cover of episode E96: Rudyard Lynch and Samo Burja Talk The Left’s Future and Problems with Modernity

E96: Rudyard Lynch and Samo Burja Talk The Left’s Future and Problems with Modernity

2024/11/21
logo of podcast "Upstream" with Erik Torenberg

"Upstream" with Erik Torenberg

Chapters

The discussion covers the aftermath of the U.S. presidential election, the left's current state of shock and disarray, and potential future strategies.
  • Trump's unexpected win and the left's lack of energy and protests.
  • The left's emotional exhaustion and search for a new strategy.
  • Potential trial balloons from the Democratic party to mobilize the population.

Shownotes Transcript

Hey, upstream listeners, today we're trying something a little different. Last week, my friend's rodier linch and sam o berga had a lifestream conversation on what if artist, a youtube channel on the turpentine network, and we're releasing their discussion here. They cover a wide range of topics, including the aftermath of the presidential election, the decline of french influence in africa, the psychology of modernity and more. Please enjoy.

Um hi everybody, this is the second lifestream we've done recently and i've brought on my friend sama bursik. We've known each other for, like I would say, three years you were one of the first people I met when I dropped at at school. And emo has a lot of really interest in content.

He runs a sink tank with a lot of writers, and he also runs the podium magazine. And so thank you so much for coming here. It's a real pleasure to .

have you tells a pressure that was a pleasure radar. I think it's have been a very event for past few weeks. Has the election gone? Uh, how you have expected in the aftermath are you expected I think would not actually change IT about IT? Again.

that's an interesting question. where. I predicted trump would win a month in advance because I was looking at the collective right gust.

And you find for that guests, they're often multiple people study individual variables, but they are unable to see the underlying broader trans. But the individual variables don't work that often or they are often spac evidence. And so I could see almost every single trend made trump look Better and almost every single event made communal look worse. And that's why I predicted trump would win. And my fundamental reaction here, as I don't think we've seen in the full end point of the election, I was surprised at how little energy there was, but I think that we are in a play where how little fully done.

Do you mean how little energy there was on the democratic party push back? Where have been no protests, for example, right? Like going out and in sentences go where I live in in twenty sixteen.

Ah you truly saw like massive protests. You saw like a deep disbonds. Cy, now almost like this weak sense of giving up.

And I don't think this will last. I think this is just an initial shock. So love to hear your thoughts on that.

of course. Yeah, my idea here is I think the left is an a fundamentally dangerous position. And I believe that they know that they're not really in a good place and I think they're looking for something for applausive deniability to act. But it's unclear what that is.

And I think the left is holding a collective breath where they wonder, what is, what are we gonna next? Because I think, because I I paid a friend to watch ten hours of bread tube and write a strategic analysis of where the left is at now. And i'm going to make a video about IT.

But what he said, his study of all these leftist creators is they knew things weren't working, but they don't have a Better idea. And so they're kind of stuck in this distro. And I think that symbolically true of the left in general. And I also think they've burned through their emotional circuits where I think they've raised the emotional anti so much. They can't keep IT .

going forever the way the emotional anti was already exhausted even when joe biden was running. You can feel that the earlier biden campaign was lower energy than the first biden campaign and the house struggle in the switched to kala, you know, Harris, there was a wave of truth enthusiasm. IT was after third. He was like all the legacy media organizations in unison, basically declaring her a good candidate.

I did not see if sense of existential dread or worry that tram presidency, a strange way on some level, think they just expected to win, think they thought they were so obvious and that they were so bored of making the anti from argument they already called from a fascist, like, what more can you do? Uh, so now I think they're literally mild depressed, their mild and shock at the world. Uh, and I think this will not last.

I think within two to three weeks we're going to start seeing the first trial balloons. What do I mean? Individuals from the democratic party will speak to try to narrow what the defeat is and to try to mobilize the population of particular thing.

Now they might redo project twenty twenty five as the two sort of like booky men, right? So you know trump one. And then we're basically fighting project twenty twenty five. Um I think the previous anti term campaign rested a lot on the millennial generation as the organization and active back part of IT is milanello just got old.

Anyone who made their career complaining about trump eight years ago, well, that was eight years ago, and they must soon promoted to the top of the party, right? And they know IT. So if you like, maybe like their teams not rewarding them quite enough for them.

You've raised several very good points. One of witch is I was really shocked at the asteroid turfing commute hill because I have a background in media, and I I know how these agencies work. I know who how content craters work.

And the fact they changed within twenty four hours means that they have a very, very well organized media machine. IT means that they can create any narrative and apply IT overnight, because they have been doing this for years. And that should make you back pedal and think, what else was asteroid f, that's the first point.

The second point is the left Operates under a tremens amount of emotionality, and their greatest strength is their ability to get inside the heads of their followers. And the left is capable of so much in group cohesion due to that end. They use emotionality in their moral code at, because the more emotional you are, the Better a person you are. And thus way you are protecting .

your ego at all. Yes, whenever you are repeating a hockey point, you are defending yourself perception as a good, positive, moral, righteous person. Also, you are allowed event for your frustrations, like part of the fundamental psychology.

Gy, for lead to this world view is that aggression is bad. You can only guess against the aggression. So every time when you identify applausive or skin goody aggress or you feel very alive because all of your nature, the anger that you can moral, uh moral backing more very much and that's actually .

that's the unabomber point. And I think the unit bomber, although of course I do not support terrorism, I think he makes several very intelligent philosophic points. And I find that funny.

He's a pole because of, of course, a pole would say that about communism. And so they've burned through their emotional circuits. And what I see for the left now is that there, I believe, them to be in a position of fundamental weakness where A I, the woodness in its ultimate combination.

And finally, the, uh, there is in the internet. These three things really put the manager, erik class, in a difficult place. And I think they fundamentally know that they are on desperate ground. And so I believe they're trying to take over institutions as rapidly as possible so that they so that their people can get removed due to natural technological mrta craic change.

I think that the three points you raised, at least the internet, is that cuts both ways, the sort of the chinese model of a controlled society with the internet. That is the ultimate opportunity to make every citizen legible, perhaps with the help of A I systems, every citizen traceable. The alternative division is the internet of the nineteen ninety two, thousands of which we see, I think, on elon musk x dot com.

And perhaps now ever more so on youtube and perhaps also on facebook. Like I I know you know that, uh, there are many great channels that get demonetized on youtube quite aggressively and that there was a change away from freedom of of speech over the last ten years, even as demand for a variety abuse as sky rocket. So the E U, in my opinion, wants to go down the china track.

They don't justify IT in terms of like, you know mark is leaning m ism. They justified, unlike you know anti hate beach ea a like even elements of super protecting a pride to see if the citizens right. But really what is attempted is a digital bureaucracy.

So when you go on mine, you are always in a world garden. The world garden is controlled by obscure corporate policy. Behind the scenes, the corporate policy is dictated by government, created in dialogue with government.

And we have ample evidence. This was the case with the major social media giants in europe, and I think in the united states. Let's remember, you can now follow alex Jones on x dot com. I don't think he actually is love on youtube to remember when he was basically banned from the internet, like four or five platform sign, multi evensen push him off the internet, right? And i'm not saying I would endure everything election, han says, but he's kind of a clearing in the coal mine.

Yes, I I agree with that. And when I look at the european union, I see some similarities with china due to bureaucrats ruling in class. And there's certain ruling .

class of us and style rule, yes.

And that ruling class in prints architect traits upon a society, irrespective of its context. So there are similar aries seeing feudal japan and pdl europe, because they both have the world, are nobility in charge, but their societies, that is, zero contact with the and with the european unity.

Is that to be true? And a video I need to make soon, because it's been coming to me lately, is I believe we exist on the edge of what is possibly one of the most important historic events ever. And that is whether the internet will be free or whether IT be controlled. Because if the internet is free, we get biology universe of the network becoming the new government.

And I would return to the evil europe, where in medieval europe you have with the internet, you'd see both localization and trans nationalization, because everyone who would share values would moved to montana, and they would work a job that would be in the big city beforehand, remotely, but at the same time, like the would fault st. Fan base. This is a we are a transnational organization where you guys have similar values, you listen to similar content.

I'm sure you share a lot of i'm for a lot of you watch emo. You have these these non national triangulation of values that breaks down the centralized government because the internet can organize people more efficiently than the centralized government. The second .

time provides a straight forward alternative for the most important aspects of control. In a classic twenty century manager, erik society. A lot of people don't understand that in the latest via union in the seventies and sixties and eighties, the consequence for speaking against the party wasn't that you were immediately dragged off to a gool.

Consequence was you would never work in a desirable industry again. You were on a black list. Now, if this sounds familiar and disturbing me, maybe I trip B, I remember the twenty times I know, you know, many people who are fired and became unhurried in their industries for things they said in a capacity, private, free citizens on the internet. yeah.

Now this is in the absence of any like speech laws, right? This was the defect of social regime. So I think the internet not only allows people to network in the way you accurately described, if IT is allowed to be free, IT also allows people, in an unsupervised way, contact with each other maturity, right? So they can, in fact, create their own alternate economy.

They can create their own alternate educational institution. And uh, you know, when do you have access to information onto you have access to economic opportunities. And once you have freedom of assembly in digital space, even if in physical space, the right of assembly has been sort of a you shut down as hard as you can, right you you're very limited what you are allowed to do in terms voluntary association ation.

Even in the united states. Uh, I think at that point you have recreates the public square, like you said, and perhaps return to the medieval or even of the police rate, because the public square of a police existed no matter what the government, a physical space. You went there to trade, you went there to speak, you went there to socialize. And no one could stop you. No one could borrow you from entering in yeah, if you weren't in out all I agree with that.

And there's a bug that in the time line where the internet can defeat the government, the other timely is we've said this before, we have tea screens where the level of surveilLance our state has is vastly greater than George orwell could have ever dreamed due to AI, due to these things. Track all of your information. They know .

your purchase history.

uh they know where .

you walk cit physical exactly.

They know where you're physically present ah they know who you text in most communication ation now by text um they know your sexual habits. They know how fast you breathe at night. And if the state can have this information in parent with A I and robots, we will end up in one of the worst estate pi as ever.

And I feel comfortable saying that because I will be dead if this time line works. And the consequences of what I say now don't really matter. We, as i'm passed the fresh hold, but we exist in this very critical moment. And I like to convey to people in power watching the most important thing you could do now, and I would give anything else for that, is establishing data protections on people and passing various laws in making encrypted structures so that the government could not consume every single second of our life.

think that he is extremely important that we either make the individuals to pick government institutions, or alternatively, we also perhaps make government transparent, who transparency government would be if all government functions. I mean, all we're always available to the public.

Can you imagine what the world would be like where you log into a feed and you can see the meeting of the president? Now, of course, maybe you can keep secrets from china, but have you notice where your phones are made or not keeping any secrets from china? Yeah, sort of like china knows everything about the U.

S. U. S. Knows everything about china. We broke that back to us. Uh, so who are we hiding from? One and way we're hiding from the chinese population, hiding from the american population, the justification, hiding secrets from each other. Now this is a little bit there's way more truth this than you would think in many historical periods you see notional political enemies basically respect class privilege like that's the reason why sometimes you have non assassination equilibria uh between elites because, you know, to elites fighting, let's say they are both fuels, for example, or they are both bureaucratic.

Neither of them wishes to engage in a kind of warfare that destroys their own underpinning of power in the other country because they understand this will be crippling and damaging to them, and also eliminate darabi to interface with that new territory. Arguably, that's precisely what happens when the germans and desperation in world one supported the ball revolution in russia. Suddenly, centuries of german influence over imperial russia vanished because the system changed.

The germans were powerful in imperial russia, one of the bulk of germans and german, the ones they were, the ability they would write sometimes to senior positions, like senior generals in the imperial military and atta. And you know, because of this, uh, there was a deep break politically in europe. And I I can name many other examples, and i'm sure you've talked about this on on your show as well because .

I know you're familiar. yes. So i'd like I like a desire .

to preserve the political structure, right? And I think currently were an equilibrium where citizens are becoming more and more transparent to government. Only thing that saving us is the government is incapable of processing information, but the technology to process information gets a little Better every year.

Yes, it's really remarkable how much information the government has and how poorly they make decisions. Because i'm going to use the far right as an example where the government should have infinite knowledge on the american far right, because they can read the text of everyone involved, but they actually make profound miscalculation of how to the right thinks.

Or another example is that people frequently, the american government, could very, very easily get statistics on how poor and desperate the average american as they could. If they haven't made an A I language model to read to the public's text yet, I would be very shocked. So they could make a language, A I model, to look at the emotionality of the population at any given time and then develop strategies to get elected in stuff based on people's private. But they're not using that effectively. It's insane.

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I think IT is always the case that people imitate to a great degree uh, of those around them, those who came currently in the united states, both the democratic party until a much less extend the republican party are aping hot political careers, uh, that were mainly in a world that no longer exists.

Yes, we are still trying to be, you know little clinton of this generation or the geo bian of this generation or on the republic's until trust, mastery and Victory. People are trying to be the ronal brain of this generation yes um people want to repeat the old recipe for success, but that country doesn't exist anymore. Nineteen fifty.

AmErica doesn't exist. Nineteen, nineteen, sixty, ninety eighties, even early two thousands. AmErica is kind of a foreign country.

Like I I chAllen the audience to watch some T V. From the early two thousands. Like just watch some shows. There has been massive social change. And every statistic shows master economic change as well.

You are right. It's crazy where I was watching a huey Lewis video yesterday. And humi lus was a singer from the eighties.

And IT was crazy watching because he was known for being one of the more milk toast in Normander. And so this is what enormity producers and you compare IT to our society. This would never be made today.

And it's often in things that people don't notice where, for example, standards of sexual propriety have actually become significantly more conservative in the last generation where I think nudity and films have crashed by fifty percent in the last two years. So that's one thing. Second, daily almost everyone's White.

And this is an los Angeles, a city that's only a third White ancestry. Or it's like it's over half White latinos having White ancestry, one third american not dispensing weight. Then you also have a society where a people are broadly middle class.

And it's interesting, even verbal stuff like at the beginning of IT, they show a radio, a radio show in the radio shows talking in this very convivial, joking way that you would never hear now. And it's little stuff like that, or not that little that adds up over time. And I say that because I grew up in rural pennsylvania in the two thousands, and that amErica was still very identifiable to the simpsons and john hues and classic americana, because I only think we can reference maracana in our social vocabulary.

Now we can't go back further. And maracana, post world war art, and the, I say, at some point, the last twenty years, we went from giant, huge samsung to, I call IT blade runner, sixteen hundreds. That's what I call modern america, a combination of blade runner with the sixteen hundreds wars of religion.

I think that uh, that description is like fairly accurate, right? You have these like type scale units of economic production. Be at the like you know, compounding, make a corporations or the, you know slightly to stop an L A.

You know, others can biggest how to study or not. Li is, but you know, san france is good. This point is like famous, this cyber punk, you actually have sub driving cars, harrassed by A A W less experience, yelling at the cars and refitting the cars.

And the cars are somehow made by superrich corporation. But somehow superrich corporation can keep the car safe from variance. And of course the police, like, do nothing.

And there are the strange situation where you you can be riding in a luxury self driving vehicles. Ly from the future, like those White gus and a yet you are in a way exposed as if you lived in the third world. Yeah, in the way you are living, you're living in first third world. And first, it's in the same city, in the same time, in the same place. Yatches laid runner predicting I that's all.

Those are all very good points, and I call IT blade runner in the sixteen hundreds and the sixteen hundreds of favor ears of history, because they were facing a secular cycle in the same way we are. Are you familiar with secular cycle sema?

You have a secular cycle theory of yet.

So we have that. We have a religious fanaticism, and if you showed our political differences, I believe, are basically religious. And I can explain that, if you'd like, because it's an entire world view. So we have sexual cycle mass, political polarization, society on the verge of a civil war. You have the effects of globalization, you have incredible inequality, you have an information technology disrupting the previous power structures, and you have, uh, what I think is becoming a more multipole world where I was shocked when I saw the french in the turks are fighting a proxy war in libya. I thought, are we back in sixteen and thirty seven?

Well, they're certainly contesting the medication, ian, in a very wide way. H, you know perhaps about the dispute on natural finds off the post of cyprus. Cyprus of course being divided between a cyprus which is implicated greek and northern cyprus which is implicated turkish ah both turkey and europe of course hunger alternate sources of natural gas now that russian natural gas is no longer an option.

French have sent uh ships to be stationed in greek ports and the greeks of course have welcomed this because I think on some level they're afraid they're gonna lose more islands in the future, gone immense economic construction. And then let's add on top of this um west africa, where the french used to be very influential there, no longer influential. One of the last remnants of sort of their colonial empire is the revoke e influence in the middle st.

Post a few more, a few corners of west africa, in several places in west africa. Uh, the government has no longer backed by friend special forces, very IT easy to talk and easy to cook. Government is not back by friends special forces, but by vigor. And they pay wagner in mineral rights, that being the informer. Well known russian private military CoOperation.

Yes.

they been sort of exiled into africa, which is funny, right? Like they have been completely, their wings completely clipped at home because of what happened with the a, the the tank drive to moscow. I think that was last year.

There was twenty, twenty three time. So much happens. You have to, you have to think, is this last month, is this last year?

Yes, another six hundred, another sixteen hundreds comparison, the huge mercenary armies.

And well, exactly that. The swiss mercenary of the modern and the us. Has its mercenary too.

The question I would like to ask you is I knew about Francis influential africa with the rank africa. And I when I, right, like four years ago, when I dropped out, I made the protection phone will grow in africa. I have no idea why I said that, I don't know, but I was completely incorrect.

And france influence decreased. And I ve told my friends, lord miles, who is a professional adventure, or that if the U. N.

World order didn't exist. You would have a um just people like ogino or black black water. They would have mercenary band seize control of parts of africa. But my question is what did france do to lose west africa? Because IT seems we've been .

really quickly think part of that was essentially their deep conflict with A, I mean, first of think that there is a cultural world within friends and as crazy that sounds, think a lot of very senior french officials just tired of being called a new colonial powers, and they would prefer to not be a power than to be called nasty names and being called new non colonial.

And the officials themselves don't personally benefit that much, even if IT is good for french power cultural economy. If this sounds impossible, consider how much the decolonization of the british empire went out of almost the immoral vanity, not even focusing on good moral outcomes as to what happens after you leave. Just, hey, we're no longer colonizers were now all good.

We are not doing anything nasty anywhere that someone. Number two, there is a conflict over migration in africa where, especially italy, miloni has hostile to france in hostile friends, claiming that these interventions in west africa that secure french power there are driving some of the migratory wave, then comes through a broken libya straight into italy. So moon is like on record in speeches, uh, critically, the french and even blaming the french for some other party in west africa, which I don't think is quite right, I think is just a radically under developed region, but the political instability, duffle, that's hard to argue.

IT was a french intervention that initially toppled good coffee. So that's not quite west africa. Uh, there are many refugee waves from the africa that have since passed to libya, and libya will sort this breaking of the dam, right? Uh, that results in this like petrol issue that at really has to deal with IT least become frontier of europe from being fairly worrying to europe even ten or twenty years ago. Yeah.

quickly who I keep over here. He's got a really fascinating class. And at losses of colonel ism, where he says colonel ism was the european upper and boris walk classes, they've been a really the european nobility and some of the borgia interests benefit.

Well, the other social classes did in. And so he said, after the world wars, once you had universal suffer and the bureaucracy seized power, the bureaucracy didn't want to keep the empire. And one of the things people forget about european colonial empires is these were very small projects, uh, for example.

large parts of small, small in terms of persons, and fund a lot into them. Yeah.

yes, for a lot of these, especially for huge geras of west africa, the french just sent an officer out there who showed up with some machine guns.

And the native said, and keep in mind, across all the african colonialism was not how most people think, where most european possessions in africa, where zero point zero one percent White, and for any given for britain, the african empire was less than one percent of their foreign trade in britain was one of the countries that traded with africa the most. And IT was Normally these ego projects made by these european nobility who were trying to conquer stuff, viking style. And when they did take the land, they gave the africans a self governance.

And that was the same chiefs and in charge, they would just give gifts to the europeans. And so very small groups of people. So is incredibly easy for the europeans to first take africa and then immediately leave, because there weren't major connections to the continent.

Think that these were very lightweight projects. And colonialism in many ways, almost an individual venture, yes, perhaps even true of the earlier ways of clallam. Because, you know, if you are a venture capital in the sixteen hundreds, you would Better on a ship going to the spice island and back.

And then if there some local trouble with people when the ship arrives, when the ship has cannons, and maybe you have this port that your warehouse and you need to store some goods there, and pretty soon you're the king maker locally in random, arash. But that's in a context where cities already exist, the sort of tribal structure of africa is even a step below this. Um now of course, that was profitable mining in south africa, but those are that's the one place that is distinct from your analysis because that was in way a society more similar to see australia in the united states with significant numbers. Uh first dodge settings and an english setters coming.

Yes, those are all correct. I'm going to go through the fan. I'm going to go through the fan mail and also just hit up people who don't know who you are.

About twenty five hundred people are watching. For those who weren't here at the beginning. Sama runs bismark analysis, which is a geopolitics think tank.

We've been friends for three years. He also runs the highly of prestigious podium magazine. So this is simo for those who do not know him.

Second, darling, let me go through the, let me go through some of the super chat people send. H, thank you for your love. Adrian king, big poppy component, maybe italian, said, Roger, you should tell.

You should do a video telling your whole life story. I gotta drop the narrow. I gotto drop the biography details. And over time, I can't give IT you all already the arks not over. Um so the problem with .

writing a good biography is that you write too soon. It's not a good biography. And any more I you know, we could say a joke that walter isam growth, his elon biography, way too soon. The last chapters are not yet written, right to become obviously just over last six months. And i'm sure the thing would be true of you, Roger.

I, yes, I need to do the things to write in the biography before I do them say, hey, hey, bro. Og, what a felt st enjoy your, what made you want to ship from alternative history to anthropology. So I did alternative room. I was in high school.

I heard that when I was starting, and I didn't for seven years, and I had kind of gone through every reasonable line, and for those who don't know, altering histories, like, what if the south won the civil war? What if the not these one world war two? And I was making timelines? What if the shame bara revolt to worked in seventh century japan and what if the cotton gen was never invented? So I went through the timelines that really ah you could already do and then I started to understand the world.

And when I was in my gap ear, I had a series of questions I wanted to understand about the world because I didn't know them, and I heard had reading books on that. And some of those questions are, why is latin amErica poor but america's rich? Why doesn't the middle east to have black people if they had a slave trade as big as the west did? Why did my home state of pensylvania a crash? And why did the west rise the world power? And finally, why did southeast aja accomplish more?

So in the process of trying to answer those questions, which had been bugging me, I read up enough on anthropology that I could make the shift into that content. Hugo glides six fifty six, says bitzer k analysis of mexico shifted my understanding of my own country. And will you ever do a video on the federal reserve in modern monetary theory? Maybe, but I know I don't know enough about economics to really do the topic justice.

And bob said, royd, you're like a nuclear weapon that doesn't realize that they are the most powerful weapon out there. You, being as Young with this wisdom and reaching so many people, are demolishing the left well, leaving lots of conservative fall out. You flatter me beyond recognition.

I just try to do what I do and follow the next step. But thank you very much. And I had to read that out because you gave me .

fifty will continue our interview in a moment after a word of our sponsors. Hey everyone, eric here, you know at turpin ine, we're always looking for ways to stream our work. That's why we use notion for all our internal documents.

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Like to hear, uh, the audience is, uh, enjoyed the mexico brief IT was a very interesting, deeper analysis where the relationship between the cartels and the politicians is much more mutual than usually presented. right? Usually is almost presented like this poor, embattled government at the mercy of the cartels.

And the cartels are powerful, but the situation is cool, evolved since the very start of the modern mexican state. So the the line between who is the political ally of the cartels and who is opposing the cartels, i'm not even sure anyone opposes the cartels. I think they just oppose the other guys cartels.

So I think that's what people might miss. I think the state formation in mexico evolve with the cartels, and that's why it's so endemic. And that's why I would mean not just to declare war on the courteous, to truly declare war on the, you would have to declare war on the government elites. Yes, you know, well, that would be what a mexican would be, more of mexican bakili than a mexican milla.

yes. Um when I was in mexico city, I saw that the actual downtown from maxo city is not a nice place. It's one of the gazza parts of the city and of the parliament.

There's no restaurants around the parliament. There's no restaurants of the presidential palace. There's nothing to do there. There's no shopping. And i'm thinking this is this would be like the holy roman empire capital in one of its more failed time periods, where if the area where the government happens is that unpopulated IT means that this is not a .

centralized state, is very decentralized state in a way. But it's just mexico city happens to be a pretty big city on sequence, certainly has its privilege. Luxurious areas, something people might miss, exist around the third world or the strange enclaves of what we would recognize this upper middle class life with like gleaming uh shopping mall with like cell LED dior and love the town.

And you can find this in caro, not cairo proper, with the new administrative city in cairo, east of caro. You can find this in service. You might enter, for example, a very privileged club, which is almost like a private city, giant swarm pull, sports stadium, shopping mall.

But you've been checked by security and checked your membership at the entrance 啊。 Elites around the world, even in countries that have not industrialized, that not developed economically, recreate a lifestyle that I think you might see. For example, I don't know, in the dc suburbs, Virginia, for example, like that might be recreated very.

That's what i've seen personally, I i've lived for short periods of time in southeast asia and latin america. And yeah you'd .

be surprised .

how many people there live lives Better than americans, even upper or upper or middle class americans because labor is so cheap. And one of my friends, he lives in both mexico in america, and he prefers mexico, because if you're in mexico, you can have five mates, take care of all your stuff. You can have a weekly massage really cheaply.

You can have a chef. You can eat out all the time, because the cost of living is really low. And this that this is one of the worst parts the west has, having lived in multiple countries. The two worst things about america, although I still choose to live here, are expense. And currently, m the current ism, I think, is a real thing that drags amErica down.

I need, with regard to IT, you know, if you can have less, the nice year phones, the smart phones, the call, driving cars and the servants, in a way, you've received the best, both from the industrial revolution and from the pre industrial world. And that's why these sort of elite life is so addicting. Places that alf this are india, egypt, southeast asia.

And in places where too much of the population became rich due to, say, distributing oil revenues, such as the gulf monarchies or U A E, well, they just import a completely new cheap labor class. And actually, here's a fun provocation, a number. The world county has two model mass migration societies. One of them is U A E, where the migrants have no rights and there are temporary labor and ninety percent of the population is, uh, people who are working without any sort of citizenship, ten percent citizens who are beneficiaries.

And then there is the united states where, yes, of course, you have undocumented workers undercutting the natives, but in the often another way, at the same time, the citizens are paying significant taxes through social services that are sometimes fortunately sought out for, or even paying taxes to help run N. G. S.

That import even more of them. You know, air dropping twenty or thirty thousand hates wherever the votes are needed. And that wasn't, you know, that happens.

That's that's not A A joke. That's just how the system works. And both of them have a ruthless political economy.

In the first one in the U A, E, there's hydrate of the migrants, uh but all the citizens are basically on board with IT and on board with the power of the royal family is the oil revenue is distributed centrally and in the american system. Well, in theory there's a consent of the citizens. They think the no voter ID laws like that's just such a back door into democracy. You just like escape all electoral accountability. If you can just have non citizens coming though.

yes, yes, immigration is one of those things I supported recovered because the context changed completely, where if the context is we're going to take some people in because it's economically a good for us and remove the population Younger and in a controlled way. I used to support that, but once IT actively became something where it's clear the population doesn't consent to IT, it's clear that it's something that's done for the active purpose of demographic change in pushing down wages. IT goes from what are things actually .

like you printing printing votes, right? Yes, I feel like the democratic party, like actively loves whatever demographic produces the right voting pattern. I think they will find a strange new disrespect for the this panic population now that record numbers of, but there something to have. Little men have a little more problem, and we need little feminism. Yeah, there is a point I wanted .

to talk to you about where i've been thinking about what psychological motivations this immigration culture comes from. And I think the left is hijacked. A certain variety of host culture and certain societies are more hospitable.

And others, like where I grew up, my mom would have teach me the exact adequate for hospitality. So you'd save someone in your house, ask them for their coat, ask them for a drink, tell them they can sit down. And different cultures have different emphasis on how important hospitality is.

And what I find with the left is there warping some kind of host rule because if there's a guest in your house, you're not going to call them out as much as if they're in their family. If they are rude, you're less likely to say he shut up and so hosts get certain privileges in societies. And IT feels as if the left is hijacked, the host culture, or if you're in a business deal with a very different society, you won't call them out for making social q mistakes in your society. But the irony is, the left is pulling on this psychological trigger in societies that have very little host cultures. And so i'm wondering what's going on here .

sensually. You can have political clients that everyone subconsciously holds to loser standards. Yes, for example, if you have a group that intimidates plus in sweden, and this group is a left wing group and their communities sts and their forty blind sweets that are beating up voters, I think the country is outraged.

Yes.

if the forty um you know if there forty uh people of arab ancestry who also notionally infilling ate with the communist party, but I don't know, maybe they're like free palestine people or whatever, maybe there something else uh maybe they're islamist, the technical part of the swedish labour party or whatever, then suddenly the feel it's like fifty percent more acceptable and it's not because of the lonely. It's because of the foreigner.

So it's not fear of like, you know, no one's afraid of timeous not this is like that's not a fear, right? IT is literally the subconscious human impulse that you've correctly identify, which I think is universal. I think people always automatically give a pass. The foreigners and most foreigners are enemies. I if someone is visiting your city, of visiting your town, even visiting your home, and therefore reign like you actually don't take offend, certain things will be debi offensive if you knew they understand the rules.

Yes, exactly. And yeah.

that that's completely observation there.

Thank you. So that leaves me back to a concept i've been thinking about. Where are you aware of the concept of the great chain of being?

Yeah, the medieval concept? yeah. In medival philosophy.

lower forms are towards hell and higher forms are towards god. And it's a spiral like a double helix that leads up and down. It's also the tree of life.

And so in that medieval philosophy, the basically san is petty. Ss, and it's complete um it's just complete desire for your own game and that which is higher to god can see further across. And so what higher versus lower form smaller versus bigger? My idea is that different ideologies point basically good vibes or bad vibes.

And I think majority ity is constructed off a series of underlying basically incorrect psychological assumptions that are killing us. And if you look at trauma therapy for ptsd, it's all based on rewiring subconscious assumptions people have. And I think we are stuck in a society where we have all of these very negative subconscious assumptions that are tearing us a but we're not honest part to examine them in the best example I can think of is nothing as enough for us.

We are in the wealthiest, safest, most hygienic, best feed society ever, not one of the freezer. And it's still not enough for people. And we constantly, we constantly flag ate ourselves for not being perfect. And there's A A lot of different psychological narratives like that. Which are really hurting people.

think that there is a deep internalized war on human nature and an attempt to make sense of an experience that basically incoherent. And we are, we are, in a way, on our devices and in our social systems already subject to a fragmentation, personality fragmentation. We won't mention dor if you think about that, you basically associates every time they uh go on their phone.

You keep your physical location and you enter this nether realm gazing in your little black mira that you Carrying your pocket everywhere. And then at work, you are basically surveyed on the clock as much as I think only slaves were in. And technical yeah, because the mechanisms of control and mechanisms surveilling IT just becomes so much Better, like there many places where your work on your laptop is surveyed and recorded in detail.

Yes, yes.

And you know and and you when you go off the clock can interfere your free citizen. You could say off the clock what you want on the internet. But if your company does not stand by what you said, as Normally a free individual company might suffer a financial damage, so otherwise you don't even have the political freedom of sub expression divorce from, like, economic subservience.

So I think we have a crip political subserves. These things just compound one on top of the the other with more and more cognitive difference. And you know you have to be a bit scared, maybe processed correctly.

yes. So I think what you said a very good point. And I think there's psychological pressures to modernity we don't have words for, and I think these are causing irreparable damage. And one of the more schizo things is i've invented a term called demon plague theory, and amusing, especially magical, language for the sale side of IT. But a demon plague is a negative psychological plague that spreads across a population. Examples include starlin hitler, the french revolution, where negative underlying psychological forces seized control of a population and then made them do acts that they would have never done in a more sane mindset.

I think that um the medieval view is that madnesses contagious. yes. And you would have situations such as, uh you know a town was sum to have gone mad and the king would actually just avoid going through the town on their journey. They would like actually divert fast that town. And I think perhaps the medival were little wiser and this and we are yeah many of things that are trends, things that spend social media changes.

yes. yes. I'm curious if you've ver read a secular rage by Charles Taylor now I hadn't that's one .

of those books .

I should make a video of summarizing so no one else has to read IT where and I apologized a Charles Taylor ever hear this but it's one of the most interesting intellectual books i've ever read but IT was excruciating ly painful to read and the thing that i'd really got out of IT is it's a history of the psychological process of secularization from the renaissance til to and IT hits a lot of really interesting points that people should know about, but they don't.

And IT really changed how I saw the world because he talks about stuff like the buffer personality where the medieval saw our minds as ecosystems, we've bring good bacteria in. And the church existed to protect the um the church existed to the military defenders against dominic possession. And he goes through a bunch of stuff like that.

IT reminded of the book i'm reading now, which is the myth of this enchantment and its studies, the exact point when we academically decided that the world is not in a nately living place where we move in the mechanistic world view. And the thesis of the book is that was never an academic choice that was made. No one ever made that argument for why the words just in chance that IT just happened.

So is like almost a sociological phenomenon, or was A A zg gust or how how did that come to be the faces .

of the book, which is really interesting and IT raised to Charles Taylor's book with the secular age as well, where the feces of the secular age is that it's less a technological force, that religion went into decline, and it's more so A A relates either of the incentives of the power structures for those in charge, or that the church itself got less fun.

But with the disenchantment book, what IT says is that this IT makes a very interesting point, where IT makes the argument that all of the people who are writing about disenchantment themselves believe in magic. And what the argument that makes is that this is a three d chess move where they believed in this themselves, and they were lamenting that the world had become disenchanted red. But at the same time, they had an acts in this game.

And it's really interesting. I don't fully trust this perspective. I think there's another i'm missing. But you look at daycare, you look at iza nun, you look at the people who we associate as mechanistic, secular thinkers, even frayed or Marks. And these people were all interested in a coat on the side.

Now this is definite the case. And a lot of them believed in mystical traditions of self transformation. That's why, say, the three Masons were an important society.

That's with the harmony quarter. And savan were relevant. I think that the process of self education was always in a deep way, get knowledge.

At the end of the day, it's hard to scale. Secondly, it's sort of the source of power. And think people people are attracted to acta teachings just because they are like, just because it's hidden.

Yes, if it's hidden, something automatically feels more powerful. yes. So not all of this stuff worked a lot of crazy. I think some of the ably did work. And, uh, you will be interesting to study modern cultural trends, math media trends and see where they come from. Because a IT has also shape our media, like also the people who produced our media are students of this, that tradition?

Yes, agreed. And hey, goal is taking hermetics teachings. And the thesis, antithesis and synthesis. And he go was actually used for psychological manipulation over the two eneus century. But because they get the publi C2Believe one thi ng, they believe the opposite, they go back to believing IT.

And for those who have stated Edward bernays, who Edward bernays was the nephew of segment fye and then bernazard net w himself, was the founder of netflix, so their family probably has some good genetics. And bernays invented modern P R. And he invented this study.

Has had to psychologically manipulate people. Um and I think that had bigger effects than we would realize. And do you .

have any far .

and makes them out?

Well, I think that the twenty years century has sort of been this century of the transformation of the public mind, where the public mind was brought into an audio visual format. And I think there is something to say about this IT. Is that perhaps beginning with already beginning with cinema television, think there is a state of altered consciousness that is promoted just by act of watching, uh, in silence for long periods of time.

Other people speak and what is very hectic, right? If you control what said ah it's a it's inducing this alert stay and I think we're a lack of awareness. Um the lack of self awareness essentially in this alter state prevents a distance from what you have read or what you have heard.

And that is seeing is believing. And we were shown so much that just isn't so in the twenties century. So we also believe still to this day as almost traditional law, so much that isn't so yes.

i'm very glad you said that, where I believe that hollie wood became our mythology and a mythologies or ety switched board. So we completely replaced that people's mental switchboards for how they are related to the world. And IT worked because we were seeing things that appeared real enough to us that we can emotionally process IT is real.

I mean, key thing here is that before, if you read one thousand nine century accounts, IT feels like people are living in, uh, a fiction mix of the illiad and classical room and history and maybe the new and all testament. And if you today try to find that people actually struggle to find biblical illusions, of course, completely lost all.

And i've said before, this is why I made the modern civilization video, because I think there's a profound cultural shift that happened around the time of the world wars that's comparable to the rise of a new civilization, and that leaves us on a wonderful Cliff hanger. But thanks so much for coming sama. It's been a real pleasure to have you.

He was exact to be here. Good to .

see us all.