Predictive History Begins As A School

This is not a normal course installment. Source trail 0:00 Hi YouTube, this is Professor Jiang. Today is my last day in Beijing. Tomorrow morning I board a flight with my two boys for Toronto, Canada. That's where I was, that's where I grew up. My parents are there, so it's rea... It is the last day in Beijing before Jiang flies to Toronto with his boys. His wife is worried about his blood pressure. His children are about to see their grandparents. Then the news arrives: Israel is attacking Iran. The domestic and the historical are not separate scenes. They meet in one morning.

The political point is sharp because it is dated. Jiang says prior videos anticipated this direction, but not this accelerated timeline. The claim is not simply that World War III may happen. It is that the timeline is outrunning even the person trying to predict it. Source trail 0:00 Hi YouTube, this is Professor Jiang. Today is my last day in Beijing. Tomorrow morning I board a flight with my two boys for Toronto, Canada. That's where I was, that's where I grew up. My parents are there, so it's rea...

The biography is told as an education arc. Source trail 1:232:25 that things turn out for the best, but also preparing for the worst. So this is really the first time that I've had a chance to talk directly to you guys. So let me tell you about myself, why I'm teaching this course, a...And I've worked various capacities. I've obviously worked as an English teacher, but I've also worked as a principal, curriculum director, a teacher trainer. I've worked in all levels of education in China. Kindergarten... Born in China, raised in Toronto, poor family, Yale scholarship, English literature, return to China: each step leads back to teaching. Jiang describes himself less as a pundit than as someone who has worked across levels of Chinese education trying to make reform concrete.

The first great-books experiment works because the books have force: Julius Caesar, Paradise Lost, Virginia Woolf, Dante, the Iliad, the Bible. But success reveals the problem. Chinese students can love the texts and still lack the historical world that makes them intelligible. The history course grows out of that missing context. Source trail 2:253:28 And I've worked various capacities. I've obviously worked as an English teacher, but I've also worked as a principal, curriculum director, a teacher trainer. I've worked in all levels of education in China. Kindergarten...And I loved teaching it. So in the second year, I built a great books program at the school. And again, it was extremely successful. We read the Iliad, the Odyssey, the Iliad, the Bible, the Divine Comedy, and the kids...

The crucial definition arrives after the course story. Predictive history is history that does three things at once: it connects the past into a coherent story, explains the present, and predicts the future. Anything less is incomplete. True history should help humanity organize, think, and control its future. Source trail 4:29 Specifically, it's given me an opportunity to think about the possibilities of history. And over the course of teaching this course, I've decided that I want to create a new intellectual movement, a new sort of history....

Asimov is not a decorative influence. The Foundation series gives Jiang the image of psychohistory: modeling past and present so the future becomes predictable. The long-term ambition is to build intellectual foundations for that possibility, not merely to comment on history class by class. Source trail 4:295:31 Specifically, it's given me an opportunity to think about the possibilities of history. And over the course of teaching this course, I've decided that I want to create a new intellectual movement, a new sort of history....As a young boy growing up in Toronto, Canada, I didn't have that many friends, but I read a lot of books. And one of my favorite series was the Foundation series. And in it, Isaac Asimov proposed the idea of psychohisto...

The channel begins modestly: uploaded lectures so Chinese students with imperfect English can review class. Then the scale changes. A few hundred subscribers become roughly 25,000 in about a month. A tool built for one classroom becomes a global classroom before Jiang has time to build the infrastructure for it. Source trail 5:316:40 As a young boy growing up in Toronto, Canada, I didn't have that many friends, but I read a lot of books. And one of my favorite series was the Foundation series. And in it, Isaac Asimov proposed the idea of psychohisto...This past month, something odd happened. My channel just blew up. I went from like 300 subscribers at the beginning of May. To about 25,000 as we speak right now, and it's constantly growing. And the feedback has been o...

The gratitude is real, but so are the limits. Source trail 6:407:43 This past month, something odd happened. My channel just blew up. I went from like 300 subscribers at the beginning of May. To about 25,000 as we speak right now, and it's constantly growing. And the feedback has been o...I will try to respond over the summer. But again, I'm so thankful for all the support. Thank you. All the positive feedback that I've received recently. So I finished teaching the course yesterday, 60 classes covering t... Jiang cannot answer every comment while caring for three children, prepping classes, getting sick, and living through Beijing's allergy season and COVID. This matters because the public role is not polished yet. The teacher is still visibly becoming the public intellectual.

The summer is not a pause. It is revision. Jiang says he needs to read, reflect, and repair weak points in philosophy and economics. The admission matters: the project is predictive, but it is not presented as finished. It has to learn in public. Source trail 7:438:46 I will try to respond over the summer. But again, I'm so thankful for all the support. Thank you. All the positive feedback that I've received recently. So I finished teaching the course yesterday, 60 classes covering t...I will also need to study economics in depth, as well. So Adam Smith and other economists, because that really right now is the weak point in my analysis. I don't have enough classical economics in my background to full...

The next version of the course should compress 60 classes into 30, add new material, and make the underlying structures of human history Source trail 8:46 I will also need to study economics in depth, as well. So Adam Smith and other economists, because that really right now is the weak point in my analysis. I don't have enough classical economics in my background to full... clearer. After that comes geopolitics: current events, causal explanation, and prediction. The method moves from the whole arc of human history into live events.

The final ambition is institutional. Jiang wants a school for liberal arts and humanities that builds psychohistory, something like Plato's Academy Source trail 10:46 I want this school to be the best ever. I want this to be like Plato's Academy. I want this to be like the Jedi Temple where I'm training the intellectual Jedi's of the future. These will be the future intellectuals, th... and something like a Jedi Temple. The phrase is playful, but the dream is serious: train future intellectuals, writers, and historians who can help lead humanity forward Lens point living-school-psychohistory The school dream outlives the classroom when student growth, fatherly hope, shared work, and the long ambition for a liberal-arts psychohistory school turn one course into a possible future institution. Source trail 10:46 I want this school to be the best ever. I want this to be like Plato's Academy. I want this to be like the Jedi Temple where I'm training the intellectual Jedi's of the future. These will be the future intellectuals, th... .