Rob Lamb

speaker

6,267 appearances 28 recordings 4 series first heard Sep 2026 last heard yesterday

Rob Lamb’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.

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recordings per month · last 12 months

Recordings per month over the last 12 months — 28 in all, peaking in Sep 2026 with 28.

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Stuff To Blow Your Mind · From the Vault: The Devil You Know, Part 1 · 24 Sep 2026 podcast

That's right. voice-verified

And that brings us back to Ellsberg, uh, who again, in in addition to uh crafting this uh highly influential paper, uh was also um a a highly vocal critic of nuclear weapons and again the rhetoric surrounding nuclear weapons. voice-verified

And um I I was re I was reading a good bit uh from his book, The Doomsday Machine, which came out in twenty twelve, where uh which is quite a good read if you want a much deeper dive into his thoughts on all of this. voice-verified

Um but uh you know in in that book the the subject of ambiguous data comes up numerous times. voice-verified

How will a nuclear power react in response to ambiguous data about a potential incoming attack? voice-verified

Okay. voice-verified

And additionally, it talks about the purported advantage of ambiguity in intents/response, uh, namely in the case of madman theory. voice-verified

Uh, this is very closely associated with Richard Nixon, uh, but also tied to various other figures, domestic and international, including the current US president, a kind of supposed perceived madness or violence. voice-verified

volatility that would lead adversaries to second guess any plans to move against them. voice-verified

That's right. voice-verified

You know, this is very much the nobody knows what I'm going to do approach. voice-verified

Yeah. voice-verified

Uh that's the the message you s you put out there. voice-verified

And the idea, part of the idea here is that it makes logically empty or extreme threats seem more possible. voice-verified

Yeah. voice-verified

Now, mad-man theory, we should point out, is a term that Nixon even used himself when talking about this approach. voice-verified

It was outlined by Daniel Ellsberg and Thomas C. voice-verified

Schelling as well. voice-verified

But the basic concept, pretending to be erratic, irrational, or unhinged to influence the other side of a bargaining table, this goes back a long ways. voice-verified

Machiavelli wrote about it in 1517, and it's probably as old as the first prehistoric human to like go around hitting. voice-verified

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