The Information State: Politics in the Age of Total Control with Jacob Siegel

Jacob Siegel is author of The Information State: Politics in the Age of Total Control. We discuss his thesis that the U.S. has shifted into a new form of governance where digital protocols and data infrastructures have displaced traditional legal and institutional sovereignty. Drawing on his experience as a U.S. Army intelligence officer who used Palantir in Afghanistan, Siegel describes what he calls the "paradox of information": these systems appear omnipotent but routinely fail to deliver their intended political outcomes, as illustrated by Vietnam, Russiagate, and the Biden-era censorship apparatus. The conversation covers Palantir's seductive but misleading graphical interfaces, why progressive/positivist epistemology is structurally predisposed to information control, AI's dual trajectory toward both planetary-scale power consolidation and intimate personal influence, Elon Musk's DOGE initiative and the possibility it served as a data-harvesting operation for Grok, the Anthropic-Pentagon standoff, Tablet Magazine's editorial model, AI's role in professional writing, and the removal of a positive review of Siegel's book from The Baffler following apparent pressure from disinformation researcher Renée DiResta.The Information State: Politics in the Age of Total Control by Jacob Siegel- Order from Amazon- Order from a local bookshop0:00 Intro2:11 Vietnam as the laboratory for surveillance and automation4:23 Does Palantir actually work?10:38 Will AI tip the scales toward/against government control?13:29 Why progressivism is predisposed to information control17:27 Anthropic vs. Hegseth, Grok and the government20:11 Planetary capture: AI as a winner-take-all competition22:19 AI will re-personalize technology23:06 Why DOGE failed27:30 Crypto and Andreessen on Rogan30:15 The overreach-backlash-entrenchment cycle36:34 What makes Tablet Magazine work40:10 AI and professional writing46:42 The Baffler pulls a positive review of the book53:56 Clint Watts and the revolving door59:15 Closing thoughts