Protopian futurist Monika Bielskytė, now advising NATO on cognitive warfare, joins Rob Tercek and Brett King to explain how hybrid warfare works. Its goal is not to persuade anyone of anything. It amplifies the extremes on both sides of real grievances until people believe nothing and become passive. Monika argues that the answer is a constructive vision of the future, anchored in science, and Elon Musk serves as the case study for how paper wealth and science-fiction hype translate into real-world power. Topics covered in this episode: Cognitive warfare and the politics of despair; Protopia vs. “burn it all down” nihilism; extraction vs. regeneration; Elon Musk is floating Mars, while shorting Earth; Consensus in an age of autonomous systems.

In this week’s pod international bestselling author Kevin J Anderson (Star Wars, Dune) returns. With more than 23 million books in print, Kevin has just embarked on his most ambitious personal project yet – creating the complete works of the Saga of Seven Suns epic. Kevin started this series in 2002 but is just launching his own Backerkit campaign. Along the journey Kevin explains how the business of publishing has been reshaped by technology and time.

Anand Chandrasekaran does not sit on the sidelines. He jumps into the game. He is the managing partner at Celesta Capital and co-founder of two AI companies, Crescendo and HiO. He explains why AI only transforms an industry when insiders drive the change, and why he expects the shift from scarcity to abundance to transform fields like customer care. He also describes how tokens have become the new capital, that is, the vital resource that CEOs must ration. Rob Tercek talks to Anand about what happens to the career ladder when AI automates the call center jobs that built India’s middle class, how the role of the VC has evolved, and Anand’s view that we are in the earliest stage of the AI super cycle.