Sean Gorman, geospatial entrepreneur extraordinaire, uses Dune to explain security policy, geopolitics, capitalism, sustainability, common knowledge, the erosion of common knowledge, the importance of friction in political institutions, reasons to think harder about opening up data, and why the OpenStreetMap community are basically Fremen.

Note that we recorded this in August 2023, long before Dune: Part Two came out. There are no spoilers from the movie, but we discuss the book at length and Sean spoils a number of random YouTube videos about Dune that he watched to prepare for this discussion.

A few notes and links:

• Please check out Zephr, Sean's latest startup which is making GPS more accurate and reliable
• Sean on the AllThingsXR Podcast
• Article by Sean on geopolitics and the future of global navigation satellite systems
• SRI International (SRI)
• Buy Dune if you haven't already

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Produced by Jed Sundwall. Write to jed at techsontexts.net with feedback and suggestions for books or guests.

Intro music by Secret School.

Outro music is "3/10th of the Population" by WE™.

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