How This Civilisation Ends with Professor Jiang

Welcome to Recombination Nation. Today, I am talking to one of my favorite new geopolitical analysts, Professor Jiang, who I've been following his work for, I think, at least a year now. It's exploded on YouTube with his prolific series of lectures and podcasts that he's done, talking about all of the different threads in history and geopolitics and culture, weaving them together in a way that I think the world is hungry for at the moment in these uncertain times. So, Professor Jiang, do you want to tell us a bit more about your life journey and how you ended up in this really peculiar position in life?

Yeah, well, thanks so much for inviting me to be on your show, Shane. I'm really looking forward to having a pretty thorough discussion with you. So, for most of my career, I have been an educator. So, I'm very interested in inspiring young people to think for themselves. And I've tried many different strategies. And these past four years, I've been focused on the teaching of history and trying to tell history as a coherent story, how we got to where we are and where we're going. And I've been uploading these lectures on YouTube. And one thing that I do that's interesting is I try to use history as a guide to understand history. And I've been doing that for a long time. And I've been doing that for a long time. And I've been doing that for a long time. And I've been doing that for a long time. And I've been doing that for a long time.

And I've been doing that for a long time. And I've been doing that for a long time. And I've been doing that for a long time. And now, I'm going to maybe expand my energy a little bit so that I can Ohhh, we can take a break, but let's start looking at studying history. I've been playing a game called Cryptomime challenges. A new game that I've been playing and now I'm playing one for, for Polish Telia Piece. So, as far as I know, that's how beaucoup I don't know how to explain everything that really goes with theatrics yet. And it's much better. And I've been playing a game called поддерж, which I started playing doing I predicted that he would start a war with Iran and I predicted that there'll be civil conflict in the United States. So those are my three major predictions. And unfortunately, they're unfolding pretty accurately.

So that's why my channel blew up on YouTube.

So what would you say is your ultimate motivation for all the research and the outreach that you're doing? What's the grand kind of strategic goal?

Well, I have three kids. I have three young children. And I want to build them a legacy. I want to educate them to think for themselves. I want them to give them the tools to be masters of their own destiny. So that's what personally drives me. At the same time, I feel that even though we as humans were headed towards decades of tribulation, of chaos, of conflict. I still believe that during this time of troubles and tribulation, we still have the capacity to imagine for ourselves a brighter future. And so, I want to teach people to think in a certain way that allows them to better understand the past so as to better imagine the future.

Yeah. Yeah. I see that as wisdom as a form of cultural inheritance that one generation can gather together and pass on to the next to help them make the best decisions possible in life. Exactly. That's exactly correct. Yes. And also, you have an unusual kind of backstory for a historian that you started out, I believe, in literature and philosophy. And how has that kind of changed your approach? Does that give you a kind of outsider's advantage over people who are just trained to be historians from like the very beginning?

Well, from a very early age, I love to read. And my reading is very broad. So, I love to read science fiction. I love to read history. I was a major fan of the Foundation series by Asimov. Like, I read all his books. And there were like dozens and dozens of them. And I've always been a very curious person. I've been a very astute observer. I'm very interested in why people behave the way they do. I really have a deep sense of empathy. And so, I think those are my three major strengths. I'm a curious person. I love to read. And I have high empathy. I studied English literature at Yale because that was really the best department at Yale. I actually went into Yale hoping to study physics and mathematics because I'm Chinese. But I just fell in love with literature. I just fell in love with Milton. I just fell in love with Shakespeare, with Keats, with Shelley.

Because for me, they were asking the question of like, why are we here? And where are we going? They were trying to, in their poetry, decipher the fundamental truths of what it means to be human. And that's something that I've wrestled with all my life. So, I don't think that I'm a historian. If you ask me like what you do, like who are you? I would just say I'm an educator. And I'm interested in the pursuit of knowledge. I'm a deeply curious person. And it's really the internet that has grounded me as a historian.

Okay, that makes sense. That makes sense. Okay, so let's dive into the big stack of questions that I've put together from mass consuming, like all of the output that you've had. It's given me a whole lot of jumping off points that I think you'd be really interesting to talk to about this, particularly because you have, I'm imagining, a unique perspective, both into Western culture and Eastern culture, and the contrasts and potential rivalries and frictions that are emerging and evolving in the current dynamic. So, where I want to start off, I grew up in Australia in the 1980s, when we had a massive economic boom linked to Japan. And it caused a real fascination with Japanese culture, which I think has lingered, I think, for a long time. And I think it's a really important part of the period to today. And what I'm really hoping that you can help me understand is, after that, we

had an even longer, bigger economic boom due to Chinese trade, but it didn't trigger the same fascination with Chinese culture. Instead, we developed a lot of anxiety about Japan. And this is despite the history of Japan bombing Australia during World War II. Like, I remember, like, old -timers in the 80s say, oh, never trust the Japanese. Why so different?

Yeah, that's a great question. And that's very observant. And I think this is true for most nations in the world. I think that Japanese culture, it's very pervasive. You know, so anime is extremely popular among young kids. But then you look at Japanese literature, and especially Japanese cinema, right? So, Karasawa is one of my favorite movie makers of all time. And some of these Japanese movies are just, you know, they're just, you know, they're just, you know, they're just profound, deeply profound. Tokyo Story is one of the best films ever made. Chinese philosophy, Shintoism, it's really deep. And when you go to Japan, it's very easy to fall in love with the culture because Japanese people take extreme pride in being Japanese. There's a professionalism, there's a profound patriotism that is embedded in Japanese society. And that is a very inspiring, very moving feeling when you're in Japan. The problem with China is that Chinese society and Japanese society are not alike in any way.

So Japan, Japanese people and Chinese people, they share genetic origins. They're basically the same race. Japan was settled by Chinese who migrated over there like 1000, 1000 years ago. So it's really the same, same race of people. But the cultures are night and day. So Japan, it's an island. And it's a very poor island that has always been threatened by China, which is hegemon. And that forced Japanese people to be more insular, but also more unified, to see themselves as one people. And they're an extremely resilient people. So whenever they feel as though they're falling behind, they come together as a people and make the necessary social, political, and cultural changes. And that's what I think is really important. I think in Japan, there's a lot of economic changes to improve as a people. So the most recent example, of course, was the Meiji Restoration.

But even after World War II, when their industry was being dominated by these state -owned enterprises called Zabatsu, sorry, I don't know the exact pronunciation. They did make the necessary political changes to reduce the power and make the society much more entrepreneurial. And this is a pattern throughout Japanese history. It is an extremely resilient, extremely open, minded, extremely innovative society, because it feels threatened by the hegemon that is China.

Whereas China's had the luxury of being so big that they can afford to ignore the rest of the world for much of the time. That's exactly correct. That's exactly correct.

So China is in the opposite situation where it is the hegemon of East Asia. And it feels invincible because it's protected by these natural borders. It has the sea to the east. It has the Himalaya to the west, desert to the north, and then the jungles of Southeast Asia to the South. So China feels invincible. It's a middle kingdom, and it's never really developed a culture of self -reflection and open -mindedness and innovation. Much more problematic is that for thousands of years, it's had this bureaucratic culture. And the bureaucracy is first and foremost interested in it does that by controlling the culture and so there's very little grassroots dynamic innovation in China and whatever innovation is created through you know local storytelling it's captured by the center and it's at it and it's edited out it's diluted it like the the culture becomes extremely conformist extremely bureaucratic extremely top -down and as a result

it's not as inspiring it's not as organic it's not as natural and intuitive as Japanese culture is and so when you watch Chinese film you're not as inspired as you would watching Japanese film when you read Chinese literature it doesn't strike you as truthful and beautiful in the way that you see it in the way that you see it in the way that you see it in the way that you see it in the way that you see it in the way that Japanese literature strikes you so soft power has always been a huge problem in China and so and so that's my explanation for it always obviously it's a very

complex issue is there a danger as the U.S loses its preeminence it's going to become more like Chinese in its dynamic it's going to withdraw from the rest of the world and become an inward

looking fortress well I mean this is one of the great ironies in modern history and that China China and the United States are much more similar than they're different certainly China is much more similar United States than China similar to Japan and I think that's why when it comes to people to people exchanges when Americans come to China it's much more easy for Americans to fall in love with China than it is for say Americans fall in love with Japan I think there's a natural affinity between Americans and Chinese and that's why I think in a long term um this conflict that we're seeing right now between China and the United States it's going to go away and what's going to emerge is a rapprochement or a more lasting friendship between China and America the other issue and you know as you point out America has soft power because of its military dominance you're sort

of like forced to watch Holly movies you're forced to read American novels even though in your heart you know this is pretty mediocre stuff um and it's kind of insulting to humanity that this stuff is being forced upon upon us by by the Americans so so so I think that um America is a deeply a cultural society like China and you know it was Oscar Wilde who said it best when he said that America went from barbarism to decadence and skip civilization in between

I love that um a related question uh do complex languages and with China I'm particularly thinking of the written language function as a kind of cultural immune system so and in some ways that can insulate and protect a nation but it can also make it difficult for it to form uh friendships and to reach out and I wonder if that's a particular challenge that people are aware of in China and maybe technology could be the thing that finally overcomes that so people don't have to learn thousands of symbols in a new language to uh to

interact yeah so um I I've said this many times in the past um I believe that as an educator the Great War of China is the language itself and so uh as you may as you may know the Chinese language it's um not a phonological language it's a character -based language and that makes it extremely hard to learn in fact the only way to learn a language is through many years of rote memorization and that becomes the basis for the education system as well as for the culture um so you know in the West if you speak English you speak English and then it'll take you like a whole day to learn the alphabet and to to read naturally and that's why in the West kids are just encouraged to read stories to tell stories because it's so easy to pick up the language but in China it's it's the opposite you have to spend

years of methodically memorizing the characters and there's a lot of characters but there's at least 2 000 characters that you must memorize if you want to be functional in Chinese society the other issue with the language is that there are only a limited number of sounds in a language so in an alphabet you have a great diversity of sounds um and so you can you can just transliterate foreign words into language so you have a lot of Chinese words like ping pong kung fu um kowtow that are just translate transliterations but in Chinese you can't do that um so for example uh if you want to if you want to translate California into Chinese it becomes California okay which is like when you you hear is like completely different and as a result um Chinese think it is mainly burdensome stressful to learn new things from the outside world also um when you try because

you can't transliterate the language it's very hard to bring in foreign concepts so for example the word cinema is translated as Dane in Chinese which means electric shadows and you think well that's metaphorical that's beautiful but at the same time you want to very quickly introduce new concepts and popularize them and make them um entrenched and it's hard to do that in China um and um so there is that sort of motivation to learn new things in in China so not only is it hard to import new concepts into Chinese but most people don't want to learn these new concept because it is so taxing so burdensome uh for them to learn these concepts and so people are going to do what is the path of these resistance if you are a if you are the middle Kingdom and you don't really have to work with the rest of the world if you don't really

need to trade like the way Japan trades you're not going to transform you're not going to innovate your language in a way that allows you to import new concepts um so the language is really the Great War of China yeah it's almost the opposite to English

which absorbs words so readily from other cultures but I wonder if there's a joint opportunity for English to reform its horrible spelling system and for maybe China to reform its overly complicated writing system and I don't know I'll maybe come back to this later when we're talking more about education but uh yeah I think we're at a really interesting point in history particularly with all the new technologies that can uh facilitate acquiring new languages and developing new languages even um a next thing I really want to talk about um I've been following a lot about the East Asian let it rot culture of the younger generations feeling like they have no reason to work hard like the previous generation did and I'm interested if you have any perspectives about how that compares with similar things in the West

like quiet quitting yeah um to be honest with you I think it's a very similar process and um I just think like nowadays young people feel as though there's really no hope for them um all the opportunities all the wealth all the resources have been monopolized by older generations especially the baby boomers so um in this sort of situation they don't really have um the motivation they really don't have the drive to really uh try to improve themselves I mean like the way I see it is um a good metaphor is to think of the game Monopoly and what's happened is that you have a few people they they've they've monopolized the board right they own uh Boardwalk they own uh Park Avenue and they don't want to get in the end and everyone else wants to get in the end and um you know we live in a rentier economy we live in in

a giant game of Monopoly and not only are young people forced to continue playing the game but they're still paying exorbitant rents yeah um so um letting it rot I think is the least provocative the least violent option that they have right because I because I think the natural response would be to to like overthrow the game

right flipping the board is the most fun move that you have left even if it can't do that because

when they can't do that because of the um same Monopoly on violence so I think young people um feel a deep sense of frustration of hopelessness and they're they're depressed I I don't know any other word to describe they're depressed and all these drugs are being forced on their throats right um all these ssris which are driving them crazy and then you and then you know the internet is also another form of drug they're watching Netflix they're watching pornography they're playing video games it's all to um basically force them to continue continue to play the game when there's really no hope for them so I think leather rod is a very peaceful uh strategic response to the reality that they're facing do you think we're looking at one or more

uh kind of lost Generations before that pattern breaks because it's kind of like a uh an a pig going through a snake in the demographic pyramid like after the world wars there was that big baby boom in various parts of the world and at some point it looks like that generation is going to age out Emily at least end up with a more balanced pyramid and maybe eventually yeah

I think you just look at um trends the baby boomers aren't dying um that's that that is the major issue these pension plans in the Western world Australia Canada United States they were developed in the 1950s 1960s when the um when people live to like 75 at best now baby boomers will live live to like 95 100 and um whatever models that you had in the 50s um it it didn't take take this into account because remember not only are they collecting tension but they're maintaining the control over the wealth of Society so it can't circulate yeah this money is being put in our property near the start Market and this wealth isn't circulating and that's going to cause massive um economic problems that people are not yet aware of like it's it's going to kill entrepreneurship in the in in these societies because all the money is being put into the start Market and

property yeah um so so you have you see this over financialization in the Western world where the start Market is booming but no one's working right no one's employed yeah no one's starting new businesses no one's manufacturing so um you have this tremendous this tremendous discrepancy between the halves and have knots in in the West right now a related

question I was going to bring this up later but do you think there could be a uh renegotiation of the place of death in culture in if the stresses get big enough and I'm thinking of Canada a place you have experience with it seems to be leading the charge with medically assisted dying and I wonder how that uh option translates into Eastern cultures which I think have a different uh attitude towards death the the West I think is more uh uh terrified around that

that's a great question and it's something I've been thinking a lot for the past a few years um so if you look at made medical assistance in dying Canada it is um increasing pretty rapidly the problem is the people who are dying the people who opt for made are poor people um and so that wealth is still trapped um it's still a top heavy system unless you figure out a system in which you know the rich die off off and this money is allowed back into circulation this money is allowed to rejuvenate uh the economy then you haven't solved any issue and in fact um made I think it is a very morally corrosive system because it's very utilitarian right um it's it's just meant to kill off poor people so that the rich don't have to stand in line in hospitals anymore and people know this and so you least you you lose your

purpose your morality as Society so I think in the long term what Canada is doing is basically digging its own grave um so um and but at the same time I think there's really no solution to this problem now we go over to the East I think that that um the only country that I see in the short term capable of resolving this issue is Japan because as I said before even though the elderly it is extremely cohesive universe society where people are willing to make the necessary sacrifices to stay resilient to be innovative so it's perfectly plausible okay i'm not saying it's going to happen but i see next five ten years that a society japanese elderly say say to the say to the society i'm 80 years old i'm 85 i've had a good life i don't want to be a burnout anymore so i will choose to um um do euthanasia and

it's going to come organically from the elderly now of course the government what they will do is maybe give the families um a lot of money in to compensate but but that's going to be a massive signal to our japanese society it's going to rejuvenate society it's going to inspire the young to take control over their lives so if japan were to do this if maybe 10 to 20 percent of the elderly were to say i've had a good life i'm ready to pass on because i don't be a burden um to the rest of society and honestly there's no point in me continuing to live like this because i've had a good life then that's going to rejuvenate japanese society and it's really going to make japan the most economic dynamic on the most military vibrant society in in east asia china's the opposite um china is a society um in which the respect

uh deference for the elderly it's really the core value of society and that's why china implemented the coveted lockdowns in the way in the draconian manner that it did um for three years i mean it destroyed the entire economy but in china what comes first is the respect for the elderly and it was very painful very hard very arduous for china to leave the covert lockdown system and move towards a more you know open system so um so yeah i mean like the elderly issue will never be resolved in china but it could be resolved in japan and that's why i think in the long term japan has much better prospects than

china do you think if japan implements that policy and shows that it can be done successfully without you know becoming dystopian that other nations around the world could follow in that path if they've if their pension imbalance and a demographic imbalance gets severe enough

yeah so in the west right now um the government um is captured by the baby boomer generation by the elderly um the west has basically become a gerontocracy this is true everywhere united states europe australia canada and um az violate result I think the Western response to this Japanese policy will be one of disgust one of anger one of contempt like how dear they do this to other the people who've spent decades and decades contributing to the betterment of society this is a disgrace this is a betrayal I mean I I know I know very very wealthy baby boomers they're millionaires they have the best lives and whenever we discuss it it's never like one of gratitude it's not like you know oh wow I am so fortunate to be a millionaire and you're on vacations and to you know eat sushi every night it's it's always like we need better health

care sprinting on that head get had Jenna had had Jim what is that the the tragedy of the world of the world of the world of the world of the world of the treadmill I can't get the word out had Jim any no hedonic treadmill they're

sprinting on the hedonic treadmill there we go yeah it's it's always like how can we improve ourselves right it's always like how can we get more of society as opposed to like let's show gratitude for for the wonderful life we've had because like as a baby boomer you've had the best life if you go up in the West in the 1950s 60s hey you had the best school system you had the best jobs you had the most money you're the best pension it was one of continuous economic growth one of continuous optimism one of continuous military triumph right you've had a good life now you know let's look let's move on and give an opportunity to to future generations you know your children your grandchildren and you have any they don't know also China was one of the last

big regions to go undergo full industrialization and they did so on a scale and a speed that's never been seen before and has that sparked something like the romantic movement that happened in the West during the 19th century industrialization and I would even say I'm Japan has had a kind of romanticism around nature that's I mean think of the Ghibli movies it says something comparable in China that's been a kind of cultural counter -reaction yeah so

that's a great question and this is my understanding in the West industrialization was a all society movement and it profound it brought tremendous cultural political and philosophical change to the society and that's why there was this counter movement you know as you say the romantics and a return to nature in China um I don't think you can I I think industrialization has been really about the colonization of the Chinese mind and what I mean by that is that China did not organically industrialized in 1980s America started to shift technology wealth expertise to the Chinese market because it wanted to basically colonize Chinese cheap labor and use that cheap labor in order to manufacture plastic goods for the American market so um it was never an organic process even today um you can argue that the Chinese economy it's very much a colony of the American Empire um so um in my observations of China and

and I've been in China for you know almost 30 years now we haven't seen the sort of intellectual flowering or blossoming that you would see with increased wealth in fact you see the opposite you see a much more Colonial mindset you see much greater materialism um you see much more intellectual subservience to the Western Empire so um I I see China as really a colony of the Anglo -American Empire

so to much extent being colonized by Western environmentalism like I've seen a documentary like under the dome about uh various toxic pollutants from various Industries in some locations but is that a pervasive kind of concept or are people uh is that not trickling through as

much yeah so um when America offshored its manufacturing of China um did so knowing that uh China would um basically exploit its cheap labor but it would also exploit its environment and you're right in that in theory as a nation becomes much more wealthy um it's going to focus more on quality of life instead of living that means cleaner air and cleaner water um unfortunately when I say that China is a colony of America I mean that the Chinese elite are choosing to immigrate to the Western world to Australia to America so they're not incentivized to actually clean up the environment because your kids are not growing up here they're incentivized to continue to pollute environment and so what we're seeing in China like all these fawn industries right so electric vehicles um artificial intelligence um where Earth mineral production what people don't really appreciate is the impact on the environment because of these technological

uh because of this technological production in fact listen where Earth mineral minerals it's a misnomer because most country actually has access to rare Earth minerals why they don't do it why they don't mind these rare Earth minerals is because they're extremely destructive they will destroy your environment they're extremely costly in the long term but China it's a colony it doesn't really care about the long -term impact on the environment so it's perfectly willing to at scale at mass mine rare Earth minerals so that's something that people don't really appreciate

about rare Earth minerals is the dynamic almost the reverse of the Mongol conquests of China that rather than these outsiders coming in to like seize control of the throne they're like creating an escape pod to get out to like take out take everything that isn't nailed down and leave I mean the reality is most of the Princeton

class um they're overseas so it's a plantation economy China has essentially become a plantation economy um the the things that you read about in the media I mean the media is just gaslighting you I mean when it's telling you look how wonderful China is because it has artificial intelligence look how wonderful China is because it has all these electric vehicles they don't talk about the impact on the environment and how maybe in two or three generations the air is not breathable the the water's not drinkable interesting interesting um well

um kind of related topic um China is pushing the limits of biotechnology and notably they produced the first genetically modified humans not that long ago though the science scientists who did it was acting without authorization and got imprisoned for a while but I've seen various statements that East Asian cultures are less squeamish about biotechnology compared to the West and is that a genuine reflection in your experience and how do you think that might influence the future of biotechnology in East Asia

well I mean the issue in East Asia is that there isn't as much respect for human dignity and human rights as there is in the Western world so I'll give an example in the 1980s um you know these Harvard um scientists were coming to China to conduct DNA studies why were they doing this because you didn't ask actually have to ask for permission to take people's blood samples in China China was perfectly happy to allow this because it meant you know quick cash for these um officials for the scientists so it's really important to understand is that Chinese science it is a colony of Western science so go back to example of these genetically modified twins well that person was working under the tutelage of his mentor at Stanford University right so so where was he getting the expertise where was he going to technology to do this well he's been given to it by

scientists in America because Americans can't do this legally in the United States so they um outsource it to China it's the same dynamic it's like the rare earth

mines they're not willing to do it in their backyard but they are willing to sponsor it

in China well they can't do it because they'll be sued up the ass yeah yeah

interesting interesting um well we talked a bit before uh about um technology and language and cultural barriers um do you see the possibility of a new global language emerging through the internet that breaks down some of the barriers to places like China um like we we can use things like Google Translate you know for free today and it's quite amazing but to have a simple accessible language that everybody could talk would that be something that would appeal to people in China as opposed to learning English

well I mean you can make the argument that English is already the global language it's been a global language for hundreds of years and as a result there's a dumbing down of human civilization because humans were not meant to speak a global global language look at the Tower of Babel right they were meant to communicate their own language because their language it is of their own organic culture and it's it's really an expression of their values it's expression of their tradition of the mythologies of their religion and so um you know Hagel talks a lot about this how um culture comes as an expression a manifestation of your tradition and about that tradition the culture would suck um so I understand that um we believe that globalization is is fundamentally a good thing but just in terms of cultural production just in terms of like ideas being expressed science being in advance um it's not

it

has not been very effective I guess the model I'm looking at would be an auxiliary language that's designed to only have a few thousand words in it and a grammar that most speakers from major world languages can access can can find relatively intuitive um that's the model I'm seeing that would leave room for local native languages in their full glory and complexity but provide a bridge a narrow bridge admittedly well I think the big focus um on

two things the big focus is on artificial intelligence which would sort of negate the need for an exogory language because the AI system could translate simultaneously um everything that happens online okay so when I'm speaking in Chinese you what you see what you hear is English automatically um so AI is one major trend the other major trend is transhumanism right so the idea of Neuralink where you don't have to speak anymore you can just communicate thoughts so I think that's where a lot of money is being invested and so if you don't have financing or funding for the creation of an auxiliary language then you won't receive one I also don't really see the appeal of having an auxiliary language um because like big like yeah I don't really see the need for it okay that's that's an interesting uh perspective

um now I was also really fascinated by one of your lectures that claimed or explored how Chinese culture doesn't have an eschatology or a narrative for the end of time um whereas in the West like that's a very uh core myth of like our current mindset even if you like leave behind uh religious worldviews the scientific worldviews loves coming up with like end of world scenarios to obsess over and I I just wonder was that something that's ancestral and the Eastern cultures managed to shake it off or is it something that the West invented and if so like what was the driving force for inventing that new

myth right um so the problem with China is it it doesn't have an eschatology but much more fundamentally it doesn't have many that many stories so I have three kids um and I tell a story stories to my children um and I have them read a lot of uh books the problem is that when you buy Chinese books for children okay these are children stories it's all just facts and figures you know the year that the pyramids were built how high the pyramids were um how the distance between the moon and the Earth it's not a story you look at these Chinese festivals like mid -autumn years there aren't any stories to these festivals it's all about food you know like okay so during the mid -honest Festival let's have a moon let's have a moon cake uh during Chinese New Year's let's have a family meal of like dumplings it's always about eating and

about food and never about stories and tradition and religion and I think this goes back to the idea that for the longest time China was a bureaucracy the problem with stories is that they're all linked to the Chinese living stories hark back to a tradition they hark back to a past but they also inspire people to act they also inspire people to dream of the future right so you look at the Vikings and what made the Vikings such um brilliant explorers what made them such um tremendous Adventurers is they love storytelling um they look at Norse mythology wonderful vibrant dynamic stories and so the Vikings were always in competition to explore new worlds so they could bring back new stories to tell um tell their friends to brag to the friends about and um so stories have a power onto themselves and and I think that the imperial bureaucracy always saw them as a threat

and so you don't have that many stories in in in China interesting I I wonder

if it relates to scale as well that like up to a certain scale of a society a story can be really powerful for motivating people but if the if the culture gets too large those stories tend to Fragment and you end up with schisms and the power that motivates the the previously United uh population now motivates two halves to fight each other over ridiculous things that don't really matter all that much whereas if you have a more bureaucratic approach to culture you can scale it indefinitely without that danger I I mean absolutely right so

um a book that I would recommend uh to your listeners is seeing the state by James Scott yeah he makes the argument that a bureaucracy what a proxy does is it transforms Society in a way that allows it to be best managed by a bureaucracy um so the elimination of organic local ideas and traditions is one salient feature of a bureaucracy and that's something that we definitely see in China and you know it's a natural process it's not nefarious it's not they intend to uh lobotomize the culture but it's just what happens when you have a bureaucracy and China's

had a bureaucracy for the past 2 000 years is this happening in practice with digital culture like people don't even have like the same TV show that they can relate to each other with anymore everyone's watching their own separate little pocket of culture and even though the stories might still be powerful enough on their own they don't have cohesion across the entire culture anymore and that actually makes us easier to rule it makes us easier to manage and rule right

yeah yeah I mean like that's that's the great appeal of the internet right it locks everyone into their own little bubbles and as a result they can be more easily controlled and brainwashed

um related question uh do you think the era of nation states is coming to an end and we kind

of already live in a a globalized bureaucracy yeah so um I think nation states were a recent phenomenon they are recent phenomena they've only been around for you know um 200 300 400 years you know um they they really picked up speed after the French Revolution and nation states don't make any sense um it actually makes no sense to classify people according to the race their language and to impose artificial borders around the world and it's led to silly things like world wars um so I I think the era of the nation state it's it's it I mean it's about to end but I don't think we're heading towards a world government um I think that there's too much resilience there's too much imagination um there's too much diversity in the human tradition to allow for world government even though um things are training towards a world government I think very it's very likely that

we're heading back towards a time of the city -state and I think the city -state is much more natural phenomenon than the nation state

do you think those city -states will be their most successful when they're Democratic or is Singapore a really good example of

a different approach um so I think a good analogy um it's a Greek polis right the Greek city states and you will have diversity of government but you will definitely have much more human agency and human Liberty than you have under the nation state because you need to galvanize you to energize everyone you do that in a much more Democratic setting so the hegemon at that time was Athens um and Athens was the most vibrant democracy they had to be democracy because they needed um everyone to participate in the wealth creation um in in Athens so so I think the city -state will be much more enlightened much more Democrat Democratic much more uh liberal time in human history than than than during the nation state do you think

those functional city states will be tied to geography in the same way as they used to be or could the internet allow groups of dispersed people to coordinate economically culturally politically in ways that were never possible before

that's a great question so when I think of city -states I think in terms of geography but you're actually right in that you could have new entities that arise that are much uh more ephemeral so for example multinationals could be a force on other themselves military cartels could also be be possible um religions um so I think we're moving towards a time when um organization Human Organization it's much more vibrant much more diverse um the city -states I think will be the main organizational unit but you could also have um um other um conversations as as well

um do you think some of the tension between geopolitical actors is partly designed to manage domestic politics like it's for domestic consumption that are you know waving a saber at people over the other side i think it's entirely for domestic

consumption i don't think these nation states have a reason to fight each other um we live in a time of abundance um and these nation states are mostly self -sufficient and they're not so self -sufficient to benefit more from trade than they do from conflict so um if you just look at the entirety of human history these these conflicts arise because of um instability within the hierarchy so peter turchin has a term called elite overproduction so what happens is different factions of elite they fight each other and then draw in um other uh nation states in order to um defer their their own power struggle so um i i i don't think the united states and russia have a power struggle in order to um to um to um to um to um to um to um to um to um to um to um have actual geopolitical differences um but um their domestic realities

forced them to engage

in silly adventures overseas yeah yeah um i also wonder if some wars are basically uh like a live firing training exercise for bored militaries like basically they're just using it as an opportunity to beat up on somebody geopolitically inconsequential that it's kind of just trooped up to let's let's check out our new weapons and see how well they work yeah so i i think that's a good point i think

like the military industrial complex it's a important factor uh you need to justify the bureaucracy the military industrial complex bureaucracy by starting new wars um if you spend billions of dollars on new weapons then you're kind of forced to use them another factor is as an empire you need to maintain the perception of a military hegemon so that's why you go and you beat up you know these um third world nations like libya and syria because you want you want to scare the world i mean you have to be like you know the big bully in middle school you go now and then go beat up a smaller kid to show that you mean business that you know you're still a tough guy um but another reason is simply to kill off the young people because you got too many young men not enough jobs not enough you know young females to go around so

they make me a source of tremendous discontent And so you kill them off. Otherwise, you might have the French Revolution, or you might have the 1848 revolutions, which was also a very traumatic time in Europe.

Do you think that risk today is diminished by the demographic collapse, that there just aren't that many young people being produced? If you sent all your young people to go die in a war, you would make your demographic imbalance even worse, so you've got less incentive to do it.

Well, I mean, I know there's demographic imbalance, but at the same time, you also have tremendous discontentment among young men, right? So your options are you just let them sit around all day, and possibly some event will galvanize them into action. Or you send them off to war, and you basically stave off the possibility that they rebel.

It almost makes me paranoid that the Let It Rot type of movements are actually… They have at least the stamp of approval from the governments, because they're quite happy for disaffected youth to just go and, you know, sit in the garden somewhere and not cause trouble.

Well, you can make an argument that both the modern SSRI industry, as well as the internet, are outgrowths of MKUltra. And MKUltra were, you know, these… It was a vast apparatus of experience to try to indoctrinate compliance. In people, right? The 1960s was a time of tremendous revolt, was a time of tremendous discontent because of the Vietnam War, and the military, the CIA, had to figure out ways to keep people docile, and drugs, psychedelics were a mechanism, but so were things like Woodstock, right? Popular entertainment, the hippie movement, right? Counterculture. And so now we are living in an age of social media, which is a drug unto itself. Social media is to… I mean, the entire point of social media is to indoctrinate you into believing that nothing matters, that it's a very nihilistic platform. And so I think you're right in that they've been very successful at keeping young people docile. At the same

time, if you go back in human history, 1848, the French Revolutions, there was no way at that time that people could have predicted that there'd be these revolutions, but there was a perfect storm of crises, right? You had, so like weather change, so drought during the 1848 revolutions, you had collapse in the economy, you had collapse in state finances, so, you know, these people…

And you also had an uncontrolled new medium of communication in the printing press. There were newsletters flying everywhere, stirring up discontentment and coordinating it.

There were newsletters flying everywhere, stirring up discontentment and coordinating it. And you also had new industrial productions. You had a new economy. You had a new 4 show C class. So it's not… You can't predict the future in that way, but the elite has many mechanisms of maintaining social control. So, I'm not saying they're going to do this, but they're keeping options open. In fact, you know, like if you've been reading the news about these like UAPs, it seems as though they're about to fake an alien invasion. So I think there are many options available to them, and they respond to crises using different options.

Oh, another thing I really want to talk to you about. I've read a fair bit of Peter Zayn's dire predictions about China, as well as criticisms of his arguments. What's the response to his particular brand of prognostications from inside China and from your own perspective?

Yeah, I don't think people pay attention to Peter Zayn in China. And you're right in that his predictions, they're kind of outlandish. He's not a scholar. I mean, like, he's a doomsayer. But at the same time, we have to recognize that the entire world, all of humanity, faces tremendous tribulation over the next 10, 20 years. You have a collapse in the economy. You have monopolization of resources, tremendous inequality, resource depletion. You have, like, dozens and dozens of crises converging together. So China will face definitely an era of tribulation, but so will everyone else.

Yeah.

And, you know, one thing that people discount is a possibility of a major geophysical event. So not a war, but a major geophysical event, meaning a mini ice age. Yeah. Which is... Which is to be a natural part of the cycle of humanity.

I think we're also weighing up the risk of a geomagnetic storm as well, damaging our high technology on a global scale.

Yeah. We're extremely vulnerable. I mean, we've overextended our resources. Our entire technological infrastructure, it's much more fragile than people understand.

So another thing I wonder. I wonder if there's parallels between the world wars and the big ding -dong fight between Rome and Carthage in ancient history over, like, monopoly access to shipping trade. And after that fight was resolved and Rome was kind of beaten up by the process, too, there was never really another big war that the Romans got involved in. They fell into little rebellions and incursions and civil wars. And I wonder if there's a similar parallel with today that the world wars were kind of like the... The peak of that potential for mass conflict, and we're almost too poor to produce that level of destruction again. Like, the Ukraine war has severely taxed the missile -producing capabilities of both the U.S. and Russia. And that's just one small regional skirmish.

Yeah, I think the wars will be driven by civil discontent around the world. So let's just use the United States as an example. So you have the problem of elite overproduction, meaning, like, as the pie gets smaller and smaller, because the economy is shrinking and America's global hegemony is declining, then... But the problem is that the elites just keep on increasing. You know, you have more wealthy people, you have more powerful people. And so now they're competing against each other for more power. In fact, the way that I understand the second Trump presidency is a civil war. We're in a deep state in the United States. And I think that's what's happening. I think that Trump and his allies, they plan to overthrow the establishment. You know, next week, or sorry, this week, Peter Hexdev has called a meeting of, like, 800 of, like, the top military officers of the American empire. And Trump will be there as well.

This has never happened in history, because, like, why would you do this? And I think the answer is you're planning on a bureaucratic... You're planning to force these generals to swear loyalty to the Trump regime. And as a result of this, then you will have much more conflict in America. You know, Antifa, in many ways, it's the militant arm of the Democratic Party. And these white -winged militias that are the militant arm of the Republican Party. And I can easily see in the next couple of years these forces clashing against each other. So... It's not that the people are organically fighting each other. It's, like, the deep state is trying to resolve their political differences in the streets of America by instigating a civil war, basically.

Another thing I'm really curious about is the potential for new technologies to change the nature of conflict. So drones have gotten a lot of attention recently. But I think bioweapons, the way the technology is changing. Could open up whole new avenues. Particularly for their implementation in a non -attributable way. So if a nation -state uses these tools, it won't be easy to necessarily say where they came from. And I think that changes the dynamics a lot. It's a kind of beggar -thy -neighbor mechanism for competition between parties. Do you have any thoughts on that front?

Yeah, I would say, like, for the past 20 years, America has perfected this sort of, like, shadow warfare, right? This shadow asymmetrical information warfare. And Libya, Syria are all examples of this, where America was not... They didn't send its soldiers, but its special forces were backing these militia groups. It was using the Internet to spread propaganda. And it was using aerial bombardment to weaken the regime. Most of warfare nowadays is psychological. You're trying to change people's perceptions, right? You're trying to weaken their resolve. And that's what we're seeing happening, actually, in Iran today. Where, you know, there's this massive propaganda campaign against the Iranian people. Trying to reduce their resolve. Trying to make them more frustrated with the regime. And that's really the future warfare. Even in Ukraine, it... I mean... Russia was fighting NATO all this time. Because even though it was, you know, the Ukrainians that were the boots on the ground, it was NATO military strategy and tactics.

It was NATO targeting, NATO weaponry, NATO drones, NATO special forces. So, the idea... So, in all future wars, these wars will be much more hybrid. It'll be much more diverse. It'll be much more stealth, much more informational, much more psychological.

Are the tactics a little bit like how the Mongols managed to roll out so quickly that they basically gave the local elites a chance to say, basically, open your doors to us and give us whatever tribute we want, or we're going to make a horrific example of you for the next town over to hear about? And I'm thinking of Confessions of an Economic Hitman as that kind of model.

Yeah, so, yeah, that's a great analogy. So, with technology nowadays, it's very easy for you to infiltrate a nation and map out the different quarters of power within that nation. So, look at the color revolutions in Nepal and other places, right? Well, that's because the Americans went in. They've installed these NGOs that are able to recruit young people. And through the internet, they've been able to sow seeds of discontent. They've been able to... Brainwashed people to think in a certain way. They were able to control the information space. So, that's how wars will be fought in the future.

Are modern populations incapable of organic revolutions anymore? Like, or do artificial ones come in to steer the direction before they've reached that point?

Well, I mean, you can make the argument that these revolutions in the past were never really organic. It was always an elite. A certain faction of the elite, which galvanized the people. They sort of took advantage of people's discontent, frustration, and they led them to overthrow the regime. You know, organic revolutions in the past have been suppressed bloodily. I mean, like, you know, if you go back to the 17th century, the Anabasta movement in Europe, you know, which was a precursor to the French Revolution. But the problem was they didn't actually have an intellectual elite. To lead them in a way that during the French Revolution, Robespierre and these lawyers, they were basically all lawyers. I mean, they were able to coalesce and lead the people in their rage against the king. So, yeah, I would say that if it's an organic peasant movement, it will be easily suppressed.

Well, a very closely related point. You recently were talking, I saw, about how the, you know, the structure of militaries strongly influences the structure of governments that go along with them. And I wonder if we have a future where, for example, drones become the way that domestic policing are done. How does that change the power structure that emerges out of that? Would that be another kind of nudge away from democracy?

I think that's a great question. And I completely agree in that we are moving towards an over -bureaucratization. Of society. And during this process, then certain things will happen that were unimaginable maybe 10 years ago, right? So drone policing is one example, as you say. But also national ID cards, right? Digital ID cards that are rolling out in the UK. Laws that prevent free speech. Greater social media control. Possibly the implanting of microchips. Microchips into people's bodies, okay? So as things move, then the logic of bureaucraticism is a movement towards authoritarianism. To authoritarianism, okay? I mean, that's just logical. If you just look at how bureaucracies think and behave, and you look at how bureaucracies have become to dominate the governments of every Western nation, then the West is definitely moving towards authoritarianism. I don't think we'll reach that point because these societies will collapse before then. I think these societies will become too top

-heavy. I mean, because it's extremely – it consumes a lot of resources to maintain a bureaucracy because they're parasites, right? So it's the same issue with artificial intelligence, that we will never achieve superintelligence because we don't have the resources for superintelligence. You would need like a Pacific Ocean of fresh water. You would need like multiple United States for electricity consumption in order to produce this superintelligence. And we don't have these resources. And so the bureaucratic state, it's a parasite. And eventually, you reach a point where it's consuming too many resources, and it's going to collapse. It's going to implode to its own greed, to its own incompetence, due to its own weight, basically.

It's a diminishing return on complexity, basically. And I wonder if the elites – if these high technologies do allow them to govern really, really efficiently by like mass surveillance and all of these extra tools that they've never had before, the second that technology goes down, it's going to be like, oh, we're going to be able to do this. And if that technology goes away, they'll have no backup culture of how to manage the population anymore. So it could be quite destabilizing. And yeah, that technology can disappear very rapidly.

Right. Okay. So I think you're making an incorrect assumption. The incorrect assumption is that with more data, with more technology, the bureaucrats are able to make better decisions. And that's not true. So you just look at an example like ChatGPT, right? So my students have access to ChatGPT. And you would think that with ChatGPT, they could write better essays because ChatGPT will provide the structure. They have instant access to all the evidence, all the facts that they would need. They just have to, like, you know, make some subtle changes and make it more human -like. But guess what? They become over -reliant on ChatGPT and their essays become obviously written by artificial intelligence, right? It's – they don't even try anymore. So that's the issue with technology in that. We assume that technology, it will empower us to be better thinkers, and that's true for maybe, like, 1 % of the population. But for most people, it's – people are lazy.

They're – they'll become dependent. They'll become subservient to the technology. And I don't think – I don't think this is different in the bureaucracy. Like, you know, Palantir, if they provide all this information to the police, it's not going to make the police much more efficient. It's going to make them much more inefficient because they're going to stop using their brains and they're going to start relying more on the software. And the software is clumsy. Like, all software, it's badly coded. It's very clumsy. It's going to make tons of mistakes. And what's going to happen is that the bureaucracy will spend so much time trying to remedy these mistakes or justifying these mistakes, you know, they don't have time to be proactive.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, I get that. I get that. I – now, you're really interested in education. And in the West, there's a growing abandonment of compulsory state -controlled education. Like, the rise of – Yeah, the rise of homeschooling has been really interesting, and it may well be accelerated in the next decade by AI kind of helping people do that. And you had an argument that schooling is mostly designed for brainwashing to create manageable citizens. What does that suggest about the future of the West if people manage to wiggle away from that state -controlled mass education? Or does the internet do such a good job at brainwashing people that they don't really need it anymore?

I don't think – I don't think the Western model of governance is sustainable in the long term. I mean, what we're seeing is the demise of the nation -state. Why do we have public schooling? Because we need to brainwash kids to believe that a nation -state exists, that there's a mythology, there's a history to the nation -state. It's alive. And if you can't get kids to believe in these stories anymore, the nation -state ceases to have relevance. So, I just think that – I think that we've reached a turning point in human history. In the next 5, 10, 20 years, we'll see a complete collapse of traditional paradigms. And I think that this home schooling movement is just an indicator. It's like a canary in the coal mine of what's going to happen. I mean, I have three kids and I would never send my kids to a school because I work in a school,

and I can tell you kids don't learn anything in school, and I work in a private school as well, right? Mm -hmm. schools are like my younger brother works in a public school and I when I talk to him I mean like I can feel that kids don't learn anything don't learn anything anymore kids are just there and I taught this no DEI crap they're taught you know how to be anti -racist but they're not taught to read books they're not taught how to write essays they're not taught how to think think for themselves so I don't think there's any relevance for public schools anymore

mm -hmm a couple of related questions do you think civilizations get better at going through cycles of glut growth and collapse when they do it multiple times and it's China an example of a civilization that's been through many cycles before and has kind of learnt something along the way and does that give us lessons for what may well be the kind collapse of industrial civilization

well I'll refer to Oswald Spengler here right for Oswald Spengler a civilization is no different from a human life it's meant to be born it's meant to rise and it's meant to die so civilizations aren't meant to be born they're meant to die and go away and I think that's why the Western civilization has been so innovative because these civilizations died and a new selection came into place and these civilizations were able to learn the mistakes of previous civilizations and adapt to new circumstances, you know, like periods of tremendous human creativity include the Bronze Age collapse, right? Because after the Bronze Age collapse, you had the collapse of the Mycenaean state, and then the rise of the Greek polis, which became the foundation for Western civilization. But you also had, because of the decline of Egyptian power, the rise of a new kingdom called the Kingdom of Israel, run by David, the Davidic kingdom. And that's what gave us the Bible.

So, I think all civilizations, they should die at some point, because then it allows for innovation, human creativity to flourish. The problem with China is that because of its unique geographic location, because of its size, because of the basic, just the law of inertia, it's been around for like too long. And eventually, it needs to go away.

Interesting. Just as an aside, does that position... put you in a difficult place living in China? Like we get an outside story of how authoritarian and controlled everything is. And I really question whether that is the lived experience for people in China.

Yeah, so the rule that I learned in China is, if you don't get in people's way, if you don't really try to make too much money for yourself, no one cares. Because the paradigm is, you only want power in order to obtain wealth. Because power is a zero sum game, and everyone's in competition with each other. So if you're not participating in this game of power, then people think that it's because you're worthless, or you're stupid, or you're weak, in which case you don't matter. So to be honest with you, I've been here for almost 30 years, I've had multiple opportunities to become extremely wealthy. And I chose not to participate in money making. So the easiest example is, you know, I was in China doing international education in 2008. And this was like, at the start of the boom. And I was at a very good public school and I had all these connections overseas.

I'm a Yale graduate, and I knew a lot of mission officers in America, and I could have easily, easily started a construction company. I had a consultancy like a boutique consultancy and made millions of dollars for myself a year. But if I were to do that, I would surrender my freedom to think for myself. Because I would have to have investors, I would need to pay off officials, I would need to have you know, partners, I would bought into the system. In which case I become... Captive of success. Yeah, yeah, I would lose my independence. Yeah. I would lose my independence. um i will maintain my freedom but i will have to give a success because you cannot have both okay and and you know i'll be honest with you you know there's many many years when i wanted to move back to the western world when i would when i gave up on

china but see how things have developed um i think i made the right decision to stay in china and just be a normal person in china because what matters to me is capacity to be creative what matters to me is my intellectual independence and i think that i'm able to do this in china much better than than i'm able to do this in

canada or the united states or australia i love that answer um this might be a bit of an odd question for you but uh how do you see biotechnology changing the course of history because i've done a lot of research about like where crops and livestock come from and how that's like been major players in geopolitics in the past and now we have like a new understanding of biology we have new tools and we're just starting to like play around with what we can do with them and do you think that might be a wild card that could move the trajectory of history in unusual directions

that people aren't quite expecting um i think it's possible but um i but my intuition tells me that society has become so ossified in that um you have so much bureaucracy and you have so many vested interests interested in only maintaining the status quo that's very hard for you to focus your mind on the data you have putting your focus on the reward who will serve at that consequence i don't think i would i don't think i believe you are in the position of a man who would i would be scoffing at you but i was at least dogs particular to look at this whether i'm being honest with you think we are huge stores in a small bought to uh one type of bear is in Japan

implement new ideas in today's world well uh following on from that do you think that uh epidemics are likely to be a major factor in the next century um because they're usually much bigger than the impact of wars they're less flashy they get you know less you know songs and sagas written about them but if you look in terms of the actual impact they have on the trajectory of societies they're often much bigger and i'm even discounting like you know new biotechnology and bioweapons here just boring old diseases that have been around for millions well not millions thousands of years do you think they could actually sneak up on us and uh have a major impact you look at every plague in human history and you

know these plates go back thousands of years right it's always you have too much concentration in urban areas uh humans live too close to animals um and prolonged economic stress yeah prolonged economic stress uh too much uh inequality so poor people lose their sense of hygiene um so it's a recurring pattern in human history and the way that we have mega cities it's just um i mean it's not sustainable like these mega cities that that we have today uh the fact that tens of millions people live together and most of them live in dire poverty so it's only a matter of time before the next epidemic and i think that you will have a kind of cascading uh series of epidemics throughout the next century yeah yeah i mean there's things

like tuberculosis as well that don't arrive like with bells and whistles they just kind of creep along and become the new normal before you even realize it yeah and also i mean we have

to understand um these vaccines that we put into our bodies we do not know the long -term effects all of these these vaccines right i mean it's entirely possible like the more vaccines you take the lesser your immune system is able to resist against new pathogens pathogens i mean like we just i mean like like like the world that we live in is so complex that it sort of um paralyzes the imagination so we trust these vaccines but it's entirely possible these vaccines will give rise to new problems that we could not possibly imagine before

uh now i loved your analysis of a comparison of oral written and visual cultures and i'm curious if you have any hints on how that influences you know how that how the whole culture structure builds up and i wonder if you're seeing any hints of digital technology being used to shift us back towards a more oral or visual culture is uh is writing losing its power

and preeminence in in you know common culture right so um digital culture it's a really um complex topic my issue with digital culture is that it leaves less room for the human imagination so when you move from oral to written literary culture then into digital culture what you're seeing is a less of a reliance on the human imagination right because when you speak to each other then you're forced to be fully engaged you're full you're forced to fully exercise your imagination literate literature um you're you're forced to as well digital culture visual culture you're not required exercise you imagine as much all the information is embedded in the picture in itself and that to me is very worrying because what makes us fundamentally fundamentally human is our capacity to constantly refresh uh our imagination that's that's you know that's the animating force of the universe that's our it says our imagination that's a fundamental building

block of the universe and if we uh become uh less capable of using our imagination and that then that's going

to cause a tremendous breakdown in civilization um one really general question i want to ask too you've uh made relatively concrete near -term predictions about history and geopolitics how do you weigh up the risks and the payoffs of that strategic move like in the recent past you had some successes and it's you know helped kind of propel you into the spotlight but do you ever sometimes hesitate to put things out there that you don't want to put out there and i'm not sure if you are pretty confident are going to happen but you you worry about the pros and cons of being

right or wrong yeah i mean um um so i make these predictions as a way to validate for myself whether my understanding of the universe is correct yeah right so if my understanding of human history is correct then my my understanding is based on certain ethical models of how humans behave so i make these predictions in order to test these ethical models so i'm perfectly happy being wrong because being wrong gives me rich data in which to better refine my my modeling but you're actually right in that a lot of these predictions can be politically sensitive and so i don't make any predictions about china because i'm based in china and um um i don't want to piss off my regime i've already pissed off the americans you know i've already pissed off the canadians i've i've you know i i don't want to piss off everyone because i have a family and we need

we need to be somewhere so um the chinese regime has been very tolerant of my uh predictions and you know word has been given to me through many different um channels that um i should make any prediction

about china okay yeah that's that's sensible i also wanted to if you have any idea about how paradigm shifts happen in the field of history or geopolitics like has there been like major turning points in the the history of china you know for for the history of china um yeah i was like how historians and analysts and strategists kind of see the world well I

mean I mean I think that history is a tool of power history is a mechanism by which the elite create an imagined community for the people they want to control and this is most clear during the Roman times you know it was basically the Romans who invented history I know that Herodotus is the father of history but if you want to but if you look at when history was used politically when it was used pervasively then it was during the Roman time right it was it was Augustus Caesar who sponsored Livy and and and the official writing of Roman history it was it was extremely powerful and that now you have a sprawling Empire you're able to unify people's sense of their paths of tradition you actually go back and you look at the Roman history we take it that you know Livy was running it objectively but he was not I mean most most

of Roman history if you analyze it closely it doesn't make any sense if you look at Hannibal Barca's invasion of Rome it makes absolutely no sense any military historian can tell you that oh battle of Cannae when Hannibal was able to kill 80,000 I don't know exactly but 80,000 Romans that makes no sense whatsoever so um so so history is bunk as you know Henry Ford would say so you have these paradigm shifts when new leads come and come in power and they need to change the way that the past has been interpreted before I guess the most recent one would

be the um you know the horrible classic candle line the end of history when the Soviet Union fell oh yeah it was one of those probably a medium -sized example of

a paradigm shift in history it's really interesting because you look at at every hegemon comes in power it's always the end of history because God meant for this to happen yeah and nothing else will replace us this is the end of history okay so if you go back to the Inead Virgil I mean he wrote it as like the end of prophecy like like you know there's this prophecy of Ineas founding Rome and when he found Rome then we eventually lead to Augustus Caesar which is the end of the

prophecy which is the end of history I'm sure that relates back to eschatology in a way that stories have beginnings middles and ends yeah yeah yeah oh I really I think I really want to ask you about too I'm picking up uh a growing I guess you call it a scientific movement a story maybe a history um kind of rewriting the story of human evolution in China with the discovery of interesting fossils and some genetic evidence coming through that out of Africa isn't quite as simple a story as we have previously told in the West and I'm just curious about like the the potential cultural impact of that and interest in it in China if it changes the way the Chinese people see themselves if they tell a different story about human Origins yeah so if you look at our

understanding of human evolution most of it comes from the imperial age right uh the 19th century late 19th century when the Europeans dominated the world and they had an incentive to write books in a way that shows um that the Europeans are the end of history like like you know the evolution leads to the Europeans but if you just look at um just how humans behave what what you will discover is that we've always been explorers right so the idea that we were just in one place and we're happy being one place that makes no sense but not only that but we've always been traders so um these different societies were always in contact with each other maybe they weren't written down maybe the memory of it was lost to us but they were always in communication with each other so human evolution it's a much more dynamic much more organic and much more vibrant

process than um I think that uh we we we fully appreciate also the idea of evolution means improvement and you can make the argument that we've devolved over the centuries the thousand the millennia why because during the ice age we were an extremely imaginative storytelling people that was at peace with ourselves and with other with other you know uh cultures and now you know we're this barbaric mechanical unimaginative uh war machine that goes around and kills people

for no particular reason hmm well I mean that makes me wonder have you pondered like how much of history is actually unknowable are we going to reach a point where we just don't have anything else to to base improvements of the story and we just kind of have to shrug and leave

some gaps maybe particularly the further you go back in time well I mean I think history is what we imagine it to be and the future is what we imagine it to be so when we it's important to go and study history because when we imagine history we're also imagining our future so I would rather believe that history is a much more dynamic open -ended process than we believe it to be I want us to believe that like every study was engaged in exploration in an intellectual pursuits um in trying to be one with the universe and I want to believe that these societies all impacted each other so it's not like Judeo -Christian Christianity only developed you know in Jerusalem in the year a thousand because of King David blah blah blah I mean that's much too simple I think that um all beliefs um impacted each other if you look at what Jesus

was saying you have tremendous residences in Hinduism in Buddhism in Eastern philosophy um so so so I think it's really important to understand that how human thought is constantly it's a constantly evolving process that's multifaceted and it doesn't really have a particular origin and we should not we should not think about what the origin is we we should think about does this story make sense to me is this improving my understanding of the universe that's what matters whether or not okay well it was the Europeans who discovered gunpowder and it was the Africans who first gave rise to humanity that's not relevant to to to our future I think that's a really great place that we

could round things off so do you want to let people know where they can learn more about you see your work your lectures where's the best place where they can go looking I'll put all the links in the show notes

right so my YouTube channel is called predictive history and that's where I upload all my lectures but I also have a sub stack also cooperative history which is what and you know the sub stack is for me to talk much more um concretely about how the world is developing my YouTube channel it's really um an education course it's it's me lecturing to Chinese high school students about certain topics um uh uh uh uh of course I'm a number of students years later in this field I'm a a bunch of topics so um i suggest uh following both both both watching my youtube channel it's all free as well as my sub stack um so there's um so it's most of the content is free but for politically sensitive content i i do pay wallet excellent excellent i highly recommend people

check that out there's a diversity and a depth of content there that i haven't seen anyone else doing online and it's you deserve all of the success that you're getting but but but i i

won't make this point okay um and it's a side point i'm not trying to brag but like i look at other people's sub stack content and it's amazing how so few people have time to write nowadays i mean like they're posting pictures they're making some comments but actually to write a long essay a long -form essay i don't see that many people doing that nowadays and i'm not sure if you know that's the way sub stack is or just people don't have the time the patience to actually sit down and think deeply about the world nowadays it could be a symptom of the

uh growing hollowing out of intellectual capacity um particularly with ai and the younger generations they've got a a shortcut to you know ticking the boxes and moving on with their courses and they're missing the opportunity to dig in really deep but i know with your students you're really putting them on the spot you're giving them those opportunities to to develop themselves

yeah and you know the public response has been overwhelming so i get like tons of emails um saying they would like to come to my class like they might be in like you know ifyopia or like you know chile but they want to come and see my class um and and they want they want to experience it for for them for themselves so i definitely hope to uh in the future um i have three young kids so i so my travels so i can't really travel but i'm hoping the future to like do more uh workshops more lectures around the world um in the future excellent i look forward

to it i wish you all the best with that and yeah thank you for taking the time to to come and talk

today no no it was a lot of fun it was it was all fun and um you know let's definitely try to do this again some other time excellent thanks for listening to recombination nation if you liked

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