All Models Are Wrong

Brewster Kahle started planning the Internet Archive (creators of the Wayback Machine) in 1980 at the MIT AI lab, when he figured that machines worth talking to would need a library to learn from. Forty-six years later, he says the biggest obstacle to that future is a handful of companies that want to control information instead of selling it.

We recorded this conversation live at DWeb Camp 2026 outside Berlin. We talk about where the early web went wrong and what Europe's copyright carve-out could mean for public AI. Brewster also argues that small-scale capitalism belongs on the list of civilizational infrastructure, and tells the story of the credit union he tried to start after the 2008 crisis.

Brewster Kahle is the founder of the Internet Archive and a longtime advocate for the decentralized web.

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0:00 Intro
1:55 The early days of the internet and what they got wrong
11:56 Big Tech vs Big Publishing
15:01 The original vision of The Internet Archive
21:01 What civilizational infrastructure should we be building?
26:03 Internet Archive Credit Union vs Big Banks

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Find the video version of this episode here.

As some of you may have seen, the blog and podcast I ran for 7 years ended but the rebirth is here. 

The short description for All Models Are Wrong is:

“Technology is never just technology. All Models Are Wrong examines who controls and benefits from these systems and how they might be organized differently.”

My thesis is that the continued development and introduction of “frontier technologies” will (as it has already) bisect traditional political camps in ways that will surprise us. The models that we’ve grown up with to make sense of the world have increasingly failed us and do not reflect our current reality. 

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Thank you for following me along for the ride so far. I hope you’ll continue sticking around. 

Subscribe - https://allmodelsarewrong.online/

Support the show

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I spoke to Yanis Varoufakis, economist and former Greek finance minister, at Web3 Summit in Berlin on June 18th, 2026, about why he thinks blockchain is one of the few tools left that can actually pull power away from Big Tech and the banks. Truly a privilege that I had the chance to speak with him on such a stage.

We dig into his concept of techno-feudalism and cloud capital, his monetary commons proposal for a transparent monetary system that could undercut private banks, and the digital wallet system he tried to build for Greece during the crisis. Yanis also lays out why he thinks the digital euro is dead in the water.

 You can read my reflections on the interview here. 

If you liked the podcast be sure to give it a review on your preferred podcast platform. If you find content like this important consider donating to my Patreon starting at just $3 per month. It takes quite a lot of my time and resources so any amount helps. Follow me on Twitter (@TBSocialist) or Mastodon (@[email protected]) and join the r/CryptoLeftists subreddit. 

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I spoke to Leo Fan, founder of Cysic, about what zero-knowledge proofs actually are, and why they might be one of the more promising answers to the internet's identity problem.

We dig into how a ZK proof lets you prove something is true without handing over any identifying personal information, why that matters as digital identity systems become pushed by governments, and Cysic's model for verifiable compute. Leo also breaks down why the hardware and cost problems around ZK have kept it from mainstream identity use so far, and how Cysic's network lets you use your own hardware to help generate these proofs, rather than leaving that compute in the hands of a few large players.

If you liked the podcast be sure to give it a review on your preferred podcast platform. If you find content like this important consider donating to my Patreon starting at just $3 per month. It takes quite a lot of my time and resources so any amount helps. Follow me on Twitter (@TBSocialist) or Mastodon (@[email protected]) and join the r/CryptoLeftists subreddit. 

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I spoke to Nick Srnicek, author of Platform Capitalism, co-author of Inventing the Future, and most recently Silicon Empires, about why AI is consolidating Big Tech's power rather than disrupting it.

 We dig into why the AI upstarts remain dependent on the infrastructure of the incumbents, why the gap between open and closed models may widen as frontier training costs spiral upward, and the real biosecurity risks buried under Silicon Valley's safety discourse. Nick also breaks down what AI sovereignty could mean for Europe, and why racing to hoard AI productivity gains for yourself misses the actual task: preventing a permanent underclass from forming at all. 

If you liked the podcast be sure to give it a review on your preferred podcast platform. If you find content like this important consider donating to my Patreon starting at just $3 per month. It takes quite a lot of my time and resources so any amount helps. Follow me on Twitter (@TBSocialist) or Mastodon (@[email protected]) and join the r/CryptoLeftists subreddit. 

Support the show

Subscribe on Substack - https://allmodelsarewrong.online/

Buy my book - https://linktr.ee/blockchainradicals

I spoke to Sean Geobey, associate professor at the University of Waterloo and Director of Groupthink Labs, about collective intelligence, cooperative economics, and what decentralized technology could actually offer the solidarity economy.

We dig into how collective intelligence works at scale, from participatory budgeting experiments in Kitchener to the structural barriers that make setting up a cooperative three times harder than incorporating a business. We also get into the limits of GDP as a measure of anything meaningful, why the left's taboo around finance is a form of unilateral disarmament, and how speculative finance has become the shortest-term thinking industry on the planet while performing the same planning function as the old Soviet Politburo. Sean also looks at Bread Cooperative (a worker cooperative I founded) and where the real bottlenecks are for Web3 to serve collective action rather than undermine it.

If you liked the podcast be sure to give it a review on your preferred podcast platform. If you find content like this important consider donating to my Patreon starting at just $3 per month. It takes quite a lot of my time and resources so any amount helps. Follow me on Twitter (@TBSocialist) or Mastodon (@[email protected]) and join the r/CryptoLeftists subreddit. 

Support the show

Subscribe on Substack - https://allmodelsarewrong.online/

Buy my book - https://linktr.ee/blockchainradicals

I spoke to Evan Miyazono, founder of Atlas Computing, about the neglected risks of advanced AI and what it would actually take to govern it.

We dig into the threats he thinks aren't getting enough attention, from asymmetrically offensive cyber capabilities and economic disruption to what he calls the "intelligence curse," a dynamic where governments lose any incentive to invest in their populations once labor becomes synthetic. We also get into formal verification as a framework for AI governance, why consensus and agreement become scarcer as intelligence gets cheaper, and where blockchains might actually fit into that picture in ways that have nothing to do with libertarian fantasy.

This episode is sponsored by NYM, the world's most private VPN. Unlike traditional VPNs, Nym uses a decentralized mixnet to scramble your internet data — hiding who you're talking to, when, and how often. You can switch between full mixnet mode for maximum anonymity, or a faster VPN mode for everyday use.

Use the code blockchainsocialist when signing up and get an extra month!

If you liked the podcast be sure to give it a review on your preferred podcast platform. If you find content like this important consider donating to my Patreon starting at just $3 per month. It takes quite a lot of my time and resources so any amount helps. Follow me on Twitter (@TBSocialist) or Mastodon (@[email protected]) and join the r/CryptoLeftists subreddit. 

Support the show

Subscribe on Substack - https://allmodelsarewrong.online/

Buy my book - https://linktr.ee/blockchainradicals

I spoke to Scoopy Trooples, the pseudonymous co-founder of Alchemix, about self-repaying loans, the wreckage of DeFi scams, and what ethical crypto finance could actually look like.

We dig into how Alchemix works, allowing your debt pays itself off over time and what's new in V3. We also get into the broader rot in the space: meme coin pump-and-dumps, celebrity rug pulls, prediction market gambling, and how DeFi summer's promise curdled into financial nihilism. Scoopy is one of the rare crypto founders willing to say the quiet part loud,  that most of what gets built in this space is zero-sum at best and predatory at worst, and has been trying to build something different since day one.

This episode is sponsored by NYM, the world's most private VPN. Unlike traditional VPNs, Nym uses a decentralized mixnet to scramble your internet data — hiding who you're talking to, when, and how often. You can switch between full mixnet mode for maximum anonymity, or a faster VPN mode for everyday use.

Use the code blockchainsocialist when signing up and get an extra month!

If you liked the podcast be sure to give it a review on your preferred podcast platform. If you find content like this important consider donating to my Patreon starting at just $3 per month. It takes quite a lot of my time and resources so any amount helps. Follow me on Twitter (@TBSocialist) or Mastodon (@[email protected]) and join the r/CryptoLeftists subreddit. 

Support the show

Subscribe on Substack - https://allmodelsarewrong.online/

Buy my book - https://linktr.ee/blockchainradicals

I spoke to Atossa Araxia Abrahamian, an independent journalist and author of The Hidden Globe, about the world of offshore finance, special economic zones, and network states.

We dig into her reporting on a proposed crypto enclave in St. Kitts and Nevis, the history and reality of these zones, and what happens when libertarian ideas about sovereignty and markets collide with real communities pushing back. The network state adjacent project is called Destiny and is being proposed by Olivier Janssens, a wealthy bitcoin tycoon, for the island of Nevis. Locals have felt deceived by its marketing and have even made diss tracks about it.

This episode is sponsored by NYM, the world's most private VPN. Unlike traditional VPNs, Nym uses a decentralized mixnet to scramble your internet data — hiding who you're talking to, when, and how often. You can switch between full mixnet mode for maximum anonymity, or a faster VPN mode for everyday use.

Use the code blockchainsocialist when signing up and get an extra month!

Timestamps
00:00 Highlight & Introduction
01:06 Sponsor Break Nym VPN
01:46 Meet the Guest
03:21 Passports and Offshore Worlds
05:56 Nevis Destiny Project Origins
09:40 SEZ Law and Local Backlash
10:39 The Destiny Pitch Video
00:08 Dubai Model and DIFC Courts
22:30 How SEZs Work Historically
28:20 From Factories to Lifestyle Enclaves
29:40 Bioshock and Body Mods
30:40 Managed Zones Not Free Markets
31:28 No Such Thing As Deregulation
32:52 Libertarian Influencers And Roger Ver
35:03 Why Not Just Use SEZs
35:50 Network State Factions And Thiel
38:54 Markets Logic Turns Colonial
42:20 Nevis Pushback And Colonial Memory
44:10 Passports Sovereignty And Mercenary States
47:00 Remote Control Citizenship And Land
48:54 Prospera Compared And Biohacking Drift
53:59 Network School As Adult Summer Camp
56:44 Closing Thoughts And Nevis Diss Track

If you liked the podcast be sure to give it a review on your preferred podcast platform. If you find content like this important consider donating to my Patreon starting at just $3 per month. It takes quite a lot of my time and resources so any amount helps. Follow me on Twitter (@TBSocialist) or Mastodon (@[email protected]) and join the r/CryptoLeftists subreddit. 

Support the show

Subscribe on Substack - https://allmodelsarewrong.online/

Buy my book - https://linktr.ee/blockchainradicals