A Conversation with Cat McGuire: On Cyber Polygon and Spiritual Activism

And freedom brigades.

Sep 03, 2021

Cyber Polygon is an international exercise in cyber security led by the World Economic Forum and a surprising number of Russian players, with participation of leading U.S. companies. The theme has been "a cyber pandemic with coronavirus properties” and, sorry, “immunizing the internet” (from the horse’s mouth).

Before we go any further, to set the context for Cyber Polygon, here’s the prophet of the Fourth Industrial Revolution. I’ll let the horse speak for himself.

And now the story.

This story is about Cat McGuire, a friend, a fearless researcher, a freedom activist, and a kind, compassionate human being.

About a month and a half ago, I recorded an interview with Cat for my podcast, and then just sat on it because I was thinking how to write about it.

See, we got together to talk about Cat’s research, and specifically, about Cyber Polygon. We met the day before the 2021 Cyber Polygon exercise was happening, it was all timed perfectly, and … we ended up talking for two hours about spiritual activism and lofty matters.

Cat proved a point that puzzles and inspires me.

Our conversation reminded me of the importance of staying spiritually grounded and non-dogmatic. I absolutely love Cat. She is a special human being to me. I feel very good around her. And, our spiritual practices are different. I have no idea how she does what she does. I think about those things differently, I talk about it differently, I do it all differently—and yet, the outcome of whatever Cat does is beautiful to me. She’s got soul and courage. And guts. She’s definitely got guts. And love.

Without further ado, here is the interview. (It was a little dark in the room, so apologies for the grainy video.)