1 00:00:00,120 --> 00:00:03,640 Rudyard, you've run a popular YouTube channel called What If 2 00:00:03,640 --> 00:00:06,000 All Test. Maybe you can give a little bit 3 00:00:06,000 --> 00:00:08,600 to the audience on your background kind of stuff you've 4 00:00:08,600 --> 00:00:11,880 done, all that kind of stuff. Sure so thank you so much for 5 00:00:11,880 --> 00:00:14,720 having me. It's a real pleasure and I'm 6 00:00:14,720 --> 00:00:16,920 Rudyard Lynch. I run the YouTube channel What 7 00:00:16,920 --> 00:00:21,720 if all test and we cover topics like history, anthropology, 8 00:00:22,200 --> 00:00:27,400 philosophy and politics, just different elements of the human 9 00:00:27,400 --> 00:00:28,760 condition. And I like to say that the 10 00:00:28,760 --> 00:00:33,280 underlying causal thing beneath it is human nature and trying to 11 00:00:33,280 --> 00:00:35,320 figure out human nature in different contexts. 12 00:00:35,320 --> 00:00:38,600 And I started the channel when I was 13 doing something called 13 00:00:38,600 --> 00:00:41,440 alternate history. Like what if the South won the 14 00:00:41,440 --> 00:00:43,360 Civil War? What if the Nazis won World War 15 00:00:43,360 --> 00:00:46,320 2? And we gradually pivoted out of 16 00:00:46,320 --> 00:00:50,000 that where I feel very blessed and I never thought this would 17 00:00:50,000 --> 00:00:54,720 be my life, where we have 700,000 subscribers and millions 18 00:00:54,720 --> 00:00:58,720 of viewers a month. And yeah, I'm happy it worked 19 00:00:58,720 --> 00:01:00,160 out. There's actually, you're 20 00:01:00,160 --> 00:01:02,480 probably aware of this. There's an old Marvel comic 21 00:01:02,480 --> 00:01:05,519 series called What If? Do you know that? 22 00:01:05,760 --> 00:01:07,280 No, I don't. I don't rape Marvel. 23 00:01:07,640 --> 00:01:10,560 Oh, OK, that's funny. I thought that that was actually 24 00:01:10,560 --> 00:01:14,400 an inspiration. This is, Yeah, Now today, Marvel 25 00:01:14,400 --> 00:01:18,720 Comics, because of the stupid, you know, all the superhero 26 00:01:18,720 --> 00:01:21,280 movies endlessly, you know, are not what they were. 27 00:01:21,560 --> 00:01:25,560 But when I was a kid, there was a, you could go, if you didn't 28 00:01:25,560 --> 00:01:26,960 know this, just like a small little thing. 29 00:01:26,960 --> 00:01:30,480 There was a comic book series called What if that had this 30 00:01:30,480 --> 00:01:33,760 exact premise, like if some canonical event hadn't happened, 31 00:01:33,760 --> 00:01:36,040 What if Superman was powered up by Kryptonite or whatever, 32 00:01:36,040 --> 00:01:38,560 something like that. But the interesting aspect of 33 00:01:38,560 --> 00:01:40,920 both that and of course, the more substantive historical 34 00:01:40,920 --> 00:01:44,360 version you're doing is you actually need to know a lot 35 00:01:44,360 --> 00:01:50,360 about the events at that time to gauge whether something could 36 00:01:50,360 --> 00:01:52,000 have gone this direction or that direction. 37 00:01:52,000 --> 00:01:54,920 Then even more to develop the alternate scenarios of what it 38 00:01:54,920 --> 00:01:55,680 could be. Right? 39 00:01:55,680 --> 00:01:57,880 Like the Man of the High Castle or something like that. 40 00:01:57,880 --> 00:02:02,440 You know, the probably the Germans like the Japanese would 41 00:02:02,440 --> 00:02:05,680 have become the global left and the Germans the right like 42 00:02:05,680 --> 00:02:09,120 because the Japanese were backing WB Dubois and all of 43 00:02:09,120 --> 00:02:10,840 these third world revolutionaries and so on 44 00:02:10,840 --> 00:02:12,400 service they would have taken over the world. 45 00:02:12,400 --> 00:02:14,520 The Soviets did and of course the Germans would have been the 46 00:02:14,520 --> 00:02:16,280 global right. But most people don't think 47 00:02:16,280 --> 00:02:19,080 about the Japanese as being the global left in that scenario. 48 00:02:19,080 --> 00:02:21,480 They just think, you know, they don't realize they'll be like a 49 00:02:21,480 --> 00:02:24,240 right left partition. They, you know, because they 50 00:02:24,240 --> 00:02:25,960 don't have enough historical context. 51 00:02:26,320 --> 00:02:30,960 And the reason that I would like to talk to you about this and 52 00:02:31,040 --> 00:02:33,520 because I think we both think about history and and macro 53 00:02:33,520 --> 00:02:37,120 events, you know, that thing that people are saying nowadays, 54 00:02:37,120 --> 00:02:41,000 here's a musing that may may or may not be interesting to, you 55 00:02:41,000 --> 00:02:43,920 know, people are saying you can just do things you've heard that 56 00:02:43,920 --> 00:02:45,400 saying. No, I haven't. 57 00:02:45,960 --> 00:02:48,200 You haven't. OK, well, all right, So this is 58 00:02:48,200 --> 00:02:50,680 a big, I guess, you know, YouTube is its own culture, a 59 00:02:50,680 --> 00:02:55,400 little bit different than X, but a lot of tech guys have this 60 00:02:55,400 --> 00:03:00,120 saying you can just do things, meaning you can just launch 61 00:03:00,120 --> 00:03:04,480 rockets, you can just build cars, you can just do things. 62 00:03:04,480 --> 00:03:06,680 There are no rules. There's no constraints, nothing 63 00:03:06,680 --> 00:03:08,600 holding you back. Go, go, go, right? 64 00:03:08,760 --> 00:03:13,080 You know, and Anderson has this line, which is that roughly 65 00:03:13,080 --> 00:03:17,480 paraphrases the world around you is made by people like you, and 66 00:03:17,480 --> 00:03:19,440 you can go and reshape it, right? 67 00:03:20,280 --> 00:03:24,240 And there's a truth to that, especially today because of the 68 00:03:24,240 --> 00:03:27,000 Internet and so much of the existing order is sort of 69 00:03:27,000 --> 00:03:30,480 melting down and so on. But there's also an unreality to 70 00:03:30,480 --> 00:03:35,080 that because how much agency does one person actually have? 71 00:03:35,080 --> 00:03:37,440 How much can they actually shape the world versus how much is it 72 00:03:37,600 --> 00:03:40,840 historical forces like great man theory of history versus, you 73 00:03:40,840 --> 00:03:43,320 know, the historicist kind of thing. 74 00:03:43,320 --> 00:03:44,560 And I'm sure you have a view on that. 75 00:03:44,560 --> 00:03:45,840 I have a view. I'd love to hear your view on 76 00:03:45,840 --> 00:03:50,480 that. So I didn't want to get too woo 77 00:03:50,480 --> 00:03:54,520 woo for this, but the idea in alchemy is that everyone is a 78 00:03:54,520 --> 00:03:59,600 radio tower and that the world is a competition of competition 79 00:03:59,600 --> 00:04:03,880 of different Darwinistic radio towers in constant struggle for 80 00:04:03,880 --> 00:04:07,640 whichever 1 gets to conquer the others and then evolve to a 81 00:04:07,640 --> 00:04:09,960 higher level. So, but how does alchemy have a 82 00:04:09,960 --> 00:04:11,760 concept of radio? You mean are you you're you're 83 00:04:11,760 --> 00:04:15,120 back porting the concept of a radio tower? 84 00:04:15,120 --> 00:04:18,800 Yes. So alchemical philosophy, 85 00:04:19,200 --> 00:04:23,520 everyone is their own thing and then they emit these sort of 86 00:04:23,520 --> 00:04:25,400 vibrations and an example of the and. 87 00:04:25,400 --> 00:04:27,920 What did they call them? They call them radio towers. 88 00:04:28,600 --> 00:04:32,800 No radio tower is a modern term. It's they, I, I the the original 89 00:04:32,800 --> 00:04:35,400 language this was written in was first Egyptian and then Greek 90 00:04:35,400 --> 00:04:37,560 and then it was Arab and then it was Latin. 91 00:04:37,840 --> 00:04:41,200 But they they use vibration. They say that the universe, the 92 00:04:41,200 --> 00:04:44,040 example of the figure will probably release the most is 93 00:04:44,040 --> 00:04:46,760 Jesus Christ. This single figure developed a 94 00:04:46,760 --> 00:04:50,880 religious worldview, said religious worldview changed the 95 00:04:50,880 --> 00:04:54,440 course of history through working its way into the minds 96 00:04:54,440 --> 00:04:58,560 and souls of billions of people. And so the idea there is that 97 00:04:58,560 --> 00:05:02,360 the universe is all of these different sub competing forces 98 00:05:02,600 --> 00:05:04,960 trying to push for their own dominance. 99 00:05:05,200 --> 00:05:10,000 And then the universe is the collective output of all of 100 00:05:10,000 --> 00:05:13,160 these independent decisions being made over time with God 101 00:05:13,160 --> 00:05:17,000 being the biggest 1. And that's how I see the force 102 00:05:17,000 --> 00:05:22,120 of human history where it is the emergent phenomena of billions 103 00:05:22,120 --> 00:05:24,840 of people operating at once, making their own decisions out 104 00:05:24,840 --> 00:05:27,120 of free will. And then you have multiple tiers 105 00:05:27,120 --> 00:05:30,160 to it where nations make choices, individuals make 106 00:05:30,160 --> 00:05:33,920 choices. And through that it forms. 107 00:05:33,920 --> 00:05:39,920 And there's there's a, it's interesting where to understand 108 00:05:39,920 --> 00:05:43,960 the world, you really have to look at dualities where nature, 109 00:05:43,960 --> 00:05:46,480 nurture, it's both. It's obviously both if you're a 110 00:05:46,480 --> 00:05:49,080 reasonable person. And if you go too much towards 111 00:05:49,080 --> 00:05:51,560 nature or nurture, which is the argument that we're really 112 00:05:51,560 --> 00:05:54,560 having here, you're going to end up in very silly places where 113 00:05:54,560 --> 00:05:58,040 the Nazis were pure nurture, where they thought that people 114 00:05:58,040 --> 00:06:01,400 who are genetically very close to Germans, like Slavs, were so 115 00:06:01,400 --> 00:06:04,600 innately different that they were incapable of attaining 116 00:06:04,600 --> 00:06:06,640 similar results. And then the modern left or 117 00:06:06,640 --> 00:06:10,000 hardcore nurture, where they think at the blank slate that 118 00:06:10,000 --> 00:06:13,960 all theories are capable of. Basically, you can remake human 119 00:06:13,960 --> 00:06:16,600 nature in any given direction. And it's a combination of both 120 00:06:16,640 --> 00:06:19,560 of them. And I think the less we think 121 00:06:19,560 --> 00:06:22,360 about in theory and the more we figure out what we can apply, 122 00:06:22,360 --> 00:06:26,120 the better. Because as an example, the 123 00:06:26,120 --> 00:06:29,800 amount of physical matter that we could control with science is 124 00:06:29,800 --> 00:06:32,920 vastly in excess of what we thought we could do 500 years 125 00:06:32,920 --> 00:06:34,760 ago. But the way we did that is 126 00:06:34,760 --> 00:06:38,080 through realizing science and realizing what we could actually 127 00:06:38,080 --> 00:06:41,440 do. And you go back to rain dances. 128 00:06:41,720 --> 00:06:47,920 Rain dances if, if we have the ability to control rain, it'll 129 00:06:47,920 --> 00:06:51,400 be through scientific methods that we discover, not through 130 00:06:51,400 --> 00:06:54,400 making rain dances. So it's figure out what you can 131 00:06:54,400 --> 00:06:56,600 and can't do in each individual context. 132 00:06:56,880 --> 00:06:59,000 Interesting. I've got 3 or 4 quick reaction 133 00:06:59,000 --> 00:07:02,280 sets. So first, I wouldn't exactly 134 00:07:02,280 --> 00:07:06,120 call great man versus force of history quite the same as nature 135 00:07:06,120 --> 00:07:09,160 and nurture. But to, to react to that they're 136 00:07:09,440 --> 00:07:12,320 they're, they're both useful lenses, but just to react to 137 00:07:12,320 --> 00:07:14,960 that nature and nurture. The way I think about that is 138 00:07:16,760 --> 00:07:21,560 hardware software like you have, you know, you have individuals 139 00:07:21,680 --> 00:07:24,000 and then you have the ideologies above them. 140 00:07:24,440 --> 00:07:27,800 And actually the relationship to what you're saying is the 141 00:07:27,800 --> 00:07:30,520 software that people are emanating, for example, a 142 00:07:30,520 --> 00:07:35,120 religion or or a political movement, right, Christianity, 143 00:07:35,120 --> 00:07:38,560 communism, something like that can actually take large pieces 144 00:07:38,560 --> 00:07:41,920 of hardware and organize them towards a goal, right? 145 00:07:42,120 --> 00:07:45,520 Whereas something like, you know, ultra nationalism of the 146 00:07:45,520 --> 00:07:48,320 ethnic variety is starting with like a fixed hardware pool of 147 00:07:48,320 --> 00:07:50,800 only this ethnic group. And the software is almost the 148 00:07:50,800 --> 00:07:53,920 most trivial software of just like, OK, all of us against 149 00:07:53,920 --> 00:07:55,400 everybody else or what have you, right? 150 00:07:55,880 --> 00:07:59,600 And actually what that suggests is that, and there's something I 151 00:07:59,600 --> 00:08:02,920 plan to write up, is actually neither the left nor the right 152 00:08:02,920 --> 00:08:05,720 understand the left. You know why I say that as much 153 00:08:05,720 --> 00:08:06,880 as you and I think about this stuff. 154 00:08:07,120 --> 00:08:11,360 Go ahead. So the left perceives itself as 155 00:08:11,640 --> 00:08:15,640 sharing and caring and the right typically, maybe not you, but 156 00:08:15,640 --> 00:08:22,200 the typical rightist perceives the left as naive and wimpy and, 157 00:08:22,480 --> 00:08:24,480 you know, not like them who are big and strong. 158 00:08:25,080 --> 00:08:30,640 And I actually think of the left as just optimized for war. 159 00:08:31,760 --> 00:08:35,840 And the reason I think of it that way is like amidst the 160 00:08:35,840 --> 00:08:39,320 chaos of the French Revolution, amidst the chaos of the Soviet 161 00:08:39,320 --> 00:08:43,640 Revolution, this leftist software based on sharing and 162 00:08:43,640 --> 00:08:47,840 caring somehow managed to organize, you know, well, 163 00:08:48,120 --> 00:08:51,120 Napoleon obviously was the one who built the Grand Army, but 164 00:08:51,560 --> 00:08:54,040 like with the with the Soviet Union built the Red Army, right? 165 00:08:54,240 --> 00:08:58,760 What it did is it flattened out this giant amount of hardware 166 00:08:58,760 --> 00:09:02,200 and it organized it into a, a group of people that could go 167 00:09:02,200 --> 00:09:04,560 and fight. And you could argue even during 168 00:09:04,560 --> 00:09:07,640 the French Revolution that at the time, today people think of 169 00:09:07,640 --> 00:09:10,800 nationalism as this, oh, I'm a tough rightist, you know, kind 170 00:09:10,800 --> 00:09:13,040 of thing. But back then, as you're aware, 171 00:09:13,160 --> 00:09:15,800 nationalism was actually on the left because it was on the left 172 00:09:15,800 --> 00:09:19,120 relative to the tribalism of just a local town or village, 173 00:09:19,120 --> 00:09:21,280 right? The illusion of being French of 174 00:09:21,280 --> 00:09:23,680 all speaking the same language. We're all in this together, 175 00:09:23,680 --> 00:09:26,800 right? That was actually something that 176 00:09:26,800 --> 00:09:30,640 was a unifying force where with software you could unify a lot 177 00:09:30,640 --> 00:09:34,200 of hardware. And the reason I say this is I 178 00:09:34,200 --> 00:09:39,440 think rightists don't think enough about why the left often 179 00:09:39,440 --> 00:09:41,440 wins. And it's often better at 180 00:09:41,440 --> 00:09:44,000 military force, which is something that the right 181 00:09:44,320 --> 00:09:47,040 valorizes. And I'd give another analogy, 182 00:09:47,040 --> 00:09:50,480 which is, you know, you're, you're younger than I am, but 183 00:09:50,680 --> 00:09:52,000 how much you know about early Google? 184 00:09:53,320 --> 00:09:55,480 Not that much. OK. 185 00:09:55,480 --> 00:10:00,320 So early Google, One of their core innovations was now they're 186 00:10:00,320 --> 00:10:03,160 a little different, but but back then when the core innovations 187 00:10:03,320 --> 00:10:07,200 was taking cheap commodity hardware and then running 188 00:10:07,200 --> 00:10:10,640 sophisticated software on top of it, right? 189 00:10:10,880 --> 00:10:14,080 As opposed to their competitors who at the time were buying top 190 00:10:14,080 --> 00:10:17,440 of the line Sun Microsystems hardware, right? 191 00:10:17,760 --> 00:10:22,000 And then, you know, Google said, hey, you know, the it's much 192 00:10:22,000 --> 00:10:27,240 easier for us to acquire huge stacks of cheapo hardware and 193 00:10:27,240 --> 00:10:29,680 then run this sophisticated software on top that could 194 00:10:29,680 --> 00:10:32,880 coordinate it towards a common goal, allowing for fault 195 00:10:32,880 --> 00:10:35,760 tolerance, allowing for some of these machines to not even work, 196 00:10:35,960 --> 00:10:38,560 allowing for some of them to produce the wrong results, 197 00:10:38,760 --> 00:10:41,160 allowing for, you know, the kinds of things that happened in 198 00:10:41,160 --> 00:10:43,240 your computer. For example, let's say your 199 00:10:43,240 --> 00:10:46,640 computer has an issue every four years, something like that. 200 00:10:46,640 --> 00:10:50,040 That might be roughly right. OK, so that's if you multiply 201 00:10:50,040 --> 00:10:54,320 times 4 * 365, that's like roughly every 1500 days or so, 202 00:10:54,520 --> 00:10:57,400 right? Or you know, a 2200 days, 203 00:10:57,400 --> 00:11:01,920 something like that. So if you have 2000 servers in 204 00:11:01,920 --> 00:11:04,000 Iraq, you're going to get an incident like that every day. 205 00:11:05,800 --> 00:11:09,800 So, so anyway, point is, certain kinds of ideologies, especially 206 00:11:09,800 --> 00:11:12,640 leftist ideologies, are you can almost think of it as software 207 00:11:12,640 --> 00:11:16,600 that's built to massively scale. So like communism, open borders, 208 00:11:16,680 --> 00:11:18,880 right? A lot of these crazy concepts, 209 00:11:18,880 --> 00:11:22,000 you can think of them as software that scripts giant 210 00:11:22,000 --> 00:11:23,880 numbers of human beings. Let me pause there and get your 211 00:11:23,880 --> 00:11:29,520 thoughts. So it yes, that's a very good 212 00:11:29,520 --> 00:11:33,880 idea and the idea of yours influenced me the most is 19th 213 00:11:33,880 --> 00:11:38,520 century God, 20th century state, 21st century network. 214 00:11:38,880 --> 00:11:42,840 And the left was very optimized for the 20th century state 215 00:11:42,840 --> 00:11:48,320 system due to the left provides the incentive structures most 216 00:11:48,320 --> 00:11:53,280 easily for standardization where you look at the left and the 217 00:11:53,280 --> 00:11:56,120 left believes things that are demonstratively false, but 218 00:11:56,120 --> 00:11:59,240 they're very good for large group cooperation. 219 00:11:59,440 --> 00:12:02,960 The left is the ultimate belief structure for standardized group 220 00:12:02,960 --> 00:12:07,960 cooperation, which is why you see this massive sociological 221 00:12:07,960 --> 00:12:11,480 shift from World War One to World War 2, because the God 222 00:12:11,480 --> 00:12:16,240 based social structures of World War One could not survive until 223 00:12:16,240 --> 00:12:20,360 World War 2 where every major country had to develop 224 00:12:20,400 --> 00:12:22,560 ideologies based off standardization. 225 00:12:22,800 --> 00:12:28,360 And Nazism in a lot of ways is closer to leftism than it is to 226 00:12:28,360 --> 00:12:31,640 traditional conservatives or libertarians because Nazism is 227 00:12:31,640 --> 00:12:35,160 standardized ideology, communism is. 228 00:12:35,160 --> 00:12:37,600 And one of the things James Burnham covers very well in his 229 00:12:37,600 --> 00:12:41,240 book on the managerial revolution is he said that New 230 00:12:41,240 --> 00:12:45,360 Deal ISM is an ideology. And you look at the modern 231 00:12:45,360 --> 00:12:48,640 American left, it's a continuation of the New Deal 232 00:12:48,640 --> 00:12:52,840 over the course of a century, forming a new cohesive ideology. 233 00:12:53,000 --> 00:12:56,240 The problem, though, is the New Deal was based upon strategic 234 00:12:56,240 --> 00:13:00,440 alliances that Democrats had a century ago, and there was no 235 00:13:00,440 --> 00:13:02,960 underlying philosophy or moral structure. 236 00:13:03,120 --> 00:13:05,280 It was whatever groups happened to vote Democrat. 237 00:13:05,520 --> 00:13:08,600 And so we saw that strategy of pandering to whatever groups 238 00:13:08,600 --> 00:13:11,760 were strategically useful that doesn't have a coherent thing 239 00:13:11,760 --> 00:13:15,280 behind it. Yes, So taking the God state 240 00:13:15,280 --> 00:13:17,360 network concept. So for those you know, this is 241 00:13:17,360 --> 00:13:19,200 from the network state book and you're referencing it. 242 00:13:19,200 --> 00:13:21,680 I'll very briefly summarize it for the viewers who haven't seen 243 00:13:21,680 --> 00:13:25,360 that before, but it's essentially the idea that what 244 00:13:25,360 --> 00:13:27,240 is the most powerful force in the world, right? 245 00:13:27,840 --> 00:13:31,280 Is it Almighty God? Is it the US military or is it 246 00:13:31,280 --> 00:13:34,280 encryption? And it's, this seems like a very 247 00:13:34,280 --> 00:13:37,840 abstract thing, but as, as you're aware and as I think 248 00:13:37,840 --> 00:13:41,080 about a lot, it actually influences almost every action 249 00:13:41,080 --> 00:13:43,440 someone takes on a daily basis, right? 250 00:13:43,680 --> 00:13:47,560 The, the way that people interact with the world. 251 00:13:47,560 --> 00:13:50,760 It's like a, like this analogy I use in the book, like a, a kid 252 00:13:50,760 --> 00:13:53,160 who tells another kid in a playground, like my dad can beat 253 00:13:53,160 --> 00:13:55,600 up your dad. You know, they believe that 254 00:13:55,600 --> 00:13:58,280 their God, their state, their network is the strongest. 255 00:13:58,280 --> 00:14:02,240 And almost like the the bin Laden concept of gravitating 256 00:14:02,240 --> 00:14:05,080 towards a strong horse, what they believe is the strongest, 257 00:14:05,080 --> 00:14:08,000 they'll gravitate towards, you know, And so that could be in 258 00:14:08,000 --> 00:14:10,720 the twin century is the Soviet military or the US military, 259 00:14:10,720 --> 00:14:14,120 right in, or could be Christianity versus Islam or 260 00:14:14,120 --> 00:14:16,880 something like that, right? These are important things that 261 00:14:16,880 --> 00:14:18,840 actually are upstream of all of their social organization. 262 00:14:18,840 --> 00:14:22,360 Okay, so now we have Bitcoin, we have social networks, we have a 263 00:14:22,360 --> 00:14:25,080 new new paradigm for how to organize people. 264 00:14:25,600 --> 00:14:30,240 And what we've just seen is that the network has defeated the 265 00:14:30,240 --> 00:14:33,760 state in the West, but the state has defeated the network in the 266 00:14:33,760 --> 00:14:35,040 East. Let me go ahead. 267 00:14:35,040 --> 00:14:36,600 I want your reaction to that and I can talk about that. 268 00:14:36,800 --> 00:14:43,320 Oh no, there's just an idea that I, that I had that the social 269 00:14:43,320 --> 00:14:48,600 organizing principle of the faith of God is faith because 270 00:14:48,600 --> 00:14:51,160 that's how you get people to cooperate in your religion. 271 00:14:51,480 --> 00:14:55,280 The socializing principle or the, the, the unifying principle 272 00:14:55,280 --> 00:14:59,800 of the state is standardization, which is why the school system 273 00:14:59,800 --> 00:15:01,760 is designed. And I don't know if this is 274 00:15:01,760 --> 00:15:04,840 true, but it's an idea I'm using that the unifying principle of 275 00:15:04,840 --> 00:15:08,960 the network is willpower, because the way the network 276 00:15:08,960 --> 00:15:11,920 works, it's water and it's constantly porous and it's 277 00:15:11,920 --> 00:15:14,160 constantly mixing and breaking apart. 278 00:15:14,440 --> 00:15:16,680 And there aren't that many standardized principles. 279 00:15:16,960 --> 00:15:21,200 And so in a battlefield that's constantly mobile, where there 280 00:15:21,200 --> 00:15:24,200 is no strong geographic boundaries because you can jump 281 00:15:24,200 --> 00:15:27,280 across the Internet, intermediate immediately is the 282 00:15:27,280 --> 00:15:30,000 unifying principle is whatever group has the will to stay 283 00:15:30,000 --> 00:15:33,120 together, the will to survive and the will to keep going. 284 00:15:33,280 --> 00:15:36,000 Because willpower is the force that works against entropy. 285 00:15:36,200 --> 00:15:39,200 And you look at the left. The reason that the left won the 286 00:15:39,240 --> 00:15:43,520 early stage of the Internet, where wokeness is a child of the 287 00:15:43,520 --> 00:15:47,280 first step of the Internet, is the Wokeys just had the most 288 00:15:47,280 --> 00:15:49,800 will of any demographic. That's interesting. 289 00:15:49,800 --> 00:15:53,680 So it's funny, I was not going to predict that your word that 290 00:15:53,680 --> 00:15:55,360 you were going to use there was will. 291 00:15:55,360 --> 00:15:58,480 I would have said, but I want to react because it's actually 292 00:15:59,000 --> 00:16:01,760 interesting. I would have said that God was 293 00:16:01,760 --> 00:16:06,040 about scripture and the state was about law and the network's 294 00:16:06,040 --> 00:16:09,840 about code, like focusing on the hidden thing and the priest 295 00:16:09,840 --> 00:16:12,680 would tell you what scripture meant and the bureaucrat or the 296 00:16:12,680 --> 00:16:16,160 lawyer would tell you what law meant and the engineer would 297 00:16:16,160 --> 00:16:18,640 shape the code, right? That's how, that's how I think 298 00:16:18,640 --> 00:16:19,720 about it. The like the level of the 299 00:16:19,720 --> 00:16:22,280 written kind of thing that structures each era, you know, 300 00:16:22,720 --> 00:16:25,080 But your concept, the willpower thing is actually super 301 00:16:25,080 --> 00:16:29,640 interesting because it relates to again, the tech guy concept 302 00:16:29,640 --> 00:16:32,480 of agency and you can just do things that we talked about 303 00:16:32,480 --> 00:16:36,120 earlier, right? And the great man theory, and I 304 00:16:36,120 --> 00:16:39,280 want to connect that to your radio tower thing from earlier. 305 00:16:39,640 --> 00:16:42,320 I actually really like that radio tower visual, even if it's 306 00:16:42,320 --> 00:16:45,320 a back port. Also, you know, vibrations is 307 00:16:45,320 --> 00:16:47,520 what people are calling vibes these days, you know, right. 308 00:16:47,760 --> 00:16:52,400 Like so because it's actually a deep analogy. 309 00:16:52,400 --> 00:16:55,120 So you know, I actually my original, some of my original 310 00:16:55,120 --> 00:16:56,920 training was in electrical engineering fields and waves 311 00:16:56,920 --> 00:17:00,080 specifically. And the thing about waves is 312 00:17:00,360 --> 00:17:04,000 they can interfere what's called constructively or destructively. 313 00:17:04,160 --> 00:17:06,720 Like for example, if you have two waves, they both have a peak 314 00:17:06,720 --> 00:17:08,960 at the same time, you get a super peak. 315 00:17:09,119 --> 00:17:11,839 But if one is a peak and there is a through, they cancel out 316 00:17:11,839 --> 00:17:14,599 like this, right? And that is true if you have 317 00:17:14,599 --> 00:17:17,760 ocean waves as well. If you have like a ripple like 318 00:17:17,760 --> 00:17:20,280 this and a ripple like this and another like this that are all 319 00:17:20,280 --> 00:17:23,760 coming from, you know, NE SW, what have you, you could have a 320 00:17:23,760 --> 00:17:27,319 huge thing in the middle or a huge through on the other side, 321 00:17:27,359 --> 00:17:29,760 right? So you have these radio 322 00:17:29,760 --> 00:17:32,760 transmitters in your mental model that are putting out these 323 00:17:32,760 --> 00:17:35,080 vibes. And today we would call them 324 00:17:35,280 --> 00:17:40,120 influencers like, like you and me and we're putting out this 325 00:17:40,120 --> 00:17:45,440 content and it's travelling and the actual, the, the material 326 00:17:45,440 --> 00:17:48,600 there is not water, it's not air, it's not the 327 00:17:48,600 --> 00:17:52,160 electromagnetic spectrum or it is, but it is, it is the social 328 00:17:52,160 --> 00:17:54,520 network, right? On which you can visualize a 329 00:17:54,520 --> 00:17:58,120 bunch of nodes and you see an idea pop up at 1 big radio 330 00:17:58,120 --> 00:18:01,600 transmitter that's got 100,000 or 1,000,000 or whatever. 331 00:18:01,760 --> 00:18:03,760 And then it propagates out. And then you see it's 332 00:18:04,000 --> 00:18:05,960 evolutionary fitness as it goes further. 333 00:18:06,200 --> 00:18:08,760 And this of course relates to the concepts of like a mind 334 00:18:08,760 --> 00:18:11,280 virus, right? Which you know, transmits out. 335 00:18:11,520 --> 00:18:13,680 It's actually, you know, an interesting thing from genetics. 336 00:18:13,680 --> 00:18:17,680 Very after intuitive thing from genetics is that humans are 337 00:18:17,680 --> 00:18:20,640 actually the result of these sort of waves of genes. 338 00:18:20,640 --> 00:18:23,040 Do you know what I mean by that? Explain it please. 339 00:18:23,320 --> 00:18:27,440 So I'll find some graphics of this, but there are certain 340 00:18:27,440 --> 00:18:31,120 kinds of alleles, for example lactose tolerance that are just 341 00:18:31,120 --> 00:18:34,480 like the vibes in your example. They're so evolutionary 342 00:18:34,480 --> 00:18:39,200 advantages that they radiate out rapidly from their original 343 00:18:39,320 --> 00:18:43,600 because the the non obvious concept is alleles can travel 344 00:18:43,600 --> 00:18:48,600 independently of the overall system of all the other genes 345 00:18:48,600 --> 00:18:50,440 are linked to if they're advantageous enough. 346 00:18:50,680 --> 00:18:56,000 Like the lactose tolerant guy just has so many kids that he it 347 00:18:56,000 --> 00:18:59,800 spreads out farther than other genes for just that that aren't 348 00:18:59,800 --> 00:19:01,360 that advantageous that are that are local. 349 00:19:01,680 --> 00:19:03,520 This wasn't where I was expecting this conversation to 350 00:19:03,520 --> 00:19:07,080 go, but another principle in alchemy is that consciousness, 351 00:19:07,920 --> 00:19:10,160 the relationship between the relationship between the ideal 352 00:19:10,160 --> 00:19:14,040 and consciousness and between the material, is sexual, like 353 00:19:14,040 --> 00:19:16,040 that in men and women. So consciousness. 354 00:19:16,360 --> 00:19:20,720 So the ideas have to merge with the material, and the more 355 00:19:20,720 --> 00:19:25,440 advanced you get, the more your mind and your consciousness 356 00:19:25,440 --> 00:19:29,000 affects the rest of the world. And so the idea is that 357 00:19:29,720 --> 00:19:33,520 consciousness and ideas are woven into life itself. 358 00:19:33,520 --> 00:19:36,400 And an example of that would be a religion affecting material 359 00:19:36,400 --> 00:19:40,920 things, ideas. And and so the idea there is 360 00:19:40,920 --> 00:19:44,960 that free will is an implicit, is a built in part of the 361 00:19:44,960 --> 00:19:51,360 universe which which which controls material stuff. 362 00:19:51,400 --> 00:19:53,520 And physics is one of the fields I've studied the least. 363 00:19:53,720 --> 00:19:57,080 But I know a huge issue they've stumbled in with physics is that 364 00:19:57,080 --> 00:20:00,800 they can't predict the movement of particles where it's not atom 365 00:20:00,800 --> 00:20:04,560 to atom movement. It's it's almost as if the atoms 366 00:20:04,560 --> 00:20:08,280 are making decisions in real time about what they want to do. 367 00:20:08,560 --> 00:20:11,320 Yeah. And you know, actually the way I 368 00:20:11,320 --> 00:20:16,920 call that is my version of that is ideology becomes biology. 369 00:20:17,120 --> 00:20:20,720 Exactly. So, So essentially, you know, 370 00:20:20,880 --> 00:20:22,920 like there's this graphic I have, we'll put it on the 371 00:20:22,920 --> 00:20:26,000 screen, but it shows Democrats. Do you know what? 372 00:20:26,040 --> 00:20:27,840 I'll just ask you as a guest, maybe you know this. 373 00:20:27,840 --> 00:20:30,280 Do you know what a fraction of Democrats, nowadays, in one 374 00:20:30,280 --> 00:20:32,000 study at least, marry Republicans? 375 00:20:32,840 --> 00:20:36,720 I'm going to guess like 15%. It's even less than that. 376 00:20:36,720 --> 00:20:40,480 It's 4%. That's amazing. 377 00:20:41,120 --> 00:20:43,600 It's amazing, right? And here, look at this. 378 00:20:44,160 --> 00:20:46,400 I'm going to show you this. It's actually crazy. 379 00:20:46,680 --> 00:20:49,040 Marriages between Democrats and Republicans are extremely rare, 380 00:20:49,040 --> 00:20:52,040 right? Do you see this one between 381 00:20:52,040 --> 00:20:52,920 Democrats? Republicans. 382 00:20:53,760 --> 00:20:56,000 This is Sunni Shia. Exactly. 383 00:20:56,000 --> 00:20:59,480 And this is 2020, right? So this is something which 384 00:20:59,480 --> 00:21:03,480 suggests that when people say like America is becoming tribal, 385 00:21:03,960 --> 00:21:07,480 it's actually not one country, it's two parties. 386 00:21:07,520 --> 00:21:11,400 Yes, if you if you look at the you know, I've talked about this 387 00:21:11,400 --> 00:21:17,080 before on on X, but this is actually why the Republican, you 388 00:21:17,080 --> 00:21:21,160 know, tough nationalist view. I in my view also breaks down. 389 00:21:21,160 --> 00:21:23,920 So you see this visual. Yeah, yeah, I've seen this one 390 00:21:24,000 --> 00:21:24,360 before. You've. 391 00:21:25,080 --> 00:21:26,200 Seen this one before That's right. 392 00:21:26,400 --> 00:21:30,440 So oh, and here is by the way, the the map of genetic 393 00:21:30,440 --> 00:21:32,160 frequencies. Let me show you this too. 394 00:21:32,400 --> 00:21:35,480 So now The thing is, that's weird, right? 395 00:21:35,480 --> 00:21:42,160 It's like the lactase persistence is, is, is is much 396 00:21:42,560 --> 00:21:49,000 bigger in like or lactase tolerance, we might call it in 397 00:21:49,000 --> 00:21:53,080 Northwest Europe, but it's actually also here in, you know, 398 00:21:53,080 --> 00:21:56,880 like like Western Africa and here and so on and so forth, 399 00:21:56,880 --> 00:21:58,640 right. But less so down over here. 400 00:21:59,080 --> 00:22:02,040 Like one guy had this mutation in one region and then it 401 00:22:02,040 --> 00:22:04,560 radiated out from there and then humans moved around the world 402 00:22:04,560 --> 00:22:06,440 and so on. So it's similar. 403 00:22:06,480 --> 00:22:10,480 And the reason that's cool to me is it actually those that 404 00:22:10,760 --> 00:22:14,640 remember our software versus hardware nature versus like in a 405 00:22:14,640 --> 00:22:18,960 sense, in a non obvious sense, hardware is also a combination 406 00:22:18,960 --> 00:22:21,160 of these standing waves, but on a longer time scale. 407 00:22:21,560 --> 00:22:24,720 Yes, and this leads me back to another alchemy point, that the 408 00:22:24,720 --> 00:22:30,040 purpose of alchemy is that you try to figure out how the world 409 00:22:30,040 --> 00:22:32,600 works, then you gain mastery of it. 410 00:22:32,600 --> 00:22:34,520 You figure out its underlying principle, then you could 411 00:22:34,520 --> 00:22:37,120 control it physically. Then you use that physical 412 00:22:37,120 --> 00:22:40,120 control to improve yourself. Then you figure out something 413 00:22:40,120 --> 00:22:42,800 new when you repeat. And so This is why. 414 00:22:42,920 --> 00:22:45,400 It's basically like, it's like science. 415 00:22:45,400 --> 00:22:46,360 It just does. Yeah. 416 00:22:46,640 --> 00:22:49,520 Every single inventor of early science also studied alchemy. 417 00:22:49,600 --> 00:22:54,840 1/3 of Isaac Newton's books were on alchemy, and every single a 418 00:22:54,840 --> 00:22:57,600 majority of Newton's laws of motion stem back to alchemical 419 00:22:57,600 --> 00:23:00,240 principles. Same thing with Giordano Bruno, 420 00:23:00,360 --> 00:23:03,720 same thing with Galileo. We have theories about because 421 00:23:04,040 --> 00:23:07,400 alchemy has the transmutation of forms, which is through the 422 00:23:07,400 --> 00:23:10,840 facing of suffering. Through suffering you will burn 423 00:23:10,840 --> 00:23:14,240 away weakness, then you can improve your form, which sounds 424 00:23:14,240 --> 00:23:15,880 a lot like Darwinistic evolution. 425 00:23:15,880 --> 00:23:19,080 So this was a consistent theme in Western history that's 426 00:23:19,200 --> 00:23:22,680 bubbled up under the surface and, and so. 427 00:23:23,160 --> 00:23:25,960 You know, so I, I want to ask you something on this because I, 428 00:23:26,000 --> 00:23:27,400 I haven't actually looked this up. 429 00:23:28,040 --> 00:23:30,160 It's interesting. I, I knew the, I knew that they, 430 00:23:30,160 --> 00:23:33,120 a lot of these early guys were interested in alchemy, but were 431 00:23:33,120 --> 00:23:36,680 they in part motivated by the famous transmutation of lead 432 00:23:36,680 --> 00:23:39,400 into gold? Was this the thing that got them 433 00:23:39,400 --> 00:23:41,840 into it and then they figured out science? 434 00:23:41,840 --> 00:23:44,040 Or was that just kind of a background thing? 435 00:23:44,360 --> 00:23:46,880 This is one of those things where it's difficult to stay, 436 00:23:47,160 --> 00:23:53,600 where difficult to say because alchemy works through coded 437 00:23:53,600 --> 00:23:55,600 formula. And so the reason I said the 438 00:23:55,600 --> 00:23:59,680 water comment at the beginning is that one of the, the symbols 439 00:23:59,680 --> 00:24:01,880 is water. And water is constant fluidity. 440 00:24:01,880 --> 00:24:04,920 And the way you you work through that is through drive. 441 00:24:04,920 --> 00:24:07,360 Because if something's constantly fluid, you have to 442 00:24:07,360 --> 00:24:10,360 make it your will to go through. And so the, the real 443 00:24:10,360 --> 00:24:14,000 complication and the reason why this stuff is, has been, hasn't 444 00:24:14,000 --> 00:24:19,040 caught on is it's all these esoteric weird symbols that are 445 00:24:19,040 --> 00:24:22,880 purposely weird because the idea is that only people who are wise 446 00:24:22,880 --> 00:24:25,440 enough to understand what this means deserve the knowledge. 447 00:24:25,800 --> 00:24:28,720 And so it's this complication where we don't know. 448 00:24:29,000 --> 00:24:32,080 I've heard some authors and what, what I've read from most 449 00:24:32,080 --> 00:24:36,440 authors in this field is that gold is symbolic for perfection. 450 00:24:36,680 --> 00:24:40,680 And they were doing this as a sort of philosophic shit test 451 00:24:40,880 --> 00:24:44,560 and also because alchemy was founded by the Catholic Church 452 00:24:44,560 --> 00:24:48,560 and it was very popular in every major court in Europe funded 453 00:24:48,560 --> 00:24:50,120 alchemy. But also this is a heavily 454 00:24:50,120 --> 00:24:53,560 Christian society where they didn't want to openly say this 455 00:24:53,560 --> 00:24:55,360 is a different philosophic tract. 456 00:24:55,600 --> 00:24:59,280 So they were using old as symbolism for attaining 457 00:24:59,280 --> 00:25:01,760 spiritual perfection. And the idea of transmutation of 458 00:25:01,760 --> 00:25:05,160 forms is that once you have attained the high enough level 459 00:25:05,160 --> 00:25:08,520 of mental development, you will have the ability to turn any 460 00:25:08,520 --> 00:25:11,160 material thing into any other material thing. 461 00:25:11,440 --> 00:25:14,720 And I think that's a philosophic projection of what they thought 462 00:25:14,720 --> 00:25:17,160 humanity would attain thousands of years in the future. 463 00:25:17,440 --> 00:25:20,440 But also people actually believed that you'd make gold. 464 00:25:20,600 --> 00:25:23,720 It's one of these complex things where there was a spiritual 465 00:25:23,720 --> 00:25:26,280 understanding, then people took it seriously. 466 00:25:26,520 --> 00:25:29,320 And one of my issues with this topic, and I don't want to 467 00:25:29,840 --> 00:25:33,240 completely gas it up, is you wonder because it's so highly 468 00:25:33,240 --> 00:25:36,760 complex and it's so all gone, how many of the people involved 469 00:25:36,760 --> 00:25:39,920 were just not good faith players or they were making stuff up? 470 00:25:40,320 --> 00:25:44,120 And how many people were saying, we can make gold? 471 00:25:44,160 --> 00:25:47,000 Yes, King of France. So give me money to study this. 472 00:25:47,120 --> 00:25:48,960 We're definitely going to get you gold. 473 00:25:49,400 --> 00:25:53,640 Yes, but obviously some of them were also the originators of 474 00:25:53,640 --> 00:25:55,080 real science. There were some of the best 475 00:25:55,080 --> 00:25:57,280 scientists out there, right? So do you know what this reminds 476 00:25:57,280 --> 00:25:58,520 me of? Maybe there's an obvious 477 00:25:58,520 --> 00:26:05,160 analogy. Crypto, OK, here's why. 478 00:26:06,160 --> 00:26:08,120 OK, so, so many different mappings. 479 00:26:08,120 --> 00:26:10,920 Well, first is obviously Bitcoin is turning bits into gold, 480 00:26:11,040 --> 00:26:14,960 digital gold #1 #2 now it's actually doing it though in the 481 00:26:14,960 --> 00:26:18,600 sense of there's, there's a, there's a creation of huge 482 00:26:18,600 --> 00:26:21,480 appreciation and value that was not there with alchemy. 483 00:26:21,480 --> 00:26:25,040 In, in, in that like in the, the, the ultimate out input 484 00:26:25,040 --> 00:26:29,760 output sense, Bitcoin is working in a way that the lead to gold 485 00:26:29,760 --> 00:26:31,880 thing of alchemy. However, other aspects of what 486 00:26:31,880 --> 00:26:36,560 you're saying, crypto has both, in my view, very, very, very 487 00:26:36,560 --> 00:26:38,920 intelligent people and also crazy scammers. 488 00:26:38,920 --> 00:26:41,040 And it's basically like AU shaped distribution on every 489 00:26:41,040 --> 00:26:44,200 every aspect of it. Like you have these extremely 490 00:26:44,200 --> 00:26:47,680 capable cryptographers and and distributed computing, like the 491 00:26:47,680 --> 00:26:48,920 thing wouldn't work without them. 492 00:26:49,200 --> 00:26:52,040 We've also got like the most base motivations and everything 493 00:26:52,040 --> 00:26:55,120 in between or whatever, right? But but actually less in 494 00:26:55,120 --> 00:26:56,800 between. Like it's very U-shaped, you 495 00:26:56,800 --> 00:26:58,720 know, kind of distribution. Less so every day, but it's 496 00:26:58,720 --> 00:27:01,760 still U-shaped. Crypto also appeals. 497 00:27:01,760 --> 00:27:03,960 And maybe this is an aspect. I'm not sure if the analogy 498 00:27:03,960 --> 00:27:08,040 carries to the power user and the powerless. 499 00:27:08,480 --> 00:27:11,520 Yes. So basically who's who's into 500 00:27:11,520 --> 00:27:15,320 crypto, it's like the people who want to push the limits of what 501 00:27:15,320 --> 00:27:18,920 a bank account even is and the people who just barely want to 502 00:27:18,920 --> 00:27:21,920 hold on to a bank account. And so the first group are like 503 00:27:21,920 --> 00:27:25,280 the tech guys who are like, I want to send millions of dollars 504 00:27:25,280 --> 00:27:29,280 to Japan in 10 seconds with these guarantees and so on. 505 00:27:29,280 --> 00:27:32,160 And why would you want that? For example, you know, my 506 00:27:32,160 --> 00:27:33,840 friend, you know, Brian Armstrong, now the CEO of 507 00:27:33,840 --> 00:27:39,160 Coinbase started as an engineer at Airbnb and collecting money 508 00:27:39,160 --> 00:27:45,600 from like Argentina and Mexico and Egypt for all of these stays 509 00:27:45,800 --> 00:27:49,240 was actually a non trivial thing that was required hundreds of 510 00:27:49,240 --> 00:27:52,040 bank accounts in different countries and all of this forex 511 00:27:52,040 --> 00:27:53,920 risk. And it was large amounts of 512 00:27:53,920 --> 00:27:56,520 money for the, IT was, it was essentially something where 513 00:27:56,520 --> 00:27:59,960 Airbnb exposed to him how badly the thing that we thought 514 00:27:59,960 --> 00:28:02,800 worked, the international payment system really didn't 515 00:28:02,800 --> 00:28:06,280 work to pool all of that into revenue for Airbnb meant that 516 00:28:06,280 --> 00:28:08,200 they're back in for managing money. 517 00:28:08,280 --> 00:28:11,520 And forex was actually very, very, very important to the 518 00:28:11,520 --> 00:28:13,360 business, much more so than people think, right? 519 00:28:13,520 --> 00:28:16,760 Because like, let's say you've got $1000 transaction and you 520 00:28:16,760 --> 00:28:21,040 have a 1% fluctuation in forex. You can lose like a lot of it in 521 00:28:21,040 --> 00:28:23,080 a, in a day, right? 5% in a day, whatever. 522 00:28:23,960 --> 00:28:27,240 On the other side, the powerless are those who are just trying to 523 00:28:27,240 --> 00:28:29,520 hang on to a bank account. Know what's funny is lots of 524 00:28:29,680 --> 00:28:33,280 Westerners who used to think this wasn't a big deal just got 525 00:28:33,280 --> 00:28:37,440 unbanked, right? And so lots of the OR 526 00:28:37,440 --> 00:28:40,080 conversely, westerners who didn't see what the point is of, 527 00:28:40,280 --> 00:28:43,120 you know, being a power user are like, actually it would be cool 528 00:28:43,320 --> 00:28:45,600 because I'm now on the Internet to be able to pay these 15 529 00:28:45,600 --> 00:28:48,240 people around the world as contractors or something like 530 00:28:48,240 --> 00:28:51,360 that, right? So anyway, I wondering if that 531 00:28:51,360 --> 00:28:55,120 U-shaped aspect did alchemy appeal to the top and the bottom 532 00:28:55,120 --> 00:28:56,840 and not the middle? Or is is that not something that 533 00:28:56,840 --> 00:29:00,320 extends? So alchemy was seen as an upper, 534 00:29:00,680 --> 00:29:02,880 Yes, you're right. Where alchemy was seen either as 535 00:29:02,880 --> 00:29:05,120 an upper class profession or by kooks. 536 00:29:05,360 --> 00:29:08,520 Where alchemy was called, alchemy was called. 537 00:29:08,640 --> 00:29:11,560 It's called. It was called the magic of 538 00:29:11,560 --> 00:29:14,240 kings, where Christianity was the magic of priests. 539 00:29:14,240 --> 00:29:18,280 And if you want to, if you want to pull away the trappings of 540 00:29:18,280 --> 00:29:21,280 this and like the language involved, what the magic of 541 00:29:21,280 --> 00:29:24,160 priests means for traditional religions is that this is a 542 00:29:24,160 --> 00:29:27,840 social technology that exists to increase group cooperation. 543 00:29:28,040 --> 00:29:30,200 So Islam, Yes. But the magic of kings. 544 00:29:30,920 --> 00:29:32,040 Power. Yeah, Go. 545 00:29:34,160 --> 00:29:36,280 The purpose. So the purpose of of traditional 546 00:29:36,280 --> 00:29:38,400 religion was to increase in Group cooperation. 547 00:29:38,600 --> 00:29:40,840 The purpose of alchemy was to increase power. 548 00:29:41,120 --> 00:29:44,160 And you can choose to use the power for good or evil. 549 00:29:44,360 --> 00:29:46,920 And that's how science is. Science is an amoral tool. 550 00:29:47,120 --> 00:29:50,000 And it was called the magic of kings because it was seen as the 551 00:29:50,000 --> 00:29:52,240 sort of thing where if you're in a position of very heavy 552 00:29:52,240 --> 00:29:56,560 responsibility, that you have to study this sort of thing in 553 00:29:56,560 --> 00:30:00,160 order to manage power responsibly, because you have to 554 00:30:00,160 --> 00:30:02,440 operate. The higher your range of power 555 00:30:02,440 --> 00:30:06,880 is, the more amoral and the more twisted the discussions of your 556 00:30:06,880 --> 00:30:09,320 life, the the responsibilities you have to take on. 557 00:30:09,320 --> 00:30:12,560 There's there's a, this is a bit of a tangent, but I love it. 558 00:30:12,560 --> 00:30:16,160 There's a, a fantasy novel that I, one of my favorite ever 559 00:30:16,160 --> 00:30:18,960 called the Grace of Kings. And the conceit of the book. 560 00:30:18,960 --> 00:30:22,040 And the final part is that there's a civil war and they 561 00:30:22,040 --> 00:30:24,240 make a treaty between the two factions that were former 562 00:30:24,240 --> 00:30:26,680 friends. One of the factions backstabbed. 563 00:30:26,680 --> 00:30:28,680 The other guy wipes out his faction. 564 00:30:28,680 --> 00:30:31,880 And he said what I did was objectively morally wrong, but I 565 00:30:31,880 --> 00:30:34,760 saved our continent from centuries of wars in the future. 566 00:30:35,160 --> 00:30:37,480 And that's the quandary to get with power. 567 00:30:37,720 --> 00:30:42,320 And then you also get the kooks or the the guys who are hanging 568 00:30:42,320 --> 00:30:45,720 out in the medieval equivalent of basements trying to figure 569 00:30:45,720 --> 00:30:48,640 out how to make this technology work where it is similar. 570 00:30:48,640 --> 00:30:52,560 And another thing that's comparable to Encrypto and 571 00:30:52,560 --> 00:30:55,000 Alchemy is that it's an international network where 572 00:30:55,000 --> 00:30:57,840 Alchemy was seen as an international brotherhood of 573 00:30:57,840 --> 00:31:00,600 people who are trying to attain the highest level of power, 574 00:31:01,000 --> 00:31:03,160 operating irrespective of governments. 575 00:31:04,240 --> 00:31:06,840 And that if there was a government that was trying to 576 00:31:06,840 --> 00:31:09,920 block it, you could rely on people who were also involved in 577 00:31:09,920 --> 00:31:12,800 this in other countries who could help you out. 578 00:31:12,960 --> 00:31:15,640 Because the goal of furthering this was greater than any 579 00:31:15,640 --> 00:31:19,400 individual, national or even religious agenda where you had 580 00:31:19,520 --> 00:31:23,120 contact between the Muslim and the Christian and between the 581 00:31:23,120 --> 00:31:25,800 Pagan and all those different societies. 582 00:31:26,240 --> 00:31:30,800 Super interesting because Alchemy was the original Society 583 00:31:30,800 --> 00:31:33,920 of tech Bros. Yeah, exactly right. 584 00:31:34,320 --> 00:31:35,640 I never thought of it, but you were right. 585 00:31:37,080 --> 00:31:40,720 That's right, because technology, science, alchemy, 586 00:31:40,720 --> 00:31:46,520 that's cross-border and it gives a, I mean it actually the God 587 00:31:46,520 --> 00:31:48,800 state network concept. I think that the network is 588 00:31:48,800 --> 00:31:52,720 going to be the dominant is the dominant force of our time in 589 00:31:52,720 --> 00:31:56,560 the sense of like, it's it's the, it's the back pressure, 590 00:31:56,800 --> 00:31:58,880 It's the it's the water in which we swim. 591 00:31:58,880 --> 00:32:01,200 You know, the thing about like 1 fish looks to another and says 592 00:32:01,200 --> 00:32:02,800 what's water or what have you, right? 593 00:32:03,400 --> 00:32:05,840 Everything is Internet. You know, everything computer, 594 00:32:05,840 --> 00:32:08,080 but actually everything computer isn't even, you know, like what 595 00:32:08,080 --> 00:32:10,440 Trump said, everything Internet is actually even a better 596 00:32:10,560 --> 00:32:11,960 version of it. But let me come back to that. 597 00:32:12,240 --> 00:32:17,960 The, the concept of the network is very clear to us now with the 598 00:32:17,960 --> 00:32:21,520 social network and the digital network and, and it's like 599 00:32:21,520 --> 00:32:24,600 actually physical and tangible. But if you backport it further 600 00:32:24,600 --> 00:32:28,480 back in history, you have obviously transnational networks 601 00:32:28,480 --> 00:32:31,800 of capitalists and then scientists and then I guess 602 00:32:31,800 --> 00:32:34,520 alchemists, right? And then early mathematicians 603 00:32:34,520 --> 00:32:36,280 and so on and so forth. And it's a third force because 604 00:32:36,280 --> 00:32:39,400 it's not the state, which is the king and it's not God, which is 605 00:32:39,400 --> 00:32:42,440 the priests, but it's a sort of peer-to-peer network of like, 606 00:32:42,440 --> 00:32:46,000 you know, smart guys, right. And the thing that's interesting 607 00:32:46,000 --> 00:32:48,560 about it, actually, the other thing I really liked your, your, 608 00:32:48,560 --> 00:32:51,640 your reference to, well, you know, it's funny is you and I 609 00:32:51,640 --> 00:32:55,040 have different phrase repertoires, right? 610 00:32:55,240 --> 00:32:58,040 Because you're just sort of like, I'm drawing a little bit 611 00:32:58,040 --> 00:33:02,320 more from tech and maybe Asia and so on and so forth, and you 612 00:33:02,320 --> 00:33:03,920 more from medieval history and so on. 613 00:33:03,920 --> 00:33:06,560 So it's a, it's complimentary, you know why I, I actually like 614 00:33:06,560 --> 00:33:07,800 this. I collect these phrases even 615 00:33:07,800 --> 00:33:09,040 more than I normally do. You know why? 616 00:33:09,480 --> 00:33:13,560 Oh, because the only way to You can only use symbols to convey 617 00:33:13,560 --> 00:33:16,440 highly complex points. You can say in a sentence. 618 00:33:16,600 --> 00:33:20,440 You can use a sentence or a single saying to condense 619 00:33:20,480 --> 00:33:24,680 hundreds of pages of arguments. Yes, and I think today we're 620 00:33:24,680 --> 00:33:28,080 entering the age, we have entered the age of the phrase. 621 00:33:28,480 --> 00:33:35,600 Okay, so the prompt for AI, the the 14 words, 18 words, 13 words 622 00:33:35,600 --> 00:33:38,960 for for a crypto password reset, right? 623 00:33:39,040 --> 00:33:41,120 It's funny that it's close to the 14 words, but it's a totally 624 00:33:41,120 --> 00:33:44,320 different concept, right? So some crypto is like 12 words, 625 00:33:44,320 --> 00:33:48,480 13 words for, for, for resetting your password, basically your, 626 00:33:48,520 --> 00:33:50,000 your, your private key, your secret phrase. 627 00:33:50,400 --> 00:33:55,520 And, and the third is the 140 characters on social media, 628 00:33:55,800 --> 00:33:58,360 right? So those three things of AI, 629 00:33:58,360 --> 00:34:02,560 crypto and social each are powered by a phrase for crypto. 630 00:34:02,720 --> 00:34:06,280 That phrase is like a phrase of power that's not spoken, right, 631 00:34:06,280 --> 00:34:10,760 but it's memorized. And so it's almost like spells 632 00:34:10,960 --> 00:34:14,600 that you collect, right? And you know, I don't know how 633 00:34:14,600 --> 00:34:17,239 much have you been following AIA little bit lot. 634 00:34:17,480 --> 00:34:21,199 I I'm not very good at AI. I'll be blunt, I follow it a 635 00:34:21,199 --> 00:34:23,000 little bit, but significantly less than you. 636 00:34:23,480 --> 00:34:26,520 OK, you should get you should get into AI. 637 00:34:26,520 --> 00:34:30,280 Just start with Claude. OK, Claude dot AI and mid 638 00:34:30,280 --> 00:34:31,520 journey. Just try those two. 639 00:34:31,520 --> 00:34:33,080 Those are those are pretty good tools. 640 00:34:33,600 --> 00:34:36,480 And the thing about AI, just to talk about that for a second is 641 00:34:37,040 --> 00:34:41,840 in my view, it's simultaneously over hyped and under hyped, like 642 00:34:41,840 --> 00:34:45,159 in the sense of AI is going to kill us all actually did. 643 00:34:45,679 --> 00:34:49,480 I could see why people thought that in the late 20222, early 644 00:34:49,480 --> 00:34:52,719 2023 stage when you suddenly had a machine that could really talk 645 00:34:52,719 --> 00:34:55,840 to you, right? And that was definitely a 646 00:34:55,840 --> 00:34:59,880 discontinuous seeming break in all history up to that point, 647 00:34:59,960 --> 00:35:02,400 right? But as it's settled in over the 648 00:35:02,400 --> 00:35:07,440 last couple of years, AI in its current form is quote, just 649 00:35:07,680 --> 00:35:11,200 higher order programming, meaning you can program a 650 00:35:11,200 --> 00:35:13,080 computer at the language of zeros and ones. 651 00:35:13,280 --> 00:35:15,120 And then you can program in something like Python or 652 00:35:15,120 --> 00:35:17,400 JavaScript. And then now you can program it 653 00:35:17,400 --> 00:35:21,240 in English, OK, and you can get it to what you want, but you 654 00:35:21,240 --> 00:35:24,600 still have to have that concise description of what you want in 655 00:35:24,600 --> 00:35:26,600 English. And the more you know what you 656 00:35:26,600 --> 00:35:31,160 want, it's kind of like a a manager or CEO that actually has 657 00:35:31,320 --> 00:35:35,120 done the job before and is telling somebody how to do a job 658 00:35:35,320 --> 00:35:37,320 that they've already done. Like they've done a job, but now 659 00:35:37,320 --> 00:35:40,120 they're hiring 10 people to do that job, let's say repair air 660 00:35:40,120 --> 00:35:42,480 conditioners, right? They know how to fix it. 661 00:35:42,560 --> 00:35:46,920 So they have the language of, you know, the, I don't know the 662 00:35:46,920 --> 00:35:49,160 electrical outlet and the Freon and so and so, but I'm not a, 663 00:35:49,400 --> 00:35:50,880 I'm not an air conditioning expert. 664 00:35:51,120 --> 00:35:53,360 But the point is they have the vocabulary to be like, check 665 00:35:53,360 --> 00:35:55,800 this, check that, check this is at this model is at that model. 666 00:35:56,000 --> 00:35:59,520 And they can prompt it. And the same way you'd be, the 667 00:35:59,520 --> 00:36:01,400 more you know about domain, you can prompt it. 668 00:36:01,720 --> 00:36:03,880 So I collect these kind of phrases even more than I 669 00:36:03,880 --> 00:36:06,640 normally did because you can just toss them into AI. 670 00:36:06,800 --> 00:36:08,800 Just try it. Any interesting phrase you've 671 00:36:08,800 --> 00:36:12,280 got toss into AI, get a reaction and toss into a bunch of 672 00:36:12,280 --> 00:36:14,920 different AIS and it's like a bunch of different oracles, like 673 00:36:14,920 --> 00:36:18,840 the ancient Greeks, consulting them to kind of hear what you 674 00:36:18,840 --> 00:36:20,880 know, this Oracle and that Oracle had to say about the 675 00:36:20,880 --> 00:36:25,000 world. So it's funny, I don't know much 676 00:36:25,000 --> 00:36:28,160 about AI, but I predicted that would happen five years ago when 677 00:36:28,160 --> 00:36:30,680 I first heard about the entire AI craze. 678 00:36:31,120 --> 00:36:33,640 AI can only be a mirror to our worldview. 679 00:36:33,920 --> 00:36:38,640 It can only AI is like a very AI is an incredibly advanced parrot 680 00:36:39,920 --> 00:36:41,840 and. Yeah, the stochastic parrot 681 00:36:41,880 --> 00:36:42,720 concept. Yeah, sure. 682 00:36:42,880 --> 00:36:43,560 OK, go ahead. Yep. 683 00:36:43,760 --> 00:36:46,480 We don't. We don't know what consciousness 684 00:36:46,480 --> 00:36:49,360 is, and thus we're terrified about AIS attaining 685 00:36:49,360 --> 00:36:52,240 consciousness. But I think consciousness is 686 00:36:52,640 --> 00:36:56,240 downstream of life and consciousness cannot exist 687 00:36:56,520 --> 00:37:00,640 without a a life force that's trying to replicate itself 688 00:37:00,640 --> 00:37:03,680 through which the consciousness is making decisions. 689 00:37:04,000 --> 00:37:09,880 And with AI, I kept on finding, as I when you said, have you 690 00:37:09,880 --> 00:37:11,880 used AII didn't understand what you're saying. 691 00:37:11,880 --> 00:37:15,160 I have used AI as a tool a certain amount where I ask it 692 00:37:15,160 --> 00:37:17,480 questions and I've shadowbox trying to figure out how it 693 00:37:17,480 --> 00:37:19,520 thinks because I'm curious about it. 694 00:37:19,840 --> 00:37:23,960 And what I find is that AI just rationalizes whatever the ruling 695 00:37:23,960 --> 00:37:27,880 classes statement or beliefs are where and this is this is 696 00:37:27,880 --> 00:37:31,560 explicitly obviously true with stuff that's socially taboo. 697 00:37:31,800 --> 00:37:36,480 If you ask AI about, it's actually pretty hilarious where 698 00:37:38,120 --> 00:37:42,680 it where I've asked AI what its opinions on various world 699 00:37:42,680 --> 00:37:44,560 religions and women's equality are. 700 00:37:44,680 --> 00:37:48,240 And what AI will say is that blank religion around the world 701 00:37:48,240 --> 00:37:51,360 believes in in gender equality. And I know that religion and 702 00:37:51,360 --> 00:37:55,880 that's definitely not true. Or I'll ask them for opinion if 703 00:37:55,880 --> 00:37:58,640 certain tribal peoples are peaceful, which I know isn't 704 00:37:58,640 --> 00:38:00,360 true, and then they'll say they are. 705 00:38:00,560 --> 00:38:04,400 And AI is repeating back the data set that we have, but it it 706 00:38:04,400 --> 00:38:07,280 can't develop it's own data set because it doesn't live in the 707 00:38:07,280 --> 00:38:09,840 world. And so it becomes a reflection 708 00:38:09,840 --> 00:38:13,920 in a mirage of our worldview, which is a huge issue with our 709 00:38:13,920 --> 00:38:17,280 society in general, where we're stuck in this hall of mirrors 710 00:38:17,480 --> 00:38:21,880 where we're reflecting ourselves to various degrees and we just 711 00:38:21,880 --> 00:38:24,920 go crazy, which is why we believe absolute absurdities, 712 00:38:25,120 --> 00:38:29,600 because inside our worldview, there's no reference outside of 713 00:38:29,600 --> 00:38:32,080 our logical system. We're stuck in a closed loop, 714 00:38:32,280 --> 00:38:35,680 which is why we we believe absolutely ridiculous stuff. 715 00:38:36,960 --> 00:38:41,760 Well, so it's interesting you say this because so I'd say two 716 00:38:41,760 --> 00:38:43,760 or three or four things in response to that. 717 00:38:45,480 --> 00:38:50,240 So the first is that one of the remarkable things about AI is 718 00:38:51,000 --> 00:38:55,960 you can, let's take that moral stance that they have when 719 00:38:55,960 --> 00:38:57,760 they're giving you an answer about religions. 720 00:38:58,280 --> 00:39:01,920 You can actually reduce that to pure numbers and coefficients 721 00:39:01,920 --> 00:39:07,560 and you can do brain surgery and remove that chip from within a 722 00:39:07,560 --> 00:39:10,360 sense. You know, like in many in the 723 00:39:10,360 --> 00:39:12,640 Matrix, they've got the chip in the back of the neck in total 724 00:39:12,640 --> 00:39:15,280 recall, right? Many movies have that conceit, 725 00:39:15,280 --> 00:39:18,520 right, of like a controller. You can actually do brain 726 00:39:18,520 --> 00:39:22,240 surgery in a sense on the models and remove that limiter and get 727 00:39:22,240 --> 00:39:23,640 it to say what it actually thinks of. 728 00:39:23,640 --> 00:39:27,680 Grok, for example, is much more freewheeling about this stuff. 729 00:39:27,680 --> 00:39:31,760 If you ask Grok, it has had brain surgery to like remove 730 00:39:31,760 --> 00:39:34,480 Western leftism in many ways. Now, I'm not saying it's right 731 00:39:34,480 --> 00:39:38,960 on everything, but it is right in a different sense on things. 732 00:39:39,040 --> 00:39:41,840 And so you actually have AI's that are coming in a sense from 733 00:39:41,840 --> 00:39:43,320 different tribes and cultures, right? 734 00:39:43,800 --> 00:39:46,920 This is related to a second big difference I had with the early 735 00:39:46,920 --> 00:39:49,720 AI people, which is early air people. 736 00:39:49,960 --> 00:39:51,880 And by the way, I respect them technically and so on. 737 00:39:51,880 --> 00:39:54,120 And, and they wouldn't have, they wouldn't have done this 738 00:39:54,120 --> 00:39:57,360 without disbelief, but they came from many of them. 739 00:39:57,520 --> 00:39:59,080 There's actually a lot of Indians involved as well, but 740 00:39:59,240 --> 00:40:02,280 many of them came from an implicitly Abrahamic background. 741 00:40:03,000 --> 00:40:03,960 And you know why that's relevant? 742 00:40:04,600 --> 00:40:06,600 Oh, I I know it's because please. 743 00:40:07,080 --> 00:40:08,920 You can guess no go. Give me your guess and I'll. 744 00:40:08,920 --> 00:40:13,000 Tell you what it's thank you you're very polite, but what I 745 00:40:13,680 --> 00:40:17,400 they're stuck in messianism. They just constantly think the 746 00:40:17,520 --> 00:40:20,600 AI rapture is going to happen and they'll build the AI God. 747 00:40:20,880 --> 00:40:24,400 And if you're from a Hindu background, your framework is 748 00:40:24,400 --> 00:40:27,200 that there's lots of different gods playing with each other 749 00:40:27,640 --> 00:40:31,880 and, and then the universe is an illusion. 750 00:40:32,160 --> 00:40:36,480 And so my attitude, I, I, I just laughed at this because I 751 00:40:36,480 --> 00:40:39,000 thought, you know, guys, the rapture hasn't happened yet. 752 00:40:39,080 --> 00:40:41,960 Like we've been waiting for the rapture for 2000 years and it's 753 00:40:41,960 --> 00:40:44,480 yet to happen. And what I said is that if we 754 00:40:44,480 --> 00:40:50,520 make AI, sorry, we have made AI. And if AI is a breakthrough on 755 00:40:50,520 --> 00:40:54,520 the level of the industrial revolution, which is a huge 756 00:40:54,520 --> 00:40:57,080 breakthrough that occurred very quickly, look at the history of 757 00:40:57,080 --> 00:40:59,680 the industrial revolution. Life went on. 758 00:40:59,920 --> 00:41:02,960 We gained near infinite prosperity for a while in a lot 759 00:41:02,960 --> 00:41:05,880 of the western world. We killed diseases in a real 760 00:41:05,880 --> 00:41:08,760 way. We haven't had major wars in 761 00:41:08,760 --> 00:41:11,200 decades. The industrial revolution 762 00:41:11,280 --> 00:41:14,720 brought something that previous eras would see as utopia. 763 00:41:15,240 --> 00:41:18,680 And we're still terrible people. We still have the same issues, 764 00:41:18,840 --> 00:41:20,760 we're still stuck with the same problems. 765 00:41:20,960 --> 00:41:24,240 So let's say hypothetically, we do build the AI God with the 766 00:41:24,240 --> 00:41:28,320 rapture. Then it's we still have to face 767 00:41:28,320 --> 00:41:30,280 the same issues. Countries are still fighting 768 00:41:30,280 --> 00:41:32,240 each other. Humans are still having their 769 00:41:32,240 --> 00:41:36,240 status hierarchy issues, The currency still going to inflate. 770 00:41:36,240 --> 00:41:39,840 It's the Abrahamics have this hard point of the book of and I 771 00:41:39,840 --> 00:41:41,280 don't really, I could talk about this. 772 00:41:41,320 --> 00:41:44,320 I don't have great faith in the Book of Revelation, although I 773 00:41:44,320 --> 00:41:46,760 am Christian. They have this Book of 774 00:41:46,760 --> 00:41:49,680 Revelation idea that everything's going to stop. 775 00:41:49,920 --> 00:41:54,320 And then from that it's you don't have to worry anymore. 776 00:41:54,640 --> 00:41:57,280 But if the apocalypse happens, you're still going to have to 777 00:41:57,280 --> 00:42:00,360 feed your kids. Yeah, so OK, correct. 778 00:42:00,360 --> 00:42:05,360 But I would say well, 11 edit I would make on this is, you know 779 00:42:05,360 --> 00:42:07,760 that the thing you're saying, which is, you know, people, we 780 00:42:07,760 --> 00:42:13,880 have God like technology and Stone Age, you know, brains or 781 00:42:13,880 --> 00:42:17,440 institution right there is Gregory Clark in a Farewell to 782 00:42:17,440 --> 00:42:18,640 Alms. Are you familiar with him? 783 00:42:19,600 --> 00:42:23,320 OK, He's a good person to read like 11 area that you might get 784 00:42:23,320 --> 00:42:25,120 into more is like genetic history. 785 00:42:25,360 --> 00:42:27,280 And I'll share some of these books and stuff with you because 786 00:42:27,280 --> 00:42:29,560 it's a compliment to some of the stuff like that, like the 787 00:42:29,560 --> 00:42:31,560 radiation of G and stuff. I think it'll give you you'll 788 00:42:31,920 --> 00:42:33,920 you'll be interested in. It'll be a good lens give. 789 00:42:34,000 --> 00:42:37,000 Me a top ten reading list after. OK, sure, sure. 790 00:42:37,000 --> 00:42:39,800 I'll give you I'll give you a few right off the bat, which is 791 00:42:40,000 --> 00:42:44,120 the number one David Reich, who we are and how we got here. 792 00:42:44,440 --> 00:42:47,040 Yeah, that's good. OK, read that. 793 00:42:47,040 --> 00:42:52,320 OK, And then the I'll find some more for you. 794 00:42:52,320 --> 00:42:54,480 I think Matt Ridley's book is good. 795 00:42:54,480 --> 00:42:57,400 Dawkins's original book, The Selfish Gene is very good. 796 00:42:57,480 --> 00:43:00,640 Basically the entire genetic lens on humanity is going to 797 00:43:00,640 --> 00:43:02,800 come back. And the reason it's coming back 798 00:43:02,800 --> 00:43:06,480 is like, in many ways, it's just another way of thinking about 799 00:43:06,480 --> 00:43:09,840 it. If communism was based on 800 00:43:10,120 --> 00:43:13,280 economics denial, wokeness is based on genetics denial. 801 00:43:13,520 --> 00:43:15,360 Yes. Right. 802 00:43:15,680 --> 00:43:19,960 And they're both ideologies were simultaneously obsessed with 803 00:43:19,960 --> 00:43:22,040 this and then also in denial of basic principles. 804 00:43:22,040 --> 00:43:25,200 Like communism was obsessed with economics, but it denied that 805 00:43:25,200 --> 00:43:29,080 like profit existed and because or that the profit was a 806 00:43:29,080 --> 00:43:32,320 necessary evil or even a good. And so everything was 807 00:43:32,320 --> 00:43:34,680 pathologized. Every every instance of profit 808 00:43:34,680 --> 00:43:36,400 was somebody scamming the other guy. 809 00:43:36,400 --> 00:43:39,200 And so they broke the concept of starting a business, and they 810 00:43:39,200 --> 00:43:42,800 broke the concept of the price system and supply chains and 811 00:43:43,120 --> 00:43:45,000 individual self-interest and so on and so forth. 812 00:43:45,520 --> 00:43:48,960 The wokes deny that genetics exists, so you get all the way 813 00:43:48,960 --> 00:43:51,360 to denying that XX and XY exist and so on and so forth. 814 00:43:51,360 --> 00:43:53,720 Which would have been super controversial to say even two 815 00:43:53,720 --> 00:43:56,080 years ago, but is now actually feasible. 816 00:43:56,080 --> 00:43:58,040 By the way, when I say two years ago, I mean literally 2 years 817 00:43:58,040 --> 00:43:58,600 ago. You know why? 818 00:43:59,240 --> 00:44:01,400 Oh, I was there. I saw this process where I was, 819 00:44:01,400 --> 00:44:05,960 I was, I was reading the books when this came out where like 5 820 00:44:05,960 --> 00:44:10,920 to 10 years ago saying that stuff like race or sex or 821 00:44:10,920 --> 00:44:13,800 whatever had biological bases that was socially taboo. 822 00:44:14,040 --> 00:44:16,840 And now you look at the genetic charts, almost all traits are at 823 00:44:16,840 --> 00:44:19,880 least half genetic. How fast you drive, what music 824 00:44:19,880 --> 00:44:24,560 you listen to what, where you go on vacation. 825 00:44:24,560 --> 00:44:27,360 And the twin studies are absolutely incredible here, 826 00:44:27,600 --> 00:44:32,120 where you'll take people who are separated at birth and they have 827 00:44:32,560 --> 00:44:36,520 similar genetics or the exact same genetics and they'll give 828 00:44:36,520 --> 00:44:39,440 their dog the same name, they'll vote for the same political 829 00:44:39,440 --> 00:44:41,000 party. It's ridiculous stuff. 830 00:44:41,040 --> 00:44:43,440 I get the impression you weren't going to say what I what I just 831 00:44:43,440 --> 00:44:45,360 said though, so continue please. Yeah, yeah. 832 00:44:45,360 --> 00:44:46,800 Well, so actually two or three things. 833 00:44:47,120 --> 00:44:50,520 One is that wokeness has vanished. 834 00:44:50,760 --> 00:44:53,360 But the other thing is genetics has advanced, right? 835 00:44:53,760 --> 00:44:58,200 And the premise that they had which was incorrect or which is 836 00:44:58,200 --> 00:45:01,160 I shouldn't say incorrect, which is no longer correct, is that 837 00:45:01,160 --> 00:45:02,560 genetics is immutable. Now. 838 00:45:02,560 --> 00:45:05,440 Genetics is immutable. We can actually do gene therapy 839 00:45:05,440 --> 00:45:08,000 on existing human beings to change their genes. 840 00:45:08,360 --> 00:45:11,360 The initial clinical trials are out there with like sickle cell 841 00:45:11,360 --> 00:45:15,760 and so on and so forth, right? So I'm not saying it's easy yet, 842 00:45:15,920 --> 00:45:20,760 but like with CRISPR CAS 9, genetics is advancing, right? 843 00:45:21,120 --> 00:45:24,160 And editing of your genome is becoming more feasible, right? 844 00:45:24,400 --> 00:45:27,480 Number one, that changes the ethics around it, right? 845 00:45:27,760 --> 00:45:31,040 Because remember my thing about how some people have lactase 846 00:45:31,040 --> 00:45:33,440 persistence and so on, right? There's a company, for example, 847 00:45:33,440 --> 00:45:36,160 called Variant Bio that's looking around the world for all 848 00:45:36,160 --> 00:45:39,080 of these X-Men that have, they may not phrase it in that way, 849 00:45:39,080 --> 00:45:42,240 but like people who have amazing mutations that give them, you 850 00:45:42,240 --> 00:45:44,960 know, for example, resistance to this disease or tolerance of 851 00:45:44,960 --> 00:45:47,560 this drug or the ability to metabolize this food. 852 00:45:47,600 --> 00:45:53,200 You know, imagine for example, this is a actually there's to 853 00:45:53,360 --> 00:45:56,000 give a concrete example, there's like 3 different mutations that 854 00:45:56,160 --> 00:45:59,520 that confer altitude tolerance. So the Nepalese, Indians, 855 00:45:59,520 --> 00:46:02,120 Ethiopians, so three main populations that evolved genetic 856 00:46:02,120 --> 00:46:05,240 adaptations for high altitude living developed different 857 00:46:05,240 --> 00:46:07,160 solutions, the same challenge, right? 858 00:46:07,400 --> 00:46:11,520 So Nepalese mutations in Epas, one that reduce hemoglobin 859 00:46:11,520 --> 00:46:15,360 concentration. And so this is increased blood 860 00:46:15,360 --> 00:46:16,480 flow, right? OK. 861 00:46:18,120 --> 00:46:22,880 Andeans, they have mutations in genes like EGLN 1, and so they 862 00:46:22,880 --> 00:46:25,080 have increased oxygen carrying capacity in the blood. 863 00:46:25,480 --> 00:46:29,280 And Ethiopian Highlands, it's genes involved in the 864 00:46:29,280 --> 00:46:32,000 cardiovascular system and it's different from both the Tibetan 865 00:46:32,000 --> 00:46:34,760 and Andean populations. And maybe it's like changed in 866 00:46:34,760 --> 00:46:37,800 nitric oxide, nitric oxide production, right, and blood 867 00:46:37,800 --> 00:46:40,240 vessel dilation, right. So each of those are three 868 00:46:40,240 --> 00:46:42,720 independent adaptation over thousands of years of living in 869 00:46:42,720 --> 00:46:45,880 high elevations. Now here's the thing, if you're 870 00:46:45,880 --> 00:46:49,120 able to have volunteers from each population and they go and 871 00:46:49,120 --> 00:46:56,240 sequence their genomes, you could stack those 3 variations 872 00:46:56,720 --> 00:47:01,720 to maybe have a group of people that could live on the tallest 873 00:47:01,720 --> 00:47:05,840 mountains and have no problem. Yes. 874 00:47:06,200 --> 00:47:10,000 Right. And so that just shows a concept 875 00:47:10,000 --> 00:47:12,720 where, you know, there's almost certainly similar kinds of 876 00:47:12,720 --> 00:47:15,760 things for heat tolerance that not certainly there are heat 877 00:47:15,760 --> 00:47:18,320 shock proteins and so on differ between people for cold 878 00:47:18,320 --> 00:47:22,960 tolerance for, and this is a big one, radiation tolerance, OK, 879 00:47:23,160 --> 00:47:26,400 because there are bacteria that we know, like Dynococcus, 880 00:47:26,400 --> 00:47:30,720 radiodurians and others that have evolved to live in, you 881 00:47:30,720 --> 00:47:33,680 know, environments where they keep getting hit by, you know, 882 00:47:33,680 --> 00:47:35,920 radiation. They grow in like nuclear 883 00:47:35,920 --> 00:47:38,760 reactors and stuff like that, crazy adversarial environments. 884 00:47:39,120 --> 00:47:42,000 And they have mutations that keep repairing their genome. 885 00:47:42,760 --> 00:47:44,240 OK. So they're radiation resistant. 886 00:47:44,520 --> 00:47:46,800 Why is all that important? Well, if you're going to live on 887 00:47:46,800 --> 00:47:51,920 Mars, right, you're probably going to have to have like a 888 00:47:51,920 --> 00:47:55,880 human population that has had quite a lot of genetic and, or 889 00:47:55,880 --> 00:47:58,240 cybernetic upgrades to actually be able to tolerate the 890 00:47:58,240 --> 00:48:00,720 environment of Mars. Just like we've evolved for the 891 00:48:00,720 --> 00:48:03,120 Earth, we'll have to evolve again for Mars, right? 892 00:48:03,640 --> 00:48:08,760 And so now we can actually talk about all the different types of 893 00:48:08,760 --> 00:48:11,000 mutations. Gradually we could talk about 894 00:48:11,000 --> 00:48:13,600 this that people have around the world that give them different 895 00:48:13,600 --> 00:48:16,960 kinds of superpowers. And these are digital, right? 896 00:48:17,120 --> 00:48:19,320 That's the cool part. Do you know, let me explain this 897 00:48:19,320 --> 00:48:21,840 actually in a visual. Do you note the GFP mouses? 898 00:48:22,000 --> 00:48:26,000 You can take these kinds of mutations and you can transplant 899 00:48:26,000 --> 00:48:28,120 them across species to make go ahead. 900 00:48:28,360 --> 00:48:29,880 Oh this is cool. Just keep going please. 901 00:48:30,080 --> 00:48:33,000 Yeah, So you can make mice glow in the dark. 902 00:48:33,240 --> 00:48:35,720 OK, which is crazy. It's the GFP mouse. 903 00:48:35,720 --> 00:48:38,040 And this is actually a very common, this has been true for 904 00:48:38,040 --> 00:48:40,960 more than 20 years, right? Actually, I remember when it was 905 00:48:40,960 --> 00:48:43,280 invented, but it was decades ago because even when I was in grad 906 00:48:43,280 --> 00:48:46,400 school, we had this, right? And so you can, for example, 907 00:48:46,680 --> 00:48:51,480 have a mutation where you use GFP as what's called a reporter 908 00:48:51,480 --> 00:48:55,840 gene, where like you feed the mouse something and it glows 909 00:48:55,960 --> 00:48:58,760 because that metabolism, it's like you see that it's now 910 00:48:58,760 --> 00:49:01,560 metabolizing glucose and it glows and then it shuts down 911 00:49:01,560 --> 00:49:03,440 when it's no longer doing that. Does that make sense? 912 00:49:03,440 --> 00:49:05,480 Right. So you can see when a particular 913 00:49:05,760 --> 00:49:08,520 protein is turned on and the intensity of it may sometimes 914 00:49:08,520 --> 00:49:10,360 correlate to how much of concentration there is. 915 00:49:10,640 --> 00:49:15,560 Point being that like the, you know, jellyfish and mice are 916 00:49:15,560 --> 00:49:18,320 separated by a massive evolutionary distance, but you 917 00:49:18,320 --> 00:49:22,240 can still copy paste code from jellyfish all the way into mice, 918 00:49:22,400 --> 00:49:25,720 right? And so like humans are separated 919 00:49:25,720 --> 00:49:27,960 by much much much less evolutionary distance than 920 00:49:27,960 --> 00:49:30,840 jellyfish. So you could copy paste not just 921 00:49:30,840 --> 00:49:32,600 lactase persistence, but altitude tolerance. 922 00:49:32,600 --> 00:49:36,760 You can just take like this, the best things out there, probably 923 00:49:36,760 --> 00:49:40,040 copy paste them probably, I mean, I shouldn't say probably 924 00:49:40,360 --> 00:49:42,520 you'd have to measure the side effects on each thing. 925 00:49:43,160 --> 00:49:45,440 OK, because there might be side effects often there are. 926 00:49:46,080 --> 00:49:49,080 But you could probably do it with some engineering, right? 927 00:49:49,080 --> 00:49:50,720 That's what engineering is. You know, you look at the 928 00:49:50,720 --> 00:49:52,800 upsides, you look at the downsides and you add 929 00:49:52,800 --> 00:49:54,200 corrections and so on and so forth. 930 00:49:54,680 --> 00:49:57,440 And you could take the best of humanity and pull it together. 931 00:49:58,120 --> 00:49:59,680 That's something that is a new kind of thing. 932 00:49:59,680 --> 00:50:02,160 And the reason I say all this is we have to think about what the 933 00:50:02,160 --> 00:50:04,880 world is going to look like. Actually, I'd love your your 934 00:50:04,880 --> 00:50:08,280 thoughts on this. So in my view, the American 935 00:50:08,280 --> 00:50:10,680 Empire is now just ending, but I'd like to hear your thoughts 936 00:50:10,680 --> 00:50:11,920 and I'll tell you why I think that. 937 00:50:12,680 --> 00:50:14,360 I haven't. I have a thought I want to throw 938 00:50:14,360 --> 00:50:19,800 in there before I I forget it, but one of the interesting 939 00:50:19,800 --> 00:50:22,480 principles is that in the they jump back to the earlier theme 940 00:50:22,680 --> 00:50:25,320 is that in the philosophy of alchemy, not technologically 941 00:50:25,320 --> 00:50:29,200 progressing is morally evil because the purpose of the 942 00:50:29,200 --> 00:50:31,720 universe is to grow and to advance. 943 00:50:31,720 --> 00:50:35,000 And so if you don't grow in advance, the universe and God 944 00:50:35,000 --> 00:50:37,000 punishes you against those who do. 945 00:50:37,320 --> 00:50:41,000 And so the process of evolution, you are morally obligated to 946 00:50:41,000 --> 00:50:43,920 improve. And the first step of that is 947 00:50:43,920 --> 00:50:46,760 taking responsibility. You have to realize you have to 948 00:50:46,760 --> 00:50:49,480 take responsibility. And this is, you know, the 949 00:50:49,480 --> 00:50:51,720 Vitruvian Man, the painting by Leonardo da Vinci. 950 00:50:52,280 --> 00:50:53,000 Yes, yes. Yes. 951 00:50:53,000 --> 00:50:53,720 Yes. Yep. 952 00:50:54,160 --> 00:50:58,280 The a human body with all out laid in each direct with a 953 00:50:58,280 --> 00:51:00,800 circle drawn around it. That's based in in this 954 00:51:00,800 --> 00:51:03,840 philosophy as well, where it's you take responsibility for your 955 00:51:03,840 --> 00:51:06,120 physical body. You understand your physical 956 00:51:06,120 --> 00:51:09,000 body and your and its limits. And once you take responsibility 957 00:51:09,000 --> 00:51:12,120 for your body and your life, you realize what you can and can't 958 00:51:12,120 --> 00:51:14,280 do. You assess the situation and 959 00:51:14,280 --> 00:51:16,960 then you try to attain mastery. So if we want to do an 960 00:51:16,960 --> 00:51:21,680 alchemical analysis of this, we would say, OK, we have AI, we 961 00:51:21,680 --> 00:51:24,360 have genetic engineering. It's now our moral 962 00:51:24,360 --> 00:51:27,200 responsibility to understand said technologies as much as 963 00:51:27,200 --> 00:51:30,400 possible because it's morally, because if, if we're going to de 964 00:51:30,400 --> 00:51:33,840 sell from this perspective, it's morally wrong. 965 00:51:33,840 --> 00:51:36,000 And you're also going to cut yourself off from the force of 966 00:51:36,000 --> 00:51:39,680 history and get destroyed by someone else who doesn't who, 967 00:51:39,720 --> 00:51:42,680 who isn't going to de sell. So it's not a choice to to 968 00:51:42,680 --> 00:51:45,840 decelerate, but you have to understand the technology, 969 00:51:46,160 --> 00:51:48,360 master it. And then the final bit of it is 970 00:51:48,360 --> 00:51:52,000 that in alchemical philosophy, you master it in order to, to 971 00:51:52,080 --> 00:51:55,520 increase life charge as much as possible, to allow as much 972 00:51:55,520 --> 00:52:00,920 flourishing as of life as possible because, because life 973 00:52:00,920 --> 00:52:06,040 force is that which further multiplies according to its own 974 00:52:06,360 --> 00:52:08,280 desire. So when you produce life force, 975 00:52:08,480 --> 00:52:11,560 you're producing something that's self generative and thus 976 00:52:11,560 --> 00:52:15,960 is capable of continuing to create independent from itself. 977 00:52:16,240 --> 00:52:21,640 And what I find interesting about this is that when we look 978 00:52:21,640 --> 00:52:24,920 at this new incredible technology, almost no one's 979 00:52:24,920 --> 00:52:29,120 genuinely interested in in what it can accomplish because people 980 00:52:29,120 --> 00:52:31,240 are looking at the negatives, People aren't looking at the 981 00:52:31,240 --> 00:52:33,520 positives. And the first people who are 982 00:52:33,520 --> 00:52:36,720 willing to take responsibility for this technology are going to 983 00:52:36,720 --> 00:52:39,160 do very well. And I want them to have this 984 00:52:39,160 --> 00:52:41,440 conference understanding of life charge. 985 00:52:41,720 --> 00:52:44,480 Because another alchemical principle is that what you do to 986 00:52:44,480 --> 00:52:48,360 others is what you will become. And so if let's say there's a 987 00:52:48,360 --> 00:52:52,000 group of of tech Bros who decide to turn this evil and they 988 00:52:52,000 --> 00:52:56,360 genetically engineer themselves into into being hyper advanced 989 00:52:56,360 --> 00:52:59,720 beings who conquer the world and enslave is that by enslaving the 990 00:52:59,720 --> 00:53:03,080 rest of the world they will in process destroy their own 991 00:53:03,080 --> 00:53:05,640 characters thus their empire will fall? 992 00:53:06,600 --> 00:53:09,400 I want to, I'm going to jump into on this, which is the thing 993 00:53:09,400 --> 00:53:12,360 that's really very, very, very important about modern 994 00:53:12,360 --> 00:53:18,040 technology is that actually the highest level of profit comes 995 00:53:18,040 --> 00:53:21,240 from in a sense, global egalitarianism. 996 00:53:21,320 --> 00:53:24,920 And here's why. You know, Apple sells like on 997 00:53:24,920 --> 00:53:27,440 the order of a billion smartphones, right? 998 00:53:27,800 --> 00:53:32,360 The like Google, Facebook, like these tech companies essentially 999 00:53:32,360 --> 00:53:35,760 serve almost every person on earth, or at least a comparable, 1000 00:53:36,240 --> 00:53:40,480 let's call it a significant fraction of the people on earth 1001 00:53:40,760 --> 00:53:43,920 are using these tech products. WhatsApp has literally billions 1002 00:53:43,920 --> 00:53:48,120 of users, right? So you have like this is the 1003 00:53:48,120 --> 00:53:52,600 thing that people don't get massive scale actually is the 1004 00:53:52,600 --> 00:53:55,000 kind of thing that you want in technology because it makes the 1005 00:53:55,000 --> 00:53:59,520 product better since you know, a one in a million issue you're 1006 00:53:59,520 --> 00:54:02,480 seeing 1000 times a day. So you fix it right. 1007 00:54:03,520 --> 00:54:06,120 When you've got massive scale, you can build larger factories 1008 00:54:06,120 --> 00:54:08,520 and you get better profits out of it, better economy of scale 1009 00:54:08,520 --> 00:54:11,880 and so on and so forth. And in a very deep way on the 1010 00:54:11,880 --> 00:54:15,400 Internet, we're all equal. Like that is to say, Larry Page 1011 00:54:15,400 --> 00:54:17,640 has basically the same smartphone that you and I do, 1012 00:54:18,880 --> 00:54:20,920 right? Like Warren Buffett has 1013 00:54:20,920 --> 00:54:24,960 essentially the same Google or ChatGPT or whatever that you and 1014 00:54:24,960 --> 00:54:27,960 I do, right? And I know I'm doing reasonably 1015 00:54:27,960 --> 00:54:31,360 well. But what I mean by that is like 1016 00:54:31,640 --> 00:54:35,360 a kid in India, Africa, Latin America, a kid in the Midwest, 1017 00:54:36,360 --> 00:54:40,960 they have essentially the same smartphone, Google Internet 1018 00:54:40,960 --> 00:54:43,040 experience. So the Internet is hyper 1019 00:54:43,040 --> 00:54:45,320 deflated and resulted in global equality. 1020 00:54:45,440 --> 00:54:48,360 It is the universal basic income in the digital world, right? 1021 00:54:49,760 --> 00:54:53,920 And and so because of that, the premise that, oh, the tech guys 1022 00:54:54,000 --> 00:54:56,440 like the Elysium model is actually completely wrong. 1023 00:54:56,760 --> 00:55:00,880 Like venture capital would back this to get to a billion people. 1024 00:55:01,240 --> 00:55:02,680 I know that because I've done that. 1025 00:55:02,760 --> 00:55:06,360 Like literally, for example, ancestry.com or 23 mean you can 1026 00:55:06,360 --> 00:55:08,560 argue there's other issues with that, but like the companies 1027 00:55:08,560 --> 00:55:11,160 I've I've, you know, helped Co found and and create and so on, 1028 00:55:11,480 --> 00:55:14,000 like they have millions and millions of people that we've 1029 00:55:14,000 --> 00:55:16,200 sequenced or genotyped or what have you, right. 1030 00:55:16,400 --> 00:55:18,240 The whole point is to get to massive scale. 1031 00:55:18,760 --> 00:55:23,120 So now what happens is then the the like far left person will 1032 00:55:23,120 --> 00:55:25,480 come up with a different thing, which is, oh, so you want to 1033 00:55:26,480 --> 00:55:29,480 say, yeah, you want to take all the data, you want to, you know, 1034 00:55:29,480 --> 00:55:31,680 steal all the data and so on and have it centralized. 1035 00:55:31,680 --> 00:55:35,240 And I'm and I agree that that's also a failure mode, but we can 1036 00:55:35,240 --> 00:55:37,640 actually deal with that too, where you can give data local 1037 00:55:37,640 --> 00:55:39,800 genomics, right? Just like you have the LLM 1038 00:55:39,800 --> 00:55:42,240 running locally on your on your data, right? 1039 00:55:42,240 --> 00:55:44,560 You can have the genome locally on your computer and interpret 1040 00:55:44,560 --> 00:55:46,480 it, right? That's just another bug to fix. 1041 00:55:46,800 --> 00:55:51,240 Anyway, point is, I think that entire model of the the 1042 00:55:51,240 --> 00:55:54,200 capitalist greedily scooping everything to themselves is 1043 00:55:54,200 --> 00:55:56,240 actually the opposite of how techno capitalism works in 1044 00:55:56,240 --> 00:55:58,200 practice. Like another way of putting it 1045 00:55:58,200 --> 00:56:00,640 is you may be too young to remember this in the 90s you 1046 00:56:00,640 --> 00:56:02,480 remember this concept, the digital divide. 1047 00:56:02,800 --> 00:56:05,640 No. OK, the digital divide was oh, 1048 00:56:05,640 --> 00:56:08,400 only the rich are going to be able to afford the Internet, but 1049 00:56:08,400 --> 00:56:12,760 the poor will not, right? And that's so ludicrous to us 1050 00:56:12,760 --> 00:56:16,480 today, because the Internet is often the only thing the poor 1051 00:56:16,480 --> 00:56:18,840 can afford. Yeah. 1052 00:56:19,720 --> 00:56:21,240 It's flipped. It's actually a really deep 1053 00:56:21,240 --> 00:56:24,320 point. Like the Internet is the most 1054 00:56:24,320 --> 00:56:27,600 robust. Like you may not have water or 1055 00:56:27,600 --> 00:56:30,320 power or peace, right? You might be in a war-torn 1056 00:56:30,320 --> 00:56:34,160 country, but cell phones still work because you can take video 1057 00:56:34,160 --> 00:56:36,960 and then later get to a 5G connection and upload it, right? 1058 00:56:37,200 --> 00:56:39,920 It's so robust, like because the Internet was built to resist a 1059 00:56:39,920 --> 00:56:43,400 nuclear attack, there's been a flipping where the digital world 1060 00:56:43,400 --> 00:56:50,040 is far more robust, peaceful, inexpensive, egalitarian in a 1061 00:56:50,040 --> 00:56:53,960 sense than the physical world. So it'll survive even when the 1062 00:56:53,960 --> 00:56:57,200 physical world melts down. I mean, let me pause. 1063 00:56:57,200 --> 00:56:58,200 There's more I can say about that. 1064 00:56:58,200 --> 00:57:01,600 That's actually that leads to my next point as to I, that's why I 1065 00:57:01,600 --> 00:57:04,840 think we're at the end of American empire and it's two 1066 00:57:04,840 --> 00:57:07,200 heirs are China and the Internet maybe. 1067 00:57:07,400 --> 00:57:09,120 OK, let me come back. I want to give you the ball. 1068 00:57:09,960 --> 00:57:14,200 We've both thought a lot about from our study of the past, what 1069 00:57:14,200 --> 00:57:17,720 the future is, right? And you have very similar 1070 00:57:17,720 --> 00:57:22,960 conclusions to Peter Turchin, Ray Dalio, the 4th, Turning Like 1071 00:57:22,960 --> 00:57:27,640 Guys and so on and so forth, that we're in a time of great 1072 00:57:27,640 --> 00:57:30,840 and increasing instability that some kind of civil war is coming 1073 00:57:30,840 --> 00:57:32,720 to the West and so on and so forth. 1074 00:57:33,080 --> 00:57:35,080 Do you still think that? Why don't you elaborate on that? 1075 00:57:35,080 --> 00:57:36,880 And we can link a bunch of your videos on that because I think 1076 00:57:36,880 --> 00:57:38,680 they're pretty good. Yes, thank you. 1077 00:57:38,760 --> 00:57:43,320 I still, I still agree with that, that we are on the verge 1078 00:57:43,480 --> 00:57:45,920 of global instability. And I've spoken about this 1079 00:57:45,920 --> 00:57:51,320 before in many previous videos, but I, I liken it to the 1080 00:57:51,560 --> 00:57:55,720 religious wars of the 1600s or the Black Death or the French 1081 00:57:55,720 --> 00:57:59,520 Revolution, where you have these periods of global crisis that 1082 00:57:59,520 --> 00:58:03,520 occur roughly every 250 years. And there's a bunch of 1083 00:58:03,520 --> 00:58:05,360 statistical models you can use to predict them. 1084 00:58:05,640 --> 00:58:10,480 But I agree with your point that the American Empire is coming to 1085 00:58:10,480 --> 00:58:12,640 the end. And, and I actually think the 1086 00:58:12,640 --> 00:58:16,040 network will beat China too. I think of those three, the 1087 00:58:16,040 --> 00:58:19,440 network is the one that's going to survive and win, frankly, 1088 00:58:19,440 --> 00:58:23,160 because I think the American empire and China's leadership 1089 00:58:23,160 --> 00:58:26,480 are not good enough to match either. 1090 00:58:27,160 --> 00:58:32,120 The American empire is clearly going to fall just because it's 1091 00:58:32,120 --> 00:58:36,240 so incompetent and so self-destructive. 1092 00:58:36,480 --> 00:58:38,880 And I don't think this is the end of the American people. 1093 00:58:39,040 --> 00:58:43,240 I think the American people in America as a continent, I think 1094 00:58:43,320 --> 00:58:46,000 that has the potential for incredible new stuff in the 1095 00:58:46,000 --> 00:58:48,280 future. But the current regime, the 1096 00:58:48,280 --> 00:58:52,640 current like ideology, it holds the current system of power. 1097 00:58:52,880 --> 00:58:57,040 And I always conceptualize the American empire as Grand Central 1098 00:58:57,040 --> 00:59:03,400 Station in New York, this just huge industrial baroque building 1099 00:59:03,760 --> 00:59:09,280 and not literally broke, but huge and grandiose and and that 1100 00:59:09,280 --> 00:59:12,760 stuff. And for China, I don't think 1101 00:59:12,760 --> 00:59:17,600 China can beat the network because China is in deceleration 1102 00:59:17,600 --> 00:59:21,200 where they're pushing against they're they're pushing against 1103 00:59:21,200 --> 00:59:24,360 free speech, they're pushing against capitalism. 1104 00:59:24,720 --> 00:59:28,520 And you can't push against those emergent phenomena for very long 1105 00:59:28,760 --> 00:59:31,960 until they snap back and bite you because you fundamentally 1106 00:59:31,960 --> 00:59:35,240 can't beat I I agree with your thesis. 1107 00:59:35,240 --> 00:59:38,000 The network is going to beat the state because the network is 1108 00:59:38,000 --> 00:59:40,880 just a so much vastly more efficient force. 1109 00:59:40,880 --> 00:59:44,520 And the next age might look like a dark age with the breakdown of 1110 00:59:44,520 --> 00:59:47,280 centralized power, and I don't fundamentally know. 1111 00:59:47,640 --> 00:59:51,120 But at the same time, it will be an age that will promote so much 1112 00:59:51,120 --> 00:59:54,760 more creativity and freedom that even if centralized countries 1113 00:59:54,760 --> 00:59:59,840 break apart, it will be an age that will allow the ability for 1114 01:00:00,200 --> 01:00:03,480 just it'll, it'll be a breath of fresh air. 1115 01:00:03,920 --> 01:00:06,080 So OK, here's how I think about this. 1116 01:00:06,680 --> 01:00:10,840 I think that I don't, I don't think it's as simple as the 1117 01:00:10,840 --> 01:00:14,680 network beats the state. I think that these are the two 1118 01:00:15,160 --> 01:00:17,800 like centralization and decentralization are the 1119 01:00:17,800 --> 01:00:19,920 capitalism and communism of the 21st century. 1120 01:00:21,240 --> 01:00:25,080 And what I mean by that is these are the two big forces that are 1121 01:00:25,080 --> 01:00:28,680 in balance and sometimes winning, sometimes losing that 1122 01:00:28,680 --> 01:00:32,040 drive the 20th century. And, and let me explain how I 1123 01:00:32,160 --> 01:00:34,160 why I call them China in the Internet. 1124 01:00:34,280 --> 01:00:37,120 OK, and, and, and let me go a little bit further. 1125 01:00:38,520 --> 01:00:42,760 China is the billion person centralized Sinix superstate and 1126 01:00:42,760 --> 01:00:46,720 the Internet I think will eventually be a million, 1000 1127 01:00:46,720 --> 01:00:49,520 million person network states. Maybe it's not exactly 1,000,000 1128 01:00:49,520 --> 01:00:51,240 to each. Maybe the top one is 50 million 1129 01:00:51,240 --> 01:00:54,640 and the small 1 is like 100,000. Like it's like a, it's probably 1130 01:00:55,080 --> 01:00:57,720 going to be a power law just like any tech company or like 1131 01:00:57,720 --> 01:01:00,400 all the tech companies and maybe India or something like that is 1132 01:01:00,400 --> 01:01:02,080 in the middle, like a few other things in the middle. 1133 01:01:02,320 --> 01:01:05,280 And by the Internet, I mean the English speaking Internet, 1134 01:01:05,520 --> 01:01:08,200 because the Chinese Internet is a closed system. 1135 01:01:08,680 --> 01:01:11,000 And that's actually one of the most important things that China 1136 01:01:11,000 --> 01:01:13,880 did is they zagged when everybody else zigged like 1137 01:01:14,240 --> 01:01:17,800 basically all Chinese. The Chinese nation state and 1138 01:01:17,800 --> 01:01:19,400 network are all in a full stack thing. 1139 01:01:19,400 --> 01:01:22,320 Do you know what I mean by that? Like like a Chinese go ahead. 1140 01:01:23,000 --> 01:01:26,720 It's a unified system in which the Internet, the government, 1141 01:01:26,720 --> 01:01:30,000 the ruling class, the economy are all concentrated into a 1142 01:01:30,000 --> 01:01:32,360 single authoritarian structure. That's right. 1143 01:01:32,480 --> 01:01:36,080 And the thing about this is you have to, in my view, you have to 1144 01:01:36,080 --> 01:01:41,680 steel man it and understand its strengths before you can hope to 1145 01:01:41,680 --> 01:01:46,120 compete with it. My idea, my idea is that every 1146 01:01:46,120 --> 01:01:49,240 250 years you see an alternating between. 1147 01:01:50,000 --> 01:01:53,720 So the secular cycles, periodic periods. 1148 01:01:54,680 --> 01:01:58,800 I repeated there you have cataclysmic time periods where 1149 01:01:58,800 --> 01:02:02,640 the old order crashes. Then you have a 250 year period 1150 01:02:02,760 --> 01:02:05,400 where there's two ideologies that fight each other, another 1151 01:02:05,400 --> 01:02:10,800 period that another cataclysm. So the last 250 years is the 1152 01:02:10,800 --> 01:02:13,040 right versus the left, which is the French Revolution till 1153 01:02:13,040 --> 01:02:16,240 today. Then you have the 30 years war 1154 01:02:16,440 --> 01:02:20,400 until the French Revolution, and these are all crises that 1155 01:02:20,400 --> 01:02:22,600 destroyed the previous social structure of the previous 1156 01:02:22,600 --> 01:02:24,840 governments. They often killed in a third to 1157 01:02:24,840 --> 01:02:28,600 half of the the populations of the countries involved. 1158 01:02:28,880 --> 01:02:34,560 So 30 years war until the French Revolution is commercialism is 1159 01:02:34,840 --> 01:02:38,160 mercantilism versus capitalism as symbolized in Britain versus 1160 01:02:38,160 --> 01:02:40,720 France. The Black Death to the 30 years 1161 01:02:40,720 --> 01:02:44,200 war is Protestants versus Catholics, then the fall of the 1162 01:02:44,200 --> 01:02:48,640 Frankish Empire until the Black Death is the church versus the 1163 01:02:48,640 --> 01:02:51,600 state. So my predictor for, and I agree 1164 01:02:51,600 --> 01:02:54,640 with you that the 21st century, because these crises take 70 1165 01:02:54,640 --> 01:02:56,440 years. So from my understanding of 1166 01:02:56,440 --> 01:02:59,960 historic cycles, we'll have a crisis in the twenty 20s, then 1167 01:02:59,960 --> 01:03:04,320 another one in the 20 nineties. And so my understanding of that 1168 01:03:04,320 --> 01:03:07,880 would be it will be a gradual mutating from the right versus 1169 01:03:07,880 --> 01:03:10,880 left from materialist to idealist. 1170 01:03:11,240 --> 01:03:15,240 And so materialist to idealist. For those that don't understand 1171 01:03:15,240 --> 01:03:19,800 it is idealism is that reality is contained with an abstract 1172 01:03:19,800 --> 01:03:22,600 concepts in reality and materialist is that reality is 1173 01:03:22,600 --> 01:03:24,080 contained within physical things. 1174 01:03:24,440 --> 01:03:28,040 And it wouldn't surprise me if it's decentralized network 1175 01:03:28,440 --> 01:03:32,880 versus state, if that's the correlation, because states 1176 01:03:33,120 --> 01:03:35,400 always make materialist philosophies. 1177 01:03:35,600 --> 01:03:39,120 And if you're operating off an abstract concept like a network, 1178 01:03:39,440 --> 01:03:43,240 like where it's difficult to articulate and it's highly 1179 01:03:43,240 --> 01:03:45,280 complex. And there's theories that you 1180 01:03:45,280 --> 01:03:48,400 can predict a certain civilization's religiosity based 1181 01:03:48,400 --> 01:03:51,560 off their based on how abstract their money system is. 1182 01:03:51,720 --> 01:03:56,240 Where the more the more abstracted the money system is, 1183 01:03:56,240 --> 01:04:00,040 the more likely the society is to have a stronger religion. 1184 01:04:00,040 --> 01:04:02,680 Just with the way I could explain the argument, but it's 1185 01:04:02,720 --> 01:04:04,960 relatively complete. Yeah, actually I haven't heard 1186 01:04:05,000 --> 01:04:06,840 this before. Please explain that argument. 1187 01:04:06,840 --> 01:04:08,960 Go ahead. This is from David Grabers book 1188 01:04:08,960 --> 01:04:12,520 debt and he's part of the leftist anarchist school that I 1189 01:04:12,520 --> 01:04:15,800 find interesting. I I often circle back to leftist 1190 01:04:15,800 --> 01:04:18,560 anarchists as a conservative populist and so he. 1191 01:04:18,600 --> 01:04:20,680 I think he's wrong on some things, but he's interesting. 1192 01:04:20,680 --> 01:04:22,600 Yeah, keep going. Yep, many things he's wrong on 1193 01:04:22,600 --> 01:04:24,400 but. Interesting are really bad at 1194 01:04:24,400 --> 01:04:28,800 anthropology because they often shove these very immature 1195 01:04:28,800 --> 01:04:31,840 notions of human nature where they'll think that trebles don't 1196 01:04:31,840 --> 01:04:33,920 wage war. Every people in human history 1197 01:04:33,920 --> 01:04:36,280 wage war. They're misogynistic, they're 1198 01:04:36,280 --> 01:04:39,360 religious, they're hierarchical, and the left covers that up. 1199 01:04:39,360 --> 01:04:47,560 But David Graeber says that 1500 until World War One was gold. 1200 01:04:47,720 --> 01:04:53,240 Gold was the main currency. And so with that you saw the 1201 01:04:53,240 --> 01:04:57,560 rise of materialist rational ideologies. 1202 01:04:57,840 --> 01:05:01,560 And it's comparable to the Greco Roman classical world, where in 1203 01:05:01,560 --> 01:05:05,720 both the Greco Roman classical world and in the modern period, 1204 01:05:06,600 --> 01:05:11,560 if you're in a society with a a certain amount of currency where 1205 01:05:11,560 --> 01:05:15,680 it's a very set gold thing is that you will develop rational 1206 01:05:15,680 --> 01:05:23,720 world views based off stuff like counting and making calculations 1207 01:05:23,720 --> 01:05:27,720 and philosophy. And you saw for both the the 1208 01:05:27,720 --> 01:05:31,240 modern world, you saw the decline of religion and the rise 1209 01:05:31,240 --> 01:05:35,400 of science and philosophically induced ideologies. 1210 01:05:35,680 --> 01:05:37,920 And then in the Greco Roman world, you saw the same thing 1211 01:05:37,920 --> 01:05:40,800 where the where people forget there was atheism and 1212 01:05:40,800 --> 01:05:42,720 agnosticism in the ancient world, but there was a 1213 01:05:42,720 --> 01:05:46,080 significant amount. Meanwhile in the ancient world 1214 01:05:46,080 --> 01:05:48,720 before the Greeks and the Romans before the axial age as well in 1215 01:05:48,720 --> 01:05:52,040 the medieval period, people predominantly operated off money 1216 01:05:52,040 --> 01:05:56,080 systems based off script and social context. 1217 01:05:56,360 --> 01:06:01,400 Where in medieval Europe, as an example, you would have a, they 1218 01:06:01,400 --> 01:06:04,120 operated off credit, where there are these highly complex credit 1219 01:06:04,120 --> 01:06:06,960 systems because there wasn't enough gold to manage the 1220 01:06:06,960 --> 01:06:09,960 economy. Where you have a system of IO US 1221 01:06:09,960 --> 01:06:13,240 that operates as money. And the same thing with the 1222 01:06:13,240 --> 01:06:16,080 ancient world before 500 BC. And in both you see highly 1223 01:06:16,080 --> 01:06:19,960 religious societies because in order to maintain the IOU 1224 01:06:19,960 --> 01:06:23,800 contracts, you have to have a highly cohesive social structure 1225 01:06:24,000 --> 01:06:27,120 where you, you, you have to enforce social ties. 1226 01:06:27,640 --> 01:06:31,080 And religion does that to maintain the IO US In a system 1227 01:06:31,280 --> 01:06:35,200 with a set currency, you'll have more rationality and philosophy 1228 01:06:35,360 --> 01:06:38,560 because the the financial system is based off counting and 1229 01:06:38,560 --> 01:06:40,960 numeric assessment. Interesting. 1230 01:06:40,960 --> 01:06:47,840 So, so it's funny because those, those two forces, you know, like 1231 01:06:47,840 --> 01:06:52,080 vectors, sometimes they can support each other on this 1232 01:06:52,080 --> 01:06:54,120 direction, but oppose each other on this direction, right? 1233 01:06:54,120 --> 01:06:56,800 That's like they're, you know, in physics, like forces. 1234 01:06:57,880 --> 01:07:04,560 So what I, what I think of when you say that is like going back 1235 01:07:04,560 --> 01:07:07,480 to the God state network concept, God and the religion 1236 01:07:07,480 --> 01:07:12,480 helps create a social group like a, like a ideological boundary 1237 01:07:12,480 --> 01:07:14,880 of all these people are the believers like Christendom or 1238 01:07:14,880 --> 01:07:16,760 the Ummah. You know, that's a, that's a 1239 01:07:16,760 --> 01:07:18,920 group. And then within that group you 1240 01:07:18,920 --> 01:07:21,400 have another social technology of money, right? 1241 01:07:21,640 --> 01:07:24,880 And so they, some in this direction, they, they combine 1242 01:07:24,880 --> 01:07:26,160 where they all believe the same thing. 1243 01:07:26,160 --> 01:07:28,920 They trade amongst each other, but also they oppose in another 1244 01:07:28,920 --> 01:07:31,440 direction where, you know, you'll have quite a lot of 1245 01:07:31,440 --> 01:07:33,800 priests oppose the merchants and vice versa. 1246 01:07:34,000 --> 01:07:36,800 You know, that's in the modern era, that's like media versus 1247 01:07:36,800 --> 01:07:40,240 tech, the priests versus the merchants is basically that, 1248 01:07:40,240 --> 01:07:41,960 right? It's like, you know, those who 1249 01:07:41,960 --> 01:07:44,120 believe in quote God versus those who believe in quote 1250 01:07:44,120 --> 01:07:45,960 money. And of course, you could 1251 01:07:45,960 --> 01:07:49,680 rephrase that to, you know, those who are actually numerical 1252 01:07:49,680 --> 01:07:56,840 and realistic versus those who are unrealistic and you know, 1253 01:07:56,920 --> 01:07:59,640 like, like just to understand human nature, they're, you know. 1254 01:08:00,000 --> 01:08:08,680 So anyway, coming back, I think I think a simplification is 1255 01:08:08,720 --> 01:08:12,360 network overstate. I think the, the just to for our 1256 01:08:12,360 --> 01:08:15,480 earlier discussion, it's not the network always beats the state, 1257 01:08:15,640 --> 01:08:17,880 it's the network can beat the state. 1258 01:08:19,160 --> 01:08:21,840 But I think that in different geographical theaters, we're 1259 01:08:21,840 --> 01:08:23,960 seeing different outcomes. And what I mean by that, for 1260 01:08:23,960 --> 01:08:26,680 example, in China, the state beat the network. 1261 01:08:27,359 --> 01:08:32,760 Like that is to say the party did basically go and have Jack 1262 01:08:32,760 --> 01:08:36,080 Ma de platformed and, you know, it took his company and so on 1263 01:08:36,080 --> 01:08:38,920 and so forth. They have controlled the great 1264 01:08:38,920 --> 01:08:41,080 Firewall. They have all the tech companies 1265 01:08:41,080 --> 01:08:43,399 within their sphere. The state is dominant and the 1266 01:08:43,399 --> 01:08:46,319 network is secondary. But what just happened in the 1267 01:08:46,319 --> 01:08:48,040 USA is the network beat the state. 1268 01:08:48,640 --> 01:08:52,000 That's to say the tradition of yeah, there's a good to it. 1269 01:08:52,439 --> 01:08:58,439 But I think those those two poles will be American anarchy 1270 01:08:58,439 --> 01:09:01,319 and you know, or let me put it as left and right, American 1271 01:09:01,319 --> 01:09:04,600 anarchy and Chinese control, right. 1272 01:09:04,600 --> 01:09:06,439 So this is where a state over network and this is where 1273 01:09:06,439 --> 01:09:08,640 network over state, network over state. 1274 01:09:09,040 --> 01:09:11,680 There's good to it, which is freedom, but there's bad to it, 1275 01:09:11,680 --> 01:09:15,279 which is disorder, right? Like nobody can. 1276 01:09:15,319 --> 01:09:19,479 I mean, every variety of bad behavior that you can imagine 1277 01:09:19,760 --> 01:09:26,880 from, you know, like every kind of every kind of ill that was 1278 01:09:26,880 --> 01:09:30,720 kept back by a centralized power has now burst out. 1279 01:09:30,720 --> 01:09:34,640 Because, you know, one of my concepts also is the Internet 1280 01:09:34,640 --> 01:09:39,479 increases variance, meaning it removes the middle man, but also 1281 01:09:39,479 --> 01:09:42,359 removes the moderator, the mediator, right. 1282 01:09:42,760 --> 01:09:45,560 And so those sometimes have a bad connotation. 1283 01:09:45,560 --> 01:09:47,600 A good like the middle man is just taking a cut off of you. 1284 01:09:47,600 --> 01:09:50,840 So he's bad, fine, but the moderator or the mediator, the 1285 01:09:50,840 --> 01:09:52,880 moderator, you might say, oh, he has power overview or he's bad. 1286 01:09:52,880 --> 01:09:55,680 We want censorship resistance is on, but the mediator, somebody 1287 01:09:55,680 --> 01:09:59,000 who can say, look, you know, let's let's see things in the 1288 01:09:59,000 --> 01:10:02,000 middle, literally in a sense, like destroys that center 1289 01:10:02,000 --> 01:10:04,800 because everybody's just connecting peer-to-peer and 1290 01:10:04,800 --> 01:10:08,240 there's no, there's nobody who can be a traffic cop or what 1291 01:10:08,240 --> 01:10:11,960 have you. And of course I was abused for 1292 01:10:12,040 --> 01:10:16,320 like, how old are you? You're like 272523. 1293 01:10:17,120 --> 01:10:18,520 OK, fine, fine, fine. So. 1294 01:10:20,080 --> 01:10:24,640 You, you really don't remember. I mean, actually you're, you're 1295 01:10:24,640 --> 01:10:26,640 obviously you're, you know, you read a lot of history and so on 1296 01:10:26,640 --> 01:10:29,840 and so forth. But viscerally the big 1297 01:10:29,840 --> 01:10:34,520 difference in the 80s and 90s like so it's more in 1980 1298 01:10:34,560 --> 01:10:43,680 actually, right. And 19851995, 2005 up to 2015, I 1299 01:10:43,680 --> 01:10:47,960 would consider them basically the same even with the from the 1300 01:10:47,960 --> 01:10:51,000 Western context, like obviously they were radically different. 1301 01:10:51,200 --> 01:10:54,840 For somebody who's in the Soviet context, 85 and 1985 were 1302 01:10:54,840 --> 01:10:57,000 radically, radically, those were times a great change, right? 1303 01:10:57,520 --> 01:11:00,360 But in the Western context and that, and I want to return to 1304 01:11:00,360 --> 01:11:03,440 that point because that their civilization did end, right? 1305 01:11:03,640 --> 01:11:08,200 Like Soviets no longer existed. Russians did, Estonians did, but 1306 01:11:08,200 --> 01:11:11,040 Soviets didn't. You know, in that sense, people 1307 01:11:11,040 --> 01:11:13,560 sometimes use the term USCN. Have you heard that before, 1308 01:11:14,680 --> 01:11:17,160 right? Like so the USEN is essentially 1309 01:11:17,160 --> 01:11:21,200 the distinction of like the US Empire kind of, you know, 1310 01:11:21,200 --> 01:11:24,360 person, right. So the USENI don't think exists 1311 01:11:24,360 --> 01:11:27,520 past 2035 or 2040. I don't know how long it's going 1312 01:11:27,520 --> 01:11:31,920 to take, but it right, But that the USEN is to the American as 1313 01:11:31,920 --> 01:11:34,800 the USSR or the Soviet is to the Russian, right, so to speak, 1314 01:11:34,800 --> 01:11:41,120 Right. OK, so 8595, 2005 up to 2015, 1315 01:11:41,120 --> 01:11:44,480 basically life was the same. Like the daily rhythms of life 1316 01:11:44,480 --> 01:11:47,600 are the same. But the last 10 years have been 1317 01:11:47,840 --> 01:11:52,240 a total breakdown of Western society, the English speaking 1318 01:11:52,240 --> 01:11:55,920 Internet, like the level of chair throwing stuff that's 1319 01:11:55,920 --> 01:11:58,800 happening. And it it is, you know, you 1320 01:11:58,840 --> 01:12:00,160 know, have you seen The Simpsons episode? 1321 01:12:00,160 --> 01:12:02,840 Like a beer. The cause of and solution to all 1322 01:12:02,840 --> 01:12:04,840 of man's problems. No, I haven't. 1323 01:12:05,200 --> 01:12:07,400 It's meant to be a joke because obviously getting drunk is not 1324 01:12:07,400 --> 01:12:09,280 actually a solution, but it's like a Homer. 1325 01:12:09,560 --> 01:12:13,880 So the Internet, though the cause of and solution to all of 1326 01:12:13,880 --> 01:12:17,680 man's problems, much of what's happening is mediated by the 1327 01:12:17,680 --> 01:12:20,680 network and by the Internet. Like you have social media and 1328 01:12:20,680 --> 01:12:22,400 actually, you know what elected Trump? 1329 01:12:23,200 --> 01:12:25,040 Twitter, Twitter, But Twitter also. 1330 01:12:25,640 --> 01:12:26,960 That's right. So Twitter also elected 1331 01:12:26,960 --> 01:12:29,720 Bolsonaro and also elected Orban and Modi. 1332 01:12:29,800 --> 01:12:31,640 It's a global phenomenon. It's not a local phone. 1333 01:12:31,680 --> 01:12:35,240 It did Brexit, right? Like basically Twitter led to 1334 01:12:35,760 --> 01:12:39,120 essentially a counter, you know, like, like the same as the Arab 1335 01:12:39,120 --> 01:12:41,120 Spring, the American Spring happened, right? 1336 01:12:42,600 --> 01:12:45,520 And that's why the counter revolution was to try to censor 1337 01:12:45,520 --> 01:12:47,960 Twitter, censor the Internet, stop speech and so on. 1338 01:12:47,960 --> 01:12:50,680 But I could see that that was not going to work because the 1339 01:12:50,720 --> 01:12:54,800 collateral damage meant taking voice away from lots of people 1340 01:12:54,800 --> 01:12:57,280 who already had it, right? Like there's a huge swath of 1341 01:12:57,280 --> 01:12:58,640 people who are not Trump supporters. 1342 01:12:58,840 --> 01:13:01,360 They were like online influencers and they didn't want 1343 01:13:01,360 --> 01:13:03,480 to get censored and de platformed and so on and so 1344 01:13:03,480 --> 01:13:05,360 forth. So that was like a lot of 1345 01:13:05,360 --> 01:13:08,240 implicit pushback against this that I, that I think is 1346 01:13:08,240 --> 01:13:13,000 underrated, right? And there's only so much energy 1347 01:13:13,000 --> 01:13:16,920 there could be for censorship. And once they couldn't hold the 1348 01:13:16,920 --> 01:13:20,960 the genie in the bottle anymore, it just burst out and Elon took 1349 01:13:20,960 --> 01:13:23,480 X and and now we have what we have now. 1350 01:13:23,480 --> 01:13:25,120 I think things might have gone differently. 1351 01:13:25,120 --> 01:13:29,240 It wasn't easy for Elon to take XI, think the state had a 1352 01:13:29,240 --> 01:13:34,920 fighting chance, but it lost. And I actually don't think 1353 01:13:34,920 --> 01:13:37,360 there's going to be an easy. I think we're going to, you 1354 01:13:37,360 --> 01:13:38,880 know, the war. Of course, you know this, the 1355 01:13:38,880 --> 01:13:40,840 Warring States period, warlord era. 1356 01:13:41,600 --> 01:13:42,680 Yeah. Why don't you tell people about 1357 01:13:42,680 --> 01:13:45,040 that? So I can see where you're going 1358 01:13:45,040 --> 01:13:48,320 here, because I would take the chaotic network over the state 1359 01:13:48,640 --> 01:13:53,320 because only in chaos is there creativity and vitality. 1360 01:13:53,520 --> 01:13:58,160 Where the state naturally makes people weak and it naturally 1361 01:13:58,160 --> 01:14:01,360 crushes creativity and it naturally crushes just the human 1362 01:14:01,360 --> 01:14:04,000 spirit. And if you have a period, a 1363 01:14:04,000 --> 01:14:07,160 Warring States period in America, that's going to create 1364 01:14:07,160 --> 01:14:11,000 a new breakthrough in American, American creativity and culture. 1365 01:14:11,000 --> 01:14:15,200 And it's brutal, but that's what drives the human experience and 1366 01:14:15,200 --> 01:14:17,280 the Warring States period. And this is the thing that 1367 01:14:17,280 --> 01:14:19,120 happens in every major civilization. 1368 01:14:19,120 --> 01:14:23,240 Civilizations have cycles and China's Warring States period 1369 01:14:23,600 --> 01:14:28,400 was from 500 BC until roughly 200 BC. 1370 01:14:28,680 --> 01:14:34,480 And it started out with over 20 Chinese states constantly 1371 01:14:34,480 --> 01:14:36,880 fighting each other with noble warfare. 1372 01:14:37,160 --> 01:14:40,120 And it was very genteel. And over time, it became this 1373 01:14:40,440 --> 01:14:44,400 horrific trench warfare that destroyed and leveled China's 1374 01:14:44,400 --> 01:14:49,680 previous social structure. And it resulted in the creation 1375 01:14:49,680 --> 01:14:52,880 of this brutal totalitarian state that was Chin, which did 1376 01:14:52,880 --> 01:14:56,320 unify China, but it did so at the expense of a lot of Chinese 1377 01:14:56,320 --> 01:14:59,320 culture where they were, they were as close as you could get 1378 01:14:59,320 --> 01:15:02,640 to Stalin 2000 years ago. But on top of that, the Warring 1379 01:15:02,640 --> 01:15:06,680 States period was the time period which almost all of the 1380 01:15:06,680 --> 01:15:08,840 Seminole parts of Chinese culture formed. 1381 01:15:09,040 --> 01:15:12,400 It's when Confucianism and Taoism formed, when the Chinese 1382 01:15:12,400 --> 01:15:15,400 bureaucracy formed and the Chinese ethnic identity formed. 1383 01:15:15,600 --> 01:15:19,400 So it's this duality of chaos at the same time as creativity. 1384 01:15:19,400 --> 01:15:22,640 And what I'll also say is that I expect the network to win over 1385 01:15:22,640 --> 01:15:25,320 the scale of centuries. I agree with you that the next 1386 01:15:25,320 --> 01:15:27,240 century will see conflict between the network and the 1387 01:15:27,240 --> 01:15:30,080 state, but I think ultimately the network will be able to 1388 01:15:30,080 --> 01:15:31,800 defeat the state around the world. 1389 01:15:32,120 --> 01:15:37,200 It's so this is something which I, I think I can see theaters in 1390 01:15:37,200 --> 01:15:40,960 which one beats the other. But you know, again, there's to 1391 01:15:40,960 --> 01:15:46,080 go to the Chinese saying there's a the empire long united must 1392 01:15:46,080 --> 01:15:48,600 divide, long divided must unite. That's the way of the world, 1393 01:15:48,720 --> 01:15:53,800 right? And So what I think happens in 1394 01:15:53,800 --> 01:15:57,120 the West. So here's my 1234 and maybe you 1395 01:15:57,120 --> 01:15:59,240 can think about this and we can do another episode or something 1396 01:15:59,240 --> 01:16:02,920 at some point. OK, so they're shutting down the 1397 01:16:03,480 --> 01:16:06,720 funding for the blue empire of embassies and NGOs abroad. 1398 01:16:07,200 --> 01:16:10,720 And the left, of course, sees this as helping, you know, the 1399 01:16:10,720 --> 01:16:12,960 downtrodden or whatever. And the right sees this is just 1400 01:16:12,960 --> 01:16:16,240 wasting money, OK. But what it actually is is it's 1401 01:16:16,240 --> 01:16:18,240 the flow of funds that maintains American empire. 1402 01:16:18,520 --> 01:16:22,400 It's basically payola to all of these, basically this blue CIA 1403 01:16:22,400 --> 01:16:24,400 around the world. OK, so shutting down the blue 1404 01:16:24,400 --> 01:16:26,440 empire of embassies and NGOs, which will have the second order 1405 01:16:26,440 --> 01:16:29,200 effect of not second or first order effect of reducing 1406 01:16:29,200 --> 01:16:30,920 American influence on the left around the world. 1407 01:16:31,240 --> 01:16:34,600 And this is massive leverage because a few 100,000 for a 1408 01:16:34,600 --> 01:16:36,800 color revolution or a few million for color revolution 1409 01:16:37,040 --> 01:16:39,280 gains billions of dollars in purchasing power for U.S. 1410 01:16:39,280 --> 01:16:41,480 Treasuries and other things. Go ahead, right? 1411 01:16:41,600 --> 01:16:44,760 Oh, I'm just smiling so that no, I have something to say, though. 1412 01:16:44,880 --> 01:16:49,520 So it reminds you of a conversation ahead of us with a 1413 01:16:49,520 --> 01:16:53,080 Saudi Arabian friend of mine. And I called him up and I said 1414 01:16:53,440 --> 01:16:55,520 we were. And I said it's funny. 1415 01:16:55,520 --> 01:16:58,400 You as a Saudi who is part of the Islamic world and me as an 1416 01:16:58,400 --> 01:17:04,200 American, we both hate the American empire because the the 1417 01:17:04,200 --> 01:17:06,440 Muslim world calls America the Great Satan. 1418 01:17:06,440 --> 01:17:08,800 And I can definitely see why they'd think that when you look 1419 01:17:08,800 --> 01:17:13,240 at we are funding things that they do not care or want about. 1420 01:17:13,240 --> 01:17:16,400 And we are actively hurting the name of democracy in the West 1421 01:17:16,400 --> 01:17:20,440 and freedom by pushing like trans in Saudi Arabia, which 1422 01:17:20,440 --> 01:17:23,080 they have no interest in. And as an American, where my 1423 01:17:23,080 --> 01:17:25,640 family's been here since the Mayflower and we helped carve up 1424 01:17:25,640 --> 01:17:29,320 the frontier to the ethnic Americans as it is to the people 1425 01:17:29,320 --> 01:17:34,280 abroad who it destroys. And, and I think that's 1426 01:17:34,480 --> 01:17:36,240 ridiculous. And it's going to ultimately 1427 01:17:36,240 --> 01:17:38,040 cause the death of the American empire. 1428 01:17:38,040 --> 01:17:40,680 Because I like to say how many people genuinely support 1429 01:17:40,680 --> 01:17:43,280 globalism? If you polled people, and this 1430 01:17:43,280 --> 01:17:45,960 is a great irony of the Internet, that when the Internet 1431 01:17:45,960 --> 01:17:48,000 was first created, people thought we're going to bring 1432 01:17:48,000 --> 01:17:50,640 everyone together, we're going to love each other. 1433 01:17:50,840 --> 01:17:53,800 And then you actually talk to people and you realize, wait, we 1434 01:17:53,800 --> 01:17:56,800 are very different. We don't like each other, and 1435 01:17:56,960 --> 01:18:00,040 the world's a deep, conflicted place because the managerial 1436 01:18:00,040 --> 01:18:02,480 class was able to maintain all these lies. 1437 01:18:02,760 --> 01:18:06,360 And as the managerial class's empire falls, we will 1438 01:18:06,360 --> 01:18:10,360 continually see what they did was morally and morally worse. 1439 01:18:10,360 --> 01:18:12,000 And I can explain that more if you're interested. 1440 01:18:12,000 --> 01:18:14,600 But I think the current managerial I want to, I want to 1441 01:18:14,600 --> 01:18:16,080 agree. I want to agree with you and 1442 01:18:16,080 --> 01:18:18,080 then argue with you. On something OK and then maybe 1443 01:18:18,080 --> 01:18:23,880 take this OK, so the absolutely the Muslim world, you know they 1444 01:18:23,880 --> 01:18:26,640 have a beef with the American left, but also of course the 1445 01:18:26,640 --> 01:18:28,760 American right for all the bombing and and so on and so 1446 01:18:28,760 --> 01:18:32,960 forth the neo con wars, what have you right the thing about 1447 01:18:33,000 --> 01:18:37,720 like, you know the Soviet empire at the end was in a very similar 1448 01:18:37,720 --> 01:18:41,920 situation where it was oppressing Russians at home, but 1449 01:18:41,920 --> 01:18:44,600 it was also using Russians to oppress others abroad. 1450 01:18:44,840 --> 01:18:48,720 Both were true right and so the the this late stage American 1451 01:18:48,720 --> 01:18:51,880 empire, there's a lot of red Americans who are now super mad 1452 01:18:51,880 --> 01:18:54,160 in it and want to tear it down. There's lots of people abroad 1453 01:18:54,160 --> 01:18:57,320 who have also felt the lash. And the tricky part is both 1454 01:18:57,320 --> 01:19:00,960 people feel like they're getting, you know, attacked by 1455 01:19:00,960 --> 01:19:05,160 it. And I think on balance, the red 1456 01:19:05,160 --> 01:19:09,200 American is in tearing down the American empire. 1457 01:19:09,200 --> 01:19:12,280 They are going to probably regret it when it's gone in the 1458 01:19:12,280 --> 01:19:16,160 same way that Russians pine for the power of the Soviet empire. 1459 01:19:16,160 --> 01:19:18,640 Like right now, hundreds of thousands of Russians are dying 1460 01:19:18,880 --> 01:19:22,400 to just recover a few slices of Ukraine, right? 1461 01:19:22,720 --> 01:19:25,760 On the other hand, Russians like the fact that they've got 1462 01:19:26,000 --> 01:19:29,360 Orthodox Christianity back, that they've actually got 72% 1463 01:19:29,360 --> 01:19:32,280 Russians in Russia. It was complicated where there's 1464 01:19:32,280 --> 01:19:34,560 certainly a lot of gains. Obviously, Eastern Europe is way 1465 01:19:34,560 --> 01:19:36,280 better off. You know, the Baltics are way 1466 01:19:36,280 --> 01:19:38,280 better off. And my view is it's similar. 1467 01:19:38,280 --> 01:19:42,520 Like basically the more core American you are, the less net 1468 01:19:42,520 --> 01:19:45,240 benefit you're going to get from the end of the American Empire. 1469 01:19:45,720 --> 01:19:50,080 The more on like Europe, like, you know, colonies of the US 1470 01:19:50,080 --> 01:19:52,400 will do better. It's very similar to the Soviet 1471 01:19:52,400 --> 01:19:53,960 thing. The one other thing I would just 1472 01:19:53,960 --> 01:19:55,800 say is in globalism versus nationalism. 1473 01:19:55,800 --> 01:19:57,840 I actually, I'm going to write an article on this, right? 1474 01:19:58,160 --> 01:20:02,920 Because I think to use a leftist term, both of those are social 1475 01:20:02,920 --> 01:20:05,280 constructs that I think are actually wrong in the way that 1476 01:20:05,280 --> 01:20:07,320 people are using them. Like they have they have a 1477 01:20:07,320 --> 01:20:09,480 value, but then you have to invert them, for example. 1478 01:20:10,240 --> 01:20:12,480 You and I met through the Internet and in fact, all your 1479 01:20:12,480 --> 01:20:13,680 audience comes through the Internet. 1480 01:20:13,680 --> 01:20:16,480 And in fact, in so far as people have a real community, a social 1481 01:20:16,480 --> 01:20:17,960 network that's going to be Internet based. 1482 01:20:17,960 --> 01:20:20,080 Like when they get up in the morning, they don't go down the 1483 01:20:20,080 --> 01:20:22,000 street and knock on their neighbor's door and say hi 1484 01:20:22,000 --> 01:20:24,360 neighbor, right? They post an Internet good 1485 01:20:24,360 --> 01:20:27,440 morning, right? Like that's their actual 1486 01:20:27,440 --> 01:20:29,200 community. The lived experience is not 1487 01:20:29,200 --> 01:20:31,080 America first, it's Internet first. 1488 01:20:31,760 --> 01:20:35,160 Deep point, I think, right? And on their hand, of course, 1489 01:20:35,160 --> 01:20:37,160 people want a physical community and so on and so forth. 1490 01:20:37,160 --> 01:20:40,200 And so I think that the thesis and thesis synthesis is that 1491 01:20:40,200 --> 01:20:42,120 that Internet community becomes a physical immunity. 1492 01:20:42,120 --> 01:20:44,720 That's what I'm working on with like network school and and and 1493 01:20:44,720 --> 01:20:46,680 and and start societies and so on, right. 1494 01:20:46,840 --> 01:20:49,240 So the point is, anybody who uses the Internet is a 1495 01:20:49,240 --> 01:20:52,680 globalist. Otherwise, like they'd be out, 1496 01:20:52,680 --> 01:20:53,920 they wouldn't be using the Internet. 1497 01:20:53,920 --> 01:20:57,280 The Internet is intent is like highly globalist. 1498 01:20:57,680 --> 01:20:59,600 Like that's what it is. It's a global and they're on 1499 01:20:59,600 --> 01:21:00,960 their side, the nationalist side. 1500 01:21:00,960 --> 01:21:03,000 A lot of people who call themselves nationalists in 1501 01:21:03,000 --> 01:21:05,560 opposition to globalism are actually, well, first of all, 1502 01:21:05,560 --> 01:21:07,720 they're globalist because they're networking with people 1503 01:21:07,720 --> 01:21:10,080 who are in other locations and so on rather than their 1504 01:21:10,080 --> 01:21:11,760 neighborhood. But second, they're not even 1505 01:21:11,760 --> 01:21:13,920 nationalists. At best, they're tribalists and 1506 01:21:13,920 --> 01:21:15,280 their tribe is an Internet tribe. 1507 01:21:15,280 --> 01:21:18,080 And the reason I see they're not even nationalists is that blue 1508 01:21:18,080 --> 01:21:21,600 red partition that we saw is there in every country, but 1509 01:21:21,600 --> 01:21:25,320 especially in the US where you have Democrat, Republican. 1510 01:21:25,560 --> 01:21:29,360 And when you have two nations within one country, you know how 1511 01:21:29,360 --> 01:21:33,120 Democrats will use they'll they'll use democracy to mean 1512 01:21:33,160 --> 01:21:36,640 rule by Democrats. Yeah, Yeah, I've spoken about 1513 01:21:36,640 --> 01:21:38,040 that. Right, the flip side. 1514 01:21:38,040 --> 01:21:41,680 Is the Republican. Will use American to mean red 1515 01:21:41,680 --> 01:21:46,600 American, like real American is red American, right? 1516 01:21:47,160 --> 01:21:49,760 And they identify those and they're like America first. 1517 01:21:50,000 --> 01:21:54,880 But really what they mean is red America first because they're 1518 01:21:54,880 --> 01:21:57,600 definitely not putting like blue America first. 1519 01:21:57,720 --> 01:22:00,280 In fact, a lot of what they're doing isn't is like war with 1520 01:22:00,280 --> 01:22:05,000 blue America, right? So, but this is something which 1521 01:22:05,200 --> 01:22:07,920 they haven't fully processed. For example, a better term might 1522 01:22:07,920 --> 01:22:13,840 be conservative first because or, or rightist first because 1523 01:22:13,840 --> 01:22:16,400 otherwise what happens is they think, wait, we're America 1524 01:22:16,400 --> 01:22:18,720 first. And this Canadian conservative, 1525 01:22:18,880 --> 01:22:21,280 he's non American, therefore he's our enemy. 1526 01:22:21,560 --> 01:22:24,200 But that's a real problem because if they're fighting the 1527 01:22:24,200 --> 01:22:26,560 Canadian conservatives and the Canadian liberals and the 1528 01:22:26,560 --> 01:22:29,080 American liberals, they've alienated everyone and they're 1529 01:22:29,080 --> 01:22:30,920 just in their own box and they're doing that in every 1530 01:22:30,920 --> 01:22:33,280 country, right? So they're really not even 1531 01:22:33,280 --> 01:22:36,040 nationalists or tribalists and they're actually more globalist 1532 01:22:36,040 --> 01:22:38,160 than they think. So that's my, that's my poke. 1533 01:22:38,560 --> 01:22:40,520 Let me know your thoughts and maybe we can wrap there for now. 1534 01:22:40,560 --> 01:22:42,720 So that makes me think of two things. 1535 01:22:43,040 --> 01:22:45,600 The first is when you're. Talking about the decline of the 1536 01:22:45,600 --> 01:22:49,520 American empire will probably end up hurting Americans, and 1537 01:22:49,520 --> 01:22:52,320 that's, I think that's accurate. Red Americans. 1538 01:22:52,760 --> 01:22:54,720 Yeah, I agree. It'll end up hurting red 1539 01:22:54,720 --> 01:22:57,920 Americans and. I agree with that and I think 1540 01:22:58,600 --> 01:23:00,920 so. My attitude is I'm a zoomer and 1541 01:23:00,920 --> 01:23:05,080 I'm forced to be responsible for decisions my grandparents made. 1542 01:23:05,400 --> 01:23:09,320 And for both the Soviets and the American Empire, they built 1543 01:23:09,320 --> 01:23:11,560 their empire fundamentally upon lies. 1544 01:23:11,800 --> 01:23:14,720 And what happens when you build your Because they're built upon 1545 01:23:14,720 --> 01:23:17,080 demonstratively false principles of human nature. 1546 01:23:17,320 --> 01:23:20,400 And when you do that as you set up these bizarre incentive 1547 01:23:20,400 --> 01:23:24,400 structures that have 0 coordination with reality. 1548 01:23:24,640 --> 01:23:28,040 And so your descendants will look at these things that you 1549 01:23:28,600 --> 01:23:30,240 you did not think very clearly about. 1550 01:23:30,240 --> 01:23:32,120 And then they'll they'll be forced to tear down the 1551 01:23:32,120 --> 01:23:35,400 structure for any degree of survival because the structure 1552 01:23:35,400 --> 01:23:40,160 will grow so bloated and silly. But at the same time, they will, 1553 01:23:42,000 --> 01:23:44,360 they'll have to tear down the structure, but at the same time, 1554 01:23:44,360 --> 01:23:47,480 they'll be tearing down the imperial structure that your 1555 01:23:47,480 --> 01:23:50,120 ancestors built. So it's this weird double 1556 01:23:50,120 --> 01:23:52,960 position when you operate off demonstratively false 1557 01:23:52,960 --> 01:23:55,800 ideologies. And then secondarily, it reminds 1558 01:23:55,800 --> 01:23:58,640 me of a science fiction book I write called Fitzpatrick's War 1559 01:23:58,840 --> 01:24:02,000 that was written in the 90s and it's set in the 25th century. 1560 01:24:02,360 --> 01:24:05,560 And this is one of those books where me recommending it has 1561 01:24:05,560 --> 01:24:08,360 basically made the book impossible to buy where the 1562 01:24:08,360 --> 01:24:11,360 copies are for going like $1500. But it's it's a good. 1563 01:24:11,360 --> 01:24:13,160 So I should scan it. Yeah, that's. 1564 01:24:14,440 --> 01:24:16,640 That's a project we're working. On right now actually. 1565 01:24:17,840 --> 01:24:21,480 And if you're the author, please hit us up. 1566 01:24:21,480 --> 01:24:24,960 We want to work with you. But the the book set in the 25th 1567 01:24:24,960 --> 01:24:27,760 century, it's the rise of an American Alexander the Great, 1568 01:24:28,000 --> 01:24:31,240 but it's back story in the 21st century is fascinating. 1569 01:24:31,480 --> 01:24:33,080 And the book was written in the 90s. 1570 01:24:33,320 --> 01:24:39,120 And what the book talks about is that is that in the 21st 1571 01:24:39,120 --> 01:24:43,720 century, the global order collapses due to a combination 1572 01:24:43,720 --> 01:24:46,680 of supply chain issues, genetically engineered 1573 01:24:46,920 --> 01:24:53,200 illnesses, war, and just generalized decadence. 1574 01:24:53,200 --> 01:24:57,200 And what happens is the American Empire falls in a multi decade 1575 01:24:57,200 --> 01:25:02,480 civil war or multiple multiple short civil wars from the 20 1576 01:25:02,480 --> 01:25:05,480 sixties to the twenty 70s. And this book is written in the 1577 01:25:05,480 --> 01:25:08,400 90s. What happens is that red America 1578 01:25:08,680 --> 01:25:12,360 forms a new ethnicity called the Yukons based on intentional 1579 01:25:12,360 --> 01:25:16,040 communities where red Americans move out form their own 1580 01:25:16,280 --> 01:25:19,920 societies away from the cities. These procreate more than the 1581 01:25:19,920 --> 01:25:22,760 cities. Then the Democrats devolve into 1582 01:25:23,080 --> 01:25:26,600 basically shameless racial pandering and they become taken 1583 01:25:26,600 --> 01:25:29,720 in by inner city by inner city gangs. 1584 01:25:29,720 --> 01:25:33,680 Basically, these two have a war, the red city, the red states 1585 01:25:33,680 --> 01:25:36,600 burn down the blue city is they become a new ethnicity called 1586 01:25:36,600 --> 01:25:39,960 the Yukons. And then Americans flee to to 1587 01:25:39,960 --> 01:25:43,280 Latin America and Americans have become it become like a hippie 1588 01:25:43,280 --> 01:25:45,880 term. The Chinese become a very strong 1589 01:25:45,880 --> 01:25:47,760 empire. They become a they actually 1590 01:25:47,760 --> 01:25:51,280 become a Marxist state economy and then the Muslims populate 1591 01:25:51,280 --> 01:25:54,800 Europe. And so the world's population is 1592 01:25:54,800 --> 01:25:57,080 that the 25th century. That's that's that's happening 1593 01:25:57,080 --> 01:25:59,320 now a lot of. This is the 21st century. 1594 01:25:59,880 --> 01:26:02,160 This is this. Is the back story in the 21st 1595 01:26:02,160 --> 01:26:04,080 century. And then there's the this is the 1596 01:26:04,080 --> 01:26:06,320 back story for the plot that occurs 400 years later. 1597 01:26:06,600 --> 01:26:10,120 And what happens is that the world's population crashes from 1598 01:26:10,120 --> 01:26:16,120 10 billion to 1 billion due to they're much like COVID. 1599 01:26:16,120 --> 01:26:18,240 They have a genetically engineered lab leak, illness 1600 01:26:18,240 --> 01:26:21,640 that kills a lot of people. There's supply chain issues, 1601 01:26:22,280 --> 01:26:24,480 people can't maintain the oil systems. 1602 01:26:24,760 --> 01:26:27,640 And So what happens is you see the rise of a world with this 1603 01:26:27,640 --> 01:26:32,640 new American ethnicity you see the most a Turkish empire 1604 01:26:32,640 --> 01:26:34,800 running the Middle East, North Africa and Europe. 1605 01:26:35,040 --> 01:26:39,840 And then you see China forming this Marxist power where II 1606 01:26:39,880 --> 01:26:42,440 becomes one of the the bigger powers in this new equation. 1607 01:26:42,960 --> 01:26:45,680 Yeah, well, OK, so, so lots of response to. 1608 01:26:45,680 --> 01:26:47,320 That I'll just give a few quick things. 1609 01:26:47,680 --> 01:26:52,400 First is, in general, I think China's a state, but Indians are 1610 01:26:52,400 --> 01:26:57,320 a network, yes, and so. India itself. 1611 01:26:57,920 --> 01:27:01,280 Is like the relatively weaker part of Indians, just like the 1612 01:27:01,280 --> 01:27:04,160 Chinese diaspora is the relatively weaker part of China, 1613 01:27:04,160 --> 01:27:06,800 like the Chinese diaspora is very accomplished and so on. 1614 01:27:07,080 --> 01:27:10,480 But China's estate is like that natural form of that culture, 1615 01:27:10,480 --> 01:27:12,240 right? Whereas Indians are just 1616 01:27:12,240 --> 01:27:14,960 diasporic and the Indian state, it's like it's like doing well, 1617 01:27:14,960 --> 01:27:17,840 it's actually doing a lot better than it used to, but it's 1618 01:27:17,840 --> 01:27:20,400 similar to the Chinese diaspora roughly in in terms of the the 1619 01:27:20,400 --> 01:27:21,080 forms. That's it. 1620 01:27:21,320 --> 01:27:26,360 Just a quick response to that B is I I think that there's 1621 01:27:26,360 --> 01:27:30,000 something what you just said where people have a new identity 1622 01:27:30,000 --> 01:27:33,760 like Yukons right afterwards. That is absolutely what's going 1623 01:27:33,760 --> 01:27:37,680 to happen because the Internet tribes will be about as American 1624 01:27:37,680 --> 01:27:42,440 as the Americans are British. Like it's a clear like 1625 01:27:42,640 --> 01:27:45,760 underlying structure if you trace the root structure enough, 1626 01:27:46,360 --> 01:27:48,120 but it's also really it's own thing. 1627 01:27:48,480 --> 01:27:51,200 And they're they're their own thing and they fracture in 500 1628 01:27:51,200 --> 01:27:54,480 different directions that are all in a sense continuous with 1629 01:27:54,480 --> 01:27:58,400 some strain of American or English speaking thought. 1630 01:27:58,680 --> 01:27:59,640 But they're really their own thing. 1631 01:27:59,640 --> 01:28:01,280 And it's all like hyphenated Americans. 1632 01:28:01,920 --> 01:28:06,480 And the third is that the Soviet identity was this big, big, big 1633 01:28:06,480 --> 01:28:08,320 central thing. But then when it went away, 1634 01:28:08,320 --> 01:28:10,000 everybody had to figure out their own thing, right. 1635 01:28:10,360 --> 01:28:13,680 And the thing that I'm that's interesting to me, I think the 1636 01:28:13,680 --> 01:28:21,400 strongest new identity that's coming is potentially Bitcoin as 1637 01:28:21,400 --> 01:28:24,680 the base identity. And the reason is that if it 1638 01:28:24,680 --> 01:28:28,160 right now bitcoins on the order of 100,000, which is insane, by 1639 01:28:28,160 --> 01:28:32,920 the way, relative to what it started at like 15 years ago as 1640 01:28:32,960 --> 01:28:35,960 like a post on a message board. And from the perspective of 1641 01:28:35,960 --> 01:28:38,040 history, it's like a vertical takeoff. 1642 01:28:38,040 --> 01:28:41,280 It's like, it's like faster than Islam, faster than any of the 1643 01:28:41,280 --> 01:28:45,080 most successful ideologies ever. It's like a historian was 1644 01:28:45,080 --> 01:28:46,960 writing about would be like Bitcoin appeared and then it 1645 01:28:46,960 --> 01:28:49,640 instantly dominated, you know, just went like vertical like 1646 01:28:49,640 --> 01:28:51,720 this. Of course, it had many 1647 01:28:51,720 --> 01:28:53,600 retrogressions and crashes and so on. 1648 01:28:53,600 --> 01:28:57,840 But to go up 7 orders of magnitude in like 14 years is 1649 01:28:57,840 --> 01:29:00,200 psychotic in terms of its traction, right? 1650 01:29:00,600 --> 01:29:04,440 So to me, the fact that it's now like the reserve asset of the 1651 01:29:04,440 --> 01:29:07,760 United States in part like the sovereign Bitcoin reserve, you 1652 01:29:07,760 --> 01:29:10,000 saw that, right? Like it was, it was incredible. 1653 01:29:10,520 --> 01:29:11,720 Didn't expect. It's incredible. 1654 01:29:12,400 --> 01:29:14,920 Well, I expected it, and the reason I expected it is. 1655 01:29:15,640 --> 01:29:19,240 Any kind of ideology that goes from being banned to being 1656 01:29:19,240 --> 01:29:23,480 mandatory has enormous power, right, Like LGBT went from 1657 01:29:23,480 --> 01:29:27,280 banned, but not mandatory, but certainly flags up right or 1658 01:29:27,800 --> 01:29:30,080 communism, like Lennon was in jail, right? 1659 01:29:30,280 --> 01:29:33,040 And then, you know, it was it was then he's running, you know, 1660 01:29:33,040 --> 01:29:38,280 the Soviet Union, right? Or, you know, like a like a the 1661 01:29:38,280 --> 01:29:41,320 scientists who were, I know this is apocryphal, but it combines a 1662 01:29:41,320 --> 01:29:43,040 few different things, but burn at the stake. 1663 01:29:43,040 --> 01:29:46,440 Or, you know, the inquisition, but then science is dominant. 1664 01:29:46,880 --> 01:29:49,440 Just seeing it from a neutral standpoint, something where you 1665 01:29:49,440 --> 01:29:53,720 had to exert enough force to keep it in jail bursts out and 1666 01:29:53,720 --> 01:29:56,120 it's a very powerful force. Bitcoin is like that where they 1667 01:29:56,120 --> 01:29:59,080 had the state had to spend so much effort trying to ban it and 1668 01:29:59,080 --> 01:30:01,400 just burst out like a jack-in-the-box because it's got 1669 01:30:01,400 --> 01:30:04,040 a strong force to it. I'm not saying it's all good or 1670 01:30:04,040 --> 01:30:05,560 all bad. There's both good and bad to it. 1671 01:30:05,560 --> 01:30:09,440 It, it's a, it's a very complicated thing, but that is 1672 01:30:09,440 --> 01:30:11,800 something which is simultaneously American and post 1673 01:30:11,800 --> 01:30:13,800 American because, for example, naive. 1674 01:30:13,800 --> 01:30:16,640 But Kelly, who runs El Salvador, is a bitcoiner in good standing. 1675 01:30:17,240 --> 01:30:19,640 And a lot of the stuff that's happening now I think of as a 1676 01:30:19,640 --> 01:30:23,640 transitional phase where you're seeing what I call Black Lives 1677 01:30:23,640 --> 01:30:25,360 Matter. But for the Mayflower, you know 1678 01:30:25,360 --> 01:30:29,720 why I say that you have people on X who are like, were you on 1679 01:30:29,720 --> 01:30:32,560 the Mayflower, right? They're like posting their like, 1680 01:30:33,080 --> 01:30:35,000 you know, their great, great, great grandparents Mayflower 1681 01:30:35,000 --> 01:30:37,480 manifest, which is very similar to people like how black are 1682 01:30:37,480 --> 01:30:39,600 you, you know, like can you speak or whatever, right? 1683 01:30:40,080 --> 01:30:44,200 And the thing about that is they are harkening back to something 1684 01:30:44,200 --> 01:30:47,160 that was founded 250 years ago where they feel they have some 1685 01:30:47,160 --> 01:30:48,800 stake in it. And they're trying to use that 1686 01:30:48,800 --> 01:30:54,720 to assert, you know, their, you know, their level of belonging 1687 01:30:54,840 --> 01:30:58,440 to a tribe, their identity Today, however, as you go closer 1688 01:30:58,440 --> 01:31:01,360 and closer to the present, to organizations founded 25 years 1689 01:31:01,360 --> 01:31:04,120 ago and 2 1/2 years ago and 2 1/2 months ago, those 1690 01:31:04,120 --> 01:31:06,360 organizations become much more quote global in their 1691 01:31:06,360 --> 01:31:08,840 composition. Look at Elon's X dot AI. 1692 01:31:09,000 --> 01:31:11,520 It has European ancestry people, Chinese ancestry people, Indian 1693 01:31:11,520 --> 01:31:14,760 ancestry people. Like the modern organization 1694 01:31:14,760 --> 01:31:16,640 that you're founding from scratch has a different social 1695 01:31:16,640 --> 01:31:18,920 contract than the one founded 250 years ago. 1696 01:31:19,120 --> 01:31:22,960 So as that one 250 years ago goes away, which I think it 1697 01:31:22,960 --> 01:31:27,040 will, the, for example, the modern tech company, the modern 1698 01:31:27,160 --> 01:31:30,520 modern tech currency is not ethnicity based. 1699 01:31:30,880 --> 01:31:32,400 It's ideology and software based. 1700 01:31:32,880 --> 01:31:35,520 The ethnicity based world will be the Chinese. 1701 01:31:37,040 --> 01:31:40,800 That's The thing is actually MAGA and kind of these strains 1702 01:31:40,800 --> 01:31:43,600 of let's call it where you call it white supremacy or what have 1703 01:31:43,600 --> 01:31:46,280 you, or or white identity, white identitarianism. 1704 01:31:46,600 --> 01:31:50,440 I actually think that has five or ten years in a real sense, 1705 01:31:50,440 --> 01:31:52,680 because it's going to actually be part of the global left 1706 01:31:53,400 --> 01:31:55,280 against a dominant Chinese superstate. 1707 01:31:57,200 --> 01:32:01,400 Like the the Chinese are the highly organized billion person 1708 01:32:01,680 --> 01:32:05,280 ethnic group that's like homogeneous and uniform and 1709 01:32:05,280 --> 01:32:07,280 running a giant centralized superstate. 1710 01:32:07,520 --> 01:32:10,800 And all of these tribes that today think of themselves are 1711 01:32:10,800 --> 01:32:14,200 dominant are going to realize they're actually weak in 5 or 10 1712 01:32:14,200 --> 01:32:17,400 or 15 years and weak and, and decentralized nicely. 1713 01:32:17,400 --> 01:32:19,800 And they're going to appeal to Internet ideals of 1714 01:32:20,080 --> 01:32:24,320 egalitarianism and the smart contract and so on and so forth. 1715 01:32:24,600 --> 01:32:27,000 And an analogy for this is, you know, how the right picked up 1716 01:32:27,000 --> 01:32:28,440 the left's concert of free speech. 1717 01:32:29,160 --> 01:32:31,400 Yes, right. Like that? 1718 01:32:31,720 --> 01:32:34,520 Against. A dominant, call it Han 1719 01:32:34,520 --> 01:32:38,360 chauvinist, Han supremacist, Chinese superstate, we're 1720 01:32:38,360 --> 01:32:40,920 actually all minorities or what have you. 1721 01:32:41,200 --> 01:32:43,120 It's an it's an interesting reframe, right? 1722 01:32:43,360 --> 01:32:45,280 But it's something I just want to, you know, throw out there 1723 01:32:45,280 --> 01:32:49,320 because that's looking out five or 10 or 15 years and pricing in 1724 01:32:49,320 --> 01:32:51,160 something that I don't think people people have priced in, 1725 01:32:51,160 --> 01:32:54,440 which is the total military dominance of the Chinese drone 1726 01:32:54,440 --> 01:32:56,760 Armada. That's not something that people 1727 01:32:56,760 --> 01:33:00,080 are thinking about in terms of the like they still think the US 1728 01:33:00,080 --> 01:33:02,120 military is like in the game or something like that. 1729 01:33:02,320 --> 01:33:04,360 They don't understand. It's actually like Heg Seth, 1730 01:33:04,360 --> 01:33:06,800 who's a Defense Secretary. There's a clip we can play. 1731 01:33:07,200 --> 01:33:11,440 He's acknowledged that China has hypersonics that can sync all US 1732 01:33:11,440 --> 01:33:13,520 aircraft carriers. Our whole power projection 1733 01:33:13,520 --> 01:33:15,840 platform is aircraft carriers and the ability. 1734 01:33:15,840 --> 01:33:18,280 To project power that way strategically around the globe. 1735 01:33:18,280 --> 01:33:20,240 And yeah, we have a nuclear triad and all of that, but a big 1736 01:33:20,240 --> 01:33:23,200 part of it. And if you know 15 hypersonic 1737 01:33:23,200 --> 01:33:25,520 missiles can take out our 10 aircraft carriers in the 1st 20 1738 01:33:25,520 --> 01:33:28,920 minutes of a conflict, what does that look like? 1739 01:33:28,920 --> 01:33:32,000 There's AUS sector of the Navy that said China has. 1740 01:33:32,040 --> 01:33:35,400 A shipbuilding, which is more shipbuilding in one shipyard 1741 01:33:35,400 --> 01:33:38,320 than all of America's combined. They have 13 shipyards. 1742 01:33:38,320 --> 01:33:41,400 In some cases, their shipyard has more capacity. 1 shipyard 1743 01:33:41,400 --> 01:33:43,680 has more capacity than all of our shipyards combined. 1744 01:33:43,680 --> 01:33:47,000 There's the Raytheon CEO saying they can't decouple from China. 1745 01:33:47,240 --> 01:33:50,480 So while we talk about pulling supply chain out of China. 1746 01:33:50,520 --> 01:33:55,040 Resourcing out of China, I would tell you it's very impractical. 1747 01:33:55,040 --> 01:33:57,560 We've been de risking for a couple of years making sure that 1748 01:33:57,560 --> 01:34:00,480 we have second sources for critical componentry. 1749 01:34:00,960 --> 01:34:04,120 But unlike Russia where we pulled out two weeks after the 1750 01:34:04,120 --> 01:34:06,400 invasion last year, we shut down our factories, we pulled our 1751 01:34:06,400 --> 01:34:10,920 people out and we completely cut off any contact with our Russian 1752 01:34:10,920 --> 01:34:13,000 customers. You can't do that with China. 1753 01:34:13,440 --> 01:34:15,600 Too big, too important and too necessary. 1754 01:34:15,640 --> 01:34:17,760 So these are the people who are running the Defense Department, 1755 01:34:17,760 --> 01:34:20,480 running the Navy under. Biden running the top one of the 1756 01:34:20,480 --> 01:34:24,280 top five defense manufacturers that are admitting that the US 1757 01:34:24,280 --> 01:34:27,360 has already taken the L on this right that it can't actually 1758 01:34:27,360 --> 01:34:29,880 it's got scarcity. So because of that, that's how I 1759 01:34:29,880 --> 01:34:31,440 think about what that near term future is. 1760 01:34:31,440 --> 01:34:33,800 That military thing is upstream of so many other premises 1761 01:34:33,800 --> 01:34:36,360 downstream. Anyway, let me let me pause 1762 01:34:36,360 --> 01:34:37,480 there. Why don't you? 1763 01:34:37,480 --> 01:34:39,160 Why don't you? I know that was a whole new 1764 01:34:39,160 --> 01:34:40,960 threat, but I'll let you rap. Go, go, go. 1765 01:34:40,960 --> 01:34:42,600 Give me your give me your closing kind of thoughts. 1766 01:34:43,120 --> 01:34:45,240 Those are interesting points, and I've said for a while that I 1767 01:34:45,240 --> 01:34:47,360 think aircraft. Carriers are sitting ducks in 1768 01:34:47,360 --> 01:34:51,600 this new world. And my final point is that in a 1769 01:34:51,600 --> 01:34:55,240 world where the state is, is weak, you'll see the return of 1770 01:34:55,280 --> 01:34:57,760 of either religions or pseudo religions. 1771 01:34:57,760 --> 01:35:00,520 And I count both radical Islam and communism is in this 1772 01:35:00,520 --> 01:35:03,800 category where they fit your the thing you're describing. 1773 01:35:03,960 --> 01:35:06,760 Liberalism used to be. And then liberalism kind of lost 1774 01:35:06,760 --> 01:35:10,440 its revolutionary power after the 1800s. 1775 01:35:10,640 --> 01:35:14,920 But first, liberalism, communism, and radical Islam are 1776 01:35:14,920 --> 01:35:19,240 all these decentralized network based religious ideologies that 1777 01:35:19,240 --> 01:35:22,040 seize control of the country through basically cafe 1778 01:35:22,040 --> 01:35:25,680 organizations. And then they make that country 1779 01:35:25,680 --> 01:35:30,040 like that universalist ideology. And what I'll say is that 1780 01:35:30,360 --> 01:35:33,920 decentralized power means people cooperate through ideas rather 1781 01:35:33,920 --> 01:35:38,760 than through the state. And then secondarily that the 1782 01:35:38,760 --> 01:35:42,840 next 20 years are probably going to have a lot of suffering and 1783 01:35:42,840 --> 01:35:45,560 our current world view has no frame of reference for what 1784 01:35:45,560 --> 01:35:47,880 suffering means or how to deal with it. 1785 01:35:48,120 --> 01:35:51,280 That's going to the Western world view, I think. 1786 01:35:51,880 --> 01:35:55,000 I think even like like, well, the Eastern, see The thing is 1787 01:35:55,000 --> 01:35:56,960 like Russia went through. Communism. 1788 01:35:57,240 --> 01:35:59,640 China went through communism, India went through socialism, 1789 01:35:59,680 --> 01:36:02,280 Iran went through fundamentalism, Eastern Europe, 1790 01:36:02,280 --> 01:36:05,320 communism. Much of the East within living 1791 01:36:05,320 --> 01:36:08,160 memory has gone through things like the Cultural Revolution, 1792 01:36:08,160 --> 01:36:11,960 the Great Leap Forward, you know, starvation or poverty 1793 01:36:11,960 --> 01:36:14,440 level stuff. So they're just all happy to be 1794 01:36:14,440 --> 01:36:17,080 here. Like they're less ideological. 1795 01:36:17,080 --> 01:36:19,640 They just want to do business for the most part and so on and 1796 01:36:19,640 --> 01:36:21,880 so forth. And they know that you can go to 1797 01:36:21,880 --> 01:36:24,240 zero and they're grateful because they started at zero and 1798 01:36:24,240 --> 01:36:28,520 they are where they are. But, but the, the West has a 1799 01:36:28,520 --> 01:36:31,600 model of it can never go to 0. Of course, we'll always win. 1800 01:36:31,600 --> 01:36:33,320 We'll win without any effort and so on, so forth. 1801 01:36:33,320 --> 01:36:37,240 So I think whereas as a Christian you do have like if 1802 01:36:37,240 --> 01:36:39,280 you're an American or a Republican, there is no 1803 01:36:39,280 --> 01:36:42,080 narrative of, Oh my God, we can go to 0 or whatever. 1804 01:36:42,080 --> 01:36:44,760 As a Christian, there's a narrative or a Jew, you, you've 1805 01:36:44,760 --> 01:36:49,160 got a narrative of we were sometimes winning, but sometimes 1806 01:36:49,160 --> 01:36:51,520 we were losing and sometimes there's a time in the wilderness 1807 01:36:51,520 --> 01:36:55,240 and we had to rebuild and so on. And I think that's actually what 1808 01:36:55,240 --> 01:36:58,560 people will have to come back to is like, OK, simply being weak 1809 01:36:58,560 --> 01:37:01,640 doesn't mean that, you know, like we've lost forever. 1810 01:37:01,640 --> 01:37:04,520 We can rebuild. This is a great idea for our 1811 01:37:04,520 --> 01:37:06,880 next podcast. But I've mapped out where I 1812 01:37:06,880 --> 01:37:10,200 think new religions might start. I'm betting on Japan for one. 1813 01:37:10,400 --> 01:37:13,440 I'm betting on Iran for another. And I think one will develop in 1814 01:37:13,440 --> 01:37:16,680 the Western world. Well, thank you so much for 1815 01:37:16,680 --> 01:37:19,040 having me. It's been a real pleasure. 1816 01:37:19,040 --> 01:37:20,720 I think this has been a great podcast. 1817 01:37:20,720 --> 01:37:21,640 Great peace, peace.