The only agency Ukraine has is the central intelligence kind. You're denying the agency of Ukrainians. This is a line you've probably had bled at you by propagandized Empire livestock. If you've engaged in online debate about the role Western powers have played in paving the way to this war. One of the many many tricks that Imperial spinmeisters have pulled out of their hats and their shockingly frenetic campaign to manage the narrative about what's happening in Ukraine is to insist that it's outrageous and Disgusting to suggest that Ukraine is being used as a sacrificial pawn in the grand chessboard maneuverings of the US centralized Empire Because it is denying the agency of that nation The argument is that Ukraine freely chose to enter into the situation in which it now finds itself With no outside pressure or influence of any kind whatsoever Seemingly overnight it became not just wrong to say that the US hegemon has played a role in giving rise to this war But actually monstrous and evil My online notifications are currently flooded with furious Empire Repologists screaming at me for assigning any degree of responsibility in this conflict to Western power structures With the kind of vitriol people normally reserved for Holocaust deniers or pedophilia advocates Imperial narrative managers have been working overtime to make the word West splaining happen Which is their progressive sounding term for when one makes the self-evident Observation that Western powers influence world events Mainstream Westerners are actively trained to regurgitate lines like stop West Explaining to Ukrainians about coups and proxy conflicts. You're denying their agency Calling this a proxy war between Russia and the United States or calling Kiev a puppet regime of Washington is strictly taboo now That Ukraine has lacked independent agency in this war and the events leading up to it is something you are simply not allowed to say Well, I'm saying it This is a proxy war Kiev is a puppet regime Ukraine does not have independent agency in any meaningful way This is not the fault of the Ukrainian people who are obviously far in a way the greatest greatest victims of the Russian invasion But of the giant Western power structure, which deliberately worked to take away the nation's agency many years before the invasion took place I mean my god The US and its allies are pouring billions of dollars worth of weapons into Ukraine from around the world The CIA has been training Ukrainians to kill Russians The US intelligence cartel is directly sharing military intelligence with Kiev as we speak and this followed follows us backed coups in Ukraine in 2014 and in 2004 before that This is a proxy war. This is exactly the thing that a proxy war is The only agency Ukraine has is the central intelligence kind In an excellent article from multipolarista titled Ukrainian leftist criticizes Western war drive with Russia US is using Ukraine as cannon fodder Ukrainian-American Yuli Dubovic writes the following quote Like any other US puppet regime Ukraine doesn't have any real independence Kiev has been actively pushed to confront Russia by every US administration Against the will of the majority of Ukrainian people The support for Ukraine that fills the Western media now is not out of real solidarity with the people of Ukraine If that were the case the US wouldn't have overthrown our government twice in a decade It wouldn't have supported the policies that made us the poorest country in Europe It wouldn't have fueled a brutal civil war for the past eight years The reason US military outlets and politicians are all backing Ukraine now is because they want to use the Ukrainian military and civilian population as cannon fodder in a proxy war with a political adversary and quote Yes, indeedy Amid all the phony profile pic activism and concern trolling about denial of Ukraine's agency No concern whatsoever has been shown for actual known assaults on Ukrainian independence by the US centralized empire Where was all this reverence for Ukraine's agency in 2004 When the Guardian was reporting that while the gains of the orange bedecked chestnut revolution are Ukraine's The campaign is an American creation a sophisticated and brilliantly conceived exercise in Western branding and mass marketing that in four countries in four years has been used To try to salvage rigged elections and topple unsavory regimes Where was the respect for Ukraine's agency in 2014 When a leaked phone call between Victoria Newland now working on Ukraine under the Biden administration and the US ambassador to Ukraine Shows US officials casualty discussing who they were going to select as Ukraine's next prime minister following a US backed coup in Kiev Where was all this respect for Ukraine's agency in 2018 when Joe Biden openly boasted Before the Council of Foreign Relations that he had used his power as Obama's vice president to brazenly interfere in Ukraine's judicial system The US power alliance does not care about Ukraine's sovereignty beyond what measures need to be taken to actively subvert it When people object to criticisms of the way the Empire has actively robbed Ukrainians of any real agency What they are actually doing is defending the most powerful Empire that has ever existed from attempts to highlight its malfeasance I'm not just spouting off about a faraway nation from my safe home here in Australia for the record This is a dynamic which affects my country directly and Is very likely to affect it a lot more as the Empire's great power competition with China heats up It is very likely that in the not too distant future Australia will end up playing a crucial role in the Empire's grand chessboard maneuverings to stop the rise of China When that occurs I will most certainly be saying that we are being used as pawns in a proxy conflict And I will most certainly be saying that our agency in this matter has been stolen from us As in Ukraine there have been US backed coups in Australia not once but twice This nation is now functionally little more than a US military and intelligence base with a smattering of suburbs in kangaroos Which is why the puppet regime in our capital Canberra has done nothing whatsoever to end Washington's brutal persecution of Australian journalist Julian Assange John Mirsheimer now the subject of great controversy for his completely accurate predictions years ago that the US and NATO actions would lead to the Disexact war in Ukraine told an Australian think tank in 2019 that the US will destroy Australia if Canberra doesn't align with imperial agendas against Beijing and he was right and Yes, just as there are Ukrainians supporting the imperial line against Moscow when the time comes for Australia to make great sacrifices For US unipolarist agendas against the Chinese government there will absolutely be Australians supporting it Because of a massive propaganda campaign in this nation facilitated by our Murdoch dominated press and Imperial narrative management operations like the Empire funded Australian strategic policy Institute There are many Australians who intensely despise China right now. I know I've met them But that won't mean that our sovereignty wasn't robbed from us by mass scale oligarchic Psyops by CIA coups by secret deals by the threat of knowing we'd be immediately attacked by a murderous empire if we tried to pivot to Beijing Or even to simply espouse a neutral posture What's true of Ukraine is also true of Australia. We have no meaningful agency in the most important decisions made by this nation Denying the Western role in subverting Ukrainian sovereignty doesn't benefit ordinary Ukrainians. It hurts them You can't fix a problem. You don't understand And until there's widespread understanding of the way the u.s. Empire uses proxies to advance its agendas of global domination Nothing can be done to stop these ugly proxy wars from happening


Okay, Danny from Hungry, I take it. The book, Why Machines Will Never Rule the World makes a philosophical and technical argument about the limits of AI and the impossibility of many of the claims being made. I'd love to see more about this, so this disgust on objectives, forums. I mean, yeah, I mean, basically I agree with what the book is trying to say, although I'm not sure I agree with the argument that they're particularly making. I haven't read the book, I've just basically looked at a summary of what the book says, but I think that the whole idea of AI gaining what's called artificial general intelligence is ultimately impossible. I don't think artificial general intelligence or what human beings have, I don't think can be reduced to zeroes and ones in the sense of it cannot be reduced to mathematics. I think it has something to do with biology in a way that I don't think we yet understand.  I think it has to be sentient. It has to have consciousness to actually be intelligent in a way human beings are intelligent, there has to be consciousness. Consciousness as far as we can tell in the universe only is connected with living beings. Computers are not alive, they cannot be conscious. So again, I think in order to get to the point what artificial intelligence has the capabilities that some people are so afraid of, it's going to have to be, again, it's going to have to be biological and that's not in the cards anytime soon. So yes, I think that's absolutely right. Now, whether, I mean this book which is selling for $130 hardcover, $42 paperback, $37 in Kindle, why machines will never rule the world? Artificial intelligence without fear, I like the title, Jobst Langreb and Barry Smith are the authors. You know, it's probably over my head so I'm probably not going to buy it. It's probably too mathematical for me but it is an interesting topic. It is a topic I think objectivists have a lot to contribute to both in terms of the philosophy and the integration with the mathematics and the biology of it. So I encourage people to read. It strikes me just again reading about this that I agree with the conclusions. You know, they say there are two reasons for the claim that artificial general intelligence cannot be created.  I think that's right. I would add to that, it's biological and it requires consciousness and without life and consciousness you cannot have artificial general intelligence. It's not mathematical. You can't model it mathematically. And then the second reason the systems of this sort cannot be modified mathematically in a way that allows them to operate inside a computer. Again, that makes sense to me but I don't know that because I can't prove it. I wouldn't know where to even start thinking about how to prove something like that. So this is beyond my, what do you call it, my pay scale. But I do encourage people who are interested in this. I do encourage objectivists who are interested in philosophy of consciousness who are interested in math and science and interested in AI to look into this book and examine it does look like a fascinating book. Pay grade, pay grade, thank you, above my pay grade. Thank you for listening or watching the Iran book show. If you'd like to support the show we make it as easy as possible for you to trade with me. You get value from listening. You get value from watching. Show your appreciation. You can do that by going to iranbookshow.com slash support by going to Patreon, subscribe star locals and just making a appropriate contribution on any one of those, any one of those channels. Also, if you'd like to see the Iran book show grow please consider sharing our content and of course subscribe, press that little bell button right down there on YouTube so that you get an announcement when we go live and for those of you who are already subscribers and those of you who already supporters of the show, thank you. I very much appreciate it.