Silicon Valley’s overlords have completely lost their minds. Gil Durán, Kamala Harris’ former communications director and now a journalist, says Elon Musk, Peter Thiel and the rest of the tech oligarchs have a severe case of “billonaire psychosis” – where unchecked wealth and influence detach them from reality. Now democracy itself is getting in the way of their own bizarre, apocalyptic visions. Are we stuck with their vision of the future? Is pushing back against them futile? Will a vote for the Democrats make this all go away? And is money really the root of all evil? Gil joins Emma Kennedy to discuss his new book The Nerd Reich: Silicon Valley Fascism and The War on Democracy, and how we got here.  • Buy Gil’s book The Nerd Reich from our affiliate bookshop and you’ll help fund the podcast by earning us a small commission for every sale. Bookshop.org’s fees help support independent bookshops too.• Back us on Patreon – www.patreon.com/bunkercastWritten and presented by Emma Kennedy. Producer: James Liddell. Audio production: Robin Leeburn. Managing Editor: Jacob Jarvis. Group Editor: Andrew Harrison. Music by Kenny Dickinson. THE BUNKER is a Podmasters Production.www.podmasters.co.uk Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Setting out the stories of the week ahead… The shocking death of Jason Arday reignites questions about the press’s relentless pursuit of the story, Cambridge University and Simon & Schuster’s failure to properly look into the academic’s life story, and the general public’s prurient curiosity. Was it a legitimate story investigation, a persecution or even more complex? Plus: as the heatwave breaks, what have we learned? Trump treats the Navy as a floating septic tank. And the Premier League is back, thank God. Ros Taylor and Andrew Harrison look at the stories that will shape the next seven days.  Support us on Patreon - www.patreon.com/bunkercast  Written and presented by Andrew Harrison. Audio production by Jade Bailey. Music by Kenny Dickinson. Artwork by James Parrett. Managing Editor: Jacob Jarvis. Group Editor: Andrew Harrison. THE BUNKER is a Podmasters Production. www.podmasters.co.uk   Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Looking back on the big stories of the past week… Will all of Nigel Farage’s problems come back to haunt him now his Clacton distraction is over? Andy Burnham tries to solve the unsolveable problem of early prisoner release. Is Reform’s own prisons “fix” as unhinged as it sounds? And what the hell was going on with Donald Trump’s secret plane switch via catering truck?  Plus… Britons are dazzled by the solar eclipse, A-level results day breaks more records and Harry Potter fans save Dobby the House Elf’s “grave”. Andrew Harrison and Rafael Behr discuss the biggest, strangest and most under-reported stories of the week.  • Picture: Trump leaves Air Force One at RAF Mildenhall on July 8 after the NATO Summit in Turkey, after an extraordinary palaver involving a catering trolley and a suspected Iranian assassin. (Photo by Win McNamee/Getty Images)  • Back us on Patreon – www.patreon.com/bunkercast Written and presented by Group Editor Andrew Harrison. Producer: James Liddell. Audio production: Jade Bailey. Managing Editor: Jacob Jarvis. Music by Kenny Dickinson. THE BUNKER is a Podmasters Production. www.podmasters.co.uk  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

First an OpenAI artificial intelligence model hacked a tech start-up called Hugging Face. Then one of Anthropic’s creations escaped its testing environment and carried out cyberattacks on its own. Now Facebook owner Meta has reported a similar breach by its own AI. What is going on?! Members of Congress and even AI workers are calling for an urgent slowdown, with Senator Bernie Sanders warning of “potentially cataclysmic results” if we can’t get a handle on the technology. Could escaped AI hack self-driving vehicles, erode the financial system, wreck utilities and worse? Are we genuinely on the cusp of an AI apocalypse or is this all just mass hysteria? Author and New Yorker contributor Stephen Witt joins Zing Tsjeng to separate what’s real from the science fiction.   • Buy Stephen’s latest book The Thinking Machine: Jensen Huang, Nvidia and the World's Most Coveted Microchip from our affiliate bookshop and you’ll help fund the podcast by earning us a small commission for every sale. Bookshop.org’s fees help support independent bookshops too. • Back us on Patreon – www.patreon.com/bunkercast Written and presented by Zing Tsjeng. Producer: James Liddell. Audio production: Jade Bailey. Managing Editor: Jacob Jarvis. Group Editor: Andrew Harrison. Music by Kenny Dickinson. THE BUNKER is a Podmasters Production. www.podmasters.co.uk  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

America’s hunt for al-Qaeda defined the 2000s in an epochal War on Terror that consumed $8 trillion. But the story didn’t end when Osama bin Laden and his successor Ayman al-Zawahiri were killed. The reconstituted terrorist organisation branched out into affiliate organisations, especially in Africa, and it now acts more like a criminal cartel. Has al-Qaeda evolved to become more resilient? And when terrorist groups go quiet, are they plotting under the radar or simply too weak to act? Graeme Wood, staff writer at The Atlantic and political science lecturer at Yale University, joins Alex von Tunzelmann to examine the threat it poses today.    • Read Graeme’s article in The Atlantic• Back us on Patreon – www.patreon.com/bunkercast Written and presented by Alex von Tunzelmann. Producer: James Liddell. Audio production: Jade Bailey. Managing Editor: Jacob Jarvis. Group Editor: Andrew Harrison. Music by Kenny Dickinson. THE BUNKER is a Podmasters Production. www.podmasters.co.uk  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

How do languages die? Who’s behind the death of languages from Ghana’s Dagbani to regional Italian dialects? And does it matter if they decay? Almost half of our 7,000 languages are expected to go extinct by the next century and “linguicide”, the death of a language, is to blame. It can be intentional, such as the Turkish government’s repression of Kurds or less intentional, due to simple neglect. So can anything be done to save languages from dying? Journalist, author and broadcaster Sophia Smith Galer joins Emma Kennedy to discuss the impending linguistic extinction.   • Buy Sophia’s book How To Kill a Language: Power, Resistance and the Race to Save Our Words from our affiliate bookshop and you’ll help fund the podcast by earning us a small commission for every sale. Bookshop.org’s fees help support independent bookshops too. • Back us on Patreon – www.patreon.com/bunkercast Written and presented by Emma Kennedy. Producer: James Liddell. Audio production: Jade Bailey. Managing Editor: Jacob Jarvis. Group Editor: Andrew Harrison. Music by Kenny Dickinson. THE BUNKER is a Podmasters Production. www.podmasters.co.uk Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

It’s Farage vs. Binface at this week’s Clacton by-election, what has this campaign taught us? Plus, Burnham is on tour and Trump finds himself in a new conundrum. Gavin Elser joins Jacob Jarvis to discuss the news to look out for this week.      • Find out if you’re owed on car finance at refundclub.co.uk/bunker • Refund Club is a trading style of Sandsford Law Limited, authorised and regulated by the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA no. 8008114). Checking is free. A fee is payable only if your claim is successful. Eligibility: car finance taken out in the UK between 2007 and 2021. The average claim is around £829 per agreement; this is an average and not a guarantee of the amount you will receive. You can also claim yourself for free by contacting your lender or the Financial Ombudsman Service. refundclub.co.uk/bunker  Support us on Patreon: www.patreon.com/bunkercast         Written and presented by Jacob Jarvis with Gavin Esler. Audio production: Jade Bailey. Managing Editor: Jacob Jarvis. Group Editor: Andrew Harrison. Music by Kenny Dickinson. THE BUNKER is a Podmasters Production. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Looking back on the big stories of the past week… Kemi Badenoch faces fury after defending a former neo-Nazi’s decision to stand as a Tory councillor. What was she thinking? Burnham amends his early prisoner release plan. Is he really a “soft-touch” on crime? Plus: Farage and Lowe’s enemies-to-lovers character arc deepens, Cambridge professor Jason Arday steps down over plagiarism concerns and a SpaceX rocket crashes into the moon… Andrew Harrison and Jonn Elledge discuss the biggest, strangest and most under-reported stories of the week.  • Read Rachel Cunliffe on the Joshua Bonehill-Paine affair.  • Read Jason Okundaye’s excellent piece on the Jason Arday takedown.   • Find out if you’re owed on car finance at refundclub.co.uk/bunker • Refund Club is a trading style of Sandsford Law Limited, authorised and regulated by the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA no. 8008114). Checking is free. A fee is payable only if your claim is successful. Eligibility: car finance taken out in the UK between 2007 and 2021. The average claim is around £829 per agreement; this is an average and not a guarantee of the amount you will receive. You can also claim yourself for free by contacting your lender or the Financial Ombudsman Service. refundclub.co.uk/bunker    • Back us on Patreon – www.patreon.com/bunkercast Written and presented by Group Editor Andrew Harrison. Producer: James Liddell. Audio production: Jade Bailey. Managing Editor: Jacob Jarvis. Music by Kenny Dickinson. THE BUNKER is a Podmasters Production. www.podmasters.co.uk Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Sick of watching Shiv Roy or Tanya McQuoid strut around luxury properties? You’re not alone. For years, depictions of extreme wealth have dominated the airwaves with shows like Succession and The White Lotus having a huge cultural impact. But lately watching rich people has started to feel a bit… mundane. Enter Beef, The Bear, DTF St Louis and Margo’s Got Money Troubles and, with it, TV’s sudden interest in seeing ordinary people just getting by. But why? And why has it taken so long? The New Yorker’s television critic Inkoo Kang joins Dorian Lynskey to unpack the age of Broke TV.  • Read Inkoo’s New Yorker article here.• Back us on Patreon – www.patreon.com/bunkercastWritten and presented by Dorian Lynskey. Producer: James Liddell. Audio production: Tom Taylor. Managing Editor: Jacob Jarvis. Group Editor: Andrew Harrison. Music by Kenny Dickinson. THE BUNKER is a Podmasters Production.www.podmasters.co.uk Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Europe is secretly at war – and it has been for a long time. Across the continent, 34 disputed territories remain with places where the conflicts of empire still linger and rival nations continue to claim the same land. Some of these borderlands have become strategic prizes for leaders like Putin and Erdoğan, revealing how wars can drag on in perpetuity and how states can exist without recognition. But how much do these unresolved conflicts shape European politics today? Veteran foreign correspondent Hannah Lucinda Smith joins Jonn Elledge to reveal why these forgotten frontiers may be far more important than most of us realise.     • Buy Hannah’s book Hinterlands: Journeys Through Europe’s Unfinished Frontiers from our affiliate bookshop and you’ll help fund the podcast by earning us a small commission for every sale. Bookshop.org’s fees help support independent bookshops too. • Buy Jonn’s book A History of the World in 47 Borders and pre-order his upcoming 35 Inventions that Built Our World• Back us on PatreonWritten and presented by Jonn Elledge. Producer: James Liddell. Audio production: Jade Bailey. Managing Editor: Jacob Jarvis. Group Editor: Andrew Harrison. Music: Kenny Dickinson. THE BUNKER is a Podmasters Production. www.podmasters.co.uk Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.