We're joined by David E. Spiro, political scientist and author of The Hidden Hand of American Hegemony: Petrodollar Recycling and International Markets.

The book, published by Cornell University Press, challenged the standard story that petrodollar recycling in the 1970s was simply a market-driven process and instead showed the deeper political role of American power in shaping where oil surpluses went.

David’s central argument is that the dollar system has always been about more than economics. It is about trust, coercion, liquidity, state power, and the ability of the United States to shape global outcomes through the plumbing of finance. In the 1970s, oil exporters accumulated massive dollar surpluses after OPEC price shocks. Much of that capital flowed into U.S. government obligations and the Western banking system, helping finance trade deficits and reshape global debt markets. But today, the same system that once amplified American power may be starting to reveal its fragility.

We dive into:

• What petrodollar recycling actually means — and why the common story is incomplete

• How the 1970s oil shocks reshaped global finance

• Why oil being priced in dollars matters so much for American power

• Whether dedollarisation is real or exaggerated

• How SWIFT, sanctions, and dollar clearing became tools of geopolitical pressure

• Why gold is returning as a reserve asset

• Why Bitcoin and stablecoins may not challenge the dollar as much as people think

• How U.S. tariff policy and political instability are weakening trust in the dollar system

• Whether the American-led rules-based order is now breaking down

• Why China may be the biggest beneficiary of American self-sabotage

• The real limits of bringing manufacturing back to America

• Why rare earths, chips, and supply chains are more complicated than the headlines suggest

• Why the future may belong to societies that protect education, institutions, trust, and human thinking

We’re joined by Tomicah Tillemann, former U.S. State Department official and President of Project Liberty, for a conversation on the entrenched problems of the Internet and how to rebuild it from the ground up with digital rights, sovereignty, and decentralization at its core.

Tomicah has spent decades working on governance, blockchain innovation, and digital infrastructure. As a key architect behind the Decentralized Social Networking Protocol (DSNP) and the Frequency blockchain, his mission is to restore agency, trust, and dignity to the digital public square.

We dive into:

-Why today's internet operates like a digital feudal system and how to break free

-The rise of the attention economy vs. the potential of an "intention economy"

-How Project Liberty's Frequency infrastructure is helping millions regain control of their data

-The People's Bid to acquire TikTok and what it means for platform ownership

-Why AI agents must serve individuals not corporations

-Lessons from blockchain land registries, data scraping lawsuits, and digital identity

Key Takeaways from the Episode:

1. The Internet Is Broken by Design: Big platforms dominate because they've captured our data and social graphs. Tomicah argues this has led to a neo-feudal internet where users generate value but own nothing.

2. The Path to Digital Sovereignty Starts with Shared Infrastructure: Through DSNP and Frequency, Project Liberty is building a protocol layer where users control their identities and data, independent of any platform.

3. Attention Economy vs. Intention Economy: We’re fed content designed to addict us. What if platforms instead let us define what we want and curate our own algorithms?

4. Why Project Liberty Could Transform TikTok: If successful in acquiring TikTok, Tomicah’s team would migrate 170M users onto Frequency, allowing data portability, shared economic upside, and participatory governance.

5. AI Agents Should Work for Us, Not Big Tech: Like Kurt Flood challenging MLB’s reserve clause, Tomicah believes users deserve AI agents that act as fiduciaries, not surveillance tools.

6. Open Models Must Be Paired with Compensation: Even when AI scrapes public data, individuals should benefit economically. New systems can recognize digital labor and creativity.

7. Blockchain Still Holds Real-World Potential: From land registries to stablecoins, decentralized tech offers breakthrough solutions, especially in emerging markets where institutions are weak.

8. Decentralized Identity Is Key to Truth: In an AI-saturated world, verifying authenticity is critical. Frequency lets posts be cryptographically validated without storing full data on-chain.

Timestamps:

(01:53) – What’s wrong with the internet? A history of digital feudalism

(04:11) – Network effects and the value users create but never capture

(07:03) – Shared social graphs vs. platform monopolies

(09:00) – Why platforms manipulate us: inside the attention economy

(10:32) – Designing an intention-based digital experience

(15:13) – What Frequency is and why millions are using it

(18:35) – How Frequency enables social graph portability for developers

(19:20) – Comparing DSNP to other decentralized networks (e.g. BlueSky)

(22:19) – The good and bad of LLMs—and how to steer them responsibly

(27:51) – Should OpenAI pay us for using our data? A digital labor argument

(29:34) – Why we need AI agents that act as fiduciaries (31:43) – What a decentralized TikTok would look like (31:55) – Governance, monetization, and the shift to user ownership (35:19) – Blockchain for land titles: a Global South use case (37:55) – Why stablecoins are money for the internet (39:01) – Identity and authenticity: how Frequency verifies truth online (41:38) – Rating U.S. crypto policy: regulation, innovation, and FTX fallout

A brief prologue to explain the baseline thesis behind the series of episodes that are to follow.