about the
• 10:38
  Speaker 2: horrible effects of Russia's COVID policies, which by the way,
• 10:41
  Speaker 2: are of course identical anywhere you go, essentially and and
• 10:47
  Speaker 2: I've had this village experience, which was incredible. Again, I
• 10:51
  Speaker 2: feel so privileged I was able to live in that
• 10:54
  Speaker 2: beautiful village, and now I'm searching for a new home,
• 10:57
  Speaker 2: hopefully new farm. So that's where I am now.
• 11:01
  Speaker 1: You started off by saying that you dislike the waste.
• 11:06
  Speaker 2: Why Basically, as an American, since the day I was born,
• 11:11
  Speaker 2: the United States has been bombing someone or you know,
• 11:14
  Speaker 2: color revolution color revolutionizing someone, or you know, it's it's
• 11:20
  Speaker 2: a system that, of course spends a huge amount of
• 11:24
  Speaker 2: money on destroying things. And you know, you have a
• 11:28
  Speaker 2: like Russia, you have a country that's extremely wealthy, but
• 11:32
  Speaker 2: you know, like a twenty percent child poverty rate, right,
• 11:35
  Speaker 2: or you know, I mean the healthcare situation in United
• 11:38
  Speaker 2: States is absolutely insane. You know, when I went back briefly,
• 11:40
  Speaker 2: I'm not even in the United States anymore. When I
• 11:43
  Speaker 2: went back to the United States to visit family after
• 11:45
  Speaker 2: all this happened, I just couldn't wrap my head around
• 11:48
  Speaker 2: how anyone could live in a country where if you
• 11:51
  Speaker 2: get sick, you're basically financially ruined. You know, it's I
• 11:55
  Speaker 2: just don't understand how anyone can tolerate that. Yeah, I
• 11:58
  Speaker 2: mean you could go down the list. I just feel
• 12:00
  Speaker 2: as if money and greed and boredom have more or
• 12:04
  Speaker 2: less ruined the United States. That is to say many
• 12:08
  Speaker 2: many amazing Americans like myself. So I'm not trying to
• 12:11
  Speaker 2: knock I'm not trying to mock, you know, knock all
• 12:14
  Speaker 2: American people. That's not even it's a government. It's unfortunately,
• 12:18
  Speaker 2: it's people have been grown up in this system and
• 12:20
  Speaker 2: think it's normal. But that's not to say that there
• 12:22
  Speaker 2: are so many incredible, open minded, you know, pro human
• 12:27
  Speaker 2: dignity Americans. There are, there are many, So.
• 12:31
  Speaker 1: I mean, I think it's fair to say that when
• 12:33
  Speaker 1: you talk about America or Russia or China, you largely
• 12:37
  Speaker 1: referring to the state and the state infrastructure, not really
• 12:41
  Speaker 1: the people.
• 12:42
  Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly, exactly, And the same obviously holds true with
• 12:47
  Speaker 2: my criticism of Russia. My crisis of Russia are directed
• 12:50
  Speaker 2: towards state policy and how the state uses its resources
• 12:54
  Speaker 2: and what it does with them, and who controls these
• 12:56
  Speaker 2: resources and other relations to other states, and how they
• 12:59
  Speaker 2: treat each other and the Russian people themselves. Of course,
• 13:02
  Speaker 2: there I have had bad interactions with Russians, but you know,
• 13:07
  Speaker 2: a wonderful people, incredible people. It's I think I strongly
• 13:11
  Speaker 2: encourage anyone who has the means to visit Russia and
• 13:14
  Speaker 2: hang out with some Russians. I think it's a very
• 13:17
  Speaker 2: enriching experience when you can spend time living in another culture,
• 13:22
  Speaker 2: especially one that is as unique and rich as the
• 13:25
  Speaker 2: Russian culture.
• 13:27
  Speaker 1: You said that they went through your telegram or cut
• 13:32
  Speaker 1: your telegram. What kind of messaging were you saying.
• 13:35
  Speaker 2: Just making fun of like Putin and stuff, just call
• 13:37
  Speaker 2: them like a loser and saying, you know that the
• 13:40
  Speaker 2: war was a stupid you know, mass calling and things
• 13:44
  Speaker 2: like that. Nothing, you know. The reality is that you know,
• 13:48
  Speaker 2: many many people now who cross the Russian border and
• 13:51
  Speaker 2: probably many borders now will delete all of their chat,
• 13:54
  Speaker 2: you know, whether it's WhatsApp or telegram or signal, they
• 13:57
  Speaker 2: delete that stuff because it's not uncommon now, at least
• 13:59
  Speaker 2: in Russia, and I'm sure it's the same in many states.
• 14:01
  Speaker 2: They'll just flag you maybe randomly or have some reason
• 14:06
  Speaker 2: and they just go through your phone now, you know.
• 14:08
  Speaker 2: And so yeah, it's like it's really it's really wild.
• 14:12
  Speaker 2: And what it was interesting about her case specifically, was
• 14:14
  Speaker 2: that so they go through her phone, They interrogat her.
• 14:17
  Speaker 2: They say, okay, okay, fine, whatever, we'll let you through.
• 14:20
  Speaker 2: They stamp her passport saying yeah, you can come in.
• 14:23
  Speaker 2: They say, wait outside, we're just going to process your documents.
• 14:26
  Speaker 2: She goes outside, waits a few more hours. The stamp
• 14:29
  Speaker 2: has been annulled. There's a big like an old red
• 14:33
  Speaker 2: mark in or passport over the entry stamp and they're like, no,
• 14:36
  Speaker 2: you're being deported now. We changed our mind. So something happened,
• 14:40
  Speaker 2: you know, like someone intervened, This went up the chain
• 14:43
  Speaker 2: of command. I don't know what happened. It's it's quite remarkable.
• 14:47
  Speaker 2: It's disappointing, Katya. It'spent her whole life in Russia. Loves
• 14:52
  Speaker 2: the country so much, and it's sad. It's really sad.
• 15:00
  Speaker 1: So your your core argument is that Russia is no
• 15:05
  Speaker 1: different to any other country in the sense that it's
• 15:09
  Speaker 1: following the same sort of globalist, technocratic agenda.
• 15:12
  Speaker 2: That's right. There are obviously policy differences. For example, Russia,
• 15:20
  Speaker 2: if you compare like gender transition policies with the West, Russia,
• 15:26
  Speaker 2: I would say undoubtedly has a much more same position
• 15:29
  Speaker 2: on that. So there are i would say differences in
• 15:32
  Speaker 2: policies that you might attribute to just being more socially conservative.
• 15:38
  Speaker 2: I think you could say the same though about many
• 15:41
  Speaker 2: countries that are even in NATO, right so, but but yes,
• 15:44
  Speaker 2: the general idea, in my humble opinion, is that Russia
• 15:49
  Speaker 2: is very much on board with all of the technocratic
• 15:53
  Speaker 2: you know, wres that are promoted and adopted around the
• 15:57
  Speaker 2: world in the West and the East. And it would
• 15:59
  Speaker 2: be I just find it to be not very constructive
• 16:03
  Speaker 2: to blindly praise a government or look to a government
• 16:07
  Speaker 2: as a as a you know, beacon of hope. Like
• 16:10
  Speaker 2: for example, if you are part of like the you know,
• 16:13
  Speaker 2: the the medical freedom movement as an example, you know
• 16:18
  Speaker 2: you're on the internet, you yeah, yeah, Just as example,
• 16:20
  Speaker 2: if you're part of the medical freedom movement and you say,
• 16:23
  Speaker 2: I'm really against compulsory vaccinations, I don't like the World
• 16:26
  Speaker 2: Health Organization meddling in the internal affairs of how a
• 16:30
  Speaker 2: medical policy is you know, made and enacted in countries,
• 16:36
  Speaker 2: and then you say, oh, yeah, I'm absolutely against all
• 16:39
  Speaker 2: this stuff. Unfortunately, a lot of these people have been
• 16:42
  Speaker 2: misled into thinking that Russia specifically for some sort of
• 16:46
  Speaker 2: alternative which is just not true. It's just absolutely not true.
• 16:50
  Speaker 2: And so people got to be you have to be
• 16:52
  Speaker 2: really careful, you know, you have to be really careful
• 16:54
  Speaker 2: with this kind of stuff. And yeah, it's like there's
• 16:59
  Speaker 2: no there seems to be. I've noticed there seems to
• 17:03
  Speaker 2: be a trend where, for example, cbdc's actually I watched
• 17:07
  Speaker 2: your last podcast that you did with your colleagues, that
• 17:09
  Speaker 2: UK column about bricks, and Mike Robinson made this point.
• 17:14
  Speaker 2: He said, well, you know, people criticize Russia for enacting CBDCs,
• 17:18
  Speaker 2: but Russia has been it was possibly necessary to do
• 17:23
  Speaker 2: this so that Russia wasn't going to be completely cut
• 17:26
  Speaker 2: off from you know, financial systems that have some way
• 17:29
  Speaker 2: to do international transactions. Well look, I mean, come on,
• 17:33
  Speaker 2: let's be real here. You can make financial transactions with
• 17:37
  Speaker 2: other countries without using a central bank digital currency. In fact,
• 17:41
  Speaker 2: Russia is on the record it has a domestic equivalent
• 17:45
  Speaker 2: to Swift and you can find articles even in art
• 17:49
  Speaker 2: international so English language Russian state media going back to
• 17:53
  Speaker 2: twenty eighteen, twenty nineteen saying Russia is already in the
• 17:57
  Speaker 2: process of linking it's to Stic swift equivalent to the
• 18:02
  Speaker 2: domestic swift equivalent in China, in India, and in this
• 18:05
  Speaker 2: way we can you know, we don't have to use Swift,
• 18:08
  Speaker 2: we can bypass Swift altogether. Hooray. So why can't you
• 18:11
  Speaker 2: do that? And why turn to a technology that obviously
• 18:15
  Speaker 2: can be abused in so many horrific ways. And if
• 18:18
  Speaker 2: you actually look at how the Russian government talks about
• 18:21
  Speaker 2: the digital ruble, they openly talk about how they can
• 18:25
  Speaker 2: use the digital ruble to control social pavements. Right, do
• 18:28
  Speaker 2: you have a state dooma deputy His name escapes me now,
• 18:31
  Speaker 2: but I can pull it up for you later. He's
• 18:34
  Speaker 2: on He openly said, yeah, the digital ruble is great
• 18:36
  Speaker 2: because now when we give like maternity payments, you know,
• 18:39
  Speaker 2: to young mothers, they can't We could we can paint
• 18:41
  Speaker 2: the digital rubles so they can't buy cigarettes. You know,
• 18:44
  Speaker 2: it's only used to help the child or you know,
• 18:47
  Speaker 2: they they've already talked about ways in which the CBDC
• 18:51
  Speaker 2: can be used to control how people spend their money
• 18:55
  Speaker 2: within the country. And of course this is a centrally,
• 18:57
  Speaker 2: you know, it's a centralized digital token controlled by a
• 19:01
  Speaker 2: central bank whose head, Elvira Nobuolina is you know, she
• 19:05
  Speaker 2: was a Yale World Fellow beloved by the IMF. This
• 19:11
  Speaker 2: isn't necessary, Like I want to trust any government with
• 19:14
  Speaker 2: this kind of technology. The risk of profound abuse is
• 19:18
  Speaker 2: just too high. And especially in a country like Russia.
• 19:20
  Speaker 2: I don't know why anyone would give Russia the benefit
• 19:23
  Speaker 2: of doubt when it comes to abusing power. I mean, historically, unfortunately,
• 19:27
  Speaker 2: it's the reality. Russia has a long history of totalitarian
• 19:32
  Speaker 2: governments using power to abuse people. Like that's just the reality.
• 19:37
  Speaker 2: So I mean, that's just one of many examples I
• 19:39
  Speaker 2: can point to. But yeah, like to answer your question,
• 19:43
  Speaker 2: you shouldn't look to Russia as as a beacon of
• 19:46
  Speaker 2: hope if you're afraid or worried about the West, you know,
• 19:51
  Speaker 2: turning into this technocratic hellhole.
• 19:57
  Speaker 1: I mean, that's a good point. I was thinking back
• 19:59
  Speaker 1: now to the COVID and I remember everybody was going
• 20:02
  Speaker 1: on about mRNA this and m RNA that, and I
• 20:06
  Speaker 1: didn't get jabbed and my wife didn't and we didn't
• 20:08
  Speaker 1: even get a PC artist And then people going, yeah,
• 20:12
  Speaker 1: but you see in Russia, but the only one is Sputnik.
• 20:15
  Speaker 1: But it's still a vaccine.
• 20:18
  Speaker 2: Not only is it still a vaccine, it was developed
• 20:22
  Speaker 2: in partnership with Astrazenica, So there was I remember at
• 20:26
  Speaker 2: the time. I mean it was it was really painful experience.
• 20:29
  Speaker 2: But at the time there was a very very a
• 20:31
  Speaker 2: narrative that was being pushed on disaffected Westerners, which was
• 20:34
  Speaker 2: Big Pharma vax bad, Russian or Chinese vax good. I
• 20:39
  Speaker 2: don't know anything about the Chinese vacs, so I'm not
• 20:40
  Speaker 2: even gonna talk about it, but I can tell you
• 20:42
  Speaker 2: a lot about the Russian vaccine. Sputnik V was developed
• 20:45
  Speaker 2: in cooperation with Big Pharma, with Western big farmer it
• 20:48
  Speaker 2: was developed. They signed a document Perill Dimetriev, who is
• 20:54
  Speaker 2: now the head negotiator for the Ukraine US Russia, you know,
• 20:59
  Speaker 2: peace talks. He's the head of the something called the
• 21:01
  Speaker 2: Russia Direct Investment Fund. He is a former BUEF Young
• 21:05
  Speaker 2: Global leader. He was educated at Stanford University in Harvard
• 21:09
  Speaker 2: Business School. He worked for Goldman Sachs and Mackinsey and Company.
• 21:13
  Speaker 2: He's an interesting guy anyway. So this guy who heads
• 21:16
  Speaker 2: Russia's sovereign wealth fund signs a document with astra Zenica
• 21:21
  Speaker 2: and Russian pharmaceutical companies saying that we are going to
• 21:25
  Speaker 2: transfer the technology from Astrazenica shot to Russia. We're gonna
• 21:30
  Speaker 2: work with Astrasenka, we're going to produce it domestically for
• 21:33
  Speaker 2: export to the global South, which they did for I
• 21:37
  Speaker 2: guess about a year and a half later on, later
• 21:39
  Speaker 2: on in December of two thousand, that was before Splintav
• 21:42
  Speaker 2: was even announced. Later on, in I believe it was
• 21:45
  Speaker 2: December of twenty twenty, Astrazenka signs a memorandum of understanding
• 21:50
  Speaker 2: with the Russian Direct Investment Fund, the Gamalaya Center, which
• 21:54
  Speaker 2: is allegedly the producer of sputnik V, and the Russian government.
• 21:58
  Speaker 2: They all get together and Putin is part of this
• 22:01
  Speaker 2: little virtual conference and they say, we're so excited. We're
• 22:04
  Speaker 2: going to start testing sputnik v and Astrosenica together to
• 22:07
  Speaker 2: make like this wonder drug. Well, we have one dose
• 22:10
  Speaker 2: of sputnik v in one dose of Astrosenica, and we
• 22:12
  Speaker 2: think that this is going to give us the best results,
• 22:15
  Speaker 2: the safest, most effective shot. Putin publicly says to the
• 22:18
  Speaker 2: to the CEO Ofenica, I wish you well in the
• 22:21
  Speaker 2: international market as well as the Russian market. Alexander Ginsberg,
• 22:25
  Speaker 2: the alleged developer spolonnik V, says that Astrosenica's polonty v
• 22:29
  Speaker 2: are virtually identical and use basically the same technology. I mean,
• 22:33
  Speaker 2: there's like a lot, a lot of evidence to point
• 22:36
  Speaker 2: to the fact that spotik v is basically the same
• 22:40
  Speaker 2: as the big the big pharma shot developed by this
• 22:44
  Speaker 2: you know, Swedish British psychopath, big pharma company.
• 22:50
  Speaker 1: Top of that, you also had in Russia QR codes
• 22:54
  Speaker 1: and all the other craziness of the COVID era.
• 22:59
  Speaker 2: We absolutely did. Basically what happened was if they first
• 23:03
  Speaker 2: tested it in Moscow in the summer of twenty twenty one,
• 23:07
  Speaker 2: to the great credit of the Russian people. And this
• 23:09
  Speaker 2: is another thing that I really loved about living in
• 23:11
  Speaker 2: Russia was that Russian Muscovites were so fed up with
• 23:14
  Speaker 2: this that they basically you had to use a QR code.
• 23:18
  Speaker 2: You had to be tested every seventy two hours or
• 23:22
  Speaker 2: your QR code would show that you had been vaxed.
• 23:25
  Speaker 2: And if you have this QR code, you can go
• 23:26
  Speaker 2: into businesses, go to restaurants, et cetera. Moskavites didn't want
• 23:30
  Speaker 2: anything to do with it. They stopped going to restaurants.
• 23:32
  Speaker 2: It was a huge economic calamity, you know something. Some
• 23:36
  Speaker 2: huge number of restaurants were forced to basically close their doors,
• 23:40
  Speaker 2: and the mayor, Sergey Sobjanen was forced to reverse the decision,
• 23:43
  Speaker 2: so he ended that experiment after two weeks, which was wonderful.
• 23:47
  Speaker 2: But again that was not the Russian government, that was
• 23:49
  Speaker 2: the Russian people. The Russian government wanted to tag cattle,
• 23:52
  Speaker 2: tag everyone. But then, unfortunately, in autumn of the same year,
• 23:57
  Speaker 2: you had every single region in Russia adopt some form
• 23:59
  Speaker 2: of compulsory vaccination, whether it was through the workplace like
• 24:03
  Speaker 2: a certain every place a workplace had to meet a
• 24:06
  Speaker 2: quota like sixty percent of the workforce had to be vaccinated,
• 24:10
  Speaker 2: or whether it was you needed to be vaccinated in
• 24:12
  Speaker 2: order to attend university, or there were some many professions
• 24:15
  Speaker 2: where you were simply required to be vaccinated, some industries.
• 24:19
  Speaker 2: And on top of that, again they introduced these QR
• 24:21
  Speaker 2: codes across the country, now enforcement dependent on where you were.
• 24:26
  Speaker 2: There was a lot of uproar against it. It was
• 24:28
  Speaker 2: extremely unpopular, I can tell you, I can attest that
• 24:32
  Speaker 2: there was a very lively black market for fake PCR
• 24:36
  Speaker 2: tests and VAX passes to get around these policies. But
• 24:40
  Speaker 2: what's really quite frightening is actually, despite how unpopular this
• 24:44
  Speaker 2: policy was, they eventually moved on to try to create
• 24:47
  Speaker 2: a national QR code like a national vax pass. And incredibly,
• 24:54
  Speaker 2: this policy, this proposed legislation of the State Duma, so
• 24:57
  Speaker 2: at the federal level, not regional level, publicly endorsed by
• 25:01
  Speaker 2: Vladimir Putin. He said, you know, look a lot I
• 25:03
  Speaker 2: understand a lot of people think I shouldn't support something
• 25:05
  Speaker 2: like this, but I'm the president and I need to.
• 25:07
  Speaker 2: You know, it's my responsibility to make sure everyone's safe
• 25:10
  Speaker 2: and healthy. So yeah, I'm on board with this. It was,
• 25:13
  Speaker 2: it was, it was incredible. It was it was shocking
• 25:16
  Speaker 2: really to many people that he would come out and
• 25:18
  Speaker 2: publicly endorse something like that. Thank god, it was so
• 25:21
  Speaker 2: unpopular that they they basically had to shelve the legislation.
• 25:24
  Speaker 2: But yeah, this idea that Russia bypassed, this stuff that
• 25:28
  Speaker 2: the Russian government had no part in. It is just
• 25:29
  Speaker 2: it's false. So I don't know why. Thankfully this false
• 25:34
  Speaker 2: information has died down a little bit, but you still
• 25:37
  Speaker 2: see it pop up and it's just not true. It's
• 25:39
  Speaker 2: just absolutely false.
• 25:41
  Speaker 1: I think it's maybe, you know, human psychology, people are
• 25:45
  Speaker 1: looking full a way out, People are looking for some
• 25:48
  Speaker 1: sort of savior.
• 25:52
  Speaker 2: Okay, yeah, no doubt, no doubt to that. I would
• 25:55
  Speaker 2: just say life is a beautiful Yeah.
• 25:58
  Speaker 1: I mean they could mega. I mean it's all about
• 26:01
  Speaker 1: Trump the messiah.
• 26:03
  Speaker 2: Right, Well, you're talking about sort of like the white
• 26:05
  Speaker 2: hat QAnon phenomenon, right, Yeah, yeah, of course this guy.
• 26:10
  Speaker 2: I don't know how they're spinning this now that Trump
• 26:14
  Speaker 2: is clearly just a puppet of you know, some Masad
• 26:17
  Speaker 2: blackmail scheme and his carpet bombing Iran. I don't know
• 26:21
  Speaker 2: how how they're spinning that into America first, but I'm
• 26:23
  Speaker 2: sure they're trying to. But yeah, look, people, it's just
• 26:27
  Speaker 2: the reality is that you will see a country do
• 26:30
  Speaker 2: something or government do something that is truly horrific and horrendous,
• 26:33
  Speaker 2: and then you have people who really want to believe
• 26:36
  Speaker 2: in this government, and they will just find some way
• 26:39
  Speaker 2: to justify it. They will create a scenario in there
• 26:42
  Speaker 2: that exists only in their mind why this is necessary
• 26:46
  Speaker 2: or even a good thing. And so look, again I'm
• 26:49
  Speaker 2: not trying to single out Mike Robinson here. I hear
• 26:52
  Speaker 2: this argument a lot, but again returning to the CBDC thing,
• 26:56
  Speaker 2: and not convinced by this argument that CBDC bad for West,
• 27:01
  Speaker 2: but some reason CBDC good or even justified if it's
• 27:06
  Speaker 2: implemented in the East. I think that's ridiculous because what
• 27:08
  Speaker 2: you're doing is you're assigning sort of like a moral
• 27:12
  Speaker 2: or pragmatic justification for something that no government should have.
• 27:16
  Speaker 2: You know, it's just we shouldn't trust any power structure
• 27:20
  Speaker 2: with this kind of technology, and especially when you see
• 27:24
  Speaker 2: how explicit the Russian government has been with understanding that
• 27:28
  Speaker 2: how this kind of technology can be used for control
• 27:32
  Speaker 2: by controlling the domestic population. I don't see how you
• 27:34
  Speaker 2: can make the case that it's necessary to impose something
• 27:37
  Speaker 2: just so you can, you know, trade with China, which
• 27:40
  Speaker 2: Russia can do already. I just find that to be
• 27:42
  Speaker 2: not a very convincing way of interpreting why the East
• 27:47
  Speaker 2: and West adopt very similar policies.
• 27:52
  Speaker 1: I think what you're highlighting is there is a huge
• 27:59
  Speaker 1: overlap when it comes to the technocratic agenda, twenty city
• 28:04
  Speaker 1: goal and ambitions of pretty much all the countries, and
• 28:09
  Speaker 1: yet at the same time there are cultural differences, as
• 28:13
  Speaker 1: you pointed out, like the US seems to be immensely degenerate.
• 28:17
  Speaker 1: From my perspective living on an African continent, I just see,
• 28:20
  Speaker 1: you know, Hollywood, TikTok only fans, men wanting to be women,
• 28:26
  Speaker 1: et cetera, et cetera. And I see, you know, irun, China,
• 28:30
  Speaker 1: Russia not going down those roads, and I think people
• 28:33
  Speaker 1: struggle to compartmentalize these various aspects. Would you agree with that?
• 28:40
  Speaker 2: I would, And I guess what I would. I absolutely
• 28:43
  Speaker 2: agree with that. I mean, the cultural differences between Russia
• 28:46
  Speaker 2: and the United States are significant. That being said, I
• 28:49
  Speaker 2: would say that Russia also is by a large, very
• 28:52
  Speaker 2: materialistic state. Russians love their nice cars, they like their
• 28:56
  Speaker 2: big houses. I mean, that's just to me, that's just
• 28:58
  Speaker 2: human nature. I guess people like nice things, and so unfortunately,
• 29:03
  Speaker 2: I do think that a lot of what you could
• 29:05
  Speaker 2: blame it on the West, but whatever, you know, this
• 29:08
  Speaker 2: sort of this modern lifestyle of needing to consume is
• 29:12
  Speaker 2: definitely prevalent. Of course, especially in the large cities like
• 29:16
  Speaker 2: Moscow and Saint Petersburg. There there are cultural differences. There
• 29:19
  Speaker 2: are cultural differences though, between the United States and Poland.
• 29:22
  Speaker 2: Poland is a NATO state, right, I don't like NATO,
• 29:25
  Speaker 2: But actually Poland is quite a conservative Catholic state. So
• 29:30
  Speaker 2: it's like it's hard to you know, Turkey. Turkey is
• 29:32
  Speaker 2: actually extremely conservative. Turkey is also a NATO state. So yeah,
• 29:37
  Speaker 2: like it's it's important not to paint with the wide brush,
• 29:40
  Speaker 2: Like I'm not saying that Russia, you know, the experience
• 29:43
  Speaker 2: in Russia that you is going to be different than
• 29:46
  Speaker 2: the United States. And in the cultural aspect. That doesn't
• 29:48
  Speaker 2: mean though, that the power structures really care about the
• 29:52
  Speaker 2: common you know, the common guy in the street.
• 29:57
  Speaker 1: I want to point out, I said, China, the but
• 29:59
  Speaker 1: I agree with you, China itself is also quite maturialistic.
• 30:03
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, I've never been. I'm sure it's a
• 30:06
  Speaker 2: fascinating country with many wonderful things and also things that
• 30:09
  Speaker 2: need to be fixed and problems. You know, that's how
• 30:12
  Speaker 2: it is.
• 30:13
  Speaker 1: But I mean, yeah, so, I mean, okay, so this
• 30:15
  Speaker 1: is where it gets very blurry now, because again you're
• 30:21
  Speaker 1: needing to separate the state from the people. Because as
• 30:25
  Speaker 1: you said earlier, there are amazing Russians and people should
• 30:29
  Speaker 1: go to Russia in the same way there are amazing Americans,
• 30:32
  Speaker 1: and I suppose people should go to America too. I
• 30:34
  Speaker 1: don't know, I don't know, I've never been. I wouldn't
• 30:37
  Speaker 1: recommend it. In other words, push it down the list
• 30:41
  Speaker 1: of bit Yeah.
• 30:43
  Speaker 2: Yeah, but I mean, I guess what.
• 30:46
  Speaker 1: I'm asking is, how do you then how do you
• 30:50
  Speaker 1: then approach the world in which you live, because it
• 30:54
  Speaker 1: does appear that Agenda twenty thirty aka the Great Reset
• 30:59
  Speaker 1: aka backbit to aka the New World Order seems unstoppable.
• 31:07
  Speaker 2: Okay, but you know, so, I guess I would answer
• 31:10
  Speaker 2: this by pointing to this. I guess it's a very
• 31:12
  Speaker 2: common thing that I hear. I think you brought it
• 31:15
  Speaker 2: up with Prove when you spoke with him a few
• 31:17
  Speaker 2: days ago about how you know, if you have this
• 31:20
  Speaker 2: view of the world where all the governments are the same,
• 31:23
  Speaker 2: isn't that quite black pilling? And so what's the point?
• 31:26
  Speaker 2: You know? Well, I I mean, I'll just answer from
• 31:29
  Speaker 2: my own perspective, which is I'm not a statist. I
• 31:32
  Speaker 2: don't worship the states, So why I don't pretend to
• 31:35
  Speaker 2: be in power. I don't pretend that I'll ever be.
• 31:37
  Speaker 2: In my own personal views are would be extremely radical
• 31:40
  Speaker 2: to power. So, for example, I don't believe in government
• 31:43
  Speaker 2: mandated education. Actually, I think the education system is largely
• 31:46
  Speaker 2: modern education system largely has created most of the problems
• 31:50
  Speaker 2: in the world, basically through government controlled, you know, brainwashing
• 31:53
  Speaker 2: of our children. You know, I'm very very anti war
• 31:57
  Speaker 2: on all levels. Don't believe in uh, you know, large
• 32:02
  Speaker 2: corporations being able to suck up resources and sell them
• 32:04
  Speaker 2: to the highest bidder things like that. You know, just
• 32:07
  Speaker 2: a random list of things that I don't particularly like.
• 32:09
  Speaker 2: And I have no expectation that any anyone in power
• 32:13
  Speaker 2: would ever listen to anything I had to say on
• 32:15
  Speaker 2: these subjects. And so what I find to be, what
• 32:18
  Speaker 2: I find drives me and gets me up every morning
• 32:20
  Speaker 2: is just finding other people who I can experience the
• 32:23
  Speaker 2: many wonderful things about life with. You know, I'm blessed
• 32:26
  Speaker 2: to have a son and a partner. I did have
• 32:29
  Speaker 2: a little farm with some potatoes and cows and goats.
• 32:31
  Speaker 2: I don't anymore, but I'm sure I will in the future,
• 32:34
  Speaker 2: and just live my life like in a trying to
• 32:37
  Speaker 2: enjoy the things that life gives me, and you know,
• 32:40
  Speaker 2: for better or worse, just living through it. I don't
• 32:42
  Speaker 2: ask for anything more than that.
• 32:44
  Speaker 1: And yeah, it actually do some degree sounds like you're
• 32:50
  Speaker 1: a bit of the rough body, and.
• 32:53
  Speaker 2: Maybe I don't know. Uh, look, it's just uh, I
• 32:57
  Speaker 2: just I'm not I'm.
• 32:58
  Speaker 1: Not saying I'm not saying there's a critique I think
• 33:02
  Speaker 1: I am. Also, I'm a huge fan of Rothbod.
• 33:07
  Speaker 2: I'm just not looking. I don't. I don't. I have
• 33:09
  Speaker 2: zero expectations for government at this point in my life,
• 33:13
  Speaker 2: having seen the horrible things that multiple governments have done firsthand, basically,
• 33:18
  Speaker 2: and it doesn't. It doesn't. I'm not here to pretend
• 33:23
  Speaker 2: that there's going to be someone in power who cares
• 33:26
  Speaker 2: about me. I just don't think that's true. I think
• 33:27
  Speaker 2: it's a very naive way of looking at the world. Actually, yeah, so.
• 33:35
  Speaker 1: What you're arguing is that the Russian government is effectively
• 33:39
  Speaker 1: complicit in the Grade bset and as such is not
• 33:44
  Speaker 1: your friend.
• 33:45
  Speaker 2: Yeah, oh absolutely. The many of the great, many of
• 33:50
  Speaker 2: the major lists on the Great Reset Agenda could not
• 33:53
  Speaker 2: be possible without the Russian government's cooperation or complicity. COVID
• 33:59
  Speaker 2: is the perfect becaus ample. COVID would have never worked
• 34:02
  Speaker 2: unless Russia got on board. You can go down even
• 34:05
  Speaker 2: with stuff like the Green Agenda and sustainability. Well, how
• 34:10
  Speaker 2: are you going to make stuff like that work if
• 34:13
  Speaker 2: the people who can have all the oil reserves aren't
• 34:16
  Speaker 2: on board. So you see situations like within Russia specifically,
• 34:22
  Speaker 2: but actually basically every bricks nation at this point, at
• 34:26
  Speaker 2: the major ones India, China, I believe Brazil is in
• 34:31
  Speaker 2: the worst are also developing carbon markets. These carbon markets
• 34:35
  Speaker 2: are going to be are already they've already talked about
• 34:37
  Speaker 2: how they're going to be integrated into the European Union
• 34:39
  Speaker 2: carbon mechanism system eventually, I'm sure into other you know,
• 34:44
  Speaker 2: carbon market systems as well, whether they're doing it out
• 34:49
  Speaker 2: of pragmatism or whatever. Again, I don't attach some sort
• 34:54
  Speaker 2: of moral judgment on these things. If I think that
• 34:56
  Speaker 2: a carbon market is bad, carbon market is bad, and
• 34:59
  Speaker 2: Russia plays along with this stuff too, or not even
• 35:01
  Speaker 2: play line is participates in it.
• 35:03
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and so the thing that I mean, sorry, but
• 35:06
  Speaker 1: this is the thing that often comes up as the
• 35:08
  Speaker 1: counter response. How does that level with the fact that
• 35:13
  Speaker 1: there are obvious differences in geopolitics between let's say, Russia
• 35:18
  Speaker 1: and the US in terms of war even.
• 35:22
  Speaker 2: In what sense?
• 35:26
  Speaker 1: Well, so, okay, so Russia. Well, let's talk about Ukraine
• 35:30
  Speaker 1: for a second, because I am extremely confused by what's
• 35:34
  Speaker 1: going on there. It was supposed to have been six
• 35:36
  Speaker 1: to twelve months and then backome, what does it been now?
• 35:41
  Speaker 2: Five years. We're entering the fifth year.
• 35:44
  Speaker 1: What is going on? I mean, it's starting to look
• 35:47
  Speaker 1: very weirdly like a gender twenty thirty is kind of stuff.
• 35:53
  Speaker 2: You know. Possibly, Look, I've always approached this conflict from
• 35:58
  Speaker 2: the perspective of the Kremlin and what it claims to
• 36:02
  Speaker 2: want to accomplish in Ukraine. Right, So all you got
• 36:04
  Speaker 2: to do if you want to understand where we are
• 36:07
  Speaker 2: sort of, you know, what's the status of this conflict,
• 36:10
  Speaker 2: all you have to do is go back to Putin's
• 36:13
  Speaker 2: address on February twenty fourth, twenty twenty, and he says, look,
• 36:17
  Speaker 2: we're watching the special Military and Opera Ukraine. We have
• 36:21
  Speaker 2: a few things we want to do. First of all,
• 36:23
  Speaker 2: we're gonna denotify and demilitarize Ukraine. The denotification thing was
• 36:29
  Speaker 2: there's many ways to interpret it. Putin actually later said
• 36:32
  Speaker 2: that by denostification he meant ensuring that Ukraine had legislation
• 36:36
  Speaker 2: on the books that would prevent the glorification of Nazi
• 36:41
  Speaker 2: you know, Germany, or just anything Nazi related in the country. Demilitarization,
• 36:46
  Speaker 2: I think is more or less clear. It means less
• 36:49
  Speaker 2: military hardware, less guns, less you know, violent posturing against Russia.
• 36:55
  Speaker 2: He said, another thing, We're going in to protect the
• 36:57
  Speaker 2: people of Dombas and bring justice to those who have
• 37:02
  Speaker 2: been committing He uses the word, I believe genocide into
• 37:04
  Speaker 2: m Bass for the last eight years. He also says
• 37:07
  Speaker 2: that NATO NATO's eastward expansion has become essentially an existential
• 37:13
  Speaker 2: threat for Russia, and that particularly NATO's movement into Ukraine,
• 37:18
  Speaker 2: particularly with the potential of deploying short medium range missiles
• 37:24
  Speaker 2: in or long range missiles in Ukraine aimed at Russia,
• 37:27
  Speaker 2: would be totally unacceptable. And finally, as sort of a
• 37:30
  Speaker 2: broad mission, was this idea that Ukraine has been over
• 37:35
  Speaker 2: since the fall the Soviet Union has been slowly but
• 37:38
  Speaker 2: steadily sort of torn away from Russia by the West
• 37:42
  Speaker 2: through all sorts of very cynical schemes, and that it
• 37:45
  Speaker 2: would be unacceptable for Ukraine to become an anti Russia.
• 37:52
  Speaker 2: It's okay for Ukraine to be a separate country, but
• 37:54
  Speaker 2: to become an anti Russia will be unacceptable, and that
• 37:57
  Speaker 2: he strongly believed that Ukrainians and Russians are one people
• 38:00
  Speaker 2: and that walls should not be put up to divide
• 38:03
  Speaker 2: them all. That sounds pretty reasonable to me. The problem,
• 38:06
  Speaker 2: unfortunately is that now we have entered the fifth year
• 38:10
  Speaker 2: of this war. And again as I as I mentioned
• 38:12
  Speaker 2: very briefly when we started our discussion, if you go
• 38:14
  Speaker 2: down that list of objectives, all of the all the
• 38:19
  Speaker 2: all the problems that existed, all the things that need
• 38:21
  Speaker 2: to be solved, have just gotten worse over the last
• 38:25
  Speaker 2: five years. So very very briefly, NATO expansion, NATO has
• 38:28
  Speaker 2: added to new members, has It's now Ukraine is now
• 38:31
  Speaker 2: able to fly drones through NATO airspace like in Estonia
• 38:35
  Speaker 2: and Finland to hit targets, very very valuable targets like
• 38:40
  Speaker 2: its Baltic ports, you know in it you know, fly
• 38:44
  Speaker 2: Ukrainian drones through NATO airspace to hit targets in Russia.
• 38:48
  Speaker 2: And NATO has expanded, NATO has armed Ukraine to the titties,
• 38:53
  Speaker 2: you know, like this country has never had more weaponry
• 38:58
  Speaker 2: in its history. It's incredible, Like it's shocking with the
• 39:03
  Speaker 2: with the missile launches, it's now it's now a reality.
• 39:07
  Speaker 2: The thing that they were trying to prevent is now
• 39:09
  Speaker 2: not a daily I mean, the missile attacks are not daily.
• 39:12
  Speaker 2: The drone attacks certainly are, and they have devastating effect
• 39:15
  Speaker 2: on people and not just send done yetes, but in
• 39:18
  Speaker 2: several regions around Russia. I mean, these drones are going
• 39:20
  Speaker 2: further and deeper into Russia with every passing week. It's
• 39:24
  Speaker 2: really really terrifying, and many people now suspect that they're
• 39:26
  Speaker 2: being launched from Kazakhstan and other countries in order to
• 39:29
  Speaker 2: do this. As far as protecting the people of Donbas,
• 39:32
  Speaker 2: Dombas is a giant depopulated moon crater. When you hear
• 39:36
  Speaker 2: about some village being liberated in Donbas, it's been depopulated,
• 39:41
  Speaker 2: it has been shelled into the ground, you know, it's
• 39:44
  Speaker 2: been flattened. It's it's sad, it's horrible to see it,
• 39:48
  Speaker 2: and it's really really it's an absolutely tragic thing that
• 39:52
  Speaker 2: has unfolded before our eyes. And what's particularly very very
• 39:56
  Speaker 2: disturbing is that you had Pudent specifically say that, but
• 40:00
  Speaker 2: he was launching this operation to bring people to justice,
• 40:03
  Speaker 2: you know, that had committed crimes against the people of Donbass,
• 40:05
  Speaker 2: presuming I mean mentioned them by name, but there are
• 40:07
  Speaker 2: many punitive battalions that had been raised after the Maidan
• 40:11
  Speaker 2: prices that were sent eastward, specifically the Azov Battalion, which
• 40:15
  Speaker 2: definitely had Neo Nazi very very far right members who
• 40:20
  Speaker 2: were definitely committing crimes against humanity in don Bess. They
• 40:25
  Speaker 2: captured several of these senior Asov leaders in Mariople and
• 40:30
  Speaker 2: they were immediately exchanged for Medvitchuk, who is an oligarch
• 40:35
  Speaker 2: who had been arrested in Ukraine. He's Putin's close friend.
• 40:38
  Speaker 2: I believe that Putin is the is the godfather of
• 40:43
  Speaker 2: Duke's daughter, if I'm recalling that correctly. Anyway, Medvietchuk and
• 40:47
  Speaker 2: I think one hundred Russian soldiers were exchanged by Ukraine
• 40:51
  Speaker 2: for these Azov leaders. You know, I think it's nice
• 40:55
  Speaker 2: that Putin got his friend back. I think it's nice
• 40:57
  Speaker 2: that you released Russian soldiers. But if you're going to
• 40:58
  Speaker 2: start a war in order to allegedly bring these criminals
• 41:03
  Speaker 2: to justice, you should follow through with it. You should
• 41:05
  Speaker 2: do what you say you're gonna do. Is stuff like that,
• 41:09
  Speaker 2: like you see that there are there are different there's
• 41:11
  Speaker 2: appears to be different priorities and the war. As the
• 41:14
  Speaker 2: war drags on, it seems like Russia is not willing
• 41:18
  Speaker 2: to actually follow through with accomplishing any of its directives
• 41:22
  Speaker 2: and the objectives, and the longer the war goes on,
• 41:24
  Speaker 2: the more Ukrainians and Russians are killed. This idea of
• 41:29
  Speaker 2: Russians and Ukrainians being one people, that's out the window
• 41:32
  Speaker 2: for at least I don't know, let's say ten years.
• 41:34
  Speaker 2: I mean, it's going to take a long time to
• 41:36
  Speaker 2: heal the wounds of this horrific war, which at this
• 41:38
  Speaker 2: point is basically just sitting in a trench and waiting
• 41:40
  Speaker 2: for a drone to kill you. There's not going to
• 41:42
  Speaker 2: be any big breakthroughs if anyone's telling you that Russia's
• 41:45
  Speaker 2: this a few weeks away from taking Odessa or like Kiev.
• 41:48
  Speaker 2: I mean, I'm sorry, but this is people are living.
• 41:51
  Speaker 2: I think unfortunately a lot of people are living in
• 41:52
  Speaker 2: an alternate reality where they think that there's still something
• 41:56
  Speaker 2: to be one. This war is a huge l for
• 41:59
  Speaker 2: the Ukrainians, Ukrainian and Russian people, and a lot of
• 42:02
  Speaker 2: people have gotten rich from it, but don't I don't
• 42:04
  Speaker 2: really see what's to be what what is the benefit
• 42:08
  Speaker 2: at this point? You know, like who's actually benefiting from
• 42:10
  Speaker 2: this war continuing? I couldn't tell.
• 42:12
  Speaker 1: You the central bankers?
• 42:14
  Speaker 2: Oh yeah, yeah, there you go, yeah, like bankers right,
• 42:18
  Speaker 2: like really really rich assholes are benefiting.
• 42:22
  Speaker 1: I think that's a very interesting bell that's going off
• 42:25
  Speaker 1: behind you.
• 42:25
  Speaker 2: Sorry, that's a church bell.
• 42:29
  Speaker 1: I think where people are struggling to make the circle
• 42:33
  Speaker 1: fit into the square is if Russia and NATO are colluding,
• 42:40
  Speaker 1: why all the violence?
• 42:43
  Speaker 2: Well, who says they're colluding. They're not colluding, they're just competitors.
• 42:47
  Speaker 2: But why does that Why do if they're competing, why
• 42:49
  Speaker 2: do you think that they care about you? Okay, Like
• 42:52
  Speaker 2: I mean, I'll give you an example. I think that
• 42:54
  Speaker 2: this is the best example I could give. If we're
• 42:57
  Speaker 2: talking specifically about Ukraine. Up until the start of twenty
• 43:02
  Speaker 2: twenty five, Russia was still paying Kiev to transit Russian
• 43:08
  Speaker 2: gas across Ukraine, which would was then going to the
• 43:11
  Speaker 2: European Union European Union, of course, funding fueling the slaughter
• 43:17
  Speaker 2: of the Slavs in Ukraine and in Russia. This agreement
• 43:20
  Speaker 2: continued until the start of twenty twenty five. Russia still
• 43:24
  Speaker 2: exports gas to the EU through Turk Stream, not as
• 43:28
  Speaker 2: much as it used to, but it's still operable. Like
• 43:30
  Speaker 2: and you had this incredible statement from Putin who at
• 43:33
  Speaker 2: the end of twenty twenty Yeah, we would love to
• 43:35
  Speaker 2: extend this agreement with Kiv because you know, war is war,
• 43:39
  Speaker 2: but we have an agreement. We have a business agreement here,
• 43:42
  Speaker 2: so there's obviously there's business and competition. And then so
• 43:47
  Speaker 2: you know, you can imagine a Ukrainian sitting in a
• 43:50
  Speaker 2: trench in a Russian sitting in a trench, and they
• 43:52
  Speaker 2: are lobbying our chillery shells at each other. They're doing
• 43:55
  Speaker 2: that horrible. I don't know if you've seen the videos
• 43:57
  Speaker 2: of them, like chasing each other with the drones and
• 43:59
  Speaker 2: crash into each other and blowing up human beings, really
• 44:02
  Speaker 2: disgusting stuff. And meanwhile, the Russian government is paying the
• 44:06
  Speaker 2: Ukrainian government to transit its gas to the people who
• 44:09
  Speaker 2: are funding the war and fueling the war. So I
• 44:12
  Speaker 2: don't know, like why. I do think it's actually easy
• 44:16
  Speaker 2: to separate the two, you know, like yeah, like NATO,
• 44:20
  Speaker 2: NATO and Russia will do their thing. It's not it's
• 44:23
  Speaker 2: not ideological. It's just resource based. Its competition, and sometimes
• 44:28
  Speaker 2: it is like sometimes it is, yeah, let the proles
• 44:31
  Speaker 2: kill each other, let's make some money. You know, that's
• 44:35
  Speaker 2: not our it's not for us. Look, I mean I'll
• 44:37
  Speaker 2: even extend that. I think that you could make the
• 44:40
  Speaker 2: I think it's very clear that this war. I mean
• 44:43
  Speaker 2: all sides are profiting from it, including the Brick states.
• 44:47
  Speaker 2: I mean, China is the number one. If it's the
• 44:51
  Speaker 2: number one supplier of drone components for Russia, it's also
• 44:56
  Speaker 2: the number one it provides more than ninety percent of
• 44:58
  Speaker 2: drone components for Ukraine. And how do you and Israel?
• 45:03
  Speaker 2: Thank you? Yeah? And you know, why is it that
• 45:06
  Speaker 2: that Russia and China can't at least sanction Israel as
• 45:11
  Speaker 2: it slaughters people in Gaza? Right? I mean, China, I
• 45:14
  Speaker 2: think is the third largest trade partner Israel's third largest
• 45:17
  Speaker 2: trade partner Russia, one of the largest coal exporters sanctioned
• 45:20
  Speaker 2: sanction Israel.
• 45:21
  Speaker 1: Yeah, but I think the answer to that regarding China,
• 45:25
  Speaker 1: you all referring to Dji, I think the answer I
• 45:29
  Speaker 1: think regarding China because China is a bit of an anomaee.
• 45:33
  Speaker 1: I think they are just peutly pragmatic. I don't think
• 45:35
  Speaker 1: that ca I did log one way.
• 45:38
  Speaker 2: I agree, but that I guess that's my whole point though.
• 45:40
  Speaker 2: It's like I don't when people talk, I totally agree.
• 45:43
  Speaker 2: I think that China's just in it. They're just doing business.
• 45:46
  Speaker 2: But you know, if you if you want to if
• 45:48
  Speaker 2: you want to zoom out here and bring the discussion
• 45:50
  Speaker 2: to luck. You know, this ongoing discussion that I've seen
• 45:53
  Speaker 2: you had on your recent podcast about bricks, and you know,
• 45:57
  Speaker 2: is it the same as the West and YadA YadA, YadA.
• 46:00
  Speaker 2: Look the sort of the polled pragmatism that we see
• 46:03
  Speaker 2: from China, I don't know if it's a huge improvement
• 46:08
  Speaker 2: over the rather brutal pragmatism of any other country that has,
• 46:13
  Speaker 2: you know, businesses abroad. I can give you a concrete example,
• 46:16
  Speaker 2: because I don't like talking in these generalizations. Perfect example
• 46:18
  Speaker 2: is the country of a Jibouti isemight pronouncing that right
• 46:21
  Speaker 2: in East Africa. Djibouti has has huge debts to China,
• 46:27
  Speaker 2: and in two thousand, I think it's two thousand, and
• 46:29
  Speaker 2: I want to say seventeen or eighteen, China was able
• 46:32
  Speaker 2: to establish a military base there. Now we don't know
• 46:35
  Speaker 2: all the details, but I think it's fair to say
• 46:37
  Speaker 2: that if you're heavily indebted to a country, you're probably
• 46:40
  Speaker 2: more open to letting you use your land to establish
• 46:42
  Speaker 2: a military base. I don't there's nothing unusual about that.
• 46:45
  Speaker 2: Jibouti also has a US base. I think it has
• 46:46
  Speaker 2: a French base too, maybe even a British one. So again,
• 46:49
  Speaker 2: China is not extraordin like it's not doing anything extraordinary.
• 46:52
  Speaker 2: But this is the same kind of like debt trap diplomacy,
• 46:57
  Speaker 2: and it's you could say that it's all pragmatic. It's
• 47:00
  Speaker 2: just big business, international corporations trying to make a buck.
• 47:04
  Speaker 2: I'm pretty sure you know. So you're in South Africa.
• 47:07
  Speaker 2: I remember reading an article maybe you know more about
• 47:09
  Speaker 2: than I do, about how South Africa had to impose
• 47:13
  Speaker 2: like seventy five percent duties on imported Chinese steel because
• 47:17
  Speaker 2: because China was dumping steel onto the South African market
• 47:21
  Speaker 2: and making domestic production totally like there's no competition, they
• 47:25
  Speaker 2: couldn't compete. That's correct. And you know the reason China
• 47:28
  Speaker 2: can do that is because it had it overproduces. It
• 47:31
  Speaker 2: doesn't have as much domestic demand and its industry is
• 47:33
  Speaker 2: subsidized by the Chinese government, so they would rather just
• 47:36
  Speaker 2: export it, even to a partner like bricks and potentially
• 47:40
  Speaker 2: destroy the domestic industry. And so again it's like, is
• 47:43
  Speaker 2: are they doing it because China is evil? I don't
• 47:45
  Speaker 2: think so. I think they're doing it because they're in
• 47:47
  Speaker 2: the money making business, you know, like it's pragmatic in
• 47:51
  Speaker 2: a cold sense like that.
• 47:52
  Speaker 1: So I don't know, I lock what you're saying, because
• 47:57
  Speaker 1: you're all bringing reality to what is happening globally. I
• 48:02
  Speaker 1: think it's very easy to get caught up in ideology
• 48:06
  Speaker 1: and it's just about and don't get me wrong, a
• 48:09
  Speaker 1: lot of this is about control and surveillance and depopulation
• 48:13
  Speaker 1: and you know, basically putting people into megacities so that
• 48:17
  Speaker 1: you can create fifteen minutes cities, et cetera, et cetera.
• 48:21
  Speaker 1: At the same time, you've just pointed out that a
• 48:24
  Speaker 1: huge amount of this is also about making money and
• 48:27
  Speaker 1: gaining power through that.
• 48:30
  Speaker 2: Sure, I mean again, I really I don't believe in
• 48:34
  Speaker 2: the sort of the ideological narratives like the West stands
• 48:39
  Speaker 2: for X, East stands for X, they're in competition because
• 48:42
  Speaker 2: of X, Y and Z. I think that you can
• 48:44
  Speaker 2: really boil all this down to the obsession with money
• 48:48
  Speaker 2: controlling resources obviously, which is basically the same thing as
• 48:51
  Speaker 2: money and governments wanting to make sure that there aren't
• 48:54
  Speaker 2: any troublemakers that will stop this very convenient state of affairs.
• 48:58
  Speaker 2: These systems are packed in different ways but you're gonna
• 49:02
  Speaker 2: get a very similar outcome like and I guess it
• 49:05
  Speaker 2: was a few years ago, but actually I wrote an
• 49:07
  Speaker 2: article for Whitney Webb's Unlimited Hangout called Resetting without Schwab
• 49:11
  Speaker 2: and the premise of the article was, Okay, technically the
• 49:16
  Speaker 2: Russian government has been sanctioned or sort of blacklisted by
• 49:22
  Speaker 2: Davos by the World Economic Form. They're not invited to
• 49:24
  Speaker 2: any of the conferences anymore. Many people are very excited
• 49:27
  Speaker 2: about this, Sure, why not. It's a you know, it's
• 49:29
  Speaker 2: a horrible organization. But all I did was say, okay,
• 49:32
  Speaker 2: Davos is out of the picture for Russia, but what
• 49:34
  Speaker 2: is what is Russia? What are the policies that Russia
• 49:36
  Speaker 2: is actually pursuing? And so you all you have to
• 49:38
  Speaker 2: do is just look at you know, what does the
• 49:40
  Speaker 2: World Economic Form say it wants to do to the
• 49:42
  Speaker 2: world by twenty thirty, and what does Russia wanted to
• 49:44
  Speaker 2: do by the two on thirty. It's like the same thing.
• 49:47
  Speaker 2: It's absolutely the same thing. And not only that, Unfortunately,
• 49:49
  Speaker 2: a lot of Russia's well not a lot, but some
• 49:52
  Speaker 2: of the big names that are molding Russian policy, especially
• 49:57
  Speaker 2: with technocratic things like for example, digital surve ailence or
• 50:00
  Speaker 2: biometric ideas for school children, which is a thing that's
• 50:04
  Speaker 2: happening right now in Russia. It's all being done by
• 50:06
  Speaker 2: the CEO of spare Bank, Russia's largest bank, this guy
• 50:09
  Speaker 2: named Herman Greff, who was a Board of Trustees member
• 50:13
  Speaker 2: member of the Board of Trustees of the World Economic
• 50:15
  Speaker 2: for him, he wrote the Russian language the preface to
• 50:18
  Speaker 2: the Russian language version of Klaus Schwab's The Fourth Industrial Revolution,
• 50:24
  Speaker 2: in which he says, you know, klau Schwab is this
• 50:26
  Speaker 2: great visionary, he has this great these great ideas for
• 50:28
  Speaker 2: the world. We should all listen to him very carefully. YadA, YadA, YadA.
• 50:33
  Speaker 2: So again, yeah, like, are these guys motivated? You know,
• 50:37
  Speaker 2: are like the davoschoons motivated because they have this you know,
• 50:40
  Speaker 2: I don't know, like they're part of some secret cult
• 50:42
  Speaker 2: and they worship ancient deity or something maybe, but I
• 50:46
  Speaker 2: really think you just boil it down to this nasty,
• 50:49
  Speaker 2: cold drive for money and control and making sure that
• 50:53
  Speaker 2: people don't take your money. And so obviously Russia's on
• 50:57
  Speaker 2: board with that agenda, especially since his controlled also by
• 51:00
  Speaker 2: an oligarchy, and so it's not a coincidence. I mean,
• 51:03
  Speaker 2: it's obvious that they would pursue very similar you know,
• 51:06
  Speaker 2: they would use technology in very similar ways, and so
• 51:08
  Speaker 2: whether you want to, I guess what I don't like
• 51:11
  Speaker 2: is when people say, like, oh, well, you just think
• 51:12
  Speaker 2: they're all on it together, and that's such a simplistic
• 51:14
  Speaker 2: way of looking at the world. I don't. They're competitors
• 51:17
  Speaker 2: who are using the same tools to accomplish the same thing,
• 51:19
  Speaker 2: which is a curb stomp the peasants, you know, and
• 51:22
  Speaker 2: so on that end. You know, again, I don't. I
• 51:24
  Speaker 2: don't see any large power system caring at all about
• 51:31
  Speaker 2: the peasantry.
• 51:34
  Speaker 1: Think you're right. I think the competition aspect is very
• 51:38
  Speaker 1: important because they don't all necessarily sit around the same
• 51:42
  Speaker 1: table and have a beer and go, okay, guys, this
• 51:45
  Speaker 1: is how we're going to.
• 51:46
  Speaker 2: Trick the world. Ha.
• 51:48
  Speaker 1: You know, you know, they don't sitn't do that. They
• 51:51
  Speaker 1: obviously are competing against one another. I'm thinking perhaps of
• 51:56
  Speaker 1: a household with let's say two parents trying to find
• 52:00
  Speaker 1: the best way to take the house forward. They're competing
• 52:05
  Speaker 1: with each other that having arguments and whatever else, the
• 52:10
  Speaker 1: overarching ambition is pointing in the same trajectory that makes sense, sure.
• 52:17
  Speaker 2: Or take another example two feuding drug cartels. So you
• 52:22
  Speaker 2: have a drug some dude on the corner, you know,
• 52:25
  Speaker 2: trying to sell you heroin, and then another cartel comes
• 52:27
  Speaker 2: and pushes them out. Are you excited that the other
• 52:30
  Speaker 2: cartel pushed him out? He's also selling the heroin. Then
• 52:32
  Speaker 2: you have one cartel who had these big, lush poppy
• 52:36
  Speaker 2: field in Afghanistan. Another cartel comes in and steals the poppies. Like,
• 52:40
  Speaker 2: oh yeah, no, we're now that cartel doesn't have the
• 52:43
  Speaker 2: poppies and we're gonna have better heroin or something. I
• 52:46
  Speaker 2: don't know, you know, like they don't care about you.
• 52:48
  Speaker 2: They're selling heroin.
• 52:51
  Speaker 1: Part that gets me, though, is the framework that they
• 52:54
  Speaker 1: both seem to have implemented. Do you think that's by
• 52:57
  Speaker 1: design or emergence.
• 53:00
  Speaker 2: Framework? In what sense?
• 53:02
  Speaker 1: Well, if they're both, if they're both competing for the
• 53:06
  Speaker 1: same architecture such as digital ID and cbdc's I mean,
• 53:11
  Speaker 1: is this by design or by emergents.
• 53:16
  Speaker 2: Question? So for example, again we keep returning to the
• 53:18
  Speaker 2: c A CBDC thing. The Bank of Russia when it
• 53:21
  Speaker 2: announced that it was going to start working on the
• 53:25
  Speaker 2: digital ruble, it was in October of twenty twenty two,
• 53:28
  Speaker 2: which was right around the time when like ten other
• 53:30
  Speaker 2: ten other central banks announced that they were all yeah,
• 53:35
  Speaker 2: like so it was very like, I'm sorry, but come on,
• 53:38
  Speaker 2: like something's got like a document that said there's this
• 53:41
  Speaker 2: thing called cbdc's and you should we encourage you to
• 53:44
  Speaker 2: do or I don't know, I don't know exactly what happened.
• 53:46
  Speaker 2: I'm not saying that someone pointed at every single central
• 53:49
  Speaker 2: bank is that you have to do this now. But
• 53:51
  Speaker 2: isn't it a little strange that you had a dozen
• 53:54
  Speaker 2: central banks in a you know, a few week period
• 53:57
  Speaker 2: being like, yeah, cbdc's just out of nowhere. I think
• 54:00
  Speaker 2: it's a little bit odd. And so there's maybe who
• 54:04
  Speaker 2: knows exactly, but it's clear that they all draw inspiration
• 54:08
  Speaker 2: from the same sources, let's put it that way.
• 54:13
  Speaker 1: I asked that question because it's something that I've been
• 54:15
  Speaker 1: grappling with personally for a long time, and that is
• 54:21
  Speaker 1: our opposition to all of this stuff. Is it not
• 54:25
  Speaker 1: us just being luddites? Is this just not the nature
• 54:28
  Speaker 1: of technological progress?
• 54:32
  Speaker 2: Yeah? Sure, No progress does mean basically that's what That's
• 54:36
  Speaker 2: how we've come to understand it right, this is progress,
• 54:39
  Speaker 2: and that's how that's how it's framed. Listen, Russia. They
• 54:42
  Speaker 2: always talk about how all these new technologies, like, for example,
• 54:46
  Speaker 2: the biometric ideas for school children is safe and convenient. Right,
• 54:51
  Speaker 2: it's progress. You don't have to worry. Now your trivel
• 54:54
  Speaker 2: will be safe when they go to school. There'll be
• 54:56
  Speaker 2: a camera that will recognize your daughter's face and will
• 54:59
  Speaker 2: know we'll send you an SMS when she leaves school
• 55:02
  Speaker 2: so that you'll know that she's coming home. That's progress,
• 55:05
  Speaker 2: But like, is it though? Is it actual? One of
• 55:08
  Speaker 2: the things that I loved about living in my little
• 55:10
  Speaker 2: village was how seemingly, you know, tasks like turning the
• 55:15
  Speaker 2: water faucet and getting water actually became a task that
• 55:18
  Speaker 2: took a little bit more time. I had to go
• 55:20
  Speaker 2: to the local well, haul the water back home, you know,
• 55:23
  Speaker 2: fill up chugs, and you just sort of you just became,
• 55:28
  Speaker 2: you just saw there are other ways to live. Of course,
• 55:31
  Speaker 2: the things that I was doing is very extreme and
• 55:33
  Speaker 2: not necessarily that I'm not saying that's like a solution.
• 55:36
  Speaker 2: I loved it though, I absolutely loved it. But I
• 55:39
  Speaker 2: think there is a question about how far is too far?
• 55:42
  Speaker 2: What about like with Ai. I mean, are we basically
• 55:46
  Speaker 2: witnessing a situation where technology is going to replace millions
• 55:51
  Speaker 2: of jobs? And what is that? Is that progress? Maybe
• 55:55
  Speaker 2: it is like maybe people shouldn't work as taxi drivers
• 55:58
  Speaker 2: or whatever delivery food delivery people. Maybe they should be
• 56:01
  Speaker 2: doing other things with their time. Maybe it is progress.
• 56:04
  Speaker 2: Maybe it's a way to make humans redundant and a
• 56:07
  Speaker 2: bunch of us get cold. I don't know, but I
• 56:10
  Speaker 2: mean on a certain on a certain level, though I
• 56:12
  Speaker 2: agree with you, I don't think that there's there's no
• 56:14
  Speaker 2: stopping progress. There's no stop in the progress train. It's
• 56:17
  Speaker 2: it's like a human like disease, you know, It's it's pathological,
• 56:22
  Speaker 2: this idea that we need to progress.
• 56:23
  Speaker 1: Well, I mean I'm asking it more rhetorical because I
• 56:27
  Speaker 1: don't know the answer. As I said, it's something that
• 56:29
  Speaker 1: I'll grapple with. But I mean, you've all Harari basically
• 56:32
  Speaker 1: echoed what you just say that people must become in easiview,
• 56:35
  Speaker 1: people must become useless and just basically stay at home
• 56:38
  Speaker 1: and do nothing.
• 56:42
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I think that we are definitely headed towards where many,
• 56:46
  Speaker 2: many people are going to be considered redundant to use
• 56:50
  Speaker 2: the HR approved words and what happens to them, I
• 56:53
  Speaker 2: don't know.
• 56:53
  Speaker 1: So yeah, okay, so Riley coming in for landing. Whole
• 57:00
  Speaker 1: thesis of this discussion is, don't trust Russia simply because
• 57:05
  Speaker 1: it isn't the West.
• 57:07
  Speaker 2: Don't trust any country simply because it isn't the West.
• 57:10
  Speaker 2: Don't trust any government. And also, you know, I would
• 57:14
  Speaker 2: just really encourage people to think like the people, for example,
• 57:17
  Speaker 2: with Russia, I guarantee that there are many like minded
• 57:21
  Speaker 2: Russians inside Russia who would are also very worried about
• 57:27
  Speaker 2: the rise of the technocratic state and you know the
• 57:30
  Speaker 2: creation of a digital concentration camp and cbdc's and all
• 57:33
  Speaker 2: this stuff. So you should find a way, like, you
• 57:37
  Speaker 2: should feel good about knowing that there are people around
• 57:39
  Speaker 2: the world who you can, you know, exist in solidarity with,
• 57:43
  Speaker 2: and that it doesn't really make any sense to play soft,
• 57:48
  Speaker 2: you know, play defense for a government that supports everything
• 57:53
  Speaker 2: that apparently you don't like. Right, So, if you're against
• 57:56
  Speaker 2: the surveillance state, it just doesn't make sense to give
• 57:59
  Speaker 2: the Russian government a free pass. If you're against medical tyranny,
• 58:02
  Speaker 2: it just doesn't make sense to give the Russian government
• 58:04
  Speaker 2: a free pass or to make up like qann theories
• 58:07
  Speaker 2: as to why it's somehow necessary in Russia. And again
• 58:10
  Speaker 2: this is this isn't about Russia, It's about every single
• 58:12
  Speaker 2: country on earth. I mean, right now, I'm in the EU.
• 58:15
  Speaker 2: EU sucks Russians. European Union is controlled by a bunch
• 58:20
  Speaker 2: of you know, maniacal bureaucrats who have created truly an impressive, little, uh,
• 58:27
  Speaker 2: you know, concentration camp here. But I love Europeans and
• 58:30
  Speaker 2: I like hanging out with them, and some of them
• 58:32
  Speaker 2: are kind of cooked, but but a lot of them
• 58:34
  Speaker 2: aret So I don't know, like I would just instead
• 58:37
  Speaker 2: of instead of looking for you know, some guy and
• 58:41
  Speaker 2: sitting in the Kremlin or in the White House or
• 58:44
  Speaker 2: out even the European Parliament or whatever the taj Mahal like,
• 58:48
  Speaker 2: just just you know, to look to the right and
• 58:51
  Speaker 2: left of view, try to make connections with other humans
• 58:54
  Speaker 2: who aren't obsessed with power and greed, and just live
• 58:57
  Speaker 2: live a good, honest life. That's it.
• 58:59
  Speaker 1: You know, the people to the left and right of
• 59:02
  Speaker 1: you are not your enemies, but those above you are.
• 59:06
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I think that's a good way of putting.
• 59:07
  Speaker 1: It, all right, How can I follow your work?
• 59:13
  Speaker 2: Mostly just on substack, it's Edward slas squad dot substack
• 59:17
  Speaker 2: dot com.
• 59:20
  Speaker 1: Riley Wagman a Edward slof squad, Thank you for joining
• 59:23
  Speaker 1: me in the trenches.
• 59:25
  Speaker 2: Thanks for having me