006: The Rumour That Cost Thirty-Five Billion Dollars and Created A Data Center Radar

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Futur-ish

8 episodes

6 days ago

This is futur-ish, a podcast about how nothing is new and everything has happened before. With careers spent meandering (sometimes fortuitously) through design and futures, Radha Mistry and Tobias Revell emerge from the smoking wreckage of existential dread to decode the strange signals, hype and bluster of the everyday future to try, try and try again to make it make sense.

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006: The Rumour That Cost Thirty-Five Billion Dollars and Created A Data Center Radar

Futur-ish

29 minutes 11 seconds

3 weeks ago

006: The Rumour That Cost Thirty-Five Billion Dollars and Created A Data Center Radar

Truly, nothing is new and everything has happened before and so we find ourselves, amidst a collapsing geopolitical order with some very fancy gadgets (an expensive plane and some chips) going wanting and going missing. What connects them? A rumour that, coincidentally, started about the same time that JD Vance turned up in Munich to shake the NATO tree.

To some it might be conspiracy, but never mistake for malice what is better attributed to complacency. Instead what we have here is a great example of one of the most interesting phenomena in futures and the fact that truly, nothing is new, and everything has happened before.

Links:

The End of History and the Last Man, Francis Fukuyama: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_End_of_History_and_the_Last_Man
Spain, Switzerland Cancel F35 Jet Order Over Trump’s Europe Policy, Defense Mirror: https://www.defensemirror.com/news/40014
Three reasons Canada and Portugal may cancel order for US-made fighter jets. The Independent: https://www.independent.co.uk/bulletin/news/europe-canada-portugal-f35-fighter-jets-trump-eurofighter-b2718770.html
India rules out F-35s as defense ties with US face new turbulence. AeroTime: https://www.aerotime.aero/articles/india-rules-out-f-35s-as-defense-ties-with-us-face-new-turbulence
The F-35 ‘Kill Switch’: Separating Myth from Reality, The Aviationist: https://theaviationist.com/2025/03/10/f-35-kill-switch-myth/
DIY Tractor Repair Runs Afoul Of Copyright Law, NPR: https://www.npr.org/sections/alltechconsidered/2015/08/17/432601480/diy-tractor-repair-runs-afoul-of-copyright-law
US farmers win right to repair John Deere equipment, BBC News: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-64206913
Inside the Biden Administration's Gamble to Freeze China’s AI Future, WIRED: https://www.wired.com/story/chips-china-artificial-intelligence-controls
Cotton Introduces Bill to Prevent Diversion of Advanced Chips to America’s Adversaries and Protect U.S. Product Integrity, Tom Cotton: https://www.cotton.senate.gov/news/press-releases/cotton-introduces-bill-to-prevent-diversion-of-advanced-chips-to-americas-adversaries-and-protect-us-product-integrity
Can “Location Verification” Stop AI Chip Smuggling?, AI Frontiers: https://ai-frontiers.org/articles/location-verification-ai-chips
Killing machines: how Russia and Ukraine’s race to perfect deadly pilotless drones could harm us all, The Guardian: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/jun/25/ukraine-russia-autonomous-drones-ai
U.S. Army Tests Robotic Vehicle near Russia, Defense Blog: https://defence-blog.com/u-s-army-tests-robotic-vehicle-near-russia/
1966: Children Imagine Life in the Year 2000, BBC: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xS8xX3usi4c
Ghosts of My Life, Mark Fisher: https://burleyfisherbooks.com/products/9781780992266