Modern WisdomThe Hidden Secrets Threatening National Security - Mike Baker (4K)
EVERY SPOKEN WORD
150 min read · 30,008 words- 0:00 – 5:19
Was the AT&T Outage a Cyberattack?
- CWChris Williamson
Are you with AT&T?
- MBMike Baker
(laughs) No, I am not. (laughs) Yeah. That was, that was, uh, one of those moments, right?
- CWChris Williamson
What happened?
- MBMike Baker
Uh, I, I think everybody thought it was the end of the world, right? 'Cause they couldn't get on TikTok or send a text message. (laughs) And it was, it was disastrous. I had a couple of meetings that morning and, and, and people were losing their shit because, you know... And, and it was funny because everyone was just sort of bailing out of things. I th- some people probably saw it as an opportunity to bail out of meetings, right? "I, I, you know, I can't do anything."
- CWChris Williamson
Are you sure that, that wasn't just you?
- MBMike Baker
Yeah. (laughs)
- CWChris Williamson
It's like, "We've got that meeting with Mike."
- MBMike Baker
Ugh.
- CWChris Williamson
We've been waiting for an excuse.
- MBMike Baker
Yeah, it does happen a lot. Yeah, that's a good point. (laughs) No, uh, who knows, right? The frailty of, of our comm systems, our telecoms and, and, and our power grid and our water systems and everything else, if most people knew how easy that could actually happen, uh, you know... N- n- not even talking about a, a targeted attack, just, just it going down because systems are old, um, you know, they probably wouldn't sleep at night.
- CWChris Williamson
How so? What do you mean when you say systems are old?
- MBMike Baker
Well, you look at, uh, you look at the power grid, and that thing was patched together, right, like a quilt over the years, right? And we've got three grids in the country, East and West in, in Texas, in the US. And, uh, Texas has its own grid. And, um, yeah. (laughs) So, uh, i- i- but it, but it was put together over, over a long period of time, right? And never with the intention that it was going to have to stand up to some attack, right? O- o- or really even with the idea that it's gonna have to withstand some natural disaster, as strange as that seems. You would think they would wanna make them pretty resilient to that. Um, so that's why you can drive by a substation, you know, and, and reach out and touch it. That's why you look at the water treatment facilities and think, "Well, that doesn't look particularly well protected." I mean, most of the infrastructure-
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah.
- MBMike Baker
... was never designed to withstand a physical attack, and certainly not a, uh, a cyberattack.
- CWChris Williamson
'Cause that wouldn't have existed when it was first being designed.
- MBMike Baker
No, no, exactly, exactly. And then a lot of the equipment used for, uh, going back to the power grid, a lot of the major gear that's y- that runs the power grids, we don't even manufacture in the States anymore, right? So, the idea that something would shut down and we'd have a catastrophic, you know, collapse and, and, and, and it would kinda have a cascading effect like we had several years back that kind of hit the Northeast, um, you know, that's, that's a devastating issue because we don't... It's not like we've got some, you know, large, uh, hardware or, or power plants we're able to just roll in and replace gear with, right?
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm.
- MBMike Baker
We don't, we don't manufacture that stuff anymore.
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah, you haven't got a spare power plant-
- MBMike Baker
Yes.
- CWChris Williamson
... for every power plant.
- MBMike Baker
So the idea, I mean, I, you know, people always ask me, they say, "Well, what should I do to be prepared?" Well, I mean, if you could afford it, and it's easy to say, "Well, you should have this," because, you know, they're, they're not cheap, but you should have a, a generator of a decent size-
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm.
- MBMike Baker
... that will provide you with some level of power, right? If you don't have power, you know, the first thing most people will notice is their phones die, right? And then, you know, what are you gonna do? You're gonna sit in the dark and not have TikTok, right? So-
- CWChris Williamson
Right, yeah.
- MBMike Baker
... that's pretty devastating.
- CWChris Williamson
Which would, which would obviously bring society to a standstill.
- MBMike Baker
(laughs)
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah, it's, uh, it's so weird to think, when you think about attacks and, and problems with telecommunications, with infrastructure, with energy, with water, you think about actual attacks. But then you don't realize that just the inbuilt fragility of the system is a threat in itself.
- MBMike Baker
Absolutely, yeah, yeah.
- 5:19 – 18:45
The Google Gemini AI Disaster
- CWChris Williamson
Google's Gemini disaster?
- MBMike Baker
Yeah, yeah, (laughs) yeah. Show me a Viking.
- CWChris Williamson
It tried to be so anti-racist that it was racist, and it managed to annoy leftists by portraying Nazis as Black people-
- MBMike Baker
Yeah. (laughs)
- CWChris Williamson
... and then it managed to annoy rightists by portraying the founding father- fathers as Black people.
- MBMike Baker
Yeah, yeah. I think the Nazis w- it was a very diverse group of Nazis, right?
- CWChris Williamson
(laughs)
- MBMike Baker
I think there was an Asian Nazi, there was a Hispanic Nazi-
- CWChris Williamson
(laughs)
- MBMike Baker
There was a Black Nazi. Yeah, it was everybody except someone from the Aryan race.
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- MBMike Baker
And, um, yeah, (laughs) 'cause, 'cause we all know that, that the Nazis, they, they loved-
- CWChris Williamson
Very ethnically ******.
- MBMike Baker
They loved DEI. They were, they were all about the... I think Goebbels was the, uh, DEI minister for the-
- CWChris Williamson
Yes.
- MBMike Baker
... during the war.
- CWChris Williamson
Yes.
- MBMike Baker
So.By the way, this is very good.
- CWChris Williamson
You enjoying that?
- MBMike Baker
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
Oh, yeah.
- MBMike Baker
It's really good.
- CWChris Williamson
That'll fire you up. So yeah, AI, Gemini, I mean, it's, uh, I was talking to a friend yesterday who's big in, uh, the world of fashion.
- MBMike Baker
Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
Remember Balenciaga got in trouble a while ago? They kinda showed some very BDSM stuff that maybe featured kids' toys and s- it, it really crossed a line. It was very, very-
- MBMike Baker
God, I missed that one.
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah, it was like, uh, you know, if you want to feed into the pedophiles who run the world drinking goat blood and sacrificing, like, women at the full moon and stuff, like it, it really played into that. But-
- MBMike Baker
You really, don't, don't knock people's hobbies.
- CWChris Williamson
They have. (laughs)
- MBMike Baker
Uh, yeah, so.
- 18:45 – 30:19
Is Google Erasing & Rewriting History?
- CWChris Williamson
that, uh, Gemini also refused to create an image of what happened at Tiananmen Square?
- MBMike Baker
Yes.
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah.
- MBMike Baker
It did. And I also saw that... What was it? Somebody asked them... I mean, there's- there's so many examples out there.
- CWChris Williamson
Correct.
- MBMike Baker
Um, I think one example, and I haven't tracked it back to its original source yet, but somebody asked if- if it was, uh, um, all right to misgender, I think it was, uh, Bruce Jenner, or sorry, Caitlyn Jenner, um, in order to stop a- a nuclear apocalypse or Armageddon. And the, kinda the answer was sort of shaded. "Well, it's not right, you know, because it could be considered discriminatory. Now, there may be other ways to stop the Armageddon."
- CWChris Williamson
Okay.
- MBMike Baker
You know? And I think, okay, that's-
- CWChris Williamson
That's some good lateral thinking.
- MBMike Baker
Yeah. So there was, you know, there was... It was layered, I guess. But no, there's... (laughs) I don't, I don't know. I, uh... What I worry about, I- I take it... I tend to think about things in very simple terms. I, um... My greatest joy in life comes from my- my family, right? So I think about a lot of things in terms of the impact it will have on my kids, uh, what we're leaving behind for the kids, you know, what it means for their development. And so I tend... I look at something like, you know, AI and, and... and again, it's a fairly simplistic way of looking at it. I'm not necessarily considering the human race. I'm considering what kind of impact will it have on- on teaching my boys to be smart thinkers, to become, you know, productive, become leaders. You know, what does all of this mean? TikTok, what does that... You know, not just TikTok, but I mean, the- just the- the access to information and social media. What is that doing to these minds, right? And, you know, again, I suppose, you know, the- the just recent generation had the same conversations with shooter games, right? Video games.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm.
- MBMike Baker
Right? So, you know, every- every generation deals with it, you know? I'm sure my parents talked about rock and roll music, right? And were worried about that. So it's not- it's not-
- CWChris Williamson
TV before that, radio before that.
- MBMike Baker
Yeah, it's nothing new. It's just... It does seem more insidious, right? It seems more... Because it- it is. It's reaching more people, right? And it's having more of an immediate impact, and it's affecting the way that we think about things and how we react to news of the day, right? We're- we're tired of Ukraine after two years, right? We were in Afghanistan for fucking 20 years, right? And now we're all fatigued from it to some degree or in some fashion, but took almost no time for people to get tired of... And- and- and, you know, a lot of people that were out there and couldn't wait to pin a fucking Ukraine flag in their front yard, right? Or- or- or post a little Ukraine flag on- on their Twitter site, you know, now they're all like, "Oh, we're... You know, we can't spend any more money there." You know? So, okay, what happened in that short span of two years? Well, immediate access to information and a- and all those opinions and ideas, right? And then people get siloed and they start reading only things that agree with them, and then- then they're- they're done, right? Now they're... Now they've got a hardened opinion, and you can't shift them off that position, right? Anyway.
- CWChris Williamson
We'll get back to talking to Mike in one minute, but first, I need to tell you about Surfshark. Browsing the internet without a VPN is like going for a walk in a muddy field without any shoes on. You can do it, but it's ill-advised and you might catch something. You can protect your browsing online and get access to the entire world's Netflix library for less than the price of a cup of coffee per month. If you're someone that works off public Wi-Fi networks like cafes or libraries or airports, the internet administrator can see all of the traffic going back and forth between your devices and the internet, and that is tres bad. You do not want this. Also, your internet service provider is able to see all of your traffic and then sell it to companies that can target you with ads. Websites are split testing you for prices on products that you're already buying, and even flight websites are doing this too. So, to protect yourself from all of this, plus access the entire world's Netflix library, you can do that right now with one membership, and it's across unlimited devices. You can have it across your laptop, your iPad, your phone, and even your smart TV. You can get an 83% discount plus three months free by going to the link in the description below or heading to surfshark.deals/modernwisdom. That's surfshark.deals/modernwisdom. Did you see what happened with the Super Bowl where Alicia Keys' voice broke, and then they went back and retroactively fixed her voice?
- MBMike Baker
(laughs)
- CWChris Williamson
Did you see this?
- MBMike Baker
No, I- I... You know, I did not... The Giants were not in the Super Bowl, so I didn't watch it.
- CWChris Williamson
Right. Oh, well.
- MBMike Baker
Yeah, yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
Look, you missed- you missed Alicia Keys.
- MBMike Baker
Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
Very good performance. Usher, fantastic dancer, still pretty ripped. Um, Alicia Keys' voice broke on the first note of this piano solo thing that she was doing. But if you go back and watch the Super Bowl's recording of it on YouTube-
- MBMike Baker
Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
... her voice is perfect.
- MBMike Baker
Wow.
- CWChris Williamson
And this has been... I... Look, Alicia Keys is not the vanguard of us rewriting history, but you can certainly see between AI being able to misrepresent how history would have been-
- MBMike Baker
Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
... this sort of erasing of history and rewriting of the present, and then this retroactive changing, and even if it's just a little bit with regards to someone's voice, this is different to auto-tuning a song. This is a record of what happened in history.
- MBMike Baker
Right.
- 30:19 – 33:51
The Decline of Authentic Content
- CWChris Williamson
about... You- you remember Cambridge Analytica?
- MBMike Baker
Yeah, sure.
- CWChris Williamson
You remember that?
- MBMike Baker
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
So, uh, you know, targeted, um, memes and- and ads that were tronched into cohorts, and we have the, um, H- maybe Hillary is a non-US citizen, maybe Hillary is a da-da-da-da... You know, all the different ways-
- MBMike Baker
Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
... that this gets split up. You had all of these different, uh, um-... vulnerabilities-
- MBMike Baker
Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
... and vectors of attack. But there was still a person making a meme or making an advert or whatever, so there was still human labor getting in the way of the rapidity of this.
- MBMike Baker
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
Whereas now, you have both the ability for AI to deliver it in a targeted manner-
- MBMike Baker
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
... and also to create it. So you, you can have Mike Baker-
- MBMike Baker
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
... profile on Facebook or Instagram or TikTok or whatever, and it's just-
- MBMike Baker
And who wouldn't want that? Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
No one wants that-
- MBMike Baker
(laughs)
- CWChris Williamson
... not at all. Uh, but, and it's just you that it's targeted at.
- MBMike Baker
Right.
- CWChris Williamson
So yeah, I think, uh, yeah, increasingly, we're going to see real information, original sources. You know, maybe there'll be a way where, uh, being an actual person on social media will be a, a, a rarity in the next five years.
- MBMike Baker
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
Maybe humans are gonna be a, it's 99% of content will be created by bots.
- MBMike Baker
Right.
- CWChris Williamson
And every so often, you'll see a tweet from you or, or someone else that's real.
- MBMike Baker
Yeah, and it's, look, if, if you're, if you're talking about a, a, a state, right, if you're talking about, um, creating something that's gonna get past the scrutiny of, uh, of, um, you know, Chinese intel or Russian intel or something, yeah, then you're, you're working your ass off, right? You're creating a very hard backstopped, you know-
- CWChris Williamson
Elaborate.
- MBMike Baker
... elaborate cover, um, and it, it's, it's a lot of work. But for the average person out there, if what you're trying to do is influence a campaign or you're trying to do, you know, creating 10,000, uh, fictional characters, you know, saying interesting things out there-
- CWChris Williamson
Hm.
- MBMike Baker
... who then, you know, it's, it's like the old s- concentric circles who then get 5,000 followers each, and that, it's, I, I get (laughs) , but again, it all comes down to the same problem, right? We can talk about all the, you know, the things you can do, but it's individuals, right? It comes down to each person saying to themselves, "Is what I'm reading or hearing or watching true?" You know, and, and I, I don't know how you, you impact that, right? Because-
- 33:51 – 38:11
What We Learned From Tucker’s Putin Interview
- CWChris Williamson
do you think we learned from the Putin-Tucker interview, speaking of Russia?
- MBMike Baker
(laughs) Um, well, Putin's a douchebag, I think. I, I took that away, but I'd say I had a preconceived notion (laughs) of Putin.
- CWChris Williamson
Those were your priors.
- MBMike Baker
Yeah, that was, that was something I walked into the interview with. Um, look, I, I don't, I don't know. I, I think, I understand why Tucker wanted to do it aside from just 160 million views or however many he got, right? I mean, that was sure to be a, a winner, um, in, in just the ratings. Uh, I don't think it revealed anything clever or new about Putin's mindset. He's a smart cat, right? So, he knew what he was going to say, how he was going to act, what he was gonna look like, you know, every, I mean, it, he's a very calculating individual, right? He survived Russian politics, right, for this long and b- at the top, right? Um, you don't do that by being a moron, right, or f- or, or stumbling into an interview with Tucker Carlson, right, who's not exactly Lex Luthor, right? I mean, so that, you know, again, not, that doesn't, and that's not belittling to Tucker. (laughs) He's a smart guy. I'm just saying that it's not like it was, it was not like some Marvel, you know, movie where the, the two evil minds got together. Putin's a very calculating, clever individual. So, I don't think we, I, I mean, this from my perspective, I, I didn't learn anything new about him.
- CWChris Williamson
Yup.
- MBMike Baker
Um, look, this idea that somehow we have no interest in Ukraine and we should just, you know, close the curtains on it, um, yay, Ukraine, great courage for two years. We all loved it. Uh, you know, I'll keep my bumper sticker on the car, um, for Ukraine. And now we walk away because we don't care anymore, because we're tired of it, and we wanna, you know, do something, and we spend that money back. Of course, we should have spent the fucking money at home, right? We got a lot of infrastructure problems and resources we should do, but we also have concerns over there. And so, I think, you know, I'm, I'm, I'm amazed at the speed with which it happened, but you could argue that about a lot of things. You know? (laughs)
- CWChris Williamson
The speed at which the support fell off?
- MBMike Baker
Yes.
- CWChris Williamson
Yes.
- MBMike Baker
The speed at which the f- I mean, look, again, I, I don't mean to jump all over the place, but Hamas rolls into Southern Israel, slaughters 1,200 people in probably the most medieval display of brutality that we've seen in our lifetimes, right, uh, which everybody agreed was, was incredibly brutal. And in record time, it's Israel's fault, right, because they've gone into Gaza to try to destroy the Hamas, which has been doing this, which has always been in existence to destroy Israel. And so, yeah, and of course, you don't want civilians to die, but Hamas has spent-... you know, going on a couple of decades now, embedding themselves inside that population, knowing that every time that there is a conflict, civilians are gonna die, knowing that that's gonna drive the narrative. That's what they do. So the speed with which that happened, the speed with which we've gotten fatigued in Ukraine, you know, it all kinda comes back around again to this, this whole idea.
- CWChris Williamson
Novelty-
- MBMike Baker
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
... desire for something new. Yeah, I, um, you know, I knew that the, uh, Putin-Tucker interview was gonna be a big deal, and I'd sort of prepared myself for, yeah, this like cataclysmic meeting of, you know, like West and, and, and Soviet and... And then I'd, I don't know, I came away from it kind of just being like, "Oh, uh," just very-
- MBMike Baker
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
... unenlightened, kind of unimpressed, I think.
- MBMike Baker
Yeah. Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
You know, you have this 30-minute treaty, s- monologue, soliloquy at the start about this is the history and this is why we feel this way and so on and so forth. And, you know, Tucker's a, he's a very competent interviewer.
- MBMike Baker
Oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
Usually.
- MBMike Baker
(laughs)
- CWChris Williamson
And I, I, you know, I don't know how difficult it must've been, and this is something that people are never really gonna see, the intermediary of a translator between the two adds a degree of complexity that can really-
- MBMike Baker
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
It's like fighting a southpaw or something.
- MBMike Baker
Yeah (laughs) . Yeah, yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
You know, it sort of-
- MBMike Baker
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
... throws you off your step a little bit.
- MBMike Baker
Right.
- CWChris Williamson
And, um, that sounds silly but, you know, ultimate-
- MBMike Baker
No, no.
- 38:11 – 52:30
Is Navalny’s Death Significant?
- CWChris Williamson
uh... And now Navalny's dead.
- MBMike Baker
Yeah. Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
And that's the next... And that happens, what, a week maybe?
- MBMike Baker
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
10 days after he sits down with Tucker?
- MBMike Baker
Yeah. No, it, it... (sighs) And it's, he doesn't care, right? I mean, we, we imagine that, that Russia cares what we think about them and how they're portrayed, and we imagine that Xi worries about how China... You know?
- CWChris Williamson
You mean like they've-
- MBMike Baker
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
... got a, a brand equity dashboard somewhere?
- MBMike Baker
Yes (laughs) . Yeah, exactly.
- CWChris Williamson
And they're like, "What's our current rating? Oh, we're at-"
- MBMike Baker
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
"... 4.4 stars on Tripadvisor."
- MBMike Baker
Yeah, yeah. Or Q- What is that? The old Q rating or the Q factor or something.
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah. Yeah.
- MBMike Baker
You know, how popular are we? Uh, yeah. They, they, they really don't care. In part, not so much Russia but more China because they've got the longer view, right? They, they, they look way down the road compared to, to how the, the West tends to do it. But, um, I think the, the parameters of what they were allowed to do, uh, uh, Carlson and his crew when they went in, uh, were pretty hard and fast, right? Uh, there, there's a, as y- you can imagine, there's a lot of back and forth that goes into that.
- CWChris Williamson
I think he was two hours late as well for it.
- MBMike Baker
Yeah, yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
I think he was two hours late, which-
- MBMike Baker
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
... apparently is like par for the course with him.
- MBMike Baker
Y- He was riding a tiger, he was doing something. He was-
- CWChris Williamson
Yes, fighting a bear.
- MBMike Baker
... he was busy, fighting a bear (laughs) .
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah. Yeah.
- MBMike Baker
Saw a couple of them. Uh, but yeah, if, if Carlson had like born in on or, or bored in on, on Gershkovich, right? Evan Gershkovich, who's sitting in, in jail, or Paul Whelan or... You know, um, and, and, and, in, in a more aggressive fashion said, "Okay, well, where's your evidence of, with, with Evan that he's been engaged in espionage? How about that? You know, when are you actually gonna do something about a, a, an actual, you know, uh, open and transparent effort to discuss his case?" Um, you know, wha- if you'd, if you'd, if he had gone in on that more. Um, but that wouldn't have been allowed to happen, right? That wasn't, that was, wasn't part of the, the agreed upon, you know, uh, playing field. So (sighs) I, I just, I, I didn't think we were gonna get anything new and I, I didn't feel like we, we did. Um, I, again, I understand why he did it, uh, had the interview. Um, but anyway, but the Navalny situation, um, (laughs) sudden death syndrome, um, yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
D- Uh, dude, you're in a forced labor camp, like just-
- MBMike Baker
Yeah, above the Arctic Circle.
- CWChris Williamson
Being alive-
- MBMike Baker
Yeah, yeah.
- 52:30 – 58:14
Will Putin Rebuild the Soviet Union?
- CWChris Williamson
What, uh... I've heard you say before that Putin's goal is to rebuild the Soviet Union. Is that, is that... That's, uh, just the synopsis of what he wants to do?
- MBMike Baker
Well, he said it numerous times himself. He s- he said that... I mean, this... His most, um, you know, direct quote was, uh, "The collapse of the Soviet Union was the greatest crisis of the 20th century," right? And- and so, I guess my- my point is that he spent the past 30 plus years trying to figure out how to rebuild it in some fashion. I don't mean the entire Soviet Union-
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm.
- MBMike Baker
... but he certainly wants to- to get back to something more, uh, than what he's got, right? He- he's very keen on sort of the- the glory of the motherland, right? And- and, okay, everybody, you know, you could argue, eh, everybody's nationalistic, you know? But he's, uh, ambitious in a, uh, land grab sort of way. (laughs) So, when he says that, and when he talks about, um, the threat of NATO on his border, right? He's- he's not bullshitting, right? He means that, right? And so the idea that he's gonna take Ukraine, and if we stop aid... You know, again, this... I... Pe- you know, Washington's gonna do what they do, um, but if they don't provide resources to Ukraine going forward, if we say, "Ah, that's- that's enough, let's focus on ourselves, it's not important," um, and people rationalize that by thinking that it's just Ukraine, you know, "Why do we care? It's one country," um, if they imagine that that's w- where he's gonna stop, he's gonna end up with Kyiv and then go, "Yeah, okay, I'm good, it's all fine now, I don't care, I'm gonna- I'm gonna- I'm gonna now focus on- on improving myself and- (laughs) and, you know, the homeland," um, yeah, no, that's not his track record. I'm- I'm not sure where people get that- that belief or optimism from. I- I think it's- it's a rationalization that... Because they don't want to spend any more money on Ukraine because they don't see the value in, um, trying to prevent Putin from invading (laughs) and taking over-
- CWChris Williamson
Just seems inevitable then.
- MBMike Baker
... a separate country. Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah. W- how much truth is there in the-Russia's got declining birth rates. This is close to the highest that their population is ever going to be, therefore, their armed forces are... This is kind of a last chance attempt to be able to have the manpower to go into Ukraine. Is there any truth in that? It's, it's a story I've seen pushed around online.
- MBMike Baker
Yeah, um, (sighs) look, they've got a three-to-one manpower advantage over Ukraine. Um, and more importantly, they've got, uh, an ability to, uh, suffer and put up with, um, pain, um, that I don't think the West really understands. And, um, go back and look at their history in World War II and their losses that they were willing to, uh, sustain. Uh, it's, yeah-
- CWChris Williamson
Is the culture still the same as then though?
- MBMike Baker
Um, I think it's pretty well embedded in the culture. Yeah, I mean, you can argue that it's a more modern society and they've got access to information. But I- a- at the end of the day, um, I think Putin and his, and his cohorts, I think they, they read the people pretty well. And you would imagine that, you know, there must be populations, you know, just rising up in the streets and, and-
- CWChris Williamson
Hmm. Hmm.
- MBMike Baker
And that's not happening, right? Um, look, in part he was smart in how he was conscripting a lot of people. He took them from, you know, sort of the Netherlands, you know, the, the outer regions, you know, the... He wasn't recruiting a lot of, of, uh, soldiers off the streets of St. Petersburg or Moscow or wherever. And because he doesn't wanna... He doesn't necessarily wanna bring the war right to Moscow and make them feel the pain, right? I mean, they, they went through that in Afghanistan to some degree when the Soviets occupied Afghanistan. And eventually, you know, sort of the popular unrest at home, uh, mothers of dead soldiers, you know, they all started to... And so he could start to feel that, right? I think, I think they do have the appetite to wear a lot of pain. And so I think they, that's what Putin counts on. Um, you know, whether they'll have the manpower, I think... You know, Putin, you know, he, they miscalculated so much, right? The, the Russian military and intelligence apparatus made so many mistakes going into this invasion. Um, but I think one calculation that he's kind of clung to is that the West will get tired of it.
- CWChris Williamson
Hmm.
- MBMike Baker
Um, and that's, that's kind of what's happening. Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
You can count on the shortness of the attention span.
- MBMike Baker
Yeah, and I think he, he imagined, I mean, look, he, he imagined NATO was gonna, was gonna break, right? Or splinter, or there wouldn't certainly be the cohesiveness that there is. And he certainly didn't anticipate it growing like NATO has. But, so there's a lot of mistakes there. But I think he has, um, correctly pinned some hope on the fact that we'd get tired of it, right? And that there would sort of be this popular unrest. And make no mistake, the Russian disinformation apparatus is busy feeding that, right? So again, goes back to what we're talking about with information that you read and trying to figure out what these opinions are on social media. Um, why wouldn't they, right? It, it, it's, it, it's impossible to think that the Russian, uh, regime, the, the, the intel apparatus wouldn't look at the situation and go, "Yeah, we need to do what we can to influence the narrative in the States and the West," right? They've been doing this forever. They did it in World War II to try to keep us out of World War II, right? Before the Nazis or the Germans invaded Russia when they were allied, you know, they spent a lot of time, uh, focused on trying to influence public opinion inside the US to keep America out of the war. So, it's not something new, right? They're just using different technology.
- 58:14 – 1:08:27
The End of Manned Warfare
- MBMike Baker
- CWChris Williamson
How much longer do you think manned warfare has?
- MBMike Baker
I think there's always gonna be a, a, a place for, uh, you know, door-kickers. I don't think there's any doubt about it, right? You gotta, you've gotta have, you've gotta have some boots on the ground. But the, I think the pointy edge of the spear in a major, in, in, in a major global conflict, a big global, not a regional issue, I, that's definitely going to be, um, you know, taking place in cyberspace. Um, and, uh, I think that the, the first... The goal will be to kill morale at home, right? Wherever that
- CWChris Williamson
What will that look like?
- MBMike Baker
Well, I mean, you'll, you'll do the usual. That's why they're mapping out... You know, if you went to (laughs) , I don't know which office it is in China, but if you went to an office, you would find a playbook that maps out the infrastructure in the US, the UK, the West, in terms of our power systems, uh, transportation, water treatment facilities, um, you know, how do you stop the financial systems? Um, simple things. How do you keep someone from going to a cash point and pulling out money, right? How do you keep somebody from being able to, you know, get their medicines, right? How do you shut down the power grid? How do you-
- CWChris Williamson
Morale, morale, morale.
- MBMike Baker
Yeah, you wanna, you wanna bring the pain to the home front as quickly as possible, right? And you do that by attacking the infrastructure.
- CWChris Williamson
You don't have to fly bombers over the top of-
- MBMike Baker
No. No, you may not. You may at a certain point, you know, but I, I, so I, I think that that will be the first, that will be the first major effort. Um, the weaponization of space, right, you'll be looking to take out. Now, the... Part of the problem when people talk about knocking out GPS, well, yes, you can target a country's specific satellites, right? But, um, you know, some of this, like a, a massive EMP attack, right, uh, will impact everybody, right?
- CWChris Williamson
Hmm.
- MBMike Baker
To some degree. So that will be more of a targeted surgical effort, but it'll certainly play a role. And yeah, I, I think that's, that's undoubted, but I don't think... Look, we didn't imagine there would be another major land war (laughs) in Europe, right? If you had, if you had said five years ago, "Yeah, we're gonna have a, like a World War I, like, trench situation where it goes into a war of attrition, you know, and they make very little movement on either side, and they, and they get..." Probably people would have thought that was crazy.
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah.
- MBMike Baker
You can go to the Imperial War Museum in London and go through the World War I exhibit, right? And you, you look at it and you, you see what, what took place during World War I and, and, and how it impacted, uh, food production and energy production and everything, and you think, "Well, it seems somewhat similar." So there, I think...... that w- there'll always be a place for that, but I think what we'll see is there, there will be that immediate desire to hurt the homeland as quickly as possible and try to impact morale, because knowing that that's what gonna drive domestic decisions, right?
- CWChris Williamson
What about from a kinetic standpoint? How much is gonna be drones, how much is gonna be robotics, how much is gonna be unmanned aerial vehicles and stuff like that?
- MBMike Baker
Yeah. Well, we're see- we're seeing that in a big way, right? I mean, we're t- it's almost like we're testing, uh, the capabilities right now and seeing what are the impacts. Um, forward-looking gathering of intelligence, right? For, uh, sort of short-term strategic planning of, of troop movements or certainly immediate impact of targeting, um, on, on targets of opportunity. Uh, drones, um, are, are proving to be invaluable, right? And, you know, give the Iranian regime credit, right? They (laughs) at some point they must have seen that several years ago, because they built a certain capability in production of drones. They, they, I think they understood the, the value there, uh, as did a variety of other... Obviously, you know, US and, and UK have been, uh, in advanced drone production for years, right? Uh, but, um, it's not just delivery of, of weapons on target. It's, it's the intel gathering, you know, functions that drones are, are really changing the battlefield in a certain way. So that'll, that'll play a real important role. Unmanned, uh, capabilities. Yeah, I mean, we... But we've been seeing that for some time. There's been arguments, you know, w- can you take the human out of, out of targeting-
- CWChris Williamson
Hm.
- MBMike Baker
... right? And, and the decision-making of, of actually, you know, um, greenlighting a, uh, an attack.
- CWChris Williamson
I guess it depends how discriminate you want to be with the damage and the collateral damage as well.
- MBMike Baker
Yeah, and I think there's also, there's a, there's a moral implication there of saying, you know, do we take the human out of a decision to target, kill o- other humans? Uh, I think that's a, that's a big leap. Uh, I'm sure it's gonna happen, frankly. I mean, I, I... (laughs) Human nature being what it is. I think that the decision's gonna be to drive towards whatever's most efficient and effective, particularly if something kicks off, if we've got a major conflict. But for right now, you know, there's... Look, it's happened before. The Soviets had what was called the Dead Hand system, which essentially, uh, for, uh, if, if, if all their leadership was wiped out, they did have a system in place that would take over and, and, uh, continue a counter-response.
- CWChris Williamson
Wow.
- MBMike Baker
And so they had that. Um, so it's not unthought-of or undeveloped.
- CWChris Williamson
Hm.
- MBMike Baker
It's unused. Um, but-
- CWChris Williamson
And potentially suboptimal compared with what's being used at least for the time being.
- MBMike Baker
Right. Yeah, yeah. Things, things have advanced since the, the Dead Hand in, in the old Soviet Union, for sure. But, um, yeah. So I think there's the... What, what holds people back from that is, is again this uneasy feeling, this moral issue of, of-
- CWChris Williamson
But you think that the Russians, if they're prepared to put nerve agent into some dissident-
- MBMike Baker
(laughs)
- CWChris Williamson
... like, rival, w- you know, that's not gonna be a consideration for them? That doesn't seem like it would be a consideration for the...
- MBMike Baker
Well, it... But the, uh, w- the consideration, I think, is more of, does it mean I lose power, right? Does d- d- You know, the calculation is, "Okay, is this the end for me then if I do something, if I step over that line..."
- CWChris Williamson
Oh, I make myself obsolete by just becoming an algorithm in, in one fo- it's a slippery slope all the way down.
- 1:08:27 – 1:14:45
Increased Scrutiny of Collateral Damage in Warfare
- MBMike Baker
- CWChris Williamson
Is this a new degree of scrutiny around collateral damage-
- MBMike Baker
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
... uh, in, in warfare? You know, obviously-
- MBMike Baker
Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
... collateral damage has been, I know that it's a obvious example, but like bombing of Dresden, that type of stuff.
- MBMike Baker
Right.
- CWChris Williamson
You know, you, it was done for collateral damage. Uh, whereas now, it seems like-
- MBMike Baker
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
... war is supposed to be the most surgical, sterile, targeted, precise, ethical way. Like I only want the fuel for my fucking RX9 Hellfire missile to be, uh, from renewable sources.
- MBMike Baker
(laughs) Exactly (laughs) .
- CWChris Williamson
You know (laughs) . But do you know what I mean?
- MBMike Baker
It's an EV.
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah.
- MBMike Baker
It's an EV. We plug it in-
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah.
- MBMike Baker
... and, and, uh, we have a recharge station halfway there to target. Um, yeah, it is, it's relatively new, and I think part of it's also, we, we keep coming back to the same thing, flow of information, speed of information. Look if-
- CWChris Williamson
You can see the destruction of-
- MBMike Baker
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
This is ah-
- MBMike Baker
If people could watch Dresden being bombed, right, or get photos of it, I mean, people would have... I mean, look, I mean, go back to the Civil War. If people had, you know, seen actual footage of what the hell was happening on the fields of Gettysburg, I mean, people would have been horrified, right? Um, D-Day, right? If people could've seen the film that evening of what was taking place the first day, you know, public opinion would've, would've shifted considerably. But I think, so yeah, so that's helped to drive this idea that we gotta, we gotta minimize that, right? We gotta minimize that damage. You still gotta have bad actors in the world. You still have to deal with them, you know. It's not a, it's not a fucking community of nations where everybody's acting in everybody else's best interest. That's bullshit, right? And so you have to, you have to account for the fact that, uh, at times things are gonna be unpleasant. But yeah, yeah. Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
I only found out, speaking of the drone thing, we walked past a DJI store-
- MBMike Baker
Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
... here in, uh, downtown Miami, and I didn't realize that the US had basically put so many restrictions on US drone creators. They said, "We don't want anyone who's basically able to interfere with flight paths and create this technology, 'cause we definitely don't want it at home."
- MBMike Baker
Right.
- CWChris Williamson
Which left the market completely open for DJI, which I didn't know is a Chinese company.
- MBMike Baker
Yeah. Yeah, go figure.
- CWChris Williamson
And now-
- MBMike Baker
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
... the entire drone market is dominated by DJI, and now America are trying to play catch-up, and they've tried to relinquish some of these restrictions on domestic, uh, creators of drone technology, and it's just, it's, they're away with the wind. It's already-
Episode duration: 2:43:34
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