E171: How the Internet Got Tamed: James Corbett on Media & Power

Independent journalist James Corbett joins Jesse to trace how media, tech, and elite power have reshaped the information landscape—from Time’s 2006 “You” to today’s post-truth, AI-saturated world.

GUEST BIO:
James Corbett is an independent journalist and documentary filmmaker based in Japan. Since 2007 he’s run The Corbett Report, an open-source intelligence project covering geopolitics, media, finance, and technology through long-form podcasts, videos, and essays.

TOPICS DISCUSSED:

• Time’s 2006 “Person of the Year” and the early optimism of user-generated media
• Smartphones, YouTube, and the shift to always-on, short-form video
• Legacy media vs podcasts, Rogan, and long-form conversation
• Adpocalypse, subscriptions, foundations, and “post-journalism”
• AI “slop,” dead internet theory, and human vs synthetic content
• Left–right vs “up–down” (authoritarian vs anti-authoritarian) politics
• Elite networks and foundations: Rockefeller, Gates, philanthropy as power
• Climate narratives, health framing, and energy demands of AI
• Future crises: hot war, financial bubbles, AI and labor, UBI and control

MAIN POINTS:

• The early internet briefly empowered ordinary people. Corbett’s own path—from teacher in Japan to reaching millions—shows how 2000s platforms genuinely opened space for bottom-up media.
• The smartphone changed how we think, not just what we see. Moving from long-form text/audio to short, swipeable video has compressed attention and pushed politics toward slogans and clips.
• The business model broke journalism before AI did. As ad money fled to platforms, outlets turned to paywalls, patrons, and foundations—pulling coverage toward causes and away from broad public-interest reporting.
• The real divide is power, not party. Corbett argues we miss the “up–down” axis—authoritarian vs anti-authoritarian—so we keep swapping parties but getting similar outcomes on war, finance, and surveillance.
• AI and automation are economic and political weapons. If AI displaces labor and the state replaces wages with universal income, whoever controls those payouts gains unprecedented leverage over everyday life.
• Long-form human conversation is still a resistance strategy. Despite dark trends, he sees deep, sustained, human-made media as one of the few ways left to think clearly and build real communities.

BEST QUOTES:

• On the shift since 2006:
  “We went from ‘You are the Person of the Year’ to ‘You are the problem’—from celebrating amateur voices to treating them as a disinformation threat.”
• On media form and attention:
  “I started in an era where you could play a ten-minute clip inside an hour-long podcast. Now if you go over two minutes, people think you’re crazy.”
• On politics:
  “Left and right exist, but the missing axis is up and down—authoritarian versus anti-authoritarian. Once you see that, a lot of ‘flip-flops’ make sense.”
• On AI and control:
  “If the state is the one feeding and clothing you after AI replaces your job, then the state effectively owns you.”

🎙 The Pod is hosted by Jesse Wright
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