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Video Description
Why do great societies fall? Professor Jiang stacks up three famous answers: financialization, elite overproduction, and the civilizational life cycle. He borrows from Piketty on money, Turchin on too many wealthy heirs, and Spengler on the megacity, then merges them into one model: society as a corporation owned by a few families, run by managers, and worked by everyone else. The lecture closes with five predictions for the years ahead — and a warning that war is how rulers avoid revolution at home.
Full Video Transcript
Okay, so let’s start class. I’m going to review very quickly what we did last class.
So last class, we learned about monotheism, which is the idea of one true God.
And as I said last class, this marked an intellectual revolution in human history.
And for monotheism, we developed three new ideas, which are
money individual and the nation state it’s important to note that these ideas have always
existed in in human history but with monotheism 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 are also a lot of consequences okay so
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 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’ll start looking at very concrete
examples but for the first few classes please be patient we will look we are going to develop a
theory to understand the world all right so let’s discuss societies why they rise and why they
decline now unfortunately we live in a world in decline so there are lots of signs that the world
is in decline what are these signs shut up shut out some signs 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 mean you may have seen the news and you have seen comics arising in
Southeast Asia Thailand Myanmar also Trump is about to send US troops to
Mexico and Venezuela okay so we live in a world of conflict and that tells us
that the world is in decline what are some other signs good yes so you have
climate change okay we are putting too much pressure on the environment so the
air the water the land is becoming much more toxic okay good what else good yes unemployment is going
up well 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 bai lan age, right? The age of bai lan, meaning
let it rot. Like who cares? Don’t take things too seriously. In America, the term is called
quite quitting, right? You pretend to work but you’re not really working. What are some other
signs? So also you have lower birth rate and this is a very important sign, right? Because
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 the only exception is
israel and georgia but these are very small rare cases for most societies uh there’s rapid decline
in birth rate what are some other signs okay you see a lower standard of living and all this means
is 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 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 okay what else okay people are less optimistic right
okay um greater pessimism 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
there are many families in china in the united states throughout the world that are heavily
in debt okay so debt is a huge issue for the 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 if you see you walk on the street and you see a man on on the street bleeding or hurt
you’re less likely to help him and this is very true not only in china but also elsewhere as well
so lower trust issues what are some other signs 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, these are signs of decline.
Well, if we look at rise, then obviously, it’s the opposite, right?
People are much more willing to trust each other.
Rather than going to debt, people will save money.
People are healthier.
People are much more optimistic.
People are having lots and lots of babies, right?
People are employed, okay?
So, these are all signs that society is in decline.
The rise, it’s the opposite.
Also, another sign of decline that’s very important that doesn’t really happen in China,
what happens in the Western world is immigration.
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, okay?
And it also reduces the standard of living, okay?
Another sign of decline is also housing 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, 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 five, 10 years from now,
pension will be a huge problem for governments, okay?
So these are all signs of rapid decline.
All right, now having done this,
what i’m going to do now is go over some theories as to why this is happening why is the world in
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 of financialization and this theory um
It’s proposed by an economist, a French economist named Thomas Piketty, and he wrote a book
called Capital in the 21st Century.
It is a fantastic book.
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 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 capitalism, meaning that what society is trying to do
is create goods that consumers want to buy.
This is an era of rapid wealth generation.
you move into financial capitalism which is a period of investment rather than build factories
you put the money money into the stock market 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 consumer 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
for companies to be monopolies than to be in competition with each other.
Financial capitalism 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.
Now, why is this important?
It’s important because when we make this transition, people are no longer focused on working hard.
They’re only focused on speculating.
So, let me give you an example.
So 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 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 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 a stock market the stock market
grows too fast and the real economy does not grow that fast okay and the
difference is stark. Thomas Piketty spent a lot of time going over 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 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 wouldn’t make $50,000 a year so everyone’s gonna
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
All these issues arise, greater unemployment, greater debt, no one’s really working.
So that’s the idea of financialization and what Piketty argues is that this is just a
natural cycle.
This is just a natural byproduct of capitalism.
We live in a stage, we live in an age of late stage capitalism.
Is this clear to you guys?
Any questions before I move on to the second theory?
Let’s move on to the second theory called elite overproduction.
And this was proposed by a historian named Peter Turchin.
And Peter Turchin spent decades looking at why 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 society’s fall, decline, collapse because of the idea of elite overproduction,
meaning you have too many powerful people competing for limited positions of power.
So to understand this, I’m going to talk about another experiment called rat utopia.
Rad Utopia was a series of experiments conducted by an American scientist named James B. Calhoun.
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.
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 became 400, 500 rats.
And at first, the rats were really happy.
But no matter how Cajun 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 could never figure out why this was the case.
And even today, there’s a huge debate
as to why this is the 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.
All right, so let’s think of this, okay?
In a state of nature, in the real world,
rats compete each other for mating rights, right?
So you see a beautiful rat and you fight over her, right?
Rat who wins out is now the alpha male.
And the alpha male can have as many female companions
as he wants okay and what do the other rats do 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 calhoun’s experiment
why do they fight each other 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 colquhoun’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 overproduction 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 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 peking university
beida and qinghua university qinghua 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 overproduction will ultimately lead to either war or revolution it
will lead to the collapse of society and there’s no way around this okay that’s peter turchin
now i want i want to go to the third theory and the third theory is the idea of a civil
civilizational life cycle and this is proposed by a german philosopher scholar named oswald spangler
and what he argues is that society culture civilization is 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 spengler 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 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 qing dynasty you start off in a village then if you’re successful in the village you
build a town then when you’re in a town and you’re successful you defeat other towns and you build a
city they become a mega city okay and what arnold spengler says is at the height of the civilization
the civilization must now die okay so let’s go over the theory well in the 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 lots of babies right it’s
It’s very common for mothers to give birth
to 10, 11 kids in a village, right?
And the reason why is kids are free labor.
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 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?
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.
You’re concerned about your own personal pleasure.
You’re concerned about how do I derive benefit from this.
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 and what oswald spengler 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?
Sorry, can you give the microphone? Yeah, can you just speak to the microphone?
What if there is a universal target that
that force everyone needs to work together, you know, that work out to like
everyone just put down all of these problems and figure out that…
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, okay? An external threat. If there’s an external threat, then surely this system, this life cycle can be extended, right?
And external threats are examples of, hey, let’s say there’s an alien invasion.
Let’s just say China’s being attacked by the United States, right?
And unfortunately, the answer is it does not matter.
Because once you’ve reached the point of a megacity, first of all, you’re so selfish,
you’re self-absorbed, you are not aware of external threats.
The other issue is you’re no longer capable of working together because you don’t trust
each other, okay?
So the external threats factor doesn’t really matter.
But that’s a great question.
Thank you 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 conquer everyone else.
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,
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 I’m 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 are a lot of problems with it but it is a
useful tool for us to analyze society in the past okay all right so I’m gonna
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 and there’s not that many of them maybe 10 maybe 100 okay but
almost 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 are 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 second pillar is religion religion is just what people believe how to control what
people believe now the religion of today is science and technology and the third pillar is
intelligence or spies all right now for the purpose of to save time I’m not
gonna 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 society finance intelligence and religion and it’s their
nexus their combination that allows the elite to control everyone else okay so
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?
so you have like corporations, right?
And then at the outer edge are the 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 for the people, okay?
Energy, because the harder the people work,
the more wealth is generated in society, all right?
So, a metaphor 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.
And these people in between, the middle class,
are the managers, okay?
So again, this is a very simple 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?
Another name for them is something called the professional managerial class, PMC.
Also, another name for them is the petty bourgeoisie, 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 than 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 the elite of production is
these families produce too many children who want pictures 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 the families listen guys we need to
be more fair to the people but what really happens in reality is the 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 rent seeking behavior okay
rent seeking behavior it 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 an
out to someone who needs to live in beijing 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 you if you want you have a contract dispute you have to go to a
lawyer okay the lawyer is collecting rent and that’s what the middle class the professional
managerial class do they are rent seekers okay and always 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 managers are like well i have a very
nice life i’m very nice job but i don’t really don’t don’t do anything so i’ll probably the
first get fired so they have to show their worth they have to prove their work and therefore they
exploit the workers okay do you understand they push the workers harder to get more wealth 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 overproduction. And what will eventually happen is
they will form into factions that compete against each other for power, 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 bring in certain elements of the people. And now, what happened is
civil war or revolution and this marks the collapse of society what’s really
important first remember is this is a natural cycle and no amount of not of
external threat will change 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,
all right? So when you reach the collapse phase, the society is much too insular, much too wrapped
with infighting to care about external threats. And that’s why if there’s an alien invasion,
it really wouldn’t change anything, okay? All right? Is this clear to you guys? So again,
And 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 managerial class incentivize
and motivate the workers to do their best.
And you do that through democracy, through openness, through meritocracy, through innovation.
But over time, as these elite families have more and more children, and these children
are engaged in rent-seeking behavior, they basically want to steal profits from the corporation,
The corporation runs into trouble and the managers are forced to coerce 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.
So that’s the model we’re working with.
All right.
Any questions?
Are you guys clear about this?
Yeah.
What if they just like don’t have that much children?
Excuse me, what’s the question?
Like, what if the elite families don’t have that much children?
Will this model still work?
Oh, that’s a great question.
So what if families don’t have 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 middle class 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. And that’s why these elite families expand so fast. And also, who wants to
marry into elite families? Who wants to marry into them? Everyone. 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 maintain their power okay but that’s a
good question and any more questions before I continue okay so let us
summarize what we’ve learned so far and discuss what is it that allows societies
to rise and fall so we’ll look at three phases the rise the decline and the
collapse. 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. When society rises,
it is first and foremost open. Open just means that you have opportunities for social mobility
in the society. If you’re a poor person, you can make money. 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. There’s open
debate. Now, what’s really interesting is most young societies are open societies. So for example,
in 1950s america was a democracy right china was communist but this is really interesting in 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
you’re gonna be open, you’re gonna be democratic,
you’re gonna be meritocratic.
You wanna 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, 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, society becomes authoritarian, okay?
Before, the client is not following the rules.
Now, it’s just rule by force.
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 phase, it’s coercion.
So let me give you an example.
Let’s just say we are in the rise phase, right?
Well, we wanna go to lunch.
So we discuss where we go to lunch.
I wanna go to McDonald’s,
but you guys wanna go to Pizza Hut or KFC.
We have debate and then eventually we vote
and whoever wants to go, 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 Fei 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 collapse phase is,
I say to you, I’m the teacher,
and I will beat you up if you don’t listen to me, okay?
So in 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.
I wanna be your friend.
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 the collapse phase, it is survival.
Screw you, I wanna live,
And if I have to kill you, I’ll kill you.
So this is a map that shows us what
happens when society rises, declines, and collapses.
Now, what’s really interesting about this is the timing.
So if you actually look at society’s timeline,
it goes like this.
There’s a steep rise, the decline is slow,
and the collapse is sudden.
So people think, oh, decline, things get worse, worse.
but you know, we follow this trend, we’ll still be here,
but actually, the collapse happens really fast.
Why?
The reason why is this system cannot survive external shocks.
So external shocks is a perfect storm of crises.
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, the drought, war, it’s revolution.
They’re all happening at once.
It’s a perfect storm.
And that’s what leads to the collapse
because society’s not prepared for this.
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 collapse phase,
those who speak out are the enemies of society.
And therefore, society cannot be prepared
for any external threats,
which leads to its collapse.
Any questions?
Okay, so this is the analytical model
that we’re working with.
And again, we’re gonna apply it to the present,
and then we’re gonna apply it to the past, okay?
So with this analytical model,
what we can do is make certain predictions
about the future.
So I will make these predictions.
And I expect these things to happen in the next
five to 10 years, five to 10 years, or 10 to 20 years.
Okay, I’m not, I don’t know the time frame, okay?
But I expect these things to happen, okay?
The first thing that’s gonna happen in the Western world
is decline of democracy and freedom.
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.
And already we’re seeing this happen in the United States
where Trump is using more and more military
to resolve issues, right?
So that’s the first prediction.
And this is gonna happen throughout the Western world.
Second thing is economic collapse.
So 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 wanna work, screw them.
Let’s bring in immigrants to do the work.
Okay, this is, let’s replace our population.
But the people are not gonna sit back and take it, right?
This leads to civil war.
People are not coming to each other on the streets.
And the government is like, you know what,
if we continue to let them fight,
eventually they’re gonna 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, stupid foreign wars.
And these are my five predictions for the world
for the next five, 10, 20 years, okay?
Europe and America will see less freedom and democracy,
they’re going to collapse, increase immigration, civil conflict, and then ultimately stupid foreign wars.
And I’m not saying this happens in a sequence.
I’m saying you’ll see all five things, okay?
But they may happen in different order.
Any questions?
Was this clear to you guys?
Yeah, thank you.
Is there any chance that the government tries to use a war to distract the people?
Like they’re trying to hide all of the collapse of the society and their 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 so
you either send them to a war or you could have a french revolution on your 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 okay no no 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 okay there’s
no right and wrong here okay guys okay all right okay i 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 the theme of this course i’m gonna 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 a 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, Xi all get together and says, let’s be best friends, then I’m wrong, right?
Okay, 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.
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 works okay any more questions
okay great guys um so we will continue this story next class i’ll see you guys next class
Source: Predictive History