Chapter 1: What is discussed at the start of this section?
Thanks for having me back my pleasure always yeah so much crazy shit going on in the world in and even before we scheduled this like More crazy stuff has happened the war broke out all kinds of things. I Yeah. How are you feeling about President Trump? That's an open-ended question. Do you text with him and talk to him? Occasionally. Yeah, occasionally he'll send me a text.
I get these, like, true social posts of, you know, things that he's saying. But this whole fucking Iran thing, man, like, did you see this coming? No, definitely. I don't know, I mean, who did? I mean, when did he even decide? You know, their national security strategy they put out in November basically just said we've degraded their capacity. It's a win.
There was no sense in which there would be additional action. I think it ushers in a new paradigm, completely the older post-war era is just over. Mark Carney, the Prime Minister of Canada, articulated that at the World Economic Forum, probably better than the Trump administration did, saying very clearly that older rules-based order is gone.
You saw AOC try to sort of articulate it, but she sort of fell apart at the Munich Security Conference in February. So this is an administration that is – I mean – and I don't even think they're thinking – I wrote a piece and I decided not to publish it because I was sort of like decapitation doesn't really work for regime change.
But it's not clear that they're really out for regime change or they're just asserting power. shaking up things. I mean, some of it's art of the deal, changing the person that we're negotiating with. That's Venezuela and Iran. Is it really going to change those regimes? I don't think most people don't think so. But I'm not sure that that's what they're going for.
They're just going for an assertion of American power in service of American interests. And then what happens in Iran, what happens in Venezuela, I don't think they care that much about. At least they're not behaving as though they do. Well, neither thing made any sense to me. The Venezuela thing. I mean, look, they wanted him out forever.
And he definitely stole the election to get in there in the first place. And he was a dictator. But at least that one was at least clean. They go in, kidnap him, get him out. This one's nuts. Like, and what's happening in Tel Aviv. It's hard to know what's real and what's not because there's a lot of fake video going around and a lot of...
weird posts on x so it's you know when i do peek in it's hard to know and you have to listen to grok and then grok's dismantling a lot of the uh fake videos what are the fake videos that you're thinking this is like fake videos of you know like an insane amount of bombs dropping down on the city but it seems like there's a massive amount of destruction in tel aviv
Yeah, I haven't checked in lately, but I'm assuming – was that just today or – Yesterday? Yeah. Yeah. I mean I think the president is – there's been some – Rubio said something about how, oh, we had to act because we knew that Israel was going to act anyway. And I think people interpreted – and then Netanyahu was in the White House a lot.
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Chapter 2: How does Michael Shellenberger view the current state of U.S. foreign policy?
But I don't think it's going to come back and I think that that's what the prime minister of Canada realized. I think that's what the Europeans are starting to realize is that this is a completely different world that we live in than the one we lived in. Just a couple of years ago.
Which just doesn't make any sense to me unless we're acting on someone else's interests, like particularly Israel's interests. It just didn't make any sense to me. Like if they had supposedly dismantled their chances of making the nuclear bomb, whether or not that's true, I mean, it's so hard to know. He was unsatisfied and just like he was like, I'm not getting anywhere in these negotiations.
And I'm going to replace the person I'm negotiating with. It's just – turn over the table. Like change things up. You're not getting anywhere. And you could say he was too impatient. Their view was the Democrats were too patient with Iran. They kept trying with Iran. Iran – they weren't giving them what they wanted. I'm not defending it. I'm just saying – I think that's what explains it.
They they haven't done a very good job explaining it because I think that it just sounds to some extent like what it is, which is that it's they're acting without. They're sort of like, well, does it result in regime change in Iran? We don't know. They might say that we want that or whatever, but that's not ultimately they're not they're not acting on the basis of achieving regime change.
But just seems so insane based on what he ran on. I mean, this is why a lot of people feel betrayed, right? He ran on no more wars and these stupid senseless wars. And then we have one that we can't even really clearly define why we did it. Well, but he said he's against endless wars. Well, they're all endless. Listen, man, they're all endless.
Did you ever hear Rumsfeld talk about Iraq when it first happened? Tell me. They were talking about like six weeks. Six weeks. Oh, yeah. Six weeks. Yeah. But they put – that was ground force and I know that they've not ruled that out. For me, that would be – They have? They have not. My understanding is that they have not. I thought you said in now. I have now. No.
But they don't seem eager to go into – I mean my – I criticize the Venezuela action because I sort of was like how are you possibly going to run Venezuela? And then I think a little bit more time passed. I was like, oh, they're not. They're not going to try to run Venezuela. Like that's not what this is. They just wanted to take over the oil. Yeah.
And even there, I mean, the oil, it's not significant at any global level. I don't it's hard. I don't even think it's really about the oil. I don't think it's about the oil. I don't think it's about the oil in Iran either. Well, the oil reserves are significant. It's just the the type of oil and how to extract it is extremely difficult. It's the worst, Joe.
It's in the like the big, big abundant reserves are in the Amazon reserves. So you're talking about, what a nightmare. It's super far away.
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Chapter 3: What insights does Shellenberger provide on the situation in Iran?
It's terrible. You had a guerrilla conflict. If you had a guerrilla conflict break out around those oil facilities, I mean, it's already more expensive because you have to heat up that particular type of, you know, it's really heavy oils. To heat it up to get it out of the ground, then you have to heat it to transport. It's a total nightmare.
I just, I mean, and as a conservationist, I would say that would be the last place I'd want to see us getting oil from. There's a lot of other places that have oil we shouldn't be going into the Amazon. So what, if anything, makes sense to you about this attack in Iran? I don't know that – I'm not sure what I think of it. I mean I don't like it.
I don't like – I mean the whole older system was that you had this international – The U.S. Security Council would have to agree. The Congress would have to agree. That's all gone now. I mean it's just a totally different – this guy is just acting. He says he's not getting where they want to get in the negotiations with the Iranians.
So he says we have some leverage over you and we're going to use it. But clearly Israel wanted this. Israel has its own motivations, I think. But I don't think – I think it's not quite accurate to say that – I just don't think – I think all the evidence shows that Trump is his own man and he is the president.
And like literally he couldn't even give – he couldn't even give Elon the battery subsidy that he wanted. You know what I mean? It's like – I get that. I've never seen a – I mean I've never seen a politician act that independently. I mean a president act that independently. So I'm skeptical of – I mean, I think that I think that Rubio was sort of like, well, they were going to attack.
And so we had to, you know, there's some of that. But I just think Trump's doing what he wants to do. And we should. You really think it's that simple? Trump's doing what he wants to do. That's it. Yes. You don't think people are influencing him because there's a lot of war hawks around him, right? There's a lot of people that want this and have for a long time.
I mean, Netanyahu's in there, but then Tucker was in there a bunch. But do you think Tucker has the kind of influence that Netanyahu has? Well, I mean I guess if you just base it on the outcome, then the answer is no. No. But that's what I'm saying. I just think – I think he listens to everybody. But I just don't think it's – Russians aren't behind him.
I mean Trump is – look what he's been through. I mean he's got where he is. There's no way he's going to – they don't have anything on him. How do you know that? I don't think they have anything on him. But how do you know that? He doesn't behave that way. Well, he could, but we don't see any evidence for it. Well, you wouldn't see any evidence until it broke out. until they released it.
Yeah. And I'm sure we'll get into Epstein. But I mean, I just think when you don't have evidence of something... Then you can't assume that it's happening. I haven't seen any of it. I've seen evidence that Trump is fully independent with it, particularly this case of Elon surprised me. I would have thought at a minimum you'd give your largest campaign contributor the one thing he wants.
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Chapter 4: How does Shellenberger assess the implications of U.S. actions in Venezuela?
What would that look like? I don't know. Well, I never expected Iran to start attacking. They launched bombs into UAE, Dubai. I mean, where else? I think they expected that, though, right? I mean, it makes Iran look pretty isolated. I mean, I will say, you know, I was totally, obviously, maybe not obviously, but very much on the left and was opposed to all the stuff Reagan was doing.
I remember even in the 80s. But it's like he really did – I'm not going to say he was the only reason. There was obviously a bunch of weakening within. But, I mean, he really did push back against communism. He challenged the entire foreign policy establishment on the basic view of just kind of keeping it – keeping the communists where they were.
And instead, Reagan really pushed back against it and said, it's got to be regime change. It sort of almost had a moral, certainly there's a defense buildup, but a moral argument. And I think it had a big impact to bring down communism. So the Iranian, I obviously have very mixed feelings about it.
The Iranian regime is just so evil and so awful that every time you see videos of people taking these courageous actions, you're like, Somebody bring that regime down. On the other hand, that country is pretty – the people of that country are pretty radical. And the Shah in 1979 – I just spent last night watching all the old 60 Minutes from the 70s. They're amazing.
But the Shah was really modernizing the country. There was a lot of wealth coming in. There was a lot more inequality. There was also a lot more state repression from his intelligence services. But the country was full of radical Muslims who wanted – when all that instability, they wanted to revert back to a radical Islamist regime.
And that's still – now, I've seen other estimates to say that the current regime is incredibly unpopular in Iran. But how that works out, it's really hard to say. But there is something – I caution my own – I talk back to my own anti-interventionist instincts when I think about Reagan just being like – We're not going to do just containment strategy anymore.
We're actually going to talk back to communism because people deserve to be free. Now, is everything better for – is everything fine in Russia? Maybe not. But I mean communism was just awful, just a totally soul-killing, crushing, a giant lie. I mean it's awful totalitarianism.
So I think we have to kind of keep that in mind and especially when you're in a moment of just such incredible chaos like we're in now.
I told my students, I'm like, you get to live through one of the most interesting moments in history, certainly in the last 80 years, because the entire paradigm where the United States had these allies and everything's going to go through the Security Council and we're going to try to make it to the UN and there's got to get agreements and all this stuff. That's just gone.
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Chapter 5: How did Richard Doty's story illustrate government disinformation?
And then this guy, Richard Doty, you know. How'd they make him go crazy? They would be feeding him all this information, convincing him of an alien attack. And he basically ended up going crazy from it. It's this amazing story told by this by this book, Mirage Men, also documentary. Yeah.
And you look and you kind of go and they go, well, it was to cover up a secret weapons program at Kirtland Air Base. And it's like – I'm not even disbelieving it, but it's like that's just such a – like why would that be the best way to do that?
Chapter 6: What are the skeptic views on UFO phenomena?
And why would you be so sure that that wouldn't attract interest from people rather than distract it? So there's a bunch of things that don't make sense. And so even if it is all – Which is the skeptic view is that it's some combination of government disinformation, sci-fi, dreams, hypnosis, hypnagogic states, and then kind of the power of belief.
I just reviewed this new book on Barney and Betty Hill where the author thinks that it was – that really it was a combination of her – It was the stress of being an interracial couple, her nightmares and then hypnosis where they then confabulate this whole story.
That's the basic skeptic view is that it was sort of – but the government is involved in it and that's always strange because you're like why would the government be participating? The government is involved in the Betty and Barney Hill story? No, no, in the UFO, in creating – in these UFOs.
Assuming that they did the MJ-12 or somebody did the MJ-12 but certainly in the case of Kirtland Air Base. Right. Why would they have any organizations involved?
Chapter 7: How do crop circles challenge our understanding of reality?
Why would they have anything, right? Why would they have – Why would you be doing – like the thing with like the Paul Doty and the Paul Benowitz or the Richard Doty and Paul Benowitz is like why was that the best – I mean it's just – why was that the best way? Like somebody has observed strange activity over Kirtland Air Base and they discover this. Why was that the right approach?
I don't follow it. And you had AJ Gentile on who did the stuff on crop circles. They saw military disinformation reports. around those activities in Britain. So you see a lot of... The crop circle thing is weird. Really weird. Because you want to just write it off. I mean, I wanted to write it off. I'm like, oh, there's guys with boards. They're making designs.
But then you see some of the designs and how the wheat is actually woven and how they have these exploded nodes, almost like they're microwaved.
Chapter 8: What connections are drawn between UFOs and spirituality?
And they've examined these things and it seems like there's some energy that's created these things. And also the sheer size and scale of some of these things with no footprints leading into them or out of them. And just the geometric precision of some of them. It's really weird. Like there's... Of course, it's eyewitness accounts. It's hard to know if they're being accurate.
But people who've flown over areas where there's nothing there, flown back two hours later, and there's these football field size Mandelbrot sets. There's the Julius set over next to Stonehenge was the one that the guy flew over and there was nothing there. And a couple of hours later, there was the Julius set, which is a spectacular set. That's incredible. Fractal. Right.
I'll tell you, it's even weirder. With incredible precision. That's what's really... As much precision as you can get by folding over wheat. But when you look at it from above and you don't get to the micro, you're looking at... These things that, like, they really do scale in a fractal way. It's very fucking strange and difficult to reproduce.
You would imagine something like that would take a long fucking time to plot out and plan. It would take multiple people. You'd have to measure and remeasure. You'd have to have some... some sort of tools and instruments, not just to fold over the wheat, but if you're going to interweave the wheat, like what is your method of doing that?
And how are you doing it where, you know, this one is one dimension and then the next one is precisely three-fifths of that dimension, the next one is slightly, and they're fractal. Well, it gets really even weirder than that. So, you know, I just I just described this case of of of this Air Force counterintelligence guy driving this guy, Paul Benoit's crazy. Yeah.
That book is written by Mark Pilkington. Mark Pilkington is one of two guys that claim to have created all the crop circles. The other guy is a guy named John Lundberg. Right. Right. A.J. in his video about. the crop circles, accuses John Lundberg, again, they call it the circle makers. They have a website they keep updated. He accuses him of being a British intelligence agent.
AJ does, or at least he strongly implies it. And part of that is because there was a bunch of weird stuff on the website about MI5 and the CIA. And then Lundberg went to a school. This is all very circumstantial, so I'm not defending. I'm just saying what AJ said. Then Lundberg went to a school that shares a courtyard with an MI5 campus or an MI5 training area.
I asked Mark – I have like three hours of interviews with Mark, who is a really interesting person. I asked him directly if they had any connection to military intelligence. He said absolutely not. It's hard to... Which is what you would say. Well, of course, you're allowed to say it if you are, but I'm not making any accusations. But, yeah, I mean, he claimed that they made all of them.
And, you know, there's some of them... Have you ever seen the massive... There's one that was absolutely massive. Yeah, pull some of them up, Jamie, so we can get some... There's the Julia set, but there's another one that's so big, it's really hard to see, but he said that he wasn't at that one. Yeah. That's the famous... That's the Julia set's gorgeous.
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