(singing)
A small group of high-tech savvy entrepreneurs who understand the velocity of
technological innovation have harnessed this new power to establish predatory high-tech monopolies,
such as Uber or Amazon. They subvert labor laws, strip the state of its power, gut regulation,
ignore legal norms and amass personal fortunes in the hundreds of billions of dollars. Their apps,
services, and private equity firms dominate our lives. They are technological predators seen in
every aspect of social existence commodification. The living wages of working people decline. The
gig economy abolishes job protections, sustainable incomes and benefits. AI replaces human beings.
The most vulnerable are pillaged for profit. The sick feed the profits for big pharma. The bodies
of poor men and women on the streets of our bleak. De-industrialized cities feed the profits of the
prison industrial complex. They're worth nothing until they are locked in a cage in the world's
largest prison system generating between 50 or $60,000 a year fed, of course, to the privatized
phone services, the money transfer services, the commissary, and the medical services that
have privatized American prisons. Utilities sold to private companies gouge us with
overpriced water, electrical, parking, and sewage bills. At the same time, we are the most
watched, photographed, spied upon and monitored population in human history. This technology
far from improving our lives is creating a new serfdom, if not a new slavery, all the while
propelling us at a dizzying rate towards Ecocide. Joining me to discuss our dystopian present and
most probably our dystopian future is Loretta Napoleoni, author of Technocapitalism: The
Rise of the New Robber Barons and the Fight for the Common Good. So let's begin. You open
the book with Bitcoin, cryptocurrency and I am very weak on that, so I told you you'll have
to hold my hand through it, but you really cite it as extremely important in the emerging
societies in which we are going to live. So, I'll let you just start and explain what
they are and why they're so important. Well, basically, Bitcoin can be described as
the currency of the people. I mean, for a start, let's distinguish between Bitcoin and all the
other cryptocurrencies. So Bitcoin is the first one. It was given to the world by an anonymous
individual or group of individuals called Satoshi Nakamoto, and it was put into the cyber
universe exactly at the time of the big crash, right after the Lehman Brothers crash. So the
timing was perfect, which makes us think that perhaps whoever Nakamoto is, is somebody from the
system, that knows very well how the system works. What is really Bitcoin? Bitcoin is a currency
which is produced by software, and this software performs all the task that a true currency
should perform. So we're not talking about the US dollars. We're not talking about the pound
or currency. They're constantly devalued because of inflation, but we're talking about the all
style currency that was linked to gold and it was produced and it was in circulation according
to the rules of the gold standards, which of course were very few for a very short time.
So Bitcoin is produced by software. So it's not controlled by any central bank, it's not
controlled by any governments. The software has been programmed in a way in which these
Bitcoin are released in blocks by an activity, which is called mining, and this activity is
solution of mathematical formulas. The solution of mathematical formulas becomes increasingly
more and more difficult. Now, why is that? Because whoever created this currency wants to guarantee a
scarcity. So there is a limited number of Bitcoin that will be produced, which is 21 million.
The time scale is going to be a century and a half almost, and the timing has to be every
10 minutes a block is produced. The timing and all of this structure is guaranteed by the
difficulties of solving the mathematical formula. So this is quite complex, complex system
which initially was not really understood. At the very, very beginning, kids used to solve
the mathematical formula like with skates, that kind of stuff, and then used the Bitcoin
for various things. There's an interesting story of somebody that bought a pizza using your
Bitcoins, for example. But as we went through the financial crisis, it became increasingly clear the
Bitcoin was an alternative to the fiat currencies, which clearly after 2008 had lost their meaning.
Most of the bailout, for example, that was given to the banks was produced by clicking a few keys
on the treasury computer. So in other words, money doesn't exist. So this is the issue that
Bitcoin trying to address to create a currency that will give you that stability and trust
and will not be controlled by anybody else. So the controlling system is all based upon the
people that participate in the system. So you download your software from a computer,
which is of course free for everybody. You start investing. You become a member of the
Bitcoin community, and you are the one together with all the others that will evaluate the
various activities that are taking place. So everything that happened is right there,
is transparent, is in the clear. The solution, even the mathematical solution of the
formula, and this is very important, once somebody manages to solve the formula and
so a block is released, the entire community of people who are connected, so they're part of the
Bitcoin community, has to approve that solution. So this is called proof of work. So it is quite
complex to do it because we're talking about millions of people. This is why Ethereum, which
is another cryptocurrency came after Bitcoin, decided not to use the approval work, but to use
a limited amount of people that would actually evaluate if that solution was right or
not, but I disagree with that. I think if it's the currency of the people should be in
control, the control should be among the people. So that's more or less is... Oh, yeah. Then there
is the other thing which is about to happen by the way, because in April, well, between
the end of March to the beginning of May, there will be the halving. So every about four
years, so every 21,000 blocks which are released, the number of blocks, the number of Bitcoins
contained in the block is reduced in half. So at the very beginning, it was 50 bitcoins. Today
we're at 6.75. And then in a few months after the halving will be at 3.75. So that is a mechanism
in place in order to guarantee that the Bitcoin is not inflated, and also to guarantee
that whoever is using the Bitcoin does not use it for speculation.
How widely used is it? Well, at the moment, Bitcoin is widely used. We
just got the approval for Bitcoin by the FDA. So basically every single big bank is using Bitcoin
for investment, trading, the Bitcoins into the open. So this kind of recognition was very, very
important. Now there was a reluctance, of course, to do that, but in the end they had to accept that
the popularity of the Bitcoin is a reality. So finance, if they can make money for something,
they will go and make the money and there are money to be made, of course, in Bitcoin. But
the key issue here is the fact that Bitcoin is a threat to the currencies in circulation
in every single state, so the US dollars or... Bitcoin is a transnational currency, so it's a
currency that you can use everywhere, but it is a threat to the monopoly, to the monetary monopoly
of the central bank, and that is why they try to stop it, but they couldn't stop it. They couldn't
even put it out of law. They have done it with other currencies before because the software... I
mean, you can't put the software on trial, right? They don't know who Satoshi Nakamoto is, so they
can't arrest them. Of course, the community of the Bitcoin holders is the people so you can't stop
the people from doing it. At the end of the day, money is based on an act of faith. You trust
that the US dollar is worth something. In fact, in the US dollar it says in God we trust,
meaning it's a bit of [inaudible 00:12:23]. Let's talk about all the cryptocurrency
fraud, the queen of cryptocurrency from Bulgaria, you write about her in
the book. There's also a lot of people have been fleeced in this digital currency world.
At the very beginning, again, we're talking about Bitcoin, so Bitcoin was the first one, and then
a few years later we got other currencies. The OneCoin, the one I talk about, Bulgaria clearly
was a fraud and a scam. So looking at Bitcoin, even Bitcoin was used for illegal activity,
was used in the Silk Road, for example, in the Darknet. Now, why was that? Because,
I mean, it was a mean of exchange. There was no control and nobody knew really how traceable
Bitcoin is, but once this became clear... Because what I have not explained to you is that every
single block which is released is then logged into a blockchain. So the moment in which the proof
of work is approved, that block becomes part of a chain. Inside that blockchain, we have all the
information about the block, so who solved the formula, at what time and so on and so forth.
Let's call it block number five. Okay. Every single time the Bitcoin contains in block
number five are sold, purchase, halve, you can sell halve of it, for example, and keep
that halve, everything is put in another block which is attached to that block. So let's call
it block 5A, and it stays right there. You can't delete it. You can alter. That's the blockchain
technology which is behind the Bitcoin. So every single moment you can go into the software and
see the life of every single Bitcoin was produced from day one, was in January 2009. So once this
was understood, then the Bitcoin became one of the worst currency to use for illegal activity
because you can trace it every single moment. Now, if you want to do money laundering, for
example, of course, you will have to move the Bitcoin from one of the blocks. Let's say you
have done some activities illegal and you're been paid in bitcoins, so nobody has seen that from
the point of view of the authorities, but the moment in which you want to change that Bitcoin
into a currency, right? Because you do need to money launder those money. What are you going
to do with the Bitcoin? Otherwise, it's not sits there. That in that moment, then that is going
to be registered automatically into the block. So this is how the monetary authorities but also the
anti-terrorism, the anti-drug squads have unveiled several of these activities used through Bitcoin
and of course, they have arrested people. So today actually Bitcoin is one of the least used currency
because most of the illegal activity and criminal activity is actually done in cash because cash
is still king when it comes down to traceability. Well, let's talk about the fraud, I
mean, because these cryptocurrency empires have a pretty rapidly deflated.
Well, the FTX, I think is the best possible example, but then again, it is not the
cryptocurrency per se. Again, I want to distinguish between Bitcoin and the other
cryptocurrencies because I'm a great believer of Bitcoin but not a believer in the other cryptos
because Bitcoin is the only one that has this kind of system that I explained to you. The others
are much more loose. But in any case, I mean, the FTX story is very significant because how did
it happen? Well, Sam Bankman-Fried was a trader, I mean, was one of those intelligent
mathematical kids and he was trading and then all of a sudden he discover that there
were discrepancies in arbitrage between one place, another place. In other words, if you bought
Bitcoin in Tokyo, you actually got a better rate than if you bought Bitcoins in New York.
Now, this is at the very beginning, so we're talking about seven or eight years ago.
So he thought, "Well, great, let's exploit these differences," and he made quite a lot of money.
Then at that point, he decided that he was going to create an exchange. Basically, the exchange
was doing what he was doing, so making money out of the discrepancies in prices due to the
geographical position. But then it started to produce its own cryptocurrency, which of course
was out of nowhere. I mean, it was not Bitcoin. It was that it didn't have a software system. Just
one day he decided, "Well, I'm going to issue this currency." People started flocking and
wanting to buy, especially celebrities. Now, the guy was very popular among celebrities.
This is another thing also this sort of tech titans is that they live in a ghetto, which is
the super rich ghetto and everybody wants to make even more money using the expertise and knowledge
of one another. So he start getting hundreds of millions from various people in order to invest
in on exchange. He took the money, of course, in dollars or other currencies, and in
exchange he gave them cryptocurrency. So basically the participation exchange
was based upon exchange at the end of the day, dollars for this cryptocurrency.
Now, why did they buy this cryptocurrencies? Why did they do that? Well, because they thought
that it was so smart and that they idea of the crypto exchange was so incredibly appealing
that they thought, "I get today the cryptocurrency that is producing at an exchange of," let's say,
"one-to-one to the dollar, and then you carry on making so much money, then it's cryptocurrency
is going to go up in value, and so it's going to be more two to the dollar and I'll be doubling
immediately all my money." Okay. So it's a scam, but it is also a scam that was supported
by people who participated into the scam, who were the victims of the scam, because it's the
classic story of people that come to you and say, "Oh, if you give me this money, I'm going to
invest in that. You'll double your money." Does all of this threaten the hegemony of the
dollar? Because of course, the power of the dollar is that it is the world's reserve currency
and once it loses that hegemony, it is going to be catastrophic to the American financial system.
Yeah, I think it's going to be catastrophic not only to the financial system, but it's going
to be catastrophic also to the power of the state. So imagine a world, where you do not have
anymore currencies, but you only have Bitcoin or something similar to the Bitcoin. So software
will produce it and then your people will control it. So how is the state going to be able to print
billions and billions of dollars to save the financial sector from yet another crisis? That
would be impossible because the state won't be in control of the Bitcoin. Okay. But also how
would the state print the money to finance the war in the Ukraine? Because of course, the
state will not have control over the money supply. Money is key. Money supply is the pillar,
the biggest pillar of power or political power. This is what the cyberpunk... At
the very beginning in the book, I started the book with the story of the cyberpunk
group of computer scientists in the Bay Area in the 1980s and these people wanted to guarantee
the protection of the individual inside the net, so to prevent the state from controlling the net
and from spying on people on the net also. They produce a cryptographic system to guarantee
the people will be able to talk to each other without being spied by the state, but they
couldn't possibly, I mean, produce a way in which people would not have to use banks to do
transactions because there was the real barrier. If you want to buy something, you got to buy
it through a bank, through a credit card, and you have to pay through a currency which
is, of course, control by state. And then came Satoshi Nakamoto, but he came 20 years
later. So I think this is the real threat now. That's explained also why the state is now
trying to produce its own digital currency, which is not a crypto, but it is considered
like crypto. So they're trying to catch up, but I am a firm believer that this potentially...
If bitcoins really take off, this potentially could change the structure of the nation state.
Let's talk about crypto-anarchy and then you mentioned Julian Assange, and I just want you to
play out his opposition to the crypto-anarchists. Well, so the crypto-anarchists are... So
the cyberpunks was a group of computer scientists all from the US. The only one that
was not from the US was Julian Assange. Now, it was a very strange group of people because
I mean, they were connected through technology, so they were all very much pioneers in the
computer science, but politically they were very different. So there was a very strong
group of libertarians, for example, I mean, the classic American libertarians where the
state should not have anything to do with me, I can look after myself, that kind of stuff.
But there were also people, they were quite, I wouldn't say necessarily right wing, but almost
intellectually racist because these people were very smart, but also I think some of these people
have serious social problem of interaction. They were on the spectrum of Asperger. Anyway,
so part of this group was talking about a sort of supremacy of the smart guys over the
people. So they were considering the people as a sort of inferior kind of groups that had
to be ruled, they had to be directed, that they did not have the same kind of understanding
of what's right and what's wrong that they did. Now, Assange was very much against that.
They had a mailing list, which was a mailing list where people would exchange. We're talking about
still at the time, which there was CompuServe, so very before we had the internet as we have
it today and the mail system. So they had this mail system where they could talk to each other
and exchange ideas and proposals. Within this mailing list, it was all cryptographic, so only
them that could see it. There was a very heated exchange and discussion between this group of
crypto-anarchists, if you want to call them, and Assange who instead said, "This
is an instrument through which we can empower the people. The people should know. The
people should be allowed to make decisions." And then Assange went on, of course, to
create WikiLeaks, which did exactly that. What did the rest do? Because they became,
as you call them, the new robber barons. You have examples in there. Uber is a good
example. But they harnessed this technology to essentially carry out vast campaigns of
pillage and greed against the rest of us. Well, I mean. We have several examples. Now, in
all fairness, most of the robber barons were not part of the cyberpunk mailing list necessarily,
although several of them, especially the founders, they became immensely rich because, of course,
they were in the industry at the very beginning. So they stopped working, taking away several
millions of dollars so they could do whatever they wanted. But I would say that the robber
barons is very much the generation that comes right after people like Assange. In fact, there
are some of them, they're younger, 10 years, not very much, but these are the one who came
to this kind of business through video games. So, forget about politics. See, now, we have the
very beginning, the internet was considered an instrument of empowering people and also bring
about democracy into the society. Then a decade later, we have kids who have grown up playing
video games who actually know the functioning of the internet extremely well, and they spot certain
kind of situations where being computer-savvy, knowing how to code, because that's the other
thing, could create a business model that could enrich them immensely. And then they started.
So the first wave made quite a lot of money, sold their businesses, and then they
became the so-called serial entrepreneurs. What is the serial entrepreneur? Well, this is
robber baron basically because they spotted an opportunity. They learned from that opportunity.
They made a lot of money from that opportunity, and then they decided to reproduce that model
in another sector at the higher and higher and higher scale. Now, all of this was motivated by
profit. So there's absolutely no desire to produce anything that can enrich society. This is why I'm
talking about the common good. Possibly, this is due to the fact that these people grew up with
video games, so for them it's all a game. See what I mean? That there is this filter of the internet,
which doesn't really make them understand exactly what does it mean to be exploited, or
exploited, I would say by the system, but possibly also because of their ego, because
all of a sudden being a serial entrepreneur, being Jeff Bezos for example, or being Elon Musk
or Peter Thiel was of the maximum that you could achieve, so everything was allowed to you because
you were... Except those original members of the cyberpunk because you are smarter than the others.
But they're not smarter. They're smarter in terms of technology. There's a wonderful short story
by Stefan Zweig about the world chess champion, and everybody thinks because he's the world
chess champion, he's wise about everything else. The conceit of the story is that he's sort
of an idiot about everything else. I think you do a pretty good job of exposing, especially figures
like Elon Musk, and you get into the whole space industry are kind of idiots. What they do know how
to do is harness this new technology to exploit. So, just let's give some examples. First, I want
you to talk about blockchains, and then I want you to give the example of Uber because it's kind of a
classic example of how that technology is used as a bait at the beginning and then a form of really
horrific oppression by the time it's cemented into place in terms of timing and exclusion and all
that kind of stuff. But talk about blockchains and then just talk about the case of Uber.
Well, I mean, okay, blockchain is what we have in Bitcoins. So potentially
actually blockchain could change completely the way we interact at commercial level. It also could
make obsolete phenomenal amount of work. So now we're all talking about, yes, AI is going to make
lots of people out of work, which is absolutely true, but the blockchain comes before AI. So let's
say you don't need anymore to have a lawyer if you have these contracts, which are smart contracts,
whereby the contract states that if certain circumstances are verifying, for example,
a divorce, then automatically the division of wealth is going to be such, and this is signed
and done, and that stays in the blockchain, so can verify they was done a certain date. Then
the situation verifies, and then here you are, you're not going to court, you're not doing
any because you already have the agreement in place. Now, this is a very simple example.
But blockchain also could be applied to smart cars. So here you are, eventually, you can have
a driverless car, which through a smart contract will go by itself, will drive itself for a change
of oil after a certain number of miles and go to the mechanic. They will do the change of oil or
maybe the robot, they will do the change of oil, and pay automatically, because in the smart
contract, which is again in the blockchain, you will have all of this information. When
the certain number of miles will be reached that verifies, then all of this is going to
happen. I mean, that's what blockchain could do, and the same thing is for voting.
Now, it can be positive. It can be negative. It all depends. This is the issue. The
issue is all of this technology can be immensely, immensely positive for us provided it's put in
the hands of the people for the common good. Well, of course, it is controlled by a limited
number of individuals. Here we go to Uber, because at the end of the day, the
concept of Uber, which by the way, the story is quite interesting because the guy,
one of the two founders of Uber, he's a Canadian and he sold his first startup for quite a lot of
money and then he moved to San Francisco where he was working for the company that actually boat his
original startup, but he was doing nothing, right? So he was going clubbing every night in San
Francisco and he was watching James Bond movies. So this is the kind of people were talking about,
okay, these kids. So anyway, while he was watching Casino Royale, he sees that James Bond is calling
his car with the smartphone through a map to come and pick him up at the casino. So at that point,
he has this idea to create a system that would use the smartphone and the maps that Google had
just put on the market in order to call a cab a night after going clubbing. Now, the problem
was that you couldn't find cabs because it was a shortage of cabs in San Francisco. So yes,
the idea to use rental cars, the blue cars, the one that you can rent, what we call in the UK
Minicabs, and put them on a map so that you could interact in the map and call them and see who is
available and blah, blah, blah. So this is how he got the idea. And then eventually, he did develop
the first Uber app, thanks to the technology. Now, of course, he knew the technology because
he was somebody who understood technology or knowledge of technology. The Minicab company in
the UK that were doing that kind of service did not know the technology, so they couldn't do it.
They couldn't do the app themselves. Now, today, everybody has the app, but we're talking about
a time in which really was a great idea. And then he had this idea that why using these cars,
why not using normal cars? Why not using normal people so people can make an extra back basically
driving people around through the app? Initially, it was very appealing to the drivers and to
the passengers because it put together... So it was a system where he put together two people
that were happy to do business together. I mean, the drivers were all self-employed, so they
got a good return for their work, but then as the system developed, everything changed because
of greed, of course. So Uber starts taking more and more and more percentage out of the driver,
and then it start conditioning the driver also, forcing the driver to accept certain rides.
Well, and punishing the driver if they don't. I think in the book, they have 15 minutes
or something, and if they don't accept, then they can't even get work.
Yeah, exactly. Then if you do not accept, I think it's three rides in a row, you are locked
out for 24 hours or for 24 hours. But you see, I mean, I was in Calgary just now and I was picked
up by Uber driver and this guy was telling me that he had lost his job. I think he was from West
Africa. He had family, a new baby, another child. The wife was not working, had lost his job,
and he was doing Uber driving just to integrate salary, but now he was driving all the time.
He was telling me that the situation hasn't changed at all. I mean, Uber takes a big, big cut
out of every single ride. I asked him, I said, "Well, why don't you go and work for a taxi
company?" He said, "There aren't taxi companies." See, that's the other thing because Uber has
driven out of the market in certain places, not everywhere, in certain places, all the
competition. Now, that is another element of what I talk about the book. These people have
been able to create oligopolistic position for themselves and the few other people like them
who actually can master technology kicking out everybody else. Now, that should not happen
because this is again competition policy, but the only place where they're trying actually
to stop them and to implement competition law is the EU. In the US, it's completely wild market.
Well, they also skirt laws, labor laws, regulations. Because they're a new technology,
there's no real oversight and they exploit it. There's a lot in the book. I just want to close
because you do at the end of the book with SpaceX space exploration and eco side, but here's
where you really lay out how technologically these people are quite gifted, but in terms of
understanding reality, the world around them, and of course, what we face in a moment of
climate catastrophe, they're utterly clueless. You really make that point around this whole
idea that we're all going to live on Mars or something. So, let's close-
Isn't absurd? Of course, it's completely absurd, but let's
talk about it because they don't think it's absurd. I mean, you actually write the physics of
what being in a situation with zero gravity does to your... It destroys your body. I mean, it's not
even sustainable. But go ahead, I'll let you talk. Well, I mean, it took me a long time to write
that section. I had to have doctors working for me to make understand because, okay,
so Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos come across as if they know it all. Because you think if
these people become billionaires, of course, I must believe what they're saying. Well, it's
not because it's absolutely not true. Now, the reason why they're talking about going
to Mars, colonized, being a multi-planetary civilization and stuff is because that kind of
thought appeals to people, because people like to dream about us being able to conquer the universe.
So through that appeal, then they can get the real objective, which is basically to colonize the low
Earth orbit. Now, the only place where the human body can live in space for a limited still
amount of time, so we're talking maximum one year with massive exercises to reduce the bond
density phenomenon due to the lack of gravity, it is the low Earth orbit because the low
Earth orbit still has a little bit of gravity, so you're not completely out of gravity. So the
reason why they want to colonize the low Earth orbit is because this is where the business
of the future is going to be done. I mean, forget about the Moon, forget about the asteroids.
I mean, even if in a future not too far away, we could go and mine asteroids, you will have
to do it with robots and the robots will have to live from the low Earth orbit. So that will be
the center of distribution of activity in order to mine space. But for now, the reason why they
want to colonize the low Earth orbit is because of telecommunication. So because they put satellites
there and then here we are, they will mine our data, suck our brains basically through their
satellites. There are places already in the world, like you go to the north of Canada, the very north
of Canada where there's no internet. The only internet is Starlink. So Elon Musk is the only one
who provides internet there places in the Pacific, in the Atlantic, or there is no internet. So
you can get very good internet through Starlink. Now, another thing I want to add is why is this
data so important? Everybody says, "Oh yes, data is how they managed to manipulate elections."
Well, the truth is the data with AI now is also going to be the fundamental factors of the future
of warfare. Without that data, you're not going to be able to go to war anymore. Whoever is going
to have the most amount of data, because this is how AI actually improves, is going to have
a distinctive advantage over all the others. So I think that again, they are a step ahead of
us, but they're also step ahead of governments, and the reason why they're a step ahead of us
and governments is because most people and most governments do not even bother understanding
what the technological revolution is all about. So it is our fault, and that's what I say in
the book, we got to wake up from it. I mean, we're sleepwalking. This is the end of the
book. I said, "We're sleepwalking into dystopia and we don't even realize." We think everything
is fantastic because we can see each other on Instagram, we can talk to each other on Facebook,
and we do not understand. So I hope that this is what the book does to just teach a little bit
about technology and help people waking up. Well, because it goes back to Plato's cave,
they have quite effectively mesmerized us on the apps and the screens while in a very real
way, not just financially, but also in terms of you have a section on what it takes to produce an
electric car. By the time you're done, your carbon emissions are, I think you write that producing
fossil fuel-driven cars, actually more, but it's all a game. It's all a very pernicious game
while we're barreling towards systems collapse. Yes, exactly, system collapse but due to
ignorance. I mean, look, this winter, for example, is always happened with the Tesla. I mean, at
minus 15, minus 20, the Tesla stops working. Now, it doesn't take a lot to know that because if you
have your iPhone and you go to Finland and it's minus 20, within a few minutes, your iPhone stops
working because the batteries go flat because that's what's happened to the lithium batteries.
But how is it possible? Nobody's thought about this before. How is possible that nobody has
confronted Elon Musk when he was launching his Tesla producing all this stuff, saying, "Excuse
me, but okay, you can drive in California where the weather is never going below zero," but
what's happened when you drive in the Scandinavian countries? I mean, what are you doing to
prevent the flattening of the lithium batteries? Okay. So I think a lot of journalists do not
do their job properly anymore because they don't have money, because I mean, newspapers and
magazines don't have money, but the government, for God's sake, they do have money, so why there
are not expertise from the government contesting that kind of information that is put through
the various channels that these guys control? Well, in order to sustain this technological
revolution, as you point out in the book, it's an acceleration of our assault
on the planet. So on the one hand, of course, we are given all these gadgets and
toys, but we're actually obliterating... In order for this revolution to happen, we're
obliterating what future we have left. This is why the idea of colonized Mars is part
of the narrative, because the truth is that if you tell people, "Well, don't worry too much
about climate change. Don't worry too much about overpopulation." Shall we discuss overpopulation
also? Because we're going to go and colonize Mars, and then Mars is going to be as beautiful as
Earth, or Jeff Bezos comes with these weird ideas to create artificial planets inside, which
of course, people could live. There's a film, I think it's called Elysium. It's a film where
there is one of those artificial where the poor people are on the Earth, they're left behind,
blah, blah, and all the rich people live in these artificial planets which are absolutely beautiful,
and they all look like California, of course, where the weather is always nice. It's not cold,
blah, blah. Clearly, if you fall into that trap, you don't worry so much about the planet because
you think, "Well, there is a solution." Well, no, there is no solution. This is the only
planet we have. If we do not save this planet, our grandchildren will not be able to survive.
And that's the point of the book. Yeah, this is the point of the book. Now,
if all of this technology, because all this technology was put at the use of the common
good, that technology could reverse everything, could reverse the climate change. Of course, it is
not going to solve the problem of overpopulation, which is a problem that we have to address in a
different way, but technology could, for example, provide zero energy production for the entire
planet. You can put solar plants in the low Earth orbit, which harness the ray of the sun, and
then send through microwave messages, microwave rays that send it to Earth, and they can power
the entire planet. You know who is using this technology at the moment? I mean, the US is using
that technology to produce the microwave weapon. That's right. Depends who has it.
Technology is a neutral force. Exactly. Exactly.
It serves whoever controls it. Unfortunately, we live in an age where the technocapitalists and
the corporations have us in a death grip. That was Loretta Napoleoni, author of Technocapitalism:
The Rise of the New Robber Barons and the Fight for the Common Good. I want to thank The Real
News Network and its production team, Cameron Granadino, Adam Coley, David Hebden, Kayla Rivara.
You can find me at chrishedges.substack.com.
