Dear Permission to be Powerful Reader,

It didn’t happen overnight… 

The unthinkable catastrophe that left America in ruins was years in the making…

Telegraphed by ominous warnings and willful ignorance. 

By 2025, cracks were already visible in the nation’s foundation. 

Geopolitical tensions were at a boiling point…

Climate disasters hammering the coasts…

And lunatics controlled the keys to power. 

Experts sounded the alarm:

A 40% chance of a new world war by the 2030s

Many warned, likely involving the United States, China, and other major powers. 

Some even cautioned we had entered a “period of maximum danger” 

A volatile phase, where the slightest spark could ignite a global conflict. 

But America’s leaders and citizens, distracted and divided, failed to heed the signs.

As China surged ahead economically and militarily.

Surpassing the U.S. in raw industrial might…

The balance of power teetered dangerously. 

Military analysts noted that the U.S. could “no longer deter China,” and the risk of a third world war was rising. 

Beijing’s ambitions had grown bold, and Washington’s resolve had grown brittle. 

Meanwhile, climate scientists delivered their dire bulletins: 

Earth’s vital signs were flashing red, and “the future of humanity hangs in the balance,” a global coalition of experts declared in late 2024. 

Year after year of record heat, megastorms, and wildfires signaled that we had entered a “critical and unpredictable new phase of the climate crisis , one that threatened food and water supplies, infrastructure, and ultimately social stability. 

Intelligence officials quietly concurred. 

A once-classified National Intelligence Assessment warned that while climate change alone might not topple nations, it would exacerbate poverty, social tensions, environmental degradation, and “ineffectual leadership”, potentially pushing fragile societies over the edge. 

America was not immune to these pressures; indeed, it was hurtling straight into them.


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Permission to be Powerful - The Day America Fell

Dear Permission to be Powerful Reader, 

We’re standing at the base of the most explosive transformation in human history.

👉 Bigger than the internet.

👉 Bigger than electricity.

👉 Bigger than nuclear weapons

And you’re not just living through it…

You’re inside it.

Because this isn’t just a “tech trend.”

This is an extinction-level event for entire industries, careers, and business models—and the greatest wealth transfer since the rise of oil.

All driven by something 99% of people still don’t understand.

Artificial Intelligence.

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Permission to be Powerful - The AI Supernova Nobody’s Ready For

Dear Permission to be Powerful Reader,

When you bring up AGI—artificial general intelligence—in polite conversation, most people look at you like you’re crazy.

They smirk. Glance away. Pretend they didn’t hear you.

But every so often, someone leans in.

And when they do, they whisper.

They’re not laughing.

They’re worried.

They’re trying to figure out what the hell is going on—and how close we really are.

Hi. My name is Anton Volney.

I’m not a policymaker. I’m not a computer scientist.

But I am paying attention.

And for the past year, I’ve had a pit in my stomach.

Because I think we’re all about to get blindsided by a world-changing force.

A force we built ourselves—but don’t understand.

A force we can’t stop—but don’t know how to control.

A force that’s going to rewrite reality at a pace we’re not emotionally, spiritually, or institutionally ready for.

And if that sounds dramatic—

Good.

Because the people at the top—the CEOs, the national security experts, the insiders at OpenAI, Anthropic, DeepMind—they’re not calm.

They’re not saying, “Hey, we have 50 years to figure this out.”

They’re saying:

It might already be here. Or arrive in months. Not decades.

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Permission to be Powerful - The Government Knows_ The Terminator Is Coming... In The Next 1000 Days

Dear Permission to Powerful Reader,

👉 What if life-saving drugs could be invented not over years, but weeks?

👉 What if new antibiotics didn’t emerge once every decade, but in batches, by algorithmic design?

👉 What if AI didn’t just help chemists, but began replacing intuition?

This isn’t science fiction. It’s happening now—and the consequences are staggering.

For most of modern pharmaceutical history, drug discovery has been a slow, expensive, and failure-ridden process. Teams of scientists would spend years developing a single promising molecule, most of which would never make it to market. 

According to industry benchmarks, bringing a new drug from concept to pharmacy shelves takes 10–15 years and costs upward of $2.6 billion (DiMasi et al., 2016). 

That means millions of compounds synthesized, tested, and discarded. It means decades lost in the pursuit of maybe.

Then came AI.

2020 a seismic shift occurred: the first-ever AI-designed drug candidate entered human trials. Developed by UK-based Exscientia and Japanese pharmaceutical company Sumitomo Dainippon Pharma, this molecule for treating obsessive-compulsive disorder (DSP-1181) didn’t emerge from trial-and-error. It was computed, designed, and optimized by machine learning algorithms trained on massive chemical and biological datasets. The process took less than 12 months. Traditional methods would’ve taken five to six years.

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Permission to be Powerful - The AI Drug Revolution

Dear Permission to be Powerful Reader,

Gunshot to the head.

That’s how they found him.

November 26, 2024. San Francisco. Bathroom floor. Blood pooled beneath him. Glock on the tile. Door locked from the inside.

The initial report called it suicide.

Neat. Clean. Quick.

But nothing about Suchir Balaji’s death was clean.

He was 26. Brilliant. Soft-spoken. And he was about to testify in the most high-stakes tech lawsuit of our generation.

Eight days before he died, his name surfaced in court filings by The New York Times. Not as background noise —

As the witness.

The one with “unique and relevant documents.”

The one who could dismantle the legal foundation OpenAI stood on.

The one who could testify that the world’s most powerful AI system was built on theft.

And then —

He was dead.

The official autopsy claimed one shot to the head.

But the family didn’t buy it.

They demanded a second opinion.

That report revealed something the first one didn’t:

Two gunshot wounds.

One in the forehead.

Another — through…

The initial report called it suicide. Neat. Clean. Quick.

But nothing about Suchir Balaji’s death was clean.


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Permission to be Powerful - The Red Flags They Hope You Ignore

Dear Permission to be Powerful Reader,

Imagine this:

You walk into a room. 

Someone’s mad. 

Real mad. 

You can cut the tension with a knife. 

Their words? Venom. 

Their tone? Ice-cold. 

They’re like a mad dog ready for a fight.

And yet, three minutes later…

They’re not just calm—they’re thanking you. 

Maybe even hugging you.

👉 Not because you beat them with logic…

👉 Not because you overpowered them with status….

👉 But because you did something they’ve never experienced before.

You *heard* them.

That’s the magic of Nonviolent Communication (NVC).

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Permission to be Powerful - The Day America Fell

Anton Volney

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