Change My Mind

A conversation with security researcher and free-software developer Matthew Garrett about who really controls the computer you own.We start with the Intel Management Engine and AMD's Platform Security Processor: the small, always-on processors beneath the operating system, and work through why so much firmware is closed source, whether that secrecy achieves any security, and what it would take to trust a CPU you can't audit. Along the way: coreboot and the limits of open firmware on x86, Boot Guard and Secure Boot and the difference between security and control, carrier-locked phones, DRM and why the Management Engine decrypts your Netflix stream, the economics of firmware-level malware and ransomware, and whether a fully sovereign modern machine is possible at all in 2026.This is the first episode of the 'Illuminating Firmware: Own It or Be Owned by It' series, subscribe for more.Chapters:00:00 Intel Management Engine: The Hidden Computer01:16 Why Firmware Is Closed Source03:02 Cryptographic Signing and Boot Guard Vulnerabilities04:05 Which Hardware Components Pose Risk?05:47 Security Through Obscurity vs. Open Source06:41 Why Firmware Leaks Haven’t Led to More Exploits08:50 LLMs and the Future of Reverse Engineering10:13 The Real Issue: Losing Control of Your Computer11:21 Carrier Locks and Verizon’s Control12:45 Boot Guard: Security vs. User Freedom16:02 Does Boot Guard Prevent Installing Linux?19:02 The Hardware Privilege Hierarchy20:08 Intel AMT and the Management Engine’s Network Access24:10 Can the Management Engine Access Your Encrypted Data?27:03 IOMMUs, DMA, and Protecting System Memory28:45 Can You Trust Intel? Malice vs. Incompetence33:50 The Hollywood Movie Scenario: Realistic Threats35:15 Firmware Malware and Real-World Attacks39:16 User-Controlled Keys and Hardware Sovereignty40:37 The Management Engine, DRM, and Netflix45:33 Is a Fully Sovereign Modern Computer Possible?48:10 Freedom vs. Convenience: Even Experts Make Trade-Offs

A conversation between Bayan Furutan and Alex Buxeda on whether an "ought" can be derived from an "is," whether free will exists, and what it would take to prove it doesn't.Alex argues, along Sam Harris and Robert Sapolsky lines, that free will is an illusion: we are patterns of matter running a nested hierarchy of priors, from physics to biology to culture, and every choice is ruled by cause and effect. Awareness of the universe, on this view, collapses the is and the ought into one. Bayan holds free will as an axiom, accepted the way we accept that our senses reflect reality, and sets a high bar for disproving it: predict my behavior as reliably as we predict a planet's orbit.Between those poles the conversation ranges across the thermostat as the smallest unit of decision, natural selection and entropy, poker and game theory, the abortion debate as a case of "a spectrum matching a spectrum," the Mormons as a test of whether a false belief can still be fit, and whether you act as if you have agency, or watching yourself act?Chapters:0:00 Can an ought be derived from an is?1:51 The man hit by a car: same "is," different "oughts"4:55 Every ought needs an "if": survival as the hidden premise7:05 Paying back what it took to build you: entropy and natural selection9:21 "What are you doing" vs. "why are you doing it"11:53 Deriving the why from the what, and how bandwidth changes the answer13:47 Co-evolution: black holes, universes, and turtles all the way down16:16 Why criticism needs an alternative: the Enlightenment proposal18:47 Free will as the real crux: is it required for an "ought"?20:34 Hard determinism, Sam Harris, and "if you were Stalin"22:15 Experience vs. proof: why Bayan holds free will as an axiom27:43 Defining free will: what would non-free will even mean?28:39 The thermostat as the smallest unit of decision29:46 Is consciousness computational? Penrose and the counter31:07 Poker, game theory, and modeling the other player32:06 The real dividing line: can you act against your nature?37:11 Zooming out: the lineage that never jumps into the street40:19 Signal, noise, and why bigger samples reveal the laws of nature42:04 Are you a set of instructions? The direct question45:40 "Yes." Sapolsky and the nested hierarchy of priors54:36 Diminishing returns toward 100%: chipping at the variance1:00:07 A thought experiment: what correlation would settle it?1:01:00 The god-of-the-gaps objection and spontaneous generation1:03:43 Predictability across a lifetime: fetus, mid-20s, old age1:07:16 At what point does free will emerge? The abortion parallel1:10:42 A spectrum must be matched by a spectrum: the speeding-ticket model1:18:17 Where does a human start having rights and obligations?1:23:32 A reasonable hypothesis, but not proof: the high threshold1:26:35 Markets, courts, and how truth is discovered collectively1:30:11 The beehive: how a spectrum emerges from

I am joined by neuroscientist Karl Friston to discuss, from first principles, what trust is.The trust we put in others, and in our institutions, is a sociological feature emergent from biology. It is here that predictions first appear.This conversation inspired an article we co-wrote:⁠https://schweizermonat.ch/trust-is-a-law-of-nature/0:00 What is trust, in active inference terms?1:07 Trust in your own future: planning as inference2:16 Confidence, precision, and the shape of a belief3:45 Two ways to minimize surprise: seeking info vs. avoiding surprise5:48 Epistemic trust: choosing where to get your news6:24 Scale invariance: from eye movements to which institutions you trust8:20 Trust as a meta-judgment of your past predictions9:11 The statistician's view: estimating risk, not just reward10:56 When second-order inference fails: hallucinations and neglect12:50 Delusional institutions: the same mechanics in markets and geopolitics13:45 Precision as attention: what you trust is what you attend to14:56 Rediscovering natural selection from a different angle17:20 Bayesian model selection is nature's way of selecting phenotypes19:58 Why the free energy principle complies with itself21:14 Donald Hoffman, mortal computation, and neuronal chauvinism22:31 We are the substrate: predicting ourselves into existence24:07 Everything is a hypothesis, including time and the self25:10 Do we see truth? What can be ignored isn't true26:13 There is no truth, only the best inference for me27:33 Synchronization of chaos: coupling your brain to the world28:45 A joint free energy solution: becoming mutually predictable29:38 Aligned interests: why you trust the table, your liver, and me31:52 Negative valence: trusting that a lion wants to eat you32:47 Shorting the BBC: the cost of distrust33:33 Fake news, epistemic trust, and the pillars of autocracy34:15 Sharing a generative model: how we become predictable to each other35:47 Defining yourself by the states you refuse to occupy38:04 Is this source generated by someone like me?38:36 Why echo chambers are Bayes-optimal until communities open39:54 Too many choices: why it's awful for young people now40:58 Friston: no phone, no social media, no awful uncertainty41:15 Australia's under-16 social media ban, seen mathematically42:06 Information like capital: who should handle how much42:48 The pathology: social media attracts more capital when you lose43:28 Markets are grown up, social media is pre-adolescent44:11 Science as selection: theories as surviving hypotheses44:35 Is religion "true"? The fitness of a simple generative model46:03 Narrowing choice: why fewer options relieves angst47:05 "You are your own existence proof"48:07 Collapsing is and ought: first survive, then philosophize49:08 "I am, therefore I think"50:23 The relational aspect: no standalone measure of goodness53:30 Hardware and software differ only in speed of change54:33 The renormalization group: same rules at every scale55:07 Separation of temporal scales: growing slow, learning fast56:15 What we inherit is learnability, not a finished world model57:40 Why foolishness was selected for: the reckless years59:21 "Did evolution fool us?" The value of unsophisticated agents1:00:24 Variance creates arbitrage: Pinker and common knowledge1:01:25 Closing thoughts

Lukas Leuzinger and Alex Buxeda interview Cass Sunstein for Schweizer Monat. They dissect the mechanics of liberalism. Sunstein defines a tradition that encompasses Hayek and Burke. He counters the claims of Patrick Deneen. He argues that choice does not destroy faith or family. The dialogue shifts to nudges. Sunstein explains how choice architecture assists humans without it being manipulation. They analyze speech standards. They contrast the First Amendment with the laws of Switzerland and Germany. Sunstein outlines the divisions of power. He warns against the expansion of the executive.Buy Sunstein's latest book: On Liberalism: In Defense of FreedomCheck Sunstein's books here

Barbara Kolm, President of the Austrian School of Economics, joins Alex Buxeda to dismantle the myths of monetary nationalism, expose the political incentives behind inflation, and explain why trust collapses when money becomes a political tool.They explore Carl Menger’s legacy, why money is a discovery not an invention, how time and information shape economic order, and why Europe is quietly drifting toward central planning through the “law of rules”.From Bitcoin’s “don’t trust, verify,” to demographic decline, taxation traps, bureaucratic overreach, CBDCs, nudging theory, and the collapse of competitiveness in Europe, this episode is a deep dive into the institutions that shape freedom, responsibility, and prosperity.  0:00 Monetary nationalism and why debasing your currency backfires1:54 What sound money is, and why states debase it4:01 Menger vs. Knapp: money as discovery, not law7:52 Time, value, and why information spreads slowly10:01 Stability, the rule of law, and the "law of rules"11:59 Brussels, central planning, and the lost subsidiarity principle15:17 Europe's demographic collapse and falling productivity17:46 Taxes on labor and why no one works more20:03 The hidden costs in tax and social security22:04 Capital flees to where it's best treated: Venezuela23:31 Price tags on government: making the cost visible27:08 Social justice, responsibility, and providing opportunity vs. redistribution32:04 Fractional reserve, cash limits, and destroying property rights34:35 CBDCs, self-sovereignty, and why cash is the ultimate settlement38:11 Nudging as central planning: Spain's blackout and Germany's solar41:52 Closing thoughts