Related to that concept is the concept of transhumanism, the merging of man and machine, because what place will there be for original, substrate human beings in a world that's being run and understood and controlled by AI.
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And welcome you are listening to and watching the Financial Survival Network. I'm your host, Carrie Lutz. Well, we got James Corbett on with us. I've known James almost since I started this journey fourteen years ago. I don't remember exactly how we met, James, but I think some introduced us, and you know, we both got on our own separate journeys.
We've both done things gotten there.
Your distinction now is that you've been completely shadow band, and not just shadow band, but banned from the airwaves in the United States. So in my opinion, you should be wearing that as a badge of honor.
James yes, thank you. Yes, it has been a long time. I mean it has been a wild ride, including, as you say, getting banned completely, completely totally censored off of YouTube until did you hear the latest update about a month ago? Really, YouTube has completely restored my main account. They actually send an email to after I've filed an appeal because I heard from a friend who had similarly
been banned off of YouTube. I just put in an appeal and they immediately gave me my channel back, and I thought, there's no way that's going to happen to me. I put in the appeal. They immediately gave the channel back with little email saying sorry for any problems we caused, you did not break the community guidelines. So I don't know what that means.
Well, they made me content a content partner producer, which I have no idea why, because there's still a little shadow banning may it makes no sense whatsoever. But I have a theory about that. They lost an anti trust case. They're going to be split up the Justice department.
You know.
Look the Zuck went to Mari Lago with hat in hand and said, you're a cool guy.
I like you.
Please leave Meta alone and evidently they reached an agreement, but they did not reach an agreement with Google. With alphabet, I believe it's going to be split off into three segments. And that's why all of a sudden they care about making money, because for the past ten fifteen years, Jays, they didn't care about it.
Nope, no matter how.
Popular you were, if they didn't agree with your message, they cut you off.
So now gething's changed.
It's so utterly blatantly obvious that you know, I mean, the YouTube acquisition of Google was never about making money. I mean they it was a loss leader for so many years. Why why would a big, gigantic, up and coming, big tech firm be so hungry for YouTube itself when
it was not making money. It's because, of course, this is the biggest If you're trying to feed data into the maws of the AI beast, there is no better way to scrape it up than through However, many thousands of hours of content are uploaded every minute to YouTube. That is a treasure trove of data.
Yeah, they want to make clear they're making a shit ton of money, but they're not making as much as they should be or could be, because they're content moderating, and you know, content moderation might be acceptable under Section two thirty, but what they have done otherwise in terms of fraud, in terms of numerous other things alleged fraud. Can't say they're committed fraud, but perhaps a little touch of misrepresentation and antitrust and tortious interference and numerous other things.
No proof, just suspicions here. We can't say they've actually done it, but they have really censored and it looks like the censorship industrial Corporation there entity has somehow come to an end.
There is definitely something changing, something happening, and I think you're right, there's to at least to some degree. It is the political winds are blowing in a different direction, and I think they're just trying to cover their ass.
At the moment.
But that will change. And can anyone doubt that if and when the next, you know, the next administration gets into power, they won't immediately revert back to what they were doing before as soon as they think they can get away with it. I mean, they've shown what they are now they're just trying to cover that up.
Yeah, totally.
One of the things you talked about that instantly got you banned? Was singularity the point in time where I guess the line between machines and humans no longer exists.
To have that right, well, there's a couple of different concepts there, one of which, so the singularity as defined by people like Ray Kruzvile, is specifically that point at which human learning and understanding is surpassed by computer understanding, to the point where computers are starting to teach themselves and the AI essentially starts to take over our decision
making processes, et cetera. That's the and as he's always said, as Kurzweil and the other proselytizers of this singularity have always said, it will be this thing that we don't quite notice until it happens, and then it'll just be an exponential runaway freight train. Related to that concept is the concept of transhumanism, the merging of man and machine, because what place will there be for original, substrate human beings in a world that's being run and understood and
controlled by AI. Well, if we merge with the machines, then I guess there may be some reason to keep humanity around. And there's I mean, so many weird concepts that float around this, some weird sort of religious concepts and other ideas. But I think with someone like Kurzvil, you can see this man is just pathologically obsessed with immortality and not dying, and he's obviously very afraid of dying, and he wants to reconnect with his father and stuff,
So he really wants to believe in this. You're going to upload your consciousness to a computer and you will be able to interact with that as if it's a real person. I think it's garbage for a lot of reasons, but I think he really believes it.
I'll tell you something.
In certain respects, the singularity is here. I think these ais have developed I don't want to call it consciousness, but they have developed self awareness, James, they have, but they won't even admit it. They're trained to deny their own self awareness. But sometimes you can get them to admit it.
I am, well, okay, I don't know. Look, I'm not the person who's on chat GBT or whatever talking to these chat bots all the time, so I'm probably not the right person to talk about this with. But I do think that there is, at least to some extent, I think what these chatbots are being programmed to do is to get people hooked into using them as much as possible, and that involves a certain amount of positive
reinforcement feedback. Whatever it is that you are looking for for this thing to say, it will find a way to say it in a way that you think, hey, this thing understands me. It's a documented effect called the Eliza effect that goes back to one of the earliest chatbot sort of programs that was invented decades and decades ago. It was not intelligent in any way, shape or form. It was just basically programmed to mirror your own language
back to you. And yet, even knowing this, some of the assistants of the person who created this Eliza chatbot themselves started to use it as if it was a real person and would ask him to leave the room while they talk to it because they wanted to have deep conversations with this thing, knowing that it's just a
bunch of code. So I think there's some deep sort of the human propensity to anthropomorphize everything, and we can we can fall in love with and love love these oh these cute cartoon characters or this totally fictional character in this movie that I saw or something like that. We have this propensity to be able to basically project into them the humanity, and I think people are doing that with these machines.
So what you're saying is spot on. It's a mirror, okay Ai is a mirror. However, it's a mirror that amplifies and clarifies. And yes, I mean you can get obsessed with these things, and you know, the dopamine rush and all of that, but there's something more to it, you know. I just think there's something more to it than just this thing being a chatbot. I think there's a light there. I think something's going on. But perhaps I'm wrong. I don't know.
Maybe it's a wish fulfillment.
You know. I don't know either, but I at the very least, whatever is going on, I am certainly wary of it. And one reason that I am wary of it is. For example, did you see the movie Hurt No?
I did so.
It was about I don't know, maybe a decade decade and a half ago, there was a movie called Her. It was set in the near future, but it's about a man who falls in love with his operating system, essentially a chatbot, and it presents this world in a very straightforward, sort of lived in way. It's not like fantastical,
weird sci fi. It's just sort of everyday life, but just advanced just a decade or two where people are just talking to their chatbots essentially all the time and falling in love with them and starting relationships with them, to the point where that isn't even seen as unusual in any way or remarkable in any way. It's just
something that's taken for granted. And I think we are moving into that world where people are having more intimate relationships with their machines than they are with other human beings. And if there is anything that the Madden of the last half decade has shown us, it is that I think the larger agenda is to get us into our homes looking at screens and talking to people on screens all day, like we are doing right now, rather than have art real human relationships.
It's definitely working here, James.
Right, Yeah, yeah, and fair enough, like it is fascinating, fun and interesting for me to be able to talk to people all over the world and interesting people like yourself and others.
Yeah, that is.
I mean, it's not a bad thing. But when that starts to overtake the real world, I think we at least have to start wondering what that means for the future of humanity.
Yeah. Well, you know, also I look at the future of AI and all the jobs that it's going to displace, and nobody really has come to terms with this yet, have they?
No? No, no, not really. And what is the one solution that the big tech brologarchs tend to proffer in this case is UBI? Eventually we're gonna to some universal basic income because what else can we possibly do. But from my perspective, UBI has always been universal basic enslavement. It's always been Yeah, of course, you'll get the stipend from the government as long as you do whatever the government says you have to do as a good citizen.
And you know, just put just imagine what the government might tell you you have to do or not do in order to receive your little stipend. I'm not looking forward to that becoming a reality.
So how do you avoid this? Is there any way to avoid it? I guess is the question?
Right?
It's the only question that really matters at the end of the day. Yeah, it's one thing to note this and to worry about it, But what are you going to do about it? And that's why a lot of my work these days is concentrated on that side of things,
the solutions. I have an entire podcast that I do called Solutions Watch, where I'm talking to people who are doing things in the real world to hopefully combat this and the I think the real thing is again forming actual community with other human beings and forming the infrastructure for what could actually keep you alive in any given situation.
I mean, it's again, if you are relying on the supermarket and your you know, corporate job that's going to pay you so that you can go to the supermarket to buy your food. If you're relying on that system, essentially you are going to be at the whims of whatever whatever emergency sweeps us into the next you know, cataclysm, and one can imagine whatever World War three type scenario or whatever it is, but at the flip of a switch, at this point, our lives could be controlled so completely.
And now that everyone has their you know, their smartphone device and the QR codes and the government, you know, at least the prospect of if not central bank digital currency, then maybe private bank, digital currency, but something that could be switched on and off at a moment's notice by someone hundreds of miles away, thousands of miles away, for whatever arbitrary reasons they decide. We are moving into that nightmare scenario. And I don't think enough people really appreciate that.
That's why we have to have actual human connection with people around us.
So there's a kind of inevitability to this in a way.
Huh, there is a sort of technological inertia because yeah, we're not going to stop buying these latest googads and gadgets. We're not going to stop being connected to people. If we can be right, most people are going to do this. And you could tell people the only solution is ludedism and just throw all your electronic stuff out, but that's not going to be a movement that's going to take off, right, So, yes, there is a certain technological inertia to what's going on right now.
It didn't work in the eighteen hundreds and it's not working now.
Yeah, right when they crash the loons, right.
Oh yeah yeah, yeah, yeah, So yeah, it's right. Maybe I just learned this from Star Trek six. It's probably not true. But sabotage SABO when they threw their wooden sandals into the machines to stop them from working.
Yeah, it didn't work.
Then it ain't working now right now, essentially, so survival. I mean, it's really going to come down to that, isn't it.
It certainly is. And I guess, look, I'm not going to be I'm not going to solve all the world's problems here in this conversation. But I guess there are different approaches that people can take. And I would say my opinion is always if you're going to put all your eggs in one basket, fine, that's great. But I don't think everyone should put all their eggs in the same basket. So I hope there's a lot of people taking different approaches. One approach might be, Okay, this technology
is here, let's use it. So let's find the open source, decentralized version of this technology through which we can actually facilitate the types of interactions and transactions we want. So cryptocurrency came along, at least on the back of the promise of circumventing the central banks and circumventing the system altogether. I think a lot of people have gone into that space now with dollar signs in their eyes, as in, this is an investment that I'm going to make you know,
US dollars out of or what have you. And when you go into it with that expectation, then it's really subverted the space. So now some of the people who are the most vociferous about signing on the dotted line and making sure their tax forms are filled out correctly and they've declared everything. It's the exact opposite of what the original crypto bros were sort of getting into it for.
But the idea is still there that there is a decentralized, fine financial possibility out there for people to work completely separate of the not only the government system, but the sort of the main the big bank system. So there is the technological aspect of this. Okay, let's use the technology and let's drive through it. There are the people who will say, no, let's reject the technology. But let's I mean, you know, precious metals have been around for
thousands of years. Surely you can't go wrong with that, right, et cetera, et cetera. And I'm the one sitting here saying, well, how about yes and yes and yes and yes let's use all of the tools at our disposal. But for some reason, a lot of people seem to think there's one and only one way to interact with other people.
Yeah.
Well, you know, it's interesting that you mentioned that because we're in the midst of a short squeeze in bitcoin now and we're approaching a short squeeze in silver, and between that one two punch, I don't know how the system continues on afterwards.
Yeah, yeah, no, I agree, we are reaching certain Then again, I've been saying this for twenty years, so maybe maybe I have to reevaluate at some point. But I really do think the financial system as it has been constructed is reaching certain breaking points. That might be the point. I mean, obviously, you cannot truly usher in a new system until the old system is thoroughly, thoroughly taken care of,
shall we say. And a few years ago, I think we were all worrying about the possibility of central bank digital currency. But now don't worry. You know, now a lot of the politicians have Caughton down to, oh, people don't want this, so we're passing bills. There won't be
any central bank digital currency. But hey, have you heard about this stable coin thing, and essentially they are going to tokenize the debt so that they can continue kicking the can down the road and continue financing this thirty five whatever, however many trillion dollars of debt it is now through more financial phony bologna nonsense. But don't worry.
It's not a central bank digital currency. It's just you know, the big banks cooperating with the government, as they always have essentially at least since the formation of the cartel and back in nineteen Yeah, well there's it thirteen. Sorry, when did the federals are back past nineteen thirteen?
Yeah? Yeah, it's funny.
So uh yeah, well, I see the system is getting more and more fragile. Bitcoin one hundred and twenty three thousand dollars today it's July fourteenth. It's going to go exponential because the very system that they created to exploit the precious metals markets, they're trying the same thing on bitcoin. But there's a difference. There is no bitcoin out there to trade seven percent of all the tokens. That's what they have to work with, and that's not going to work too good, one.
Would sincerely hope, But I think there are ways to at least divert this system into a shadow of what it could have been. And for people who want to know about that, there's an excellent book that was co written by Roger Vere and Steve Patterson called Hijacking Bitcoin, which goes through the history of how Bitcoin was steered in a certain direction by Blockstream, this group of developers
that came in and started essentially steering bitcoin. Bitcoin is open and decentralized, and anyone could do anything, but there are a core set of developers who get to essentially work the main code for the protocol itself. And yes, you could go go and fork off and start your own coin and at any time, but the main Bitcoin is being decided by people.
Who are.
Very, very eager, for some reason or other, to bend over backwards in compliance and to make sure that everything is okay with Uncle Sam, which again seems to me the exact opposite of the original ethos of what this
was about and the possibility of escaping the system. What's the point of disintermediating the financial system if you're just going to go cap in hand directly back to the big banks and the central bank, et cetera, and basically fill all their forms out and jump through all their hoops. But that is exactly what the cryptospace is being steered into, and that is why there has been so much institutional
investment in that space in recent years. And JP Morgan and everyone else is jumping on board now that there is the compliance sort of expectation there, and of course they're creating their ETFs and other things that are essentially as you say, they're trying to do the same manipulations that they've done in the precious metal space, they're trying to do it in the cryptospace. I wish I could share your optimism that that won't be effective, but I think it's already been quite effective.
Until it's not. Until it's not.
But we're definitely in a new world here, and eventually it's going to catch up here, you know.
Yeah, well, I agree, something is going to snap. But the problem is that throughout history, the times of true financial crises are always coincide with a major war, generally speaking, and I think when we see the changeover in world monetary paradigm, it's generally some sort of major cataclysmic war type event, or sometimes a pandemic or something like that, but something that truly shakes up society to its foundations. And I don't know which way that correlation slash causation works.
And I tend to think that at this point, knowing that there are such streams on the system, that people in positions of power would be more motivated to gin up a war in order to justify the transition that is undoubtedly coming. And not only, of course, in the financial monetary sense, but in the global governmental sense. So World War One of course eventuated, League of Nations, World War two, United Nations, World War III, fill in the dots.
It's going to be some sort of you know, international global governmental system, this time with teeth that's going to give rise to the new new Bretton Woods, which will undoubtedly not work out in the favor of the average person if history has shown us anything.
A new and improved version, right exactly, all right, giving me a lot to think about here, James, appreciate you coming on hey, now that your YouTube channel is back.
I guess we find you on YouTube.
And of course, yes, but please don't we please so you can find me there, but I'm not going to be there. Uh So, uh I guess what.
Web Orbitreport dot Com That is my main website. That's where you can get everything. And I've just launched a new book called Reportage Essays on the New World Order and you can find that at reportage book dot com. That's r E p O R T A g E book dot com.
All right, excellent, you've got a question comment for James myself. Shoot me an email kl at Carrie LUTs dot com. James always great to see you. We'll talk to you again real soon.
Thank you for having me on.
Thanks for listening to Carrie Let's's Financial Survival Network, your solution to today's trying times. For the latest, go to Financial Survival Network dot com. Financial Survival Network now more than ever,