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Video Description
Around 1200 BCE, a wealthy, linked-up world fell apart almost overnight — and the reason, Professor Jiang argues, was success itself. The Bronze Age ran on trade in tin and copper, an early form of money that spread goods, ideas, and then deep inequality. Capital makes societies grow fast, but it also turns people into calculating machines and concentrates power until the whole thing snaps. It is a warning aimed squarely at our own over-connected age.
Full Video Transcript
okay so let’s start class today we are doing the bronze age collapse so let’s reveal where we are
in history okay so remember the four early civilizations are egypt mesopotamia uh indus
valley and of course china and as we discussed the reason why the four they are the first four major
civilizations is that they have major rivers that allow them to develop agriculture as
as well as trade overseas and as we discussed what will happen is that they will have a
major city and this major city will have colonies along the major river okay so in egypt it’s
the nile in mesopotamia it is the uh euphrates and the tigris and the first city is york
eric china it’s the yellow river right um so in this valley it’s in this valley uh it’s
this river and and now these different city-states will go to war in order to
control trade routes and this leads to a time of major innovation in human
history at the same time because of these wars they need better and better
equipment and so eventually they will develop bronze okay bronze bronze as you
is an alloy of tin and copper so you need both in order to create bronze
which is the strongest metal it’s ideal for shields for armor and for swords
and whoever has more bronze weaponry will win any war the problem though is
that tin it’s actually hard to mine and to discover and to ask it into to
manufacture in fact tin deposits are scattered all around the world okay so
this is tin over here over here over here and over here over here okay they’re everywhere basically
but it’s not concentrated therefore you must now build more trade routes in order to access tin
okay so what’s going to happen now is that more trade routes will develop in order to access tin
and the major points the major trade routes will become cities themselves okay all right
and now this world is globalized in order to facilitate warfare now what’s interesting is
this valley itself it’s not like egypt mesopotamia and china it is not engaged in
warfare we’ve done archaeology in this valley when modern day pakistan we have not discovered
weaponry okay we’ve we’ve discovered bronze but we have not discovered weaponry in fact we believe
that in this valley it is a peaceful egalitarian and artistic civilization but it’s still brought
into this global system why because bronze changes from weaponry into status okay um meaning people
use it for pottery for jewelry and then eventually what happens is that bronze itself becomes
capital all right now what we also know is that this world is heavily globalized there’s a lot of
trading and this and this world is complete meaning it touches every corner of the world
but starting in about the year 1200 this system collapses in fact the collapse is sudden and
devastating so remember in if you know chinese history you will know that this is the shan dynasty
right guess what guys about the year 1200 it collapses all right and we know this because
egypt is under attack during this time by by the sea peoples and what we believe is that the sea
peoples are actually refugees who are fleeing the destruction of europe what we believe is that
there’s a perfect storm engulfing this world at this time okay so this perfect storm includes
climate change climate change leads to drought which leads to famine which leads to a migration
crisis what’s going to happen is that the sea peoples are going to come in from the north and
they are going to wipe out existing civilizations including mycenaean greece and the high tide
empire okay the high tide empire which is in anatolia which is in modern day turkey
why my city in greece and the high tide empire are important is we believe they are the two
major antagonists in the trojan war you may have heard of the trojan war well guess where guess
what troy is here okay so troy is in the center of global trade and that’s why people fight over
the location of the city so the messianic greece is being destroyed the high tide empire’s been
destroyed and egypt is being under attack egypt will survive the invasions of the sea peoples
but after the invasions egypt will be exhausted and will it will lose its um global power status
okay um in this valley will be itself overwhelmed from because of refugees fleeing from the steppes
okay mesopotamia it’s very interesting about mesopotamia but it’s actually the most resilient
of all the four major civilizations and the reason why is mesopotamia throughout its history
it’s constantly at war okay so egypt is protected by natural geography by the desert the sarah
desert and then by um the red sea okay so egypt has natural boundaries uh china also has natural
boundaries but mesopotamia does not it’s a flat land so it’s very easy for the mountain people
to come invade um and it’s very easy for outsiders to come and build new empires in fact um throughout
mesopotamian history there have been three major empires the acadian empire the babylonian empire
and the assyrian empire and this goes back and forth and these empires are not um they don’t
really last that long maybe maybe a couple hundred years at most because this area is so competitive
but because it’s so competitive it’s actually much more resilient than the other areas okay
all right so again the big question for us is why would this world collapse like this all of a
a sudden and it’s really relevant for us to understand because many scholars have compared
the bronze age world to our world because our world is also one that is heavily globalized
and it seems like it’s on the verge of collapse so why is it that this sort of like globalized
world in which many countries are getting very wealthy why do they collapse all of a sudden
okay and the argument i will make to you today is it has to do with the nature of capital okay
so what i will show you is that this is a proto-capitalistic system and what we know
about proto-capitalism is that it allows for rapid growth but then it also allows for rapid collapse
okay so let’s go over the idea of capital what is capital okay so capital
has three major characteristics okay the first is that it is universal universal
just means that everyone wants it everyone in the world believes it has a
value okay that’s number one number two is that it is a store of value and what
what this means is that you’re able to take wealth and store it inside this
commodity okay and the third thing about capital that’s very important is its
mobility okay mobility meaning I can take this thing and then transport to
somewhere else at little no cost if that’s these three characteristics then
it is capital okay and throughout human history there have been different types
of capital so let’s look over there some examples so one example is grain right
just food um grain is sort of universal because everyone wants to eat but not everyone thinks it’s
valuable okay and it’s hard to store value in grain because it could decompose easily
right it’s actually hard to transport grain because it’s cheap but it’s expensive to
transport okay and that’s why grain never became capital now let’s look at cattle cattle like cows
and sheep um it’s a better form of capital because you can store more value and it could be universal
but it’s actually hard to transport and that’s why cattle never became capital okay now if you keep
on moving on you get into slaves right human beings and so you can have women slaves sex
slaves you can also have man labor okay and this is a better form of capital because it’s sort of
universal okay um you can store value in it but the value is uncertain or unstable um and it’s
and it’s mobile okay so slaves became an economy but this is a very base um basic economy then you
develop bronze okay and bronze now is extremely valuable okay everyone wants it so it’s universal
you can store a lot of value in it because it’s it’s hard to make and now you can move it around
okay so in other words bronze became the first real universal currency in the world and this
allowed for rapid globalization in the world so think of the the equivalent of branch today is
of course the u.s dollar right the u.s dollar is universal everyone wants it um it’s a store value
and it’s mobile as well and so it’s a u.s dollar which allows for the rapid growth of capitalism
around the world okay now let’s discuss why how capital works all right so what we know is that
we humans are actually composed of two natures we are composed of an altruistic nature and we are
composed of a utilitarian nature okay altruistic just means that you care about human relationships
you want to be nice to people because you want to you want to be their friends they’re part of your
family okay unitarian just means that you don’t care about others you just care about the goal
the profit money power okay and we’re composed of both sides so think about when you go to a
restaurant right if the meal is good you pay a lot of money for it and you give the waitress a tip
when you go home to dinner and your mother is happy to see you your mother cooks you a really
nice meal and then you say thank you right you don’t want to do the opposite right where you go
to a restaurant and you’re like thank you and then you leave and you don’t want to go to your
mother’s house and like say to your mother hey this meal was fantastic here’s a thousand dollars
for you okay it would screw everything up okay so we have two different natures and we keep them
separate what capital does that’s very interesting is that it moves us from the altruistic state
into the uterine state and at first that’s good why because when you’re altruistic you don’t
really want to do anything okay because you don’t you don’t offend other people so there are lots of
villages in the world and they’re static why because for them what matters is not change
what matters is harmony and this village is it kind of sucks to be an outsider it kind of sucks
to stand out in fact there are some traditions in which if you are outspoken if you are thoughtful
if you like to explore if you’re curious they will kill you and make you a sacrifice to the gods
because they see you as a threat to their social system okay so an ultra six system it is um it
doesn’t like change so if you don’t do anything to it it just stays the way it is so when you’re in
capital people now are more motivated to work hard people are more motivated to innovate and to
explore so at first this is good okay now you’re expanding the system but and then you reach a
point of its um maximum growth but then what happens is the scale sorry the um the scale tips
over okay and people become too utilitarian and when you become too utilitarian you cheat you are
you don’t care about others and this causes a lot of problems okay you would
start to exploit other people and so when you become too utilitarian the
system collapses it doesn’t make sense capital comes in the system and it makes
it grow really fast once it hits a certain point then it has to collapse
okay so let’s use another example let’s just say that you are a leader of a
of people and it could be a village you could be anywhere okay and um if there’s no money involved
what do you care about you care about status you care about your reputation you care about how
people see and perceive you right so you care about the feelings of others once capital enters
the equation then the way that the leader sees you is different the leader sees you as a commodity
to be exploited okay if leaders sound like how much money can i make money off you not only that
but the leader okay the leader will do what the leader will align with other leaders and they
will become a cartel okay or an elite and they will together exploit people okay but not only
that but they will expand and look for new areas to conquer okay because all they care about now is
money how to expand the capital but once you the capital expense too far then what happens is only
a few people have all the capital and the people down below they’re enslaved they’re exploited and
they want to destroy the system they become indifferent if you force them they will revolt
against you so the system must collapse okay so the argument i’m trying to make to you is
this is the way capital works and there’s nothing you can do about it that’s why the bronze age
grew but that’s also the bronze age collapse and that’s why our world grew but this is also why
our world will collapse as well okay that’s argument i’m making you to you today any
questions before we go to the ppt is this clear to you guys all right let’s go to the ppt all right
so um this is a map that shows you the world of the bronze age and as we discussed um these are
of four major civilizations right china indus valley uh mesopotamia and egypt okay and they
now because of that war they have an insatiable need for bronze and where and bronze needs tin
where’s tin located tin is located where the stars are okay and you can see they’re scattered over
the place so what they’re going to do now is to build build trade routes into these tin places
that will allow to extract the tin to build to create bronze armor okay but when they do so
they also create new civilizations and new cities until you get a completely globalized world um so
this is this is china and as you can see um they’re always at war and so they need weapons
okay um this is pottery bronze pottery from china during the shang dynasty during the bronze age
all right so how do we know that it’s a completely globalized world because over the past 20 years
we’ve discovered shipwrecks okay so we’ve discovered ships that um were transporting
goods during the bronze age and so when you dig up these ships and you analyze where the products
are from you’re able to rebuild the trade networks okay and that’s why we know about the bronze age
okay so what’s going to happen is this the green is the copper sources okay and as you can see
there’s a lot of copper sources the problem is the tin sources are spread out so in order
to create bronze you need to constantly expand your trade networks outside okay and as you can
see what’s happening is that the expansion keeps on going until it encompasses the entire world
so the dark brown is the earliest trade routes and then the pink um are the later trade routes
but as you can see it’s always expanding outwards in order to facilitate more and more trade
and what’s really important for us to understand is the entire world is encompassed okay so this
is britain this is ireland this is scandinavia okay this is important because if you study history
um it’s the the british isles scandinavia are often discussed during um in the bronze age but
recent research has has shown us that it’s all interconnected okay okay so as i mentioned these
are trade networks okay and what and these um um gray spots are areas that are major nodes in the
trade network they come about because of trade the red are the major consumption areas okay so the
The gray are areas that are being created in order to better facilitate trade.
And eventually you reach a point when it’s completely globalized.
When every source of copper and tin has been discovered and there’s a massive trade network
built around each area.
But again, as we know, even though this area is extremely globalized, extremely wealthy,
only in about 50 years, it completely collapses.
And we know because of the Egyptian records.
The Egyptians write about the coming of the Sea Peoples.
And so if you just watch the arrows, this is the movement of the Sea Peoples.
These are refugees fleeing famine.
And what do they do?
Well, they team up with pirates.
And the pirates and the refugees together overwhelm the existing civilization, including
the Mycenaeans, present-day Greece, including the Hittite Empire, present-day Turkey.
And they keep on attacking.
Even from the south, people are attacking the major cities.
This is a world in complete collapse.
This is another map showing the invasions.
These again are the sea people.
These are just economic migrants.
These are refugees, similar to what’s happening today, where if you’re following the news
in Europe, you’ve got all these Middle Eastern refugees coming into Europe, overwhelming
their economic systems.
So this is a trend that we can expect to continue for a very long time.
The Sea Peoples are just a mix of different people.
We’ve tried to identify where they come from, who they are.
We really don’t know.
So the assumption is they come from everywhere and they are being led by pirates who are
expert at raiding other nations.
And this is a painting from Egypt.
know because the egyptians egyptians left records of the invasions of sea people there were at least
three major invasions of sea people we’re talking like hundreds of thousands of people attacking
egypt at the same time and egypt had to expand tremendous resources to repel these invasions
but it ultimately left egypt bankrupt okay um this is eric klein he’s an anthropologist at the
university of washington he wrote a book called 17 1177 okay and he lists um the reasons why the
bronze age collapse happened and he he says it was a perfect storm of crises including climate
change which led to drought which led to famine there are also earthquakes we’re able to um do
analysis and discover that there were major earthquakes during this time um there were
revolutions there were civil wars there was a migration crisis okay so it’s a perfect storm
of crises but what i want to show you show you today is it all has to do with the nature of
capital okay this is a total capitalistic system all right so my argument to you to today is
Yes, the Bronze Age collapsed because of a perfect storm of crisis, that’s what we know,
but I want to extend this and say it has to do with the fact that it was a proto-capitalistic
system, and so capital drives you to prosperity, but then it can also drive you to crisis.
That’s the argument I will make to you today.
We’ve seen this before.
This is the world right before World War I.
As you can see, it was heavily, heavily globalized.
okay and people thought that because of trade because of prosperity we can’t go to war because
why would we and then you know a couple years later world war one where tens of millions of
people died for no reason okay tens of millions of people died for no reason it was it was just
a slaughter and what i’m what i want to argue to you is that this is a very common thing and
if you look at the project’s collapse in world war one we are in a very similar situation where
the world is heavily globalized it’s heavily interconnected and but because of the nature
of capital we will probably fall off the edge at some point okay and people would argue that
we’re already reaching this point okay so again um during the bronze age okay of the high bronze age
the late bronze age 1400 to 1200 bce you can see this entire world is interconnected and what you
will also see is that the center of this world is really the mediterranean and the a g and c okay
and which city is the most important strategically in this world it’s called the city troy right troy
which is why we have the trojan war we will discuss actually the trojan war
next class okay but i i point this out to you okay so why is this why is this happening well
Well, think about how in a proto-capitalistic system that depends on tin and copper, how do you make money, okay?
Well, there are different ways.
The first way you can make money is mining.
Guess what? It sucks because it’s hard work and you don’t make that much money out of it, okay?
It’s just labor.
Another way is processing it into ingots.
Ingots are just ways to transport the tin and the copper, okay?
You can also manufacture into jewelry, pottery, and weapons.
Okay, that makes more money.
transporting it’s hard work but you make more money okay another way is just
piracy just steal the stuff but the best way to make money actually is by
controlling trade routes okay that’s what Troy is Troy Troy is a control of a
trade route and so that’s how you make real money during globalization okay
that’s why even today the Middle East is so important because the Middle East is
a center of all global trade so if it controls the Middle East controls global
trade okay so remember this idea we have empires because empires really are trade
routes empires are just control of trade routes empires back then is very
different from empires today empires today would be like nation-states which
controls borders and have their own language back then empires were just a
collection of different trading points okay that were aligned with each other
and the Trojan War was just a trade war that’s all it was what we’ll discuss
this next class okay okay so um you can see why troy is so important because if you’re in anatolia
it’s more it’s many mountains it’s good because you can mine for precious metals and it’s easy
to defend but it’s hard to access the sea that’s why troy is so important okay all right so again
we know about globalization during the british because of shipwrecks okay so this is a very
famous shipwreck that we discovered off the coast of Turkey, called Ölürbaran, okay?
And inside it, you can see all this precious pottery.
And we can actually date the location of where the pottery came from, okay?
So these are major sources of tin.
And what’s really important, this map tells you, is that they’re actually in mountains,
okay?
So they’re hard to reach.
That means you have to spend a lot of effort to create trade routes based on tin.
These are ingots.
This is how you transport tin and copper.
You transform it into ingots.
And what’s going to happen is that because the tin is located in isolated areas and it’s high mountains,
they have to use every form of transportation.
And so in Europe, they mainly use the river system.
And that’s why all of Europe is brought into this trading network.
This is Scandinavia.
And as you can see, there’s a lot of trade focused on Scandinavia as well.
And this is something that we’ve not known before.
We just assumed that Scandinavia didn’t actually exist back then.
It did exist.
And it’s a very important part of the trade network.
Okay, so let’s talk about the Innis Valley Civilization.
The Innis Valley Civilization, for the longest time, we know was peaceful, egalitarian, and religious.
And we know because we’re able to dig up their cities.
And what we discovered is that it’s very much similar to Kalahoyak,
where the housing is very similar, where irrigation, where hygiene, it’s all very advanced.
And we have no evidence of warfare because we can’t find any weaponry.
Okay, so why is Innis Valley so peaceful as compared to Egypt, Mesopotamia, and China?
I think it was because they were able to trade with Mesopotamia, China, and Egypt and discovered,
We don’t want the system.
We don’t want a system where everyone’s killing each other, okay?
That’s my guess.
But I don’t know.
No one knows, okay?
This is one of the Indus Valley’s major cities that we’ve dug up.
This is another.
As you can see, it’s pretty advanced.
The houses are pretty equal.
It’s very similar to Catahoyack, okay?
A much bigger version of Catahoyack, which we discussed previously.
This is an artist’s rendition of what the Indus Valley city would look like during that time, okay?
what’s amazing is that it’s very advanced it’s very hygienic it’s very
peaceful it’s very egalitarian and religion was a major part of their lives
during this time okay so the Inis Valley civilization will also give rise to
something called the BIMAC culture okay this is in actually North Afghanistan
and how this developed was because of trade right because as I discussed
previously tin is found in the mountains and so you need to you need to create a
community around the mountain. So it’s a mining town, but it’s also for
manufacturing, it’s also for transportation, it’s also for trade. So
this is a pretty sophisticated, pretty complex area. But over time, what
will happen is that the Bima culture will bring people from the steppes, okay?
These are the Proto-Indo Europeans we discussed previously. And then because of
climate change, because of the collapse of the Bronze Age, they will come and they
occupy both modern day iran as well as india giving rise to two religions the zoroastrian
religion as well as the hindu religion we’ll discuss this um at a later date okay this is
pottery from that uh in this valley civilization okay uh let’s move on to the mycene civilization
okay the mycene civilization is really important because it gives us greek civilization okay which
is considered the birthplace of all western civilization we’ll discuss the greeks next class
and specifically but i want you i would choose the mycenaeans now okay mycenia is in the center
um we believe that the mysian culture it is a warrior aristocracy so the people in charge are
warriors as opposed to a priest aristocracy okay so remember in sumer it was a priest that were in
control now it’s the warriors who are in control and we also know that the mysian people are
descendants of the Proto-Indo-Europeans. So the Proto-Indo-Europeans swept into Europe
and then they went all the way down to Greece. And as you can see, Mycenae is really important
because it’s the center of all trade. At this time in history, the easiest way to get around
the Mediterranean is by sea. Land is very costly, it’s very slow, and there’s lots of bandits. So
sea is the best way so in this system um the best way to make money is actually piracy so as you can
see there are lots of islands scattered around greece and so the greeks in the beginning were
mainly pirates okay so the people who invaded uh troy during the during the children war were
pirates okay the mycenaeans were famous for being pirates okay so as you can see this is a much um
clearer map uh mycenaean civilization they had pottery they had olive oil they had certain great
goods for trade uh but mainly it was really about uh transportation logistics piracy and controlling
trade routes okay that’s why mycenae was so important at this time uh this is troy by the
way okay as you can see uh during the children what will happen is you have different people
or mycenae go attack troy because it’s such a strategic location right they’re able to control
Troy they control the entire Aegean Sea okay okay so this is an artist tradition of what
the Mycenaean civilization looked like it is what we call a palace economy meaning all the center of
the economy was a palace what happened is that all the farmers had to give the palace their food
the palace would then take this food and redistribute it to the artisans okay people
who made pottery people who made um clothing for for and textiles for trade purposes okay so it’s
a controlling consent control and command economy center of the palace okay this is what the palace
looks like this is how what they’re coming looks like okay so all the food we go to a palace and
the palace we redistribute the food and the food palace will then take the food to give to the
artisans to make textiles for trade okay and this is what the economy it was a very simple economy
was very effective it was extremely wealthy place this is a gold mass okay gold is very rare as you
know and they turn it into a king some have speculated this is the mass of Agamemnon who’s
a major character in the Iliad we’ll discuss the Iliad next class we actually don’t know who this
is okay um this is a sword with gold of a gold hilt so it just shows you how extremely wealthy
they are right even the warriors had gold um this is something called the lion’s gate so the entrance
into Mycenae. This is a very rough time. Lots of wars, lots of piracy, so there’s
lots of walls. The other thing about the Mycenaean civilization is their tombs
are very very elaborate. This is the entrance into one of their tombs.
Over time, we see the tombs become more and more elaborate, so we know that
over time they became a much more wealthy civilization. This is what
tombs look like if they’re huge places okay this is what the outside looks like where where do they
my students learn this well they learned this from egypt right so at this time in history the
mycenaeans and the egyptians were in close contact with each other the egyptians have a habit of uh
burying themselves with all their treasure okay so this is their coffin this is a mastaba which
is their tomb okay as you can see it’s huge it’s almost as big as a house so the question then is
why would they do that okay we’ve discussed it previously where for most of human history we’ve
understood that this is material realm and then once we die we go off the spiritual realm guess
what guys you can’t take your money with you so why are you bearing your money with you right
okay this is a mastaba okay as you can see it’s a very elaborate ornate place and egyptians were
known for this but also china right the first emperor of china the terracotta warriors
why is he buried with an army and such wealth that makes no sense if you die you die so why
is this happening um so the argument i would make to you is that this is happening because
money capital too much of it changes the fundamental chemistry of the brain it makes
you crazy okay so um let’s let’s let’s do a thought experiment okay the thought experiment
is this let’s just say satan were to come into this room and said hey i’ll give you guys a billion
dollars but and you but you have to live forever and you have to be my slave forever we’ll be like
no you what do you want that you know like to have a billion dollars but then be a slave for
all eternity like satan no but okay let’s assume we are the richest people on earth we all have a
10 billion dollars right now satan says to us you know what 10 billion dollars is a lot of money
i’m sure you enjoy your life but you’re gonna die when you die you can’t take that money
with you but hey i can make you live forever i will let you keep this money but you have to be
my slave for all of eternity do you agree we would agree that’s the difference because you see what
you see what’s happened right money makes people crazy all right so bronze okay so remember bronze
started off as just a weapon in order to obtain power but then over time as powerful people became
more stable in their lives they use um bronze to make jewelry and pottery to show their status okay
and then over time because rich people wanted it everyone wanted it and so bronze just became
a currency wealth and it was as easy to store universally recognized and mobile and this
happened over centuries over 100 years okay that’s a that’s a pattern here all right so um this is a
map a table that shows you how capital is formed okay so capital needs to have universality the
more people want it the more valuable it is it has to be able to be it has to store value okay
it has to be permanent okay does that make sense um it has to be mobile it has to be available
okay um it has to be rare enough so once i have it has these different elements then it becomes
a currency so if you just look at history um we’ve we’ve used different sources of currency so we
So we have seashells, cattle, grain, woman, slaves, drugs, oil, bronze, gold, and US dollar.
We’ve always had money as a concept, okay?
But money, for most of human history, signified a debt that could not be paid off, okay?
So David Grabber, who’s an anthropologist, he wrote about this in his book, Debt.
Why did we create money as a concept?
Because there are certain transactions in which there was so much debt, you couldn’t
pay it off, okay?
So like most of human actions, it’s just reciprocal, right?
So you help me, I help you, okay?
But there are three things in which the debt can’t be really paid off, okay?
The first example is, let’s just say I kill your brother, well now you come kill me, right?
And you kill me, then my family’s gonna go kill you, okay?
And it creates a vicious cycle of vengeance, right?
So the way to get rid of this problem is, if I kill your brother, I acknowledge that
it’s a debt I cannot be paid off.
give you something valuable it could be gold it could be um jewelry it could be anything okay
all right so that’s what money is that’s the first example second example is if if a woman marries
into your family right then that’s also a debt that can be paid off because you’ve just taken
away my a daughter so you give me a gift maybe some gold maybe a cow a horse it doesn’t matter
okay a second example of a deck that can be paid off the third example and this this really
important example is let’s just say that you have a great person in the community he’s a great leader
or he’s a great priest or he’s just a great person in general and he sent a lot for you and but he
dies what do you do then what you do is you bury him with gifts with gold with money okay and so
it’s a monument to his legacy you know that he can’t take the stuff with him to the afterworld
but it doesn’t matter all you’re doing is you’re acknowledging his contribution to your community
and that’s why when we dig up graves in ancient times you’ll see people buried with gold because
the community is acknowledging this person was great we will forever remember him and so the
money is a way to acknowledge this fact okay does that make sense right so for most of human history
that’s what we use money for as to symbolize money that can be not be that cannot be paid off
but then over time as society became more sophisticated um we use we use other forms
of currency okay and as you can see all these different forms of currency okay whether it’s
seashells cattle grain women’s drugs oil it doesn’t really work in terms of universality
sort of value immobility but bronze does okay and not the bronze gold does and then after go
today we have the us dollar it doesn’t make sense okay so once you have an universe except
a currency you can now have globalization right and so bronze was a major discovery
which allowed for globalization um yeah yeah go ahead uh i think browns and the gold is commodities
and u.s dollar is like money stuff but why does browns because it is it because drugs and oil
does not count as capital so it is not okay look let’s you’re right okay drugs can be occurring
the problem is that it’s not universally accepted okay and also the problem with drugs of course is
it causes a lot of problems your society so think of opium in china and it’s it’s hard um yeah it
creates a lot of problems so it can’t be universally accepted in fact most countries would ban drugs
but at the same time you’re right in that it is valuable it’s a store of value
so you guys don’t know this but there are lots of governments that have secret supplies of drugs
because if the world falls apart and you need to rebuild society you need wealth right so gold you
need gold but guess what drugs is also a form of wealth because people want it okay people crave it
all right um so so is this clear right so once you have a universally accepted currency you have the
basis for globalization and globalization happens naturally as a result all right so capital is just
the monetization of power that’s all it is and you can have any form of capital okay the problem of
capital is that it exploits it alienates and it consolidates okay so go back go go make example
where i’m the leader of a village if there’s no money involved all i care about is winning the
respect of my people okay and so i work hard for them but once capital is involved i see each
person as a commodity okay and therefore i become alienated from my humanity and from others and
now i want to exploit people in order to generate more capital and over time what happened is that
the strongest will have all the capital which leads to massive inequality so the only result
of capitalism is one massive inequality corruption immorality okay and alienation anger indifference
and this is the world we live in today it doesn’t make sense it’s just the nature of capital there’s
no way around it okay so as we discussed previously we have two different mindsets
okay we’re composed of two different individuals we have the altruistic nature so we care about
relationships we care about empathy we care about creativity and there’s our utitarian side which
is all about material objectives logic and hard work okay so in school you have the uterine mindset
okay like how do i get good grades that’s all you care about all right at home you care about
relationships you care about maintaining good relations with your mother and your father and
your siblings and your relatives what we also know and it’s really important is that people
who are altruistic people who work for others tend to be more creative than other people but people
who are obsessed with money tend to work harder than other people okay that’s why globalization
happen so fast because everyone’s in a rush to make as much money as possible
okay but eventually you reach a point where a few people have all the money
and so everyone’s like screw this i give up because i’m never
going to be rich you lie flat right tongue ping or
quite quitting you just give up okay and this is the world we live in
today okay now capitalism is a problem because
it changes the fundamental nature of your brain okay so this is a
article from the Atlantic Monthly which is a very popular magazine in the United States
there are these neuroscientists who have done brain scandals brain scans and they discovered
that power causes brain damage okay in fact if you look at the brain of a psychopath and the brain of
a wealthy person it’s pretty similar okay yeah they did brands brain scans and it looks as though
people with who has too much money has brain damage why because a normal person is able to
have empathy is able to understand the feelings of others guess what if you’re too powerful
you’re too wealthy you don’t have the capacity to have empathy you don’t you can’t appreciate
the feelings of others so think of like ellen musk or mark zuckerberg i don’t care they have
actually no concept of empathy okay they are completely unable to relate to the feelings of
of other people.
This is Brian Johnson, okay?
Brian Johnson’s a millionaire.
He spends about $2 million a year on health, okay?
He says some crazy things.
So for example, he has a father and he has a son,
and he believes in blood transfusion.
So, you know, if you, you know,
transfuse the blood, your blood, you become younger.
So he’s trying to figure out how to live forever, okay?
So he’ll do things like blood transfusion.
But, you know, he has, he works so hard, man,
because he’ll get up at like five o’clock in the morning,
exercise. The food he eats is the most nutritious food in the world. And he’ll regulate his sleep.
He’s always monitoring his heartbeat. He’s always exercising. Okay. His life sucks. And the question
you have to ask yourself is, if you have so much money, why don’t you just enjoy it? You know,
why don’t you just enjoy your life? Why are you focused on living forever? Okay. And that’s a
problem with wealthy people. They’re kind of scooping their head. Okay. He looks like a vampire
guys okay this is him when he first you know started this project and you can see he looks
like a vampire now all right i’m not exaggerating here look at this guy the problem is that there
are lots of wealthy people in the world and they happen to like this idea of living forever okay
so let’s just say let’s do a thought experiment you’re a billionaire okay you have the you have
you have like a hundred million dollars ten million dollars sorry like ten billion dollars
in the bank hundred billion dollars in the bank who knows you have a problem which is how do i
keep this right because you’re gonna die okay and you have all that money so you can do whatever you
want so what you do is you invest in brian johnson you invest in scientific research to live longer
but you also do what you also build bunkers okay because you’re afraid that the world will end and
you want to live forever so you build bunkers this is mark zuckerer’s bunker in hawaii it’s
of stupid because if the world’s the world’s gonna end is your bunker gonna save you probably not
okay but he spent like 26 million dollars no or 260 million dollars on this stupid thing hoping
to live forever and this is what it looks like in on the inside it’s crazy to go through life
thinking about how to live forever and how to survive an apocalypse why not just enjoy your
life okay they also join secret societies why because secret societies may have the secret to
reincarnation of a secret to immortality of a secret to longevity they don’t care they have
so much money that they’re willing to invest in everything okay so they’re willing to try blood
transfusion they’re willing to build bunkers they’re also willing to join secret societies
and that’s why you see two societies growing in power and popularity today they also worship satan
okay because again if you have 10 billion dollars you’re stuck right because you don’t want to die
like you don’t like it’s what we call sunk cause fallacy right you you you
you like I worked so hard for this and I have the best life but I’m gonna die and
when I die all this is gone I have to start all over again I don’t want to do
that okay so they’re willing to do anything including worship Satan in fact
what we’ll learn is that the religion of Satan became so popular in order to
solve this problem where wealthy people they want to live forever and they want
the world to stay the same as it is now but as you learn in this class it is
impossible for the world to stay the way it is change is a constant things move
in cycles capitalism gives rise to wealth but also destroys wealth that’s
just the nature of life okay all right so that’s a Bronze Age collapse any
questions sorry yeah go ahead go ahead why do they worship satan because you said that those
millionaires they want to keep their money forever and what does it do with satan okay
that’s a really good question okay so um it’s really desperation right because what religion
teaches you is that wealth is bad and when you go to heaven you’ll be judged by god and god and god
God is going to ask you, hey, why do you have so much money,
man?
And you’ll be like, well, I stole this money,
and I hurt a lot of people, and I cheated, I lied, I steal.
Yeah, you know?
And do you really want to say that to God?
Yeah, you’re kind of stuck, right?
So first of all, you don’t want to die.
You don’t want to give up all this money
that you worked hard to get, but you also
don’t want to face God and face his judgment, OK?
So what’s your alternative here?
alternative is you believe in something more powerful than god or at least someone who you can
find refuge in from god okay if it means going to hell you prefer going to hell than facing judgment
from god okay because you and your heart know exactly what you did to get that 10 billion
dollars okay you know what you did maybe other people don’t know but you know what you did and
god knows what you did and you really really want to face judgment all right okay so yeah
does that make sense okay any more questions guys all right so um that’s it for the branch age
so we will discuss the iliad next class okay and so what i’m going to do is i’m going to introduce
the um iliad today and then we’ll continue the iliad on thursday okay
so the branches collapse is important because it will give rise to greek civilization which we
which we believe to be the basis for western civilization okay so the question then is how
this happened okay so if you look at my city in greece and then we transition into um the dark
ages okay the dark ages does not all it means is that the greeks lost capacity to write okay
and so what will happen is my city in greece will transform from a past economy into something called
the polis okay politics in the city state okay this is where we get the word politics from okay
so this is a major political transition where you went from a centralized economy to now city states
competing against each other that’s the first thing second thing that’s important is the writing
system changes it went from linear b linear b because that becomes the iso what’s a new writing
system called i’m sure you guys know the name alphabet okay all right and the big the third
big change is you go from censorship okay because remember in a palace economy in a centralized
system bureaucrats from control and bureaucrats control what is talked about okay or what is
expressed and they censure and centralize content okay they basically create propaganda so now
without censorship you have a new person emerge named homer okay and we will discuss homer next
class and these things these three things together become the basis for greek civilization and this
is why the greeks became the greatest civilization ever in human history so the main lesson i want
to leave you today is yes collapse is bad but collapse also gives opportunity for a new
civilization to arise for a new humanity to emerge and we will discuss this next class okay the birth
of Quixelization. All right, great. All right.
Source: Predictive History