Tessa Fights Robots

Tessa Fights Robots

Interviews

Are Russian Oligarchs Best Friends with Klaus Schwab? A Conversation with Riley Waggaman

Is my old homeland a 4IR lab?

Tessa Lena
Feb 26, 2022
∙ Paid

This story is a conversation with Riley Waggaman, who writes about COVID Russia—and does so brilliantly. We recorded the interview for my podcast a week or two ago, before the war began. My scream about the war is here, I just sent it out.

I want to start by saying that Riley’s work is amazing. I was so happy to discover it!

Some time in 2020, I noticed that there was a strangely warm relationship between my birth homeland and the World Economic Forum. I was surprised to see that Russia was all over the Cyber Polygon 2020 simulation, represented at an unusually high rate.

(By the way, I just googled Cyber Polygon 2020, and saw Russian subtext on the page. I suspect the latter is sloppiness, they probably hired Russian programmers to create the webpage, and the programmers probably forgot to replace the text, or something like that… but it’s funny, and also so very high tech… vivat Fourth Industrial Revolution!)

The unusually tight relationship between Russian everything and the World …

User's avatar

Continue reading this post for free, courtesy of Tessa Lena.

Or purchase a paid subscription.
© 2026 Tessa Lena · Publisher Terms
Substack · Privacy ∙ Terms ∙ Collection notice
Start your SubstackGet the app
Substack is the home for great culture