During this episode, John Bicknell has a wide-ranging discussion with Tom Sear about his stunning piece on Xenowar--a fictionalized possible future rooted in philosophy, second order cybernetics, and state of the art digital weaponry. Xenowar provokes conversation about data stacks, sovereignty in the Digital Age, and new PTSD management techniques. (Note: During the episode, John Bicknell inaccurately referenced Joseph Campbell's most famous work; the correct reference (linked below) is The Hero with a Thousand Faces.)

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Tom Sear is one of Australia's leading commentators, researchers and advisers on democratic resilience in an era of cyber conflict and social media manipulation. Tom has advised the Australian and New Zealand Governments along with the US Department of Defense on cyber security and social media manipulation, counter influence initiatives and digital literacy policy. His PhD concerns how to build tolerant national cultures in social media to defend pluralistic societies. Tom led grant-funded data analysis projects to analyze cross platform nation-state social media propaganda influence operations during the recent Australian Federal election. Tom is an advisor and cyber security practitioner to government and Industry. He is an experienced and DST grant funded researcher in global multi platform social media analysis including cross lingual work with WeChat.

IPA is a non-profit organization dedicated to exploring the role of information activities, such as influence and cognitive security, within the national security sector and helping to bridge the divide between operations and research. Its goal is to increase interdisciplinary collaboration between scholars and practitioners and policymakers with an interest in this domain.

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Or, you can connect directly with The Cognitive Crucible podcast host, John Bicknell on LinkedIn.