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57: THE OCTOPUS 11 - Arkansas part 1

🕑 Added 2023-02-27 06:18:56 +0000 UTC

Comments

Jason Walsh

What's the name if the interview between Ted gunderson and Mr X?

Dean Watson

Feel like I used to be able to message creators directly on Patreon but maybe it’s a setting you’re wisely using, anyway you’re getting the money I used to be giving a different “parapolitics” “deep state” pod that recently platformedRFKjr so keep up the good work and have been loving your work

IHaveHemorrhoids

Love SV

pinballa

Ah sorry, didn't get a notification for this question. Yes, SV has been a reference, I'm a big fan of Yasha Levine and I highly recommend it.

Lukas Lion

Just some random person, but I'm only getting around to listening to this now, and since it's been a bit with no other takers, figured I'd mention that Surveillance Valley is quite good from the sections I've read (and I do intend to finish reading it in the near future, just tend to jump around between many books at once). I'm a fan of the War Nerd/Exile constellation of projects and have almost always found them very informative and insightful, and Yasha's book is no exception. I've got a few quibbles with maybe some of the technical assumptions he makes regarding things like Tor and other encrypted comms tools in interviews (written and audio) and their susceptibility to interception/decoding (which is possible in some cases but not nearly as likely because the resources required to do this is only something the derp state would throw at an important adversary and assumes nearly consistent location/connection states amongst other things), and possibly at times some of the implications which tend towards a sort of mystification of the underlying tech in ascribing capabilities that aren't quite there yet. But overall even for a tech skeptic (note: or Luddite I have used for quite some time and I think it's a misunderstood term; also there is a good Pynchon essay easily searchable on the corruption of the Ludd history) he's quite critical and doesn't fall for the unrealistic claims many journalists succumb to when writing on the subject. I'd have to search it up again, but I found a listserv of old DARPA hands that were coworkers of Licklider and such, where they were discussing SV, and some made a few seemingly fair points of interpretation on timeline of capabilities regarding network comms to places like Vietnam, but the denials about the possibly more nefarious large-scale intent were either more vague or just didn't seem to register with them; which speaks imo to the utopian mindset amongst that class of skilled tech worker in the era of the early Cold War. But in the interests of not making this any longer I'll just suggest a few other books of that kind: The Real Cyber War, Internet Alley, Undersea Networks, Subprime Attention Crisis, Cybernetic Revolutionaries, If Then, and Science of Coercion.

Jessie Warner

Do you draw on Yasha Levine's surveillance valley for parts? Any thoughts on that book?

Adrian Morales

Shook ones to close it out. Thank you ghostboy

Steve Wilkos

10/10 Ghost Boy. A great start to the week.

pinballa

I feel like the ambiguity is a major part of this story tbh. The known unknowns if you will.

lust of the badger

it's insane to be on receiving end of such focused informed research an smart, fun woven story telling .plus the fact that you know there's just no way to know the whole scope of things at times and are comfortable leaving it open ended ,undefined.continually and repeatedly refreshingly honest