Kind: captions
Language: en
I was once at a dinner uh the small
dinner was about TW 12 of us maybe with
Jordan Peterson uh and I asked him what
western civilization is and Jordan in as
is his style went off on a 20-minute
thing and I was like I have no [ __ ]
idea where you're going Jordan right but
what he said was very interesting he
said that he talked about how in chimp
groups the alpha male is quite often one
of the smallest males in other words
it's not a Joo willnick it's uh me or I
mean you're bigger than me but you know
it's one of us and the reason for that
is that the alpha male strategy the pub
brawler strategy in groups does not work
very well for very long you are only on
top as long as you are physically the
strongest male in that group uh and and
when two or more smaller chimps can get
together and kill you they
will the difference with chimp groups is
that the reason the smaller males are
often the alpha male is that they're
very good at building
coalitions and so to me masculinity
isn't about having big muscles or having
a big head or wide fists or whatever uh
if we think about our conversation
earlier about power like I remember
talking to Ben Shapiro about this and he
was like yeah there's this guy on the
internet who's like yeah I could I could
take I've got big muscles he like yeah I
could pay people to shoot you that's the
Coalition thing right power isn't
projected through your fist in the
modern world it's projected through the
power that you have over other people as
a leader so to me uh being hyper
masculine is not about having big
muscles or having a big head um it's
about your ability to project power and
authority what kind of leader are you uh
and you know you mentioned other stuff
like your level of aggression and all
these all these other things so I think
defining masculinity is simply a
physical thing is is very
narrow if you had to put people on a
spectrum of
masculine who pegs out the meter is it
Joo willink or is it Ben Shapiro that's
probably terrible because jao can build
coalitions is it
um what's his name the The Fighter the
boxer he has a show called The Gypsy
King otherwise I would not Tyson Fury
Tyson Fury or Ben Shapiro who maxes out
the masculinity meter H that's
interesting I I think I suspect on that
level of analysis everybody would say
and fury yes I would you would however
the the the question for me is um the
definition is what predetermines the
outcome right um I that's so important
yeah holy [ __ ] I hope people pull that
out yeah well how you define masculinity
automatically defines who you think is
masculine and the question for me is
what which of those options would I like
to be I could go go to the gym and
become really big and strong I could do
and I did it for a while didn't wasn't
particularly my thing I didn't enjoy it
I like being in shape I don't like
having you know going to the gym and
lifting lots of way get didn't work for
me and the level of power that that
gives you over the power in a healthy
sense influence over the world being
able to manifest the things that you
want Etc is
minuscule compared to the power that you
have by building groups of people who
follow you into whatever batt or project
or whatever it is you want to do um and
then there's the family aspect how do
you treat the women and children in your
life to me healthy masculinity is a lot
about that actually so when I see some
guy with his shirt off big muscles
talking about how he you know he's got
10 hoes or whatever I I don't I don't
really see that as healthy masculinity
agreed some people might do and I'm sure
the gasan model which is basically that
some people would say well that's you
know biologically that is hyper
masculinity because like half the world
or whatever is descended from him that
would have been a great example genas
Khan not gigantic but is he hyper
masculine yeah I would say so to me like
in fact he pegs the [ __ ] meter right
kill them all no problem just we're
taking over we run this [ __ ] now yeah
and actually if you look historically a
lot of the leaders who really made a
huge impact on human society they've all
been very small Napoleon Hitler Stalin
wasn't a big guy
Putin do you think that plays into it
because I could see very easily how of
course it does like oh you think I'm not
powerful because I'm smaller than you I
will show you I want to go back speaking
of that to Alpha versus beta so I think
we have a delusional sense of what an
alpha male is I saw a documentary I used
to think an alpha male would be and fury
not I don't know him he could be the
smartest guy on planet Earth uh but the
sort of once removed thought of him as
as a fighter a big physically
intimidating Fighter
um I saw a documentary about wolves and
I was shocked shocked I say when I saw
that the alpha male was small and I was
like I'm sorry what and what I realized
in that moment was the Alpha's the
decision maker
the alpha is the Coalition Builder the
alpha is the one that can think because
again in in the marketplace of we are
wolves and if we don't take down that
Caribou we [ __ ] die all of a sudden
you go yeah bro that guy I don't know
how but he knows where to go and he
knows where to be and he gives me the
look at just the right moment and when I
follow him I eat and when I don't I
don't and so what ends up happening
often times is the alpha male is small
but [ __ ] sharp and the beta male
which in our society has gotten a
terrible [ __ ] rap is the
enforcer and it was watching that
documentary was so unreal so you've got
a pack of whatever six wolves Alpha kind
of small beta the biggest and when they
all went for the kill the um beta male
came and told everyone to [ __ ] off
growled backed everybody down so the
alpha could eat the liver and I was like
holy [ __ ] he's not even doing it for
himself he's well I mean he is he's
protecting the alpha to make sure that
the right person to make the decisions
and all of that that can keep the group
together whatever whatever is well taken
care of wellfed and has what he needs so
that really got me thinking so yes while
I agree with you that the person who's
going to have the outsized impact isn't
necessarily going to be what I will call
quote unquote the most masculine because
again all of us are 120 sided dice
rolled and so like hey maybe I'm as
smart as gangas Khan was but I'm not
vicious like that like I just dude like
when I think about people getting
stabbed or I'm just like oh God like
clearly I'm not going to be the guy that
goes and takes over the planet uh that
[ __ ] just I'm way too screamish for that
so when I think
about
the thinking of something on a
simplistic scale is probably the flaw in
my thinking and that it's really a far
more dimensional three dimensions if we
want to go all the way to four it's like
you've got a tesseract of traits that
makes for masculine feminine whatever
which I think leads to also some of the
debate because it really is such a
complex topic if somebody can give you a
hyper simplified version I say I'm Stacy
therefore I'm Stacy it's it has a lot of
gravitational pull because it simplifies
a very complicated idea yeah and
sticking with the alpha conversation who
who was the alpha Michael Jordan or
Scotty Pippen Scotty Pippen's a lot
taller a lot bigger yeah who was Alpha
Kobe oack that's a good one
right what's really interesting in that
one is they were both Alpha and that was
the problem that's why they collided
they couldn't neither could defer to the
other yes if Shaq had been the enforcer
they probably would have won 20
championships right exactly um but I
think ultimately Kobe was the alpha in
that situation and Shaq eventually you
know same with the the lots of
situations like that look at that level
they're all Alphas but someone's got to
be the alpha in that particular group
yeah that's interesting and how fast
that happens when you've been the best
ball player in your every team your
middle school team your high school team
your college team and then you get to
the NBA and you're like oh [ __ ] I'm like
seventh or eighth in the pecking order
it becomes a real question about
can you become a a role player yeah it's
exactly right and I forget who it was in
um I think it was 11 rings by Phil
Jackson and Phil I know you listen to
this show God I wish I doubt it very
much I so want to get him on uh he'd be
incredible oh my God so we've gone out
for years and years and years and he's
always like yeah yeah yeah just not
during the basketball season or his team
he probably doesn't even [ __ ] know
but um anyway in the book 11 rings I'm
almost certain it was in that that I
forget what player he had to approach
but he was like you're a role player and
the guy actually could do it he could
set his ego aside and be like even
though it might have been Steven Carr
Steve Kerr maybe Steve Kerr Steve Kerr
that makes sense uh that even though he
had to like he had always been the best
of the best of the best of best he was
like yeah no that actually makes sense
cool I'll do it yeah uh so I think uh
when we think about these things how the
[ __ ] do you know an NBA reference you're
Russian what's going on I'm massively
into NBA a huge
yeah mord was myo it's one of the
reasons the way we talk about race does
my head in CU I was like I was a kid I
didn't who was black or white I loved
Michael Jordan and I saw myself in him
it didn't matter to me what his skin
color was you know what I mean that's
why divisiveness about race bothers me
so much uh but yeah the NBA uh was you
know I love basketball it's a great
sport great Sport and a lot of my heroes
kind of watching growing up watching
those those guys uh and sport is
beautiful because it's it's ritualized
combat and so it teaches you a lot about
human dynamics and tribe Dynamics and
you know different tribes fighting each
other and how you Marshall that and who
has to run the whole thing I mean if you
think about you know sticking with Alpha
conversation it's not quite true anymore
but historically speaking the point
guard the smallest player would usually
be the one running the whole show that's
the role of the point guard um so I
think um our convers and also you know
who's going to be sending joer wilck
into battle someone's going to be
telling him where to go and who to kill
unless I can get him to run for
president well go for it yeah yeah I
remember last cycle that was one of the
options um that do you know Brett
Weinstein right yeah so he put that I I
forget what it was called Freedom Party
2020 I forget what it's called something
something 2020 uh and yeah I really it
was Joo and somebody else and I was like
yeah I'd vote for that I would vote for
that that yeah but
alas okay so um do you understand my
position on trans because if you don't
the audience doesn't and I understand
your position I just don't think that's
what anyone's interested in but I
understand your position and agree with
it and always have done got it so I'm
taking a reasonable position but you
know that the world is has already had
that conversation and they completely
reject it that is my impression I I hope
to be wrong right yeah okay um I don't
know that belaboring that point will get
us any anywhere but I will tie it real
fast back to the whole reason that I
want people to pay attention to the
malleability of people is that we began
this conversation with once you get
obsessed with that you have to
understand what you're getting obsessed
with is the breakdown of structure once
you break down structure now you have a
problem in fact the one last thing I
will say on this so in film school they
teach you that one immutable thing is
true and that is the constraints make
for creativity and that when you try to
have no constraints whatsoever things
don't actually get better they somehow
end up getting worse and I think that
holds true for the vast majority of
humanity for for all aspects of humanity
that doesn't mean and this is why I find
that the circle of this is why I think
that the circle of History obviously not
an exact Circle but comes very close to
that because humans long to get free of
those constraints and in times of
stability they can push back on that and
they they find that whoa many of these
things were freedoms that now that I
have my life is better and this is
amazing and so then you think more free
is going to be better and you push back
on everything everything everything
everything and then it breaks and then
you're the strong man comes in and like
reapplies structure and constraints and
you can't do that and then you get out
from under it is saying stabilize and
freedoms yay and then freedoms break and
then no freedoms and loop-de-loop we go
weak men create Hard Times Hard Times
create strong men strong make create
good times good times create weak men
and and around around we on and on but
it's a spiral we move and technology is
a big part of that too I mean for all
our fears about Ai and I really know
very little about it I think that may be
it could be the end of a all it could
also be the Saving Grace that that comes
in at exactly the right time and just
solves some of this some of these
problems I have a feeling it's going to
play out like this it right the moment
you're living through right now
everybody it's a tool and if you're not
using it you are not long for this world
you will get passed by by the people
that do use it can't stress that enough
I hope everybody on my team is listening
you know who you are some of you have
adopted it and some of you are being
real [ __ ] slow and you're being slow
cuz you think I'm going to fire you for
uh in replace you with AI but I am not I
but I am going to expect you to be way
more efficient now that you have
ai uh so we are in the moment of tools
use it as a tool it will make your life
so much better oh my God the ways we've
been able to deploy it are mindbending
saved us so much money it's absolutely
astonishing upd quality uh we put these
out these comedy monologues on our
Channel uh that Francis and I do and
also monologues that I my substack
pieces that I record and put out as
videos and the guy who edits them he
basically does the illustrations
entirely through a AI generated stuff
that is amazing for creating things that
illustrate the points that we're making
comedically and otherwise it's insane
man what you can do with it it's insane
and it's getting better by the second
not even by the day or by the week it's
it's
unreal the next phase is going to be uh
that it will look like it's ushering in
in the Utopia because the tools will
become so powerful it would be
unbelievable but humans for us
technology is a promise of a better
future and we always want a better
future and as long as anyone ever has a
sick child or has to face their own
mortality they will keep pushing
technology forward and since that is
true I know that we will create
artificial super intelligence and once
you have artificial super intelligence
that isn't so I love running the math on
this so a [ __ ] is but literal [ __ ] is
defined to somebody with like a 78 IQ 78
to 81 something like that it's right in
there uh that's that's the literal
definition of [ __ ] Einstein was 162 so
you're something like 2.3x smarter or
1.6 whatever the [ __ ] of math is and
very Einstein would know yeah yeah he
would know and I wouldn't and that shows
you uh I'm a little too close to a [ __ ]
so uh it's less than 3x for sure so
artificial super intelligence is not
going to be three times smarter than you
or five times or 30 times or 100 times
or 3,000 times or three million times
it's going to be a billion times smarter
than the other person so if the
difference between a [ __ ] and the
atomic age and the person that gave us
GPS and atomic weapons and atomic energy
and all that uh is whatever less than
three times better what does the world
look like when something is a billion
times smarter than us we we are so
inconsequential to them that if we can't
align AI we simply will accidentally
cease to exist they what does it even
matter man like honestly if there was a
a type of bacteria that made the
Everglades like
0.001% more productive do we care does
it matter no and so that will be humans
in the grand um sense of the cosmos to a
super intelligence so now I have a whole
thesis
around I don't think my my whole
argument hinges on one base assumption
my my base assumption is that desire is
not a necessary part of intelligence if
it is and that that super intelligence
will want one thing over another thing
and it will move with rapidity to get
that better thing then the odds of us
being aligned are effectively zero that
makes the base assumption that desire is
an innate part of intelligence if it is
then my argument doesn't work but if
it's not then what we need to do is make
sure that AI as a develop towards super
intelligence does not care uh life or
death for itself completely irrelevant
um get my goal not get my goal
completely irrelevant and so by default
I will move towards my goal but if
somebody tells me to stop I will stop or
if a certain set of criteria is met I
will stop the problem is in the tool
phase you are going to have a human who
cares very deeply about something and
that person will almost certainly imbue
AI with a desire to accomplish his ends
and they will not realize the second and
third order consequences of that is that
you become irrelevant extraordinarily
fast to something that youve now imbued
with a desire to achieve its goals so
yeah I think there oh wow this is weird
I can say this and just be distressingly
Blas about it I think that it is
inevitable that AI will happen and it is
inevitable that our only hope is to uh
flee AI to the point where it doesn't
care about us and is not trying to
eradicate us sorry not even trying to it
won't try to eradicate us we will be the
anthill to the super intelligence
building a highway as Elon mus says no
hard feelings just this is what I have
to put here um but if we can get away
from it that's probably Our Only
Hope
yeah that doesn't sound that optimistic
super dark the weird thing is I'm like
really optimistic as a default but I
think that my optimism is just me
leaning into uh the the wonderful human
ability to say I know I'm going to die
but not today even even though I might
die in like 9 seconds so it's probably
something like that but I don't see
another way do you I'm just counting the
seconds you have right you have a son
for you this [ __ ] is real as [ __ ] so
what do you think like are you on like
burn AI to the ground stop building it
is that your not possible so how do you
think about it you can't you can't L out
this [ __ ] it's not going to happen Che
to that so the only thing you can try to
do I mean all of the Sci-Fi my youth was
wrestling with this question the three
laws of robotics asmo all all about this
and and did you read Dune uh yes well I
don't remember it well Dune opens with
it is against the law to build a
humanlike intelligence yes so you can't
stop it and that means we have to work
with it one way or another how that
happens I have no idea I'm not nearly
smart enough it's not my era of
expertise I don't understand it well um
but we have never been able to suppress
any technology at least to the as far as
as I know um and so far we have always
learned to live with the technology that
we've created now eventually we're going
to invent one that we can't until then
there's no point thinking about it I
can't control that I can't change that
all I can do is raise my son to be
resilient for the world that's coming I
like that resilience is the punchline
it's one of a very small handful of
things that people should optimize their
life for if they're going to achieve
fulfillment which is really what I'm
trying to help people do um give me
resilience what what is it so we Define
power Define resilience most people
spend their entire life trying to get
other people to not [ __ ] with them and
the answer is not to get other people
not to [ __ ] with you is to become
unfuckable
with that's what you're trying to get to
where you are who you are and the world
sort of flaps around you and you are
going to your goal uh undeterred by
whatever else happens because you know
where you're going uh and resilience is
ability to deal with failure to pick
yourself back up when things go wrong uh
to I mean I learned a lot about it from
you actually and from our conversations
which it's about seeking feedback and
re-evaluating your starting positions uh
I an Rand uh has a very interesting you
know IR Rand is a great uh is a great
author to read in your late teens it's a
kind of late teen philosophy that she
has um because it's overly
simplistic it's very idealistic
extraordinarily
idealistic uh but one of the things she
says that I really have taken on is
whenever you think you're facing a
contradiction check your premises one of
them is wrong and very often when you
experience some kind of setback the one
premise that people don't check is well
I did everything right didn't
I usually that is the premise that's
incorrect so resilience is being able to
deal with what life throws at you and
keep going that's it's it's the rocky
speech what do you mean it's the rocky
speech remember when he's talking to his
son no and he says life it's Rocky three
I can't remember which Rocky it is but
he's she's talking to his son in the
street and he says life life will beat
you down no matter how hard you are but
the question is can you keep going
that's resilience that's so good I love
that
[ __ ] I'd love that I boys and girls get
hard get tough I think resilience I want
to separate resilience and antifragility
but for a second I just want to talk
about resilience and Rocky 4 which I do
remember in Rocky four is that the one
with Ivan Drago yes a yes the sexiest of
them all was so incred oh that's right
cuz you're the bad Russian uh but it was
I will concede he was hyper masculine he
was hyper Dolph Lunden especially in
that
movie uh but there was that whole idea
of I would break you and he just was
literally beating the [ __ ] out of Rocky
and the cool thing about Rocky is he's
always the underdog he always had to
fight back and he could just take a
beating and he just kept going and I was
so I teach something called impact
Theory University and I had a student
today asking me and I started laughing
and he was saying I'm trying so hard and
I just feel like I'm constantly hitting
a wall and he was like having this just
like emotional turmoil and I'm laughing
and I thought about like doing the laugh
Emoji in the zoom call and I thought
he's not going to understand what I mean
by that and the reason that I was
laughing is yeah that's what comes for
all of us my days feel exactly the same
I feel like I'm battering my head into a
wall I am failing at most of the things
that I try I'm running test after test
after test after test and I don't know
if you feel a sense of ownership over
Churchill because you're adopted British
but dude Church Hill I know he's
controversial I love him and one of my
favorite quotes from him is success is
the ability to go from failure to
failure without a loss of enthusiasm and
it's like that is so true like you're
going to get kicked in the face over and
over and over like all the [ __ ] time
it's
unrelenting and yet somehow you have to
keep going that is so
antifragility I try to get everybody to
build an antifragile personality an anti
fragile personality is one where the
more people attack you the stronger you
get so if you're antifragile the more
punches you take the stronger you get
the only way to do that is to um to
emotionally reward yourself for being
able to take punches and once you're
like oh it's my willingness to take the
punch to stare nakedly at my
inadequacies to pick myself back up to
wipe the blood off to spit out my broken
teeth versus to never get hit or like um
oh go what's his name everybody the
boxer uh money Floyd maywether
Mayweather thank you you're really
coming to my rescue with all these
fighting uh and sports people thank you
um so people really began to hate him
because his whole thing was you just
can't beat me you can't hit me yeah so
his whole thing about like he wasn't
like Tyson everybody loved that [ __ ]
Tyson animalistic just broke you apart
and I think people like his Redemption
Arc uh but Floyd the like I can't be hit
there's nothing cool in that I can't
relate to that I take punch after punch
after punch so I want the guy that can
take a punch and like he's battered and
bloody but somehow manages to come back
and when you can get hit and become more
resilient with each punch then you've
got the right set of ideas that you're
building your personality around well I
don't know if you C on our Channel we
put um we put an episode out uh about
the future of trigonom and we talked
about the year that we've had today we
nearly went bankrupt in January W um
Francis and I had a lot of stuff to work
out personally and with each other it
was a really rough
time and we made it through and now
we're infinitely stronger you know and
now the next phases of failure are
coming the stakes are getting higher
there's more money involved there's more
things that we're doing we're building
we're
expanding um that's life that's life
things are going to go wrong all the
time terrible things happen to everybody
and character is how you know when you
react when they when they
happen define character is it a set of
values well I just did define character
character is how you react yeah well so
what's the right way to react
then well it's hard to say because it
really depends on what's happening right
but the right it sounds to me in terms
of what you and I talking about is
the right way to react is to be stronger
after whatever it is that
happens so I'll add a few more things to
that so Integrity over everything Define
integrity if he said you're going to do
it do it agree um I mean look I guess
you could say that Hitler had high
integrity because man he [ __ ] wrote
In Mind comp conf exactly what he's
going to do and he [ __ ] did it and it
was horrible as horrible as something
gets um but I'll stick by that
definition you say terrible people can
have integrity AMA Bin Laden had
incredible Integrity yeah although he
did watch porn which is I I mean I
haven't read yeah I haven't they found a
stash of porn at his house serious that
is hilarious now I haven't read my Quran
cover to cover but I'm guessing watching
porn isn't in there I'm pretty sure
that's that wasn't in there yeah uh
that's interesting I didn't know that uh
so yeah you say you're going to do it do
it uh but then I'll add have honorable
goals so that we can get rid of the
Hitler problems so you should be doing
things that uplift not only you but
those
The World At Large it's probably
otherwise I'm going to get caught in
another Hitler trap people around him
I'm sure for a while are having a great
time you must uphold your people oh that
gets problematic quick do it yeah yeah
very quick uh hopefully people know what
I mean that you're trying to um lead
people towards human flourishing okay so
uh what else would I add to that so
willingness to stare nakedly your at
your inadequacies steering by the truth
in fact we're now getting into so we had
the problematic beliefs uh and then I
have a new set of rules that I'm going
to propose so just to wrap up the
problematic beliefs um tearing it down
versus incremental Improvement which I
think uh people think that something
will be rebuilt From the Ashes that that
is foolish and dangerous uh and there is
a reason that societies have structure
and that we all say we're standing on
the shoulders of giants so be careful um
it's a it's a harder one to talk about
though I think because this country was
built of
Revolution tearing it down what do you
mean what do what do you mean what do I
mean this country is the product of a
revolution Revol I thought you said
Evolution no Revolution I was like huh
no o okay so I would posit that it was
built on Revolution but it was not built
on tearing everything down and in fact
there's a reason that um Churchill
rightly said that America even though
America displaced I mean he didn't he
was born in the 1800s so he was like not
that far removed from England was really
the [ __ ] and he certainly was at the
height of the British Empire was there
as it declined and he was like America
is sort of the right rightful air of
this set of ideas that should not be
owned by any one country and I always
thought that was for all of the horrible
things um I think that that's the right
way to think about it and I think that
America really really pushed back at a
time of like hey you say these are your
ideals but you're not living up to them
and so not only are we going to try to
up live up to them we're going to try to
improve upon them and so it does feel to
me like America is standing on the
shoulders of the the British approach to
self-governance the individual um uh
case law uh we're going to get to the my
understanding the French and Russian
revolutions were a lot more
revolutionary I agree I agree
so uh so don't tear everything down yeah
you one ought to be very careful about
throwing the baby out with the bathwater
uh We've T touched on masculinity so I
won't beat it to death but masculinity
view masculinity and aggression viewed
as toxic because if we have any
entrepreneurs out there I would just
like to say I was asked by an online
coach if they needed to build their own
app in order to launch their business I
told them what I'm telling you now focus
on what you're great at and leave the
Tech to online tool Builders like kajabi
with their allinone platform it's easy
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impact Theory that's Ka
jai.com
impact Theory kajabi.com impact Theory
and join the creators and entrepreneurs
who have made over $6
billion uh as in the immortal words of
my High School cheer squad B aggressive
B be aggressive you need to be
aggressive that doesn't mean uh to drop
Integrity it doesn't mean to be
unethical it means to be aggressive you
need to be aggressive uh fiscal
irresponsibility is probably uh my
audience will love to hear me talk about
that because that's economy but probably
a different interview I mean sure but
that that that is something I've been
talking about I've been talking more
I've have not seen your interviews on
the economy what you got for
me well I don't think there's going to
be anything new but I've been saying
since
2008 like we've emptied the medicine
cumbed
and we are not ready for the next one in
fact this is how the cycle of spending
and borrowing has always worked
historically you create a surplus in
times of Peace War comes you spend that
Surplus you accumulate that then you pay
it off and you build up a surplus in
times of Peace again uh we don't have
wars as much although we
do but you know pandemic financial
crisis these things always come along
and you have I mean it's kind of basic
eon economics basic household situation
and and then somebody comes along and
goes oh we've got this cool new thing
called modern monetary Theory which is
basically just code for we can print as
much money as we want well that runs out
fast and eventually reality you know we
always you and I have always talked
about the clash with reality and by the
way people don't realize this but it's
one of the main complaints that the the
Chinese and the Russians and the others
have about Western um Behavior it's not
just territorial or in any other way
they're like you're printing money which
affects us because you're buying our
Goods with your increasingly devalued
money and we are the ones that suffer
this is not a sustainable situation and
you talked about my son we are borrowing
we are borrowing money to spend on
things we can't afford and indebting our
grandchildren who are not yet born it is
immoral it is financially irresponsible
and it's going to lead to disaster if we
don't stop it yeah this is where
uh the set of ideas that we pass along
culturally become so critically
important but also since I think I I
don't think there is a way to stop it
and I certainly invite anybody to show
me that I'm wrong but the the approach
that I took to preparing for this
episode was recognizing that look
Empires are going to collapse look the
collapse of the US is it is inevitable
now whether it happens in the next 5
years 50 years 500 years that I don't
know historically it's probably in the
50 to 100 years range it'll happen
slowly enough that for the most part
like if you're alive you're you're able
to take advantage of it but you have to
understand the game and so one of the
things because again I I just I think at
the individual level one of the things
you have to understand is you have to
reup your context so if you were trying
to play a game of chess but you were
never looking at the board sure like if
you're so good that you don't even need
to know what your opponent is doing cuz
you just like are able to guess but I
mean realistically even the grand Chess
Masters look at the the board they
understand where we are they understand
what your opponent is doing and so
people need to go okay where are we what
is the cycle where are we in the cycle
what does that mean and how do I
inoculate myself against it and the
problem is that getting the timing right
is virtually impossible and having the
right idea with the wrong timing is the
same as having the wrong idea and so
that was I transitioned into really
thinking about the economy and world
events and all that stuff because I saw
what happened in 2020 and I was like
people are going to get obliterated now
I didn't understand printing of money
yet and I didn't understand how we were
socializing losses but now once you
understand they're printing money then
you have to have a strategy for that so
you have to be watching the board
understanding how the context is
changing updating your thinking so I had
the really surreal experience of uh rid
alio comes on the show he writes his
books and he keeps saying all that
matters is how people are with each
other and that one of the things anybody
needs to do if you want to have a
strategy to navigate all weather War
peace um your country country is the
dominant power your country is the
declining power whatever like if you
want to navigate all of this well you
have to understand um what what it boils
down to is how people are with each
other I didn't understand what he meant
by that and he kept saying how people
are with each other W and I bump into
him backstage in
Dubai
and everything is and this wasn't that
long ago so everything's very unstable
and I'm starting to get unnerved and a
lot of people moving to Dubai and I'm
just like huh I meet him backstage and
I'm like oh wow Ray like seeing you in
Dubai like uh you know oh I come to the
Middle East a lot and I'm like say more
why do you come to the Middle East a lot
and he was just like you know there's so
much going on here and things are really
popping off and they've done an
extraordinary job here and in um in
Malaysia and he spent a lot of time in
China and so he's just laying out like
he did not say I want to be very clear
he didn't say like oh I need to make
sure that I have places that I can go if
America ends up not being the place to
be but you can start connecting the dots
with this whole idea of there's a ton of
division in America uh there's
instability with America as probably a
declining power China as a rising power
instability elsewhere in the world and
it's like you need to be able to um go
to different places if that's where you
need to bounce and that was one of those
it's part of the game I would say I'm
weak as that I'm very rooted in
California um which makes me
extraordinarily nervous in terms of a
place that has embraced ideas of sound
good but are not delivering quality
results as somebody that's been here for
30 years just like bro forget me I've
thrived I've done nothing but Thrive I
look around me and I'm like yo the
policies are not working unless you're
like me and you've made just
ridiculously outsized wins and
so yeah that doesn't seem like a winning
strategy so that's one of the ones that
I'm very slow to react to I'll be very
honest I don't ever want to have to
leave La I don't ever want to have to
leave America um
but I do want people to be realistic
about what the chessboard says and the
chessboard says what the chessboard says
and you need to play based on what you
see let me ask you why you think this
isn't going to get fixed okay so cuz I
have a theory on that but I want to hear
yours all right so I think that humans
are the way humans are the brain works
in a certain way and these Cycles have
run in Cycles forever because we only
have there's only so many like even if
we're 100 sided dice 100 dice with 20 s
each and we're all a role that's still
only so many personalities and we react
to each other uh in very specific ways
and we probably break into only so many
clusters of personality types I'll P it
random guess but that there's let's say
30 groupings of what people are like and
so it's like okay well those 30 people
are only going to react in so many
different ways then there's only so many
possible uh economy static economy
Rising economy declining um War
stability um lost War one more like
there's only so many situations and so
this really does become pretty
predictable Ray Delio again has broken
it down into six phases that's tied to
the debt cycle or the business cycle and
as you start walking through it it's
like yeah they're not identical for sure
but it's pretty predictable so he did
this whole breakdown of the last uh 500
years he looked at really closely and
then he looked at a much higher level I
think like the last 2,000 years so he
was like yeah just repeats over and over
and over and
when I look at it's the same thing that
I feel with AI I just look at what
humans are like and when the group
starts overtaking individual think it it
only ends in one way and that's violence
and there's I think out of the last
eight times that we've been declining
power Rising power uh debt like all the
things that are true right now six of
the eight times it's ended in war and so
it doesn't always end in war but most of
the
time but what is the mechanism by which
people refuse to address that problem
why is it what are the incentive
structure you remember yeah the
incentive structure is I want my life to
be prosperous right now I'm going to
elect anyone that promises me that
things will be prosperous the way that
they do that is debt and printing money
you can only take on so much debt and
print so much money before something
happens it's typically a pandemic or war
and that breaks the back like you said
the medicine cabinet's empty and we got
sick again so uh we have no money
remaining because we've been spending in
Foreign Wars and uh printing our way out
of 2008 printing our way out of covid
and so now it's like okay if so I'm
going to make a hypothesis I I'm I'm Not
The Thinker to listen to on this I just
want people to understand how I approach
novel problems so um I'm looking at this
moment and I say okay what what I
understand about things is um when you
print money too much you just increase
inflation that when you have we added a
trillion dollars of debt in a month in a
month dude we only have $33 trillion in
debt so like if you're adding that in a
month like th this is bad and this is
times of like everything's okay but
we're sending billions of dollars in Aid
to Foreign Wars we just had another War
pop off with another Ally like what are
we going to do I have no idea what we're
going to do but I start looking at that
and I'm like if I hate America and I'm
just looking at the chessboard and I'm
playing to win and I'm let's say China
is the most logical example and I'm
looking at that and I'm like I'm playing
to win I see a weakness in here and PS
most of the war is always going to
fought be fought surreptitiously so I'm
going to start doing my belt rod and
belt or belt and suspenders whatever the
[ __ ] is called Road Belton Road thank
you so I'm going around I'm this is a
whole different thing different thing
I'm I'm going around and I'm investing
in all these different countries to make
sure that I have allies that that want
to um you know work with me uh that are
basically invested in um my policies my
influence in the region and look of
course China has its own problems and
I'm as an American I'm counting on that
hobbling them enough that it sort of
everything balances out and that there
isn't some runaway train where
everything's great for China and we're
too weak but that's that's the power
Dynamic so I'm looking at that and I'm
thinking H if China takes a stance on
Israel Palestine I'm going to be very
curious to see what the posture is and
again if I can believe what I saw in X
today their stance is that um Israel is
has gone too far and this is no longer
defense that can be read again I'm not
the person to go listen to Ian Bremer
he's going to be a far far wiser voice
in all this than I am uh or Ray Delio
for that matter but I'm gonna guess that
it's playing out something like this
that's a shot across the bow for America
to say hey
America not the thing to back we think
they need to be to back off if you keep
saying yeah yeah yeah they should be
defending themselves then okay one we
think that you're overextending we're
letting you know how we think about this
we're watching to see how far that goes
how tied up in that you goes what other
areas in the region pop off if obviously
Iran I think made a public statement
where they're like ah like we don't want
to see this go anywhere which would be
awesome but like this this is the
chessboard so China wants to see how
Tangled does America get into that
they're obviously not for Israel going
any harder are they going to get
involved are they not who knows we'll
see but if that's them setting the stage
for them to move something forward with
Taiwan that those are the pieces moving
around the chessboard that makes me go
okay uh what do I do if this really does
escalate into a World War a true global
global conflict what are the different
players looking for and how do I
position myself to um not get mauled by
all of this and to ideally actually be
able to take advantage of the
opportunities now I can't tell you I I
would would not trust myself enough to
be the purveyor of the news of what to
do in that I'm the person I trust to say
this is how you need to think through
the novel problem you need to be
resilient you need to understand that
opportunities are going to open up you
need to have enough dry powder that
you're able to take advantage of that
which means that you have to be fiscally
responsible and so anybody that's
telling you to just spend spend spend
and we can print money forever that is
not a person you want to listen to
that's somebody that's going to get over
extended and out over their skis so I
try to be really honest with myself and
others about the part you can listen to
me on and the part where you need to go
find somebody smarter so getting this
sort of geopolitical landscape don't
know I'm I'm listening to other people
but understanding how to have the mental
and financial fortitude to have an
all-weather strategy yeah that I've I've
got a take on that yeah that makes sense
I mean the incentives to me are very
very simple people don't want to don't
want to reduce their quality of life now
even if it means impoverishing their
grandchildren which to me
is one of the most horrific and
irresponsible things we can do as a
society but that is exactly what we've
been doing and and will continue I don't
see way to stop I don't either because I
don't know if you have this conversation
here in the US but in the UK it's like
what you want to reduce public spending
that's killing
people that that's the moronic level at
which we have the conversation doesn't
go any further than that yeah do you
think that's the problem I think that
that is the current language around the
forever thing which is what you just
said I don't want to reduce the quality
of my life and 15 years is a long time
to punt and maybe it's not 15 maybe it's
50 and so since I don't know the timing
and can't get it right yeah I'll punt so
print money uh take out debt I heard
back in the80s we had trillions of
dollars debt it's not a problem it's all
good and the bad news is and This falls
into the same category of thing as the
malleability thing where it's like you
can really get away with bad thinking
for a long [ __ ] time yeah and so it's
like is it bad thinking or is the world
going to get a clown on me in 10 years
because I was wrong and I mean I can
assure
you I I'm so confident that I'm right
about be
resilient understand human nature find
your way to ground truth be a prediction
engine but we'll see only the fullness
of time will
tell so what do we do with that what how
do you do you have a strategy for
minding
this it's going to sound very naive
after everything you've said but tell
the truth tell the truth change the
culture you know in terms
of look at the way that this format has
changed the way we
communicate the media empires of the
future are going to be built in the next
10 years and it's going to look like
something like this podcasters coming
together under one umbrella or various
media Outlets being formed from New
Media this is the future what we're
doing here did you know that the daily
wire made $200 million last year I
didn't know that but it doesn't surprise
me those guys are kicking ass bro I was
like God damn yeah yeah so trigger media
is going to be the next $200 million
company we'll see about that it's harder
to do in the UK so it might be a 50
million pound company we might move to
the us over time right exactly uh but
that's what I want to do uh and part of
the reason I want to do that the main
reason I want to do that isn't to make
$200 million it's to change the way we
have these conversations the triangle of
evil is uh ma Stalin Hitler and I think
that they I've read a lot about them and
they feel to me reflective of something
that's just real in the human
psyche um and and I have taken away from
reading about them so oddly enough
Hitler was like sort of the the slow boy
in all of this did not kill nearly as
many people as Stalin and Ma like which
growing up I never heard about I had no
idea that those were uh dark figures in
the world which is already startling but
reading about them uh getting back to
this idea of their so in fact we haven't
talked about this we sort of dance
around it the way I see the world is it
is a um a scale so you have right and
left just to keep it easy but there's
pathology on both sides M so if you go
too far in either direction you're going
to have a problem it doesn't matter so
Mao and Stalin are what the left look
like when they become pathological and
Hitler is what the right looks like when
it becomes pathological um even in in
and of itself I that's disputable but we
can get intoit me with it well people
don't like to hear this argument but
there's a reason that Hitler's party was
called the national socialists
interesting what does the right then
look like if it goes pathological well
this is the debate I
mean not only Nazism but also fascism I
mean the term fascism comes from the
word fascia which is a bundle in Rome
that was woven it's it's a collectivist
mindset both the fascist and and the
national socialists on a large number of
things were
uh leftwing in in the way that we
conceive of being leftwing now
economically
particularly um we have an interview on
our Channel with uh one of my favorite
guests ever he's a brilliant guy called
Steven Hicks uh Canadian Professor uh of
he's philosopher and historian of
philosophy and and if you kind of want
to delve into that I'd recommend people
go and check that out because I won't do
it justice here uh however I we can also
conceptualize it rather than going as a
scale as a Circle which is or or like a
a horseshoe or something where the two
extremes end up coming quite close
together because they end up operating
in similar ways um so it's a just a side
point really for for our discussion no
it's actually very interesting so uh
reading about them seeing that there's
this horseshoe shaped where
the
the they're trying to control everything
because and I'll even give them all I'll
give them the benefit of the doubt and I
will say they're not evil they really
believed that they had the right answer
now it's tough to look real close and
not feel like they weren't just [ __ ]
evil but that's too easy it's it's an
easy way to dismiss them let's say for a
second that they really believed in
their heart that they were going to do
good things for a lot of people and but
just real quick I just have to kill a
few of you mhm in order to get everybody
in line because I'm trying to distribute
things fairly or I'm trying to in the
case yeah the case of Nazi Germany like
hey we got a bum rap you know after
World War I like we got to rise out of
this somehow and uh but I'm going to
have to kill a few of you and I am going
to have to make sure that you don't say
anything bad against me and so to
distribute everything evenly uh we're
going to have to kill the koks and and
um but at the end of this everything's
going to be