Retired USAF Pilot, retired DOD ISO (InfoSEC Officer). Currently, System Administrator from WinNT4 to Server 2016. Historian, Central European & Slavic. Amateur Astronomer.
I managed about an hour of the discussion... Very painful -- like Communist Re-Education Camp painful. From what I saw, EY was much more patient with the interviewer than I would have been... Maybe I'm old school, but generally, the interviewer tries to maximize the guest's time & engagement. His rambling & near incoherent excursions... Ouch!!
I hoped his first question to EY would be, "Why are you so convinced that an AGI will Kill Us All?" Yes, the response would be 'old hat' on this forum, but probably not for this podcast's audience...
The Event of a Millennium, and no one noticed...
Why Now? Yes, the Pentagon is still denying, but that's the default mode... How about:
- FINANCIAL -- Keane & others mentioned (but I haven't verified) that keeping this UFO stuff secret now takes more $ than the research of the artifacts - I wouldn't doubt it;
- CONTRACTUAL -- companies like Battelle (near Wright-Patterson) have been involved since Roswell; and, IIRC, Lockheed proposed "opening up" the research to a wider pool of scientists (reverse the stove-piping), but DOD rejected it for security reasons. Sounds like Schellenberger got some of his best intel from contractors -- maybe some self-serving leaks / leakers;
- THE INTERNET -- makes keeping secrets much much harder now than 75 years ago.
* Is this a "soft-landing" or battle-space preparation? Maybe. I read & re-read Clarke's "Childhood's End" many times, so who knows? But, to be 100% selfish, I hope we find out before I depart this mortal coil...