Hidden Forces

In Episode 19 of Hidden Forces, host Demetri Kofinas speaks with theoretical physicist Geoffrey West about his work studying biological systems, infrastructure, and the socioeconomics of cities. Dr. West's primary interests have been in fundamental questions in physics, especially those concerning the elementary particles, their interactions, and cosmological implications. Geoffrey West currently serves as distinguished professor at the Santa Fe Institute, where he served as President from July 2005 through July 2009. Prior to joining SFI Dr. West was the leader, and founder, of the high energy physics group at Los Alamos National Laboratory. He is also the author of SCALE, a remarkable, and timely book, whose substance and theory we explore today. In today's conversation, we explore some of the most remarkable insights coming out of the field of computational biology. This is an interdisciplinary cohort consisting of theoretical physicists, biologists, and mathematicians who are all working together to create models that explain the origins, requirements, and limits of life. What do our models tell us about nature's design for humanity? Are there limits to growth? What accounts for the decrease in metabolic rate as size/mass increases? How do physical systems and networks scale in size within the confines of the Earth's physical space? What are the universal costs associated with our cities and our lifestyles? What accounts for their resilience? What is the significance of our thirst for more power as defined by the amount of work we do over time? What can interest rates and human time preferences tell us about our relationship to nature? What role do we play in the universe's inexorable procession towards entropy? How much time do we have left? Producer & Host: Demetri Kofinas Editor & Engineer: Stylianos Nicolaou Join the conversation on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter at @hiddenforcespod

In Episode 18 of Hidden Forces, host Demetri Kofinas speaks with Samuel Bowles, about economic man and the moral economy, exploring some of the latest insights from the field of behavioral economics with insights about how incentives and prices convey information and shape perceptions of value in the economy. Dr. Bowles is a Research Professor at the Santa Fe Institute, where he heads the Behavioral Sciences Program. His studies on cultural and genetic evolution have challenged the conventional economic assumptions of an economic man motivated entirely by self-interest. The author of nearly twenty books, Samuel Bowles has most recently written The Moral Economy: Why Good Incentives Are No Substitute for Good Citizensand A Cooperative Species: Human Reciprocity and Its Evolution. In today's conversation, we follow the archeological record of economic man. We pursue the path towards rational expectations and utility maximization. We take the road from Aristotle, paying heed to his ethics, and to his conviction that the test of a good constitution, is a good citizenry. But, with the collapse of Rome and Europe's descent into darkness emerge ideas of life as brutish and man, as wicked. Thomas Hobbes' Leviathan and Niccolò Machiavelli's Prince, were written to appeal to the lowest, most unimpressive motives of man's animal nature. Later, political economists like Bernard Mandeville and Adam Smith would take this notion further. They sought to harness the industries of avarice, converting man's self-interest towards the public good. The invisible hand emerged, and with it, notions of separability. Homo Sapiens existed in one realm, and economic man in another. The beneficent, moral being on the one hand, and the selfish, utility maximizing agent on the other. Laws were built upon this framework. Ideas of the marketplace were developed. Incentives and regulations were crafted, in what economists call Mechanism Design. What have we learned in the years since that have challenged the foundations of these neoclassical assumptions? What has come of rational expectations and utility maximization? What are some of the insights of behavioral economists, moral philosophers, and evolutionary psychologists that task the fitness of economic man? What types of systems can we design that are better suited towards the citizens of Aristotle's legislator than to the aberrations of modern economic man? Producer & Host: Demetri Kofinas Editor & Engineer: Stylianos Nicolaou Join the conversation on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter at @hiddenforcespod

In Episode 17 of Hidden Forces, host Demetri Kofinas speaks with Robert Johnson, about the political economy, inequality, and the failings of our technocratic institutions. Dr. Johnson serves as President of the Institute for New Economic Thinking and is a Senior Fellow and Director of the Global Finance Project for the Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt Institute in New York. Robert Johnson served for many years as a Managing Director for George Soros at Soros Fund Management and was part of the famous team of speculators that broke the bank of England in 1992, forcing the pound out of ERM. He served as Chief Economist of the US Senate Banking Committee under the leadership of Chairman William Proxmire, and before this, as Senior Economist of the US Senate Budget Committee under the leadership of Chairman Pete Domenici. Black Wednesday was almost 25 years ago to the day. How has global finance, international trade, foreign exchange, and financial deregulation changed the landscape of speculation in the years since? How has a decline in productivity, a collapse in marginal costs, a rise in total debt, along with an aging demographic laid the groundwork for a rise in populism? What is the role of experts, and how has faith in technocrats and academics declined in recent years? How do we defend our liberal, democratic institutions absent convincing academics, trustworthy politicians, and inspirational leaders? How do we get the money out of politics when politics is so beholden to money? How do we reform a corrupt government that is in bed with Wall Street – a government that is beholden to multinational corporations and co-mingled with industrial military companies whose very profitability is dependent on multi-billion dollar federal contracts? It is time for us to become educated on how our political economy works, because if we don't have the knowledge to call out "the experts," then we are powerless to affect the very changes that we seek to induce. Producer & Host: Demetri Kofinas Editor: Stylianos Nicolaou Engineer: Ignacio Lecumberi Join the conversation on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter at @hiddenforcespod

In Episode 16 of Hidden Forces, host Demetri Kofinas speaks with Anne Stevenson-Yang. Anne is the co-founder of J Capital Research, which conducts ground-up, primary research for institutional money managers on stocks, the Chinese economy, and the Chinese financial system. She is also the author of the recent book China Alone: China's Emergence and Potential Return to Isolation, in which she sets out her views on the Chinese economy and political system, arguing that China historically repeats a cycle of expansion and retreat. In today's conversation, we take a trip around the world to the land of China. Our conversation concerns itself with the contemporary changes in Chinese society that came after the death of Chairman Mao. What was life like in China before Nixon and Kissinger made their famous visit in 1971? Why did modernization and reform in China begin after 1978? Who was responsible for the opening in China? What was the role of Deng Xiaoping, and why is he remembered as "the architect" of a new brand of thinking that combined socialist ideology with pragmatic aspects of market economics - a system the Chinese call "Socialism with Chinese Characteristics?" What changes did the Chinese experience between 1979 and 1989, during the implementation of the economic reforms of Deng Xiaoping? How did these reforms culminate into the protests in Tiananmen Square in 1989? What was the Chinese government's reaction to the uprisings? The Chinese response differed significantly from the Soviet reaction to the fall of the Berlin Wall in the same year. The Chinese government decided to follow a different path after the massacres in Tiananmen Square, by turbocharging economic development. Explicit targets were set for GDP growth. There was selective liberalization of the Chinese economy, particularly in Chinese real estate. China placed a huge emphasis on building its manufacturing industries and on acquiring hard currency through exports. The Chinese financial system remained highly centralized and China's currency, the renminbi, carefully controlled. All this was used towards re-investment with an almost single-minded commitment to hitting the government's GDP targets. Some have called the rise of China in the late 20th century a miracle. It is more appropriate to call it "the Chinese miracle." The size of the Chinese economy has increased more than 25-fold in the last 25 years. Thirty years ago, the Chinese economy measured in at less than 5% of US GDP in exchange terms (perhaps as low as 2%). By 1992, the Chinese economy was only 6% of US GDP. By 2000 China weighed in at roughly 12-15% of US GDP. Today, China boasts a Gross Domestic Product that is roughly 60% that of United States. Loan Growth in the Chinese financial system has averaged 16 percent in the last 20 years. Loan growth in China reached an all-time high of 35% percent of GDP in June of 2009, amidst the greatest economic contraction since the Great Depression. Total debt in China recently surpassed 300% of GDP. This makes the finances of Western nations like the United States, France, and the United Kingdom seem frugal by comparison. In the first 7 years since the financial crisis, bank liabilities in the Chinese financial system grew by nearly $15 trillion dollars. This is the near equivalent of the consolidated size of all US commercial banks. China has used more cement in 3 years of massive overbuilding than the U.S. employed in all of the 20th Century. Hundreds of thousands of meters of unsold residential real estate sit empty around the country. There is a massive amount of industrial overcapacity in China. Chinese ghost cities have become almost as cliche as the fake Paris', Venice, and Dubai's created within mainland China. The Chinese economy is in terrible need of a recession. But the Chinese government cannot afford the recession that it desperately needs. Nevertheless, it cannot avoid the crisis that has been building in the Chinese financial system. How will the citizens of China, its trading partners, emerging markets and developed economies react when the reckoning finally arrives. How much longer can the Chinese government continue to postpone the inevitable? Producer & Host: Demetri Kofinas Editor & Engineer: Stylianos Nicolaou Join the conversation on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter at @hiddenforcespod

In Episode 15 of Hidden Forces, host Demetri Kofinas speaks with Dr. Eric Schadt. Eric Schadt is founder and CEO of Sema4, as well as Dean of Precision Medicine at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. During the course of his 20-year career, Dr. Eric Schadt has built genetics and systems biology groups at Merck. He built the computational biology group at Rosetta. He has served as co-founder of Sage Bionetworks and as Chief Science Officer of Pacific Biosciences. He now serves as the founder and CEO of Sema4. He has published more than 300 peer-reviewed papers in leading scientific journals, and he has contributed to a number of discoveries relating to the genetic basis of common human diseases such as diabetes, obesity and Alzheimer's. In today's conversation, we explore the information technology of biology – DNA – the world of genomics, where big data looms large. We begin by mapping the territory of the human genome and exploring the pathways of disease. We look to understand the ways in which complex genetic combinations express themselves as phenotypes such as height, bone structure, intelligence, and personality. How are these traits coded for? What are the instructions our body uses to repair a damaged cell? What blueprint does it consult before trying to grow new arteries? How does it know to regulate our appetite or when start us down the path of puberty? What happens when these instructions are damaged? How can the smallest difference in the order of life's code make all the difference for our success, our happiness, and even our survival? 50 years have passed, between the discovery of the double-helix and the mapping of the first human genome. What progress have we made in the 15 years since? How has our ability to sequence new genomes created a paradigm shift in medicine? What is the role of big data and artificial intelligence in finding the correlations needed in order to treat malignancies and prevent diseases? What is the promise of genomics? What are the perils of big data in medicine? What stands between us and some superhuman future? Producer & Host: Demetri Kofinas Editor & Engineer: Stylianos Nicolaou Join the conversation on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter at @hiddenforcespod

In Episode 14 of Hidden Forces, host Demetri Kofinas speaks with Christian Madsbjerg. Christian Madsbjerg is the founder of ReD Associates, a consultancy group focused on helping companies bridge the qualitative divide between themselves, their products, and their customers. The anthropologists, sociologists, economists, journalists, and designers who make up ReD employ the methods of social science to study human behavior. Instead of minimizing complexity, they embrace the non-linearities illuminated through human experience, helping companies reinvent themselves and their products from the bottom up. In today's conversation we examine the world from the perspective of human experience. This is what philosophers call "phenomenology." Rather than objectify reality, we will revel in its subjectivity. Rather than discount our senses in favor of hard data, we will discount the data in favor of our experience. Experience matters. Reality is messy. Data is fuzzy. The problem of consciousness is hard. Try as we might to fit the world to our models, reality has a stubborn way of eluding even the most disciplined researcher. The most experienced traders don't make decisions off of a spreadsheet. They use their intuition. The same intuition that you use when deciding who you can trust, if the price you are paying for something is too high, or if there's something off about a room, or a scene, or a story you've just heard. To discount the authoritative wisdom that comes from lived experience is to discount the very question that has lead you down the path of inquiry. It is to discount everything that makes life meaningful. And if we want to understand the world around us – why we do what we do – then that journey must begin and end, with the human experience. Producer & Host: Demetri Kofinas Editor & Engineer: Stylianos Nicolaou Join the conversation on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter at @hiddenforcespod

In Episode 13 of Hidden Forces, host Demetri Kofinas speaks with James Grant. James Grant is a legend of the financial newsletter industry. Once the editor of the yield column in Barron's, he would leave in 1983 to found Grant's Interest Rate Observer, two years after the sacred risk-free rate touched just under 20%. This is a level that seems nearly impossible to fathom in today's world of near-zero and even negative, interest rates. Having observed, reported, and opined on markets for almost 50 years, James Grant represents a bastion of experience and wisdom. In this episode, we stop to listen. We stop to remember a time, in which the extraordinary measures and unprecedented actions of our monetary and fiscal authorities would have seemed unimaginable. We take a hard look at money. How does this shadow of wealth find its value? How is the rate of interest determined, and what is the role of financial markets in facilitating the discovery of that value? What happened, in 2008 and what are the consequences, realized and yet to be discovered, of those very extraordinary and unprecedented actions taken by governments around the world to douse the flames of deflation? What was done in order to contain the contraction and to prevent the discovery of prices? What does the future hold in 2017? What investments does one make, and where might one find opportunity in these oceans of uncertainty? Producer & Host: Demetri Kofinas Editor & Engineer: Stylianos Nicolaou Join the conversation on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter at @hiddenforcespod

In Episode 12 of Hidden Forces, host Demetri Kofinas speaks with economist Steve Keen. Steve is Professor of Economics at Kingston University in London and one of a handful of economists to correctly anticipate the Global Financial Crisis of 2008. Professor Keen is also the popular author of "Debunking Economics," as well as the timely book, "Can We Avoid Another Financial Crisis?" In today's conversation, we tear up the textbook of contemporary economics. We dispense with equilibrium. We embrace irrationality. We internalize economic externalities and drop assumptions about the world that do not comport with the reality of lived experience. We begin our history of economics with the physiocrats, enlightenment thinkers of the early 18th century who concerned themselves with the question: "where does stuff come from?" We move through the classical period of economics, exploring the philosophies of Adam Smith and David Ricardo. We stop to question the assumptions of the Newtonian minded neoclassicists of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, who saw fit to squeeze a complicated world into a set of simple models. Where did our ideas of rational preference, utility maximization, and market equilibrium come from? How have these ideas been debunked by the events, insights, and theories of the last 100 years? What was the role of John Maynard Keynes and his Keynesian revolution? Where did he and the Austrian Friedrich von Hayek meet? Where has the evolution of economics taken us since World War II? What is the role of banking in the economy? How is money created? How does it circulate? What is the role of credit? How might this almost Godly instrument of wealth creation have become a source of global instability and financial distress? Finally, Steve Keen and Demetri explore the landscape of the modern economy. They look at China, with its ghost cities and massive state-directed banking system. They explore Australia, Canada, and South Korea, as possible sources for the next financial crisis and consider possible solutions for society, as well as the individual. Producer & Host: Demetri Kofinas Editor: Stylianos Nicolaou Join the conversation on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter at @hiddenforcespod

In Episode 11 of Hidden Forces, host Demetri Kofinas speaks with Ray Monk. Ray Monk is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Southampton in the UK, where he lectures on logic, philosophical mathematics and the philosophy of Wittgenstein. He is presently a visiting Miller Scholar at the Santa Fe Institute. A prolific biographer, professor Monk has written books on the philosophers and mathematicians Ludwig Wittgenstein and Bertrand Russell, as well as the theoretical physicist and director of the Los Alamos Laboratory during the Manhattan Project, Robert Oppenheimer. In their conversation, Demetri and Ray explore the mysterious and paradoxical world of mathematics. What are the foundations of mathematics? Where did mathematics come from? How did this seemingly infinite body of knowledge arise from virtually nothing? What are Euclid's axioms? What are Plato's forms? What did the Pythagorean mystery cults worship? How did our notions of mathematics evolve from the time of the Ancient Greeks? What were Immanuel Kant's insights about how we experience the phenomenal world? What did he believe about the nature of reality and the role of mathematics in structuring perception? What was Russell's paradox and why did Bertrand Russell ultimately fail in his attempt to create a formal system of mathematics built off of logical axioms and postulates? What was it that Kurt Gödel uttered in 1931 that shattered our confidence in the very foundations of mathematics? What did his theorem of incompleteness prove about the limits of mathematical knowledge and the uncertainty of formal systems? Finally, what was the great insight of Ludwig Wittgenstein about why the paradoxes exist in mathematics? What did he have to say about the limits of language and expression? And what are the implications of all of this, for the existence of God? Producer & Host: Demetri Kofinas Editor: Stylianos Nicolaou Join the conversation on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter at @hiddenforcespod

In Episode 10 of Hidden Forces, host Demetri Kofinas speaks with Carne Ross. Carne is the founder of Independent Diplomat, which advises dozens of democratic countries and political groups on using diplomacy to achieve their foreign policy goals. In his former capacity as a British diplomat, Carne worked on the Middle East, the global environment, weapons of mass destruction and terrorism. He served in British embassies within Germany, Norway, Kosovo, Afghanistan and the UK Mission to the United Nations in New York, where he was Britain's Middle East expert. Carne was also chief speechwriter to the British foreign secretary. Carne Ross resigned from the UK Foreign Service in 2004, after testifying and giving secret evidence to the UK's first official inquiry into the Iraq war. Author of two books on world political affairs, Carne is a frequent commentator on international affairs on the BBC, NPR, CNN, Al Jazeera and elsewhere. Carne has also written for the New York Times, the Financial Times, The Nation and many other publications. Carne helps us explore the world of modern diplomacy, from the end of the Cold War and the dismemberment of the Soviet Union, through the American-led invasion of Iraq in 2003, all the way to the Syrian Civil War and the rise of ISIS. We consider the limits of modern diplomacy and how national politics constrain our capacity for addressing global problems. We address the legitimacy of the state and question our relationship to authority. How much are politicians, technocrats, and global elites responsible for the populism and outrage on display in the Western world? Is there a better way forward, and what can history and technology, teach us about the possibilities for new forms of self-governance and organization in the 21st century? Producer & Host: Demetri Kofinas Editor & Engineer: Stylianos Nicolaou Join the conversation on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter at @hiddenforcespod

In Episode 9 of Hidden Forces, host Demetri Kofinas explores the history of the Federal Reserve under the chairmanship of Alan Greenspan with biographer Sebastian Mallaby. Sebastian is a writer, commentator, and chronicler of financial and economic history. He is the Paul A. Volcker senior fellow for international economics at the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) and a contributing columnist for the Washington Post. His interests cover a wide variety of domestic and international issues, including central banks (the federal reserve), financial markets, and the intersection of economics and international relations. Some of his books include More Money Than God: Hedge Funds and the Making of a New Elite, The World's Banker, and The Man Who Knew: The Life & Times of Alan Greenspan, Winner of the 2016 Financial Times/McKinsey Business Book of the Year Award. Alan Greenspan is one of the most consequential and yet, least understood figures in American history. He was a libertarian turned technocrat. He was a self-described "side-man" who, nevertheless, managed to place himself front and center during one of the most crucial periods in the remaking of American finance. His early days in politics were spent as an active supporter of the Republican Barry Goldwater. In his later years, he became a fixture in the Ford administration. Later, he took on the role as an advisor to Ronald Reagan. Alan Greenspan's role in public policy long predates his almost 20-year tenure as chairman of the Federal Reserve System. His chairmanship lasted from the crisis of 1987 all the way through to the peak of the American housing market in 2006. How responsible was he for the prosperity of the 1990s? How much is he to blame for the catastrophic, financial meltdown of 2008? Most importantly, what can the story of Alan Greenspan teach us about the limits and dangers of human intervention, foresight, and power? Producer & Host: Demetri Kofinas Editor & Engineer: Stylianos Nicolaou

In this SPECIAL EPISODE of Hidden Forces, Demetri Kofinas plays part of a documentary about him, created by CBC Radio One's "The Current." The documentary is based on of an article published by Demetri dealing with his experience of, and subsequent recovery from, severe dementia and anterograde amnesia caused by a Craniopharyngioma. Demetri is the very fortunate survivor of a brain tumor for which he underwent both surgery, as well as radiation therapy in the summer and fall of 2013. He lived with his brain tumor for four years before it began to cause him serious symptoms, most notably, dementia and anterograde amnesia. After his surgery in June of 2013, Demetri experienced an unprecedented reacquisition of memories previously thought to have been lost forever. The tumor had not disrupted the formation of new memories, but rather the retrieval process. Once the surgery removed pressure from his hippocampus and other cognitive areas of the brain, Demetri was able to reacquire and reassimilate those lost memories into his life. This documentary was originally produced by Leif Zapf-Gilje. Producer & Host: Demetri Kofinas Join the conversation on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter at @hiddenforcespod

In Episode 8 of Hidden Forces, host Demetri Kofinas speaks with cybersecurity expert and cyber safety advocate, Josh Corman. Josh is the founder of I am The Cavalry, an advocacy group actively engaged in addressing some of the most pressing issues of public safety and threats to human life on the Internet today. He is also the Director of the Cyber Statecraft Initiative at the Atlantic Council. Josh Corman is part of the 2016 Cybersecurity Task Force commissioned by the United States Congress to address the growing risk to our hospitals, medical infrastructure, and connected devices, from cyber-attacks. Gone are the quaint, innocent days of the early Internet, with its pesky Trojan's, Macro Viruses, RATs, slammer worms, and blaster worms. Today's cybersecurity landscape features a wide assortment of easily accessible and robust attack tools that exploit software bugs like Shellshock and Heartbleed. This is a cybersecurity landscape littered with DDoS and PDoS attacks like the Mirai Botnet and the recently released Brickerbot. The use of ransomware tools like CryptoLocker and SamSam have become billion-dollar criminal industries. Cybercrime is estimated to cost the global economy hundreds of billions to trillions of dollars a year. Yet, we accept the losses as the simple cost of doing business. But what about when the cost of these crimes escalates from dollars and cents to flesh and blood? What are the risks to our industrial control systems? What about our aviation and emergency response infrastructure? What are the vulnerabilities in our connected devices, cars, and hospitals? The threats posed by cyber criminals, terrorists, and hackers are no longer fringe concerns. They strike at the heart of our increasingly interconnected, exposed, and vulnerable society. In this episode, we explore what to do about them. Producer & Host: Demetri Kofinas Editor & Engineer: Stylianos Nicolaou Join the conversation on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter at @hiddenforcespod

In Episode 7 of Hidden Forces, host Demetri Kofinas speaks with one of the pioneers in complexity science, W. Brian Arthur. Brian Arthur has long been associated with the Santa Fe Institute, having served on its board of trustees and its board of science. He has been described by Fortune Magazine, as "one of the country's leading economic thinkers," and he is best known for his pioneering work on the operation of high-technology markets. He is the author of numerous papers and books, including The Nature of Technology: What it is and How It Evolves, and Complexity and the Economy, a collection of papers on economics and financial markets examined from the perspective of complexity theory. In this episode, Brian Arthur educates us on the emerging fields of complexity science and chaos theory. The history of complexity science is replete with the works of mathematicians, physicists, philosophers, ecologists, and biologists. It is a field defined by the imperfections of the natural world. In this conversation, Demetri and Brian Arthur stray far from equilibrium. They cover the booms and the busts of Joseph Schumpeter. They examine the information-laden price signals of Friedrich Hayek. They circle the chaotic orbits of Joseph Ford. They scale the infinite fractals of Benoit Mandelbrot. Demetri asks Brian Arthur about information theory, cryptography, and quantum potentiality, while examining the mystery of why markets and life are so volatile. Producer & Host: Demetri Kofinas Editor: Connor Lynch Join the conversation on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter at @hiddenforcespod

In Episode 6 of Hidden Forces, host Demetri Kofinas speaks with Joan Johnson-Freese about space warfare and the weaponization of outer space. Joan Freese is a professor of National Security Affairs at the US Naval War College. She's been a faculty member at the Asia-Pacific Center for Security Studies and the Air War College, which emphasizes the employment of air, space, and cyberspace in joint operations. Professor Freese has also served on the Space Studies Board of the National Academies of Science and has often testified before Congress on matters of space warfare and space security. She is the author of multiple books on space warfare and space security, among them, Heavenly Ambitions: America's Quest to Dominate Space, The Chinese Space Program: A Mystery Within a Maze, and her latest book, Space Warfare in the 21st Century. In this episode, we go into outer space. We don't just stay in the low earth orbit (LEO) of the international space station, but move all the way to high (HEO), geostationary orbits (GEO) more than twenty-six thousand miles (35,786 km) above the Earth's equator, where some of our most valuable and vulnerable satellites operate. We look at what the United States, China, and Russia are doing in the area of space warfare. We look at what our militaries are doing to weaponization outer space. We learn about ASAT's, Kinetic Orbital Strikes, and Kinetic Kill Vehicles. We learn that any significant use of anti-satellite technologies could create a wall of space debris around earth orbit so thick, that we would be unable to launch anything into space including satellites, our space station, and any space missions to Mars and beyond for generations. Any and all satellite communications would go dark. Global distribution networks – including our food supplies, energy, and transportation – would grind to a halt. The global banking and financial system would collapse. Our communication infrastructure would be devastated. The implications of space warfare are catastrophic, and yet, the public is largely unaware of the dangers orbiting right above our heads. It's high time we take notice. Producer & Host: Demetri Kofinas Join the conversation on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter at @hiddenforcespod

In this Market Forces segment of Hidden Forces, Demetri Kofinas speaks with the investor, commentator, and editor of the Gloom, Boom, and Doom Report, Marc Faber. Though Dr. Faber has been dubbed "Dr. Doom," by the financial press, he is perhaps most famous for his very accurate timing of the US stock market bottom in March 2009. A veteran of the financial industry, Dr. Faber worked during the 1970's for White Weld & Company Limited in New York City, Zurich, and Hong Kong. He moved to Hong Kong in 1973. He was a managing director at Drexel Burnham Lambert Ltd Hong Kong from the beginning of 1978 until 1990. In 1990, he set up his own business, Marc Faber Limited, acting as an investment advisor and fund manager. Marc Faber now resides in Chiang Mai, Thailand, though he keeps a small office in Hong Kong. In this nearly hour-long conversation, Marc Faber speaks with Demetri Kofinas about the growing wealth and income disparity across the world, with particular emphasis on the United States. They examine the role that central bank policy, government bailouts, and ultra-low interest rates have played in exacerbating this trend towards inequality and financial system instability. The two discuss Uber, where Demetri draws a parallel between the technology company's practice of subsidizing its customers at the expense of its investors to the practice of Asian savers subsidizing American consumers during the 2000's housing boom. Marc Faber expresses a negative outlook for the US dollar in the near-term, taking a strongly bearish view of equities, in particular, the FANG stocks (Facebook, Amazon, Netflix, and Google). He believes that the Federal Reserve, rather than succeed in its efforts to shrink its balance sheet, will be overcome by deflationary events in the market and forced to begin expanding its balance sheet once again. Marc Faber believes that western central banks will look to buy more than just government bonds, CDOs, and government-backed mortgages. He is of the mind that just as the Bank of Japan has come to own two-thirds of the ETF market in Japan, so too can western central banks. Indeed, Marc Faber believes that central banks will do whatever they need to do in order to prevent the financial system from collapsing, and this means "printing more money." Demetri Kofinas also ask Marc Faber about Bitcoin, and what his views are on cryptocurrencies. Marc also gives his views on gold, structural demographics, populism, and the potential for war in Asia. The two end their conversation with best Marc Faber's investment advice for anyone looking to navigate the ensuing years of financial turmoil and market volatility. Producer & Host: Demetri Kofinas Editor: 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 Emerging Markets Analyst Rachel Ziemba. Rachel leads Emerging Markets coverage for Roubini Global Economics and writes extensively across all three EM/Frontier regions, as well as about commodities. She has a particular interest in the macroeconomics of oil-exporting nations, including the management of oil wealth, energy-sector supply risks, and China. Rachel has served as an expert member of task forces in the U.S, and the UK on issues ranging from economic sanctions, Chinese security challenges, Egypt and sovereign wealth funds. Today's conversation begins with a look at North Korea and the geopolitical crisis that is unfolding on the Korean Peninsula. Why are financial markets so bad at pricing geopolitical risk and do governments even have a firm grasp on the evolving threat of a nuclear exchange between the United States and the regime of Kim Jong-un? Our conversation eventually shifts to the matter of the falling dollar. What has been driving the fall in the dollar since the beginning of 2017? Have we seen a bottom or could the dollar fall another five, ten, or even twenty percent from these levels? The greenback has fallen despite a further drop in yields on 10-year and 30-year US treasuries. This is particularly relevant in light of the dollar carry-trade, which has benefited from the Federal Reserve's policy of low interest rates in the United States. How has the dollar's role as a funding currency for emerging markets played a role in the recent rise in equities and bond prices in some of these markets? What can forward volatility and the price of currency swaps tell us about the risk of a snap-back in the dollar carry-trade? Finally, Rachel and Demetri discuss energy markets, specifically the chronically low price of oil and its effects on the oil and natural gas industries in the United States, as well as those abroad. In particular, the two discuss the case of Saudi Arabia, with its dwindling foreign exchange reserves and fragile geopolitical position. 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 Ben Friedland, Vice Chairman and Co-Head of CBRE's Alternative Investments Practice (AIP), an industry-specific practice group focused on advising private equity firms, hedge funds, and other Alternative Investment companies on their real estate strategies throughout New York City and around the world. Throughout his 18+ years with CBRE, Ben has distinguished himself by developing exclusive relationships with many of the world's most prestigious financial services companies. Partnering closely with his clients, he shapes and implements creative real estate strategies that align with their goals, helping them further efficiencies and achieve significant savings. Ben has consistently been recognized as one of CBRE's top producers globally and is in a unique position to provide insight into how the forces of technology and globalization are changing this age-old, multi-trillion-dollar industry for the 21st century. Producer & Host: Demetri Kofinas Editor & Engineer: Stylianos Nicolaou Join the conversation on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter at @hiddenforcespod

In Episode 5 of Hidden Forces, host Demetri Kofinas speaks with Christopher Cole about political and financial volatility. Chris is the founder of Artemis Capital and the portfolio manager of the Artemis Vega Fund, which seeks to profit from periods of financial volatility, dislocation, and systemic crisis in financial markets. His core focus is systematic, quantitative, and behavioral based trading of financial volatility derivatives. What is volatility? What accounts for the unprecedented levels of mean reversion in implied volatility that we have seen in financial markets? What accounts for volatility persistence? Demetri and Chris compare spot (historic) volatility to implied (forward) volatility. They look at volatility-of-volatility (vol-of-vol). Christopher Cole presents his opinion that modern portfolio and system rebalancing strategies actually dampen financial volatility. Demetri sees these strategies as increasing volatility in the long-term, which Chris agrees with. Christopher also makes the further point that stocks are overvalued when looked at from enterprise value to EBITDA, Case Schiller PE, Price to Book, Price to Sales, etc. He also believes that financial volatility could come from either the left or right tail of the distribution. We could have inflation or deflation, according to Christopher. His objective is to profit regardless of whether we get a move upwards or downwards in prices. What is the best way to carry volatility and go long uncertainty? The concepts discussed in this episode may appear complicated, but they are really rather simple. What listeners need to remember is that volatility is just change. Volatility reflects uncertainty, and we live in uncertain times. This episode is about learning how to embrace this uncertainty. It is about learning how to embrace change. It is an episode about learning how to profit from risk by capitalizing on the unknown. Producer & Host: Demetri Kofinas Editor: Connor Lynch Engineer: Stylianos Nicolaou Join the conversation on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter at @hiddenforcespod

In Episode 4 of Hidden Forces,host Demetri Kofinas speaks with famed historian of television culture, Gary Edgerton. Professor Edgerton is Dean of the College of Communication at Butler University. He has published eleven books and more than eighty book chapters, journal articles, and encyclopedia entries on a wide assortment of media and television culture topics. He is also co-editor of the Journal of Popular Film and Television. His award-winning book, The Columbia History of American Television, was named the 2008 John G. Cawelti Award winner for Outstanding Scholarly Inquiry into American Cultural Studies by the American Culture Association. In their conversation, Demetri and Gary discuss the history of television as a technology and storytelling medium that fundamentally transformed American society and culture from the end of World War II until the present day. They explore the ways in which the growing aspirations of Americans – their changing norms, their victories, as well as their tragedies – played themselves out on their flickering, analogue screens. They consider the various ways in which American society dealt with the tragedy of Vietnam through shows like MASHand the A-Team. They explore the coming of age story through shows like MacGyver, Nightrider, and The Wonder Years. Gary comments on the significance of protofeminist programs like I Love Lucy and later, The Mary Tyler Moore Show. The two discuss Baywatchand The Cosby Show, as examples of the power of international syndication. The subject of racism in America is also discussed through the example of shows like Amos 'n' Andy, as well as All in the Family. Demetri and Gary also discuss some of the more technical innovations of television, including the origin of the "close-up" as a tool for aiding character development and its successful implementation in the popular soap operas of the day. Finally, Gary Edgerton provides his thoughts about how television has (and will continue) to transform itself in the digital age of the 21stcentury. Producer & Host: Demetri Kofinas Editor: Connor Lynch Join the conversation on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter at @hiddenforcespod

In Episode 3 of Hidden Forces, host Demetri Kofinas speaks with philosopher and theologian Mark C. Taylor. Mark is Chair of the Department of Religion and Co-Director of the Institute for Religion, Culture and Public Life. A leading figure in debates about postmodernism, Taylor has written on topics ranging from philosophy, religion, literature, art and architecture to education, media, science, technology and economics. He has authored 30 books, among which include Journeys to Selfhood: Hegel and Kierkegaard, About Religion: Economies of Faith in Virtual Culture, Confidence Games: Money and Markets in a World without Redemption, The Moment of Complexity: Emerging Network Culture, and Speed Limits: Where Time Went and Why We Have So Little Left. In this episode, we cover topics in religion, finance, art, and technology. Most importantly, we take this journey as individuals, exploring the paths blazed for us by Martin Luther and his Protestant Reformation. We build on the works of Ockham and Thomas Aquinas. We learn about economic philosophers like Adam Smith and Friedrich Hayek, who addressed the problems of non-linearity, information networks, and how complex systems create order from chaos. We look at how technology, for all its benefits, still leaves something to be desired. Perhaps this stems from a fundamental contradiction in its application to the human experience. Lastly, we ask, "what is it all for? What does it all mean? Where are we going, and why the great hurry?" Producer & Host: Demetri Kofinas Editor: Connor Lynch Join the conversation on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter at @hiddenforcespod

In Episode 2 of Hidden Forces, host Demetri Kofinas speaks with New York Times bestselling author and financial commentator, Jim Rickards. Jim 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. He is the editor of the Strategic Intelligence newsletter and 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 and Demetri explore financial history stretching back to some of the earliest economic philosophers. They recall the deregulation of US financial system from the time of Bretton Woods, through the financial panics in Asia in the late 1990s to the Financial Crisis of 2008. Jim Rickards address one of the economics professions' greatest weaknesses, namely, the desperate need for better modeling. What can complexity theory, Bayesian analysis, and behavioral psychology tell us about our world? How can these theories help improve or replace our broken models? The two end with projections about the future. Jim gives his rationale for why he believes the next crisis will be larger and could run deeper than what any of us might imagine. Producer & Host: Demetri Kofinas Editor: Connor Lynch Engineering: Ignacio Lecumberri Join the conversation on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram at @hiddenforcespod

In Episode 1 of Hidden Forces, host Demetri Kofinas speaks with journalist and tech guru David Kirkpatrick. David is the author of "The Facebook Effect: The Inside Story of the Company That Is Connecting the World," and the founder of Techonomy Media, which produces some of the best conferences at the intersection of technology, business, academia, and government. David is also a contributing editor to Bloomberg Television and a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. Nothing is off the table in this conversation. In fact, we run the table. In our inaugural episode of Hidden Forces, We take listeners on a whirlwind technological tour of the 21stcentury. Demetri and David explore some of the most pressing challenges in artificial intelligence, the future of work, the surveillance state, cyber-attacks, blockchain technology, black box algorithms, etc. Demetri also asks David if he thinks we might be living in a simulation. You won't want to miss that one! Producer & Host: Demetri Kofinas Editor: Connor Lynch Join the conversation on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram at @hiddenforcespod

What drives the changes we see in the world? What are the underlying forces that influence our lives? What causes markets to rise and fall? Why does life sometimes imitate art? Why do we seem to disagree more than ever before in our politics? What determines what you see on Facebook? What makes something beautiful? My name is Demetri Kofinas, and I've spent the better part of my life asking these questions. I built my career in media obsessing over them. For me, this has always been a quest to discover the true nature of my world, where I come from and where I'm going. This is about uncovering and understanding the mystery of a world that is so rich and beautiful in its design and function, that to not wonder at its magnificence is to miss something profound. If you also find yourself asking these questions or if they inspire you to wonder more about the reality you are living in, about where things come from, how they came to be, how they work and what it all means for you, then this is the show for you. Subscribe now and be the first to hear when we launch. https://www.hiddenforces.io