Dave Troy Presents

Even if we could build a conscious machine, should we? Neuroscientist Anil Seth says no - and he doubts we can. This fall, the question of whether AI might be conscious left the philosophy seminar and landed on the business pages. Anthropic has written that possibility into the "constitution" it uses to train Claude, all on the eve of what could be the largest stock offering in history. Days before we spoke, Anil Seth, Ned Block and Giulio Tononi argued in Nature that today's AI is not conscious, and perhaps never will be. We talk about why a chatbot fools us when a protein-folding model never would; why time, and the stuff we're made of, may matter more than any algorithm; why "Would you like me to do this next?" is the new infinite scroll; and how the idea of a mind in the machine helps keep the AI bubble inflated. Guest: Anil Seth - Professor of Cognitive and Computational Neuroscience at the University of Sussex, director of the Sussex Centre for Consciousness Science, and author of "Being You: A New Science of Consciousness." Website: https://www.anilseth.com/ Being You: https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/566315/being-you-by-anil-seth/ TED2026, "Why AI isn't going to become conscious": https://www.ted.com/talks/anil_seth_why_ai_isn_t_going_to_become_conscious Nature, "Three reasons why AI is not conscious and perhaps never will be": https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-026-03313-7 Noema, "The Mythology of Conscious AI": https://www.noemamag.com/the-mythology-of-conscious-ai/ X: https://x.com/anilkseth Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/anilseth.bsky.social Chapters: 00:00 Cold open & intro 01:54 Meet Anil Seth 02:45 The Nature comment and the Behavioral and Brain Sciences paper 04:31 Why talking machines fool us 08:19 The protein-folding test 12:21 Time vs. sequence: why a brain can't be paused 14:27 How did we get to be conscious? Animals, evolution and human exceptionalism 18:05 Beyond the brain: nerves, bodies and gut feelings 19:31 Intelligence isn't consciousness, and Descartes' long shadow 22:46 Useful models vs. the real brain 25:16 Scaling, energy and data efficiency 28:23 Learning from bats 29:18 Looking back in 10 years: deep mirrors 32:00 Demoting our own humanity 35:48 Lessons from the PC hype, and the erosion of science 38:39 "Would you like me to do this?" The new infinite scroll 40:19 Power users, Claude Code and neurosymbolic AI 43:30 How would we know if AI were conscious? 46:41 "Functional pain vectors" 49:25 Substrate, analog computing and computational functionalism 54:02 The rabbi's question: should we build conscious machines? 57:00 The costs of false caution: AI rights and parasocial risk 59:43 The Anthropic IPO and the AI bubble 01:01:38 Claude's constitution and the myth of agency 01:04:00 Local models, open weights and interesting times 01:05:43 Outro & links Follow the Anthropic IPO, the 2026 midterms and more on the America 2.0 Live Trackers: https://trackers.america2.news/ Hear them daily on the America 2.0 Tracker Briefing: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/id6825877339 Dave Troy Presents is published by America 2.0. https://america2.news

Trying to explain American politics without the radicalized billionaires behind it is like trying to explain 9/11 without mentioning Al-Qaeda. Gil Duran first joined us in March 2025, while he was still writing "The Nerd Reich: Silicon Valley Fascism and the War on Democracy." The book debuted at number three on the New York Times bestseller list in August and is still there. Along the way he was permanently banned from X for two words - "TLDR: fascism" - and reviewed by a fellow of the very think tank his book investigates. We talk about what fascism means in 2026, and why the tech version promises not a return to a mythical past but an acceleration into a mythical future: Peter Thiel's Antichrist lectures, the "thermodynamic God," and the clash between tech religion and evangelical Christianity. We follow the money from crypto - "a weapon of mass corruption" - to the Trump family and back into Silicon Valley, and from Praxis and the network state to Kazakhstan and California Forever. And with the midterms a month away, Gil, a veteran Democratic communications strategist, explains why tech money is buying both parties. Guest: Gil Duran - independent San Francisco journalist and author of "The Nerd Reich" (Avid Reader Press, 2026); former communications strategist for Jerry Brown, Dianne Feinstein and Kamala Harris. https://www.thenerdreich.com https://www.youtube.com/@TheNerdReichNews https://bsky.app/profile/gilduran.com The America 2.0 Reading List: https://america2.news/the-america-2-0-reading-list/ Chapters: 0:00 Cold open: explaining 9/11 without Al-Qaeda 0:13 Intro 1:47 Welcome back, Gil 2:23 Number three on the Times list 5:13 The 40,000 words that got cut 7:15 A book in conversation: Applebaum, Michel, Silverman 9:07 Adventure capitalism and the long history of exit 10:33 Banned from X for "TLDR: fascism" 12:40 Fresh Air, and the outlets that won't touch it 14:31 The Bulwark review and the undisclosed tie 16:12 What is tech fascism? 20:38 Apocalypse on both sides 21:41 Thiel's Antichrist 23:12 It's a regime: crypto as a weapon of mass corruption 26:12 Buying the media, and Newsom's Silicon Valley Democrats 29:49 Praxis, Prospera and the network state abroad 33:03 Freedom cities, and a crypto city in Kazakhstan 35:13 California Forever and the miracle in Solano 38:12 Tennessee: Highland Rim and New Earth 40:42 From Solano to the data center fights 42:33 Will the AI money hold? S-1s and stranded assets 44:25 The doom machine markets itself 46:05 Why China has no AI apocalypse 49:29 If Charles Manson were a billionaire 51:46 Rival cults: evangelicals vs. the thermodynamic God 55:22 Yarvin's cathedral and the seizure of institutions 59:19 The midterms 1:02:09 Crypto money on both sides 1:04:11 What if the winners aren't seated? 1:06:23 Thiel in Nashville, and what's next 1:08:25 What you can do: ask your candidates 1:08:59 Outro and links Dave Troy Presents is published by America 2.0. https://america2.news

What if elections, which are a cornerstone of democracy, don't produce the outcomes that we desire? Terry Bouricius spent twenty years as an elected lawmaker in Vermont - city council, then the statehouse - followed by a decade at FairVote trying to fix elections with better elections. Then he quit. Since 2005 he has been the leading American theorist of sortition: choosing the people who govern by lottery, the way we choose juries — a practice rooted in Athenian democracy. This is a conversation about an idea most Americans have never encountered, and about why it keeps working wherever it is tried. Ireland used randomly selected conventions to settle same-sex marriage and abortion. Melbourne handed a stuck capital budget to 43 taxpayers chosen by lot. Connecticut is running the first statewide citizens' assembly in the United States right now. And the argument underneath it all is disarmingly simple: you can't lobby a jury. No donors, no primary, no next race, no way to know six months out whose ear to buy. Recorded before the 2026 midterms. We close on elections themselves - and Bouricius, an election-reform veteran who says the machinery is sound, names the thing that actually frightens him. Guest: Terry Bouricius - former Vermont legislator, ten years at FairVote, originator of the multi-body sortition model, co-founder of Democracy R&D. His book "Democracy Without Politicians: Government By the People" (Routledge, 2026) is open access - the full text is free. https://democracywithoutpoliticians.org https://terrybouricius.com https://democracycreative.substack.com https://sortitionusa.org https://democracyrd.org Chapters: 0:00 Cold open: what if jurors were elected? 0:46 Intro 2:23 Twenty years in office, and why he left 5:40 What sortition actually is 5:53 Athens: a democracy because of the lottery, not the assembly 7:59 British Columbia, 2004: "This is what democracy looks like" 11:10 The 200-year project and the peeling strategy 14:19 Why left and right both nod along 15:43 You can't lobby a jury 17:25 More likely to die in office than lose an election 17:37 Plato's ship vs. the wisdom of crowds 18:21 A thousand assemblies, and Macron's climate convention 19:57 Connecticut: the first statewide assembly in the US 20:43 Aristotle: the lot is democratic, election is oligarchic 22:10 What Madison and the founders actually feared 26:09 "How many of us are renters?" 28:35 Cognitive diversity: why the room beats the experts 33:27 Designing against bribery and capture 35:09 Binding or advisory? Melbourne's budget 37:58 Ireland: marriage and abortion, decided by lot 40:00 The abuse survivor and the gay juror 44:47 Tribal loyalty: Obamacare, tariffs, switching sides 50:22 Groupthink, facilitators, and multi-body sortition 52:35 Agenda-setting: the wall, the bridges, the climate 55:33 AI: the bubble, and who gets to decide 58:29 Could AI agents replace a citizens' assembly? 62:09 What to do Monday: Sortition USA 63:10 The book is free 67:02 Are the midterms secure? 67:54 The refusal to seat: "a real possibility within two months" 69:59 Outro and links Dave Troy Presents is published by America 2.0. https://america2.news

Half a percent doesn't sound like much. In a close midterm, it is everything. Dr. Jen Golbeck has spent two decades as a computer scientist studying what the internet can figure out about you without being told — and she now spends her nights as a working journalist inside the most extreme corners of American politics. Both halves of that job point at the same machine: an economy built on collecting everything about everyone, and online communities that offer people the one thing they most want, which is belonging. Dave and Jen talk about how far surveillance has actually gone, why she thinks the AI bubble is at its top edge, what a decade inside far-right forums has taught her about how ordinary people radicalize, what she saw on the street in Minneapolis during the ICE protests, and what is genuinely worth doing between now and November. Guest Dr. Jen Golbeck — Professor at the University of Maryland's College of Information and director of the Social Intelligence Lab. She writes the daily MAGAReport newsletter and reports for HuffPost and Esquire. MAGAReport | UMD faculty page | HuffPost | Esquire: a weekend with the Proud Boys | TED: Is AI progress stuck? Also mentioned: the Electronic Frontier Foundation's legislation tracker. Chapters 00:00 - Cold open and intro 01:28 - Meet Dr. Jen Golbeck 03:52 - Surveillance, extremism, and the American ideal 06:07 - How bad has surveillance actually gotten 07:49 - The phone-number trick and the data-broker machine 10:01 - The TEDx talk that made the tech bros angry 13:46 - A 24-hour amnesty: 40 percent of the class confesses 17:05 - Data centers, bad neighbors, and democratic control 19:18 - The dot-com parallel: is this a bubble? 20:26 - Open source, local models, and the business-model problem 24:52 - Typing pools and the job-apocalypse story 27:37 - The antisocial internet: from privacy to radicalization 29:19 - A weekend with the Proud Boys in North Carolina 32:43 - The symbolic show of strength 36:56 - What cults know about belonging 38:58 - Minneapolis, ICE, and the feel of a civil war 44:26 - What the Charlie Kirk killing revealed 47:13 - Civil war, or Costco? 49:31 - The Facebook experiment: half a percent 52:09 - Citizens United, money, and media consolidation 56:07 - Into the midterms: troops, fraud claims, and lawsuits 58:59 - Why the election infrastructure should hold 1:02:00 - Flock cameras and warrantless tracking 1:03:24 - EFF's tracker: pick one thing and be annoying 1:08:33 - Outro and links Dave Troy Presents is published by America 2.0. america2.news

Scott Reich recently took the TED Democracy stage in Philadelphia to argue that a renewed ethos of service could help repair our fractured country. He joins Dave Troy for a conversation that runs from ancient Athens to a modern "GI Bill for civic service," by way of Robert Putnam, the 1917 baseball All-Star Game, and the simple, radical idea that citizens owe something to one another. Reich and Troy arrived at similar conclusions by different paths: that social mixing across background, region, and class — not screens and headlines — is how a democracy rebuilds trust. Together they make a hopeful (and stubbornly non-partisan) case for citizenship as a practice, not merely a slogan. (Production note: a couple of brief internet dropouts affected Scott's audio; we've worked around them.) Guest: Scott Reich - presidential historian and attorney; author of "The Power of Citizenship: Why JFK Matters to a New Generation" and the forthcoming "One Day in September: Baseball, Brotherhood, and the Birth of the All-Star Game"; board member of the JFK Library Foundation and a lecturer at the University of Pennsylvania. https://www.scott-reich.com/ Chapters: 00:00 Cold open: why national service 01:18 Meet Scott Reich and the TED Democracy talk 04:34 Citizenship: rights, but also obligations 05:43 From "impossible" to practical: connection and service 07:45 The baseball "farm system": start with the young 10:18 What we stopped teaching: civics and Western civ 12:30 The proposal: a modern GI Bill for civic service 14:03 Ancient Greece and the making of a citizen 15:29 Mandatory or voluntary? Incentives over mandates 18:01 Reviving civic life: Peace Corps, clubs, and lost associations 19:55 The commoditization of youth sports 22:53 We've always argued: Adams, Jefferson, and healthy disagreement 24:49 "One Day in September": how Americans used to gather 29:02 Putnam, disinformation, and the loneliness crisis 30:29 Social mixing as national security 32:54 Cohorts across difference: rural Iowa to the Bronx 37:42 Service, not servitude: beyond the military 43:59 Overestimating the other side 46:05 Leaders as vehicles: JFK and the power of citizenship 50:22 What tragedy teaches: our capacity to unite 54:29 What can one person do? Small acts of citizenship 1:01:13 Outro and links Host Dave Troy writes at https://america2.news and https://washingtonspectator.org Dave Troy Presents is published by America 2.0. https://america2.news

Most of the predictions you encounter every day are closer to the realm of power than the realm of knowledge — and once you see that, you can't unsee it. Oxford philosopher Carissa Véliz joins Dave to talk about her new book Prophecy: Prediction, Power, and the Fight for the Future, from Ancient Oracles to AI. From the Oracle of Delphi (less a holy shrine than a thriving business) to court astrologers, credit scores, and large language models, Véliz argues that predictions are speech acts — veiled commands that bend reality toward themselves. Whoever owns the prediction machines is making a bid to own the future. Dave and Carissa dig into the rise of prediction markets like Polymarket and Kalshi — anonymous wallets funded hours before an attack on Iran, journalists bullied over bets, newsrooms reporting odds as news — plus AI's "monoculture of sameness," why existential-risk panic distracts from AI-enabled authoritarianism, and why refusing to obey in advance starts with refusing the self-fulfilling prophecy. The conversation ends where it must: democracy is never won, only fought for and built every single day. Carissa Véiz — Associate Professor at Oxford's Faculty of Philosophy and Institute for Ethics in AI; author of Privacy Is Power and Prophecy. Get the book - https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/239151058-prophecy TED 2026 talk - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OS4wHmKtH-Q X - @CarissaVeliz Chapters 00:00 - Cold open & intro 01:30 - Meet Carissa Véliz & the origins of Prophecy 04:37 - Ancient oracles: prediction has always been a business 07:10 - Dread, marketing & why predictions are never facts 09:51 - What makes an honest forecast? Weather vs. people 12:31 - Prediction markets: from PredictIt to Polymarket 15:27 - Insider wallets & the bet on the Iran attack 17:39 - Betting markets meet super PAC politics 20:10 - When newsrooms report bets as news 21:35 - AI as prediction machine: the monoculture of sameness 26:00 - How a digital ethicist actually uses AI 30:50 - Breaking out: serendipity, reading, defying the curve 33:47 - Philosophy as the antidote to prophecy 36:19 - Bayesian priors, agency & refusing to obey in advance 40:44 - Democracy, community & the inconvenient good life 45:17 - From Privacy Is Power to Prophecy 47:49 - Past the event horizon? Against defeatism 51:06 - Reading as an act of defiance 52:33 - Outro & links Dave Troy Presents is published by America 2.0.

You may not be interested in crypto, but crypto is interested in you. Cryptocurrency has stopped being a finance story. In 2026 it's a political-money machine - woven into our elections, our regulators, the President's family balance sheet, and the everyday plumbing of how Americans get paid, borrow, and save. You can decide never to buy a single token and still be exposed to the fallout. To open Season 4, Dave Troy talks with two of the sharpest people on this beat: independent researcher Molly White, who tracks the industry transaction by transaction, and Brookings fellow Tonantzin Carmona, who maps the structural harm - who gets targeted, who gets hurt, and how policy makes it possible. A plain-English tour of where crypto stands heading into the 2026 and 2028 elections: the collapse of regulatory enforcement; the Trump family's crypto web (World Liberty Financial, the USD1 stablecoin, memecoins, Trump Media); the GENIUS Act that passed and the CLARITY Act the industry wants next; the super PACs that spent $130M in 2024; and the quiet creep of crypto into mortgages, 401(k)s, and checkout pages. Plus wildcat banking, predatory inclusion, the death of Web3, the Strategic Bitcoin Reserve, the Celsius collapse, and the case for treating our financial system as a choice, not an inevitability. Guests Molly White - writer and researcher; Citation Needed, Web3 Is Going Just Great, and the election-money tracker Follow the Crypto. mollywhite.net | followthecrypto.org | web3isgoinggreat.com | citationneeded.news | Bluesky @molly.wiki | X @molly0xff Tonantzin Carmona - fellow at the Brookings Institution; writes on wealth, inequality, and how crypto is marketed to and harms minority communities ("predatory inclusion"). TEDxMidAtlantic talk forthcoming. Tonantzin Carmona at Brookings Institution: https://www.brookings.edu/people/tonantzin-carmona/ Chapters 00:00 - Cold open & intro 01:44 - Meet Molly White & Tonantzin Carmona 06:42 - Regulatory capture: the SEC's 180 09:09 - The $130M lobby; the GENIUS & CLARITY Acts 11:26 - Money out of politics: the Illinois primary 14:29 - The Trump crypto web - and buying influence 19:48 - Stablecoins explained; dollar dominance 24:08 - Tether, audits, "Amazon bucks" & deposit flight 28:04 - Wildcat banking: financial history in reverse 29:03 - Young men, speculation & predatory inclusion 33:19 - Whatever happened to Web3? 37:52 - The Strategic Bitcoin Reserve & "End the Fed" 48:38 - Crypto creeps in: mortgages, 401(k)s, mines 50:50 - The crypto playbook becomes the AI playbook 53:17 - Payments rails: Stripe, Block, "boiling the frog" 56:29 - When it looks like a bank but isn't: Celsius 59:24 - A public alternative: FedNow & Brazil's PIX 01:01:09 - The CBDC question 01:04:27 - What you can actually do 01:08:38 - Outro & links Dave Troy Presents is published by America 2.0. More at america2.news.

If you've been following world events, you know that Taiwan's future has become a major question, and a fulcrum for the future of democracy. Chris Horton is the author of "Ghost Nation: The Story of Taiwan and Its Struggle for Survival," a new book that offers a unique view into Taiwan's complex history, its precarious present, and its potential futures. "Ghost Nation" is a must read for those interested in the future of democracy, not just in Asia but around the world, and Dave's conversation with Chris is a great introduction to this complex set of topics. More info: https://chrishortonwriter.com Book: https://www.amazon.com/Ghost-Nation-Taiwan-Struggle-Survival/dp/1035034026 00:00 Introduction to Taiwan's Complex History 00:52 Meet Chris Horton: Author of Ghost Nation 03:15 The Dutch and Spanish Colonization 07:27 The Ming and Qing Dynasties 17:53 Japanese Rule and Modernization 23:48 The ROC and the 2-28 Incident 48:18 Martial Law in Taiwan: A Dark History 50:00 Democratization and Political Shifts 51:39 Taiwan's Identity and International Relations 01:00:56 Taiwan's Economic Transformation 01:04:10 TSMC: Taiwan's Semiconductor Giant 01:08:37 China's Military Threat and Taiwan's Defense 01:23:34 US-Taiwan Relations and Strategic Ambiguity 01:33:07 Conclusion and Final Thoughts

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 tech culture. The Disorder Podcast - https://linktr.ee/disorderpod 00:00 Introduction and Overview 00:51 Conversation with Jason Pack Begins 02:18 Russian Nationalism and Historical Context 03:40 Post-Soviet Russia and the KGB's Influence 10:27 Challenges of Democratization in Russia 18:24 Project Russia: Ideological Framework 26:18 Western Misunderstandings of Russian Motivations 29:10 The Essence of Project Russia 30:06 Bannon's Vision and Russian Interests 30:30 China's Role in the Ukraine War 31:52 Introduction to Russian Cosmism 32:40 The Origins and Ideas of Russian Cosmism 34:32 Cosmism's Influence on Modern Tech 37:51 Libertarian Ideologies and Russian Cosmism 40:51 Trump's Actions and Russian Interests 42:50 Chaos in Tariff Policies 45:56 Strengthening Democracy in the West 52:48 Engaging Global South Democracies 53:49 Conclusion and Future Vision

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 Gil discuss what it is, where it came from, and how to go about stopping its spread. Interview starts at 02:47 00:00 Introduction and Guest Welcome 00:05 Exploring the Network State Concept 02:47 Mainstream Media's Reluctance 03:40 Historical Context and Silicon Valley's Influence 04:42 Local Politics and Billionaire Influence 05:22 Acceleration of Network State Ideologies 07:54 Freedom Cities and Corporate Dystopias 11:59 Exit vs. Voice: Libertarian Ideals 17:36 Cultish Movements and Apocalyptic Visions 22:48 Autocracy Inc. and Global Implications 33:12 Bitcoin and Right-Wing Politics 34:02 Network State and Democracy 34:29 Media and Political Awareness 35:37 Democrats and Cryptocurrency 43:51 Technocracy and Historical Parallels 51:43 Substack vs. Ghost Platform 55:00 Future Political Landscape 01:02:45 Grassroots Movements and Conclusion Links: https://thenerdreich.com https://x.com/gilduran76 https://theframelab.org