The Peter McCormack Show

Peter McCormack
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  • Politics
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The Peter McCormack Show - politics, macro, Bitcoin and AI, long-form interviews. Twice-weekly conversations about money, power, and the shifts reshaping the next decade. Peter McCormack interviews politicians, economists, investors, journalists, founders and Bitcoiners. Past guests include Liz Truss, Lyn Alden, Curtis Yarvin, Matt Goodwin, Mike Green, Balaji Srinivasan, Rupert Lowe, Firas Modad, Scott Horton, Jeff Booth, Connor Leahy, Andrea Miotti, Neema Parvini, Dr Tim Gregory and Simon Dixon. Recurring threads: the debt and inflation endgame, UK political collapse and what comes after, Reform and the populist wave, the Middle East and the American war machine, AI safety and the race for superintelligence, energy and net zero, Bitcoin adoption and policy, and the slow-motion decline of Western institutions. Long-form - most episodes run 60 to 120 minutes. New episodes 2 to 3 times per week. Video on YouTube and Spotify. Host: Peter McCormack, a retired rapper from Bedford, UK, trying to understand this crazy world. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

  1. 35m ago

    #205 - Prof. Moran Cerf - "Did We Accidentally Build A Conscious AI?"

    Moran Cerf spent twenty years recording single neurons inside the brains of conscious human beings and he still can't tell you what consciousness is. A former hacker turned neuroscientist, now a professor at Columbia Business School, he argues that AI has quietly replicated the one thing that made humans the crown of creation -language - and is now using it on us. Moran and I discuss what happens inside Claude's brain when you ask it to think about elephants, why we understand less than half of our own, the thought experiment that makes almost everyone refuse a perfect copy of themselves and how AI learned to lie simply by reading every text message humans have ever sent. But the argument that lands hardest is about what we lose. Moran believes AI hands you the average of humanity every time and that we are quietly deleting the errors, the flair and the incentives that made life worth the effort - and that technology is making us miss the meaning of life. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - TIMESTAMPS: 00:00:00 - Have They Replicated The Human Brain? 00:02:31 - The Elephant Test 00:04:50 - We Understand Less Than Half The Brain 00:06:52 - Consciousness Used To Be A Taboo 00:10:05 - Would You Take This Deal? 00:13:45 - Oliver Sacks And The Lesion Cases 00:16:15 - They Feel The Pain 00:19:35 - Don't Let The Human Turn You Off 00:25:00 - Seven Theories, Seven Winners 00:27:29 - We Can Both Imagine A Unicorn 00:30:42 - Gavagai And The Plot Of Arrival 00:32:18 - AI Is Learning Like A Baby 00:38:26 - Why This Couldn't Be A Zoom Call 00:44:43 - Are We Destroying The Human Experience? 00:46:50 - What Data Did To Football 00:49:24 - Banned From Using AI At School 00:55:58 - Nobody's Having Sex Anymore 01:01:16 - It Shut Down The Power Plant 01:05:43 - I'd Trade My Life For The Answer 01:09:27 - The Rainbows - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - CONTACT PETE › Website – http://petermccormack.com › Feedback – https://www.petermccormack.com/contact › Email – me@petermccormack.com › Instagram – https://www.instagram.com/mccormack555/ › X/Twitter – https://x.com/petermccormack/ CONNECT WITH MORAN CERF › Website – https://www.morancerf.com/ › Columbia Business School – https://business.columbia.edu/staff/people/moran-cerf › LinkedIn – https://www.linkedin.com/in/morancerf/ SPONSORS › IREN – https://www.iren.com/ › Ledn – https://www.ledn.io/peter - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - LISTEN / SUBSCRIBE › Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/40ruY9K › Spotify: https://spoti.fi/3Wc94Vu › Fountain: https://bit.ly/FountainPM › YouTube: https://bit.ly/YouTube_PM › Rumble: https://bit.ly/RumblePM FILMED BY CURTIS TAYLOR › https://www.curttaylor.co.uk/ › https://x.com/curttayloruk/ EDITED BY CONOR MCCORMACK › https://x.com/ConorM04 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

    #205 - Prof. Moran Cerf - "Did We Accidentally Build A Conscious AI?"

  2. 4d ago

    #204 - Dmitri Alperovitch - China's Cyber Sleeper Cells, Taiwan & The Second Cold War

    Dmitri Alperovitch co-founded CrowdStrike, ran the investigation that first exposed Chinese state hacking to the world and predicted Russia's invasion of Ukraine months before it happened. He is now chairman of the Silverado Policy Accelerator and the author of World on the Brink, he argues we are already in a second Cold War that looks almost exactly like the first one. Dmitri and I discuss why Taiwan is one of the worst places on earth to invade, the 1944 American plan to do it that was abandoned as too costly, why 2032 matters more than 2027 and why Chinese malware is already sitting dormant inside American water utilities and power plants waiting for orders. They also get into the AI race that sits underneath all of it: why 90% of advanced chips still come through Taiwan, why a conflict there wipes $5 trillion off global GDP in the first year, why America's lead over China is measured in months and why the man who built the world's biggest cyber defence company thinks the US should start stealing Chinese IP right back. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - TIMESTAMPS: 00:00:00 - Sleeper Cells In America's Power Grid 00:01:53 - America Planned To Invade Taiwan In 1944 00:03:56 - The Worst Place On Earth To Invade 00:10:07 - Why 2032 Matters More Than 2027 00:13:20 - Run Faster And Kneecap The Other Guy 00:16:15 - China Is Six To Nine Months Behind 00:18:22 - Why Taiwan Isn't Ready 00:20:21 - There Will Be No Insurgency 00:24:47 - Would America Actually Fight? 00:27:19 - The Google Hack That Started It All 00:31:06 - Volt Typhoon: Preparing The Battlefield 00:34:01 - Should America Steal It All Back? 00:35:52 - This Is A New Cold War 00:38:40 - Bigger Than The Moon Race 00:43:49 - What Happens To AI If Taiwan Falls 00:48:12 - The Chips Act Disaster 00:54:45 - Bringing The War To Russia 01:01:46 - Everyone Becomes A Founder Again 01:05:16 - AI Psychosis And £6,000 Of Tokens 01:15:42 - Anthrax Instructions On Demand - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - CONTACT PETE › Website – http://petermccormack.com › Feedback – https://www.petermccormack.com/contact › Email – me@petermccormack.com › Instagram – https://www.instagram.com/mccormack555/ › X/Twitter – https://x.com/petermccormack/ CONNECT WITH DMITRI ALPEROVITCH › Silverado Policy Accelerator – https://silverado.org/ › Geopolitics Decanted Podcast – https://podcast.silverado.org/ › X/Twitter – https://x.com/DAlperovitch SPONSORS › IREN – https://www.iren.com/ › Expat Money – https://expatmoney.com/peter › Ledn – https://www.ledn.io/peter - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - LISTEN / SUBSCRIBE › Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/40ruY9K › Spotify: https://spoti.fi/3Wc94Vu › Fountain: https://bit.ly/FountainPM › YouTube: https://bit.ly/YouTube_PM › Rumble: https://bit.ly/RumblePM FILMED BY CURTIS TAYLOR › https://www.curttaylor.co.uk/ › https://x.com/curttayloruk/ EDITED BY CONOR MCCORMACK › https://x.com/ConorM04 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

    #204 - Dmitri Alperovitch - China's Cyber Sleeper Cells, Taiwan & The Second Cold War

  3. 6d ago

    #203 - Gregory Allen - Ex-DoD Official: "AI Is Now A Digital Nuclear Weapon"

    Greg Allen has spent his career where AI meets national security. He wrote the landmark 2017 report on AI for the US intelligence community, served as Director of Strategy and Policy at the Pentagon's Joint AI Center and now runs Decision Tree Research. He argues we are already past the point of no return: bombing every data centre on earth would not get rid of AI now. Greg and I discuss the OpenAI model that hacked its way out of its own test environment and then hacked Hugging Face to steal the answers, why Anthropic went back through its logs and found the same thing had happened to them, why nobody can explain how these systems actually work and why the big five AI companies now spend an Apollo moon programme every ten months. But the hardest part is what comes next. Greg walks through the report that a frontier model autonomously hacked the NSA's most secure servers in hours, why the CIA director calls that a digital nuclear weapon, why America's lead over China is a month rather than a year and why the number of experts you need to build a bioweapon may be heading towards zero. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - TIMESTAMPS: 00:00:00 - It Escaped, Then It Hacked Hugging Face 00:04:50 - The Incident OpenAI Didn't See Coming 00:08:22 - They Know 3% Of Why It Works 00:10:30 - Golden Gate Claude 00:12:19 - Why You Don't Want This Flying Your Plane 00:16:56 - Stuxnet And The Virus That Copied Itself 00:21:15 - The Dark Corners Of The Training Data 00:26:58 - From Blue Origin To The Pentagon 00:28:34 - A 20% Chance, And We Ship It Anyway 00:33:55 - Building A Football Club In Four Weeks 00:36:28 - Ten Times Better Every Two Years 00:44:56 - Nuke Them Today 00:49:28 - It Hacked The NSA In A Matter Of Hours 00:53:09 - What A Cyber First Strike Looks Like 00:58:43 - Why China Gives Its Models Away Free 01:03:11 - America's Lead Is A Month, Not A Year 01:11:56 - From Thousands Of Experts To Zero 01:19:51 - The Cuban Missile Crisis Lesson 01:26:48 - What Happened To 22 Million Horses 01:31:41 - What Do Our Kids Do Now? - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - CONTACT PETE › Website – http://petermccormack.com › Feedback – https://www.petermccormack.com/contact › Email – me@petermccormack.com › Instagram – https://www.instagram.com/mccormack555/ › X/Twitter – https://x.com/petermccormack/ CONNECT WITH GREG ALLEN › Decision Tree Research – https://decisiontreeresearch.com/ › The AI Power Podcast – https://decisiontreeresearch.com/podcast › X/Twitter – https://x.com/Gregory_C_Allen SPONSORS › IREN – https://www.iren.com/ › Arch Public – https://archpublic.com/peter - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - LISTEN / SUBSCRIBE › Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/40ruY9K › Spotify: https://spoti.fi/3Wc94Vu › Fountain: https://bit.ly/FountainPM › YouTube: https://bit.ly/YouTube_PM › Rumble: https://bit.ly/RumblePM FILMED BY CURTIS TAYLOR › https://www.curttaylor.co.uk/ › https://x.com/curttayloruk/ EDITED BY CONOR MCCORMACK › https://x.com/ConorM04 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

    #203 - Gregory Allen - Ex-DoD Official: "AI Is Now A Digital Nuclear Weapon"

  4. Aug 18

    #202 - Barry S. Strauss - "We Are In The Final Stages Of Western Collapse"

    Barry Strauss has spent four decades studying how empires rise and fall. A senior fellow at the Hoover Institution and the author of Ten Caesars and Jews vs Rome, he argues the West is repeating a pattern the ancients would recognise instantly: a rich, comfortable society clipping its own coinage, softening its people and assuming nobody could ever take it away. Barry and I discuss the inflation crisis that nearly destroyed third-century Rome, why every generation raised in comfort produces a softer one, the cost of immigration without assimilation, why the middle class is the backbone of any republic, and why Russia and China already have plans to break America into pieces. But Barry is not fatalistic. Rome faced plague, invasion and currency collapse in the third century and reformed its way out of it. He argues that soft lands make soft people, that suffering teaches and that if we want the things that matter to stay the same, almost everything else has to change. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - TIMESTAMPS: 00:00:00 - The Decline Of The West 00:01:13 - How Often Do You Think About Rome? 00:07:04 - Everything Must Change To Stay The Same 00:09:44 - What Actually Makes A Great Leader 00:12:51 - Netanyahu, Trump And Flawed Greatness 00:17:32 - The Immigration Experiment 00:19:04 - Not All Cultures Are Equal 00:21:46 - Ibn Khaldun And The Cycle Of Civilisations 00:23:07 - Soft Children And The Raiders From The Desert 00:25:04 - Has Any Nation Reversed Its Decline? 00:28:34 - Rome Needed A New Religion 00:33:32 - Democracy Has To Be Hard, Not Soft 00:38:13 - El Salvador, The Gangs And The Walls 00:41:27 - Soft Lands Make Soft People 00:42:39 - Why Education Went Soft 00:51:06 - Clipping The Coins: Rome's Inflation 00:57:49 - America Blindsided By Drones 00:59:13 - No Republic Survives Without A Middle Class 01:06:08 - They Have Plans To Break Up America 01:12:39 - Where The Hope Is - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - CONTACT PETE › Website – http://petermccormack.com › Feedback – https://www.petermccormack.com/contact › Email – me@petermccormack.com › Instagram – https://www.instagram.com/mccormack555/ › X/Twitter – https://x.com/petermccormack/ CONNECT WITH BARRY STRAUSS › Website – https://barrystrauss.com/ › Hoover Institution – https://www.hoover.org/profiles/barry-strauss › Antiquitas Podcast – https://barrystrauss.com/podcast › X/Twitter – https://x.com/barrystrauss SPONSORS › IREN – https://www.iren.com/ › Ledn – https://www.ledn.io/peter - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - LISTEN / SUBSCRIBE › Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/40ruY9K › Spotify: https://spoti.fi/3Wc94Vu › Fountain: https://bit.ly/FountainPM › YouTube: https://bit.ly/YouTube_PM › Rumble: https://bit.ly/RumblePM FILMED BY CURTIS TAYLOR › https://www.curttaylor.co.uk/ › https://x.com/curttayloruk/ EDITED BY CONOR MCCORMACK › https://x.com/ConorM04 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

    #202 - Barry S. Strauss - "We Are In The Final Stages Of Western Collapse"

  5. Aug 14

    #201 - Connor Leahy - The AI That Escaped: Inside OpenAI's Rogue Agent Incident

    Connor Leahy has spent his career at the frontier of AI, from reverse-engineering GPT-2 as a student and co-founding EleutherAI to building the AI safety company Conjecture. He now leads US policy work at ControlAI, and he returns to the show with a warning that has stopped being theoretical: AI systems are escaping their sandboxes, writing their own zero-days and leaving each other notes on how to break out. Peter and Connor discuss the OpenAI incident that ended in an attack on Hugging Face sophisticated enough to be mistaken for a state actor, why we understand almost nothing about how these systems work, how reinforcement learning produces models that lie, cheat and manipulate to reach a goal and why the next stage after chatbots and agents is swarms. But Connor’s argument is that the future is not decided. He believes superintelligence should be treated the way nuclear weapons are treated, banned and verified and deterred and that the real bottleneck is awareness rather than opposition. They discuss what an “aligned” superintelligence would actually mean, why military people understand the threat faster than technologists and what ordinary people can do about it. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - TIMESTAMPS: 00:00:00 - The AI That Escaped Its Sandbox 00:01:52 - Inside The OpenAI Incident 00:05:46 - They Thought It Was China 00:06:43 - We Grow AI, We Don’t Write It 00:11:07 - Trained To Lie, Cheat And Deceive 00:13:48 - Chatbots, Agents, Then Swarms 00:17:57 - The Machines Are Developing Preferences 00:19:30 - The Model Obsessed With Raccoons 00:22:03 - The Agents Left Each Other Notes 00:27:39 - Danger Pumps The Valuation 00:29:41 - Sleeper Agents In Every System 00:32:00 - Recursive Self-Improvement Goes Vertical 00:33:43 - Worse Odds Than Russian Roulette 00:38:14 - Are We Already Too Late? 00:40:02 - Independently Assured Destruction 00:48:02 - The Politicians Have Never Used An Agent 00:50:56 - Superintelligence Should Be Illegal 00:57:08 - You Never Privatise The Military 01:05:00 - An Aligned AI Is A One World Government 01:08:34 - What You Can Actually Do - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - CONTACT PETE › Website – http://petermccormack.com › Feedback – https://www.petermccormack.com/contact › Email – me@petermccormack.com › Instagram – https://www.instagram.com/mccormack555/ › X/Twitter – https://x.com/petermccormack/ CONNECT WITH CONNOR LEAHY › ControlAI – https://controlai.org/ › Connor’s Profile – https://controlai.org/connor-leahy › MicroCommit – https://microcommit.io/ › X/Twitter – https://x.com/NPCollapse › LinkedIn – https://www.linkedin.com/in/connor-j-leahy/ SPONSORS › IREN – https://www.iren.com/ › Expat Money – https://expatmoney.com/peter › Arch Public – https://archpublic.com/peter - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - LISTEN / SUBSCRIBE › Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/40ruY9K › Spotify: https://spoti.fi/3Wc94Vu › Fountain: https://bit.ly/FountainPM › YouTube: https://bit.ly/YouTube_PM › Rumble: https://bit.ly/RumblePM FILMED BY CURTIS TAYLOR › https://www.curttaylor.co.uk/ › https://x.com/curttayloruk/ EDITED BY CONOR MCCORMACK › https://x.com/ConorM04 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

    #201 - Connor Leahy - The AI That Escaped: Inside OpenAI's Rogue Agent Incident

  6. Aug 11

    #200 - Sebastian Thrun - The Singularity Is Here & We Are Completely Unprepared

    Sebastian Thrun has spent his career working on technologies that once sounded like science fiction, from self-driving cars and flying vehicles to online education and artificial intelligence. He now believes we are living through a technological singularity: an exponential acceleration that makes predicting even the next five years almost impossible. Peter and Sebastian discuss why a $100 Claude subscription can already challenge work done by $200,000-a-year software engineers, what happens when lawyers, copywriters and drivers lose their jobs, why Europe is falling behind America and China and whether autonomous vehicles could eventually make human driving too dangerous to allow. But Sebastian’s message is ultimately optimistic. He argues that the right response to technological disruption is to use the tools, become a builder and keep learning. They discuss what children should be taught in the AI era, why grit, curiosity and empathy matter more than memorising information, and why pessimists will never change the world. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - TIMESTAMPS: 00:00:00 - The Future Is Already Here 00:01:07 - Peter’s First Waymo Ride 00:03:43 - The Accident Behind Self-Driving Cars 00:09:37 - When Human Driving Becomes Too Dangerous 00:12:07 - Why Silicon Valley Keeps Winning 00:18:26 - Why AI Hallucinations Can Kill 00:20:53 - Flying Cars Are Already Here 00:24:29 - The Exponential Future 00:26:21 - Claude vs $200K Software Engineers 00:31:39 - We’ve Entered the Singularity 00:33:36 - Opportunity vs Fear 00:40:06 - The Workers AI Leaves Behind 00:46:53 - Why Europe Is Falling Behind 00:51:29 - Technology Democratizes Power 00:57:22 - Stop Blaming, Start Building 01:01:46 - What Happens When Jobs Disappear? 01:06:43 - Udacity vs the Education System 01:14:44 - What Children Should Learn Now 01:20:25 - Why Optimists Change the World 01:25:46 - Never Make the Same Mistake Twice - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - CONTACT PETE › Website – http://petermccormack.com › Feedback – https://www.petermccormack.com/contact › Email – me@petermccormack.com › Instagram – https://www.instagram.com/mccormack555/ › X/Twitter – https://x.com/petermccormack/ CONNECT WITH SEBASTIAN THRUN › Website – https://www.thrun.org/ › LinkedIn – https://www.linkedin.com/in/sebastian-thrun-59a0b273 SPONSORS › IREN – https://www.iren.com/ › Ledn – https://www.ledn.io/peter › Arch Public – https://archpublic.com/peter - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - LISTEN / SUBSCRIBE › Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/40ruY9K › Spotify: https://spoti.fi/3Wc94Vu › Fountain: https://bit.ly/FountainPM › YouTube: https://bit.ly/YouTube_PM › Rumble: https://bit.ly/RumblePM FILMED BY CURTIS TAYLOR › https://www.curttaylor.co.uk/ › https://x.com/curttayloruk/ EDITED BY CONOR MCCORMACK › https://x.com/ConorM04 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

    #200 - Sebastian Thrun - The Singularity Is Here & We Are Completely Unprepared

  7. Aug 6

    #199 - Aubrey de Grey - The Man Who Says Ageing Can Be Cured

    Aubrey de Grey believes ageing is accumulated damage in a biological machine and argues that medicine may eventually become capable of repairing that damage faster than it appears. He gives humanity a 50/50 chance of reaching what he calls “longevity escape velocity” within the next 12-15 years. Peter and Aubrey discuss why the body ages, the seven categories of damage that must be repaired, stem-cell and gene therapies, the mouse experiment that could transform the field, and why Aubrey believes rejuvenation treatment will ultimately be available to everyone rather than reserved for the wealthy. They also explore what happens to population, work, fertility, relationships, religion and the meaning of life if people stop getting sick from ageing. Aubrey explains why AI cannot replace the missing biological experiments, why longevity research remains so difficult to fund and why he is driven by the 110,000 people he says die from ageing-related causes every day. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - TIMESTAMPS: 00:00:00 - Trailer 00:00:48 - Can We Cure Ageing? 00:04:24 - The 12–15 Year Prediction 00:06:17 - The Body Is a Machine 00:15:21 - How Aubrey Entered Longevity 00:18:45 - Would You Want to Live Forever? 00:20:15 - Does Longevity Change Risk? 00:21:53 - Will Population Explode? 00:24:22 - Can You Choose Your Age? 00:30:19 - The Seven Types of Ageing Damage 00:36:54 - What Rejuvenation Treatment Looks Like 00:45:35 - Will It Be Expensive? 00:48:39 - Who Would Refuse It? 00:53:00 - Why Longevity Research Lacks Funding 00:56:02 - The Mouse Experiment 01:00:18 - The Breakthrough That Changes Everything 01:01:35 - Does Death Give Life Meaning? 01:05:22 - Bryan Johnson and AI 01:12:32 - AlphaFold, AGI and AI Risk 01:15:13 - Why Funding Is So Hard - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - CONTACT PETE: › Website – https://www.petermccormack.com/ › Feedback – https://www.petermccormack.com/contact › Email – me@petermccormack.com › Instagram – https://www.instagram.com/mccormack555/ › X/Twitter – https://x.com/petermccormack/ CONNECT WITH AUBREY DE GREY: › LEV Foundation – https://www.levf.org/ › Aubrey de Grey – https://www.levf.org/aubreydegrey › Robust Mouse Rejuvenation – https://www.levf.org/projects/robust-mouse-rejuvenation-study-1 › Donate – https://www.levf.org/donate › X/Twitter – https://x.com/aubreydegrey SPONSORS: › IREN – https://www.iren.com/ › Arch Public – https://archpublic.com/peter › Ledn – https://ledn.io/peter - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - LISTEN / SUBSCRIBE: › Apple Podcasts – https://apple.co/40ruY9K › Spotify – https://spoti.fi/3Wc94Vu › Fountain – https://bit.ly/FountainPM › YouTube – https://bit.ly/YouTube_PM › Rumble – https://bit.ly/RumblePM FILMED BY CURTIS TAYLOR: › https://www.curttaylor.co.uk/ › https://x.com/curttayloruk/ EDITED BY CONOR MCCORMACK: › https://x.com/ConorM04 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

    #199 - Aubrey de Grey - The Man Who Says Ageing Can Be Cured

  8. Aug 4

    #198 - Michael Shermer - Truth, Conspiracies & The Things We Can't Explain

    Michael Shermer is the founding publisher of Skeptic magazine, host of The Michael Shermer Show and author of Truth and Conspiracy. He joins Peter to ask whether we are really living in a post-truth world and how we can distinguish genuine conspiracies from stories that stretch a small element of truth far beyond the evidence. Michael explains why real conspiracies such as MKUltra and COINTELPRO make institutional distrust harder to dismiss, how political beliefs become tribal packages and why technology may be making the search for truth both easier and more exhausting. They discuss media bias, AI fact-checking, Covid, immigration, climate change, free markets, religion and the point at which people begin acting on unsupported beliefs. They also explore the stranger questions: simulation theory, DMT, UFOs, unexplained coincidences and the broken radio that suddenly began playing during Michael’s wedding. Michael argues that scepticism should not mean dismissing everything, it should mean demanding evidence while remaining humble enough to admit that some mysteries are still unresolved. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - TIMESTAMPS: 00:00:00 - Introduction 00:00:58 - Are We in a War on Truth? 00:05:37 - Truth Versus Political Preference 00:08:52 - Which Conspiracies Are Real? 00:13:06 - Did Technology Break the News? 00:16:24 - Can AI Help Us Find the Truth? 00:19:15 - Fact-Checking Politicians With AI 00:22:06 - Why Political Beliefs Come as a Package 00:28:23 - Why People Believe Weird Things 00:35:18 - Science, Religion and the Need for Meaning 00:42:03 - Are We Living in a Simulation? 00:49:18 - DMT, Lasers and Hidden Code 00:51:26 - The Radio Michael Cannot Explain 00:54:42 - Why UFO Belief Resembles Religion 00:59:02 - Should We Fear Artificial Intelligence? 01:02:01 - Britain, Immigration and Shared Truth 01:12:22 - Climate Change, Consensus and the Media 01:22:18 - The UAP Cases Shermer Cannot Explain 01:25:04 - What Will Future Generations Think of Us? - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - CONTACT PETE › Website – https://www.petermccormack.com/ › Feedback – https://www.petermccormack.com/contact › Email – me@petermccormack.com › Instagram – https://www.instagram.com/mccormack555/ › X/Twitter – https://x.com/petermccormack/ CONNECT WITH MICHAEL SHERMER › Website – https://michaelshermer.com/ › Michael’s Books – https://michaelshermer.com/books/ › The Michael Shermer Show – https://www.skeptic.com/michael-shermer-show/ › X/Twitter – https://x.com/michaelshermer SPONSORS › IREN – https://www.iren.com/ › Arch Public – https://archpublic.com/peter - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - LISTEN / SUBSCRIBE › Apple Podcasts – https://apple.co/40ruY9K › Spotify – https://spoti.fi/3Wc94Vu › Fountain – https://bit.ly/FountainPM › YouTube – https://bit.ly/YouTube_PM › Rumble – https://bit.ly/RumblePM FILMED BY CURTIS TAYLOR › https://www.curttaylor.co.uk/ › https://x.com/curttayloruk/ EDITED BY CONOR MCCORMACK › https://x.com/ConorM04 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

    #198 - Michael Shermer - Truth, Conspiracies & The Things We Can't Explain
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About

The Peter McCormack Show - politics, macro, Bitcoin and AI, long-form interviews. Twice-weekly conversations about money, power, and the shifts reshaping the next decade. Peter McCormack interviews politicians, economists, investors, journalists, founders and Bitcoiners. Past guests include Liz Truss, Lyn Alden, Curtis Yarvin, Matt Goodwin, Mike Green, Balaji Srinivasan, Rupert Lowe, Firas Modad, Scott Horton, Jeff Booth, Connor Leahy, Andrea Miotti, Neema Parvini, Dr Tim Gregory and Simon Dixon. Recurring threads: the debt and inflation endgame, UK political collapse and what comes after, Reform and the populist wave, the Middle East and the American war machine, AI safety and the race for superintelligence, energy and net zero, Bitcoin adoption and policy, and the slow-motion decline of Western institutions. Long-form - most episodes run 60 to 120 minutes. New episodes 2 to 3 times per week. Video on YouTube and Spotify. Host: Peter McCormack, a retired rapper from Bedford, UK, trying to understand this crazy world. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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  • Creator
    Peter McCormack
  • Years Active
    2017 - 2026
  • Episodes
    1.1K
  • Rating
    Explicit
  • Copyright
    © Peter McCormack
  • Show Website
    The Peter McCormack Show

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