1 00:00:00,040 --> 00:00:04,200 Today, I am happy to welcome Timer Kuran to the Network CA 2 00:00:04,200 --> 00:00:07,080 podcast and Professor Kuran is author of Private Truths, Public 3 00:00:07,080 --> 00:00:12,480 Lies, and I've cited him many times over the years for people 4 00:00:12,480 --> 00:00:16,200 who want to understand the 2016 election, people who want to 5 00:00:16,200 --> 00:00:19,960 understand distributed consensus, Sudan's consensus to 6 00:00:19,960 --> 00:00:22,960 understand the the fall of the Soviet Union, to been a fan for 7 00:00:22,960 --> 00:00:25,840 a long time. And you know, that's how I came 8 00:00:25,840 --> 00:00:27,480 across Professor Kuran's account. 9 00:00:27,680 --> 00:00:32,040 And then I was tickled to see he followed me on X and I wonder 10 00:00:32,040 --> 00:00:34,720 how you came across my accounts. I don't think I've asked you 11 00:00:34,720 --> 00:00:37,240 this. I came across your account 12 00:00:37,240 --> 00:00:45,240 because people I follow and forwarded your very interesting 13 00:00:45,320 --> 00:00:50,040 tweets and I can't remember exactly what they were, but this 14 00:00:50,040 --> 00:00:57,880 was when I it's must have been around 2017 or 18, as soon after 15 00:00:57,880 --> 00:01:01,760 I joined Twitter and that's how we discovered you. 16 00:01:02,160 --> 00:01:04,760 Excellent. Well, so you know, I, I want you 17 00:01:04,760 --> 00:01:07,560 to give a quick, we can talk about the kinds of things, you 18 00:01:07,560 --> 00:01:08,560 know, topics you're interested in. 19 00:01:08,560 --> 00:01:11,840 I'm always interested in like how people are interested in 20 00:01:11,840 --> 00:01:14,560 each other's intellectual currents because I, I do talk a 21 00:01:14,560 --> 00:01:18,520 lot about tech, but I talk a lot about politics and, you know, 22 00:01:18,520 --> 00:01:20,920 the future and history and, and pieces like that. 23 00:01:20,920 --> 00:01:23,960 So there may be strands that that appeal to you or what have 24 00:01:23,960 --> 00:01:25,320 you. I wanted to go through your work 25 00:01:25,320 --> 00:01:30,520 though, because I think private truths, public lies is something 26 00:01:30,520 --> 00:01:33,720 which has just started to break down in the US, not just started 27 00:01:33,720 --> 00:01:36,600 like last six months or so. We've seen an enormous 28 00:01:37,400 --> 00:01:40,760 preference cascade and maybe you can describe summarize the book 29 00:01:41,080 --> 00:01:44,520 and and talk about what motivated it and and then how 30 00:01:44,520 --> 00:01:46,000 how you apply it in other places. 31 00:01:46,240 --> 00:01:48,800 Certainly. Well, let me start with the 32 00:01:48,800 --> 00:01:51,080 definition of preference falsification. 33 00:01:51,080 --> 00:01:56,880 It's the misrepresentation of 1's wants under perceived social 34 00:01:57,000 --> 00:02:01,640 pressures. It involves of course, self 35 00:02:01,640 --> 00:02:08,120 censorship, hiding one's actual preference from the from the 36 00:02:08,120 --> 00:02:11,480 public. But also, and this is very 37 00:02:11,480 --> 00:02:14,760 important, the second component is extremely important. 38 00:02:15,240 --> 00:02:20,840 It involves pretending to like someone, something that one 39 00:02:20,840 --> 00:02:27,520 actually dislikes. And 11 engages in preference 40 00:02:27,520 --> 00:02:35,400 falsification to avoid social sanctions, to avoid ostracism, 41 00:02:36,280 --> 00:02:41,880 to avoid being called names, to avoid being associated with 42 00:02:42,080 --> 00:02:46,400 disreputable groups, to win favours. 43 00:02:47,120 --> 00:02:50,800 Now there are many negative consequences that preference 44 00:02:50,800 --> 00:02:54,360 falsification has. One of it is one is that it 45 00:02:54,360 --> 00:03:00,640 distorts collective decisions. Let's imagine a department, an 46 00:03:00,640 --> 00:03:08,360 academic department, that is trying to decide whether to 47 00:03:08,360 --> 00:03:13,240 continue using standardized tests in admitting PhD students. 48 00:03:15,160 --> 00:03:19,400 Now thousands of departments across the United States that 49 00:03:19,440 --> 00:03:23,400 faced exactly this question, this issue, because there were 50 00:03:23,400 --> 00:03:28,360 people who argued that standardized tests discriminate 51 00:03:28,360 --> 00:03:32,000 against marginalized communities. 52 00:03:32,000 --> 00:03:36,320 So they brought the matter to a department meetings. 53 00:03:37,120 --> 00:03:43,640 Now imagine a department where the majority, even a very clear 54 00:03:43,640 --> 00:03:49,160 majority, a large majority, believes that there's a great 55 00:03:49,160 --> 00:03:51,760 deal of valuable information and standardized tests. 56 00:03:52,120 --> 00:03:56,120 Even if you don't use standardized tests exclusively, 57 00:03:56,120 --> 00:03:58,720 do you look at other things as well? 58 00:03:58,960 --> 00:04:02,080 There's a great deal of valuable information in them. 59 00:04:02,480 --> 00:04:10,680 But these same people are afraid of being labeled as racist, as 60 00:04:10,680 --> 00:04:18,880 misogynist, sensitive, etcetera. And the people who are pushing 61 00:04:18,880 --> 00:04:24,080 hard for eliminating standardized tests are quite 62 00:04:24,080 --> 00:04:28,360 powerful. They may falsify their they may 63 00:04:28,360 --> 00:04:35,680 falsify their preferences and just to avoid the wrath of the 64 00:04:35,840 --> 00:04:38,040 promoters of eliminating standardized tests. 65 00:04:38,200 --> 00:04:43,440 And as a result, the department might eliminate eliminate 66 00:04:43,440 --> 00:04:47,680 standardized tests, even though a clear majority believes is a 67 00:04:47,680 --> 00:04:53,280 bad decision. Now, preference falsification is 68 00:04:53,720 --> 00:04:58,640 accompanied by what I call knowledge falsification, which 69 00:04:58,640 --> 00:05:04,880 is that you in the process of trying to project to the public 70 00:05:04,920 --> 00:05:08,720 a preference that you don't actually, that you don't 71 00:05:08,840 --> 00:05:18,080 actually have. You conceal what you know, and 72 00:05:18,080 --> 00:05:25,640 you pretend that claims made by others that you believe to be 73 00:05:25,640 --> 00:05:30,400 false are actually true. So in the process you distort 74 00:05:30,400 --> 00:05:35,440 knowledge. If you are pretending that if if 75 00:05:35,440 --> 00:05:39,720 you believe that standardized tests are valuable, but you're 76 00:05:39,720 --> 00:05:45,280 pretending that they're not, you cannot publicly talk about all 77 00:05:45,280 --> 00:05:47,000 the virtues of standardized testing. 78 00:05:48,120 --> 00:05:54,360 You have to say things to be convincing you to the people who 79 00:05:54,960 --> 00:06:00,560 want to eliminate standardized tests or want to want to want to 80 00:06:00,840 --> 00:06:06,040 retain, want to prevent their reinstatement. 81 00:06:06,280 --> 00:06:11,440 You have to pretend that you accept all the arguments made by 82 00:06:11,440 --> 00:06:13,760 the opponents of standardized tests. 83 00:06:13,880 --> 00:06:17,240 So one thing that I remember, you know, from your book that I 84 00:06:17,240 --> 00:06:21,600 thought was interesting was, you know, in my in my head, I was 85 00:06:21,600 --> 00:06:26,560 comparing it to a method actor. Because sometimes these people 86 00:06:26,560 --> 00:06:30,960 who are forced to mouth all of these falsehoods from long 87 00:06:30,960 --> 00:06:34,440 enough time find themselves quasi believing the falsehood or 88 00:06:34,440 --> 00:06:38,520 rationalizing it to themselves. And the external lie sort of 89 00:06:38,520 --> 00:06:40,480 shapes the internal narrative, at least partially. 90 00:06:40,600 --> 00:06:42,880 It does. I mean, there are some people 91 00:06:42,880 --> 00:06:47,680 who actually come to believe their lies preference 92 00:06:47,680 --> 00:06:51,800 falsification in in a wide array of contexts. 93 00:06:52,240 --> 00:06:55,840 It's becoming habitual. It's like the Vaclav Havel thing 94 00:06:55,840 --> 00:06:58,240 about workers of the world. Unite, right? 95 00:06:58,320 --> 00:07:02,920 Yes, and they start they, they, they get used to the notion that 96 00:07:02,920 --> 00:07:07,120 whatever slogans they're supposed to parrot, they they 97 00:07:07,120 --> 00:07:11,240 will just parrot them. They know it's futile to to 98 00:07:11,240 --> 00:07:17,680 question them, to inquire into their veracity, whether they 99 00:07:17,680 --> 00:07:21,040 mean anything. So they simply accept the world 100 00:07:21,040 --> 00:07:26,400 view that is presented to them, and they start start believing 101 00:07:26,400 --> 00:07:28,920 them. That's a very shallow belief, 102 00:07:28,920 --> 00:07:31,560 though. It can be because it doesn't 103 00:07:31,560 --> 00:07:36,600 have much depth, because it doesn't involve actual evidence, 104 00:07:36,600 --> 00:07:42,280 because it doesn't involve a study of the mechanisms that 105 00:07:42,280 --> 00:07:45,600 might be driving certain, certain outcomes. 106 00:07:45,840 --> 00:07:49,440 It's quite, quite shallow. So it's it's actually, it can 107 00:07:49,440 --> 00:07:54,680 be, it can be changed quite rapidly. 108 00:07:54,680 --> 00:07:59,880 But you're absolutely right that that, that some people will come 109 00:07:59,880 --> 00:08:05,040 to believe the slogans that they are they are parroting. 110 00:08:05,200 --> 00:08:07,760 At the same time, there are people that will there are 111 00:08:07,760 --> 00:08:11,720 people in in society. This was certainly the case in 112 00:08:12,680 --> 00:08:16,200 Eastern Europe before the fall of the Berlin Wall. 113 00:08:16,520 --> 00:08:21,840 There were people who did not believe the the lies that they 114 00:08:21,840 --> 00:08:24,360 were being told. They did not believe that 115 00:08:24,640 --> 00:08:28,920 central planning was was provided a better economic 116 00:08:28,920 --> 00:08:36,480 system than a market based economy and but they had to 117 00:08:36,480 --> 00:08:40,840 conceal their knowledge or many of them concealed their their 118 00:08:40,840 --> 00:08:43,640 knowledge. The reasons they believed that 119 00:08:43,919 --> 00:08:50,920 market system would be more efficient and they had to, they 120 00:08:50,920 --> 00:08:56,880 had to in order to advance at at work, in order to be retain 121 00:08:56,880 --> 00:09:00,640 acceptance in their communities, they have to pretend to accept 122 00:09:00,640 --> 00:09:07,720 the party's ideology. So that process distorts public 123 00:09:07,720 --> 00:09:13,920 knowledge, and it affects what affects the ability of others to 124 00:09:13,920 --> 00:09:16,920 see the world correctly. Couple of things on that. 125 00:09:17,280 --> 00:09:21,320 I think a lot of people, not certainly not you, but many 126 00:09:21,320 --> 00:09:26,680 people don't understand just how crazy, crazily taboo capitalism 127 00:09:26,680 --> 00:09:32,440 was in communist countries. Like in Maoist China, you know, 128 00:09:32,480 --> 00:09:38,000 people were executed for, you know, having some grain held 129 00:09:38,000 --> 00:09:40,880 back rather than throwing it all into the common pool. 130 00:09:41,720 --> 00:09:44,760 The Xiao Gang thing, which may be apocryphal about the 131 00:09:45,000 --> 00:09:48,440 villagers who asked do I own the teeth in your head? 132 00:09:48,440 --> 00:09:50,240 And they said, no, the teeth in your head belonged to the 133 00:09:50,240 --> 00:09:52,160 collective. And they signed a contract 134 00:09:52,160 --> 00:09:55,360 amongst themselves and hid it in the roof of the of a Hut. 135 00:09:55,360 --> 00:09:58,720 Because, you know, the the split of property and private property 136 00:09:58,720 --> 00:10:02,040 rights were so taboo that these were capitalist running dogs and 137 00:10:02,040 --> 00:10:03,480 reactionary. So like capitalism was 138 00:10:03,480 --> 00:10:07,200 punishable by death, right? And part of what justified that 139 00:10:07,200 --> 00:10:11,280 is that so much blood had been spilled, you know, against the 140 00:10:11,280 --> 00:10:13,640 evil capitalists. What, you want to let them back 141 00:10:13,640 --> 00:10:16,160 in these selfish, crazy capitalists? 142 00:10:16,160 --> 00:10:17,760 Are you a traitor? So it got mixed up with 143 00:10:17,760 --> 00:10:22,840 nationalism and you had this crazy level of taboo again, 144 00:10:22,840 --> 00:10:26,120 something that we don't think of as being taboo. 145 00:10:26,440 --> 00:10:30,800 And then another piece of it is in the in like the Soviet Union 146 00:10:31,040 --> 00:10:33,040 especially. And, you know, I'm less familiar 147 00:10:33,040 --> 00:10:35,560 with exactly how to play on in China, but there are only two 148 00:10:35,560 --> 00:10:39,280 kinds of people who are capitalists, which were a, these 149 00:10:39,280 --> 00:10:42,960 sort of intellectuals who could see beyond their own society and 150 00:10:42,960 --> 00:10:45,680 whisper about it in psalms dot literature and so on and so 151 00:10:45,680 --> 00:10:49,760 forth. And then B, the black marketeer 152 00:10:50,240 --> 00:10:53,880 would cut you for a tomato. And who live down to all of the 153 00:10:53,880 --> 00:10:57,560 regime's stereotypes about capitalism, right? 154 00:10:58,000 --> 00:11:01,360 And because they were selfish, they were greedy, they were 155 00:11:01,360 --> 00:11:04,120 fraudulent. They, they were, they just cared 156 00:11:04,120 --> 00:11:05,360 about money. They didn't care about the 157 00:11:05,360 --> 00:11:07,960 people and so, so forth. So it's a little bit like the, 158 00:11:08,520 --> 00:11:11,640 you know, if guns are outlawed, only outlaws have guns kind of 159 00:11:11,640 --> 00:11:14,480 thing, where if truths are outlawed, only outlaws have 160 00:11:14,480 --> 00:11:17,360 truths. And that's a secondary effect of 161 00:11:17,360 --> 00:11:20,600 the, you know, public lies, private truths kind of thing, 162 00:11:20,600 --> 00:11:21,960 right? Because it pushes the truth to 163 00:11:21,960 --> 00:11:23,880 the margins. And the people who voice them 164 00:11:24,200 --> 00:11:26,680 tend to be either intellectual or disreputable. 165 00:11:26,840 --> 00:11:28,040 I'd love to know your thoughts on that. 166 00:11:28,280 --> 00:11:31,760 Yeah, No, no, this is, this is, this is absolutely true, but 167 00:11:31,840 --> 00:11:37,680 also makes it, let's pursue your, your example. 168 00:11:37,760 --> 00:11:49,240 Under central planning, even even the heads of enterprises 169 00:11:49,600 --> 00:11:54,720 that were, that were given quotas to fulfill, quote 170 00:11:54,720 --> 00:12:00,320 production quotas to fulfill their quotas, they had to use 171 00:12:00,320 --> 00:12:05,480 black markets. So they all knew that these 172 00:12:05,480 --> 00:12:09,960 markets work. They all had personal knowledge 173 00:12:10,480 --> 00:12:18,000 that these free markets worked. They pretended the many, many 174 00:12:18,560 --> 00:12:24,560 communist leaders pretended that they were implementing central 175 00:12:24,560 --> 00:12:29,720 planning when they knew very well that the only way to 176 00:12:30,080 --> 00:12:34,040 approximate their their goals involved using. 177 00:12:34,480 --> 00:12:36,520 Shadow prices. Quasi capitalism. 178 00:12:36,840 --> 00:12:41,120 Exactly that shadow process is so and that all this was going 179 00:12:41,120 --> 00:12:46,280 on, but they maintained a facade of commitment to simplifying 180 00:12:46,720 --> 00:12:51,880 students were were taught in in in schools and in universities. 181 00:12:51,880 --> 00:12:54,760 They were they were taught that central planning works and it's 182 00:12:54,760 --> 00:12:59,440 it's so much more ethical. It's so more efficient than than 183 00:12:59,440 --> 00:13:03,280 capitalism, yes. It's similar to in the US system 184 00:13:03,600 --> 00:13:07,480 using your university diploma as a proxy, socially acceptable 185 00:13:07,480 --> 00:13:10,920 proxy for like IQ or SAT scores or something like that, sort of 186 00:13:11,120 --> 00:13:13,000 like a proxy score, like a shadow price, right? 187 00:13:13,440 --> 00:13:19,440 And the because, you know, the College Board and SAT tests are 188 00:13:19,760 --> 00:13:22,360 colleges can administer them, but private employers couldn't 189 00:13:22,360 --> 00:13:28,720 for a long time. But one one thought I have is so 190 00:13:29,600 --> 00:13:33,560 I you know, you know, you're mathematical enough person to 191 00:13:33,560 --> 00:13:35,000 you know, you know the difference between a vector and 192 00:13:35,000 --> 00:13:39,680 a scalar, I assume. OK, so one thought that I've 193 00:13:39,680 --> 00:13:45,640 had, which kind of builds off of your point just now about these 194 00:13:45,640 --> 00:13:48,920 individual administrators. They knew that the system was 195 00:13:48,920 --> 00:13:51,400 broken. One thing I observed, especially 196 00:13:51,400 --> 00:13:55,800 during the Biden administration was, you know, obviously people 197 00:13:55,800 --> 00:14:00,320 were lying about Biden being senile, but they were also 198 00:14:00,320 --> 00:14:03,880 faking employment statistics and they were faking inflation 199 00:14:03,880 --> 00:14:05,160 stats. And they're faking these 200 00:14:05,160 --> 00:14:09,280 different things in ways that they themselves. 201 00:14:09,280 --> 00:14:12,400 Like for example, Larry Summers put out a post said something 202 00:14:12,400 --> 00:14:18,440 like if you included shelter and like the, the rise in cost of 203 00:14:18,440 --> 00:14:21,280 loans and other kinds of things, actual inflation rates like in 204 00:14:21,280 --> 00:14:23,440 double digits or something along those lines, right. 205 00:14:23,960 --> 00:14:26,400 So he was, he was somebody who was expert enough to understand 206 00:14:26,400 --> 00:14:28,960 how this particular agency was faking their particular thing. 207 00:14:29,480 --> 00:14:32,040 And then David Sacks and I looked at some like employment 208 00:14:32,040 --> 00:14:35,200 data and we're like, why is it beating expectations so many 209 00:14:35,200 --> 00:14:37,080 months in a row? This is like kind of weird. 210 00:14:37,360 --> 00:14:40,320 And it keeps getting revised downward afterwards. 211 00:14:40,680 --> 00:14:43,360 And now there's like some revelation that, oh, actually it 212 00:14:43,360 --> 00:14:44,280 was fake after all. And of course. 213 00:14:44,280 --> 00:14:46,240 But so the point is, though, that each of these kind of 214 00:14:46,240 --> 00:14:50,080 administrators was putting a thumb on the scales or faking 215 00:14:50,080 --> 00:14:56,680 things or whatever you want to call it in a way that it would 216 00:14:56,680 --> 00:14:59,320 be hard to figure out how they were doing it unless you had 217 00:14:59,320 --> 00:15:02,800 some domain expertise there. But then they were also seeing 218 00:15:02,800 --> 00:15:06,080 everybody else's fake numbers as if they were real, right? 219 00:15:06,240 --> 00:15:10,960 So you have like 50 piece of fake information out there and 220 00:15:10,960 --> 00:15:14,080 from 49 of them you have no internal information on how it's 221 00:15:14,080 --> 00:15:16,040 being faked. For the 50th one, that 222 00:15:16,040 --> 00:15:18,120 administrator is faking it. So they think maybe the system 223 00:15:18,120 --> 00:15:21,160 is OK and then like it's only their piece, which is a little, 224 00:15:21,520 --> 00:15:22,840 you know, questionable or something like that. 225 00:15:22,840 --> 00:15:25,720 So they can't build an overall system map of how it's broken. 226 00:15:26,240 --> 00:15:27,160 Let me know your thoughts on that. 227 00:15:27,360 --> 00:15:32,480 Actually, there were many people who did sense that the entire 228 00:15:32,480 --> 00:15:36,760 system was increasingly built on lies. 229 00:15:37,440 --> 00:15:43,040 And that is one of the reasons why Trump, who is a very flawed 230 00:15:43,040 --> 00:15:49,520 man in in many respects, received, has received so much 231 00:15:49,520 --> 00:15:56,520 support in several 3 elections in a row, winning, winning two 232 00:15:56,520 --> 00:15:59,960 of them. Because many people outside of 233 00:15:59,960 --> 00:16:05,680 the Washington bubble, outside of the centers of major 234 00:16:05,680 --> 00:16:10,800 influence of major power in the United States, they have sensed 235 00:16:11,080 --> 00:16:14,240 that it's not just one number that is fake, that there are 236 00:16:14,240 --> 00:16:16,200 many, many numbers that are fake. 237 00:16:16,240 --> 00:16:22,120 And they can imagine, they can imagine that if the if the press 238 00:16:22,120 --> 00:16:30,000 is has been systematically hiding the the explanation for 239 00:16:30,000 --> 00:16:37,840 Kovid, if it, if it, if it refused to for a long time allow 240 00:16:37,840 --> 00:16:42,400 genuine debate on on Kovic. It must be happening in in a lot 241 00:16:42,400 --> 00:16:46,560 of other areas, so. I want to I want to show you 242 00:16:46,560 --> 00:16:48,440 something that may get your reaction to this. 243 00:16:48,440 --> 00:16:50,280 So you know, this is a post I wrote. 244 00:16:50,440 --> 00:16:53,520 It's about two years ago, too fake to tell, you know, like too 245 00:16:53,520 --> 00:16:56,600 big to fail, right. So because you know, Sax and I, 246 00:16:56,600 --> 00:16:59,480 you know, Saxon made this off and tweet hard jobs for today. 247 00:16:59,480 --> 00:17:00,840 I don't know where they're finding all these jobs. 248 00:17:00,840 --> 00:17:02,960 All I see are layoffs. And it got four and a half 249 00:17:02,960 --> 00:17:05,280 million views. So clearly like this just struck 250 00:17:05,280 --> 00:17:08,960 a nerve because nobody they wouldn't have gotten so mad if 251 00:17:08,960 --> 00:17:12,000 it didn't hadn't actually been like fake in some way, right? 252 00:17:12,480 --> 00:17:16,800 And so, you know, and, and trust in media as you, you know, as we 253 00:17:16,800 --> 00:17:18,960 were just talking about half of Americans now I believe news 254 00:17:18,960 --> 00:17:20,319 organizations literally mislead them. 255 00:17:20,680 --> 00:17:24,079 But it's one thing to kind of have an overall suspicion and 256 00:17:24,079 --> 00:17:27,280 then it's like another thing to have a specific suspicion. 257 00:17:27,280 --> 00:17:29,840 And one of the things that I was just doing, so I was thinking 258 00:17:29,840 --> 00:17:33,360 about a bunch of issues where it's clear the information was 259 00:17:33,360 --> 00:17:35,880 false. And there's a, there's a whole 260 00:17:35,880 --> 00:17:43,240 spectrum between like, you know, maliciously faked and, you know, 261 00:17:43,280 --> 00:17:45,600 true. And some of them include like 262 00:17:46,080 --> 00:17:49,120 Bernanke talking about the great moderation, how it means to 263 00:17:49,120 --> 00:17:51,640 retain macroeconomic volatility before the finance crisis. 264 00:17:51,640 --> 00:17:54,240 That was just like, you know, incorrect, right? 265 00:17:54,520 --> 00:17:57,880 Because obviously, you know, volatility was coming back with 266 00:17:57,880 --> 00:18:00,000 a vengeance. Cheney saying deficits don't 267 00:18:00,000 --> 00:18:01,640 matter. Bush and Clinton blew up the 268 00:18:01,640 --> 00:18:04,680 mortgage bubble. Bernanke saying we might see a 269 00:18:04,680 --> 00:18:06,960 mild recession. The ratings agency in 2008 270 00:18:06,960 --> 00:18:10,000 called subprime mortgage AAA before the collapse global 271 00:18:10,000 --> 00:18:13,480 economy S&P got retaliated against for down grading things. 272 00:18:13,640 --> 00:18:15,800 So this is a really interesting one where the guys who put out 273 00:18:15,800 --> 00:18:19,800 true information where they're down grading U.S. debt, they got 274 00:18:19,800 --> 00:18:24,160 retaliated against right then Bernanke said QE is a money 275 00:18:24,160 --> 00:18:26,520 printing. Powell saying it was Greenspan 276 00:18:26,520 --> 00:18:28,160 saying the US can never default because it could just print 277 00:18:28,160 --> 00:18:30,920 money erroneous projections of unemployment rates. 278 00:18:30,920 --> 00:18:35,760 So this is like this scrap that I don't remember from almost 10 279 00:18:35,760 --> 00:18:40,000 years ago that showed. By the way, I didn't know that 280 00:18:40,440 --> 00:18:47,000 unemployment rates and growth rates were systematically being 281 00:18:47,000 --> 00:18:56,600 tampered with, but the But that information reminded me of a 282 00:18:56,600 --> 00:19:01,320 thesis that was written under my supervision a number of years 283 00:19:01,320 --> 00:19:07,760 ago by a Chinese student who studied Chinese growth numbers 284 00:19:08,960 --> 00:19:12,200 and official growth numbers that are issued quarterly. 285 00:19:12,680 --> 00:19:17,640 And what she found was a systematic pattern whereby the 286 00:19:17,640 --> 00:19:25,200 numbers were inflated when they were announced and before the 287 00:19:25,200 --> 00:19:31,960 next quarterly announcement. The previous quarters numbers 288 00:19:32,040 --> 00:19:36,200 were systematically reduced. Yeah, exactly. 289 00:19:36,800 --> 00:19:41,920 Making the new number new exaggerated number look even 290 00:19:42,040 --> 00:19:44,360 better. Yeah, exactly so. 291 00:19:44,880 --> 00:19:48,880 Path that this was so the grass systematic process, yeah. 292 00:19:49,200 --> 00:19:52,440 So This Is Us had a few jobs, fewer jobs past your initially 293 00:19:52,440 --> 00:19:58,040 reported 2024 admission and now 2025 just a few months ago now 294 00:19:58,040 --> 00:20:00,640 that the new admin is there. And of course the, you know, 295 00:20:00,720 --> 00:20:03,120 other people would say that these guys are, you know, but 296 00:20:03,120 --> 00:20:05,920 the Biden administration claimed to have added 400K jobs from 297 00:20:05,920 --> 00:20:08,200 July through September in order to win re election. 298 00:20:08,200 --> 00:20:10,440 New data suggests none of those jobs ever existed. 299 00:20:10,680 --> 00:20:15,320 The overestimate number of jobs. And so point is that there's 300 00:20:15,320 --> 00:20:19,600 basically a very severe dispute over, of course, Trump in his 301 00:20:19,600 --> 00:20:24,600 own way has a reality TV of many things in particular like, you 302 00:20:24,600 --> 00:20:27,000 know. A lot of the stuff around trade 303 00:20:27,000 --> 00:20:29,720 and tariffs and so on and so forth is, is incorrect. 304 00:20:31,000 --> 00:20:33,720 But anyway, my point, here's my, my thinking on this. 305 00:20:33,720 --> 00:20:35,840 And I'd love your thoughts because this gets, I think, a 306 00:20:35,840 --> 00:20:38,360 deep overlap of, of where we think about things. 307 00:20:38,720 --> 00:20:40,440 So if you go through all these things, all these different 308 00:20:40,440 --> 00:20:43,560 economic stats, that's 20 years of economic fakery. 309 00:20:43,760 --> 00:20:46,400 But it's not all just lies. Some of it is error. 310 00:20:46,520 --> 00:20:48,760 Some of it is very material revision. 311 00:20:48,760 --> 00:20:51,640 Some of it is spin, like quantitative easing isn't 312 00:20:51,640 --> 00:20:54,720 printing debt ceiling doesn't matter, It was tribalism. 313 00:20:54,960 --> 00:20:58,040 Some of it's like pseudoscience. The a mortgage-backed securities 314 00:20:58,040 --> 00:21:01,960 arguably outright flawed, and then transitory inflation in 315 00:21:01,960 --> 00:21:06,480 2021 was all of the above. It was error, it was revision, 316 00:21:06,480 --> 00:21:09,200 it was spin, it was tribalism, it was pseudoscience. 317 00:21:09,200 --> 00:21:12,040 And eventually it was outright fraud because everybody who 318 00:21:12,040 --> 00:21:16,040 bought treasuries in 2021 bought them on the false pretense that 319 00:21:16,440 --> 00:21:19,120 rates were going to be low forever. 320 00:21:19,440 --> 00:21:22,000 And they weren't, They were hiked radically in the next few 321 00:21:22,000 --> 00:21:25,040 months, right? So the, the reason I say this is 322 00:21:25,160 --> 00:21:29,080 when you have the centralized authority that you, you have 323 00:21:29,080 --> 00:21:32,000 some local information and you can compare it to what the 324 00:21:32,000 --> 00:21:36,040 centralized authorities putting out and you can see that based 325 00:21:36,040 --> 00:21:38,040 on your local information, it doesn't match up with what 326 00:21:38,040 --> 00:21:39,720 they're saying, right? You know you're mugged by 327 00:21:39,720 --> 00:21:41,840 reality, but what are you going to believe them or your lying 328 00:21:41,840 --> 00:21:43,640 eyes, right? You've got local sensor data, 329 00:21:43,680 --> 00:21:46,200 right? You can DIF it and you can say 330 00:21:46,480 --> 00:21:47,760 that centralized authority is false. 331 00:21:47,760 --> 00:21:50,160 And I know what is true in this local area, right? 332 00:21:51,920 --> 00:21:55,080 But you it's hard to form a system perspective because can 333 00:21:55,080 --> 00:21:57,640 they actually truly be lying about everything? 334 00:21:57,640 --> 00:22:01,920 Well, are they lying about whether it rained in Panama like 335 00:22:01,920 --> 00:22:03,320 The Weather Channel or something like that? 336 00:22:03,440 --> 00:22:05,520 Can you really go and check that for yourself? 337 00:22:05,720 --> 00:22:06,720 Can they be lying about everything? 338 00:22:06,720 --> 00:22:10,840 Now you need to have some decision rule to figure out what 339 00:22:10,840 --> 00:22:14,000 is true and what is false. And that's really expensive 340 00:22:14,000 --> 00:22:16,320 because it's essentially reinventing the centralized 341 00:22:16,320 --> 00:22:19,160 institution again. And that leads to the, you know, 342 00:22:19,520 --> 00:22:23,120 you know, the concept of Gentleman Amnesia by Michael 343 00:22:23,120 --> 00:22:24,440 Kreiden. No. 344 00:22:25,080 --> 00:22:28,160 OK, so he has this concept which is which you'll like. 345 00:22:28,680 --> 00:22:30,960 He basically says, you know, there's this great physicist 346 00:22:31,240 --> 00:22:34,680 that he, Murray gentleman, famous noble, noble laureate and 347 00:22:34,720 --> 00:22:37,880 basically Michael Kreiden said, if when you go and you read the 348 00:22:37,880 --> 00:22:41,400 paper on any subject, you know, they reverse cause and effect, 349 00:22:41,400 --> 00:22:43,960 they get everything wrong. You know, they're just like, 350 00:22:44,080 --> 00:22:46,960 they just just get it wrong. And because you have local 351 00:22:46,960 --> 00:22:51,280 knowledge and then you flip the page and you read about Japan or 352 00:22:51,280 --> 00:22:56,480 you read about steel and you forget that they just completely 353 00:22:56,480 --> 00:22:59,200 messed up the area that, you know, you read those other 354 00:22:59,200 --> 00:23:04,080 stories and you have amnesia. And, and his friend called it 355 00:23:04,120 --> 00:23:06,200 Gelman amnesia, where any time they wrote a story about 356 00:23:06,200 --> 00:23:08,440 physics, Marty Gelman would find out all the errors and so on 357 00:23:08,440 --> 00:23:10,280 about it. Then he'd flip the page to read 358 00:23:10,280 --> 00:23:12,400 about Japan or Korea as if it was true, right. 359 00:23:13,280 --> 00:23:17,640 And the way I think about this is if you imagine, let's say the 360 00:23:17,640 --> 00:23:21,480 New York Times or legacy media as like or the US government is 361 00:23:21,480 --> 00:23:24,120 like a centralized institution, a hub in the center, right? 362 00:23:24,880 --> 00:23:27,880 Then you're a spoke over here and you, you have, let's say, 363 00:23:27,880 --> 00:23:30,880 local knowledge on, on Duke, on academia, right? 364 00:23:31,240 --> 00:23:34,360 And I might have local knowledge on biotech and somebody else's 365 00:23:34,360 --> 00:23:37,000 local knowledge on Japan or something like that. 366 00:23:37,360 --> 00:23:39,760 But how is the Japanese person supposed to know about what's 367 00:23:39,760 --> 00:23:43,400 happening at Duke better than NYT? 368 00:23:43,880 --> 00:23:46,480 He would just go to NYT to figure out that information 369 00:23:46,480 --> 00:23:48,800 because he couldn't talk to you directly until social media. 370 00:23:50,160 --> 00:23:51,880 And now we can route around, right? 371 00:23:51,960 --> 00:23:55,120 Go ahead. Well, social media then changes 372 00:23:55,120 --> 00:23:59,280 things because you get influencers and you you have 373 00:23:59,320 --> 00:24:04,040 influencers that you trust and you trust them because people 374 00:24:04,040 --> 00:24:11,160 you you you trust are following them are are re retweeting them. 375 00:24:11,480 --> 00:24:15,400 And when you yourself follow them, you find out that 376 00:24:15,400 --> 00:24:18,960 generally what they say turns out to be turns out to be true 377 00:24:19,120 --> 00:24:21,400 or. Or at least at least it comports 378 00:24:21,400 --> 00:24:23,040 with one's worldview even, right? 379 00:24:23,400 --> 00:24:26,480 And then, then the tricky part though is of course, social 380 00:24:26,480 --> 00:24:31,680 media itself is not a panacea because you have, you have lots 381 00:24:31,680 --> 00:24:33,800 of people who are posting fake stuff on social media just for 382 00:24:33,800 --> 00:24:37,240 clout or what have you, right? And so eventually what I came to 383 00:24:37,240 --> 00:24:40,680 the conclusion on is that, you know, the thing about Bitcoin, 384 00:24:40,680 --> 00:24:42,520 the thing about cryptocurrency and one of the reasons, like I 385 00:24:42,520 --> 00:24:44,480 was interested in your work beforehand, but then I matched 386 00:24:44,480 --> 00:24:47,880 it up with my interest in in cryptocurrency is have you heard 387 00:24:47,880 --> 00:24:49,600 that there's a, there's a great book on Bitcoin? 388 00:24:49,600 --> 00:24:51,160 Just the title alone, it's actually pretty good. 389 00:24:51,160 --> 00:24:53,680 It's called the truth Machine. OK. 390 00:24:54,200 --> 00:24:57,360 And and the reason is that. I read it no. 391 00:24:57,920 --> 00:24:58,880 OK, right. So you heard of it. 392 00:24:59,000 --> 00:25:02,320 So The thing is, whether you're Democrat or Republican, Indian 393 00:25:02,320 --> 00:25:06,000 or Pakistani, Chinese, Japanese, you know, British or French, 394 00:25:07,200 --> 00:25:11,600 everybody agrees on who holds what amount of Bitcoin, which is 395 00:25:11,600 --> 00:25:14,360 this incredible thing to have consensus on. 396 00:25:14,360 --> 00:25:17,520 Not a trivial truth, a trillion dollar truth, a $2 trillion 397 00:25:17,520 --> 00:25:19,720 truth, right? People will fight, you know, 398 00:25:19,720 --> 00:25:21,840 over $1,000,000, a billion dollars, a little on trillions 399 00:25:21,840 --> 00:25:23,800 of dollars. And the same algorithms that 400 00:25:23,800 --> 00:25:26,800 allowed us to get consensus because they made it very 401 00:25:26,800 --> 00:25:30,760 expensive, extremely expensive and challenging to fake the 402 00:25:30,760 --> 00:25:34,000 state of the Bitcoin blockchain. The same algorithms can get you 403 00:25:34,000 --> 00:25:37,920 consensus not just over who owns what Bitcoin, but who holds what 404 00:25:37,920 --> 00:25:40,440 amount of stocks, what amount of bonds, what amount of any kind 405 00:25:40,440 --> 00:25:43,320 of property. And that actually then extends 406 00:25:43,320 --> 00:25:44,800 and this is something you may not be aware of. 407 00:25:45,040 --> 00:25:48,240 It extends off chain because have you ever used a smart lock? 408 00:25:48,840 --> 00:25:50,200 You know, smart lock like for a door. 409 00:25:50,680 --> 00:25:53,160 Yes, I have, yeah. Like like a lock that you can 410 00:25:53,160 --> 00:25:55,600 open with your phone, for example, right or anything but a 411 00:25:55,600 --> 00:25:58,920 key card at a hotel, yes. So the the same technology 412 00:25:58,920 --> 00:26:02,640 that's used to secure electronic, you know, like like 413 00:26:02,640 --> 00:26:06,440 digital stuff on chain can be used to digitally unlock and 414 00:26:06,440 --> 00:26:09,680 lock doors, right. So that means that all capital 415 00:26:09,680 --> 00:26:13,520 equipment, all property, every, every door to a room, every door 416 00:26:13,520 --> 00:26:17,640 to a train, a car, a tank, a plane, every everything that 417 00:26:17,640 --> 00:26:21,000 makes a drone fly or a robot animate everything that every 418 00:26:21,000 --> 00:26:24,560 machine in a factory, every camera, all of that can actually 419 00:26:24,560 --> 00:26:27,920 also be gated by cryptography the same crypto as as as 420 00:26:27,920 --> 00:26:29,600 Bitcoin. It doesn't, to be clear, it 421 00:26:29,600 --> 00:26:32,600 doesn't cover the shirt on your back, doesn't cover the food on 422 00:26:32,600 --> 00:26:34,880 your plate. OK, there's still, you know, 423 00:26:34,880 --> 00:26:37,000 personal property that it wouldn't cover. 424 00:26:37,440 --> 00:26:41,080 What that means is we can get to consensus on who owns what piece 425 00:26:41,080 --> 00:26:43,840 of property for all capital equipment and all capital. 426 00:26:44,400 --> 00:26:46,200 And we can actually extend it further because these are like 427 00:26:46,200 --> 00:26:50,920 armored cars for information. So when people are trading on, 428 00:26:51,680 --> 00:26:55,240 for example, temperature data, right, there's oracles that sort 429 00:26:55,240 --> 00:26:57,400 of take the temperature data to the blockchain and then you have 430 00:26:57,400 --> 00:26:59,560 smart contracts on that basis, like you can do insurance 431 00:26:59,560 --> 00:27:03,040 contracts on that basis. So this to me struck me as 432 00:27:03,040 --> 00:27:09,680 something where it has implications for how we like fix 433 00:27:09,680 --> 00:27:12,720 a society that's been affected by public lives for a long time. 434 00:27:13,120 --> 00:27:17,680 We develop shadow statistics on inflation, on temperature, on 435 00:27:17,680 --> 00:27:20,440 this, on that. We make them tradable one at a 436 00:27:20,440 --> 00:27:22,640 time on chain. We have contracts on the basis 437 00:27:22,920 --> 00:27:24,920 we allow them to be posted synonymously. 438 00:27:25,200 --> 00:27:27,320 There's very script graphic techniques that allow you to do 439 00:27:27,320 --> 00:27:30,520 that. And then we eventually start 440 00:27:30,520 --> 00:27:32,840 getting a picture of what is actually true and false in 441 00:27:32,840 --> 00:27:36,040 society by kind of editing around the edges, right. 442 00:27:36,280 --> 00:27:38,200 And we started with really the monetary system, which should be 443 00:27:38,200 --> 00:27:41,120 the most valuable piece. And then we can extend that to 444 00:27:41,120 --> 00:27:44,240 other kinds of facts. So I know that's maybe a little 445 00:27:44,240 --> 00:27:47,880 technical, but that is how I, I've been thinking about, you 446 00:27:47,880 --> 00:27:51,040 know, you, you pose a problem, which is a recurrence of this 447 00:27:51,280 --> 00:27:53,320 public lies kind of thing that cause the dysfunction, the 448 00:27:53,320 --> 00:27:55,760 centralized organs society. And here's a potential solution, 449 00:27:55,760 --> 00:27:57,200 which is decentralized cryptographic truth. 450 00:27:57,200 --> 00:28:02,480 Let me pause there. Talking about a method for for 451 00:28:02,520 --> 00:28:07,280 extracting information, extracting true information in a 452 00:28:07,280 --> 00:28:14,640 context where people have incentives to lie, to falsify, 453 00:28:15,120 --> 00:28:19,000 right. So I'm I'm not really familiar 454 00:28:19,000 --> 00:28:23,440 with the with the methods that you have suggested, but perhaps 455 00:28:23,720 --> 00:28:26,680 I I can talk about other methods. 456 00:28:26,720 --> 00:28:32,000 Like Bayesian truth ceramic. Similar methods that are used to 457 00:28:32,600 --> 00:28:38,240 predict to measure private opinion in an environment where 458 00:28:38,240 --> 00:28:45,600 private opinion the distribution of private preferences differs 459 00:28:45,800 --> 00:28:49,200 from public opinion, which is the distribution of public 460 00:28:49,280 --> 00:28:51,400 preferences. So talk about that, I'm very 461 00:28:51,400 --> 00:28:52,040 interested. Go ahead. 462 00:28:52,760 --> 00:28:56,400 If there's a lot of preference of of falsification, you know 463 00:28:56,440 --> 00:28:59,800 these two are going to going to differ dramatically. 464 00:29:00,080 --> 00:29:06,920 Now, one way of the that scholars have abused is the 465 00:29:07,200 --> 00:29:12,280 ethnographic studies. Jim Scott, who died recently, 466 00:29:12,440 --> 00:29:19,000 the Yale political scientist he was, he was an expert at this. 467 00:29:19,000 --> 00:29:23,600 He wrote a book called Weapons of the Week, which and and to 468 00:29:23,600 --> 00:29:29,360 collect his data. He just lived among rural Malays 469 00:29:30,080 --> 00:29:36,720 to to develop their trust, to have them reveal their their 470 00:29:36,720 --> 00:29:38,840 secrets. And he discovered that all sorts 471 00:29:38,840 --> 00:29:42,360 of things that they told the state, that they told the tax 472 00:29:42,360 --> 00:29:47,560 collectors and so on were not, were not true. 473 00:29:47,640 --> 00:29:51,080 And so that's that's one way. And that and many of their, 474 00:29:51,080 --> 00:29:55,760 their, the preferences that they projected publicly to and to 475 00:29:55,960 --> 00:29:59,760 authorities, the people outside of their immediate circle were 476 00:29:59,760 --> 00:30:02,480 not were not. So that's one thing you can do 477 00:30:02,840 --> 00:30:06,320 and also conduct surveys that offer anonymity in very 478 00:30:06,320 --> 00:30:10,200 repressive climates. These of course, let me go back 479 00:30:10,200 --> 00:30:12,880 to ethnographic studies, of course, that's it. 480 00:30:12,880 --> 00:30:21,280 It's very expensive to to do. It's very time incentive in time 481 00:30:21,280 --> 00:30:26,480 intensive surveys that offer anonymity in repressive 482 00:30:26,520 --> 00:30:29,440 environments. It's difficult to be convincing. 483 00:30:31,360 --> 00:30:33,560 Yes, so, so so I mean, the thing about it is. 484 00:30:34,160 --> 00:30:38,120 Go ahead. Yeah, repressive regimes know 485 00:30:38,120 --> 00:30:40,600 that there's a great deal of preference falsification and 486 00:30:40,600 --> 00:30:45,160 knowledge falsification because of their repression and they but 487 00:30:45,160 --> 00:30:49,400 they have an interest in knowing where the truth, sentiment, 488 00:30:49,400 --> 00:30:51,800 opposition are, what the what the truth is. 489 00:30:52,080 --> 00:31:00,320 So they all all offer anonymity to censor certain groups to. 490 00:31:01,200 --> 00:31:02,920 So, so basically I don't know this. 491 00:31:02,920 --> 00:31:05,080 So they actually do their own private polling. 492 00:31:05,640 --> 00:31:09,560 Yes they do their their own private polling. 493 00:31:09,560 --> 00:31:13,080 This was this was done in all communist in Eastern Europe. 494 00:31:13,080 --> 00:31:16,800 The Soviets did this in I. Did not do that. 495 00:31:17,480 --> 00:31:22,560 They they did this in. How do they, how do they conduct 496 00:31:22,560 --> 00:31:24,160 that? Was it like how many thought 497 00:31:24,160 --> 00:31:25,960 criminals are there in your district? 498 00:31:25,960 --> 00:31:27,680 Do you estimate, comrade? Do they do it like an 499 00:31:27,680 --> 00:31:30,680 indirectness thing so that the person who said I think there's 500 00:31:30,680 --> 00:31:34,360 lots of saboteurs here could be off the hook or they literally 501 00:31:34,360 --> 00:31:37,080 ask it directly with an anonymous service? 502 00:31:37,440 --> 00:31:41,600 They they did everything. The one I'm quite familiar with 503 00:31:41,600 --> 00:31:49,520 is the anonymous polling they conducted in Leipzig for for 504 00:31:49,520 --> 00:31:54,960 over 40 years now. How they convinced in the 1950s, 505 00:31:55,160 --> 00:32:01,560 how they convinced a group of students, college students at at 506 00:32:01,560 --> 00:32:06,840 Leipzig to believe that the that the check marks they were going 507 00:32:06,840 --> 00:32:11,400 to they they put on pieces of paper that did not include their 508 00:32:11,440 --> 00:32:15,680 their names. How that these would not be used 509 00:32:15,680 --> 00:32:20,600 somehow to to punish them if they were giving the wrong 510 00:32:20,600 --> 00:32:25,800 answers, I don't know. But once the system got got 511 00:32:25,800 --> 00:32:33,240 established and students it at Leipzig learned that there were 512 00:32:33,240 --> 00:32:37,960 no reprisals, they this information became valuable and 513 00:32:37,960 --> 00:32:41,240 the information not that there was no preference falsification 514 00:32:41,240 --> 00:32:47,320 at all in these surveys, but over time changes were were 515 00:32:47,320 --> 00:32:49,120 meaningful. So that's interesting. 516 00:32:49,240 --> 00:32:54,840 So, so, so when the time series approach where they can at least 517 00:32:54,840 --> 00:32:57,760 detect trends up and down, you know, if they weren't sure about 518 00:32:57,760 --> 00:33:01,040 the absolute level. Yes, they, they could, they 519 00:33:01,040 --> 00:33:07,240 could detect these trends and they, they leading up to 1985 to 520 00:33:07,280 --> 00:33:15,800 89, you see a dramatic increase in, in opposition to the 521 00:33:15,800 --> 00:33:22,600 Communist Party in, in the belief that communism was not an 522 00:33:22,600 --> 00:33:27,920 efficient system, that dramatic reforms were needed. 523 00:33:28,320 --> 00:33:33,600 So the, the communist leaders were aware that there was 524 00:33:34,760 --> 00:33:39,520 growing discontent in the, in the population. 525 00:33:40,000 --> 00:33:44,720 So that's one thing you can do. Of course, it's very difficult 526 00:33:44,800 --> 00:33:54,160 to to establish as a system and develop the trust of a a certain 527 00:33:54,600 --> 00:33:57,920 community. Google searches are it can be 528 00:33:58,440 --> 00:34:01,360 revealing. People often will if there's 529 00:34:01,720 --> 00:34:05,080 there might be no public enthusiasm for a particular 530 00:34:05,080 --> 00:34:08,520 candidate. But Google searches can can 531 00:34:08,520 --> 00:34:11,600 reveal that there's actually a lot of enthusiasm, hidden 532 00:34:11,600 --> 00:34:16,800 enthusiasm for for a candidate. There's social circle of 533 00:34:16,840 --> 00:34:22,280 appalling this. This involves asking people not 534 00:34:22,280 --> 00:34:26,639 about their own preferences, but the preferences of people in 535 00:34:26,639 --> 00:34:33,719 their of their the preferences of their acquaintances or in 536 00:34:33,719 --> 00:34:36,000 their in their communities. Yes. 537 00:34:36,000 --> 00:34:39,280 That's so that's, so I'm feeling with Bayesian truth serum, which 538 00:34:39,280 --> 00:34:42,040 is 1 variant on this and this also kind of relevant to 539 00:34:42,040 --> 00:34:44,880 prediction markets. But basically I think this is a 540 00:34:44,880 --> 00:34:46,679 patented technique or something like that. 541 00:34:46,679 --> 00:34:49,280 But there's, there's like maybe some unpatented version of it's 542 00:34:49,280 --> 00:34:51,800 coming on patent. But the idea was very similar to 543 00:34:51,800 --> 00:34:56,120 what you just said, which is you ask people, let's say, for 544 00:34:56,120 --> 00:34:58,880 example, let's say drug use like marijuana or something. 545 00:34:59,040 --> 00:35:01,640 You ask people straight up, do they use marijuana? 546 00:35:01,640 --> 00:35:05,960 And then you also give them an incentive of guessing what 547 00:35:06,640 --> 00:35:10,840 percentage of people actually use marijuana in the population. 548 00:35:10,840 --> 00:35:14,640 And the closer they are, the the more money they get. 549 00:35:14,640 --> 00:35:16,760 And it's like drops off symmetrically or whatever on 550 00:35:16,760 --> 00:35:17,840 either side. So if it's like. 551 00:35:18,400 --> 00:35:24,840 You reward them partly for how well they can predict the actual 552 00:35:24,840 --> 00:35:27,000 distribution. Yes, that's exactly that's 553 00:35:27,000 --> 00:35:29,920 right. So, and under certain 554 00:35:29,920 --> 00:35:32,840 assumptions, of course, your people have to be smart enough 555 00:35:32,840 --> 00:35:36,040 to know that they can go by predicting the distribution. 556 00:35:36,880 --> 00:35:38,640 They're off the hook themselves, right? 557 00:35:38,640 --> 00:35:40,560 Because they're just, you know, trying to predict all those 558 00:35:40,560 --> 00:35:41,880 other people are misbehaving, right? 559 00:35:42,280 --> 00:35:49,400 So this is similar to prediction markets where you are, you know, 560 00:35:49,480 --> 00:35:52,080 trying to estimate whether something is going to happen or 561 00:35:52,080 --> 00:35:55,280 not. And sometimes a prediction 562 00:35:55,280 --> 00:35:57,400 market is really like a verification market where you're 563 00:35:57,400 --> 00:36:01,200 trying to see whether sentiment will, you know, hit a particular 564 00:36:01,200 --> 00:36:07,600 range, you know, and you know, I, I think a lot of your 565 00:36:07,600 --> 00:36:11,440 concepts are good things for people in crypto to think about. 566 00:36:11,440 --> 00:36:14,240 Actually, there's another piece because your other set of books 567 00:36:14,760 --> 00:36:18,880 on Islamic finance, I often think about that with respect to 568 00:36:18,880 --> 00:36:20,440 Bitcoin maximalism. Do you know what Bitcoin 569 00:36:20,440 --> 00:36:21,760 maximalism is? No. 570 00:36:22,680 --> 00:36:27,720 Basically, you know, Islamic finance wants no debt, right? 571 00:36:28,200 --> 00:36:32,040 And you know, actually, you know, Christianity also, no. 572 00:36:32,440 --> 00:36:34,920 Interest based steps. Sorry, sorry, no interest based 573 00:36:34,920 --> 00:36:35,680 debt, Correct. You're right. 574 00:36:35,840 --> 00:36:40,000 I remember precise Christianity also had prohibitions on usury, 575 00:36:40,000 --> 00:36:45,320 on high debt rates. And you know, the the Soviet 576 00:36:45,320 --> 00:36:47,880 Union had prohibitions on a different economic thing, which 577 00:36:47,880 --> 00:36:51,760 is profit and what Bitcoin maximalism is. 578 00:36:51,760 --> 00:36:54,000 It basically says Bitcoin is the only coin, there should be no 579 00:36:54,000 --> 00:36:56,720 other coins. It essentially has a prohibition 580 00:36:56,720 --> 00:36:59,280 on, let's call it equity issuance, right? 581 00:36:59,280 --> 00:37:04,840 The any, any, any new coin which is created is sort of taboo in 582 00:37:04,840 --> 00:37:10,120 the same way that interest was under Christianity or Islam and 583 00:37:11,040 --> 00:37:17,480 profit was under communism and issuance of new assets is under 584 00:37:17,560 --> 00:37:20,800 Bitcoin maximalism. And there's a similar sense in 585 00:37:20,800 --> 00:37:23,960 which it has a somewhat distorting effect on the 586 00:37:23,960 --> 00:37:28,760 economy, which is to say that Bitcoin maximalism is so anti 587 00:37:28,760 --> 00:37:31,840 finance that it's very hard to do decentralized finance on the 588 00:37:31,840 --> 00:37:34,000 Bitcoin blockchain. So it's moved to other chains 589 00:37:34,000 --> 00:37:37,480 like Ethereum and Solana. Now one of the pros of this is 590 00:37:37,480 --> 00:37:40,160 that they basically think everything outside of Bitcoin is 591 00:37:40,160 --> 00:37:42,600 a scam. And so they're OK with 592 00:37:42,600 --> 00:37:46,520 everything that is not Bitcoin being pushed off of the Bitcoin 593 00:37:46,520 --> 00:37:49,160 chain. They want a very simple economy. 594 00:37:49,520 --> 00:37:53,960 They want gold and only that. They don't want to need tricks. 595 00:37:54,160 --> 00:37:57,760 They want it to be simple. And this is actually, I would 596 00:37:57,800 --> 00:38:00,680 argue in part also related to our previous point, which is 597 00:38:00,680 --> 00:38:03,760 it's a reaction against, let's say, an administration with all 598 00:38:03,760 --> 00:38:06,760 the lies of the Soviet Union or made the Biden administration or 599 00:38:06,760 --> 00:38:09,960 all the past kind of things. There's a tribal reaction to 600 00:38:09,960 --> 00:38:13,080 that, which is just mass distrust in the centralized 601 00:38:13,080 --> 00:38:16,840 power and just wants total simplicity, total verifiability, 602 00:38:16,840 --> 00:38:18,680 what I can touch and feel with my hands. 603 00:38:19,120 --> 00:38:22,760 But that also means less civilizational complexity, maybe 604 00:38:22,760 --> 00:38:26,680 a dark ages or less economic scale because there's no trust 605 00:38:26,680 --> 00:38:28,320 anymore. Everybody goes back to what they 606 00:38:28,320 --> 00:38:30,440 can touch and feel with their hands, sort of a tribal kind of 607 00:38:30,440 --> 00:38:31,840 order, right? So there. 608 00:38:32,000 --> 00:38:34,560 So almost like phase one is publicized private truths and 609 00:38:34,560 --> 00:38:37,560 Phase 2 is this extremely simple financial system like Bitcoin 610 00:38:37,560 --> 00:38:40,880 maximalism or post Soviet economics, where there's such 611 00:38:40,880 --> 00:38:42,920 low trust that scale is inhibited. 612 00:38:43,200 --> 00:38:48,120 Let me know your thoughts. Scale is is inhibited and the 613 00:38:50,040 --> 00:38:56,040 going back to the this Islamic case, the reason the Middle East 614 00:38:56,080 --> 00:39:01,040 fell behind economically is that it could not scale up. 615 00:39:01,680 --> 00:39:06,440 It had economic institutions that were quite well suited to 616 00:39:06,440 --> 00:39:12,880 the Middle Ages when the scale of production, the scale of 617 00:39:12,880 --> 00:39:19,200 commerce was was quite small. Huge problem was when the West 618 00:39:19,200 --> 00:39:23,640 developed the institutions for mass production and mass 619 00:39:23,640 --> 00:39:27,840 communications, mass transportation, etcetera, and it 620 00:39:27,960 --> 00:39:32,400 developed the technologies that would make mass production and 621 00:39:32,400 --> 00:39:37,720 so on and so on profitable. The Middle East found itself at 622 00:39:37,720 --> 00:39:40,040 that point, and the Middle East wasn't the only region in the 623 00:39:40,040 --> 00:39:42,560 world. There were other other places 624 00:39:42,560 --> 00:39:48,680 that as well that had been more advanced economically than than 625 00:39:48,920 --> 00:39:56,200 Europe that found themselves unable to compete through small 626 00:39:56,200 --> 00:40:01,600 scale operations, small scale enterprises with the huge 627 00:40:01,600 --> 00:40:04,920 enterprises backed by a huge amount of capital. 628 00:40:05,640 --> 00:40:08,360 That the that the Europeans were presenting. 629 00:40:08,600 --> 00:40:11,040 So, you know, The thing is, you know, you know more of this 630 00:40:11,040 --> 00:40:12,720 history, you know more of this issue than I do. 631 00:40:12,720 --> 00:40:18,280 But the Abbasids and the Omians did manage fairly large scale, 632 00:40:18,440 --> 00:40:21,760 right? The state, the state did right? 633 00:40:22,000 --> 00:40:24,120 And certainly the modern. You didn't have private 634 00:40:24,120 --> 00:40:26,240 enterprises, large private enterprises. 635 00:40:26,640 --> 00:40:27,640 I see. That's interesting. 636 00:40:27,640 --> 00:40:33,040 So the, that, so, you know, it's, it's some of the 637 00:40:33,040 --> 00:40:37,040 comparative stuff, you know, I've, I've been, I need to learn 638 00:40:37,040 --> 00:40:40,520 more about, you know, the basically Middle Eastern 639 00:40:40,520 --> 00:40:41,760 economics and so on and so forth. 640 00:40:43,080 --> 00:40:46,680 Have you, have you seen, have you read Fukuyama's Origins of 641 00:40:46,680 --> 00:40:48,880 Political Order? Yes, I know. 642 00:40:49,040 --> 00:40:51,400 I know. Several of Fukuyama's books, 643 00:40:51,400 --> 00:40:54,080 yeah. OK, so there's one thing in that 644 00:40:54,080 --> 00:40:56,400 that stuck with me and I'm going to just paraphrase and, you 645 00:40:56,400 --> 00:40:58,920 know, like like summarize a very big and complicated thing. 646 00:40:58,920 --> 00:41:03,920 And something that stuck to me was kind of the concept of, and 647 00:41:03,920 --> 00:41:06,800 maybe we can relate this to the Europe and Middle Eastern thing. 648 00:41:07,520 --> 00:41:11,320 In China, you have the state above the law. 649 00:41:11,320 --> 00:41:13,640 And in India, for many, you know, many centuries, you had 650 00:41:13,640 --> 00:41:16,680 the law above the state. And what that meant was in 651 00:41:16,680 --> 00:41:20,040 China, they took the pragmatic attitude that was kind of 652 00:41:20,040 --> 00:41:23,920 actually in a sense pragmatic or, or unlimited a government, 653 00:41:23,920 --> 00:41:27,480 whatever you want to call it that like your chair could just 654 00:41:27,480 --> 00:41:32,080 turn into a CCP agent or an agent of the emperor if if the 655 00:41:32,080 --> 00:41:34,440 state so desired. Because what could really hold 656 00:41:34,440 --> 00:41:37,280 back the state law is just a piece of paper, but the state 657 00:41:37,280 --> 00:41:40,080 has, you know, the guns, it has the troops, it has the people. 658 00:41:40,440 --> 00:41:42,760 And so really it just has root access to everything. 659 00:41:42,760 --> 00:41:44,880 And so state above law is a strong state, weak law. 660 00:41:45,680 --> 00:41:48,640 In India, it was the opposite where the kings were actually 661 00:41:48,640 --> 00:41:52,800 relatively weak because Dharma, they believed in Dharma and 662 00:41:52,800 --> 00:41:55,840 karma. And so somebody could quote the 663 00:41:55,840 --> 00:42:00,160 Vedas or the scriptures against them and they would be like, OK, 664 00:42:00,320 --> 00:42:02,480 I don't want to, you know, not be reincarnated. 665 00:42:02,480 --> 00:42:08,040 I'm going to step lightly. And Dharmic law, you know, was, 666 00:42:08,040 --> 00:42:09,480 was actually pretty strong, right? 667 00:42:09,480 --> 00:42:10,880 But the state was relatively weak. 668 00:42:11,560 --> 00:42:16,280 And I think about that also in the modern context in some ways 669 00:42:16,280 --> 00:42:21,000 in terms of China versus crypto, where the modern China is strong 670 00:42:21,000 --> 00:42:24,800 state weak law, where XI can just order lockdowns or seize 671 00:42:24,800 --> 00:42:27,200 funds, take Jack Moss companies and so on so forth. 672 00:42:27,680 --> 00:42:29,760 But the Internet is sort of law above state. 673 00:42:29,960 --> 00:42:32,600 We have Bitcoin, you have cryptocurrency and that can 674 00:42:32,600 --> 00:42:34,800 constrain states. And if they want to seize your 675 00:42:34,800 --> 00:42:37,880 funds, they can't, right? You now move from people's 676 00:42:37,880 --> 00:42:40,400 belief in reincarnation, which is a human belief, something 677 00:42:40,400 --> 00:42:43,240 that's harder than that, which is like their inability to, you 678 00:42:43,240 --> 00:42:45,240 know, solve certain kinds of math problems to take the money 679 00:42:45,240 --> 00:42:48,440 on chain. And and then the kind of 680 00:42:48,440 --> 00:42:51,520 European and Middle Eastern world are yet different kinds of 681 00:42:51,520 --> 00:42:54,200 structures, right? Where Europe you can argue the 682 00:42:54,200 --> 00:42:57,120 law equal the state for a long time, you know, rather than the 683 00:42:57,120 --> 00:42:58,920 state above law or law equal state that you know that they 684 00:42:58,920 --> 00:43:02,960 were arguably they were considered connected and in the 685 00:43:02,960 --> 00:43:04,720 Middle East. Maybe you can give some remarks 686 00:43:04,720 --> 00:43:06,440 on that. I think like my very rough 687 00:43:06,440 --> 00:43:09,080 impression is see, there's been various stages absent that you 688 00:43:09,080 --> 00:43:10,480 may have. It's also before the modern era, 689 00:43:10,480 --> 00:43:13,400 you didn't have as much fundamentalist Islam and that 690 00:43:13,400 --> 00:43:16,360 like the whole say Kitab Wahhabi as thing is actually a late 20th 691 00:43:16,360 --> 00:43:19,240 century phenomenon because Mubarak and others right were 692 00:43:19,240 --> 00:43:22,520 very secular and they laughed at the idea that everybody was 693 00:43:22,520 --> 00:43:24,680 going to be veiled that they laughed at the idea of the tar 694 00:43:24,680 --> 00:43:27,480 hub is going to be a big thing. But then yet again, you have now 695 00:43:27,480 --> 00:43:32,480 today Riyadh and, and the UAE are actually very modern, 696 00:43:32,480 --> 00:43:35,200 despite having people in traditional dress and so on. 697 00:43:35,560 --> 00:43:39,560 So I don't pretend to fully understand the full Middle East. 698 00:43:39,560 --> 00:43:43,040 I'm actually pretty bullish on it in recent years because 699 00:43:43,240 --> 00:43:46,840 there's been a lot of pro tech pro, you know, pro capitalist 700 00:43:46,840 --> 00:43:49,200 sentiment there. There's Kareem and other kinds 701 00:43:49,200 --> 00:43:51,200 of things. Maybe you can help give me a 702 00:43:51,200 --> 00:43:53,360 lens because, you know, I spend more time there. 703 00:43:53,360 --> 00:43:56,240 I spend more time in Dubai and I'm, you know, I'm, I'm bullish 704 00:43:56,240 --> 00:43:59,120 on the region, but I, but I, I don't know everything about it. 705 00:43:59,120 --> 00:44:00,520 So, you know, maybe you've got some thoughts. 706 00:44:00,800 --> 00:44:05,600 So I happen to be also optimistic with regard to the 707 00:44:06,080 --> 00:44:10,000 long run. The last book I wrote on the on 708 00:44:10,000 --> 00:44:14,520 the subjects called Freedoms Delayed, not Freedoms Denied. 709 00:44:15,120 --> 00:44:20,600 I believe that the the institutions necessary for the 710 00:44:20,600 --> 00:44:24,880 Middle East to achieve the right balance between the power of the 711 00:44:24,880 --> 00:44:30,440 state and power of our society, that that potential is is there. 712 00:44:30,680 --> 00:44:32,400 I don't think there's any quick fix. 713 00:44:32,400 --> 00:44:35,360 I don't think that in in a region where you don't have a 714 00:44:35,360 --> 00:44:40,680 single democracy at the moment for where religious freedoms are 715 00:44:40,680 --> 00:44:44,120 quite, quite weak, I don't think that we're going to see a 716 00:44:44,120 --> 00:44:47,480 Jeffersonian democracy anytime soon. 717 00:44:48,600 --> 00:44:54,080 I think that the the region is is quite troubled at the moment. 718 00:44:54,280 --> 00:45:01,400 But I do agree with you that that the region is not 719 00:45:01,400 --> 00:45:04,960 completely a basket case. It's not hopeless. 720 00:45:04,960 --> 00:45:10,640 It's not condemned for forever to very repressive, very 721 00:45:10,640 --> 00:45:15,640 repressive regimes and it will not it would not remain forever 722 00:45:16,840 --> 00:45:23,120 economically underdeveloped. Let me point out it just taking 723 00:45:23,120 --> 00:45:31,080 off from some of the points you made the during the Umayyad and 724 00:45:31,200 --> 00:45:38,560 Abbasid times, roughly the 8th century to the 13th century, the 725 00:45:38,560 --> 00:45:46,400 Middle East had strong states in the sense that that salt they 726 00:45:46,400 --> 00:45:51,360 had strong say states in a, in a, in a, in this, in this sense 727 00:45:51,760 --> 00:45:54,320 that they could deny property rights. 728 00:45:54,720 --> 00:45:57,920 OK, they could, if the Sultan, if the Sultan wants to 729 00:45:57,920 --> 00:46:02,320 expropriate something, was powerful enough to to do that. 730 00:46:02,840 --> 00:46:06,160 They were able to. Their ability to tax was far 731 00:46:06,160 --> 00:46:16,080 greater than than the taxation capacity of European countries. 732 00:46:16,200 --> 00:46:18,320 In that sense they were, they were strong. 733 00:46:18,640 --> 00:46:22,440 They were shallow states in the sense that they did not provide 734 00:46:22,440 --> 00:46:26,320 many social services. Social services were were 735 00:46:26,320 --> 00:46:31,600 provided by through private non government organizations that we 736 00:46:31,600 --> 00:46:34,720 can get get into that if you if you want. 737 00:46:35,080 --> 00:46:41,200 What is the the big problem in in the Middle East in in with 738 00:46:41,200 --> 00:46:45,560 regard to modernization was apart from the fact that it 739 00:46:45,920 --> 00:46:52,720 couldn't scale up in commerce and production is that it's 740 00:46:52,720 --> 00:46:56,560 civil society didn't develop you didn't get a value didn't get 741 00:46:58,120 --> 00:47:04,880 pressures from below that that constrained the state. 742 00:47:05,480 --> 00:47:08,360 This is what Europe? No Magna Carta esque 743 00:47:08,440 --> 00:47:10,760 development. No Magna Carta esque 744 00:47:11,440 --> 00:47:16,200 developments over a long period. And it wasn't just the, the 745 00:47:16,240 --> 00:47:23,600 Magna Carta, it was overtime you had merchants got organized, 746 00:47:23,600 --> 00:47:29,760 gills got organized, various religions got, got organized. 747 00:47:29,760 --> 00:47:32,640 And they started putting pressure on the, the state. 748 00:47:32,880 --> 00:47:38,160 They, they, they obtained seats at, at society's bargaining 749 00:47:38,160 --> 00:47:41,200 table. And that's the rise of the rise 750 00:47:41,200 --> 00:47:48,000 of parliaments and the, and the, the seats given to to merchants 751 00:47:48,000 --> 00:47:50,560 and so on. That is, that is a process that 752 00:47:50,560 --> 00:47:56,280 takes 1000 years. And we don't see a counterpart 753 00:47:56,280 --> 00:48:01,040 of that in in the Middle East until the the 19th century. 754 00:48:01,320 --> 00:48:03,840 Yeah. So it's interesting because 755 00:48:03,880 --> 00:48:08,960 basically the, you know, you're of Turkish descent, right? 756 00:48:09,040 --> 00:48:14,280 And so like that, you know, that whole area, that's where the 757 00:48:14,280 --> 00:48:18,240 Byzantine concept of Byzantine politics and so on comes from, 758 00:48:18,280 --> 00:48:22,680 right? But that always struck me as 759 00:48:22,920 --> 00:48:25,480 something where you did have lots of groups maneuvering 760 00:48:25,480 --> 00:48:28,280 against each other, but you would not call that civil 761 00:48:28,280 --> 00:48:29,480 society. You would consider that 762 00:48:29,480 --> 00:48:30,600 something different. Or am I, you know? 763 00:48:30,800 --> 00:48:39,760 Mistaken you had you had conflicts among elites. 764 00:48:41,000 --> 00:48:42,440 But as distinct from civil society. 765 00:48:42,840 --> 00:48:48,160 Distinct from civil society, there there was constant angling 766 00:48:48,320 --> 00:48:55,040 among the elites, people in the sultan's circle for for better 767 00:48:55,040 --> 00:48:59,040 position people, you know, there was a lot of backstabbing going 768 00:48:59,040 --> 00:49:01,080 on. There was, there was constant 769 00:49:02,040 --> 00:49:08,640 renegotiation among among elites, but you didn't have you 770 00:49:08,640 --> 00:49:15,000 didn't have groups from below gain again a place at the 771 00:49:15,000 --> 00:49:17,000 bargaining table. They were never part of the 772 00:49:17,000 --> 00:49:18,840 negotiations. I see. 773 00:49:18,840 --> 00:49:23,160 That's interesting. Even the reforms of that started 774 00:49:23,160 --> 00:49:28,000 in Egypt and Turkey in the in the 19th century that came from 775 00:49:28,000 --> 00:49:30,160 above. It's, it's interesting because 776 00:49:30,920 --> 00:49:33,400 I, I have to, I have to kind of sit and think about that for a 777 00:49:33,400 --> 00:49:36,880 bit because, you know, there's like 1 school of thought that 778 00:49:36,880 --> 00:49:39,160 says, you know, change comes from the masses, another school 779 00:49:39,160 --> 00:49:41,680 of thought that says it's actually always just elite 780 00:49:41,680 --> 00:49:43,840 versus counter elite. There's a third school of 781 00:49:43,840 --> 00:49:47,360 thought that says if you become a leader of the masses, then you 782 00:49:47,360 --> 00:49:49,520 are almost by definition a counter elite. 783 00:49:49,880 --> 00:49:51,480 And you know, so on and so forth. 784 00:49:51,480 --> 00:49:55,480 Right. And so I'm not disagreeing with 785 00:49:55,480 --> 00:49:56,440 you. I'm just, I'm just, you know, I 786 00:49:56,440 --> 00:49:58,160 have to, I have to think about that for a little bit. 787 00:49:59,560 --> 00:50:02,800 The I think the other thing is in your definition of civil 788 00:50:02,800 --> 00:50:07,320 society there that there's sort of a positive reason for, let's 789 00:50:07,320 --> 00:50:11,720 say, merchants to group together that didn't necessarily have a 790 00:50:11,720 --> 00:50:15,600 necessarily political reason like farmers or what have you. 791 00:50:15,600 --> 00:50:18,040 They could, they could be building together, you know, 792 00:50:18,120 --> 00:50:20,960 they could be trading together and so and so forth, and they'd 793 00:50:20,960 --> 00:50:24,160 get to know each other socially. Building their capital and 794 00:50:24,160 --> 00:50:25,880 labor. Yeah, exactly. 795 00:50:25,960 --> 00:50:28,720 So, so, so they had, they had some organic reason to be 796 00:50:28,720 --> 00:50:31,200 together that wasn't just fighting the government or 797 00:50:31,200 --> 00:50:33,480 whatever, right. And so because of that, there 798 00:50:33,480 --> 00:50:38,080 was like, you know, they, they actually, we're not simply 799 00:50:38,080 --> 00:50:40,200 always part of the power struggle there. 800 00:50:40,200 --> 00:50:42,600 They were also part of, they were like a organic structure 801 00:50:42,600 --> 00:50:47,760 that emerged just by its own. Maybe that's maybe that's a 802 00:50:47,840 --> 00:50:51,040 useful distinction. You know, one thing actually, 803 00:50:51,040 --> 00:50:52,880 maybe you can say something. I know there's a digression as 804 00:50:52,880 --> 00:50:55,520 well. But modern Turkey, I don't fully 805 00:50:55,520 --> 00:51:00,080 understand it because on the one hand, it has these crazy rates 806 00:51:00,080 --> 00:51:03,880 of inflation in their hand. Like, you know, whenever I fly 807 00:51:03,880 --> 00:51:07,800 through Ankara or something like that seems pretty nice. 808 00:51:08,200 --> 00:51:11,480 And you know, like when I'm going around Turkey, it's like, 809 00:51:11,480 --> 00:51:18,400 at least the Istanbul area seems pretty nice and they've got the 810 00:51:18,400 --> 00:51:20,360 bear actor drones and so on and so forth. 811 00:51:21,120 --> 00:51:25,480 And so I can't really, I'm just rationally ignorant about Turkey 812 00:51:25,960 --> 00:51:28,560 because I don't understand it. But maybe you have some thoughts 813 00:51:28,560 --> 00:51:32,120 on it? This this connects with a point 814 00:51:32,120 --> 00:51:36,160 I made earlier that there is is a huge potential in the Middle 815 00:51:36,160 --> 00:51:38,400 East. Turkey is right now, Turkey 816 00:51:38,400 --> 00:51:47,040 right now has an authoritarian system, but as a very dynamic 817 00:51:47,120 --> 00:51:54,640 economy and it has large groups of people who are quite 818 00:51:54,640 --> 00:51:59,360 alienated from the system. And when I say the system, it's 819 00:51:59,440 --> 00:52:04,360 not just the political system and the the party in power, 820 00:52:04,360 --> 00:52:09,040 Adwan's party, but also the the dominant religion, which is 821 00:52:09,040 --> 00:52:13,720 Islam. Islam has not had a liberal 822 00:52:14,120 --> 00:52:17,200 schism. All of the schisms that have 823 00:52:17,200 --> 00:52:24,840 taken place in in Islam over the past 200 years have been have 824 00:52:24,840 --> 00:52:30,120 been radical schisms. Groups. 825 00:52:30,200 --> 00:52:36,080 ISIS's is an example of Qaeda is another example. 826 00:52:36,080 --> 00:52:38,480 The Muslim Brotherhood is another example. 827 00:52:38,800 --> 00:52:46,520 They are groups that that oppose the oppose the mainstream 828 00:52:46,880 --> 00:52:53,960 variant of Islam in a particular geographic area for being too 829 00:52:54,360 --> 00:53:01,160 relaxed and they they want to they they promote a more 830 00:53:01,160 --> 00:53:04,800 puritanical, stricter form of Islam, of course. 831 00:53:04,800 --> 00:53:07,520 Can I argue, can I argue with you a little bit without, 832 00:53:07,520 --> 00:53:14,240 without risk, Yes. So there, you know, you can, one 833 00:53:14,240 --> 00:53:21,560 thought is that the, there's, there's Sunni Islam, Shiite 834 00:53:21,560 --> 00:53:24,000 Islam, and then socialist Islam, right? 835 00:53:24,000 --> 00:53:28,160 In the sense of wokeness. The woke version of Islam is in 836 00:53:28,160 --> 00:53:31,320 a sense of liberalizing. You could in some sense 837 00:53:31,320 --> 00:53:33,000 radicalize, in some sense liberalizing. 838 00:53:33,000 --> 00:53:38,080 But it's to the left on some dimensions of Sunni Islam #1 839 00:53:39,200 --> 00:53:41,200 arguably it's with them on other kinds of things. 840 00:53:42,080 --> 00:53:43,920 So it's almost like a third school, right? 841 00:53:45,080 --> 00:53:46,160 That hasn't been kind of thought of. 842 00:53:47,040 --> 00:53:49,840 Except that it's not organized. You don't have. 843 00:53:50,280 --> 00:53:51,680 You don't. Have Protestantism. 844 00:53:53,160 --> 00:53:57,120 But Protestantism has, you know, is organized. 845 00:53:57,120 --> 00:54:00,160 There are hundreds of Protestant churches. 846 00:54:00,520 --> 00:54:06,200 They all have, have their, they all own, they all own property, 847 00:54:06,200 --> 00:54:08,000 they have legal standing and so on. 848 00:54:08,200 --> 00:54:16,440 You don't have a recognized liberal Islam or OK when I'll 849 00:54:16,440 --> 00:54:18,840 say woke Islam, Yes. Yeah, so, so let me give a 850 00:54:19,000 --> 00:54:21,160 fourth. So let's say Sunni Islam, Shiite 851 00:54:21,160 --> 00:54:22,640 Islam, socialist Islam, or woke Islam. 852 00:54:22,960 --> 00:54:25,200 And then the 4th, which is secular Islam, which I know 853 00:54:25,200 --> 00:54:29,120 sounds oxymoronic, but I, when I'm in the Middle East, I see a 854 00:54:29,120 --> 00:54:32,720 lot of people there, especially in Dubai and, and increasingly 855 00:54:32,720 --> 00:54:36,640 Riyadh, who are, maybe they're in, you know, traditional 856 00:54:36,640 --> 00:54:40,680 attire, but they're very sophisticated tech, finance 857 00:54:40,680 --> 00:54:42,240 capitalist people, men and women. 858 00:54:42,600 --> 00:54:47,360 And they have great conferences And they are like, I don't get 859 00:54:47,480 --> 00:54:52,160 any sense of like they're, they're exactly like the, you 860 00:54:52,160 --> 00:54:54,480 know, Arab and Muslim people that I've worked with in tech 861 00:54:54,480 --> 00:54:58,240 outside the Middle East, right. And so like, that's, that's very 862 00:54:58,240 --> 00:55:02,160 different than I think Saudi was pre MBS. 863 00:55:02,200 --> 00:55:05,960 And you know, I don't know, I don't have enough track record 864 00:55:05,960 --> 00:55:08,160 or net record. I, I don't have enough game film 865 00:55:08,360 --> 00:55:11,080 on what Dubai was like 20 years ago. 866 00:55:11,920 --> 00:55:15,760 But it basically feels like like San Francisco, honestly, in 867 00:55:15,760 --> 00:55:18,920 terms of or like what San Francisco used to be in terms of 868 00:55:18,920 --> 00:55:23,800 being plural and pro tech. And you know, they still have 869 00:55:23,800 --> 00:55:25,200 the cult of prayer and so on and so forth. 870 00:55:25,200 --> 00:55:26,440 And they still have traditional dress. 871 00:55:26,440 --> 00:55:28,200 Go ahead. Yeah, yeah, yeah. 872 00:55:28,880 --> 00:55:30,080 No. One of the things that has 873 00:55:30,080 --> 00:55:32,360 happened in the Middle East, and this is happening below the 874 00:55:32,360 --> 00:55:38,840 radar screen of of most people, is that religiosity is declining 875 00:55:38,960 --> 00:55:41,280 dramatically. That's exactly what I'm saying. 876 00:55:41,480 --> 00:55:42,400 So I'm. Not would you? 877 00:55:42,400 --> 00:55:45,560 Yes. Reforms didn't occur out of the 878 00:55:45,560 --> 00:55:47,360 blue. They're not happening just 879 00:55:47,360 --> 00:55:49,760 because, you know, he's trying to push society. 880 00:55:49,920 --> 00:55:53,320 He sees the trends. He sees that youth are less 881 00:55:53,320 --> 00:55:55,920 religious. He sees that people are fed up 882 00:55:55,920 --> 00:56:01,040 with with the Wahhabis they are wealthy enough to have access to 883 00:56:01,400 --> 00:56:04,760 in information coming from outside of Saudi Arabia. 884 00:56:04,880 --> 00:56:07,320 They're all out on social media and so on. 885 00:56:07,440 --> 00:56:11,360 He is extremely clever. He's trying to get ahead, get 886 00:56:11,360 --> 00:56:15,440 ahead of the the curve and be the the leader of the 887 00:56:15,440 --> 00:56:19,400 modernizers in. Turkey religiosity is that is 888 00:56:19,440 --> 00:56:23,880 that was that a backlash to ISIS and the craziness or is it like. 889 00:56:25,760 --> 00:56:31,960 Backlash to Wahhabism and it's and it's a consequence of higher 890 00:56:31,960 --> 00:56:36,600 education which has happened in Saudi Arabia the literacy rate a 891 00:56:36,600 --> 00:56:43,080 century ago was less than 1% and now there's universal literacy 892 00:56:43,200 --> 00:56:47,760 women go to a school in fact more women I I believe this is 893 00:56:47,760 --> 00:56:52,760 true for Saudi Arabia as well are in are in college than than 894 00:56:52,760 --> 00:56:58,160 men and they are this is making and making a difference and you 895 00:56:58,160 --> 00:57:04,440 have you have a growing number of atheists and deists in places 896 00:57:04,440 --> 00:57:07,840 like Saudi Arabia. The numbers are huge in in 897 00:57:07,840 --> 00:57:14,920 Turkey we're talking about 20 thirty 40% who are nominally 898 00:57:15,160 --> 00:57:19,880 Muslims still but they don't actually consider themselves 899 00:57:20,280 --> 00:57:22,960 Muslims. They don't believe in organized 900 00:57:23,600 --> 00:57:26,360 Islam. Iran is another case in point. 901 00:57:26,600 --> 00:57:30,280 Religiosity is is falling dramatically. 902 00:57:30,640 --> 00:57:37,360 And this is I, I think the this is what creates a huge potential 903 00:57:37,760 --> 00:57:43,320 for change, including change in interpreting the religion. 904 00:57:43,320 --> 00:57:46,520 Now, this is not to say that. Yeah, please. 905 00:57:46,880 --> 00:57:50,240 Yeah, there's going to see. Well, the reason I ask is 906 00:57:50,680 --> 00:57:55,920 there's a there's an interesting quote from a a senior person in 907 00:57:55,920 --> 00:58:00,120 Dubai, right on. Like let me see if I can play it 908 00:58:00,120 --> 00:58:04,720 for you. Yeah. 909 00:58:04,720 --> 00:58:08,520 So this Sheikh Abdullah bin Sayed right? 910 00:58:08,720 --> 00:58:10,320 Done this quote from like a few years ago. 911 00:58:12,960 --> 00:58:15,240 There's so many quotes, you'll have to show it to me, yeah. 912 00:58:15,280 --> 00:58:19,040 Yeah, it's, it's a very good quote where he basically said 913 00:58:19,520 --> 00:58:24,520 that Europe is going to produce way more fundamentalist than the 914 00:58:24,520 --> 00:58:29,360 Middle East because they they get it right like that, say the 915 00:58:29,360 --> 00:58:31,880 Middle East actually understands it and so and so forth, right. 916 00:58:32,520 --> 00:58:36,160 You you mean that you mean Muslim fundamentalists in 917 00:58:36,160 --> 00:58:37,400 Europe? Is that what he's? 918 00:58:37,400 --> 00:58:38,280 Yes, that's. What? 919 00:58:38,280 --> 00:58:40,840 That's what he was saying. So here, let me let me show you 920 00:58:40,840 --> 00:58:43,200 this. Let me paste this on. 921 00:58:43,200 --> 00:58:46,880 Let me see if I can. I'm not sure if this will if you 922 00:58:46,880 --> 00:58:52,960 just play that video. And and let me say this in 923 00:58:52,960 --> 00:58:54,720 English so you can understand what I'm saying. 924 00:58:56,040 --> 00:58:58,640 I have translation. No, I know you have translation, 925 00:58:58,640 --> 00:59:00,760 but I just want to make sure you get it right. 926 00:59:04,600 --> 00:59:09,840 There will come a day that we will see far more radical 927 00:59:09,880 --> 00:59:14,520 extremists and terrorists coming out of Europe because of the 928 00:59:14,520 --> 00:59:22,600 lack of decision making, trying to be politically correct or 929 00:59:23,520 --> 00:59:27,520 assuming that they know the Middle East and they know Islam 930 00:59:27,520 --> 00:59:29,880 and they know the others far better than we do. 931 00:59:30,600 --> 00:59:34,360 And I'm I'm sorry, but that's pure ignorance. 932 00:59:34,600 --> 00:59:36,920 So can you hear me? Yes, Did you see that? 933 00:59:37,520 --> 00:59:40,720 Yes, yes, no, I I did, I did see it. 934 00:59:41,120 --> 00:59:50,960 I, I, it won't surprise me if a lot of fundamentalists emerge in 935 00:59:50,960 --> 00:59:55,120 Europe at the same time, there are a lot of Muslims in in 936 00:59:55,120 --> 01:00:03,080 Europe who are quite tolerant, who are, who are not Islamists. 937 01:00:03,200 --> 01:00:06,720 You just don't hear about. So of course, of course, if you 938 01:00:06,720 --> 01:00:11,080 look at the United Kingdom or or the Netherlands or or France, 939 01:00:11,080 --> 01:00:15,800 the ones you hear about are the are the violent ones, are the 940 01:00:15,800 --> 01:00:18,520 ones no. No, I'm totally with you on 941 01:00:18,600 --> 01:00:21,600 that. Cathedral so there there is So 942 01:00:21,960 --> 01:00:32,560 one possible one possibility is for liberal Islam to emerge in 943 01:00:32,560 --> 01:00:36,960 Western Europe or in in North America and then spread to the 944 01:00:36,960 --> 01:00:40,680 Middle East. So that's a part, that's a part 945 01:00:40,680 --> 01:00:47,720 where at least what I'm observing is that you have more 946 01:00:48,040 --> 01:00:52,360 like, for lack of term, tech libertarian, secular, you know, 947 01:00:53,000 --> 01:00:59,800 people in Dubai and Riyadh and, and that seems to, that's like 948 01:01:00,560 --> 01:01:02,000 hugely on the upswing. Anyway. 949 01:01:02,240 --> 01:01:05,400 I, I, I, I throw that out there because I feel that that's 950 01:01:05,400 --> 01:01:08,840 something which is not part of the public perception about the 951 01:01:08,840 --> 01:01:10,880 Middle East that they're doing startups and they're doing tech 952 01:01:10,880 --> 01:01:15,560 and it's not, it's not all war. And and somehow actually maybe 953 01:01:15,560 --> 01:01:20,000 you have a thought on this actually, what was your do do 954 01:01:20,000 --> 01:01:25,000 you think Turkey, as you know, is it doing poorly economically? 955 01:01:25,000 --> 01:01:26,440 Is it doing well? It's very hard for me to say. 956 01:01:26,440 --> 01:01:27,880 By the way, it wasn't on a car that I stopped through. 957 01:01:27,880 --> 01:01:30,920 I think it was Istanbul. Yeah, it makes more sense. 958 01:01:30,920 --> 01:01:33,440 Sorry, I got that wrong. Do you have? 959 01:01:33,440 --> 01:01:36,640 Do you have a view on whether? Istanbul is a big global hub, so 960 01:01:36,640 --> 01:01:37,560 yeah, yeah. Yeah, that's right. 961 01:01:37,640 --> 01:01:48,120 So that's that's. So the Turkey is ahead of the 962 01:01:48,120 --> 01:01:55,960 curve. Expect to many, many Arab 963 01:01:55,960 --> 01:02:00,280 countries because it started reforming its institutions 964 01:02:00,360 --> 01:02:04,160 earlier. It it start started started the 965 01:02:04,160 --> 01:02:08,840 process in the early even early auditor came several generations 966 01:02:08,840 --> 01:02:13,960 after the process started. The process involved involved 967 01:02:14,160 --> 01:02:18,280 abandoning Islamic institutions, which were the basis of the 968 01:02:18,440 --> 01:02:24,880 economy and replacing that and and borrowing European 969 01:02:24,880 --> 01:02:28,240 institutions. This started in the in the 19th 970 01:02:28,240 --> 01:02:31,000 century of Turkey. In Saudi Arabia. 971 01:02:31,000 --> 01:02:34,720 It's the process started in the 1930s. 972 01:02:35,080 --> 01:02:44,720 So you have and and secularism. Saudi Arabia has not had a 973 01:02:44,720 --> 01:02:49,160 period of official secularism was the Middle East was 974 01:02:49,160 --> 01:02:54,200 secularizing in the in the late Ottoman Empire and then it had a 975 01:02:54,200 --> 01:02:58,720 period of assertive and very aggressive and to an extent 976 01:02:58,720 --> 01:03:06,840 repressive secularism in the between 1923 and 1950. 977 01:03:07,280 --> 01:03:15,920 So there is there a lot of there's a lot of experience with 978 01:03:16,080 --> 01:03:25,840 secularism there and secularism has secularism is is second. 979 01:03:25,840 --> 01:03:32,520 The secular period is remembered for for many achievements which 980 01:03:33,240 --> 01:03:42,000 which helps Now the the reason I'm bullish on the economies of 981 01:03:42,000 --> 01:03:46,120 the region is that they have all complete. 982 01:03:46,120 --> 01:03:52,040 They've all moved away from Islamic institutions and adopted 983 01:03:52,160 --> 01:03:57,280 all of the institutions that enable capital accumulation on 984 01:03:57,280 --> 01:04:04,760 large scale, forming of large profit making companies, the 985 01:04:04,760 --> 01:04:09,320 formation of large NGOs that have flexibility. 986 01:04:09,880 --> 01:04:18,840 And if the region starts liberalizing in one area, the 987 01:04:18,840 --> 01:04:21,760 starting point might be religion, it might be 988 01:04:23,000 --> 01:04:27,880 intellectual life, it it might be it might be politics. 989 01:04:28,400 --> 01:04:31,920 Liberalism will will will spread. 990 01:04:32,320 --> 01:04:37,480 And all of the institutions necessary for a liberal order 991 01:04:37,640 --> 01:04:45,680 have already been already been adopted and religious opposition 992 01:04:45,680 --> 01:04:50,440 to them is minimal if not a non existent. 993 01:04:50,800 --> 01:04:54,560 You can. Under classical Islamic law, you 994 01:04:54,560 --> 01:04:56,480 could not establish a corporation. 995 01:04:57,160 --> 01:05:00,880 There's no such thing as a fictitious individual that would 996 01:05:00,880 --> 01:05:05,040 be recognized in in courts. Islamic law. 997 01:05:05,040 --> 01:05:10,480 Classical Islamic law is extremely individualistic. 998 01:05:10,480 --> 01:05:12,680 Only natural individuals are recognized. 999 01:05:12,840 --> 01:05:16,440 That's no longer the case everywhere. 1000 01:05:16,800 --> 01:05:24,880 Commerce is conducted under rules that allow enterprises, 1001 01:05:24,880 --> 01:05:28,760 large corporations, large corporations, every place you 1002 01:05:28,760 --> 01:05:34,160 find stock markets where shares are shared, trade and 1003 01:05:34,600 --> 01:05:36,600 everything. These are things that were in 1004 01:05:36,720 --> 01:05:39,320 that are incompatible with classical Islamic law. 1005 01:05:40,000 --> 01:05:44,680 Well, you know, it's interesting because one, one thing that I 1006 01:05:44,840 --> 01:05:49,680 can't shake is the feeling that maybe is different 2530 years 1007 01:05:49,680 --> 01:05:53,480 ago, but I have a feeling that the West has become in some ways 1008 01:05:53,480 --> 01:05:57,520 more fundamentalist than at least the parts of the Middle 1009 01:05:57,520 --> 01:05:59,880 East that I see. And here's why I say that. 1010 01:06:00,200 --> 01:06:04,240 I think, for example, what is the modern thing on corporate 1011 01:06:04,240 --> 01:06:09,160 law, right? It would be AI agents and AI 1012 01:06:09,160 --> 01:06:11,000 personhood and so on and so forth, right? 1013 01:06:11,240 --> 01:06:13,200 That would be like the modern updating just like there was 1014 01:06:13,200 --> 01:06:16,960 that sort of, you know, kind of use your imagination fiction of 1015 01:06:16,960 --> 01:06:19,480 a corporate person. It's less fictional. 1016 01:06:20,440 --> 01:06:23,360 An AI that can trade on your behalf, maybe have even have 1017 01:06:23,360 --> 01:06:25,640 some liability. It has a crypto wallet, so it 1018 01:06:25,640 --> 01:06:28,360 has some bank account. It can be fined even you know 1019 01:06:28,360 --> 01:06:33,240 what have you. I have a feeling that there's 1020 01:06:33,240 --> 01:06:37,320 going to be strong forces that resist AI personhood in the 1021 01:06:37,320 --> 01:06:39,440 West. I can I can feel a developing 1022 01:06:39,440 --> 01:06:43,400 anti tech backlash that'll probably happen next year's, but 1023 01:06:43,400 --> 01:06:46,320 I I I think there'll be less of that overseas, maybe not 1024 01:06:46,320 --> 01:06:50,080 specifically in the Middle East, but it somehow I think it maybe 1025 01:06:50,080 --> 01:06:52,560 it's the West is unfortunately declining with the rise of the 1026 01:06:52,560 --> 01:06:55,920 Internet, but the the Asia and the east is rising with the 1027 01:06:55,920 --> 01:06:58,360 Internet. And so because of that, the West 1028 01:06:58,360 --> 01:07:01,320 will correlate the phone and AI and all this kind of stuff to 1029 01:07:01,320 --> 01:07:05,120 their decline and the east will not they will correlate it have 1030 01:07:05,120 --> 01:07:07,120 the opposite conclusion. I'll be more friendly to these 1031 01:07:07,120 --> 01:07:12,280 new constructs. Did did the did the ban on 1032 01:07:12,280 --> 01:07:16,600 corporate personnel, was that related to like the ban on 1033 01:07:16,600 --> 01:07:19,400 iconography or basically the iconoclasm? 1034 01:07:20,120 --> 01:07:27,760 No, this was the concept of a corporation was developed by in 1035 01:07:27,760 --> 01:07:34,760 the Roman Empire in the in in what is now was Istanbul 1036 01:07:34,760 --> 01:07:38,400 Justinian's codes of the 6th century. 1037 01:07:39,400 --> 01:07:41,800 It contained the concept of the corporation. 1038 01:07:42,240 --> 01:07:49,280 The West borrowed that concept at a time when states were in 1039 01:07:49,280 --> 01:07:52,880 Europe were quite weak in the aftermath of the fall of the 1040 01:07:52,880 --> 01:07:58,080 West Roman Empire. Islam arose about a century 1041 01:07:58,080 --> 01:08:01,360 later and developed very strong states. 1042 01:08:01,560 --> 01:08:06,840 The states state did not want competition from corporations. 1043 01:08:07,040 --> 01:08:13,480 What were the communities likely to benefit from the corporation 1044 01:08:13,480 --> 01:08:16,479 and gain strength for by incorporating? 1045 01:08:16,680 --> 01:08:21,640 They were the old tribes. Islam's Islam is not just the 1046 01:08:23,399 --> 01:08:25,960 religion, but it was also a political project. 1047 01:08:26,680 --> 01:08:32,000 It tried to replace universal Muslim Brotherhood with 1048 01:08:32,000 --> 01:08:37,680 tribalism. And so even though many concepts 1049 01:08:37,680 --> 01:08:42,800 were borrowed from Roman law and from Persian law, the concept of 1050 01:08:42,800 --> 01:08:48,000 a corporation was deliberately ruled out through by making 1051 01:08:48,000 --> 01:08:51,520 Islamic law extremely individualistic. 1052 01:08:51,960 --> 01:08:56,880 That was the reason why there's no concept of corporation. 1053 01:08:57,319 --> 01:09:05,080 And so the the and and the reason why the concept of the 1054 01:09:05,080 --> 01:09:10,600 corporation was not, even though it was always known why it was 1055 01:09:10,600 --> 01:09:15,279 not brought into Islamic law. In later centuries after 1056 01:09:15,279 --> 01:09:20,120 Europeans started using the corporation for various reasons, 1057 01:09:20,120 --> 01:09:32,359 not just to add to organize universities and to make guilds 1058 01:09:32,359 --> 01:09:39,000 more efficient, but also to to make commerce more efficient and 1059 01:09:39,000 --> 01:09:42,920 finance more into banks were established as corporations. 1060 01:09:43,840 --> 01:09:49,160 Starting in the 16th, 17th century, trading companies 1061 01:09:49,160 --> 01:09:51,200 started getting organised as corporations. 1062 01:09:51,439 --> 01:09:59,520 Why didn't the why didn't Islamic law Islamic law seeing 1063 01:09:59,520 --> 01:10:02,600 the advantages of the corporation in the West, why 1064 01:10:02,600 --> 01:10:06,200 didn't it undergo reforms at that point? 1065 01:10:06,520 --> 01:10:10,960 Well, one of the reasons was that there wasn't much pressure 1066 01:10:10,960 --> 01:10:15,400 from below for establishing corporations. 1067 01:10:15,960 --> 01:10:24,320 Commerce was what was in the hands of optimistic enterprises 1068 01:10:24,480 --> 01:10:30,320 and small enterprises don't see not only small but but short 1069 01:10:30,320 --> 01:10:35,640 lived enterprises. They don't see a reason to to 1070 01:10:36,160 --> 01:10:39,200 incorporate. There wasn't a constituency that 1071 01:10:39,520 --> 01:10:44,120 that demanded the corporation. The corporate corporate laws in 1072 01:10:44,120 --> 01:10:49,440 the Middle Middle East arose in the OR or were put in place at 1073 01:10:49,440 --> 01:10:51,280 the beginning of the 20th century. 1074 01:10:51,400 --> 01:10:57,720 Again, from above by people who understood that unless you gave 1075 01:10:58,320 --> 01:11:04,000 society the tools to establish corporations, the Middle East 1076 01:11:04,000 --> 01:11:09,280 would would continue to be colonized and it would be ruled 1077 01:11:09,280 --> 01:11:14,160 by Europeans. Because our cooperation tools, 1078 01:11:14,200 --> 01:11:16,120 that's really interesting they're. 1079 01:11:16,680 --> 01:11:19,080 They're tools of cooperation on a large scale. 1080 01:11:19,480 --> 01:11:23,160 Yes, that's right. You can't if, if with a small 1081 01:11:23,160 --> 01:11:26,840 partnership of 2-3 individuals, you can have the individuals, 1082 01:11:28,040 --> 01:11:29,880 you can have all the individuals come to court. 1083 01:11:29,880 --> 01:11:32,400 You can't do that with a large scale organization. 1084 01:11:32,400 --> 01:11:37,680 You can't have every shareholder holder of Microsoft say if 1085 01:11:37,680 --> 01:11:40,720 there's a court case involving Microsoft, you can't have all of 1086 01:11:40,720 --> 01:11:43,200 them come to come to court, right? 1087 01:11:43,520 --> 01:11:44,440 Right. Right. 1088 01:11:45,240 --> 01:11:48,600 Yeah, I understand being able to act on someone else's behalf. 1089 01:11:48,600 --> 01:11:53,320 And actually, you know, a meta Organism like a company and, you 1090 01:11:53,320 --> 01:11:57,120 know, every single person who was part of Coca-Cola in 1950 is 1091 01:11:57,120 --> 01:12:00,440 basically being swapped out and replaced with, in a sense 1092 01:12:00,440 --> 01:12:02,960 they're like an immortal person because every cell can be 1093 01:12:02,960 --> 01:12:04,560 swapped out. The CEO can be swapped out, but 1094 01:12:04,560 --> 01:12:06,720 so can every person. And in theory, you could have a 1095 01:12:06,720 --> 01:12:10,840 corporation where every single person swapped out and then they 1096 01:12:10,840 --> 01:12:12,960 were swapped back in. If that's ever happened, maybe 1097 01:12:12,960 --> 01:12:15,520 you know, so like, I don't know, like a change of control or 1098 01:12:15,520 --> 01:12:18,960 something. But the OK in itself lives on. 1099 01:12:18,960 --> 01:12:22,360 And I find very interesting this this notion that you could add 1100 01:12:22,520 --> 01:12:26,720 that AI can have legal personality. 1101 01:12:26,720 --> 01:12:27,320 Legal. Legal. 1102 01:12:27,480 --> 01:12:30,200 So, yeah, so this is something that I think a lot about because 1103 01:12:31,440 --> 01:12:33,720 you know, somebody like I've talked about this, others, some 1104 01:12:33,720 --> 01:12:37,120 people have treated this, but the next step after corporate 1105 01:12:37,120 --> 01:12:43,360 personhood and double entry accounting is AI agency and 1106 01:12:43,360 --> 01:12:45,440 triple entry accounting, which is what the blockchain is. 1107 01:12:45,440 --> 01:12:47,600 Because it's not just the debit and the credit, there's also 1108 01:12:47,600 --> 01:12:49,320 universal Ledger that accounts for it. 1109 01:12:49,680 --> 01:12:53,640 And AI and and crypto go together because like crypto and 1110 01:12:53,680 --> 01:12:56,200 the blockchain, that's the kind of money that's kind of property 1111 01:12:56,200 --> 01:12:58,000 that AIS can natively interact with. 1112 01:12:59,160 --> 01:13:03,520 Now how you you want to have what they do be bounded, but 1113 01:13:03,520 --> 01:13:05,440 could an AI be a corporate secretary? 1114 01:13:05,440 --> 01:13:07,280 It probably could. Could it do your books for you? 1115 01:13:07,280 --> 01:13:09,560 Probably could Anything that's relatively routine and 1116 01:13:09,560 --> 01:13:12,320 straightforward and not exceptionally time or rule 1117 01:13:12,320 --> 01:13:13,920 varying. It can't do markets, it can't do 1118 01:13:13,920 --> 01:13:17,560 politics yet because there's a very time varying demands, but 1119 01:13:17,560 --> 01:13:24,160 the relatively routine kinds of things, it could do that so. 1120 01:13:25,240 --> 01:13:27,080 What kind of liability will it have? 1121 01:13:27,080 --> 01:13:31,760 I'm sure this is the the. The limit, the liability will be 1122 01:13:31,760 --> 01:13:35,200 limited by how much crypto is on it's person on it's AI person, 1123 01:13:35,200 --> 01:13:38,080 which is funny. So OK, I want to, I want to just 1124 01:13:38,080 --> 01:13:40,280 quickly wrap up. This is actually pretty, pretty 1125 01:13:40,280 --> 01:13:44,760 awesome. I think we connected your, your 1126 01:13:44,760 --> 01:13:49,000 books to actually cutting edge technology. 1127 01:13:49,000 --> 01:13:52,000 We're public lives, prior truths and in terms of preference 1128 01:13:52,000 --> 01:13:57,560 falsification and in relating that to not just contemporary 1129 01:13:57,560 --> 01:14:01,320 events but also decentralized cryptographic truth and then the 1130 01:14:01,320 --> 01:14:04,320 concept of personhood and corporate personhood and how 1131 01:14:04,320 --> 01:14:08,880 those held back in some ways kind of leads to yeah plus 1132 01:14:08,880 --> 01:14:12,840 crypto and then also other aspects of determining whether 1133 01:14:12,840 --> 01:14:14,920 or not people are telling the truth related to prediction 1134 01:14:14,920 --> 01:14:17,840 markets. So I recommend your work for 1135 01:14:17,840 --> 01:14:20,960 people who are interested in how older social system systems 1136 01:14:20,960 --> 01:14:26,600 function and dysfunction and how if you're interested in the 1137 01:14:26,600 --> 01:14:30,280 sidle implications of new technologies that there's a lot 1138 01:14:30,520 --> 01:14:32,840 to to learn and digest from your work. 1139 01:14:33,560 --> 01:14:35,120 And so I've been a big fan for a long time. 1140 01:14:35,320 --> 01:14:37,800 So thank you very much, Timur, for coming on the pot. 1141 01:14:38,760 --> 01:14:41,720 Well, well, thank you very much for the opportunity and I 1142 01:14:41,720 --> 01:14:45,680 greatly enjoyed the the conversation and learned a lot 1143 01:14:45,680 --> 01:14:48,800 in in the process. And you mentioned the number of 1144 01:14:48,800 --> 01:14:53,880 concepts that I was unfamiliar with and I will go and try to 1145 01:14:53,880 --> 01:14:57,320 educate myself about them. Great. 1146 01:14:57,600 --> 01:14:58,960 Awesome. Looking forward to it. 1147 01:14:58,960 --> 01:15:00,400 And let's talk more. OK, bye. 1148 01:15:02,000 --> 01:15:02,520 Bye, take care.