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The Unlimited Hangout Podcast Ep #01 - Prediction Markets (w/ Whitney Webb) — Transcript

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0:18Uh well, hey everybody. Welcome to the
0:21new Unlimited Hangout video podcast. I'm
0:25Whitney Webb, founding and contributing
0:27editor of Unlimited Hangout.
0:30>> Hey Whitney, nice to be here. I'm Mark
0:32Goodwin. I also help out at Unlimited
0:34Hangout and doing the production for
0:36this show. Very fun. Happy to be here on
0:39our first episode. Thanks for having me.
0:42>> Uh yeah, of course. It turns out you'll
0:44be on every episode.
0:49>> Yeah, that's how we planned it anyway.
0:51So, uh, you didn't say it in your intro
0:54of yourself, but you also, uh, write for
0:57Unlimited Hang Beyond just helping out.
0:59>> That's true.
1:00>> And, uh, people may have noticed that,
1:04uh, our most recent article written by
1:06by you and me about Poly Market created
1:09a little bit of a
1:12>> a stir.
1:13>> A stir. That's the best word for it.
1:15Yes. Um, yes. So, that happened. Uh, but
1:18before we get into that, I guess we uh
1:21should talk about why we're doing a show
1:22because I don't know, you may have
1:25noticed that
1:27um there's been videos of me that aren't
1:29like videos I I have done in the past on
1:31YouTube. Uh, of course, that's because
1:33they're not me.
1:35>> They're something else.
1:36>> Oh.
1:37>> Um, yeah. Well, I've talked about it
1:40before. You may uh if you follow me on
1:42Twitter X whatever uh you may have seen
1:44my pin tweet which is about uh you know
1:47an AI impersonation problem I've had for
1:50a few years talked to James Corbett
1:52about it a few years ago. Uh but
1:54basically if you've been watching a
1:56video of me on YouTube in the past like
1:58two years. Uh there's like a 90% chance
2:01I had nothing to do with it and it's not
2:03even me or it's either an AI me or AI
2:06slop of me. So the best way to fight
2:08that I I guess is, you know, we have to
2:11make our own YouTube channel to be able
2:14to report spam or impersonations on
2:16YouTube.
2:17>> This is this is how we have to fight the
2:19slop apocalypse in general is just
2:22>> make original content and do cool stuff.
2:24Put yourself out there, hang out. You
2:27know, it's a kind of a obviously we
2:29write dense articles. We got a lot of
2:30dense stuff to talk about today, but
2:33>> be original, be sincere, be yourself,
2:35and you know, obviously we're not going
2:37to be as uh, you know, like to the point
2:41as if we were running some AI slop
2:43teleprompter thing, you know, but uh
2:45we're humans and that's what's cool
2:47about us is that we're humans and here
2:50we are to do some human stuff. And we
2:52wrote about some humans
2:53>> humans
2:54>> with this piece. Yes. Hello, fellow
2:56humans. Um, and we wrote about some
2:58humans in this in this piece and uh, you
3:01know, obviously we got some some
3:03interesting reactions from humans uh,
3:06when we put out this piece. Um, you
3:09know, we want to obviously get into the
3:10piece, but we do think it's maybe an
3:12important coloring just before we have
3:14this discussion of like we got a bunch
3:16of crazy feedback and a bunch of people
3:18said a bunch of mean [ __ ] about it.
3:20>> Well, it's kind of one of those
3:21microcosms of what it's like to make
3:23content today. like especially if you're
3:25a writer of long form articles as as we
3:29are. Yes. Um because people like react
3:31intensely without reading anything.
3:35>> Um and it's funny because most of that
3:37comes from the the crowd of people that
3:39claim to be like against that and claim
3:42to be like the facts over feelings
3:44people and are now, you know, since 2024
3:48>> uh pretty much the opposite.
3:50>> Yeah.
3:52>> Yeah. So, our article, I guess we should
3:55talk about it now for people that
3:56haven't seen it, was about Poly Market,
3:58the now, you know, almost ubiquitous
4:02prediction market platform.
4:04>> Um, that's done a bunch of media
4:06partnerships and we'll talk about this
4:08at a future date because this is part
4:11one that we publish. We have a part two,
4:13but they have plans to change the future
4:15of journalism forever, among other
4:18things, forever. Um, so yeah, we'll be
4:20talking about that at a future date. Uh,
4:23but part one is basically just about the
4:25origins and context uh that created Poly
4:28Market. And so to promote the piece, I
4:31mentioned one I thought interesting
4:34nugget because it's the most obvious
4:36thing I guess that Shane Copelan, the
4:38Poly Market founder, uh, explicitly
4:41tried to obfiscate
4:44>> uh, from his past. So, I made a little
4:46note of that in the tweet being like,
4:47"Look at what they obfiscated, which
4:50was, you know, a tie to a previous
4:52company he's never talked about called
4:53Token Union or Token Bank or like very
4:56very few articles and there's been tons
4:58written about the guy, uh, reference it,
5:00but none really looked in even with
5:03those references, there was no
5:04discussion of the company really at
5:06all." Um so obviously we discussed it
5:08and we uh one of the things we mentioned
5:11in the tweet or I mentioned in the tweet
5:13was that it was intimately integrated
5:15with and and connected to Bor uh which
5:18is which was co-founded by uh Benjamin
5:21Netanyahu's niece and nephew. And so
5:24like because of that even though later
5:26on in the tweet I talked about what the
5:27article is really about which is how
5:29Poly Market is essentially a privatized
5:32DARPA program
5:33>> right
5:34>> from the early 2000s. So it's really
5:36about DARPA and like
5:38>> the Peter Keel verse and US
5:41intelligence. People just assumed it was
5:43all about like Israel. And so we got a
5:45lot of accusations about being
5:47anti-Semitic and like
5:49>> uh other stuff that wasn't really
5:52related to the piece at all. So it's
5:54just kind of one of those examples where
5:56people like
5:57>> harp in on something. And of course the
5:59people that were most mad are like
6:00either Poly Market fanboys or uh
6:05employees of platforms that are
6:07partnered with Poly Market,
6:08>> right?
6:09>> Uh X itself or Tw formerly Twitter.
6:12>> Yeah.
6:12>> Being a big one. And so Nicada Beer, is
6:14that how you say his name? I don't know.
6:16>> I don't know. That that guy
6:18>> Yeah. called you mentally ill.
6:20>> Yeah. A lot of people that were
6:22triggered by it that also admittedly
6:24didn't read the article called us
6:26mentally ill.
6:26>> Yeah.
6:28which you know it's just Whitney was
6:30just using an example basically to say
6:32this guy's origin story is full of [ __ ]
6:34which it is and the example she happened
6:37to use involved the name Netanyahu and
6:41Israeli VCs it's true and Israeli
6:44interests uh these advisers that were at
6:47that that you know company he was doing
6:49before Poly market all of it is true
6:52article has absolutely nothing to do
6:53with Jews or Israel or whatever it's
6:55ridiculous read the article It has way
6:57more to do with the privatization of
7:00military programs. And so we'll get into
7:03all of that right now, but we wanted to
7:04just start that off at the top. It's
7:05like one of the reasons why we're doing
7:07this show in general, despite the the AI
7:09impersonation thing that Whitney talked
7:11about, is like people don't read that
7:13much, and we want to make sure that uh
7:16you know, we're able to explain
7:17ourselves and tell the story for those
7:18that don't read. So the secret history
7:21of poly market part one uh from
7:24unlimited hangout.com from Whitney Webb
7:26and Mark Goodwin. Here we are. So I
7:27guess a good place to start is just like
7:29what is a prediction market? I guess and
7:31this idea of a prediction market is well
7:34hey let's set up a market just like we
7:37have for financial products,
7:39commodities, you know uh currencies,
7:42stocks, equities, bonds, whatever. Let's
7:45create a market just like that, buyers
7:46and sellers, but for you know,
7:49predictive outcomes. So, you know, World
7:53Cup's blowing up right now. So, uh you
7:55know, Argentina, will Argentina win the
7:58World Cup? Yes or no? It's this binary
8:00outcome and you can vote on who's going
8:03to win the World Cup? Is Argentina going
8:05to win the World Cup? And you can buy
8:06essentially like shares in the yes or
8:09shares in the no. And then of course
8:11there were non-binary outcomes like you
8:13know who will be the next Fed chair you
8:15know Kevin Walsh or uh you know Nancy
8:19Sheldon, Judy Sheldon or whatever and
8:22you know there can be more than two
8:23there can be like four or five and you
8:24can buy shares based on that. Um so
8:27prediction markets are um sort of a
8:30simple idea but with really crazy
8:32consequences and um intentions and just
8:37you know realworld applications that are
8:39very interesting and that we're going to
8:41get into all that before we get into all
8:43that of like where it's going which is
8:45mostly what part two is going to be like
8:47um you know we kind of have to explain
8:48like who created these where did they
8:50come from and what are they doing now
8:52>> right so um as we note in the article
8:55basically the first prediction market
8:56came out um in the late 80s. The
8:59University of Iowa, it was like an
9:01academic experiment and they got a
9:03waiver from the CFTC to operate their
9:06prediction market as long as it was run
9:07solely for academic purposes.
9:10>> Oh,
9:10>> and I think experimental purposes also.
9:12>> Yeah. But so and then the timing on that
9:14it was it was founded in 88 or started
9:17>> I forget the exact year
9:18>> a little bit before but it was around
9:19the first Bush senior
9:22>> Yeah. The 1988 presidential election,
9:25which is interesting because even like
9:26years later, you know, poly market, it's
9:28rise to popularity is generally also
9:30coincided with the US presidential
9:32election.
9:33>> That's why I brought it up.
9:34>> Yeah.
9:35>> Smart. Okay. So,
9:36>> sometimes
9:37>> anyway, that was basically kind of a
9:40closed system like anyone could apply,
9:41but they couldn't promote it and you
9:43could the amount of money you could
9:45wager on any given thing was was pretty
9:47small.
9:47>> A $500 limit. But then this guy who
9:50we'll be talking a lot about named uh
9:53Robin Hansen developed this idea called
9:57>> uh of of idea futures
9:59>> in the early 90s and he had been sort of
10:02like a contractor for Lockheed and NASA
10:04writing about a AI back then basian
10:08statistics and some other things.
10:10>> Um
10:11>> very interesting libertarian coded
10:13thinker for sure right very interesting
10:16dude. Uh anyway, um he he teamed up with
10:20these other guys who had read his paper
10:23and in 1994 created the foresight
10:26exchange, right?
10:27>> Which was basically the first iteration
10:29of the modern
10:31>> prediction market that we know of now
10:33where basically you could uh bet on all
10:36sorts of ideas,
10:38>> right? Essentially, it's idea of
10:40futures. Uh but it was play money,
10:42right? Not real money. Um, and after
10:45that, um, we basically, you know, just
10:48in sort of writing the narrative,
10:50there's a couple prediction markets that
10:51came up in the late 90s that we that we
10:53didn't include, but are sort of
10:55referenced later in the page. Yeah.
10:57>> And what was trade sports, that's it.
11:00Yeah. Because obviously sports betting
11:01and prediction markets, since you
11:03brought up the example of the World Cup,
11:04there's always kind of been a
11:06>> a synergy there, you Well, it's the most
11:08like straightforward like uh application
11:11of these things because sports betting
11:13is is a billion billion multi-billion
11:17dollar industry. It's really it's really
11:19huge. And
11:20>> who runs these casinos? Who's the casino
11:22people?
11:23What I was going to say about sports
11:25betting is that there's this really
11:26interesting book that I like leaned on a
11:29good amount for parts of of my book, One
11:31Nation Under Blackmail, uh by Dan Molda
11:34that's basically about how organized
11:36crime taking over the NFL.
11:38>> Right. Right.
11:38>> To basically like because of sports
11:41betting. So, you know, that nexus
11:44explored in One Nation under blackmail.
11:46Obviously, in that book as it relates to
11:48Jeffrey Epstein, you know, it's
11:49basically about intelligence and
11:50organized crime. They've been really big
11:52into sports for a long time. So
11:54interesting.
11:54>> And just casino stuff in general. I
11:56mean, that's what that's that's one of
11:58the main ways that these guys, you know,
12:00I mean, you look at the power nexus
12:01that's in power right now. I mean, it's
12:03casino guys. It's, you know, Trump blew
12:06up.
12:06>> Yeah, we have a lot to say about that
12:08later on, but that might be in a the
12:10part two video. Sorry.
12:12>> Yeah, for sure. And then I think the
12:13other really big thing to talk about at
12:15the beginning of of this sort of, you
12:18know, is is the the jurisdictional
12:19issues with using, you know, regulate
12:22highly regulated currency, right? Like
12:24there's a lot of a lot of the early
12:26digital currency stuff came out of like
12:28the poker community. I mean, the
12:30original Bitcoin client had a poker
12:32client, like remnants of it within the
12:34original code. Um, you know, you look at
12:37a Brock Pierce, like a Tether founder,
12:38and like they're doing all this digital
12:40good stuff in like video games, but that
12:43whole nexus was was all about kind of
12:45like getting money offshore via these
12:48these instruments and prediction
12:50markets,
12:51>> you know, we'll get into a little bit
12:52here later, but like they really don't
12:54work. They they they weren't able to be
12:55popularized in the way poly market is
12:58without cryptocurrency existing.
13:00>> Yeah. Well, and for a lot of reasons,
13:03>> jurisdictional reasons, legislation
13:05reasons, and and also just like 24/7
13:08internet, you know, markets. So, a lot
13:11of the stuff that these guys were doing
13:12early on, they weren't able to scale
13:15because they they had to be closed boxes
13:18because of the way the economics of it
13:20worked. And now with cryptocurrency, you
13:22know, it's a much bigger. In keeping
13:25with the chronology here though, it's
13:27it's interesting you brought that up
13:28because the guy that co-founded the next
13:30one that we talk about in the piece is
13:32Max Kaiser, who's at the time I think he
13:35was at Alex Brown and Sons, which is a
13:37bank that uh we'll have a piece on later
13:39this year about because of its
13:41executives. um
13:43>> who Kaiser actually called out at one
13:44point. But anyway, he's best known as a
13:46Bitcoin evangelist, early evangelist, an
13:49eccentric one at that, but he created
13:52this thing called the Hollywood Stock
13:53Exchange.
13:55Yeah. With another Wall Street guy or
13:57then Wall Street guy, Michael Burns,
13:59who's now best known for like a leading
14:01role at Lionsgate Films
14:03>> and being a big film executive. Um, but
14:05they created the Hollywood Stock
14:07Exchange, which again was still play
14:08money. Uh, but it, you know, developed
14:12this huge following. People were crazy
14:14obsessed with it, the ones that were
14:16into it. And people were paying real
14:17money for these fake portfolios on this
14:20Play Money exchange. Um,
14:22>> and they created they created, you know,
14:25the the patents that basically set up
14:27the digital security um, space. you
14:30know, Kaiser is very, you know, and and
14:32I I kind of grew up on the Kaiser
14:34Report. You know, I I really enjoy his
14:36work with with him and Stacy on that
14:38show. I think they did really good
14:40journalism there. Um, but he, you know,
14:42and part of his, you know, turning into
14:44being a journalist came from his
14:46experience with the Hollywood Stock
14:47Exchange. So, he created like the the
14:49virtual security specialist patent or
14:51something like that. I apologize, Max,
14:53for getting that wrong. And then um you
14:55know pretty promptly got in a whole
14:57bunch of trouble with with you know even
14:59though it was fake money uh you know
15:02there was there was a lot of uh
15:04jurisdictional issues, legal issues with
15:06running the Hollywood stock exchange and
15:08they ended up kind of tearing it apart,
15:10breaking it down into pieces and the
15:12patents and the majority of um you know
15:15the the the users and everything that
15:17that was on it got shifted over to Caner
15:20Fitzgerald, our boy, our commerce
15:23secretary Howard Lut. neck, the bagman
15:25for Tether. Um, you know, his firm ended
15:27up buying it um in 2000 or 2001
15:33>> and I think it was like May of 2001. I I
15:35might be incorrect. Is that right? and
15:37then promptly moved all of the IP and
15:39everything into the uh um the big towers
15:44there in Manhattan or I should say that
15:45used to be there in Manhattan and then a
15:47few months later obviously the Caner
15:48Fitzgerald office was was blown up and
15:51with it you know the the any any sort of
15:53further um pushing of the Hollywood
15:55stock exchange it kind of ended there at
15:5791.
15:58>> Yeah, we'll save the canour 911 story
16:00for another time. Uh yeah but
16:03>> sure. Yeah. Uh yeah. So, but anyway,
16:07basically what Lutnik wanted to do with
16:09this is he was like, "Great idea, but
16:12let's take away the play money and make
16:13it real money, right?" Um basically,
16:16>> not to interrupt, but for um you know,
16:18Cantor is one of the 24 primary dealers
16:21of the New York Fed. They're the largest
16:23bond um treasury dealer um in the United
16:26States and and therefore in the world
16:28for for treasury. So him wanting to take
16:31this model and apply it with real money
16:33is a humongous deal just with who Canor
16:35is,
16:36>> right? No, all good. And can I just do
16:40my own sidebar and be like we're one of
16:42the few outlets that's been covering
16:44Lutnik like a hawk since like the end of
16:462023 before he was part of the Trump
16:48campaign.
16:49>> That's right.
16:49>> Yeah. Because there's a lot of crazy
16:51stuff he's been involved with even
16:53recently that has not gotten a lot of
16:55attention. Frankly, I think we
16:56popularized the he's he's Epstein's
17:00neighbor. I think we kind of we kind of
17:02blew that up. Anyways, not to toot our
17:04own horns here, but anyways, have fun.
17:06Run with it.
17:07>> We just did a little toot toot, but
17:09>> toot.
17:10>> Excuse me.
17:10>> No, it's all good. So, basically, yeah,
17:12Letic usher in this era of a new type of
17:16commodity futures, basically, uh, film
17:19futures. And so obviously his plans were
17:22kind of scuppered a little bit by 9/11
17:24and then a few years later. Yeah,
17:25thanks. And then a few years later um
17:27they relaunched um or attempted to
17:30relaunch but it was during the 2008
17:32economic crisis or rather in the
17:34aftermath of that. And so you know
17:37Congress was like not into it because
17:39well presumably they were like our
17:41constituents will be mad if we approve
17:43this. And so eventually in some of the
17:45the laws that were passed in the wake of
17:47the 2008 economic crisis, there was like
17:49a lot of like prejudice text against
17:51Cantor Fitzgerald's right film future
17:53plan specifically. Like they literally
17:55were like no film futures ever in it,
17:58>> which is kind of funny. But in in trying
18:00to get that to happen, he hired
18:02lobbyists and some people and one of the
18:03guy he hired was this guy uh Rich
18:05Jacobs. Oh yeah. Who now works for Poly
18:07Market as like a top guy was hired like
18:10two years ago. Is that a thing that
18:11happens that old guys like people that
18:13worked at intrade or whatever end up
18:15advising like auger?
18:18>> What's augur? Anyways, we'll we'll get
18:19into all that. But uh yeah, it seems to
18:21be kind of a reoccurring thing where all
18:24of these early '9s like early
18:26technological
18:27iterations of this, they like bring all
18:29these guys back in and then they do all
18:30this stuff later. It's so interesting.
18:32It's probably not a coincidence.
18:35I mean, um, anyways, so yes, Hollywood
18:39Stock Exchange sort of wraps that kind
18:41of thing up.
18:42>> Yeah. So anyway, 2001, right, is when,
18:45uh, where we were sort of a second ago
18:47with Cantor and Yeah. and Hollywood
18:50stock exchange. So yeah, 9/11 scuppered
18:52may have scuppered Cantor's plans, but
18:54it supercharged the plans of someone
18:57else to get into the prediction market
18:59space, which is the US military. Uh,
19:04DARPA. What do you mean?
19:05>> The US military took advantage of 9/11
19:09to to to push initiatives that they had
19:12been planning for an extremely long
19:14time. I don't think that you're allowed
19:16to say that on YouTube.
19:18>> We'll find out.
19:19>> We'll find out. We'll be right back.
19:22>> Yeah. So, um yeah. So after 911, um
19:27there was this push to basically uh do a
19:30bunch of insane things on the part of
19:32the national like security state
19:33>> to prevent another 911 from ever
19:36happening again. Even though uh sorry
19:39YouTube, I'm going to get that little
19:41like thing under it about 9/11 and
19:43conspiracy theories. Um
19:46>> do it.
19:46>> Yeah, the national security state of the
19:48US uh at the very least helped 9/11
19:52happen. So then, you know, uh, sorry.
19:57>> Yeah. Okay.
19:57>> Yeah.
19:58>> Well, I I believe that and, uh, I think
20:02there's copious evidence for that as
20:03opposed to Osama bin Laden with the
20:061980s cell phone.
20:07>> Do your own research. Whoa. You know,
20:10we'll get a we'll get a mark on our
20:11account for another
20:13>> our first episode.
20:16>> Three marks and you're out.
20:18>> Um, yeah. This is why Real Me is better
20:19than AI Me cuz I get the under my under
20:23my videos.
20:24>> AIU is like total.
20:26>> I don't know. I don't want to watch it.
20:27I haven't seen it. I I just Yeah.
20:31>> Yeah. Long story short.
20:349/11 happened. Whatever happened
20:37happened, but it happened.
20:38>> Anyway, the US National Security State
20:41uh manufactured consent through 911 for
20:44all of the stuff they'd wanted to do
20:45before. And there's a litany of things
20:47that fall in that category. One of which
20:49being the Department of Homeland
20:51Security, which they had introduced
20:53legislation for in January, like
20:55February 2001. Right?
20:57>> So, there's all sorts of stuff in that
20:58category. Um,
21:00>> but after 9/11, there was something they
21:02wanted to do also that they justified
21:04after the attacks that was really the
21:06resurrection of something that was going
21:08on under Reagan in the 1980s, okay, or
21:10the Reagan Bush administration. And so,
21:13um, it's no surprise then that someone
21:15that was a hold over from that era, at
21:17least rather the Bush, uh, senior
21:20administration, because it was Reagan
21:21Bush and then Bush Senior, uh, Dick
21:23Cheney who had been
21:25>> uh, oh my god, uh, defense secretary um,
21:29under Bush Senior, obviously vice
21:31president under George W. Bush. He's the
21:33one that pushed for this uh this guy
21:36named John Po Dexter who had previously
21:38been the top official in the Reagan
21:41administration indicted for his role in
21:43Iran Contra um having come lead this
21:46office uh at DARPA a brand new office
21:49that had actually been point Dexter's
21:51idea
21:52>> right
21:52>> called the information awareness office
21:54that I've been pretty much writing about
21:57for six years on and off um but what's
21:59interesting about this is that a lot of
22:02the stuff that's in the information
22:04awareness office actually goes back to
22:07stuff that Po Dexter as basically being
22:10Oliver North's boss um in Iran Contra
22:14was was helping facilitate and these are
22:16cont very controversial things from Iran
22:18Contra that aren't talked about a lot uh
22:21because it's misremembered
22:23I would argue as a arms for hostage
22:25scandal it's really much bigger than
22:27that and in interfaces with a lot of
22:29other scandals of that era uh BCCI among
22:32other things. If you want to know all
22:34the details of that, you can read my
22:36books. Um, but basically one of the
22:39things that he wanted to do there and
22:40was overseeing with North was continuity
22:43of government protocols.
22:45>> The goal of which was basically to label
22:47American citizens as dissident and
22:50create sort of a way to deal with uh
22:53unrest or uh even uh massive nonviolent
22:58protests against US military
23:00intervention abroad. deal with all of
23:02these things by creating a list of
23:04Americans that could be uh have their
23:06rights suspended basically if the
23:08government um
23:09>> wanted to
23:10>> wanted to and so that in is intimately
23:13related to at least some of the projects
23:15that information the information
23:16awareness office right
23:18>> uh later went on to pursue. So I, you
23:21know, it it seems pretty clear to me
23:22that Po Dexter was brought in to
23:24resurrect that stuff that had sort of
23:26been uh scandalous back in the 80s now
23:28that enough time had passed and people
23:30were very stressed about national
23:31security after 9/11. Now was the time
23:36>> uh and this isn't just like a theory you
23:38have. I mean, this is stuff that like
23:39these guys are stating like overtly like
23:42whether it's in the private sector or or
23:45like at the Pentagon, but you know, like
23:47folks like Larry Ellison who's in that
23:49middle ground of like he's technically
23:50private sector, but like Oracle started
23:53as Project Oracle and the CIA and he
23:55writes this big, you know, piece. I feel
23:57like we've brought this up a bunch of
23:59times, but wrote this big piece, you
24:00know, in the New York Times about, you
24:02know, how like we need a national
24:03database like like days after 911 for
24:06national security. We need this national
24:08this this database of of everybody.
24:10>> Yeah. So that's interesting you brought
24:12that up. Yeah. So the the big narrative
24:14from the people that were intimately
24:16involved in 911 like the CIA and CO was
24:20like after 911 they were like oh well
24:22the reason this happened is because not
24:25all of our databases aren't really
24:27mushed into one giant database.
24:30>> Yeah. So the push for that has been
24:31going on. data issue which leads into
24:33the so perfectly into where used with
24:36prediction markets.
24:37>> Yeah. And actually PO Dexter before this
24:40push after 911 had been working for six
24:42years on this DARPA program specifically
24:44about how to manage data if it stopped
24:46being siloed data called Genanoa.
24:48>> Um yeah. So anyway,
24:50>> sounds like a nice salami.
24:53Genanoa.
24:55>> Okay,
24:55>> keep going. We'll cut that.
24:59Nah, leave it in.
25:00>> That's fine. um remembering what I was
25:03talking about. Yeah. So, this office he
25:05made or that was made for him courtesy
25:08of Cheney, the information awareness
25:10office, um creates all of these
25:13different uh programs, one of which was
25:15Genanoa 2, um with the goal of obtaining
25:19total information awareness,
25:22>> uh which as the name sounds, awareness
25:25of all information period. So this was
25:28basically a huge draget surveillance
25:30program that was going to suck up
25:32everything about every American they
25:35could possibly obtain data wise. And
25:37obviously this is in the early internet.
25:39Um so they they they knew where the
25:42internet was going because the internet
25:43was also out of DARPA and is basically a
25:45military project in its own right. Um
25:48but basically scupper up all this um you
25:51know or um hoover up all of this data on
25:55Americans from you know um not just your
25:58like finances but like what you're
26:00reading and consuming
26:02um what your uh what food you're buying,
26:05what medication you're on. I mean pretty
26:07much everything you can think of was
26:08supposed to go into this. And it was the
26:10way they said they were going to stop uh
26:13terrorist attacks from happening again
26:14was harvesting all of this data and then
26:17searching for anomalies in that data and
26:19then going on to predict which is the
26:21key point here predict in the context of
26:24poly market uh predict what would happen
26:26before it happens. So prevent terrorist
26:28attacks before they happen. And there
26:30was also a subsect there to prevent
26:32pandemics before they happen, right? And
26:34because they wanted to surveil the
26:36wastewater and the sewage, which now
26:38they're doing they did under Trump last
26:39time in 2020 under co
26:42>> have an article about that.
26:43>> But basically, you know, uh it was a
26:45huge insane drag net. And all of these
26:47different programs within it were meant
26:49to interface together, right? and then
26:51be sort of uh you know the jewel on the
26:54crown was TIA total information
26:56awareness which was meant to plug into
26:58all of these different things and then
27:01you know assess the data and decide uh
27:04who's a terrorist and who's not
27:06basically based on all of that data. Um
27:09and so one of the programs within the
27:11information off uh awareness office um
27:14was uh called future map. And within
27:18that there was a um another program
27:21called the policy analysis market.
27:24>> Yes. Or
27:26p
27:27>> sorry for all the acronyms guys but
27:29that's what happens when you talk about
27:30government stuff. They're like very
27:32acronym happy.
27:34>> Um yes. So then Pam was uh they brought
27:37in none other than Robin Hansen who we
27:39mentioned a bit ago uh to be basically
27:41the system architect of that and there
27:43was also another company involved in
27:45another iteration that were all the
27:46people from the University of Iowa first
27:48prediction market they were kind of
27:50involved too. Um and then intrade that
27:52you sort of brought up they were
27:54consulting and advising. So this was
27:56more or less more or less the the people
27:59involved there. Um, and basically the
28:01policy analysis market uh originally was
28:04going to uh focus on more than just the
28:07Middle East, but because uh you know
28:09they were trying to get a lot of their
28:11data from um the intelligence unit of
28:14the economist the the paper um
28:17>> they uh found their services very costly
28:20and so instead of doing the entire world
28:22focused on eight countries in the Middle
28:23East because you know 9/11 the war on
28:26terror the focus was on the Middle East,
28:28>> Iraq, Afghanistan. Yes. And so they
28:30basically created you know an an idea
28:32futures market uh
28:35about these countries but it wasn't just
28:37it was about all sorts of things uh
28:39economic indicators but also political
28:41ones and then how those would combine.
28:44So it was technically a combinatorial
28:45market
28:46>> um which Hansen had also done a lot of
28:49work on previously and so basically you
28:52have you know Pam attempting to launch
28:53and drumming up interest. They
28:55originally wanted to have people from,
28:57you know, the CIA and intelligence
28:59community be the people participating in
29:01the market. Uh but they say they
29:03couldn't get enough interest. Uh or
29:05rather that they couldn't have agencies
29:07compete at first because of issues with
29:09uh transferring money between federal
29:12intelligence agencies, right? And then
29:14tried to do it all within one
29:15intelligence agency and couldn't
29:18>> I guess didn't find any right
29:20>> interested players. And so they went
29:22straight uh to the public and that and
29:25that various uh you know I guess
29:27insiders or experts were allowed to
29:29participate but it never actually
29:31launched.
29:32>> Right.
29:33>> There was a big uh uproar about it
29:36because a couple of senators found out
29:38and did a press conference. They branded
29:39it uh the terrorism futures market and
29:42then after that just infinite negative
29:44press.
29:45>> Yeah. I mean, imagine that like that
29:46just you're in the public and you don't
29:48know anything about these things and
29:49then you see it's like like the like
29:51DARPA is doing a a market where you can
29:53bet on the next 9/11. I mean, that's
29:55basically what they said
29:57>> and and also kind of basically what they
29:59were doing. But the idea is, you know,
30:01hey, the markets are always perfect and
30:03always right.
30:04>> The wisdom of the market, the wisdom of
30:06the market,
30:06>> a way to harness the collective human,
30:10the wisdom of crowds, right? And I mean
30:13there is something to that and like
30:14collect of humanity and whatever, but I
30:16think in the hands of people like John
30:18Po Dexter, a literal the Iran
30:21Contrafelon who was like head of that
30:23sha or de facto head of that shadow
30:25government and like an insane scandal um
30:28that involved intelligence and organized
30:30crime and the same people that brought
30:32you Jeffrey Epstein. Um,
30:34>> and and and this is this will be a huge
30:36part of part two and I'm sure I think at
30:38this point we'll do another plot on part
30:39two because there's a lot to talk about.
30:41But this concept of like the markets
30:43can't be wrong and you know markets are
30:46better you know than democracy and
30:48that's why we should use the information
30:49of markets and the wisdom of crowds to
30:51like dictate policy. It doesn't really
30:54make sense when you consider that like
30:56every market in the world is like
30:57incredibly rigged and and controlled and
31:01so and who and who actually gets
31:03>> and some of the people that are exactly
31:05that are big investors and
31:07>> marketers. So so that's a big that's a
31:09big issue with this whole concept. This
31:10this isn't really about that concept.
31:12We'll get into that in part two. But
31:13anyways, yes, you're right. So in July
31:162003, uh you know, the terrorist futures
31:18market idiom gets gets thrown out there
31:21and these two centers they get it shut
31:22down and they end up shuttering this
31:24this whole idea and all of these guys
31:27that you know maybe started in the
31:29private sector then got sucked into the
31:30Pentagon are now free to to go out into
31:33the private sector, right? So so we're
31:35at this kind of point where like the
31:37information awareness office is couldn't
31:40be more uh scrutinized by the public.
31:43So, but it's not like DARPA and and the
31:46Department of Defense, you know, now
31:47Department of War was just like, "Oh,
31:50but these were bad ideas and let's not
31:51do them." They're like, "No, these are
31:52great ideas and we want these ideas to
31:54happen and if a couple dingbat senators
31:57are going to blow this up for us, well,
31:59we'll take it right out of the public
32:00sector and we'll toss it into the
32:02private sector."
32:03>> I mean, more or less that's what
32:04happened. Yeah. Um, so,
32:07>> uh, a lot of my work the past few years
32:09in talking about the information
32:10awareness office has been about
32:12specifically how several programs at
32:14that office were privatized,
32:15>> right?
32:16>> Largely with the involvement of Peter
32:19Teal, friend of the show.
32:22>> Um, yeah. And so he um, uh, so the first
32:27time I uh, wrote about this was in 2020
32:30when Palanteer got all the Warp Speed
32:32contracts. And so, you know, basically
32:35what I was pointing out there is uh how
32:38Palunteer is privatized total
32:41information awareness and it was
32:42designed to be so. So, when TIA was
32:45under starting to become under scrutiny,
32:47they went to Congress and changed the
32:48name to terrorism information awareness,
32:51trying to be like, oh, we're not trying
32:53to spy on all Americans, but yes, we
32:56are. But
32:56>> just terrorists.
32:57>> Yeah,
32:58>> you're all terrorists now. I mean, it
33:01was just a name change, but the program
33:02was meant to be the same. Um, and the
33:05and so Congress, you know, because of
33:06the scrutiny and uh people the public
33:09backlash, they defunded information
33:13awareness, but what actually happened is
33:15that they didn't actually end the
33:17programs. They were a lot of them were
33:19moved to different agencies in the
33:20national security community. Um, there
33:23was a provision for that actually in the
33:25legislation. So, thanks, but no thanks,
33:28Congress. Yeah. Um, and uh, you know,
33:31basically total information awareness.
33:33As soon as that name change happened,
33:35uh, Peter Teal comes. Yeah. Uh, fresh
33:38off of selling PayPal to Pier Midar.
33:41Yeah. And he's got all this money. And
33:43he's like,
33:45>> I'm going to make this company called
33:46Palunteer. And Palanteer, as we've
33:48written about before as well,
33:51>> uh, had really started off as the
33:52anti-fraud algorithm at PayPal. Yeah.
33:55>> Uh, named Eigor. Yeah. And uh as we've
33:58talked about, well, I guess not on this
34:01show since this is the first episode,
34:03right? But when PayPal was being
34:04created, uh Max Lechin sort of uh gave
34:08it away.
34:09>> Yeah. He he did this interview with
34:10Charlie Rose uh you know actually around
34:13this time and he said that hey when I
34:15was developing all the anti-fraud stuff
34:16at PayPal you know I was working with
34:19every three and fourletter agency that I
34:21could meaning you know this the CIA and
34:24the DoD and and and DARPA and and
34:27whatever and uh you know they were some
34:29of the most fruitful business
34:30relationships I ever had um yada yada so
34:33they form PayPal in the late '9s they're
34:36the first company to go public after
34:389/11 11, you know, in the do boom and
34:41then they make a bunch of money and it's
34:43Tio and Levchin admittedly working with
34:46the CIA and NSA, you know, while
34:48developing these anti-fraud stuff. They
34:50create Iiggore which is named after this
34:52Russian fraudster who was just toying
34:53with them and they figured out a way to
34:55defeat this this guy and then they take
34:58that algorithm and Teal who is you know
35:01buddies buddies with Po Dexter uh and
35:04you know ends up you know kind of being
35:06advised by him and he takes that
35:08anti-fraud algorithm which was built
35:09with the CIA in the private sector and
35:11then rebrands it as Palunteer. I I mean
35:15so so this is getting shut down in July
35:182003 and Poundier is coming out I mean
35:21literally the exact same time, right?
35:23>> Well, I think they were incorporated
35:25even earlier. It was around the name
35:27change but basically you know as they're
35:29setting it up they they go through
35:31Richard Pearl who was involved with the
35:34Bush era
35:35>> Department of Defense and I believe the
35:37Office of Special Plans.
35:39>> Okay. Um, and he was basically this arc
35:41neocon that has this long history of arc
35:43neocon.
35:44>> He is though. I mean, he's like one of
35:46the key like neoonservative guys. I
35:48mean, he was also, you know, in talking
35:50about bridging like USIsraeli national
35:52security interests like back in the 80s
35:54and has all this very controversial
35:56history. Yeah.
35:57>> Um, basically being a defac, you know,
35:59more or less a spy for
36:01>> for Israel and Congress when he's an aid
36:03to one of the main early neocon uh
36:06congressmen or senators. I forget which
36:08one he was. Um but uh Pearl, you know,
36:12is is in the office or involved with the
36:14Department of Defense and and he's
36:16approached by Peter Teal and Alex Karp
36:18and they're basically like we want to
36:20talk to John Po Dexter because what he
36:22was trying to do is what we want to do.
36:24I mean, and this is admitted in
36:25mainstream media. So like please don't
36:27tell me this is a conspiracy theory.
36:29This is literally what they plan to do.
36:31And then they go and meet with Po Dexter
36:33who
36:34>> becomes uh named basically the godfather
36:38of modern surveillance because of this
36:41>> um and uh advises them on how to create
36:44Palunteer and then Palanteer gets in bed
36:46pretty much right away uh with the CIA
36:49via NQL
36:51um and they I mean Karp has admitted
36:54that the CIA was always the intended
36:56client of Palunteer. They were their um
37:00first and only client for like their
37:01first 6 years as a company.
37:04>> There's also this amazing ask me
37:06anything on Reddit where Peter Teal gets
37:07asked is Palunteer a front for the CIA
37:10and he responds no the CIA is a front
37:13for Palunteer. Now obviously he's being
37:14a little cheeky but is he is he being
37:18that cheeky as we've now seen you know
37:20since obviously he was on to something
37:22there. Another point that I wanted to
37:23mention point Dexter is coming from this
37:26lineage of like Navy intelligence where
37:29it seems like there's this nexus of a
37:31lot of these guys whether it's Elron
37:33Hubard or uh you know maybe even some
37:36people related to Sean Parker which
37:37we'll get into here in a little bit but
37:39anyways TIA basically is the
37:42privatization or rather Palunteer is the
37:44privatization of TIA. Teal is the no pun
37:48intended the point man alongside point
37:50Dexter for that. And then um what does
37:53he immediately get involved with after
37:56that?
37:57>> Yeah. So in 2004
37:59um there's another lifelog program that
38:01gets or sorry lifelog program.
38:03Lifeloglog is a DARPA program that gets
38:05shuttered in the wake of the TIA
38:07explosion, right? Um, it shuts down the
38:09same day that Facebook is launched and
38:12the pro project manager of Lifelog,
38:14Douglas Gage, uh, later on was like,
38:16"Facebook is exactly what I wanted Life
38:18Logo to end up becoming."
38:20>> Interesting that. And then Peter Teal,
38:23fresh off of privatizing total
38:25information awareness. Um, and there's
38:27some detail we didn't get into there,
38:29like the involvement of Alan Wade and
38:30and how that ties in with all this other
38:32stuff and how the CIA had intimately
38:34been involved with TIA. Yeah. And and
38:36that's why you have the CIA and and
38:38Palanteer coming together so early, blah
38:40blah blah. Anyway, so read the article.
38:42Yes, it's all in there. Totally. So life
38:44log um was basically a way to create the
38:47goal was to create basically a narration
38:50of a person's life and episodes
38:52basically a surveillance log of
38:54everything you've ever done in discrete
38:57episodes that are tied to like
38:58geoloccation like where you are and who
39:01you're with photographic evidence and
39:04like all of this other stuff. So like I
39:06mean it's literally is Facebook. Um
39:08>> but how did that come to be? Well, you
39:10know, obviously when Facebook was first
39:12launched, it it was, you know, amorphous
39:14and there was no uh it could have become
39:16anything, right? But it was shaped into
39:18this because the people that
39:21>> first really funded it are the PayPal
39:23mafia. It was Reed Hoffman and Peter
39:25Teal. Yeah. And
39:27>> and then alongside guys like Ron Conway
39:30>> who come from the the Parker Nexus. Um,
39:32and obviously Sean Parker's important to
39:34the Poly Market story because Shane
39:36Copelan has gone on and on about the
39:38Napsterization of finance and that's
39:40what he is doing and he gave talks about
39:42that at his company before Poly Market
39:45>> and of course after the fact at Poly
39:47Market as well and uh you know Sean
39:50Parker before Facebook and being his
39:52first president created Napster. So I'll
39:54let you do a little
39:54>> Yeah. Sean Parker, he co-founded Napster
39:58actually with another Shawn, Sean
40:00Fanning. Interestingly, you know, he
40:02just kind of hit him up, sent him an
40:03email and was like, "Hey, I you know, we
40:05met on IRC. What you're doing is really
40:07cool. I want to come out to San
40:09Francisco and and come check it out and
40:11and and do that." But but you know, long
40:14before that fateful email and that IRC
40:16meetings when he was 15 and 16 years
40:18old, he was accused um and I don't think
40:22he was like formally charged or anything
40:23cuz he was a minor, but he was like a
40:26you know a hacker and he hacked into
40:28like a Fortune 500 company and and you
40:30know potentially reportedly some um
40:34military websites and government
40:35websites and he ended up getting you
40:37know his like house you know quote
40:39unquote raided by the FBI because he had
40:41broken into um you know some things that
40:44he wasn't supposed to and uh you know at
40:47that time you know you know he be he
40:49became um you know it's quite an
40:51interesting recruitment tool for
40:53intelligence when you are like a hacker
40:55it's a very like rare um skill and we've
40:57talked about this before but the fact
40:59that you know the FBI raids his house
41:01and you know as he has admitted uh the
41:04CIA came and tried to recruit him um you
41:08know at at a very young age because of
41:09because of this this skill
41:11And interestingly, he says that he
41:13denied going to the CIA, which is very
41:15possible, but much like Levchin,
41:17Levchin,
41:18>> great
41:19>> went to the CIA or the NSA actually uh
41:22upon graduation from a computer science
41:24degree from the University of Illinois.
41:26And he went to the NSA and he said,
41:28"Hey, you know, USSR fell. I came to
41:31America. I found amazing opportunity
41:33here. I love America. Um, I want to
41:35become an American citizen and I want to
41:37use cryptography for the betterment of
41:39the nation." And then NSA was like,
41:40"You'll never make a dime doing it that
41:42way. Uh, you know, you should stay in
41:44the private sector if you want to make
41:46any money off of this stuff." And then
41:47immediately he like flies out, crashes
41:50at Scott Bannister's house, who's, you
41:52know, becomes the first board member of
41:54PayPal. He's the VP of Idea Labs, which
41:56is the first founder of PayPal, and uh,
41:59meets Peter Teal,
42:00>> institutional investor.
42:01>> Yeah, Teal was the first investor. But
42:03when you're like a co-founder, it's not
42:04really like investing. It's like you
42:06just like
42:07>> Yeah, I know. But Idealabs is the first
42:10investor of of PayPal other than Peter
42:12Teal putting in money for them to start
42:13the company and um uh you know is
42:18crashing on Banister's couch, meets Teal
42:20at Stanford, you know, comes up with
42:22some ideas, they start PayPal,
42:23everything that we just said happens
42:24right after that. So he literally goes
42:26to the NSA, says, "I want to work for
42:27you." And they go, "No, go to the
42:28private sector." He digitizes
42:30>> his house and then meet Peter Teal
42:32instead, Maxi. So, uh, you know, kind of
42:35a similar thing happened with, um, with
42:37with with our boy Sean Parker. He gets
42:39arrested or or rather gets, you know,
42:42um, raided. The, uh, FBI sends him to do
42:45this long community service thing, and,
42:48uh, you know, ends up meeting a bunch of
42:50people, including this girlfriend. He
42:53loses his virginity. He he claims
42:55because the FBI raided his house, which
42:57is kind of interesting. You know, maybe
42:58they're sending him a handler or
43:00something. Who knows? I I I have no
43:02evidence of that. But regardless, he CIA
43:04recruits him for hacking after the FBI
43:06raids him. He says no and he goes he's
43:09in the DC area. He was he was born in
43:10Fairfax County where like Langley is and
43:13the CIA is and all this stuff in DC. Um
43:16because his dad was this longtime
43:19government oceanographer who had done
43:21all this work for decades with um you
43:24know basically US intelligence gathering
43:27information whether it's climate change
43:28or whatever but oceanography and work
43:30directly with the Navy.
43:32um and uh and and all that. But so he
43:35gets recruited by the CIA. He says no
43:37and he goes and joins um Freeloader
43:41uh which is a company by Marcus Pinkis
43:44who ends up becoming you know extremely
43:46famous for I mean just being a big part
43:47of Facebook in general and later is
43:49involved with Coplin and Poly Market
43:52which is why we talk about this. But,
43:53you know, he he he co-ounds Zingga,
43:56which is a huge part of why Facebook
43:58becomes what it is, right? Um, and ends
44:00up being, I think at one point it's like
44:0110 to 15% of all the revenue of Facebook
44:03is from Zingga. you know, he's a huge
44:05part of of the Facebook nexus and and so
44:08he goes to Freeloader and then he goes
44:11to ENET, which is the DCbased ISP, the
44:14first commercial ISP internet service
44:16provider that basically took all these
44:18expa officials and and exgovernment
44:20officials and privatized, you know, a
44:22lot of the technology, commercialized a
44:24lot of the technology that was developed
44:26at DARPA. Um, interestingly, the money
44:28man behind UNET, Mitch Kapor, was one of
44:31the main guys at Lotus, the co-founder
44:33of Lotus. Lotus of course um you know
44:36very famously he was replaced by Jim
44:37Manzy um who uh you know features
44:41prominently in the chain series as being
44:45uh you know a a board member of Galain
44:49Maxwell's husband's cargo metrics and
44:51also of Paxos very interesting and then
44:53Bill Gross uh who kind of came into this
44:57nexus through uh through ENET and he is
45:02the founder of ID Labs who ends being
45:04the guy that sort of funds Musk and Teal
45:06and all of these guys very early on.
45:08He's the incubator that really takes the
45:10privatization of these DARPA projects
45:12and blows them up. So, very importantly,
45:14Parker is already in this nexus, the
45:16Pinkis Nexus, the the the DCET
45:20uh gross Lotus Many Nexus. So um you
45:24know very interestingly Parker is at a
45:26very very very early age is is involved
45:28with intelligence and DCbased
45:30privatization of DARPA projects like
45:32before even Napster and then he sends an
45:34email to Sean Fanning moves out to San
45:36Francisco right
45:37>> co-founds Napster um and then of course
45:40you know ends up becoming this huge
45:42mythic internet figure um because of
45:45what Napster did of breaking down all
45:46these barriers of peer-to-peer data
45:49sharing and then what happened with the
45:51litigation from the music industry
45:53against Napster,
45:54>> right? And so basically in doing that he
45:57is he develops this Napsterization
45:59model.
46:00>> This model exactly 100%
46:01>> which is used by the uh the Tealverse
46:04you know the network around Peter Teal
46:07um just numerous times and then
46:09obviously when Sean Parker after
46:11Facebook goes to work for Peter Teal at
46:12Founders Fund they do it there together
46:15but there's a lot of these these
46:16companies that that literally do that.
46:19Um and so it's basically the analogy is
46:22Napster and Spotify and that's how
46:26Napsterization works. You want to
46:28explain?
46:28>> Yeah. So so more or less the
46:30Napsterization model is create a
46:32disruptive technology which Napster was
46:34a peer-to-peer technology of sending and
46:37also a compression algorithm for MP3s.
46:40um uh you know, you can't have the
46:41peer-to-p peer without the compression
46:43algorithm, otherwise there's these huge
46:44files. And they basically create this
46:47amazing community of people sharing all
46:49this data that's completely illegal
46:51because a lot of it is copyrighted data.
46:53But they create this whole
46:54infrastructure and they don't give a
46:55[ __ ] And then of course they get sued
46:57into oblivion and the company, you know,
46:59it still exists in some form, but you
47:01know, it's not it's like a legal version
47:03of it now. Someone bought the brand
47:04because it was a big brand. But
47:06basically Napster disrupted everything,
47:07killed the music industry as as it
47:09stands now, moved everything towards
47:11MP3s and streaming. And then years later
47:14after, you know, his his joining
47:17Facebook was very similar, too. He he
47:19saw the facebook.com on like his his
47:22roommate girlfriend's computer and sent
47:24an email to Zuckerberg and was like,
47:25"Holy [ __ ] this is awesome." Just like
47:27he did with Sean Fanny,
47:30come
47:30>> and then like, "Come here." And then he
47:31moves in and then he becomes the first
47:33president of Facebook. Facebook also had
47:36a lot of Napsterization issues. Like
47:37there was a lot of questionable legal
47:39stuff at the beginning. Um but
47:41regardless um Napster obviously implodes
47:45but then you know years later Sean
47:47Parker becomes a billionaire from
47:49Facebook. He joins Founders Fund I think
47:51in ' 06. And one of the first things he
47:53does is he invests a ton of money into
47:54Spotify becomes one of their main
47:56adviserss and now Spotify is the
47:58ubiquitous. It's taken over iTunes.
48:00>> It's the descendant of Napster. Yeah.
48:03But Napster failed. So Spotify could
48:06succeed. So the idea is create a
48:07disruptive company that is just an
48:09experiment basically. You know it will
48:11fail but it it it changes the the
48:15definition in people's minds of what is
48:17normal or what is acceptable and pushes
48:19the envelope with regulation and then at
48:21a later date they come
48:23>> and and now that that's that disruption
48:26is done they come and they they install
48:28the company or or create or find the
48:31company they want to use as a vehicle
48:32for that. Um and and then they create as
48:35as Peter Teal loves to uh monopolies
48:39basically.
48:40>> And that was I was going to say all of
48:41these models they start as a free thing
48:44and then they turn into you know Spotify
48:46obviously is a paid service. So that's
48:47another big part of the model is you
48:49disrupt destroy the market and then
48:51create a paid version of it that is very
48:53convenient and legal and all this and
48:55then everyone throws the money in there.
48:56>> Yeah. So keep that model in mind because
48:58Shane Copelan's whole thing or I'm
49:00calling him Copeland Cop I don't know
49:02his whole his whole thing is the
49:03Napsterization of of finance and how
49:06poly market is doing that.
49:07>> So so we're not just bringing all this
49:09stuff up because we're crazy and we're
49:10conspiracy theorists and all this stuff.
49:12We're bringing it up because Shane
49:14himself says, you know, that he is
49:16obsessed with the lives of Mark
49:19Zuckerberg, Travis Kalanick, who's the
49:21Uber founder, and you know, he he starts
49:24out, you know, his career basically as
49:26an intern at Genius Lyrics.
49:28>> Uh, yeah. Or Rap Genius is how it
49:31started. Yeah, he started interning
49:32there. So, like basically early
49:34background on COP, Copelan, Copelan,
49:36whatever. he like felt like he was going
49:38to be always out competed by his peers
49:40and he basically was like I what he's
49:42told in profiles on him since obviously
49:45is that I needed to find a different way
49:47to compete and he basically does that by
49:49becoming obsessed
49:50>> uh with Mark Zuckerberg and Travis
49:52Kalanick in particular and probably
49:54other big tech billionaire founders who
49:56he doesn't name but those are the two he
49:57names and that's pretty significant. So
49:59at Rap Genius the it was a it the goal
50:02was to basically I guess annotate the
50:04web which is interesting because that
50:06was actually what the first search
50:07engine that the Maxwell sisters gain
50:10sisters created uh was also about
50:12annotating the whole web. Interesting
50:14but basically Rap Genius the goal was to
50:16do that but first it launched via you
50:18know hiphop
50:19>> right
50:19>> and gained sort of public uh notoriety
50:22and uh and fame that way. Um but he
50:25became the top editors as an intern for
50:28the entries of the big tech founders
50:30like Kalanick and like Zuckerberg.
50:32>> And this was a Y Combinator company,
50:34correct?
50:34>> Yeah, it was a Y Combinator company
50:36which is the you know I guess San
50:38Francisco
50:39>> based San Francisco.
50:41>> Yeah, it's a it's one of the most
50:42well-known startup incubators. It's very
50:44closely connected to Teal at least now.
50:47>> It's like a new idea labs but like
50:48quicker but quicker turn. They got
50:50involved with 20 uh uh with Y Combinator
50:53in 2011, which is when Conway, who you
50:55mentioned, right, um also became
50:57involved there. And then Sam Alman,
50:58who's a, you know, at this point widely
51:01recognized as a te protege, becomes a
51:03partner there. And then a few years
51:04later, he ends up taking over Y
51:06Combinator. Um
51:07>> so he's obsessed with these guys. He
51:09runs into rap genius is like, "Let me
51:11work for you." And then they're like,
51:13"Wow, you know so much about all these
51:14guys. You're so cool." And then he, you
51:17know, works for them or whatever as an
51:18intern. And then he I believe at that
51:21time uh in 2014, you know, he got into
51:24the ETH ICO, the Ethereum initial coin
51:27offering guy
51:28>> and made a bunch of money on ETH and
51:30ended up going to San Francisco um to
51:33intern at this another startup that was
51:36like an ETH based startup uh incubator
51:39called Chronicle that was San Francisco
51:41based that they ended up doing some
51:43weird like medical chain and medilayer
51:46and some other things. But anyways, he
51:48like interns over there and then pretty
51:50much right after that, uh, you know,
51:51drops out of college, makes a bunch of
51:53money.
51:54>> He goes back to New York to go to
51:55college and drops out quickly.
51:57>> Yeah. Cuz he's making millions of
51:58dollars in ETH, and he's like, "Why am I
52:00doing this?" Like, "This is where I need
52:01to be." And and ends up founding his
52:04first company,
52:05>> which is called Token Bank at the time,
52:07but it later later becomes Token Union,
52:10and he he builds it as Ethereum's first
52:12savings account, basically. So the idea
52:14of it is, you know, you hold a bunch of
52:16these tokens, right? So ETH is famous
52:19for being able to create, you know, it's
52:22easy to make tokens. There's this
52:23standard on it called the ERC20s and you
52:25can create these tokens. Uh and his
52:28model was if you hold a bunch of these
52:30tokens, we'll give you a yield and we'll
52:32pay you uh you know, a percentage to
52:35hold a bunch of these tokens. Um and and
52:37and in that you know trying to build
52:39that savings mechanism he ends up
52:42partnering with this group that had kind
52:44of done a lot of the work before for for
52:46creating like yield-based stuff. Again,
52:48this is before Ethereum is a yield-based
52:50proof ofstake model, which is Bangor,
52:53which is you already mentioned kind of
52:55this,
52:55>> right? Co-founded by uh Netanyahu's uh
52:59niece and nephew. And interestingly,
53:00right before creating Bangor, the niece
53:03that the co-founder Galia Bernardi uh
53:06she was for worked for Peter Teal's
53:08founders fund recurring theme founders
53:11fund here. Yeah.
53:12>> Wow. Okay.
53:13>> Uh leading all of their Israeli focused
53:15investments,
53:16>> right? And speaking of Israeli focused
53:18investments, a couple other investors
53:20and again this token union, token bank,
53:23token market, these
53:24>> these are um you know these are hidden
53:28from the story. The story is that poly
53:29market you know was created in his
53:31bathroom you know all by himself and and
53:34the reality is that uh you know no there
53:36was a predecessor company one of the
53:38actually the the guys that used to work
53:40for this company who was a programmer
53:41there even says that it's the
53:42predecessor to poly market. You said
53:44Poly Market used to be known as token
53:46bank
53:47>> and a lot of these URLs redirect to Poly
53:50Market now which is really interesting.
53:52>> Yeah, because it was like tokenun.io and
53:54then it became union.market which Copan
53:57says was not related at all uh to the
54:01previous company. He doesn't even ever
54:03acknowledge the company's existence
54:05really. He claims it was because of some
54:07place he liked to buy like mushroom
54:09brios buns at or something. Um, but they
54:14I mean there's a pretty clear evolution
54:15of that union and then anyway it was
54:18Union.Market then poly.market and now
54:20polymarket.com.
54:21>> And so one of the other Israeli tied
54:23investors Lou Kerner founded this group
54:26called CryptoOracle
54:28>> which is seemingly invested in in token
54:30bank or token union because they had
54:32some private pre-sale
54:35>> um that where they netted I think a
54:37million or over a million dollars. Um,
54:40so obviously he had some connections to
54:42be able to do that.
54:43>> And that guy was a former Idea Labs who
54:45helped run.tv
54:47um in the in the late 90s and also has
54:51all these ties to Israeli tech.
54:52>> Yeah. Intimately involved in the Israel
54:54Israeli venture scene. uh very inspired
54:57by the Startup Nation book written by
54:59Dan Senor who is uh Neocon formerly with
55:03foreign policy initiative which is what
55:05PA if you're familiar with Pak morphed
55:07into was was foreign policy initiative
55:10and basically their argument is that
55:13Israel's startup scene is so great is
55:15because basically of civil military
55:17fusion uh which is you know defective
55:20fascism basically
55:22>> and then other advisers we had Steven
55:24Nario who you know, considered the
55:26co-creator of like the the legal
55:28architect of the Ethereum ICO. Um, and
55:32then we had James Haft, who is NXTP
55:35ventures guy who is in intimately
55:38connected with Diego Gutierrez,
55:41>> Gutierrez, who's also later becomes an
55:43adviser to token
55:44>> and we had written about these guys from
55:47debt from above two years ago.
55:48>> Sadalogic play. So check check out that
55:51stuff. Roottock is all is all in there.
55:53So anyway, he starts this there's a he
55:55raised millions of dollars. He's has all
55:56these advisers that are kind of kicking
55:58butt. Um but he sort of white, you know,
56:00just minimizes that this ever happened.
56:03Um and then the the story goes that he
56:06founded Poly Market in June 2020.
56:09>> But of course
56:10>> just not like there's so much missing in
56:12this story even even with us putting in
56:15the token the token bank stuff. And the
56:17main story that's missing is our boy
56:19Joey Kug uh who is who ends up becoming
56:24uh you know again works at Founders Fund
56:26and joins Peter Teio and works closely
56:28with Sean Parker doing all this stuff
56:29later on
56:31>> becomes one of the main you know seed
56:33investors in Poly Market with Founders
56:35Fund. But what he's really famous for
56:37similar kind of story where he's this
56:39young guy he's mining Bitcoin when he's
56:4015 years old in his room.
56:42>> He loves horse gambling.
56:44>> Loves horse gambling ponies. Yes.
56:46There's some great pictures of him with
56:47horses. It's very funny. He's also an
56:49ETH ICO guy. Um, and so he founded Augur
56:53in 2014. Augur, a u g- r, which is
56:56another, you know, it's a like a Grecian
56:58sear, right? Roman Roman, excuse me.
57:01>> Um, and it's sort of based on these
57:03prediction markets, uh, cryptocurrency
57:06based prediction markets based on this
57:08paper that was written by Paul Stoz, um,
57:11in in 2013, December 2013, um, called
57:14Truthcoin.
57:15>> Yeah. but also not just inspired by that
57:17but also inspired by a 2013 Robin Hansen
57:20paper that sh that Shane Copelan also
57:23later says inspired him right from Poly
57:26Market and just to tie all of what we've
57:29discussed together into this before you
57:30go deeper into Augur um
57:34>> foundational and inspirational to Augur
57:36was DARPA's policy analysis market or
57:39PAM so much so that when they created
57:42Augur they're like what should our logo
57:44be and It's literally the same logo as
57:46the information awareness office, the
57:48the one eye pyramid.
57:51>> Um, you know,
57:52>> and then was there a guy that was there
57:54an important guy that worked at Pam that
57:56then helped advised Augur?
57:58>> Yes, Robin Hans.
57:59>> Oh, Robin Hans himself. Oh, interesting.
58:01And were there other interesting
58:03advisers to Augur that might be
58:05relevant?
58:06>> Involved with Pam. Yes, Mark.
58:08>> Oh, wow.
58:08>> The intrade guy.
58:10>> Oh, wow. That's right. And then also an
58:13advisor to Augur and the first investor
58:16or the first couple investors was
58:18Metallic Bdderin, right? And and he was
58:20the guy that created Ethereum and
58:23>> and had been a fellow
58:25>> he created Ethereum as a teal fellow,
58:27right? And so then he's investing, you
58:28know, he comes to Joey Kug who's working
58:30on this stuff. Augur initially was going
58:33to be probably Bitcoin based and
58:34Vitalik's like, "No, no, no, no, no.
58:36Don't do it like that. What you want to
58:37do? you want these nice smart contracts,
58:39more expressive, come over here to ETH.
58:41I'm building ETH. It's going to be
58:42great. So, before ETH is even out, he's
58:44like, "Come come to ETH." He's on a Teal
58:47Fellowship from I think it was 2013
58:50uh to build Ethereum, which launches in
58:522014. And then Kug is working on f on
58:56Augur in 2014. He switches over to ETH
58:59because this Teal fellow is like, "Come
59:01come over here." Krug then gets a teal
59:03fellowship in 2016 to develop Augur
59:07which is interesting and at the time he
59:09co-ounded Augur with this um uh with a
59:12data scientist from um Berkeley um and
59:16then with this another young kid Jeremy
59:18Gardner who ends up becoming a partner
59:20um at Blockchain Capital which is
59:22heavily featured in the chain series um
59:24co-founded by Tether co-founder um Brock
59:27Pierce. Um, but while he's while they're
59:30doing this, he he's arguing online and
59:33he literally says, you know, I can
59:35publicly say that the CIA, DARPA, and
59:37the DoD are huge fans of Augur.
59:40>> Huge.
59:40>> Um, which is, you know, just great
59:43pupole quiet part out loud there. So,
59:46the teal the teal nexus is in there. The
59:48Ethereum Nexus is in there. Augur ends
59:51up becoming um the first ICO. ICO being
59:55initial coin offering. It's analogous to
59:57the IPO, initial public offering, which
59:59is sort of how a company goes public.
1:00:01And they recreated this model, a
1:00:03fundraising model, public fundraising
1:00:05model, but for crypto tokens. And so,
1:00:08Augur is actually the first first one on
1:00:10ETH, which is a huge deal. And so rep is
1:00:12their token rep um which obviously is is
1:00:16used in the augur um back back end as a
1:00:20way at least in the first edition of it
1:00:22as a way to you know use these
1:00:24predictionbased markets using
1:00:25cryptocurrency
1:00:27>> and and and Krug speaks you know a lot
1:00:29to this. So the first edition first
1:00:31version of August is super clunky. It
1:00:33kind of stinks. Um but they raised
1:00:35millions and millions and millions of
1:00:36dollars with this rep token and first
1:00:39iteration which I believe launched in
1:00:412018. Um you know was was really crappy.
1:00:46Um and it was hard to use but
1:00:48interestingly maybe intentionally but
1:00:51interestingly right before it launches
1:00:53but after the ICO so they make tons and
1:00:56tons and tons of money.
1:00:57>> Joey Kub joins Pantara which was founded
1:00:59by Dan Morehead. It's one of these like
1:01:01tiger cup VC firms. He joins it in 2017
1:01:04as co-chief investment officer and he
1:01:07writes this big blog post about why he's
1:01:09joining and how he's like this isn't
1:01:10going to hurt Augur. It's good for
1:01:11Augur. In fact, we're going to be
1:01:12training on it and we're not doing it as
1:01:14charity. We're doing it to make a lot of
1:01:16money and actually we're on there to
1:01:17make a lot of money. It's not charity
1:01:19and we have an edge in this market much
1:01:21like we have an edge in the Bitcoin
1:01:22market and that's why we're doing this.
1:01:24So, like already from the get-go, huge
1:01:26VC firms, some some of the most
1:01:28important ones are are involved. They're
1:01:31trading on these platforms before
1:01:32they're even really like viable products
1:01:34that people can use and they're
1:01:36admitting they have an edge and they're
1:01:38making a bunch of money on it and
1:01:39they're doing it to make money on it.
1:01:40Right? So, this is all happening before
1:01:42version two even launches um which if I
1:01:46recall version two was 2020 and version
1:01:50two launches with now it has stable coin
1:01:52access. So, one of the issues with the
1:01:55first version of Augur is it uses
1:01:57Ethereum and this rep token which have
1:01:59really crazy volatile price swings
1:02:01because it's just the price of of these
1:02:03tokens. So, if you're in a bet, you're
1:02:05actually unfortunately exposed not only
1:02:08to the bet outcome, but to the
1:02:10volatility of the underlying token. So,
1:02:12by switching it to die, which is, you
1:02:15know, the stable coin from Maker Dow,
1:02:17uh, heavily worked on by Nikolai
1:02:18Muculin, who uh, you know, we've written
1:02:20about in the chain series. I wrote about
1:02:22it in my book, The Bitcoin.
1:02:24>> Very likely murdered by the CIA. Um, but
1:02:28regardless, 2020, uh, they launched with
1:02:31D. Um, and the stable coins sort of
1:02:33eliminate a lot of these issues.
1:02:35Prediction markets could not exist
1:02:36without cryptocurrency for many reasons,
1:02:39but one of them being that there's a
1:02:41legislative issue um, and a fraud issue.
1:02:44Legislation being, you know, it's
1:02:46illegal. there was the internet act um
1:02:49the internet protection gambling
1:02:51internet protection act or something
1:02:52like that where they basically made it
1:02:54illegal for people to process money for
1:02:56offshore gambling um and so they had to
1:02:58figure out a way to get around this and
1:03:00this was a big issue that a lot of these
1:03:02early ones like in trade dealt with and
1:03:03so one of the ways they get around it is
1:03:05you use cryptocurrency um it's a great
1:03:07workaround you don't have to use credit
1:03:09cards you don't have to do these things
1:03:10and then also because you're not using
1:03:12credit cards and because cryptocurrency
1:03:14transactions are functionally
1:03:17almost definitely irreversible.
1:03:20Obviously, you know, there's the
1:03:21infamous call Joe Luben line from Howard
1:03:24Lutnick saying if you want something
1:03:25frozen on Ethereum, call Joe Luben. But
1:03:28it's a lot harder um to to reverse a
1:03:30transaction. So, if these guys are
1:03:32making bets on Poly Market or on Augur
1:03:34in this case using Dye, it's really hard
1:03:36to reverse the transactions if a bet
1:03:38maker tries to do some fraud. Whereas,
1:03:41if it was a credit card, they could call
1:03:42and say, "I didn't place this bet." and
1:03:44the credit card company will take the
1:03:45money back. You can't really do that
1:03:46with Augur. So, Augur does die in 2020
1:03:49and then Augur Turbo comes out in 2021,
1:03:52notably after Poly Markets founded in
1:03:552020 and as a way to solve a lot of
1:03:57these clunky issues of how slow the
1:04:00platform is and all that. They integrate
1:04:02Chainlink as the oracle provider who who
1:04:05actually determines the outcome and then
1:04:07they use an Ethereum layer 2 Polygon.
1:04:10Uh, interestingly, both of those are
1:04:12what Poly Market uses, which is kind of
1:04:14interesting. So, at this time,
1:04:16>> he's at Panta. They're they're he he
1:04:19he's trading on Augur. Then they upgrade
1:04:21it, then they upgrade it again. Now,
1:04:23it's basically what Poly Market is
1:04:24today.
1:04:25>> Uh, yeah, but like who
1:04:28why did this new version of Augur, even
1:04:29though it was so much better and they
1:04:30like fixed their previous problems, why
1:04:32did it fail? Well, they sort of broke it
1:04:34all down and they they they pieced it,
1:04:37you know, you know, broke down the
1:04:39assets and they sold it off actually to
1:04:41Coinbase, who then uh admittedly didn't
1:04:44have a uh uh you know, cuz they had
1:04:47created the forecast foundation, which
1:04:48was the the nonprofit behind Augur. And
1:04:51then they created like a VC firm on it
1:04:53and augmented partners, I believe is
1:04:55what it was called. And then they
1:04:56created a DEX using the ox model um
1:05:00which had all these investor you know
1:05:01all these similar Reed Hoffman and and
1:05:03andre and all these guys were were
1:05:05involved in this and then um they sold
1:05:08it off to Coinbase and admittedly in
1:05:11this interview that we link in the
1:05:12article they say that Coinbase didn't
1:05:14have a plan for it beyond 2 months and
1:05:16they just brought it there to take all
1:05:17the patents and the technology
1:05:19>> which was licensed from in trade auger
1:05:22got got a bunch of they gave a bunch of
1:05:25rep tokens
1:05:26to intrade which then traded all those
1:05:29for ETH. And now in trade has this huge
1:05:32huge huge huge ETH stash very
1:05:34interestingly from the ICO. But anyways,
1:05:36and now the guy's just like retired,
1:05:37stop retired because they made millions
1:05:39of dollars. But they they purposely
1:05:41shipped it off and sunset it, sold the
1:05:43assets off to Coinbase and then
1:05:45basically relaunched this all with Poly
1:05:47Market using USDC and Chain Link and and
1:05:52Polygon. All right. So, let's go back
1:05:54into the founding of Poly Market, right?
1:05:56So, the official narrative that we've
1:05:58already discussed is being bunk is that
1:06:00uh Mr. Shane is, you know, oh, CO's
1:06:04happening. It's lockdowns. There's so
1:06:05much uncertainty. It's the best time for
1:06:07prediction markets. And I'm just so
1:06:09passionate about prediction markets. I'm
1:06:11going to will it into existence by by
1:06:14being in my bathroom all alone in my
1:06:17bathroom and just coding and oh, I MADE
1:06:20IN MY bathroom just
1:06:22You know, it's just I don't know. I
1:06:24don't know why he's that's the narrative
1:06:26they like want to sell so bad because
1:06:28it's like dude bathroom cuz I mean
1:06:31stinks.
1:06:32>> Well, it used to be like the garage,
1:06:34right? We built this in our garage and
1:06:36now they've like gone to like well we
1:06:38can't do the garage anymore. So now it's
1:06:41now it's the bathroom.
1:06:43>> Yeah.
1:06:43>> You know,
1:06:44>> I don't know. It's just so weird.
1:06:46Anyway, so obviously we know that he had
1:06:48all these connections uh particularly
1:06:49the people that sort of bridged the
1:06:51USIsraeli crypto tech scene. Yeah. Um
1:06:54and you know basically had remolded or
1:06:58was working in the process of you know
1:07:00going from token union which kind of
1:07:01became irrelevant when Ethereum was
1:07:03moving
1:07:04>> to proof of stake
1:07:05>> to proof of stake. They didn't really
1:07:06need what the
1:07:07>> which the Ethereum proof of stake like
1:07:09debugging in the code was was done
1:07:11within kiththesis which is a DC based
1:07:14pounder subcontractor that was in
1:07:16stealth the whole time.
1:07:17>> So some some more teal the chain.
1:07:20>> Yeah. Yeah. And uh yeah and so basically
1:07:23like he has all these uh connections
1:07:25anyway when he like is creating it.
1:07:27Yeah. And uh it's not we didn't put this
1:07:30in part one. It'll be in part two.
1:07:32There's an interview that that he gave
1:07:34in 2020 where he said
1:07:37>> a lot of the passion
1:07:39>> for the creation of poly market from him
1:07:42and his team was DARPA's policy analysis
1:07:45market.
1:07:46>> Yep. And uh even though he's alone in
1:07:50his bathroom building this company
1:07:51ostensibly with no connections as he
1:07:54says, he somehow raises $4 million just
1:07:58three months after the company launches
1:08:00and the main people backing him are
1:08:02Coinbase's earliest employees. So
1:08:04remember Coinbase takes Augur and
1:08:06sunsets it. So these people that you
1:08:09know they left Coinbase but they were
1:08:11still connected to it. So one example is
1:08:13one confirmation
1:08:15uh which is created by one of Coinbase's
1:08:17earliest employees uh Nick Tomino and he
1:08:21you know right away invests in ETH and
1:08:23also invests in Coinbase right back in
1:08:25the company he left um and then uh you
1:08:29know
1:08:29>> dumps money into as a into Poly Market
1:08:33>> and interestingly Poly Market uses USDC
1:08:3650% of all profits from USDC's issuer
1:08:39circle goes to Coinbase because they're
1:08:41like the main investor on it. So, it's
1:08:43like another
1:08:44>> and then uh another like Coinbase's
1:08:47literal earliest employee like Olaf
1:08:50Carlson we he also is like the main
1:08:52other main investor in there. So, like
1:08:54the Coinbase bros. Yeah. And there's
1:08:56another Coinbase guy that's there also
1:08:58in 2020 in the seed round. So, like all
1:09:00these Coinbase guys got in really early
1:09:02with Shane and Poly Market. Yeah.
1:09:05>> $4 million and then you know Coinbase on
1:09:08the other side
1:09:09>> sort of sunsets their competitor for
1:09:12them. And by that time Joey Kug had left
1:09:14>> and and where did he go? In Founders
1:09:16Fund Founders Fund and then they end up
1:09:19leading one of the series rounds for
1:09:22Poly Market pretty early on.
1:09:23>> Wow.
1:09:24>> Yeah. So, uh,
1:09:26>> yeah, there was that whole thing where
1:09:27he was like, you know, they were
1:09:29messaging each other cuz Copeland was
1:09:31like, I don't like Augur and, you know,
1:09:33there's a lot of issues with it, but and
1:09:35then and you know, but I have all these
1:09:37other ideas. Polymer's going to do
1:09:38better. And Kug's like, listen, I'm a
1:09:39big investor guy now. I don't really do
1:09:41Augur anymore. I'm like an advisor for
1:09:43like things like Ampleforth and
1:09:45whatever. If you make $5 million a
1:09:47month, you know, in in in volume, like,
1:09:49hit me up and then I'll invest. Sure as
1:09:51[ __ ] they hit the five million a month.
1:09:53Krug, he joined Founders Fund in 2023.
1:09:56He leads the the series A and the rest
1:09:59is history.
1:10:00>> Yeah. So, basically, since we're kind of
1:10:02running out of time here, it's uh
1:10:04>> Augur was an attempt to resurrect Pam.
1:10:08It failed, but true to the
1:10:09Napsterization model. Uh we have Augur
1:10:12being the predecessor to Poly Market
1:10:15just like Napster was to Spotify. And
1:10:17literally, they have said this.
1:10:20Kug has said this has said this. Yeah,
1:10:24they have said this and you know I mean
1:10:27it it it's uh important to note here and
1:10:31I think the last point I want to end
1:10:32with here is about what the significance
1:10:35of this is and a lot of that part two is
1:10:38going to be sort of necessary to unpack
1:10:39in its entirety uh this idea but what
1:10:43was PAM PAM was part or pol the policy
1:10:46analysis market but these guys have been
1:10:47trying to resurrect it was part of TIA
1:10:51and TIA total information awareness The
1:10:53goal was not just to see everything
1:10:55going on in the present.
1:10:57>> Yeah.
1:10:58>> And find anomalies, find the bad guys in
1:11:00the in a sea of data of everyone's data
1:11:03in mass surveillance. It was to predict
1:11:06it was pre-rime. It was predictive
1:11:08policing on a massive scale and not in
1:11:12pretty much every ambit of of human life
1:11:14you can think of, right? And so poly
1:11:18market because you know the market knows
1:11:21all of these polyarket odds
1:11:24just like with Pam the odds are there to
1:11:27help feed the pre-rime engine. This is
1:11:30what will happen right
1:11:31>> or this will not. And we know that
1:11:34polyarket bets can be rigged and that
1:11:36poly market itself puts out
1:11:37misinformation sometimes to make trades
1:11:40>> swing one way or the other and that
1:11:42insider trading is a huge problem. And
1:11:45the context of of that and uh as it's
1:11:49meant to interface with what is now
1:11:51Palunteer is really unsettling. And lo
1:11:53and behold, if you look it up, dude,
1:11:55it's there. Poly market and Palunteer
1:11:58are partners. They are partnered and
1:12:00they work together for the market
1:12:02integrity. So this has already happened
1:12:05and this is the privatized panopticon.
1:12:07Um
1:12:08>> and not only privatized, they're going
1:12:09to commercialize it. They're making
1:12:11money off it. Insider trading is not a
1:12:13problem. It's a feature.
1:12:14>> It's a feature, not a bug. Hansen says
1:12:16that, but these guys also say it too.
1:12:18And we'll explore more. So part two of
1:12:20course we will discuss a lot of these
1:12:23initial founding principles and
1:12:24philosophies that led to let's build out
1:12:27all this tech let's build out
1:12:28cryptocurrency which probably came from
1:12:30the tealverse anyway then let's get E so
1:12:32we can make tokens then we can create
1:12:34smart contracts then we can create
1:12:35prediction markets with irreversible
1:12:36transactions and then we'll make stable
1:12:38coins which is the same nexus Bill Gross
1:12:41and Epstein were talking about having
1:12:43Tether being founded and you know all of
1:12:45these mechanisms that were necessary to
1:12:47create today's poly market came out of
1:12:50this nexus of we're going to create a
1:12:52new form of governance based on
1:12:54prediction market.
1:12:54>> Yeah. Which is futurearchy. The idea of
1:12:57of
1:12:58>> a new governance form. Exactly. And the
1:13:00implications of that and its
1:13:01interactions with neo-reactionary
1:13:03thought and that influence in the
1:13:05current Trump administration. This is
1:13:07very important stuff. And there's
1:13:08actually been efforts by the current
1:13:11Trump administration where they've
1:13:12already been implementing these ideas.
1:13:15And it's probably only going to get
1:13:16crazier from here on out because of
1:13:18course the Trump family personally
1:13:19involved market and its
1:13:23main competitor.
1:13:25>> All of this and more coming to you in
1:13:28both a part two article and I'm sure
1:13:30we'll have to do another rip on this.
1:13:32>> Oh, totally. There's a lot of detail and
1:13:34we just tried to give an overview, but
1:13:37basically it's taken them 25 years to
1:13:39get to this point
1:13:40>> and uh they're not giving up now.
1:13:43>> No, they're not giving up now. that a
1:13:44lot of their success of what is a very
1:13:46dystopian plan for governance and mass
1:13:49surveillance hinges on people buying the
1:13:52official narratives of what these
1:13:54companies are
1:13:54>> 100%.
1:13:55>> Um, so it's more important than ever to
1:13:59scrutinize and break apart those
1:14:01narratives when they are not true.
1:14:03>> Case in point. So that's what we're
1:14:04doing at 11 unlimited hangout.
1:14:06>> Yeah.
1:14:07>> Uh, and so yeah, this is our our first
1:14:09episode. Uh we would like to hear what
1:14:12you thought about it and how we can uh
1:14:15you know improve
1:14:17>> get you to subscribe hopefully.
1:14:19>> The best website in the world unlimited
1:14:21hangout.com/join
1:14:23join us there. Become a member. You'll
1:14:24get early access to all this stuff.
1:14:26Early access to articles to pods. Come
1:14:29come chat with us. Ask us questions. Um
1:14:31but yeah, thanks for hanging out on our
1:14:33first episode. Thanks for having me,
1:14:34Whitney.
1:14:35>> Uh yeah, of course. I have a feeling
1:14:37I'll see you again on our next episode.
1:14:38And thanks to everyone for watching. Uh
1:14:40we really appreciate appreciate you uh
1:14:43stopping by and uh yeah
1:14:48on video. Yay.

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