How Trump’s 'golden age' rhetoric could redefine America



The golden hair. The golden penthouse. Yes, he turned down the golden toilet, but surely Donald Trump is to be believed when he offers Americans a new golden age.

Who’s on board? Not the Guardian — which recently rage-quit X — where one column warns, “Trump’s ‘golden age of America’ could be an unrestrained imperial presidency. Emboldened by a strong mandate,” the paper laments, “the Republican will bring his dark Maga vision to the US with little resistance.”

Pride still comes before a fall, and as even the wisest ancient pagans remind us, the pinnacle of civilization typically tips all too fast under the weight of decadent luxury into rack and ruin.

But the golden age pitch is also getting more serious and perhaps unexpected blowback — from certain corners of the anti-globalist right. Elon Musk’s choice to caption his post celebrating Trump’s election win with the phrase Novus Ordo Seclorum — one of the two Latin mottos on the Great Seal of the United States — has set off skeptics worried that the rise of an antichrist might be around the corner.

“This phrase resonates with the term 'Golden Age,' which has been referenced by Donald Trump and is echoed by various new age teachers and high-degree Freemasons, who at higher levels, are known to worship Lucifer,” one popular X account warns. “These expressions align with Biblical warnings of a great deception, where people are described as welcoming what is referred to as the beast system with open arms.”

It’s always alarmingly easy to see how the world’s most powerful people could give in to what must be the enormous temptation to sell their souls for control of the planet. So far, Musk’s biggest ambitions concern not Earth but Mars, population zero. And both he and Trump are assembling a governing team focused on avoiding world war and countering China’s bid for global domination. They’re also both friendly to Christians — a stark contrast to many leaders of the other political team.

Nevertheless, we’d do well to carefully discern how to avoid paving our way to hell with intentions as good as gold. Pride still comes before a fall, and as even the wisest ancient pagans remind us, the pinnacle of civilization typically tips all too fast under the weight of decadent luxury into rack and ruin.

They say there’s a tweet for everything — sorry, a post — and in this case, it’s true. In typical X dot com fashion, it’s a half-joke with a deeper meaning written by a pseud: “Golden age Hollywood actor's wikipedia biographies are like, ‘he worked as a train conductor, ranch hand, denim model, and itinerant drifter before being drafted to serve in WWII. When he came back he decided to become an actor and two weeks later was discovered by Fritz Lang.’”

Interesting, isn’t it? How radically different is that “golden age” culture from the one that scares critics of the gilded empire across the political spectrum? Doubtless, the Hollywood golden age itself was one all too festooned with excess and corruption. But the films themselves, which give the era its name, brought a refined yet accessible beauty and grace to the public — and they did it by welcoming ordinary people with real experience living in the rough-and-tumble world onto the screen.

The point isn’t that we ought to romanticize a bygone age or value the appearance of virtue over the reality of vice. It’s that when Americans circulate fruitfully with one another, that energy enlivens and elevates our institutions, setting fresh standards for our social, cultural, and economic life.

I often go back to Alexis de Tocqueville when measuring the pace and scope of change in America — sometimes what seems to be a new twist is something he saw coming long ago — and, in that spirit, here’s one of my favorite of his observations, as timely and instructive now as ever.

Men connect the greatness of their idea of unity with means, God with ends: hence this idea of greatness, as men conceive it, leads us into infinite littleness. To compel all men to follow the same course towards the same object is a human notion; — to introduce infinite variety of action, but so combined that all these acts lead by a multitude of different courses to the accomplishment of one great design, is a conception of the Deity. The human idea of unity is almost always barren; the divine idea pregnant with abundant results. Men think they manifest their greatness by simplifying the means they use; but it is the purpose of God which is simple — his means are infinitely varied.

Now, there’s a MAGA vision everyone should be able to get behind.

Announcing Frontier magazine



When I was asked to spin up Return a couple of years ago, I knew the media landscape had a huge hole where thoughtful, trustworthy coverage of the intersection of tech, culture, politics, and spirituality should be. Despite strong political and economic headwinds, friends, allies, fans, and readers quickly rallied to Return — not just in its online and print forms, but in person, especially in the cities where the brains, muscle, and soul of the new greatness movement were concentrated: Austin, Dallas, Miami, New York, L.A.

We knew we were on to something, propelled by the conviction that allies of tech could be more than simps, propagandists, or worshippers — more valuable, more honest, more fun, and more durable. And when Blaze Media agreed — so much so that the company acquired Return with the goal of dramatically expanding our coverage, our reach, and our pathbreaking and beautiful print quarterly — we knew that what we had achieved was just the beginning. Tech was changing fast — not just strengthening and accelerating, but moving intellectually and spiritually in our direction and away from the pink police state about which I had been warning all who would listen throughout the 2010s.

American in all its richness: sumptuous, rough and ready, resilient, and possessed of the strange and otherworldly glamor bestowed on our hard-fighting people by the great hand of Providence.

And pro-America America was changing too, driven by the fresh tastes and takes of rising digitally native generations — young men and women who knew in their hearts and in their bones that the slick, hollow mantras enforced by the overlords of HR-style modern liberalism couldn’t answer the ultimate, universal questions aroused in the human breast by the growing dominance of technology. For a while now, you’ve seen Return’s online presence deepen, expand, and grow more nimble and muscular here at Blaze Media. What you haven’t seen yet — until today — is the tireless and visionary work Matthew Peterson, Peter Gietl, Katherine Dee, Isaac Simpson, and many others have applied to the noble and thrilling task of transforming Return’s already-great print quarterly into something truly spectacular, brilliantly original, coffee-table gorgeous, and richly rewarding to read, touch, and simply behold. I am tremendously humbled and grateful to present to you, for the first time, Frontier magazine.

Ready for your preview and subscription, Frontier is the culmination of the mission and ethos of Return and Blaze Media working in synergy — bursting with sound confidence, hope, and dynamism toward the unfolding American future; intimately plugged in to the people, trends, products, and visions at the epicenter of that new future as well as its bleeding edge; and unfazed and undistracted by the hype, delusion, doomerism, and cultishness cluttering our fresh frontiers online and off. All while delivering a feast for the eyes and the heart — American in all its richness: sumptuous, rough and ready, resilient, and possessed of the strange and otherworldly glamor bestowed on our hard-fighting people by the great hand of Providence. Which is my way of saying, as Frontier’s editorial director but also as your friend and compadre, that you really, really, really want this big, beautiful beast in your home, in your hands, and in your life. Subscribe now! And thank us later. See you on the frontier. It’s a privilege to ride with you all.

How tech beat woke and elected Trump



As an orange sun rises over a deeply reddened nation, the woke left isn’t out, but it most certainly is down.

And while millions of Americans played a part, responsibility for the death of the woke regime rests in a small set of hands.

Neither conservatism, libertarianism, nor any other -ism killed the woke vibe.

Tech did.

As the woke regime intended to permanently transform America and the American people by spiritually commanding and controlling tech, this fact bears close examination.

If we’re going to move as fast as we need to to make America great again, that means looking, like all the other digital powers in the world must look, toward our deepest spiritual foundations. That’s still Christianity.

Looking for revenge, the left will be tempted to turn on tech instead of trying to take it back over. This is a deadly mistake: Neither our tools nor those who know how to make them are Americans’ enemy.

But some on the right will now be tempted to build a civil religion to the god of tech. This too is a fatal error. Our tools and tool-makers must not become worshiped idols.

Finding the harmonious middle way begins with a look at just how tech beat woke.

Consider one illuminating post-election post from venture capitalist Katherine Boyle. “Silicon Valley doesn’t trust experts,” she says, “because the game changes too fast to weight experience over other factors. In accelerating realignments, ‘the gold standard’ experts and OGs often don’t have an advantage.”

Grasp this, and the events of the past five years snap into focus.

Back when the most powerful technology was the TV, the organized left seized the commanding heights of the culture with an intellectual revolution.

It was easy to do. The academic old guard, which all but worshiped the technology of old books, couldn’t beat back the postmodern swarm that proclaimed the death of the world the printing press made. And the people, who had long since stopped kneeling at the altar of the book, were now, as David Bowie sang, “hooked to the silver screen,” seeing in televisual tech proof that other peoples’ fantasies were more true than their own reality.

Then digital seized the commanding heights of technology — disenchanting the cult of the book as well as the cult of the video.

That sea of change didn’t just put the established experts on the back foot. Instead of simply forcing them to play catch-up, it transformed the psychological and social environment that they thought they had mastered.

Suddenly, the value of intellectual expertise itself began to plummet. The awesome sweep and scope of digital returned humanity to the ultimate questions about who we are and why.

Questions that demanded a return to our deepest memories about the ultimate answers and from whence they came.

Even the heights of expert intellectual experience couldn’t speak to these matters with authority people could trust. Suddenly, people thirsted for expert spiritual experience — not the fun and fantastic simulation thereof that poured forth in gross excess from the likes of George Lucas, Steven Spielberg, and Walt Disney.

The civilizational game had changed.

Yet the ruling left wasn’t stupid. Already at the elite level, those on the left had had the chance to react first, and their gambit to shift the ground of the legitimacy of their power from intellectual to spiritual authority unfolded swiftly. Enter “wokeness,” which rebranded intellectual authorities as spiritual ones.

This grand switch-up responded to the thirst for spiritual authority unleashed by digital tech by enforcing a new vision where the smartest didn’t deserve to rule because of their mental merit but because of their purity of heart. The priestly caste of the woke church had a good four years to execute on this crash program.

But instead of soaring, on election night, it crashed. And while the nationwide groundswell of support for Trump obviously played a huge role, the decisive factor was the decision of a handful of technologists led by Elon Musk to bet everything they had against the woke regime. Without them, it’s all too easy to see how Trump and his supporters wouldn’t have been able to defeat the entrenched Borg using Kamala Harris as its latest skin suit.

That’s true going forward, too. The regime still has many lawfare options to derail Trump before the Inauguration, and the main obstacle to their success is Musk’s willingness to spend on flooding the zone with maximally aggressive legal defenses of the popular majority that swept Trump back to power.

That’s why so many on the right — especially given how many notional conservatives have proven so wimpy and ineffectual over the past four-plus years — will be so tempted to make tech their god-emperor in all but name (and perhaps in name, too!).

Yet that, as the neckbeards like to say, ain’t it, chief. An innovation-forward culture may feel like a huge acceleration today, but it’s actually a return to the moral norm of Americans being and feeling comfortable, competent, and confident taking charge of their tools and toolmaking. Long ago, Alexis de Tocqueville taught that the key to Americans ranging so freely and fruitfully across the frontier of human endeavor was the firm anchor of their hearts in humble devotion to God: the fixed, secure point that enabled us to survive and thrive in a world where all was in motion. That’s us today — except now more than ever, we need to restore that fixed point.

That requires spiritual authorities Americans both recognize and can trust — not false priests of an HR-hoe goddess or of some inscrutable cyber deity.

If we’re going to move as fast as we need to to make America great again, that means looking, like all the other digital powers in the world must look, toward our deepest spiritual foundations. That’s still Christianity — not for the sake of establishing an unconstitutional theocracy, but for ensuring our country keeps its head among our its achievements by doing the humble work of the heart.

Game on.

Can Jeff Bezos give conservatism a digital reboot at the Washington Post?



Amazon mogul Jeff Bezos rocked the established media world when he used the prerogatives of ownership to deny the Washington Post’s desire to publish an endorsement of Kamala Harris for president. However, his longer-term plans to make the paper’s opinion section less liberal are even more significant.

Given today’s identity crises on the political right, the only question is what Bezos’ plans will signify.

The irony of a top neoconservative fleeing a paper that wants more conservative voices might be delicious, but it’s not very nutritious. If neocons aren’t conservative any more — and judging by the Cheneys' endorsement of Harris, that’s a betrayal they’re proud to wear — then who is?

Consider the New York Timesreport that broke the news on the upheaval: “Mr. Bezos has told others involved with The Post that he is interested in expanding The Post’s audience among conservatives, according to a person familiar with the matter. He has appointed Mr. [Will] Lewis — a chief executive who previously worked at the Rupert Murdoch-owned Wall Street Journal — and has informed Mr. Lewis that he wants more conservative writers on the opinion section, the person said.”

More important than the identity of that unnamed person is the “conservative” identity he or she invokes. Superficially, Bezos might simply have meant by the label “anyone to the right of Taylor Lorenz.” But anyone in politics, especially the head of the nation’s emblematic Beltway newspaper, would have to work harder than that to figure out what counts as conservative these days.

For instance, the next line in the Times report lays bare the problem: “The Post’s decision drew immediate blowback inside the paper. At least one member of the opinions department, Robert Kagan, resigned.” Kagan is one of the country’s top self-described neoconservatives, a sect that arose from reactionary liberals “mugged by reality” in the 1980s to become, in the 2000s, the fiercely dominant faction in the conservative movement and the Bush-era GOP.

The irony of a top neoconservative fleeing a paper that wants more conservative voices might be delicious, but it’s not very nutritious. If neocons aren’t conservative any more — and judging by the Cheneys’ endorsement of Harris, that’s a betrayal they’re proud to wear — then who is?

The very label “conservative” has been struggling to make ends meet for years, losing mindshare to the ever-multiplying subcultures on the right that feel “conservatism” is too vague, too broad, too dated, and just too unsuccessful a brand to capture who they really are and want to be. Consider yourself trad? Based? Red-pilled? MAGA? Frog? Groyper? Race realist? Archeofuturist? The list goes on! Odds are you never felt so comfortable with the conservative moniker, whether or not you once identified as such.

It’s not even so crystal clear at this relatively late date just what it might mean to be a “Trumpist.” Not that there’s anything wrong with that! Politics are about coalitions, after all, and the failure of identity politics to deliver the coalitional goods underscores how identity is ultimately a question of in whose or what image you see yourself to be.

That’s right — religion. And whatever else can be said about religion in American politics, the legacy form of big-tent, evangelical-heavy Judeo-Christian Protestantism that ruled the Republican roost for several generations has, like “conservatism” itself, begun to denature and decay.

All things in this world pass away, so there’s that excuse, but another decisive factor has had an accelerating effect: digital technology, the special sauce that took Bezos from just another nerd at a desktop to a chrome-domed, well-muscled master of the socioeconomic universe. On close inspection, it’s tough to find a more potent solvent for old-school, pre-digital conservatism than the digital tech itself precisely because of how swiftly all things digital have worked against the principles- and values-heavy rhetoric and goals of the Moral Majority era.

The overwhelming power and authority of digital tech flipped the table on the past 500 years of religious and political life in the West — roiled by the leap from the printing press to the radio to the television yet remarkably consistent in its project of swapping in modern institutions justified by interest or appetite where once medieval institutions justified by faith had thrived.

Yes, the digital superpowers of computational recordation and recall suddenly seem to dwarf human knowledge and imagination, making billions start to go crazy at the thought that maybe their interests and appetites, no matter how strong, aren’t enough to hold their identities together.

That’s a huge threat to liberalism, but it’s a dagger at the heart of mere conservatism too — in a world where all that we thought made us who we are is meaningless relative to our own machines, what the heck is worth conserving again?

As the ideological sky falls, liberals have rushed to wokeness and conservatives have scattered into the subcultures of the right. Jeff Bezos is a bright, connected guy. Surely he’s been tracking these developments (along with every boost of TRT or HGH). If mere conservatism can’t conserve itself, does he really think the ambition and resources of a tech titan like himself can bring it back — against the grain of technology?

Or does he have something else in mind? Maybe he’s one of the many leading AI figures who seem to sincerely believe that tech is on the verge of “solving politics” altogether, wiping away the need for any and all ideologies forever. As plenty of those same figures now turn toward implicitly or explicitly worshipping AI itself, perhaps Bezos has realized that, while different kinds of politics and technology come and go, as Alexis de Tocqueville once said, “religion is the only permanent state of mankind.”

Jeff Bezos might be unable to bring on Tocqueville as the Post’s next big columnist. But suppose he knew what’s good for the paper, a media relic needing a radical renaissance. In that case, he’d look past the shifting partisan labels du jour in search of writers even more experienced with the humility of communion than the audacity of communication.

Hear more on the subject from the "Blaze News Tonight" team in the video below:

Pure vibes, no substance: Kamala Harris’ campaign and media makeover



Who is running the country? What happened to President Joe Biden? Does anyone know what Kamala Harris is running her campaign on? In the hazy milieu of the mainstream media, these questions are harder to answer than anyone would think possible.

On “Zero Hour,” James Poulos sat down with Jill Savage, host of "Blaze News Tonight," to discuss the state of the presidential race, the media’s influence on public perception, and Kamala Harris’ campaign of “vibes.”

Noting the strange transition of power within the Biden-Harris administration, James Poulos pointed out the media's influence on the public perception of Harris. Jill Savage said, “Nobody actually likes Kamala, but we’re just going to pretend people like her and give her a media makeover. If they can get away with it, they absolutely will.”

They also discussed Kamala’s apparent lack of policy positions: “They know that if they put policies out there, people will attack her,” Savage said.

James Poulos observed at least one instance of fabricated photos regarding Harris’ campaign rallies, questioning whether that was a one-time occurrence: “Where there’s smoke, there’s fire. They’re putting out press photos of these events that seem to be overflowing with human beings, but they’re actually humanoids that have been manufactured by AI,” Savage replied, “That’s what’s passing for news these days. If there weren’t independent news sources, this is what would be on the nightly news, and nobody would know any different.”

On the media’s portrayal of Kamala’s campaign, Savage added, “If pure vibes is Pravda, then we are pure vibing it all summer long.”

To hear more of what Jill Savage had to say on media manipulation, Harris’ platform of “vibes,” and more, watch the full episode of “Zero Hour” with James Poulos.

America was convinced tech would complete our mastery of the world. Instead, we got catastrophe — constant crises from politics and the economy down to the spiritual fiber of our being. Time’s up for the era we grew up in. How do we pick ourselves up and begin again? To find out, visionary author and media theorist James Poulos cracks open the minds — and hearts — of today’s top figures in politics, tech, ideas, and culture on "Zero Hour" on BlazeTV.

Bill Gates demands a new religion for humanity



It’s a mask-off moment. On the “Possible” podcast, co-hosted by LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman, Bill Gates insisted humanity would need a new religion or philosophy to cope with the reality of AI and the technological conquest of the world.

In his final comment on the episode — which Hoffman calls a “tour de force” — Gates reflects at length on the spiritual situation he believes unbridled tech is coercing us into.

Maybe we want to focus on ensuring people aren’t led into the darkness of worshipping their machines or automating their religion?

“The potential positive path is so good that it will force us to rethink how should we use our time,” he says. “You know, you can almost call it a new religion or a new philosophy of, okay, how do we stay connected with each other, not addicted to these things that’ll make video games look like nothing in terms of the attractiveness of spending time on them.”

On the surface, Gates seems to be advancing a claim plenty of people can agree with — the idea that the coming virtual world will be so tempting to disappear into that only a deep source of spiritual authority will be enough to remind us that we’re still best off sharing life together as the human beings we are.

But it’s not just the virtual world he’s talking about. “So it’s fascinating that we will, the issues of, you know, disease and enough food or climate, if things go well, those will largely become solved problems. And, you know, so the next generation does get to say, ‘Okay, given that some things that were massively in shortage are now not, how do, how do we take advantage of that?’”

Here’s where things get tricky. You might have wondered already why Gates, if he feels so sure that we need cosmic protection against becoming cyber zombies, doesn’t immediately reach for a religion that already exists and flourishes — especially Christianity, which still dominates American faith identification and significant segments of public life.

Well, his assumption is that tech will make obsolete at least some of the words of Christ, such as “you have the poor with you always,” as in always there for you to help and serve. Now one might say that if physical sickness and hunger are “solved problems,” many might still (or especially) suffer from mental and spiritual illness and thirst. But even that logic is not what Gates is interested in. He’s more concerned about sports.

Yes, sports. “You know, do we ban AI being used in certain endeavors so that humans get some — you know, you know, like you don’t want robots playing baseball, probably,” he stammers. "Because they’re, they’ll be too good. So we’ll, we’ll keep them off the field. Okay. How broadly would you go with that?”

Maybe so “broadly” that we’d want to focus on ensuring people aren’t led into the darkness of worshipping their machines or automating their religion? Perhaps that’s something we need to do already, not after the machines and their self-appointed masters — no matter how well intentioned — drag us to a place where our given humanity is almost unrecognizable.

“We are so used to this shortage world that, you know, I, I, I hope I get to see how we start to rethink the, these deep meaning questions,” Gates concludes. But for all his ostensible futurism, he blinds himself to the present — where some tech-savvy Christians are carrying on the work of years in making plain that the tools we need to ensure that we don’t wipe ourselves out with awesome wonders are already at hand … because they are the same yesterday, today, and forever.

Would you let these tech companies into your dreams?



It’s been around for a few years now, but these days, the technology is leaping into overdrive. Lucid dreams: the playground of occultists and “psychonauts” for millennia, they’re an occasional — not always enjoyable — experience for some of us and a market opportunity for a few plucky startups.

But can mere money explain why technological advancement is being pushed in this direction — into the strange and bizarre recesses of our consciousness?

More than a new market, more than a new economy, more even than a new way of life, the goal is a new creation in the sense of leaving behind what God himself wrought with the human being.

Spoiler alert, no. Consider the sales pitch offered by the tellingly named PropheticAI, which bills itself as “pursuing answers to the ultimate questions.” According to the company’s website, “Humanity has a rare opportunity to expand consciousness and reimagine the human experience. Prophetic is pioneering the way.”

Simply slip on a ring-shaped headset — revealingly called “the Halo” — and ...

induce lucid dreams through dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (dlPFC) activation during naturally occuring dreams by utilizing emerging technologies such as transcranial focused ultrasound (tFUS) and generative transformer architectures, along with established technologies like electroencephalogram (EEG) and functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS).

But wait, there’s more. Researchers at a separate firm called REMspace have announced that two test subjects could mentally communicate mid-dream through their proprietary tech. “Two individuals successfully induced lucid dreams and exchanged a simple message with specially designed equipment, claimed the company,” according to a report. “The research demonstrated that lucid dreams could unlock new dimensions of communication and humanity’s potential, according to REMspace.”

Add two and two, and what do you get? A whole new market around shared lucid dreams — basically the dream of psychedelic-worshippers like Timothy Leary, who himself believed computers held out the prospect of collective hallucination and its, ahem, spiritual benefits.

This brings us to the real point of this particular line of research and development. More than a new market, more than a new economy, more even than a new way of life, the goal is a new creation in the sense of leaving behind what God himself wrought with the human being.

Engineering collective hallucination — the better to eventually create a kind of Minecraft of the mind — isn’t simply an add-on or augmentation of our given human complement. It flouts the received wisdom of millennia concerning not merely the danger of dreams but their ultimate irrelevance — due to the truth about how we can really achieve collective consciousness in a way as sacred as our given human being.

Holy men from St. Ignatius on down testify that, as delusion is both a possibility according to our freedom and a temptation according to the Fall, attempting to interpret, decode, or take the counsel of our dreams is to gravely risk spiritual confusion, degradation, and even destruction.

In his humility, the watchful Christian even declines to entertain what seem to be blatantly “good dreams” — even or especially prophetic ones. Spiritual history offers sad examples of faithful who, striving for purification and enlightenment, were misled by demons into thinking with grandiose pride that God had singled them out for special treatment and a glorious destiny. Instead, as mania and madness set in, they swiftly lost what grace they thought they had and found themselves servants of evil.

The Christian testimony, including St. Hesychius, John of Damascus, and Nicodemus, shows that sad stories like this are actually illustrative of the onset of sin in general. Without proper training and devotion, we typically fail to notice that a spiritually sickening thought has entered our mind until it has not only entered but set up shop and ascended to the “throne” of our heart — where it is not dislodged without tremendous effort, suffering, humility, and repentance.

Bottom line, it’s a really bad idea to try achieving a healthy and fruitful collective consciousness by technologically invading the deceptive and dangerous realm of dreams, a place where evil spirits can obviously have a field day. That means an even worse idea is to get rich off of people by convincing them that it’s actually a great idea, perhaps the only way they can find spiritual peace or deliverance.

In fact, it’s a distinct spiritual crime, the sin of simony — named after Simon Magus, the sorcerer who, as recounted in the Acts of the Apostles, offered to buy access to the Holy Spirit off of Peter and John. Notably, Simon wasn’t doing this (or so he claimed) for selfish reasons but to lay hands on others as the Apostles did so that they might receive the Holy Spirit. Even this motive wasn’t enough to make it right, of course. But Peter told him that he might well be forgiven if he repented and prayed for forgiveness.

All of this spiritual history is incomplete, however. The kicker to the story is really its heart. We know that sorcery, occultism, and simony are bad ways to strive toward healthy and fruitful collective consciousness because there is a good, pure way — laid out by Christ and his Apostles and the saints who sacrificed all they could of worldly things to pursue it with all their heart.

Ah, but this is so hard! It demands so much patience, so much humility, and suffering! Who has the time? Who has the energy?

Intriguingly, it is often today’s best technologists who most understand that successful engineering demands intensely rigorous patience, humility, and suffering to achieve feats at the highest degree of difficulty. If only they took one more step in an uncomfortable direction, they might realize that what is true of discipline, asceticism, and athleticism in material things is all the more valuable and precious when applied to the spiritual realm. And just as an engineer does not make stuff up on the fly to advance, so does the successful spiritual journey demand faithful reliance on the hard-earned wisdom born of the experience of its past adepts.

Imagine how different our technological research and development trajectory could be if more engineers took that approach!

And ask yourself why so few seem willing. Because forcibly escaping the bounds of our God-given humanity is not the only motive behind the tech that promises shared lucid dreaming. There is another, more practical, perhaps even more lucrative one: war.

Fighting the darkness: M.I.A. on music, spirit, and breaking free from industry chains



The music industry has gotten really dark. Between depictions of Satan and flirtations with pornography, there doesn’t seem to be much room for good music any more. However, some artists disagree and are pioneering a path away from the evils of the mainstream music industry.

On “Zero Hour,” M.I.A., record producer, rapper, and singer, sat down with James Poulos to discuss her pushback against the mainstream music industry, how music affects the spirit, and the future of music.

M.I.A. described the limitations that are placed on artists who go through the traditional route of music production: “When you’re a musician, it’s the fact that you have to put it through the channels of an industry that it gets corrupted, and it gets put into a box.” She went on to say that “even the producers think the avant-garde is the exact same as the mainstream,” referring to up-and-coming artists who look and act exactly like the most popular people in the industry.

They also discussed the effect of music on people’s spirit, whether we know it or not. She said, “Music directly accesses your spirit, and it does it without permission. ... There’s a level of responsibility and knowledge that you have to have, and we don’t have it [in the mainstream music industry].”

While the present state of music is abysmal, M.I.A. has hope for the future: “Music has been hijacked because it became a business. But some people still know the value of music, and good music still exists.” Every path that leads away from the mainstream is an improvement, and M.I.A. hopes to inspire others to break away, too.

To hear more of what M.I.A. had to say about mainstream music, alternative paths for artists in the future, and more, watch the full episode of “Zero Hour” with James Poulos.

The fast track to collapse: How AI and wokeness are speeding up Hollywood’s downfall



Hollywood has been crumbling for years, but people are noticing that this collapse seems to be speeding up. What is causing this collapse, and why is it accelerating? Could it be wokeness, the proliferation of AI, a combination of the two, or something else?

On “Zero Hour,” Matthew Marsden — actor, singer, and producer — sat down with James Poulos to discuss the state of Hollywood, its imminent collapse, and the emerging role of artificial intelligence in the industry.

Early in the episode, Marsden described the increasing presence of AI in movie production, especially for actors. In some places, like India, AI can render an actor’s image for the screen, making the actor's work largely obsolete. This may not be a viable option for American actors: “These actors are OK with it as long as they get paid. I’m sure Hollywood wouldn’t want to pay. They would want to use the images and keep using them.”

They moved on to the crumbling state of Hollywood and the public perception of it: “It’s really difficult for the general public to really give a damn about what’s going on in Hollywood. ... They’ve treated their fans with contempt.” Marsden mainly refers to Disney and the multiple franchises it owns, such as Lucasfilm and Marvel.

They also discussed AI’s generative script-writing capabilities. The emergence of AI threatens actors’ jobs and the creative process as a whole: “You’d hope that you can’t take the human element out of Hollywood, but eventually, it will happen.”

To hear more about what Matthew Marsden had to say about Hollywood, AI, wokeness, and more, watch the full episode of “Zero Hour” with James Poulos.

America was convinced tech would complete our mastery of the world. Instead, we got catastrophe — constant crises from politics and the economy down to the spiritual fiber of our being. Time’s up for the era we grew up in. How do we pick ourselves up and begin again? To find out, visionary author and media theorist James Poulos cracks open the minds — and hearts — of today’s top figures in politics, tech, ideas, and culture on "Zero Hour" on BlazeTV.

Fighting media corruption: Movie star Matthew Marsden explores cancel culture's impact



The media landscape has changed dramatically with the emergence of the 24-hour news cycle and the internet. Several problems have arisen like never before, including an over-saturation of information and decreased audience attention spans. What’s more, the media has grown increasingly biased and hostile to dissident views, working to shape the way people think and act. What can be done to break out of this constant immersion in this environment?

On “Zero Hour,” Matthew Marsden — actor, singer, and producer — sat down with James Poulos to discuss the media landscape and cancel culture.

Marsden and Poulos discussed the COVID-19 vaccines and their coverage by the media. Despite evidence to the contrary, the media didn’t change its stance on pushing for the vaccine. It also tried to discredit and silence opposition, which reveals a difference between the media and conservatives: “What’s fatal to us conservatives is not knowing the truth. ... They don’t [care]. ... For them, it’s fatal to be wrong.” COVID was just one example of this trend: “They will come after you and try to destroy you if you don’t say the right thing.”

They also talked about the media’s politicization: “The problem with not having a fair media, an objective media, is now, everything’s muddled. ... It’s become so politicized that we just don’t know any more, and that’s a real loss.”

Concerning cancel culture, Marsden urges everyone to slow down and use caution in making judgments against people in the news: “Wait a minute, we have to take all of this into consideration. ... You would hate to be the victim of something and have it be dismissed; conversely, you’d hate to be the guy that was falsely accused.”

To hear more about what Marsden had to say about the media, politics, and cancel culture, watch the full episode of “Zero Hour” with James Poulos.

America was convinced tech would complete our mastery of the world. Instead, we got catastrophe — constant crises from politics and the economy down to the spiritual fiber of our being. Time’s up for the era we grew up in. How do we pick ourselves up and begin again? To find out, visionary author and media theorist James Poulos cracks open the minds — and hearts — of today’s top figures in politics, tech, ideas, and culture on "Zero Hour" on BlazeTV.