Name: God Mode: The Technological Battle for Global Domination | Bruno Maçães
Uploaded: 2025-09-29T21:26:00+00:00
Duration: 1 h 59 s
Description: In Episode 433 of Hidden Forces, Demetri Kofinas speaks with Bruno Maçães, a geopolitical strategist and the former Minister of European Affairs for Portugal, whose latest book titled "World Builders"

11 days ago

Podcasts

In Episode 433 of Hidden Forces, Demetri Kofinas speaks with Bruno Maçães, a geopolitical strategist and the former Minister of European Affairs for Portugal, whose latest book titled "World Builders" explores the intersection of technology and geopolitics.

In the first hour, Bruno puts forward a radical new theory of geopolitics and technology that no longer views the world as a neutral battlefield between great powers to control territory and resources, but rather as a contest in world building that will afford the most powerful states back-doors into all aspects of our lives that they can use to alter the state of the world at any time or place of their choosing.

In the second hour, Kofinas and Maçães explore why the United States has ceased building the global order it once championed, paving the way for China to construct a new world according to its own technological standards and ideological blueprints. We discuss what this means for the nature of the international order, individual freedom, the form that governance is likely to take in an increasingly virtualized world, and what is in store for all of us if things remain on their current trajectory and the United States recedes from its world building project, or perhaps, even worse, decides to destroy it entirely.

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00:00 Introduction
03:20 The Concept of World Building
03:41 Bruno's Writing Journey
05:22 Bruno's Political Career
07:18 Discussion on World Builders
15:07 The Shift from American to Chinese Hegemony
26:50 China's Methodical World Building
30:05 Technological Standards and Virtual Landscapes
31:27 The Power of AI and Virtual Worlds
32:09 AI's Influence on Geopolitics
35:08 AI Hallucinations and Simulations
36:20 Geopolitical Implications of AI
37:22 The Rise of China and US Response
39:27 American Fear and Anxiety
41:05 Trump's Economic War with China
47:23 Walter Risten's Predictions
48:34 The Disappearance of State Power
50:21 Competing Visions: US vs China
55:13 Executive Power and Authoritarianism
58:51:04 Topics for the Second Hour