Hidden Forces

In this episode of Hidden Forces, host Demetri Kofinas shares part of his recent conversation with Bruce Schneier, a renowned American cryptographer, computer security professional, and privacy specialist, on the subject of cybersecurity and the NSA. Also included is part of a new interview with Leemon Baird, the inventor of Hashgraph, on bitcoin and the future of privacy and freedom in a world of distributed consensus. Demetri starts the show with a segment on Carpenter v. United States, the landmark privacy case currently before the Supreme Court, and shares some thoughts from recent guest Jeffrey Rosen. 

Producer & Host: Demetri Kofinas

Editor: Stylianos Nicolaou

Engineering: Ignacio Lecumberi

Join the conversation on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter at @hiddenforcespod

In Episode 25 of Hidden Forces, host Demetri Kofinas speaks with Lacy Hunt, Executive Vice President of Hoisington Investment Management Company. For nearly 14 years, Dr. Lacy Hunt was Chief U.S. Economist for HSBC Group, one of the world's largest banks. He was also Executive Vice President and Chief Economist at Fidelity and held the position of Senior Economist for the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas.

Global Macro is an investment strategy based on the interpretation and prediction of large-scale events. Many such events are driven by chronic conditions, including debt deflation, structural demographics, and low savings rate. What role have governments played in amplifying and perpetuating the impact of these forces by bailing out financial markets and flooding the banking system with cheap money?

In order to answer this question, we must rely on a panoply of data, statistics, and econometrics – bank lending, money velocity, monetary aggregates, disposable income, liquidity coverage ratios, and credit spreads. How will we navigate the next recession, having wasted the last 8 years chasing the shadows of wealth through buy-backs, stock appreciations, and financialization? Where will the demand come from in a consumer-led economy still fighting the forces of debt-deflation with diminishing savings rates and rising interest expenses? How will we manage our unfunded liabilities, mortgage payments, rents, and college tuitions, with such poor structural demographics? And how does all of this tie back to the resurgence of populism and the escalation of geopolitical tension in a world bound together by our liabilities but torn apart by the specter of conflict, the failures of diplomacy, and the expediency of war?

Producer & Host: Demetri Kofinas Editor & Engineer: Stylianos Nicolaou

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In this Techno Forces segment, David Kirkpatrick joins Demetri Kofinas for a conversation on the evolving landscape of our technological society. How do we protect our privacy and freedom in a networked world controlled by a handful of tech giants like Facebook, Google, and Amazon? How will advances in augmented reality, virtual reality, and brain-machine interfaces change our notions of humanity? How do we prepare for a future where most of today's jobs will be done by machines? Are there limits to what technology can solve?

Producer & Host: Demetri Kofinas Editor & Engineer: Stylianos Nicolaou

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In Episode 24 of Hidden Forces, host Demetri Kofinas speaks with Jeffrey Rosen, the nation's most widely read and influential legal commentator. Their conversation examines the landscape of constitutional law in the 21st century. How do we interpret a more than 200-year-old document in an age of empire, terror, and technological futurism? How do theories of mind apply to the laws of personhood? How will our criminal justice system evolve along with our notions of agency and free-will? How do we interpret the First Amendment in an age of synthetic news and artificial intelligence? Where do the Bill of Rights and the Constitution stand on the question of genetic engineering and designer babies? Can the Fourth and Fifth Amendments protect our right to privacy and freedom from self-incrimination in an age of mass surveillance? How does constitutional law inform the practices of corporations and publishers? Can this enduring document safeguard our liberty, autonomy, and freedom, in the digital age?

Producer & Host: Demetri Kofinas Editor & Engineer: Stylianos Nicolaou

Join the conversation on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter at @hiddenforcespod

In Episode 23 of Hidden Forces, host Demetri Kofinas speaks with Dr. Heather Berlin about the neural basis of consciousness. The two consider a theory of mind based on a materialist perspective on reality. Materialism is a form of philosophical monism which holds that matter is the fundamental substance in nature, and that all things, including mental aspects and consciousness, are results of material interactions. If this is the case, then where do our thoughts and our feelings, come from? Who is in charge of our volitions and our desires? What is the neural basis of depression, anxiety, and psychosis? What is the substantive source of human creativity, inspiration, and genius? Is there really nothing more to the experience of consciousness – to life itself – than the observable firing of billions of neurons jumbled together in an atomic stew consisting almost entirely of empty space?

Dr. Heather Berlin is a cognitive neuroscientist and Assistant Professor of Psychiatry at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. Dr. Berlin practices clinical neuropsychology at New York Presbyterian Hospital. She is the host of the PBS series Science Goes to the Movies, and the Discovery Channel series Superhuman Showdown. Heather Berlin co-wrote and stars in the critically acclaimed off-Broadway and Edinburgh Fringe Festival show, Off the Top, about the neuroscience of improvisation. She has made numerous media appearances including on the BBC, History Channel, Netflix, NatGeo, StarTalk, and TEDx. Heather Berlin received her Ph.D. from the University of Oxford and Master of Public Health from Harvard University.

Producer & Host: Demetri Kofinas Editor & Engineer: Stylianos Nicolaou

Join the conversation on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter at @hiddenforcespod

Members of the hashgraph consensus algorithm's founding team, including the CEO of Swirlds, Mance Harmon, speak with Demetri Kofinas about the future of the Internet. In this blockbuster event, blockchain developers, entrepreneurs, and fans of Hidden Forces ask questions to the founders of hashgraph about their revolutionary technology. Leemon Baird, Mance Harmon, and the rest of the Swirlds team claim to have built an entirely new distributed ledger technology that is better (orders of magnitude more efficient), faster (300,000+ transactions per second pre-sharding), safer (asynchronous byzantine fault tolerant), and fairer (mathematically proven fairness with consensus time stamping) than the blockchain.

This is the second installment in a series of interviews, panel discussions, and conversations that Demetri Kofinas has had with the founders of Hashgraph. Hashgraph is a consensus algorithm that appears to have solved the problem of scale in distributed information management. It is a distributed ledger technology that may do for information processing and storage, what TCP/IP and broadband has done for communication. This is a revolution unlike any we have seen since the earliest days of the World Wide Web.

This event took place at the Assemblage NOMAD in New York City. It was a packed house with over 200 people in attendance from the blockchain and fintech communities who were eager to learn about how hashgraph is going to change the future of the Internet.

You can listen to Demetri's interview with the inventor and founder of Hashgraph, Leemon Baird, as well as read the transcript to that conversation on our website.

Producer & Host: Demetri Kofinas

Editor: Stylianos Nicolaou

Join the conversation on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter at @hiddenforcespod

In Episode 22 of Hidden Forces, host Demetri Kofinas speaks with Leemon Baird, the inventor of Hedera Hashgraph, a new, distributed ledger technology poised to disrupt the entire ecosystem of blockchain-based applications and cryptocurrencies.

Leemon Baird is the Co-founder and CTO of Swirlds Inc. With over 20 years of technology and startup experience, he has held positions as a Professor of Computer Science at the Air Force Academy, Adjunct Professor at multiple other prestigious universities, and as a senior scientist in several labs. He has been the co-founder of several startups, including two identity-related starts-ups with successful exits. He received his Ph.D. in Computer Science from Carnegie Mellon University faster than any student in school history (2 years, 9 months), has multiple patents and over 100 publications in peer-reviewed journals on computer security, machine learning, and mathematics. He regularly keynotes on these topics at conferences.

In this conversation, our audience will get a first-hand look at what may become the future of the Internet. Hashgraph is a revolutionary new distributed ledger technology with patented properties. The claims are that it is fast (100,000's transactions per second pre sharding), fair (mathematically proven fairness with consensus timestamping) and secure (asynchronous Byzantine fault tolerant). These properties could expand decentralized use cases to complex markets, auctions, crypto-currency micropayments, live games (even MMOs), and much more.

The company has secured early funding and has been adopted by credit unions, payment providers and is currently in due diligence phases with large banks.

Demetri will be moderating a panel with the CEO and Founding Team at The Assemblage (114 E. 25th St. New York, New York 10010) this Thursday, Oct. 19, from 7:00-9:30 pm. Seating is limited. You can RSVP here.

Producer & Host: Demetri Kofinas

Editor & Engineer: Stylianos Nicolaou

Join the conversation on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter at @hiddenforcespod

In this Market Forces segment of Hidden Forces,host Demetri Kofinas speaks with Jim Rickards about a timeline for war with North Korea, de-dollarization, and changes at the Trump Fed. Rickards is the author of multiple New York Times bestsellers including The Death of Money, Currency Wars, and The New Case For Gold. His latest book is The Road To Ruin: The Global Elites' Secret Plan for the Next Financial Crisis. Editor of the Strategic Intelligence newsletter, Jim Rickards is also a member of the advisory board of the Center for Financial Economics at Johns Hopkins. He's an adviser to the Department of Defense and the U.S. intelligence community on international economics and financial threats and served as a facilitator of the first-ever financial war games conducted by the Pentagon.

Jim Rickards believes that the United States may be six to eight months away from a shooting war with North Korea. A conflict on the Korean peninsula may be far more complex and unstable than the public realizes. A recent article by Evan Osnos in the New Yorker Magazine paints a daunting picture of the state of affairs between the Trump administration and the government of Kim Jong-un, characterized by a deep mistrust and hampered by a lack of communication.

Still, hopes remain high that the Chinese Communist Party, with its 19th National Congress coming up in less than one week, may be able to apply sufficient leverage in order to stem the crisis. Much was made of this in Mark Bowden's piece for The Atlantic. Yet, Osnos and others believe that Chinese influence is drastically overstated, while the potential for missteps remain abundant. In a recent news conference at the Pentagon, Secretary of Defense General James Mattis stated that the US has military options to exercise against North Korea that could be "minimally impactful on Seoul." The implication that some members of the press have drawn, including our guest Jim Rickards, is that the US military may have a "secret weapon," at its disposal. Unfortunately, the press has a long history of overestimating the efficacy of untested, military technologies. The Reagan administration's Strategic Defense Initiative comes foremost to mind. Indeed, according to Philip E. Coylse III, who once ran the Pentagon's weapons-testing program, our anti-ballistic missile defense system "is something the U.S. military, and the American people, cannot depend upon."

Despite this uncertainty, financial markets continue to make new highs. The Nasdaq is up 21% year-to-date and the S&P 500 is up a respectable 13% over the same period, begging the question, "why are financial markets so bad at pricing geopolitical risk?" Demetri believes that such risk pricing is a skill that investors have become particularly incompetent at after decades of geopolitical, round upon round of quantitative easing, nine years of record low federal funds rates, and a growth in passive investment strategies and indexing that have laid the foundations for a violent reversal in equity prices. How will markets react if tensions escalate on the Korean Peninsula? What might the catalyst be for a war with North Korea, and will investors even wait to find out?

The truth is that investors have more to worry about than just war with North Korea. The spectrum of de-dollarization continues to create problems for American diplomats and strategists as well, in their efforts to use sanctions over military force. Recently, the Chinese announced the creation of a Yuan-based oil contract that would be convertible into gold. Does Jim Rickards see this as just another sign that countries like China, Russia, and Iran may be closer to the de-dollarization of the global financial system than people realize? And what about Saudi Arabia? Considering the challenges the US-Saudi relationship has faced in recent years, may they also be on the verge of pulling out of the petrodollar?

In closing, Jim and Demetri discuss Janet Yellen, Kevin Warsh, and some of the changes that may happen with the Trump Fed. Rickards had previously made the point that Donald Trump has the power to re-shape the Federal Reserve Board in ways we haven't seen since the days of Woodrow Wilson. The President has control over six of the seven spots on the Fed Board of Governors. Three spots on the Trump Fed are currently empty. Two are occupied by conservatives, including the recently appointed Randal Quarles. As for Janet Yellen, her status at the Trump Fed remains unclear as her term comes up for renewal in January.

So, not only is a Trump Fed likely to be populated by Republicans, but it may be led by one as well. Kevin Warsh, a notable skeptic of the data-dependent approach of Janet Yellen, as well as her predecessors Ben Bernanke and Alan Greenspan, may be Trump's top choice to head the Fed after Yellen's term runs out in January.

Producer & Host: Demetri Kofinas

Editor & Engineer: Stylianos Nicolaou

Join the conversation on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter at @hiddenforcespod

In Episode 21 of Hidden Forces, host Demetri Kofinas speaks with John Borthwick about design philosophy, superintelligence, relativism, and simulation. John Borthwick is CEO and Co-founder of Betaworks, a startup platform that builds and invests in companies across the social, data-driven media Internet. The Betaworks platform combines three areas of expertise. The first is a studio for building products like Giphy, Dots, Bitly, and Tweetdeck. The second is an investment fund for early-stage start-ups related to the areas in which the company is building (investments here include: Tumblr, Kickstarter, Medium and Gimlet). Lastly, there is "camp": a thematic accelerator program for start-ups in frontier technology such as Bots, AI, and Verbal Computing. In this manner, John Borthwick and his team at Betaworks combine art and science in their design philosophy, as they create extraordinary companies and work with exceptional people across the technological landscape.

In their conversation, Demetri and John blur the line between man and machine. "Computers are no longer that 'other' thing, that 'other' object. The line between machines and humans is becoming indistinguishable," says John Borthwick. The two reconsider our place as observers and users of technology in this increasingly intermediated universe of digital experience. They reimagine consciousness and explore a theory of mind that questions our notions of humanity, our sense of identity, and our assumptions of free will. How do we develop a design philosophy for our machines without losing sight of our humanity? Who are we designing our world for? And, what do we hope to achieve as we dissolve into this immersive technological future of superintelligence, disembodied consciousness, relativism, and simulation?

Producer & Host: Demetri Kofinas

Editor & Engineer: Stylianos Nicolaou

Join the conversation on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter at @hiddenforcespod

In Episode 20 of Hidden Forces, Demetri Kofinas speaks with political scientist Daniel Drezner about public intellectuals, thought leaders, and the marketplace of ideas. Dr. Drezner is professor of international politics at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University, a nonresident senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, and the author of "Spoiler Alerts" for the Washington Post. His latest book, The Ideas Industry, explores the balance that must be struck between public intellectuals and thought leaders in a properly functioning marketplace of ideas.

What is the state of intellectual thought in American society? Where does one go in order to find good information? How does one measure the value of an idea if he or she cannot determine its veracity? How have the foundations of Western intellectual development like empiricism and reason been turned into political footballs? Why has trust in institutions eroded? Why has the credibility of journalists, scientists, and experts been brought into question? How has the wealth gap, partisanship, and information overload created a landscape welcoming to thought leaders, but hostile to the very types of public intellectuals that would have been celebrated less than 50 years before?

Producer & Host: Demetri Kofinas

Editor & Engineer: Stylianos Nicolaou

Join the conversation on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter at @hiddenforcespod