The Karol Markowicz Show: The Information State: How AI, Disinformation & Algorithms Are Reshaping Power

Summary

---

The Karol Markowicz Show: The Information State – How AI, Disinformation & Algorithms Are Reshaping Power

Podcast: The Clay Travis and Buck Sexton Show (iHeartPodcasts)
Episode: The Karol Markowicz Show: The Information State
Date: March 25, 2026
Guest: Jacob Siegel, Journalist & Author

---

Episode Overview

In this episode, Karol Markowicz welcomes journalist and author Jacob Siegel to discuss his latest book, "The Information Politics in the Age of Total Control." The conversation explores the evolution of "disinformation," its weaponization in American politics, and how new technologies—especially AI and algorithms—are reshaping power by filtering and manipulating what information people receive. Together, they examine the possible consequences of these shifts, the resilience (and vulnerabilities) of public opinion, and offer both personal insights and practical wisdom for navigating today's information ecosystem.

---

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. What is the "Information State"?

[03:38–08:09]

• Siegel explains that his book stems from his investigation into how the concept of "disinformation" went from being obscure (rooted in Cold War spycraft) to ubiquitous in the American landscape, especially post-2015 with the rise of Trumpism.
• He observed a transformation in political power: "Power moves away from individual voters and...into these obscure, somewhat mysterious kinds of algorithmic and informational control." (Siegel, 06:36)
• Drawing on his intelligence background, he noticed similarities between information warfare tactics in U.S. military contexts and those now present in domestic politics.
• The "information state" refers to a new regime where mass control of information and algorithmic filtering become dominant—replacing traditional democratic processes.

Notable Quote:
"The powers that control the algorithms that structure our perceptions of reality have the ability to engineer political outcomes and social outcomes, for that matter."
— Jacob Siegel [07:12]

---

2. Disinformation Hoaxes & The Limits of Public Gullibility

[08:09–13:40]

• Karol asks about the surprising willingness of sophisticated people to fall for high-profile hoaxes (e.g., "Trump as Russian agent").
• Siegel reflects on his own journey: "I think the only honest way to answer that is to say that I was only surprised after I stopped falling for them." (08:21)
• Both agree that outlandish claims lost impact over time, yet persisted—raising concerns about the vulnerability of public opinion.
• Siegel notes the century-old history of opinion-shaping and its acceleration during times of (real or manufactured) crisis.
• He reassures that while people can be shaken by disinformation campaigns, mass mind control is rarely fully achieved due to human stubbornness and unpredictability.

Notable Quote:
"This technology of sculpting public opinion...always accelerates dramatically in times of war.... But human beings turn out to be remarkably difficult to enslave en masse through techniques of mind control."
— Jacob Siegel [12:00]

---

3. The AI Revolution & Accountability in the Information State

[17:18–20:12]

• Karol asks about AI's role in amplifying disinformation and making source accountability almost impossible.
• Siegel worries about the opacity and unaccountability of algorithmic decision-makers (tech giants, AI avatars), especially as these entities are outside democratic control.
• He warns of a gradual erosion of democratic meaning: "Political freedom...is being transferred away out of individual citizens...and into these sort of mass state tech configurations at a very rapid pace." (Siegel, 19:25)

Notable Quote:
"If it's not done that way through the political system, then I think what you're going to witness is just the gradual leeching away of the meaning of rights like voting until they're essentially worthless...."
— Jacob Siegel [19:54]

---

4. Pessimism, Optimism & Strategies for the Future

[20:12–21:35]

• Karol asks if Siegel's book is ultimately pessimistic.
• Siegel clarifies: though the situation is "extraordinarily dangerous," he is fundamentally not a pessimist. He draws inspiration from religious communities that embrace technology cautiously and purposefully.
• He sees the need for "deliberate controls" over technology, not absolute rejection or naive embrace.

Notable Quote:
"I'm not sure optimist would be the right word, but I'm a believer... However, we're in an extraordinarily dangerous moment for anyone who cares about...human liberty or...the American constitutional system."
— Jacob Siegel [21:11]

---

5. Personal Reflections: Pride and Transformation

[21:35–24:57]

• Karol poses her traditional guest question: "What are you most proud of?"
• Siegel shares about completing Ranger School despite being an older, non-active duty "chain-smoking freelance writer" at the time—a feat of resilience.
• Ultimately, he says he's most proud of becoming and being an engaged father, describing having children as the most consciousness-shifting experience of his life.

Notable Quotes:
"I had to train myself to get through Ranger school. Most graduates...are just like hard charging young men... Whereas I ...was a chain smoking freelance writer living in Prospect Heights."
— Jacob Siegel [22:35]

"Nothing in my life shifted my way of thinking more than having kids. It was a radically consciousness-shifting experience."
— Jacob Siegel [24:42]

---

6. Future Prediction: Digital Technology and a “New Medievalism”

[28:41–32:33]

• Karol asks for a five-year prediction, open to art, culture, or politics.
• Siegel forecasts that digital technology is generating its own "cosmology," reminiscent of how the printing press ("the Gutenberg galaxy") transformed society.
• He predicts a "new medievalism"—art, science, and social structures increasingly characterized by mystery, revelation, and hierarchy rather than Enlightenment reason.
• Black box AI is cited as essentially "indistinguishable from magic" even to its creators.

Notable Quote:
"My prediction is that the art will look a lot more medieval ...meaning occult, based in mystery and revelation rather than...rationality and reason. ...Technology and science AI is the perfect example. We already have black box AI technologies that are inscrutable to the people who designed them.... It's functionally indistinguishable from magic. And that in a word is medieval."
— Jacob Siegel [31:08]

---

7. Practical Advice for Listeners: Patience & Self-Reflection

[32:59–34:43]

• Siegel’s tip for improving one’s life: Practice patience and presence, particularly with children.
• He shares a lesson from Jewish ethical literature—do self-criticism, but limit it to an hour per day to be constructive, not self-defeating.

Notable Quote:
"Patience is...to give your presence to your children.... There's a famous book...by [the] Kabbalist rabbi the Ramchal.... He says...to be a good person...you have to devote...an hour a day...to being watchful over yourself and your actions.... But...it can't be any longer than an hour.... Otherwise...it's not contributing to you being a better person, it's taking you in the other direction."
— Jacob Siegel [33:08]

---

Timestamps of Key Segments

• Intro and Book Context: [02:27–08:09]
• On Disinformation Hoaxes in Politics: [08:09–13:40]
• AI, Algorithms & Sovereignty: [17:18–20:12]
• Optimism vs. Pessimism: [20:12–21:35]
• Personal Reflections on Pride: [21:35–24:57]
• Five-Year Prediction ("New Medievalism"): [28:41–32:33]
• Advice for Listeners (Patience, Self-Reflection): [32:59–34:43]

---

Memorable Moments

• Siegel’s story about going through Ranger School as a 29-year-old chain-smoking writer. [22:35–23:28]
• The “one hour of self-criticism” rule from Jewish ethics. [33:08–34:43]
• The idea that our digital age is reverting to patterns of the medieval era—with technology as modern-day magic. [31:08–32:33]

---

Final Thought

This episode offers a deep, accessible dive into how disinformation, AI, and algorithms are transforming not just politics, but the very structure of power and perception today. Through Siegel’s experiences—as a journalist, soldier, and parent—the conversation moves from macro-level societal shifts to the micro-strategies we can all use to retain agency and clarity in the new “information state.”

Transcript

[Jacob Siegel]

This is an iHeart podcast. Guaranteed Human this plant shop.

[Global Payments Genius Advertiser]

A perfectly balanced ecosystem thanks to Genius from Global Payments. Tracked inventory, seamless payments and reviews in one place. Big league reliability for your business. That's genius.

[iHeart Radio Political Ad]

Are you running for office and have a message you want every voter in your district to hear? Well, that's where radio comes in. Radio is your direct line to morning commuters, midday grinders and late nighters. Radio puts your message right where your voters are. Plus it's 1/10 the time and cost of video. Don't just campaign. Connect with millions all over the country, even thousands in the smallest communities. With radio be on the air in just 48 hours. Visit winwithiheart.com that's winwithiheart.com running a business is hard enough.

[Odoo Advertiser]

Don't make it harder. With a dozen apps that don't talk to each other. One for sales, another for inventory, a separate one for accounting. That's software overload. Odoo is the all in one platform that replaces them all. CRM, accounting, inventory, E Commerce, hr. Fully integrated, easy to use and built to grow with your business. Thousands have already made the switch. Why not you try Odoo for [e-mail] that's odoo.com

[Oppenheimer Advertiser]

the world is transforming faster than ever and standing still isn't an option at Oppenheimer. We're working at the forefront of the innovation economy to invest where progress begins. Finding opportunities that build and protect wealth for individuals and institutions that want a seat at the edge of tomorrow. Put the power of Oppenheimer thinking to work for you. Wealth management, capital markets, investment banking.

[PayPal Open Advertiser]

Every business has an ambition. PayPal open is the platform designed to help you grow into yours. With access to business loans so you can expand and hundreds of millions of PayPal customers worldwide. Your customers can pay all the ways they want today with PayPal, Venmo, pay later and all major cards so you can focus on the future when you need a partner trusted by millions. There's one platform for all business PayPal open grow today at paypalopen.com loans subject to approval in available locations.

[Carol Markowitz]

Hi and welcome back to the Carol Markowitz show on iheartradio. My guest today is Jacob Siegel. Jacob is a columnist for Tablet and the author of the new book the Information Politics in the Age of Total Control, published by Henry Holt. Out Now Anywhere youe Buy your Books. He also co hosts the Manifesto podcast with the novelist Bill Clay. Hi Jacob, So nice to have you on.

[Jacob Siegel]

Hi Carol, it's great to be here.

[Carol Markowitz]

So I had your brother Harry Siegel on just a month or two ago, and I told him he has the very best New York accent because it feels so familiar to me, and it's like my part of South Brooklyn accent. And you sound exactly like him.

[Jacob Siegel]

You know, personally, I like that Marine park, like, the Irish Brooklyn accent. It's my personal favorite.

[Carol Markowitz]

That's your favorite? Okay, how does that sound?

[Jacob Siegel]

Really hard to beat. It's got the, like, a higher quality to it. Almost like old James Cagney gangster pictures.

[Carol Markowitz]

Right? You guys sound like annoyed Jews, which is what I would be going for.

[Jacob Siegel]

Okay. Angry Jews. Angry. Not angry.

[Carol Markowitz]

No, no, you're not angry. You guys are so happy. You're like, you know, completely happy warriors. But, you know, the. You didn't get your gefilted the right way this morning. And so tell me about your new book, what is the Information State?

[Jacob Siegel]

So I started writing this book, really, through this long essay I wrote for Tablet magazine called A Guide to Understanding the Hoax of the century. 13 Ways of Looking at Disinformation, which was my attempt to understand how this relatively unknown phenomenon, disinformation, had gone from being a kind of relic of the Cold War, spoken about in the context of spycraft and in the context of the Soviet Union, which no longer existed, to suddenly becoming totally ubiquitous in the American political landscape, coincident with the rise of Donald Trump in 2015 and 2016. And it seemed evident to me as I started looking at this, not only that there was a lot of, let's say, political malfeasance and kind of partisan exploitation of this concept to serve what were just nakedly political ends, right? To sort of discredit Trumpism. Whatever you thought of Trump, it was obvious that there were these sort of inflated charges about the power of disinformation that were being used to paint all Trump supporters as if they were either unwitting dupes of Kremlin propaganda, or perhaps they were even, you know, something more malevolent, like actual foreign agents doing active measures. And then when I looked even deeper and sort of applied a more critical lens, what I realized was that this phenomenon that I was seeing, disinformation, or the war against disinformation specifically, had all of these resonances with experiences I had had as a US army officer and an intelligence officer in Afghanistan specifically. I was in Iraq also earlier in 2006, 2007, but I had a different, more kinetic role in Iraq. And so I started to recognize these kind of tactics, strategies, even at a deeper level. Philosophies of Information warfare and information control creeping into the American political system. And finally, to wrap it up, this brought me to this idea of the information state as a distinctive form of political regime which attempts to replace the earlier structures of constitutional representative democracy based on the procedures of law, the sovereignty of individual voters, the power of democratic institutions. It attempts to sweep all of these away and replace them with a form of mass information control, whereby the powers that control the algorithms that structure our perceptions of reality have the ability to engineer political outcomes and social outcomes, for that matter. And so power moves away from individual voters and their votes, let's say, and it moves up into these obscure, somewhat mysterious kinds of algorithmic and informational control, where the ability to determine what information somebody sees and what information they don't see is how you shape the vote that they will cast. So that in. In the kind of grand sense is the information state. But the more deeply I looked at it also, the more I discovered that this was a something that's been built really over centuries in the sense that these ideas date back. Ideas about information control as a sort of technique for mastering the physical universe dates back to the scientific revolution and then shows up in American politics, really, with the progressive and technocratic movements, and then really in full force with the administration of Woodrow Wilson and the First World War.

[Carol Markowitz]

Were you surprised at kind of more sophisticated people falling for various hosts, hoaxes that you wouldn't imagine would fall for those hoaxes?

[Jacob Siegel]

I mean, I think the only honest way to answer that is to say that I was only surprised after I stopped falling for them. So, you know, initially, yeah, in 2016, let's say, I remember reading the accounts of Trump's ties to Putin and to the Kremlin, and hearing the reports coming from politicians like Adam Schiff, who I didn't trust necessarily, but who I assumed were working within the bounds of a

[PayPal Open Advertiser]

certain

[Jacob Siegel]

constraints of the American political system, that you couldn't simply invent a conspiracy about the president being.

[Carol Markowitz]

Or the Russian spy. Right, yeah.

[Jacob Siegel]

You couldn't invent this. You could exaggerate, sure, Right. But where there's smoke, there's fire. And then at a certain point after, I don't know what it was, the sixth or seventh time that I heard Schiff promise an imminent smoking gun revelation that was going to wrap all this up and establish it definitively. And I saw that not only was this not delivered, not only did the smoking gun never materialize, but the MSNBC host, or whomever, the CNN hosts, New York Times, Washington Post, it didn't seem to in any way disturb their sense of Schiff's credibility. They just reported the same story over and over. So it was only when I, you know, sort of woke up to that, which was. Probably took a year or so. I mean, I think it was 2017 before I really fully realized, okay, it's. There's nothing here and nothing of what he's promising is here, then I could be surprised that other people by whatever it was, 2020. 2023.

[Carol Markowitz]

Right.

[Jacob Siegel]

Were still so wrapped up in this.

[Carol Markowitz]

Yeah, it was interesting because I was not a Trump fan at all in 2016. I was a third party voter. I just didn't like the guy. And I still thought the people who were posting that he was basically a Russian spy. Right. Or compromised by Russia. I thought that was so far out, it was like calling somebody a Nazi. It had stopped mattering. It no longer registered because it was such a crazy thing to say that I couldn't take it seriously. And I was surprised that kind of people who I thought were more sophisticated purveyors of news and information would fall for it. And it does make me afraid that we would fall for other things that. That en masse, we could be lied to often, and we probably are. Are you like, worried at all about the fact that if people could buy that, they could buy a whole bunch of other things too?

[Jacob Siegel]

Well, first of all, you know, that's. You're a lot wiser and more astute than I was. Really, really to catch that. Because I think you were probably in the minority really, at that point. But am I worried about it? I'm so worried. I wrote a whole book about it. Yeah, yeah. Not only am I worried about it, but when you peel back the layers a bit, you realize historically that the premise that the masses can be. Can have their public opinion shaped. That public opinion is a sculptable resource, is more than a century old. And there has been a continuous refinement of techniques applied towards sculpting public opinion for more than 100 years, not only in the United States, but across the world. That this technology of sculpting public opinion on a mass scale has a number of identifiable features. One, it always accelerates dramatically in times of war. And so if you can manufacture a kind of false pretext of war, like an invasion of Russian trolls, for instance, you can use that as a way of accelerating this process of mass opinion formation. Secondarily, it never manages to achieve the thing that it's supposed to achieve. So human beings turn out to be remarkably difficult to enslave en masse through techniques of mind control. No matter how sophisticated the technology is, it doesn't matter if you're talking about the radio or AI, the human being remains a very stubborn subject to control in this way. It doesn't mean that you can't create massively destructive effects in a society through the effort. It doesn't mean that you can't even convince some people. But I think what tends to happen is this kind of ongoing onslaught of information warfare drives people crazy, makes them vulnerable to all kinds of nonsense, but rarely produces the sort of neat, predictable waves of correct opinion that it's supposed to accomplish.

[Carol Markowitz]

We're gonna take a quick break and be right back on the Carol Markowitz Show.

[Global Payments Genius Advertiser]

Certified Plant Genius Here Most people see a busy plant shop, but I see a perfectly balanced ecosystem thanks to genius from Global Payments, Inventory, tracked payments, seamless reviews in one place. Absolutely genius. From sold out crowds worldwide to running this shop, genius grows with you. Your monsteras potted healthy roots, strong growth just like this shop. Big league reliability for your business. That's genius.

[iHeart Podcast Advertising]

Run a business and not thinking about podcasting. Think again. More Americans listen to podcasts than ads supported streaming music from Spotify and Pandora. And as the number one podcaster, iHeart's twice as large as the next two combined. So whatever your customers are into true crime, sports, comedy, culture, they'll hear your message. Plus, only iHeart can extend your message to audiences across broadcast radio. And all this reach means everything. Just think about the universal marketing formula. The number of consumers who hear your message times the response rate equals the results. Now let's get those results growing for you. Think podcasting can help your business? Think iHeart streaming radio and podcasting. Let us show you at iheartadvertising.com that's iheartadvertising.com or call 844-844 iHeart. One more time, call 844-844 iHEART and get podcasting working for you.

[Odoo Advertiser]

Running a business is hard enough, so why make it harder With a dozen different apps that don't talk to each other. One for sales, another for inventory, a separate one for accounting. Before you know it, you are drowning in software. Instead of growing your business. This is where Odoo comes in. Odoo is the only business software you'll ever need. It's an all in one fully integrated platform that handles everything. CRM, accounting, inventory, e commerce, HR and more. No more app overload, no more juggling logins. Just one seamless system that makes work easier. And the best Part Odoo replaces multiple expensive platforms for a fraction of the cost. It's built to grow with your business whether you are just starting out or already scaling up. Plus it's easy to use, customizable and designed to streamline every process so you can focus on what really matters running your business. Thousands of businesses have made the switch, so why not you try Odoo for [e-mail] that's o d o o.com

[Jacob Siegel]

the

[Oppenheimer Advertiser]

world is transforming faster than ever and standing still isn't an option at Oppenheimer. We're working at the forefront of the innovation economy to invest where progress begins. Finding opportunities that build and protect wealth for individuals and institutions that want a seat at the edge of tomorrow. Put the power of Oppenheimer thinking to work for you. Wealth management, capital markets, investment banking.

[PayPal Open Advertiser]

Every business has an ambition. PayPal open is the platform designed to help you grow into yours with access to business loans so you can expand and hundreds of millions of PayPal customers worldwide. Your customers can pay all the ways they want today with PayPal, Venmo pay later and all major cards. So you can focus on the future when you need a partner trusted by millions. There's one platform for all business PayPal open grow today at paypalopen.com loans subject to approval in available locations.

[Carol Markowitz]

Where does the AI revolution fall into this? Because like so, for example, Adam Schiff, you know, says it's, you know, smoking gun any minute now and smoking gun any minute now and it never happens. And then you, you know, people, I assume, look at Adam Schiff and say, I'm not going to believe what he says anymore. And then you can have an AI person say it. You can have somebody who doesn't exist, lie to people on a large scale and, you know, make her very attractive and show her in bikinis telling you stories. People could fall for that. And then there is nobody to be held accountable. There's nobody to say, okay, I'm not going to believe you anymore.

[Jacob Siegel]

Ultimately in these cases, there's a political system to fall back on where power has to reside in some sense. And so as AI technologies make this question of ultimate sovereignty more and more opaque and mysterious and you know, how powerful is Elon Musk within the American political system at this point? How powerful are the people determining X's algorithms or Google's for that matter? No one ever talks about Google because Google is very smartly, you know, been much more circumspect about the ways in which ideological bias and you know, other, even More subtle forms of kind of political control are just baked into the operating structure of Google. But we can't, in a representative constitutional system like the United States, affect the composition of Google. There's still a way to vote and to exercise sovereignty through the political system, which is ultimately what I'm saying, like the only way to affect this. And if it's not done that way through the political system, then I think what you're going to witness is just the gradual leeching away of the meaning of rights like voting until they're essentially worthless, because the technology AI is going to just slowly. It's like money being transferred out of a bank fund a penny at a time. Political freedom. Sovereignty is being transferred away out of individual citizens and the, the organizations, the civic associations that they form. It's being transferred out of those and into these sort of mass state tech configurations at a very rapid pace.

[Carol Markowitz]

Is the information state a pessimistic book like, do you think this can be improved upon or are we really in trouble?

[Jacob Siegel]

We're really in trouble. But I'm not a pessimist. At a very, very deep level, I'm not a pessimist. And, you know, I look at an organization like Chabad and their attitude toward technology, which is that technology is part of the process of the redemption of the entire world, that there's a reason why the Internet arrived. And yet even though they. They associate the developments in the technological sphere with, you know, coming in, Lucia, they still exercise incredibly smart, in my opinion, and deliberate controls about how they interact with those technologies. So I would say it's not a pessimistic book, because I'm not a pessimist. I'm. I don't know. I'm not sure optimist would be a right word. Would be the right word, but I'm a believer. At a very deep level. However, we're in an extraordinarily dangerous moment for anyone who cares about matters like human liberty or for that matter, the American constitutional system.

[Carol Markowitz]

A question I ask all of my guests is, what are you most proud of in your life?

[Jacob Siegel]

Such a question. I had to think about this. Can I tell you? Can I go through some options that I thought about?

[iHeart Podcast Advertising]

Okay, please.

[Carol Markowitz]

So there's no wrong answer here. You know, you can just say I'm most proud of my book, the Information State. It could be anything.

[Jacob Siegel]

No, I'm not most proud of my. I like my book. I'm. I'm very proud of my book. But it wouldn't. I don't think my book would Crack the top five? No, I completed Ranger school, which is a very difficult. Yeah, essentially infantry school in the U.S. army. And I did it when I was not either in the active duty Army. I was in the National Guard. I wasn't really young anymore. I was 29 when I went through. And so I had a sort of, and I was a chain smoker at the time. I quit right before I went to Ranger school. But in other words, like I had to train myself to get through Ranger school. And most of most graduates of Ranger school, which has a very high failure rate because it's so intense and difficult. You know, the average soldier going through is either straight out of enlisting in Ranger battalion, so like 19, 20, just like hard charging young men or their infantry officers right out of the infantry basic course where they've gone through essentially a four month preparatory period where the army is just training them to get ready for Ranger school. Whereas I at the time was a chain smoking freelance writer living in Prospect Heights.

[Carol Markowitz]

What made you do it?

[Jacob Siegel]

What made me do it? I had something to prove to myself and I had already been, I had already done a deployment in Iraq at that point. And one of my soldiers in Iraq was a Ranger Battalion veteran. And it made an impression on me. And then many of the soldiers and officers who I most respected had a Ranger tab. And it meant a lot. You know, sort of established like a baseline of resilience, toughness, confidence.

[Carol Markowitz]

Yeah.

[Jacob Siegel]

So I wanted it. And it was difficult, but I graduated, I got my tab. So I thought about saying Ranger school and. But ultimately I, I decided that having my children is what I'm most proud of.

[Carol Markowitz]

Yeah.

[Jacob Siegel]

And raising them, but also having them and choosing to, choosing to be a father to commit my life to my family.

[Carol Markowitz]

Yeah.

[Jacob Siegel]

In that way. Which had the most, you know, we're talking about like technologies to shift people's opinion. But nothing in my life shifted my way of thinking more than having kids. It was a radically consciousness shifting experience. So I'm proudest of being a father and my children.

[Carol Markowitz]

That's a great answer. I love it. It could be a two part answer. Anything goes here on the Carol Markowitz Show. We're going to take a quick break and be right back on the Carol Markowitz Show.

[Oppenheimer Advertiser]

Coffee genius here. Most people see a busy cafe, but I see precision at every step thanks to genius. From Global payments transactions, Instant inventory, precise operations, NSync. Absolutely genius. From sold out crowds worldwide to managing the morning rush, genius keeps operations running smoothly.

[Carol Markowitz]

One Portado.

[Oppenheimer Advertiser]

Flawless pour, perfectly timed, just beautiful. Big league Reliability for any business. That's genius.

[iHeart Podcast Advertising]

Run a business and not thinking about podcasting. Think again. More Americans listen to podcasts than ads supported streaming music from Spotify and Pandora. And as the number one podcaster, iHeart's twice as large as the next two combined. So whatever your customers are into true crime, sports, comedy, culture, they'll hear your message. Plus, only iHeart can extend your message to audiences across broadcast radio. And all this reach means everything. Just think about the universal marketing formula. The number of consumers who hear your message times the response rate equals the results. Now let's get those results growing for you. Think podcasting can help your business? Think iHeart streaming radio and podcasting. Let us show you at iHeartadvertising.com that's iHeartadvertising.com or call 844-844 iHeart. One more time, call 844-844-IHeart and get podcasting working for you.

[Odoo Advertiser]

Running a business is hard enough, so why make it harder? With a dozen different apps that don't talk to each other. One for sales, another for inventory, a separate one for accounting. Before you know it, you are drowning in software. Instead of growing your business, this is where Odoo comes in. Odoo is the only business software you'll ever need. It's an all in one fully integrated platform that handles everything. CRM, accounting, inventory, e commerce, HR and more. No more app overload, no more juggling logins. Just one seamless system that makes work easier. And the best part, Odoo replaces multiple expensive platforms for a fraction of the cost. It's built to grow with your business, whether you are just starting out or already scaling up. Plus, it's easy to use, customizable and designed to streamline every process so you can focus on what really matters running your business. Thousands of businesses have made the switch, so why not you try Odoo for [e-mail] that's o d o o.com

[Carol Markowitz]

financial

[PayPal Open Advertiser]

growth begins long before the first investment. It comes from understanding what you're building toward, what's at stake, and what success looks like for you. At Oppenheimer, we bring bold thinking guided by the full strength of our expertise to put capital to work building and protecting wealth that lasts generations. Put the power of Oppenheimer thinking to work for you. Wealth management, capital markets, investment banking. Every business has an ambition. PayPal open is the platform designed to help you grow into yours. With access to business loans so you can expand and hundreds of millions of PayPal customers worldwide. Your customers can pay all the ways they want today with PayPal, Venmo pay later and all major cards so you can focus on the future when you need a partner trusted by millions. There's one platform for all business PayPal open grow today at paypalopen.com loans subject to approval in available locations.

[Carol Markowitz]

My other question that I ask all of my guests is a forward looking question and I know that you said your book is not optimistic, it's not pessimistic, maybe it's just the way things are. But give us a prediction about the next five years and it could be about anything at all. It could actually veer into art or music or anything you want.

[Jacob Siegel]

Oh, art of music, that could be anything.

[Carol Markowitz]

I, I, I don't want to, I don't want to lead you. You could five year prediction about, about anything.

[Jacob Siegel]

I think it all relates actually because one of the things that's happening and we're seeing this play out and the kind of mob mentality around the Epstein story is arrival, the real arrival of digital technology as a kind of cosmology unto itself. Any sufficiently powerful technology generates its own universe of consciousness, affect enough affective dimension of feeling, thought, experience. This is what the great media theorist Marshall McLuhan meant when he spoke about the Gutenberg galaxy. That the printing press, the Gutenberg printing press wasn't just a means of, you know, utilizing typeset to print books. It generated a new galaxy of political forms, emotional forms, literary forms, artistic forms. We're seeing that now with digital technology as well, which, you know, has been around for, I mean, digital technology itself has been around for effectively a century at this point, a little less than a century. But the effects of mass universalized digital technology as the essential medium through which we communicate. Do politics, do sports, do dating, do everything?

[Carol Markowitz]

Yeah.

[Jacob Siegel]

Digital technology as the medium of existence is resurrecting ways of life that are fundamentally at this stage more medieval in their orientation than what we might think of as modern. Certainly they're not Print age modern. Print age modernity was about reason and rationality and the exercise of sovereign individual rights. And that's not what the medieval world was structured around. Those are not the values that, you know. The medieval world was structured around hierarchical senses of order. It was structured around hierarchies of fealty and duty that are quite different from the more individualistic reason based world that we've been living in for the past 500 years and which is coming apart at nuclear speeds before our eyes. So my prediction is that the art will look a lot More medieval as you know, kind of the shorthand for it meaning occult based in, in mystery and revelation rather than based in rationality and reason. And that even technology and science will follow that same pattern. So technology and science AI is the perfect example. We already have black box AI technologies that are inscrutable to the people who designed them. Right. The people who program the AIs don't understand how they work. It's functionally indistinguishable from magic. And that in a word is medieval. That's what I mean.

[Carol Markowitz]

So interesting. I can tell you I have definitely never gotten that answer before. And some answers do repeat on the five year prediction question. Jacob, it has been so nice talking to you. I've been reading you for a long time. I'm been a big fan. Leave us here with your best tip from my listeners on how they can improve their lives.

[Jacob Siegel]

Try to be patient with your children. That's taken me some time to really learn to. I mean patience is what it really means is to give your presence to your children. Like we talk about being present. But I think what that really means is you can be present with yourself, but then you have to give that presence to your children. One other thing quickly, because I just learned this and it's amazing. There's a famous book of like Musa or Jewish ethics by Kabbalist rabbi the Ramchal. There's this book called Mesilad Yesharim and he says this amazing thing in it which is there's a lot of context but essentially he, he says that in order to be a good person, to really serve God, you have to devote, I think it's an hour a day, he says, to being watchful over yourself and your actions and evaluating how you acted. Because it's not enough to want to be good. You have to apply strategies to be good. But what he says that makes it so brilliant is it can't be any longer than an hour, right? In other words, if you sit around

[Carol Markowitz]

three hours laying awake at night, not, not, not the best for that.

[Jacob Siegel]

Not only is it not the best, but it's. You're not. It's not contributing to you being a better person, it's taking you in the other direction, right? So you have to control, you have to subordinate that self critical mood to the higher goal, right? Which is to service of God is the way the Rom Cavill puts it.

[Carol Markowitz]

I love it. Only one hour of self criticism per day, friends. No more than that. I love it. He is Jacob Siegel. Check him out at tablet and get his new book the Information Politics in the Age of Total Control. Thank you so much for coming on the show. Jacob.

[Jacob Siegel]

Thanks Carol. It's great to be here.

[Global Payments Genius Advertiser]

This plant shop a perfectly balanced ecosystem thanks to Genius from Global Payments. Tracked inventory, seamless payments and reviews in one place. Big league reliability for your business. That's genius.

[Carol Markowitz]

Ryan Reynolds here from Mint Mobile. I don't know if you knew this, but anyone can get the same Premium Wireless for $15 a month plan that I've been enjoying. It's not just for celebrities. So do like I did and have one of your assistant's assistants switch you to Mint Mobile today. I'm told it's super easy to [e-mail]

[PayPal Open Advertiser]

Switch upfront payment of $45 for three month plan equivalent to $15 per month

[Carol Markowitz]

required intro rate first three months only, then full price plan options available, taxes and fees, extra fee, full [e-mail] youm

[iHeart Radio Political Ad]

know who's listening to the radio? Voters. Lots of them. So if you're running for office, this right here great place to reach them. And it's not like social media where people are just swiping through ads. With radio they're engaged. Plus it's 1/10 the time and cost of video. Don't just campaign, connect with millions all over the country, even thousands in the smallest communities. With radio be on the air in just 48 hours. Visit winwithiheart.com that's winwithiheart.com Pro drivers live

[Oppenheimer Advertiser]

for race day, but for small business owners, every day is race day. That's why going pro with Lenovo Pro matters one on one advice, IT solutions and customized hardware powered by Intel Core Ultra processors. Keep your business on the right track. Business goes pro with Lenovo Pro Sign up for [e-mail] pro

[Carol Markowitz]

the novel if

[PayPal Open Advertiser]

you're looking for more flexibility in how you pay for everyday purchases, meet Klarna. Klarna lets you decide whether to pay now, pay later, or spread payments over time. All managed right in the Klarna app. Download the Klarna app today or visit klarna.com to learn more. Terms Apply California Resident Loans made or arranged pursuant to a California Finance law license NMLS number 1353190 Klarna balance account required to be eligible for cashback points. Limitations, terms and conditions apply.