In this episode, we dive into geopolitical tensions, focusing on Russia’s influence on global politics and its ideological underpinnings. David Troy and Jason Pack from the Disorder Podcast discuss Russian nationalism, the continuity of Soviet-era tactics, and the extensive influence of Project Russia. The conversation also delves into the intersections with Western ideologies and strategies to combat disinformation, as well as the peculiar connection between Russian Cosmism and contemporary tec...
Jun 11, 2025•57 min•Season 3Ep. 8
Journalist and political communications specialist Gil Duran joins Dave for a discussion of The Network State, the latest in a long line of Libertarian Exit ideologies. Based on the ideas of people like Patri Friedman, Balaji Srinavasan, and Curtis Yarvin, the movement ultimately aims to dismantle the American government in favor of a network of federated states, all competing for citizens. The ideology has found a home in the second Trump administration and is gaining momentum quickly. Dave and...
Mar 21, 2025•1 hr 10 min•Season 3Ep. 7
Donald Trump wasn't the first presidential candidate to be groomed by the KGB to advance Russian interests. That dubious honor belongs to Henry A. Wallace, who ran for president in 1948. Dave interviews Benn Steil, an economist and historian from the Council on Foreign Relations. They discuss his latest book, 'The World That Wasn't, Henry Wallace and the Fate of the American Century.' The conversation explores Wallace's intriguing political and personal life, his contributions as Agriculture Sec...
Feb 25, 2025•1 hr 7 min•Season 3Ep. 6
Dave interviews Katherine Stewart about her new book 'Money, Lies, and God,' which explores extremist movements in the United States, particularly focusing on the rise of anti-democratic sentiment and Christian nationalism. Katherine shares her background in reporting over the past 16 years and discusses how she began investigating these movements after a 'Good News Club' appeared at her daughter's school. She categorizes the key players in these movements into 'funders,' 'thinkers,' and 'foot s...
Feb 20, 2025•50 min•Season 3Ep. 5
Dave interviews Dina Khapaeva, Russian culture expert at Georgia Tech, about the book "Third Empire: Russia as it ought to be," written by Mikhail Yuriev, one of the authors of Project Russia, which we have also covered in the last two episodes. Dina specializes in Russian historical memory and contemporary issues. She provides an in-depth background on her research and her personal history, including her family's experience with Stalinist terror. The discussion focuses on the troubling, far-rig...
Jan 30, 2025•1 hr 5 min•Season 3Ep. 4
Dave interviews noted British journalist and documentarian Lucy Ash about her new book, The Baton and the Cross: Russia's Church from Pagans to Putin. They discuss intricate relationship between the Russian Orthodox Church and the modern Russian state. The interview explores the history of Orthodoxy in Russia, tracing its origins from medieval times through periods of upheaval, including the Bolshevik Revolution and the Stalinist era. Lucy discusses the personal connections that inspired her to ...
Jan 30, 2025•1 hr 19 min•Season 3Ep. 3
You've heard of Project 2025, but there's another framework that may be even more important for understanding the current assault on Western democracies. "Project Russia" is a series of books published between 2005 and 2010, and it outlines a strategic vision for total war on the West, against democracies, and against the US dollar and other fiat currencies. Nearly unknown to Western analysts, the concepts described in Project Russia increasingly reflect the events we see playing out on a daily ...
Dec 13, 2024•57 min•Season 3Ep. 2
Big tech companies are playing an outsized role in our world and are increasingly involved in creating policy that has negative impacts on democracies. In her book The Tech Coup , Marietje Schaake argues that companies need to be reined in, and that democracies need to organize themselves in ways that can withstand the challenges posed by these companies and their increasingly imperious owners. Marietje joins Dave for a spirited post-election conversation about how the Tech Coup is playing out r...
Nov 26, 2024•53 min•Season 3Ep. 1
In this special bonus episode, Dave interviews author Peter Pomerantsev about his new book "How to Win an Information War: The Propagandist Who Outwitted Hitler." The book explores the work of Sefton Delmer, a journalist who developed unique ways to destabilize Hitler's propaganda programming. Their conversation was recorded on October 28, 2024, at Bird In Hand Books in Baltimore, Maryland. Pomerantsev is the author of two other books on disinformation and propaganda, "Nothing Is True and Everyt...
Oct 31, 2024•44 min•Season 2Ep. 15
The term "October Surprise" has come to mean any kind of shock that might upend a November election. But the original October Surprise was in 1980, when Ronald Reagan's campaign operatives conspired with the fundamentalist Iranian regime to keep 52 American hostages in Tehran until after the presidential election of 1980 — all but ensuring a loss for incumbent candidate Jimmy Carter. This is the account provided by author Craig Unger, who has been following the "October Surprise" story since 199...
Oct 21, 2024•1 hr 7 min•Season 2Ep. 14
No joke: Peter Thiel envisioned PayPal as a way to challenge to the global political order. And that vision is just now coming into place in 2024. In this election cycle, cryptocurrency interests have surpassed $120 million, surpassing even big oil, in trying to capture candidates from both political parties. This episode features a recording of a Twitter (X) space recorded on September 12, 2024 exploring this set of topics. The space was coordinated by Jake Donoghue, and includes several leadin...
Oct 15, 2024•1 hr 57 min•Season 2Ep. 13
The secretive Catholic sect Opus Dei seems to be popping up everywhere. But what is it? Many people are familiar with it from depictions in fiction like "The Davinci Code," but the reality is both more mundane and in many ways, more sinister. Dave is joined by financial journalist Gareth Gore, who got into the story by covering the failure of Spanish bank Banco Popular. He found that the bank led to a rabbit hole — and in the center of it was Opus Dei. Part classic authoritarian mind control cul...
Oct 14, 2024•1 hr 10 min•Season 2Ep. 12
Generative Artificial Intelligence has topped tech headlines for the last two years, but it's possible we may be reaching a limit of what can be achieved using current approaches. Concerns about reliability and now, return on investment for the countless billions invested in the sector, may put AI's short-term future in doubt. Dave interviews AI expert Gary Marcus , a psychologist, cognitive scientist, and author, known for his research at the intersection of cognitive psychology, neuroscience, ...
Jul 31, 2024•1 hr 15 min•Season 2Ep. 11
It's shaping up to be the hottest July on record, and things couldn't be more strange in the political realm. From multiple bombshell rulings from the Supreme Court to widespread speculation about whether Joe Biden should step aside after his halting debate performance, it feels like things couldn't get any crazier. Yet, that's entirely possible. Dave talks with Jack Bryan, director of the film ACTIVE MEASURES and creator of the podcasts AMERICAN PSYOP and LAWYERS, GUNS, and MONEY about what's h...
Jul 10, 2024•58 min•Season 2Ep. 10
For decades, a highly entrepreneurial group of researchers, scientists, and journalists has been at the center of the movement to “disclose” the existence of extraterrestrial visitors to Earth — and they’ve scored what may be their biggest legislative victory yet. The 2024 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), passed in December, includes a provision that requires the federal government to provide any and all records on UAP. Activists hope that a deluge of new UAP information will be disclo...
Mar 13, 2024•2 hr 8 min•Season 2Ep. 9
American society seems to be devolving into two bitterly opposed and diametrically polarized camps. Not just around politics, but around culture as well. Jonathan Stray studies conflict, and tries to identify ways in which we can learn to conflict with each other more productively. He is a researcher at the Center for Human Compatible AI at the University of California Berkeley, where his work looks at a range of scientific and academic study of conflict and online behaviors. He talks with Dave ...
Jan 31, 2024•1 hr 25 min•Season 2Ep. 8
On January 8, 2024, Dave hosted a space on "X" (formerly Twitter) for an overview of what to expect in geopolitics in 2024. In this wide ranging monologue, Dave covers many topics including the US elections, Russia's war against Ukraine, the brewing conflict in the Middle East, and rising tensions in Asia between Taiwan, China, and Japan. Keywords: geopolitics, 2024, election, Russia, Ukraine, Putin, Iran, Israel, Gaza, Palestine, China, Taiwan, Japan, Trump, RFK Jr, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Red-B...
Jan 29, 2024•1 hr 55 min•Season 2Ep. 7
Psychedelic drugs are having a moment, like SSRI's and Valium did decades before. What if there's a simple way for people to feel happier and more connected to the world while ushering in world peace at the same time? That's what many advocates of psychedelic drugs claim, but the reality is a lot more complicated. Dave talks with Neşe Devenot, a writer and early psychedelics advocate who has increasingly become a critic of the attitudes and capital that are lining up behind the popularization of...
Dec 18, 2023•1 hr 18 min•Season 2Ep. 6
No discussion of the ways that the dollar and the United States are under attack would be complete without a contemporary exploration of the world of cryptocurrencies. Zeke Faux, an investigative journalist with Bloomberg News, joins Dave to discuss his new book, "Number Go Up: Inside Crypto's Wide Rise and Staggering Fall," which is part research, part travelogue, and filled with bizarre schemes and colorful characters. Number Go Up on Goodreads Zeke Faux on X NumberGoUpBook.com Keywords: Bitco...
Dec 04, 2023•1 hr 17 min•Season 2Ep. 5
The League of Nations was established in the wake of The Great War to prevent another war like it from ever happening again. While it was a noble effort, it became clear as Hitler and Mussolini rose to power, that such a design would not be capable of curbing rampant nationalism and conflicting national interests. And Clarence Kirschman Streit saw it all unfold before his eyes. As a journalist for the New York Times covering the League of Nations in Geneva, he observed its operations in detail. ...
Oct 03, 2023•1 hr 29 min•Season 2Ep. 4
Everyone's talking about AI, how it will change the world, and even suggesting it might end humanity as we know it. Dave is joined by Dr. Timnit Gebru and Émile Torres, two prominent critics of AI doomerism, to cut through the noise, and look at where these ideas really came from, and offer suggestions on how we might look at these problems differently. And they also offer a picture of the darker side of these ideas and how they connect to Eugenics and other ideologies historically. Together Émi...
Jun 14, 2023•1 hr 35 min•Season 2Ep. 3
As the United States faces yet another showdown over the federal debt ceiling, we examine the roots of the conflict by looking at the "North/Paul Strategy," a decades-old plan to provoke a financial collapse and then seize power. Rooted in libertarian economic theory and Christian Reconstructionist doctrine, Gary North and Ron Paul's ideas laid the foundation for the Tea Party and later, January 6th. Dave chats with James Scaminaci III, a scholar and expert on Fourth Generation Warfare, and Fred...
May 26, 2023•1 hr 34 min•Season 2Ep. 2
SEASON 2, "The War on the Dollar" We begin season two by following the ongoing assaults on the dollar by Xi, Putin, and the BRICS nations, and looking at how that might play into Elon Musk's long game with Twitter. Rich with clips from across the media spectrum, we'll be exploring the underlying forces that shape our world — and what we might do to respond to them. Segments: The End of Twitter, The War on the Dollar, the Grinding Nuclear Threat, Katechon vs. Eschaton. Keywords: Twitter, dollar, ...
Apr 15, 2023•57 min•Season 2Ep. 1
Dave wraps up 2022 with a roundup of the most important stories in meta-politics. This is the show to listen to if you want to get ramped up on what to expect in 2023. Topics covered include Ukraine, Elon Musk, Russian Cosmism, Twitter, Dollar, Crypto, Debt Ceiling, Noosphere, Politics, the "how to fix it" part, Mastodon, and honestly a whole lot more. Along with some interesting audio clips that help put things into context! Paper: Disinformation and its effects on social capital networks Keywo...
Dec 31, 2022•1 hr 54 min•Season 1Ep. 28
Russian Nationalism — a heady mix of Eurasianism, Russian Cosmism with esoteric and occult beliefs — is reflected in the Putin regime's information warfare. In recent episodes we covered a diverse range of topics, from longtermism to libertarian exit, to Bucky Fuller. But what do these things have in common, and what does it all mean? Dave is joined by Joe Szimhart who helps unpack the details behind Eurasianism, Russian Cosmism, and many other syncretic religious and occult ideas at the heart o...
Oct 14, 2022•1 hr 57 min•Season 1Ep. 27
Buckminster Fuller was a designer, inventor, thinker, and a true American original. Alec Nevala-Lee is the author of a new detailed and deeply honest biography of Fuller, "Inventor of the Future: The Visionary Life of Buckminster Fuller." Dave talks to Alec about Bucky's life, the unusual cast of characters he attracted, and starts to get into some questions that help inform why Bucky's outsized personality might have attracted people who later went on to become attracted to various kinds of dis...
Oct 09, 2022•1 hr 32 min•Season 1Ep. 26
The idea of leaving society to start up a new one isn't exactly new... history is full of people leaving to go start new countries. But the idea became especially fashionable in 20th century America and was jump-started as a reaction to the counterculture in the 1960's, and given new life by Silicon Valley entrepreneurs in the 2000's. Dave talks with Raymond Craib, professor of history at Cornell University, about his new book "Adventure Capitalism: A History of Libertarian Exit from the Era of ...
Oct 09, 2022•1 hr 37 min•Season 1Ep. 25
The New Apostolic Reformation is a Christian movement that most people have never heard of, but it has an out-sized influence in American, and even global, politics and culture. Bruce Wilson has been researching and writing about religion and its influence on politics and culture for decades, and Jennifer Cohn has been working to document threats to democracy and election integrity. They join Dave to discuss the NAR, what it is, where it came from, and the risks it may pose to pluralistic democr...
Aug 26, 2022•1 hr 32 min•Season 1Ep. 24
Most people have never heard of "Longtermism." Long term? That sounds like it might be a pretty good thing. But many critics are suggesting that it is a dangerous philosophy, with many societal and social risks connected with it. And it's also been adopted by many wealthy and influential people, including Elon Musk. In this episode Dave sits down with Émile Torres, a philosopher at Leibniz University in Hannover, Germany. Torres has been a leading critic of longtermism and its related philosophy...
Aug 25, 2022•1 hr 38 min•Season 1Ep. 23
Amy Westervelt is an investigative journalist, radio reporter, and podcast storyteller who has been tracking the oil and gas industry's climate denialism for over twenty years. Her podcast series, "Drilled" and "Rigged" tell the story of how the oil industry and big business have used influence to shape public discourse, perception, and regulation. Dave talked with Amy about the history of Big Oil's deceptive practices, and what, if anything, we can do about it going forward. Learn more about Am...
Aug 19, 2022•1 hr 13 min•Season 1Ep. 22
