Elon Musk, Dark Enlightenment, and the Coming Fight Over AI | Ep. 23

A lot of people are worried about what AI is going to do to us. The new technologies, as Jeremy puts it in this episode, invoke in all of us a kind of awe and wonder on the one hand, and a kind of fear of the future on the other. Both reactions deserve serious people taking them seriously. Jeremy is joined by Patrick Wood, founder of Citizens for Free Speech, who has been researching the Trilateral Commission since 1978 and co-wrote two volumes on it with the late Professor Anthony Sutton, and Courtenay Turner, his co-author on Final Betrayal and host of The Courtenay Turner Podcast. Together they make the case that an unaccountable technocratic class has captured the second Trump administration, that constitutional self-government is at risk, and that the AI buildout is the infrastructure for what comes next. Jeremy hears them out — Elon Musk, Curtis Yarvin, the dark enlightenment, JD Vance’s post-liberalism, the Genius Act and stablecoin tokenization, what Trump is doing in Gaza. But he also tells them where he disagrees: he pushes back on what he calls the "unified field theory" of the elite, he says he doesn’t fear the technology itself, and he makes the theological case for why there will never be a sentient AI. They get into: what "technocracy" actually meant when it was coined in 1937; the Brzezinski-to-Rockefeller intellectual through-line; Curtis Yarvin, Nick Land, and the dark enlightenment’s anti-democratic vision; the Highland Rim project and Christian-nationalist network states; the Genius Act and the road to stablecoin tokenization; the proposed natural asset companies and the $126 trillion blockchain announcement; Trump’s Board of Peace, World Liberty Financial, and the Gaza experiment; JD Vance, Peter Thiel, and the post-liberal Catholic-integralist orbit; the printing press and what disruptive technology actually does to a civilization; and the two forces Jeremy calls the most powerful on this plane of existence — God’s sovereignty and self-interest. 00:00 Has a Technocratic Elite Replaced Our Constitution? 01:35 What Technocracy Actually Is 08:11 The Strongest Case for Rule by Experts 15:34 The Dark Enlightenment, Nick Land, and Curtis Yarvin 29:33 Tokenization and the End of Ownership 45:01 Why I Don’t Buy the Unified Field Theory 57:58 Why There Will Never Be a Sentient AI 01:02:13 The Printing Press Argument 01:09:29 Trump, JD Vance, and the Post-Liberal Right 01:38:13 Hope for the Future 01:50:32 God’s Sovereignty and Self-Interest Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices