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Secret History #2: How Societies Collapse | Predictive History | YouTubeToText
YouTube Transcript: Secret History #2: How Societies Collapse
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Summary
Core Theme
This lecture explores the cyclical nature of societal rise and fall, presenting three main theories (financialization, elite overproduction, and civilizational life cycles) and a synthesized model to explain societal dynamics, decline, and collapse.
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Okay. So, let's start class.
I'm going to review very quickly what we
did last class. So, last class we learn
about monotheism,
which is the idea of one true God. And
as I said last class, this marked a
intellectual revolution in human
history. And for monotheism we develop
three new ideas which are money
It's important to note that these ideas
have always existed in in human history.
But with montheism, these ideas became
the dominant paradigms and together they
will give us modernity
and create the world that we live in
today. Okay, so that's what we discussed
last class and remember last class we
also discussed that this created a lot
of problems for us. There are a lot of
benefits but there also a lot of consequences.
consequences.
Okay. So um we're going to continue the
story of humanity today and today I want
to focus on a very specific question.
Why do societies rise and why do they fall?
fall?
Okay. And um I know that
these first few classes may seem
abstract and theoretical, but that's
because we're developing the ethical
models in order to better understand our
world. So as we move on, we will start
looking at very concrete examples.
But for the first few classes, please be
patient. We will look we are going to
develop the theory to understand the
world. All right? So let's discuss
societies why they rise
and why they decline. Now
Now
um unfortunately we live in a world in decline.
decline.
So there are lots of signs that the
world is in decline. What are these
signs? Shout out shout out some signs. >> Wars.
>> Wars.
>> Yeah. Very good. Okay. So you have
conflict and wars. You look at the
situation in Ukraine. Look at the
situation in the Middle East. But also
you may you may have seen the news and
you have seen conflicts arising in
Southeast Asia, Thailand, Myanmar also
um Trump is about to send US troops to
Mexico and Venezuela. Okay. So we live
in a world of conflict. Um and that
tells us that the world is in decline.
What are some other signs?
>> Environmental issues.
Okay. We are
um putting too much pressure on the
environment. So the air, the water, the
land is is becoming much more toxic.
Okay. Good. What else?
>> Good. Yes. Unemployment is
going up. And not only that, but
people's attitude towards work is
declining. We live in an age when people
don't take work that seriously. People
are not as enthusiastic. They're not as
motivated to work hard as before.
We call this in China the balan age,
right? The age of bailan, meaning let it
rot. Like who cares? Don't take things
too seriously.
In America, the term is called quite
quitting. Okay? You pretend to work, but
you're not really working. What are some
So, also you have lower birth rate. And
this is a very important sign,
right? Because if you think about it, if
young people refuse to get married and
have babies, eventually the world is
going to die off, right? So, this is
actually a very important sign that the
world is in decline. And we're seeing
this happen throughout the entire world
in all societies. Um, the only exception
is Israel and Georgia, but these are
very small, rare cases for most societies.
societies.
uh there's rapid decline in birth rate.
Okay, you see a lower standard
standard
of living. Okay. And all this means is that
that
inflation, right? So people make less
money and they can afford less. Prices
go up but people's wages go down. So
that's another sign of decline.
Okay. What are some other signs?
>> Health issues like diabetes or
high blood pressure.
>> Okay. You also see higher stress, right?
Higher stress,
people feel more anxious, people feel
more depressed, people feel more
stressed. Emotionally, they feel drained.
drained.
Okay. People are less optimistic, right?
Okay. Also, this is really important is
the idea of debt,
right? Both public
and private.
There are lots of governments around the
world that are facing a fiscal crisis. A
fiscal crisis just means that they spend
more than they take in in tax revenue.
Um there are many families in China,
United States, throughout the world that
are heavily in debt.
Okay. So debt is a huge issue for the uh
world today. also
lower cohesion
and trust. And what this means is that
people no longer trust each other
as they did before. Society is less cohesive.
cohesive.
If you see if you walk on the street and
you see a man on on the street bleeding
or hurt, you're less likely to help him.
Okay. And this is very true not only in
China but also elsewhere as well. So
lower trust issues. What are some other signs?
>> Disease.
>> Okay. Greater disease. Yeah. Okay.
Increase in disease.
People are less healthy than before.
People are more stressed than before.
People are less optimistic.
So we can go on and on and on because
the signs of rapid social decline are
too many. Now
this is a these are signs of decline.
Well, if you look at rise then obviously
it's the opposite, right? >> Yeah.
>> Yeah.
>> People are much more willing to trust
each other rather than go into debt.
People will save money. People are
healthier. People are much more
people are having lots and lots of babies,
babies,
people are in
okay so these are all signs that uh
society is decline. The rise it's the
opposite. Um also another sign of
decline that's very important that
doesn't really happen in China but
happens in the western world is immigration.
immigration. Okay.
Okay.
Immigration. Immigration is a huge issue
in the western world and we will discuss
immigration in future classes. But
immigration is a sign of decline because
it reduces cohesion.
cohesion.
Okay. and it also reduces the standard
of um living. Okay. Another
um sign of decline is also housing prices
prices
go up. So people can no longer afford to
buy a house. This is true in China.
Young people can no longer afford to buy
a house. But it's also true throughout
the world. Okay? It's really hard for
young people to get by. Okay. All right.
Um, also fiscal crisis, right? We talked
about this, but the idea of fiscal
crisis is the government cannot afford a
lot of public expenditures.
In the future, maybe 5 10 years from
now, pension will be a huge problem for governments.
governments.
Okay. So these are all signs of rapid
decline. All right. Now, having done
this, what I'm what I'm going to do now
is go over some theories as to why this
is happening. Why is the world in decline?
decline?
Okay. And there are lots and lots of
theories, but I will present three
theories to you that I think are
interesting. Okay. The first is the idea
And this theory
um is proposed by a name by an
economist, a French economist named
Thomas Pikid
Pikid. Okay. And he wrote a book called
Capital in the 21st century.
It is a fantastic book. um you don't
have to read the book, but if you have a
chance, you should definitely pick it up
because it is a very easy um but very
illuminating read. And what he argues is
that what happens in society is that
capitalism transitions from face to face
to face. In the beginning you have consumer
consumer
capitalism meaning that
um what the society is trying to do is
create goods that consumers want to buy.
This is an er this is an era of rapid
wealth generation.
capitalism which is a period of
investment. Rather than build factories,
you put the money money into
the stock market. Okay?
Okay?
So you're trying to generate as much
money as possible. But what we discussed
last class that's very important is
wealth and money are not the same thing.
So in the first phase in super
capitalism you focus on the generation
of wealth. In financial capitalism you
focus on the generation of money and
then you move on to monopoly
capitalism which is where
just a few
companies control everything. And we
live in an era of monopoly capitalism.
And this happens because it is much more profitable
profitable
for companies to be to be to be
monopolies than to be in competition
with each other. Financial capitalism
um is looking to create as much money as
possible, not as much wealth. And so a
few companies come to dominate, become
monopolies. And that's the age we live
in today. Okay. Now why is this why is
this important? It's important because
it when we make this transition
people are no longer focused on working
hard. They're only focused on speculating.
speculating.
All right. So let me give you an example.
example. Um
Um
let's just say I'm an entrepreneur and I
want to make as much money as possible.
Well, what I do is I build a factory.
When I build a factory, I'm creating
real wealth because a factory um
requires you to hire workers. It
requires you to build technology. It
requires you to build goods that people
want to buy. But after I build a factory
and I make a lot of money,
I want to take this money and let it
grow as fast as possible. So, I put it
in in a stock market. Okay? And that's
just how people behave.
The problem is that if too many people
do that, then no one's really working.
No one's really no one's creating real
wealth in the economy. The other problem
is that
because of the way capitalism is set up,
if everyone's putting the money in the
stock market, the stock market grows too
fast and the real economy does not grow
that fast. Okay? And the difference is
stark. Thomas spent a lot of time
go going over um income tax just looking
at how much tax people paid. He did a
lot of statistical analysis and what he
discovered is
the real economy at in late stage
capitalism will go about 2%.
The financial economy
will go at 5%.
Okay. And this is really key. What this
is telling us is that if you have a
million dollars, you could choose to go
and open a restaurant or you could
choose to invest in the stock market. If
you open a restaurant, you will make at
most $20,000 a year. But if you were to
put in the stock market, you would make
$50,000 a year. So, everyone's going to
put all the money in the stock market,
which allows for the stock market to
increase. But the real economy is not
improving and therefore you have all
these issues arise. Greater
unemployment, greater debt, no one's
really working.
Okay, so that's the idea of
financialization. And what Pikody argues
is that this is just a natural cycle.
This is just a natural byproduct of
capitalism. We live in a state we live
Is this clear to you guys? Any questions
All right, let's move on to the second
And this
was proposed by a historian named Peter Turchin.
Turchin.
And Peter Turchin spent decades looking
at white societies rise and fall. He
looked at the Roman Empire. He looked at
the French Revolution.
He looked at many different examples.
And what he believed is societies
fall, decline, collapse because of the
idea of elite overp production. Meaning
you have too many powerful people
competing for limited positions of power.
power.
All right. So to understand this, I'm
going to talk about another experiment
called rat utopia.
And rad utopia was a series of
experiments conducted by an American
And what James Calhoun was trying to do
in his experiments was trying to figure
out what living in a world of abundance
and wealth and security meant. A after
World War II, the world was divided
between the United States and the Soviet
Union. It was the Cold War, but it was
also a time of increasing abundance due
to technology and peace and the
population was increasing. So, James
Calhoun conducted these experiments to
figure out what this meant for the
world. So, what he did was this.
He had a room, okay, that was sealed off
from the world. And in the room, he put
in food and water and housing for a
colony of rats, maybe like 10 rats at
first, but they quickly
um became 400, 500 rats.
And at first, the rats were really
happy. But no matter how Cahoun
um configured the experiment,
ultimately the rats always ended up
killing each other.
Okay. So what he discovered is if you
live in a world of abundance and
security, the end result is the rats
always kill each other.
And he kept on doing this for 20 years.
And he could never ever
create a situation in which the rats
lived peacefully. And he can never
figure out why this was the case. And
even today there's a huge debate as to
why this is a case. But he had a theory.
Okay? And the theory is this.
The rats were not competing for food.
They were really competing for status.
So, let's think about this. Okay. In a
state of nature, in the real world, rats
compete each other for mating rights,
right? So, uh you see a beautiful rat
and you you com you fight over her, right?
right?
The rat who wins out is now the alpha male.
male.
And the alpha male can have as many
female companions as he wants.
in nature? What will the other rats do?
>> Well, the other rats will probably run
away, go somewhere else, and find other
female companions, right? Because
everyone's trying to be the alpha male.
>> But in What's the problem with James
Why do they fight each other?
>> Because they can't be down.
>> There's no place for them to go. They're
stuck where they are.
>> You understand?
>> So status is what we call a zero sum game.
I win, you lose.
Okay? There can only be one winner.
But in nature, if I win, then the other
rats run away and try to figure out try
to try to build their own colony. But in
James Calhoun's experiment, there's no
place for them to go. And so all that
happens is they keep on fighting each
other until they they die.
Okay? And that's the idea of elite over
production. And that's what Peter
Turchin says.
The elite, the children of elite are
always fighting for positions of power.
Not normal people, it's the children of
the elite. But eventually elite have too
many children
and there are not enough positions of
power. Okay. Another another way of
saying this is that in China today there
are too many graduates of picking
university led and tinua university tin right
right
>> there. They want to be the big boss.
They want to have the power, but there's
too many of them.
Okay, there's no and there's no place
for them to go. And that leads to
conflict in society.
And ultimately what Peter Church has
discovered is if that's the case, then
elite over production will ultimately
lead to either war or revolution.
It will lead to the collapse of society.
And there's no way around this. Okay,
Now I want I want to go to the third
theory and the third theory is the idea
life cycle
and this is proposed by a German philosopher
philosopher
And what he argues is that
society, culture, civilization, it's no
different from a person. As a person, as
a human being, we go through a life
cycle. We are born,
we grow up, we mature, then we die,
right? And there's no way around this.
We all have limited life cycles. You can
live to 100, you can live to 150, but
eventually you'll die. And what also
Spangler says is that happens to society
as well. And there's nothing anyone can
do of this. So let's go over the life
cycle for for uh civilization. Okay. In
the beginning you are in the village
then you move to the town then you move
to the city then you develop the mega city.
city.
Okay not all civilizations will go
through the cycle but the successful
ones will go through the cycle. Okay,
you start off. So the Romans, right? The
Ting dynasty,
you start off in a village, then if
you're successful in a village, you
build a town. Then when you're in a town
and you're successful, you be you defeat
other towns and you build a city, they
become a mega city. Okay? And what Arch
Spangler says is at the height of the
civilization, the civilization must now die.
die.
Okay? So let's go over the theory. Well,
in a village, life is pretty simple.
People work hard,
okay? They are united. They have a
collective mentality.
Everyone's helping each other. And also
what's really important is
It's very common for
um mothers to give birth to 10 11 kids
in a village, right? And the reason why
is kids are free labor.
Um so you're incentivized to have as
many children as possible. Okay? So this
is the framework of a village.
But as you go up the civilization
ladder, as you mature as a civilization,
what happens is you have increased abstraction.
abstraction.
Abstraction is just a fancy word for
you're removed from reality.
Okay? So when you're in a village, you
understand everything, right? You
understand, oh, the food that I eat
comes from the seeds I implant, right?
But when you're in a city, guess what?
That those drinks you're drinking, you
have no idea where it comes from, right?
The food you're eating, you have no idea
where it comes from. It's all abstract
to you. It's all removed from reality. Okay?
Okay?
Um so
in the village, people are engaged in
working hard and in helping each other.
But as you move up, people become much
more individualistic,
right? You're concerned about your own
personal pleasure. You're concerned
about what how do I derive benefit from this?
this?
Okay? So, another way of saying this is
in a village, what keeps people together
are emotions and tradition
and relationships. But when you move to
mega city, what is it that holds people
together? It's money,
right? Money is the greatest abstraction.
The problem with money is that
it means we don't have to ever trust
each other.
In a village, if you get sick, everyone
comes and helps you, right? But in the
city, if you get sick, you go to the
hospital and pay the doctor. Your
neighbors don't have to care. Your
family doesn't have to help you.
>> Okay? So, you become individualized. You
become atomized.
Okay? And in this mega city, what
happens is because you are concerned
only about your own individual pleasure,
you don't work hard anymore. In fact,
what you want to do is you want
immigrants to work for you,
right? You don't you no longer care
about other people. All you care about
is yourself. And guess what, guys? You
don't want to have any children,
okay? And that's why the mega city
represents the death of civilization.
And what is Beijing? What is Shanghai?
What is Washington DC? What is New York?
What is Paris? What is London? They're
all mega cities.
Okay. And that's why we have these trends.
trends.
And what Oswald Spangler says is there's
nothing anyone can do about this. It is
a natural life cycle. All right. So
these are the three major theories I
want you guys to remember. Okay. Um
sorry c can you give the microphone?
Yeah. Can you just speak to the fact more?
more?
>> What if there is a um a universal target
that that force everyone needs to work together?
together?
You know
will that work out to like um
everyone just put down all of these
problems and you know figure out the
Yeah. Okay. I understand. That is a
great question. Okay. So, the question
to rephrase it, okay, is yeah, but what
if there's an external threat threat?
Okay. An external threat. If there's an
then surely this system, this life cycle
um can be extended, right? and external
threats are examples of hey let's say
there's an alien invasion
let's just say um China's being attacked
by the United States right
right
and unfortunately the answer is it does
not matter
because once you've reached the point of
a mega city first of all you're so
selfish you're self-absorbed you are not
The other issue is you're no longer
capable of working together because you
don't trust each other. Okay.
Okay.
So the external threats don't factor
doesn't really matter. But that's a
great question. Thank you for for
asking. Okay. Yes. In theory, oh my god,
if aliens come, then humans would unite.
No, that's not what would happen. Okay.
What would happen is certain factions of
humans would try to align the aliens to
All right. All right. So, having gone
through these three theories, what I'm
going to do is combine them together to
create a comprehensive holistic
holistic
broad theory of why societies rise and
fall. Okay. All right. And the problem
with theories is they are simplistic and
inaccurate and imprecise. So, so I warn
you that this theory has limitations.
But for our purposes, what we want to do
is have a working framework and then
when we apply this framework to concrete
examples, we can better refine this
framework. Okay? All right. So I warn
you that this framework there a lot of
problems with it but it is a useful tool
for us to analy an analyze society in
the past. Okay. All right. So I'm going
to make generalizations about how
society is structured. So at the core of
society the very powerful people they
these are certain families. Okay these
are the founding families of this nation.
nation.
And there's not that many of them. maybe
10, maybe 100, okay? But at most 100.
So if you go back to the Roman Empire
and Roman Empire um controlled most of
Europe as well as Anatolia, Egypt, it
was a huge area area, but really there
were only about 200 families that
control the Roman Empire. Okay. All
right. So how these families express
power, how they control power in society
is through is through three mechanisms.
Okay. three pillars of power and these
three three pillars are finance.
Okay, finance we talked about last
class. It's just central banking. All right,
right,
Religion is just what people believe.
How how to control what people believe.
Now the religion of today is science and technology.
technology. Mhm.
Mhm.
All right. Now, um for the purpose of to
save time, I'm not going to go too
deeply into intelligence and religion,
but I will in future classes. Okay? I
just I just need you to remember that
there are three pillars of power at the
core of society. Finance, intelligence,
and religion. And it's their nexus, their
their
culmination that allows the elite to
control everyone else. Okay? So from
this nexus
they will control all aspects of society
including schools,
including the military, including government,
including the media,
including culture,
including crime, the mafia. Okay? every
aspect of society that you can imagine
is being controlled in some respect by
this nexus of power.
Okay. Also you have like uh
corporations, right?
And then at the outer edge are the people.
people.
Okay, the people because they're so
massive, the massive people, they're the
ones who generate wealth for society. So
this system is designed to create as
much energy as possible through the
people. Okay, energy because the harder
the people work, the more wealth is
generated in society.
All right? So a metaphor that that we
can use is this. Think of society as a
corporation. The people are the workers,
right? They're the ones who do the real
work. the elite, these families are the owners
owners
and these people in between the middle
class are the managers.
um
metaphor and it's not accurate but it's
useful for analysis. Okay. So the
families are the owners of the
corporation, the people the workers, the
people in between the managers or the
managers and we call these people the
middle class. There have been other
names for it in China before in history.
We call them the scholar officials.
Right? Um another name for them is
something called the professional
managerial class PMC.
Also another name for them is the petty boujo.
boujo.
Okay, again you don't need to know these
names. For the purpose of simplicity, we
will just call them the middle class.
All right, does that make sense? Okay,
so having gone through the structure of
society, let's talk about what happens
when society rises and falls. Okay, when
it rises, the dynamic of these three
groups, it's very interesting. When it
rises, the families who own the nation
are happy to let the managers control
society. And this is what we call
democracy, right? And the managers are
always providing feedback to the
families and saying we should treat
workers better. We treat workers better
then they will work harder.
Okay? And at this point, things are
great. The people feel that they have a
voice in the system. They're making good
money. Everyone's really happy.
But what happens because of of elite
over production is these families
produce too many children who want
position of power.
Basically, they want to spend money from
the corporation. And now the corporation
is in trouble. It's in debt.
Okay. So, at this point, what happens is
this. You would think the managers would
say to the families, "Listen guys, we
need to be more fair to the people." But
what really happens in reality is the managers
managers
exploit the people. Okay? The managers
will now deceive. They will lie to the
people. They will commit fraud. They
will exploit the people. Why? The reason
why is this. What the managers really do
is something called um rent
rent seeking
seeking behavior.
Okay, rent seeeking behavior just means
they have a certain power that they want
to exploit in order to extract wealth
from other people. So for example, the
more classic example is you own an
apartment in Beijing, right? So you rent
it out to someone who needs to live in
Beijing and you collect rent. Well, this
is true for um a lot of people. So if
you are a lawyer, you collect rent
because only you can work in the court
system. So if you want to sue someone or
if you want you have a contract dispute,
you have to go to a lawyer. Okay? The
lawyer is colle collecting rent and
that's what the middle class the
professional managerial class do. They
are rent seekers. Okay.
Okay.
Another way of saying this is guys if
you go to a company you know what the
workers do right? Do you know what the
managers do? They really don't do that
much. Okay. And this is true for the
middle class. like
um the managers, the middle class live
very nice lives. And so when the
company's in trouble, the managers are
like, "Well, I have a very nice life. I
have a very nice job, but I don't really
don't do anything, so I I'll probably be
the first to get fired." So they have to
show their worth. They have to prove
their worth. And therefore, they exploit
the workers. Okay? Do you understand?
They push the workers harder to generate
more wealth.
All right? So in the decline phase this
is not really a problem but what happens
over time is the conflict within the
elite gets worse and worse elite over
production and what will eventually
happen is they will form into factions
that compete against each other for power.
power. Okay.
Okay.
And when that happens then society
becomes aligned into factions. The
factions will bring in certain elements
of the middle class which will then
and now
what happened is civil war or revolution
and this marks the collapse of society.
What's really important for us to
remember is this is a natural cycle and
no amount of n of external threat will
change that that that dynamic. Why?
because it's very common for these
factions to align with mercenaries.
Okay? So there's foreign invasions not
because some guy overseas is like, "Oh,
this society is unstable. I'll come and
invade." What happens often is a certain
faction invites mercenaries into the
nation as part of the power struggle.
And then the mercenaries realize, you
know what, we can stick this for ourselves.
Right?
So when you reach the collapse phase,
the society is much too insular,
much too racked with infighting to care
about external threats. And that's why
if there's an alien invasion, it really
wouldn't change anything. Okay?
Okay?
All right. Is this clear to you guys?
>> Yes. So again, this is the model we're
working with to explain the rise and
fall of societies.
At first, in this system, the elite
families are willing to let the measure
class incentivize and motivate the
workers to do their best. And you do
that through democracy, through openness,
openness,
through meritocracy, through innovation.
But over time as these elite families
have more and more children and these
children are engaged in renting
behavior. They basically want to steal
profits from the corporation the
corporation runs into trouble and the
managers are forced to coers the people
which leads to greater conflict and
eventually over time the collapse
happens when society breaks up into
different factions which leads to civil
war or revolution or war.
Okay. So that's a model working with.
All right. Any questions?
Are you guys clear about this? Yeah.
Yeah.
>> On what if they just like don't have
that much children?
>> Excuse me. What what's the question?
>> Like on what if the family that the
elite families don't have that much
children? Will this model still works?
>> Oh, that's a great question. Okay, so
what if families don't have that that
many children? Okay, that's a really
interesting question and the answer is
these families first and foremost want
to have as many children as possible,
right? Because how do you pass on your power?
So maybe the so maybe the middle class
don't want that that have that many
don't want to have that many children
but the elite will have a lot of
children because they need to be able to
pass on their power and privilege to
their children.
In fact the elite is first and foremost
concerned with passing on their
privilege to the next generation.
Okay. And that's why these families
expand so fast. And also who wants to
marry into these families? Who wants to
marry into them? Everyone.
All right? And they have to marry into
other families in order to maintain
their power. Okay? So having children in
a marriage is a way for the elite to
Okay. But that's a good question. Any
Okay. So, let us summarize what we've
learned so far and discuss what is it that
that
allows societies to rise and fall. So,
we'll look at three phases. The rise,
Okay? Okay. So when I mean decline, I
don't mean like things are getting
worse. I mean things aren't improving.
Okay. So rise is when things get better.
Decline is when things are stagnant or
getting slightly worse. Collapse is when
society is about to fall apart. Okay. So
if you look at these three particular
phases of society, there are different characteristics.
characteristics.
In the when society rises, it is first
and foremost open.
Open just means that you have opportunities
opportunities
for social mobility in a society. If
you're a poor person, you can make
money. You you can become wealthy. Your
talent is appreciated. It's a
meritocracy. It's innovative. If you
criticize society, people are like,
"Thank you for criticizing us because
criticism makes us better people." Okay,
there's open debate. Now what's really
interesting is
um most young societies or open
societies okay so for example in 1950s America
America
was a democracy right China was communist
communist
but this is really interesting 1950s
they were both open societies you could
criticize leaders in fact you were
encouraged to criticize leaders China
was as democratic back then as the
United states. Okay. So, it's not about
political systems. It's just about the
uh what state you are in social
development. So, if you're young, you're
going to be open. You're going to be
democratic. You're going to be metocratic.
metocratic.
You want to learn. So, you will listen
to criticism. Okay? That's the first
great characteristic of a society on the
rise. It's openness.
But when you reach a decline phase,
guess what? Society becomes bureaucratic.
Okay, bureaucratic. Why? Because if we
go back to this model,
as a company loses more and more money,
the managerial class is concerned with
maintaining their jobs. So they become bureaucrats,
bureaucrats,
okay? They have to prove their worth. So
they create a lot of paperwork. They
make everyone follow the rules.
Society becomes more and more bureaucratic.
Then in collapse phase z becomes a authoritarian.
Okay. Before the client is all following
the rules. Now it's just rule by force.
I know there's but there's another way
of saying this. In the rise phase what
matters is the consent.
Okay. So these three groups, the elite,
the middle class, and the people,
they're all working together to improve
society. There's consent.
But when you hit the decline phase, now
it's there's deception.
And then when you hit the collapse
So let me give you an example. Let's
just say uh we are in the rise phase,
right? Well, we want to go to lunch. So,
we discuss where we go to lunch. I want
to go McDonald's, but you guys want to
go to Pizza Hut or KFC. We have we have
to debate and then eventually we vote
and whoever wants to go like the
majority wins. Okay, that's a consent
phase. When we hit the decline phase,
deception, I'm the teacher. So, I say to
you, "Hey guys, let's go to McDonald's
because Wong Fay will be there or Jack
Ma will be there or it's free hamburgers
today." Okay, I'm lying to you to get
what I want.
And then in the cloud space is I say to
you, I'm the teacher and I will beat you
up if you don't if you don't listen to
So the rise phase, what matters first
and foremost is unity of the people.
We're all working together. There's
empathy. There's concern for other people.
people.
I want to be your friend. We need we
need to work together to make society
better. Okay. But in the decline phase,
it's really about stability.
It's about making sure that society
maintains a status quo.
Okay. When we reach a collapse phase, it
is survival. Screw you.
I want to live and if I have to kill
you, I'll kill you. All right.
All right.
So this is a map that shows us this what
happens when satic rises, declines and
collapses. Now what's really interesting
the timing. Okay,
so if you actually look at
society's the timeline, it goes like
this. Okay, there's a steep
rise, the decline is slow and the
collapse is sudden. So
So
people think oh decline you know things
get worse worse but you know we follow
this trend we we'll still be here but
actually the collapse happens really
fast. Why? The reason why is this system
External shocks is a perfect storm
of crisis.
So another way of saying this is
maybe society prepares for okay if
there's a plague we'll do this. If
there's a climate crisis we'll do this.
If there's a drought we'll do this. If
there's a war we'll do this. Okay. What
society is not prepared for is these
things happening all at once. The plague,
plague,
the drought, war,
war,
it's revolution. They all happen at
once. It's a perfect storm. And that's
what leads to the clouds because society
is not prepared for this.
Okay? And why is society not prepared
for this? Because when you hit the
authoritarian phase, you're not allowed
to criticize the system anymore.
The problem are those who speak out. The
problem is those who point out the
problems of society.
In the rise phase, those who criticize
society are the heroes. They are
appreciated. They are rewarded. In the
class phase, those who speak out are the
enemies of society.
And therefore, society cannot be
prepared for any external threats which
Any questions?
Okay. So this is the anical model that
we're working with and again we're going
to apply it to the present and then
we're going to apply it to the past.
Okay. So with this analyical model what
we can do is make certain predictions
about the future. So I will make these predictions
and I expect these things happen in the next
next
after 10 years or 10 to 20 years. Okay,
I'm not like I don't know the time
frame. Okay, I expect these things to
happen. Okay, the first thing that's
going to happen in the western world is
So remember in the rise phase society is
democratic and open and meritocratic but
as you move on it becomes more
bureaucratic and ultimately
authoritarian. Okay. So we will see the
United States Europe become much more
authoritarian. you will see a collapse
of democracy and freedom in these nations
nations
and and already we're seeing this happen
in the United States where Trump is
using more and more military to resolve issues
issues right
right
so that's the first prediction and this
is going to happen throughout the
western world
second thing is economic collapse so
so
as there is let As people have less and
less right to speak up, they feel less
invested in the system. They're less
willing to work. Therefore, you have
economic collapse. People don't believe
in the system anymore. Okay? The system
is in crisis.
This will lead to immigration.
The government is like, you know what?
If the people don't want to work, screw
them. Let's bring in immigrants to do
the work. Okay? this this is let's
replace our population
but the people are not going to sit back
and take it right this leads to civil war
people are not killing each other on the
streets and the government is like you
know what if we kept if we continue to
let them fight eventually they're going
to come after us so what we'll do is
send them off to like these stupid
pointless wars overseas
Okay, so now you have stupid wars,
And this these are my five predictions
for the world for the next 5, 10, 20 years.
years.
Okay, Europe and America
will see less freedom and democracy.
There'll be economic collapse, increase
immigration, civil conflict, and then
ultimately stupid foreign wars. And I'm
in a sequence. I'm saying you'll see all
five things. Okay? But they may happen
Any questions?
Was this clear to you guys? Yeah. Thank you.
you.
Is there any chance that um the
government tries to use a war to
um distract the people?
Like they they're trying to hide all of
the collapse of the society and their country.
country.
>> Yeah. Yeah. That's a great question and
the answer is that's what wars are for.
It's to distract the people, right?
Because if you don't distract the
people, they'll come and revolt against you.
you.
So you either send them to a war or you
could have a French revolution on your hands,
hands,
>> right? That's your option. War or
revolution. I think war is the better
option. That's why we're heading into a
world at war.
>> Not revolution.
>> Okay. No, no. I'm I'm saying like if you
don't send the people to war, they will
revolt against you.
>> So you send off send off to war to
distract them,
to get rid of them. But what if they're right?
>> Okay, there's no right and wrong here.
Okay, guys. Okay. All right. All right.
Okay. I'm I apologize. Okay. But one
thing that you will learn in my class is
there's no right and wrong. There's no
logic. Okay? It's not like it is immoral
to send people to war. I know that.
Thank you very much. Okay. But I'm
trying to explain to you how power
works. That's a theme of this course.
I'm trying to explain to you how people
in power think and behave.
All right? And again, I keep on saying
this, I don't know if I'm right.
But what I'm doing is I'm presenting a
theory, a model that we can use
to make predictions. And if these
predictions work out, if it actually
happens, then our model, there's some
accuracy to our model. Okay, we'll have
to refine our model, but there's some
accuracy to it. But hey, hey, if
tomorrow Trump, Putin,
she all get together and says, "Let's be
best friends, then I'm wrong." Right?
Okay. So, so that's what we're trying to
do in this class. We're not trying to
argue what is right, what is wrong, what
is just,
because quite honestly, it doesn't
matter, right? Morality doesn't matter
here. It's about power.
We're trying to understand how the world works.
works.
And when we do and if we do that, then
maybe we can work together and build a
more just world. But first, we need to
figure out how the world really really
Okay, great guys. Um, so we will
continue this story next class. I'll see
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