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Video Description
Rome, Professor Jiang argues, was not civilization’s triumph but its great anti-civilization — an empire built deliberately on hate. Through Livy and Virgil he shows how the Romans rewrote their own founding myths: the murdered twin, the stolen women, the father who executed his own sons. These stories were weapons, he says, teaching a city to convert self-hatred into conquest. Where Greek tragedy taught empathy, Roman spectacle taught the world to fear.
Full Video Transcript
Today we do Rome and so before we’ve done Persia, the Jews and the Greeks and these are the three
main civilizations after the Bronze Age collapse and now we will emerge Rome to eclipse all three
and build a world empire okay and what I will argue to you today is that Rome is the great
anti-civilization um or you can call it just the evil empire okay all right so what do we know
about rome well like most great empires they emerge initially at the borderlands of another
cultural empire okay so these are the etruscans and the etruscans are very similar to the mycenaean
greeks and as you can see they are expanding throughout the italian peninsula now the thing
thing about empires is that eventually the people become lazy arrogant and stupid and so what they
do is they get people to fight for them so the romans are here and as you can see um this is
the borderlands and the entire area is surrounded by great warriors this is a poor region and so
always funding for resources so romans get recruited as mercenaries and over time what
happened is that they will start to emerge as the great power in the italian peninsula and at this
point in history this is really important just run up by lots of different people that are like them
and they’re warlike so they triumph because they become the most warlike of everyone okay
Their entire society is based on war.
This is a Etruscan civilization and as you can see it is very advanced.
The Etruscan civilization is heavily in contact with the Egyptians and the Greeks and as well
as people around them because they are serfing people.
And this is the civilization that will most heavily influence the Romans.
As you can see the Etruscans are always at war as well.
has become wealthier they will recruit the romans to fight for them this is not a great map but
that’s what this map shows you is the gradual expansion of rome so at first as you can see
it is actually at the most disadvantaged location because it’s always it’s surrounded by enemies
um it is on flat land and so it’s not easily defensible and it’s not really by the coast
and therefore it’s hard for it to trade but because it is in such a disadvantaged position
it is forced to be the most martial the most violent the most militaristic the most aggressive
and the culture evolves around that and slowly over time they’re able to conquer the entire
italian peninsula and then expand uh to the mediterranean okay so this is another map
that shows you uh rome and how it’s gonna slowly expand over time the way it expands
is through military conquest and then by building roads and this is very impressive because if you’ve
ever been in italy it’s very hilly so there’s a tremendous effort to build roads but once they
build the roads they’re able to consolidate and navigate their empire um this is a map that shows
you the geography of italy as you can see it’s very mountainous and there are that many rivers
which tells us it’s very poor and because it’s very poor the people tend to be very unified
uh very aggressive and they have a deep egalitarianism because only by working together
can you ultimately triumph over the other people okay so there’s a main characteristic about rome
in the early days that you must remember it is poor it is small okay and it is uh unified so
everyone knows each other and so because of its geographic characteristics we emerge its concept
of liberty all right and this concept of liberty is obedience to the fathers to history to culture
because only by doing so can you survive as a people now what’s interesting about this is it’s
a different concept from the greeks when the greeks believe that what liberty is is the right
to speak your mind in front of others um and as such the major difference between the greeks and
the Romans is in in Greece citizenship is passed on from family to family but in Rome citizenship
can be earned okay it’s an open citizenship system why because if you just obey the fathers the laws
the customs then you can be a Roman citizen and as such what’s going to happen is that as Rome expands
it’s going to incorporate different people into its culture and as a result Rome has an advantage
that Athens and Sparta doesn’t have. Rome can always replenish its soldiers and as such it can
afford to lose war after war after war but as it does so it gets stronger and stronger because it’s
learning with each defeat okay and that is the secret to Rome’s ultimate victory. The heart and
center of Roman society is the Senate. This is where the leading families come together to discuss
the fate of Rome. And at this time in history, when Rome is poor, this is not a problem because
everyone knows each other and there’s no real inequality, therefore there can be no corruption.
And so these fathers, the senators, are representing the best interests of all Romans.
But over time, as Rome becomes wealthier and wealthier, this becomes a huge problem because as
Rome develops more wealth, guess who gets all the wealth? These guys, okay? So we’ll see this later
as that as Rome gets wealthier, Rome also becomes much more corrupt. All right, so the Greeks,
the fighting system is the hoplites. The Romans use something called the legions. Now there are
some major differences between these two fighting techniques, even though for their time they are
are the most advanced as you can see uh the greek hoplites are heavily armored okay and as such each
hoplite needs to buy his own armor which means that hoplites tend to be um small landowners
okay they have a bit of wealth the legionnaires can be poor because it doesn’t actually require
that much armor to be a legionnaire okay that’s the first thing second thing is that it actually
takes a lot of training to be a hoplite you basically have to spend years and years honing
your skills because you fight in formation uh the legionnaire you don’t you don’t need that much
training okay you can actually go straight into battle the third major difference is that as you
can see the hoplites they are using heavy armor shields um and helmets the legionnaires are much
lighter the reason why is the legionnaires would develop in a depth of fight in a mountainous
region so they need to be able to climb to hike up mountains in information whereas the greeks
are fighting more on flatland okay so over time what will happen is the legionnaires will overwhelm
the hoplites um this is a typical roman peasant he’s spending most of his time farming and when
it’s required of him he goes to war okay he’s not a full-time soldier um so um the greeks and
the romans will fight a series of wars so as the romans are expanding they glow they go closer and
closer to the coast and here are a lot of greek colonies and the greeks are losing to the romans
so they call for help from the compatriots um across the sea and a king named pyrus of epirus
he decides to take advantage of this opportunity to go conquer italy okay so he and his hoplites
sail over to greece and they are destroying the romans battle after battle uh pyrus is defeating
the romans and then he finally says you know what if i win one more battle i’m going to have no more
soldiers okay and that shows you the difference between greek fighting versus roman fighting
greek fighting uses specialized forces that uh can with over time whereas the romans can just
keep on replenishing their forces okay so the romans don’t actually win that many battles but
they win most of their wars okay now as the romans are expanding they eventually reach the mediterranean
and so now they start developing a navy in order to trade with other nations like Egypt and Greece
this comes in conflict with the Carthaginians and at this time the main power in the Mediterranean
are the Carthaginians now and they will fight a war that lasts decades 100 years and ultimately
Rome will triumph and the main reason why that Rome triumphs and it’s really important for you
for you guys to understand is the main difference between Carthage and Rome is
Carthage is rich, Rome is poor. Why? What’s the matter? Because if you’re rich
what you can do is hire mercenaries to fight the war for you and that’s what
Carthage does. But Rome is poor therefore they must use their own citizens to
fight the war. So over time the citizens become much tougher, much more
unified. Whereas the Carthaginians they become more corrupt, they become much
more decadent. And because the Romans are more invested in the war, they will fight
to the end, whereas the Carthaginians are business people, they’re traders, okay?
They’re very known for their sharp business skills. And so they do a
cost-benefit analysis and be like, you know what, this war is gonna cost us more
than if we just surrender, okay? So the Carthaginians surrender the First
Punic War, they surrender the Second Punic War, and the Third Punic War, guess what
that could be wiped out by the Romans, okay?
So that’s what the Roman mentality is.
We fight you, we’ll fight you to the death.
And if we beat you, we will kill every one of you, okay?
That’s just a Roman war mentality,
and that’s where they ultimately triumph in the end, okay?
So this is another map that shows you the conflict
between the Carthaginians and the Romans.
This is the Second Punic War, okay?
So Carthage over here, it’s expanded to Spain,
And there are lots of silver mines in Spain.
Rome right now, it’s still pretty small, okay?
But again, because the Romans are dedicated towards war.
That’s the only thing they know,
that’s the only thing they’re good at, okay?
They will eventually triumph over the Carthaginians.
We actually don’t know that much about the history of Rome,
okay?
But the most famous episode during the Second Punic War
is when a Carthaginian general named Hannibal Barca,
Okay, he’s in Spain and he decides he’s going to go destroy Rome.
Now, what he does it is by crossing the Alps.
Okay, so these are mountains.
And for the longest time, the Romans thought that this was a natural barrier.
And what Hannibal Barca will do is he will cross the Alps with his war elephants and his army,
land in Italy, and start attacking Rome.
And in three decisive battles, Hannibal will destroy the entire Roman army.
Okay, he will work with the entire Roman army.
And at this point in history, Rome needs to surrender.
Okay, so Hannibal sends an envoy to the Senate and tells him,
I’ve destroyed every single one of your soldiers.
You have no more army.
Therefore, I am willing to talk peace terms.
And the Senate is like, screw you, come get us.
Okay, and this marks a turning point in Roman history.
So let’s look over some of the major events.
This is Hannibal crossing the Alps.
One of the most famous military feats in human history.
This is the Battle of Tribia, one of the first major battles,
where even though Hannibal is undermanned and he’s in enemy territory,
what he will do is he will use a series of brilliant military maneuvers to ambush his enemies.
So these are the Romans.
as you can see what’s going to happen is the the um carthaginians their horseman lies in the marsh
and then they will sneak up and destroy the romans from the rear okay that’s the first major battle
this is the battle of lake tressamine and the same thing basically happens where the romans
are crossing then the then hannibal ambushes them from the uh hills okay the second major battle
and this is the most famous battle this is about called the battle of canine okay and this is what
we call a double involvement strategy where what happened is that the two armies meet and then
hannibal will send his cavalry on the wings and then they will envelop the roman army and then
they will slaughter everyone okay so romans lose between 50 000 to 100 000 men their entire army
it’s wiped out because of this battle, okay? So this is the first phase. Second phase is when
the cavalry starts to flank the Romans. And in the third phase, the soldiers come in from behind
and trap the Romans and kill everyone, okay? So this is the most famous battle in military history.
Now there’s a problem with this battle, which is this has never happened before in human history.
remember before we discussed the idea that in China one most common military
strategies is behind the river strategy okay so you force your men to go to a
river and now the enemy is approaching them and have no choice but to fight to
the end because otherwise they’ll drown okay if you can see this situation it’s
very similar the Romans are in a very similar situation where they where
they’re being surrounded by enemies on all sides right so at this time what
what should happen theoretically is they become energized and the entire roman army goes and
fights the carthaginians and defeats the carthaginians okay we have we have examples of
that we don’t think and we don’t have an example of in fact an entire army in ancient times being
surrounded and being slaughtered by the enemy this is a very strange battle in fact if you
ask chat gbt which battles have used double environment strategy basically you have the
Battle of Canaan, okay, we have that, but the next one is 1940. 1940 in World War II. Now the difference
of course is that by the time you hit the 1940s, you have machine guns, you have tanks, so if you
start an enemy, you can destroy your enemy, but not in ancient times, okay? In fact, the closest
parallel that we have is the Battle of Marathon, but even, but some historians suggest, okay, so we’re
not very, so even historians disagree whether or not the Battle of Marathon was actually a double
involvement strategy this makes no sense this battle strategy makes no sense from a military
perspective also we can’t find the damn place you would think this is a huge battle fifty thousand
hundred thousand romans are dead to be a lot of bodies we can’t find the damn place okay look
there’s no archaeological evidence to prove the battle took place we don’t have any evidence
that’s kind of strange okay um yeah but maybe it’s because of the weather or you know we don’t know
okay all right guys so um what’s going on here okay so on youtube someone asked me how do we know
what history is true or not okay now you would think the answer is you just ask historians
whether it’s true or not you know the answer the problem is that every historian that you talk to
tells you the battle canal must be historical fact it must be even though we don’t have any
evidence for it so given that how can we um understand or figure out if it’s true or not
well in this class what i teach you is a new historical framework to understand history okay
so this is predictive history and we look we ask ourselves does the battle cannot fit into a larger
historical pattern okay second question we ask is does it make sense according to game theory
and the third question is does religion explain the battle okay and when we do this we use this
framework to understand the back canal our conclusion must be it didn’t happen it was
completely made up okay the battle canal did not happen so why well first of all when we have these
great military generals that kind of a barca they tend to become a king okay so think of napoleon
or think of Julius Caesar.
Hannibal Barca is the first general that we have
that conquered all of Rome and decided,
I’m gonna sit back and retire for the next 50 years, okay?
Never happened before.
Why didn’t he go back to Carthage
and reclaim the kingship, right?
Okay, that’s the first problem.
Second problem is game theory, okay?
So if you read Roman history,
what they will tell you is that Hannibal,
after the Battle of Cannae,
he was stuck in Italy without resources.
Then the question is,
Why didn’t he go to Carthage, conquer the place,
and demand the resources he needs to win against Rome?
Why is he just sitting back, okay?
Also remember, this is a guy who crossed the Alps
on his own initiative.
The Carthaginians told him,
don’t start a war with Rome, Hannibal.
And Hannibal was like, nah, I’m gonna go cross the Alps.
Thank you very much, okay?
So this makes absolutely no sense whatsoever.
And then from a religious perspective,
how can we explain why Hannibal did what he did?
The Roman historians will tell you,
oh, it’s because his father lost against Rome.
He wanted revenge on behalf of his father.
That makes no sense, guys, okay?
Usually when a Napoleon emerges,
it’s because he thinks he’s a son of God.
Think of Napoleon, think of Alexander the Great,
think of Julius Caesar, okay?
They all have a messianic calling, a divine mission.
So from this, only conclusion can be,
first of all, the Battle of Cana did not happen.
There’s no way it could have happened.
The second thing is you can also say
that Hannibal Barca did not exist as a person, all right?
But then this leads us to a really huge problem,
which is, why would the Romans just make this stuff up?
Why?
Why would they say, we fought this battle
and 100,000 of our men got killed
by this Carthaginian general Hannibal,
who was smarter than us, okay?
Well, the reason why is this, Carthage, okay?
That Carthage is at this time in history, about 200 BCE,
the most beautiful, the most prosperous,
the most cultured city in the world.
And what did Romans do?
They burned it to the ground and killed everyone, okay?
That’s just the Roman way.
Now, this is a siege of Carthage
that lasted many, many years in the Third Punic War.
The Romans, if they don’t like you,
they will come and kill every one of you, okay?
And that’s what they did in Carthage.
Now, during this war, a Greek named Polybius, okay?
Polybius was a hostage of Rome
and he became the official historian of the Roman Empire.
So this is a guy who invented the Battle of Canaan
why to justify the burning of carthage right because the romans are like why did we kill
the carthaginians because that’s what we do man okay but polybius is greek and he understands
that you know if rome you’re gonna be an empire you need people on your side you can’t go around
just killing people you need to explain your actions so in other words polybius in order to
justify the roman empire create this entire history of the second punic war that didn’t
really happen okay because now it’s like okay well the Romans felt threatened by Hannibal right
Hannibal was going to destroy them and so they all saw Carthage as a threat and therefore they
had to destroy Carthage now it’s much more reasonable okay so Polybius basically made
the entire history of Rome the thing to remember about history is that if you’re a military power
you don’t write history why because you you’re not capable of reflection you’re not capable of
deep cultural production okay so the romans won all these battles and got the greeks to write
their history for them to just justify why they did what they did okay does that make sense guys
all right so again i hate to say this but basically um all roman history is complete
nonsense all right um if you read roman history just don’t believe it believe anything you read
okay so um let’s look at the roman war machine because after the war against carthage after
rome destroys carthage rome is the undisputed leader of the mediterranean it’s an empire now
but it still keeps on fighting these wars overseas for no particular reason why because it has no
choice in the matter this is the entire roman war machine okay so um because rome’s a poor poor
place the only way that it can generate wealth is by conquering other people okay so the nobility
wants to go fight these wars overseas so that they can capture slaves why because they can get these
slaves then to work their estates okay so at this time in history slaves are the main resource that
people are fighting over okay now to fight these wars peasants are conscripted into the military
but once they leave the land they need to feed the families right so what do they do they borrow
money with their land as collateral okay but over time what happens is they can’t pay back the
interest right they default on a loan and then landowners nobility sees the land then what they
do is they get the slaves that they conquer to come work this land right now the peasants have
no choice but to go to rome to look for work because they’ve lost their land and the roman
state gives them food it’s called a grain doll okay and so now the nobility wants to fight more
wars what they do is they bribe the peasants to vote for more wars and then the person can
go and maybe win some booty okay because they have no land and um so what’s happening is that
what the woman war machine is doing is creating slavery debt corruption and inequality okay and
over time what happens that wealth becomes more consolidated in fewer hands which creates conflict
between the upper nobility and the lower nobility the optimists are called the upper nobility
and the populaires are called the low nobility okay so what’s the difference
ultimate just means the best of the best okay why do i have so much money because
i’m better than you are in fact my entire family is better than
you are populaires is where we get the word populist from
so this is lower nobility people like julius caesar who take advantage of the
discontent in order to launch their political
careers and what they do is they promise the peasants
the people uh more opportunities okay to take the wealth of the rich and
give it more to the poor okay so this is a conflict that will arise in rome after the end
of carthage and this will last for centuries until the very end of the roman empire okay in other
words the roman war machine doesn’t know how to stop even even when it becomes an empire all this
aggressive military energy then translate it translate into civil war okay so the romans
aren’t killing other people they’re killing each other all right um this is a question from a
youtube um a viewer and uh alera ford asked why are wars good at maintaining equilibrium okay
why is it that uh wars help reduce a problem of elite overproduction okay and the reason why is
and i and i i know i know it’s hard for you guys to understand this but wars are beneficial all
right so let’s go over the the benefits of war well first of all you create social cohesion right
you’re fighting against another person you have to stand together so it creates a dialectic i hate
you the other which gives meaning and purpose to life okay it creates social mobility if you’re
poor you’ll find a war you get lucky you can become pretty wealthy uh wolf destruction and
generation okay so you’re destroying wealth which allows for more
opportunities so rather fittest so population control so basically the
strong survive in war the weak die off high fertility rate because so many
people are dying mothers are forced to have more and more children okay they don’t
have a choice in the matter release of social tension so if people don’t
like each other they go fight a war together and now they’re best friends
um innovation creativity entertainment for nobility okay competition
um war is often just the nobility just enjoys wars because
it’s like playing a chess game okay they’re not the ones dying worst case
scenario they become hostages right all right so
again what happens is that after carthage is destroyed the romans turn
against each other okay the first thing that happens is something called the
social wars basically it’s the um roman
allies who were told to fight a war in return they were going to citizenship they were not going to
grant citizenship so they rebelled against the roman state and this led to civil war okay but
the problem is you’re not fighting the roman army so you’re not going to win so eventually the roman
state had to give in and give citizenship to these uh people okay this is uh one most radical
turning point in roman history so um right now there’s massive inequality in rome the nobility
have all the land and they have slaves to work the land the peasants are having problems feeding
themselves in the cities okay so now what do you do so uh this man is named tiberius gracchus and
he’s a reformer and he says basically hey guys here’s what we’re going to do the rich have all
this land we’re not going to touch that because we have to respect private property but there’s
all this public land that’s not being used it belongs to a woman’s state we have all these
poor people that want to work the land but they have no land so what we’ll do is this we’ll take
public land that no one’s touching okay no one’s using this stuff give it to the people to work to
generate more wealth for our society we have more tax revenue the people are happier and yeah and
no one gets hurt okay perfect perfect solution right because he proposed a solution the nobility
documents beat him to death okay not only did they beat him to death they beat his brother to death
as well okay why do they do this because nobility is how dare you steal our public land from us
okay so nobility was like this public land belongs to us man because we are the state
screw the people okay all right so of course this leads to the rise of dictators so there have been
different dictators who’ve um come to power and they’ve tried to solve this sort of conflict
within rome the first is marius who promised reform but really didn’t deliver then you have
solo okay and so the solution was really simple let’s just kill all the reformers pretty simple
guys okay our problem isn’t the inequality the problem is you got too many people uh who propose
reform so he just killed all reformers okay what and then after he killed reformers retired well
these reformers who got away with julius caesar okay so julius caesar because his family was very
wealthy was able to escape sola and but he’s a very ambitious man so now he’s going to build
his political career based on the discontent of the people and what he’s going to do is that he’s
going to bribe his way into office so that he can get a generalship to go invade Gaul okay so he
goes to Gaul which is in modern day France he spends many years there what’s he doing there
okay okay well if you look at official Roman history what he’s doing there is he’s trying
to pacify the people of gaul okay so he has these like these series of military campaigns in gaul
and it culminates in uh so he’s leading his soldiers into war in gaul when it culminates
into something called the battle of alicia which are the most famous battles in history basically
what happened what’s happened is that um this is the very last battle of um caesar’s gala campaign
what he’s done is he’s surrounded a village where his enemies are okay but his enemies send word to
all the galactic tribes to come and converge against the romans so what the romans do is
they build fortifications to block out the invaders okay so they’re fighting wars on both
fronts they’re fighting in the inside against the enemy’s trap here they’re also fighting against
the enemies coming from outside as well and uh alicia is one of the greatest battles in human
ministry, and again, we have reason to think that this didn’t happen, okay? So what was Caesar doing
in Gaul, and why was he starting all these wars? The answer is really simple, okay? There are three
reasons. The first is, remember, slaves are the most valuable commodity at this time. So what he’s
doing is he’s basically capturing slaves. He’s going and he’s starting his wars in order to
capture slaves. Caesar said famously, I killed a third of the people in Gaul, I enslaved a third
of them and then he left a third alone okay so he basically committed genocide against the the people
of gaul and um what’s important to understand is he probably exaggerated he probably didn’t kill a
third why because if he captures slaves a lot of this money has to go to the roman state but if he
killed if he pretends to kill the gauls but actually enslaves them then all the money goes
to him okay so by enslaving people he became filthy rich in fact he became the wealthiest man
in Rome and he used his money to bribe his his um friends into office okay so he became also
most politically powerful individual in Rome that’s the reason number one he went why he went
to Gaul second is that Caesar um was trying to build a loyal army a private army that was loyal
to him and so just because he was able to give money to these soldiers these soldiers not only
were loyal to him but they also developed a lot of fun experience while in Gaul right so now Caesar
Caesar has the world’s most powerful army.
The third reason why he went to Gaul,
and this is the most important,
is to create a myth of himself as a great conqueror.
All these great politicians understand,
people don’t really understand the difference
between reality and fantasy.
In fact, they don’t care about the difference, okay?
People will believe what they want to believe.
So what Caesar was doing was, he was going to Gaul,
and then he was getting people to go back to Rome
and announce all his victories, okay?
reason to believe that a lot of these victories were made up but it gave the impression among the
romans that caesar was this great conqueror okay so think of this guy right what’s he doing he’s
trying to create an image of himself as energetic dynamic viral right right does that make sense oh
and a better example of course is this guy okay all right donald trump he spent a lot of years
in the world wrestling um federation trying to portray himself as macho as energetic as strong
right and then for over 10 years he had the most popular television show on tv called the
apprentice where he pretended to be this savvy genius of a business person right the apprentice
and this is what really launched his political career all right so this is all these great
politicians understand if you really want a great political career you have to create a myth of
yourself as an entrepreneurial military genius okay so um after go the roman senate it basically
gets really annoyed at caesar because they understand what he’s trying to do he’s trying
to become king of rome so they basically try to impeach him okay they want to put him on trial
so caesar basically rebels against them and it starts a civil war and what’s going to happen
is that caesar is going to go conquer the entire roman empire now um it’s one man in his army
against the entire empire so he should have lost the problem is that the optimates are really
stupid arrogant and lazy okay so um pompeii general pompeii is fighting for the optimates
and he’s going against caesar and pompeii’s strategy it’s really simple okay caesar has
control over italy there’s a problem though italy is poor it does not produce enough food so all we
have to do is lay siege to italy and the people start war is over that’s all we have to do right
we don’t have to fight caesar just lay siege to italy um the people starve the people rebelling
and caesar and then caesar loses the war the problem though is the optimists were afraid that
if pompey won the war then they would make pompey king right so what the options wanted to do was
force pompey and you shoot you a caesar into a battle and kill both okay they wanted to destroy
both and this led to something called a battle of farceless remember at this time caesar needs to go
fight pompey but pompey doesn’t have to actually fight caesar but the optimist forced him to fight
in a battle called farceless okay and in this battle because caesar has a loyal army they defeat
pompey even though pompey has more soldiers okay and then what um caesar will do is then go conquer
the entire roman empire and he makes himself dictator of rome and this of course leads to
his assassination why is he assassinated because the romans are afraid that he’ll make himself king
and he will abolish the debt of the people and he will reappropriate the land and give it to
the people okay he’ll basically make himself king by making rome a much more equal and egalitarian
place and so they killed him and this led to more civil war um in which octavius caesar augustus
caesar will will be triumphant because he will inherit julius caesar’s army and at the battle
of actium in 31 bc he would destroy mark anthony and cleopatra making himself the supreme ruler of
the roman empire okay and he’s really considered the first roman emperor but what’s really
important for us to understand is at this point in history um the problems of rome don’t really
go away he is emperor and during his time things are stable but after he dies the roman empire
goes back into civil war and it keeps and it does not stop fighting civil war until it’s very
collapsed okay what makes him um emperor is the fact that he will take egypt and turn it into
his private property and he will use the wealth of egypt to fund the army so all the soldiers are now
loyal to him individually as opposed to the roman state okay now against augustus caesar he was not
a military genius but he he appreciated that if the roman people were to survive they needed a
culture as distinct and as powerful as greek culture at this time in history the greeks um
were culturally dominant and so he was afraid that over time all romans would just become greeks so
he needed to create a culture that was distinct from the greeks but also considered much more
powerful than the greeks okay so that was his main major contribution to the roman empire so what he
does is he takes the work of polybius remember polybius is the main uh architect of the history
of roman empire and he tells livy to basically rewrite the history but from a roman lens as
opposed to a greek lens okay so this is a very really famous book written by livy uh sponsored
by octavius caesar okay so we’re gonna read a bit of it to understand the roman mentality okay all
right all right so um what’s happening is this the book starts with the founding of rome and in the
roman tradition what’s going to happen is um the romans are descendants of troy remember troy and
iliad was destroyed by the greeks how do the greeks destroy troy through trickery through deception
right the trojan horse and then what will happen is the greeks flood in the city and kill everyone
but there’s a trojan general named inius and his wife croatia what he will what they will do is
is they will escape, okay, Troy, in order to find Rome.
Now, Caricia is the wife, and what she will do is,
as they’re leaving Troy, she will kill herself
in order to allow Aeneas to escape fully, okay?
So in the Roman tradition, all that matters is the father, okay?
So you can see the father can’t walk,
so Aeneas has to shoulder him to the ship.
And women don’t matter at all, okay?
That’s the Roman tradition.
All right, so what happens next is Rome is founded by twins, Romulus and Remus,
and they will fight for the kingship of Rome, okay?
So can you read the story of Romulus and Remus?
Remus is said to have been the first to receive an omen.
Six vultures appeared to him.
The augury had just been announced to Romulus when double the number appeared to him.
Each was saluted as king by his own party.
The one side based their claim on the priority of the appearance,
the other on the number of the birds.
Then followed an angry altercation.
Heated passions led to bloodshed.
In their turmoil, Remus was killed.
The more common report is that Remus contemptuously jumped over the newly raised walls
and was for with killed by the enraged Romulus who exclaimed so shall it be henceforth with
everyone who leaves over my walls Romulus thus became sole ruler and the city was called after
him its founder so Romulus and Remus are twins okay they love each other and um Rome was founded
on violence okay that’s the very nature of Rome a city based on violence this story if you remember
um sorry okay so so now romulus founds a city called rome and he invites anyone to join him
and over time they become much more powerful and they threaten their neighboring states and they
cannot and these states cannot defeat rome in war so what they decide is you know what we can’t beat
romans in battle but if our daughters don’t marry into them they’ll be dead after one generation
they don’t have any children okay so this is compact among the nations of italy not to marry
into rome so romans discover this and they hatch this plan what they’re gonna do is you’re gonna
have this major festival and invite all the families to come to this festival and then
um they will kidnap the woman and rape them okay that’s the plan okay they were invited to accept
hospitality at the different houses and after examining the situation of the city its walls
in the large number of dwelling houses
included, they were astonished
at the rapidity with which
the Roman state had grown.
When the hour for the games had come
and their eyes and minds were alike
riveted on the spectacle
before them, the
preconcerted signal
was given and the Roman youth
dashed in all directions
to carry off the maidens
who were present. The larger
part were carried off
indiscriminately, but some particular beautiful girls who had been marked out of the leading
patricians were carried to their houses by plebeians told off for the task.
Alarm and concernation broke up the games, and the parents of the maidens fled, distracted
with grief uttering better reproaches on the violators of the laws of hospitality and appealing
to the god who to whose solemn games they had come only to be the victims of impious perfidy
okay so this is actually a very serious crime because when you invite people into your house
there are these laws that um you must show uh hospitality to your guests otherwise you will
offend the gods themselves because it’s possible the person you invite into your house is a god
himself okay so what the romans did was outrageous okay the abducted maidens were quite as despondent
and indignant romulus however went around in person and pointed out to them that it was all
owing to the pride of their parents in denying rights of intermarriage to their neighbors they
would live in honorable wedlock and share all their property and civil rights and dearest of
all to human nature would be the mothers of free men. He begged them to lay aside their
feelings of resentment and give their affections to those whom fortune had made masters of
their persons. An injury had often led to reconciliation and love. They would find their
husbands all the more affectionate, because each would do his utmost, so far as in him
lay to make up for the loss of parents and country. These arguments were reinforced by
endearments of their husbands, who excused their conduct by pleading the irresistible
force of their passion, a plea effective beyond all other and appealing to a woman’s nature.
Okay, so those ones are pretty disgusting, okay?
They rape a woman and say, it’s your fault, or it’s your parents’ fault, and I really
couldn’t control myself, so sorry, man, but I’ll be nice to you, okay?
Yep.
Alright, so this is a pretty memorable event in Roman history, it’s called the Rape of
the Sabine Woman, okay?
These are different artworks depicting the event, okay?
So the fathers are obviously pissed off about this, okay?
So a huge army is created to rescue the woman back.
And now these Roman soldiers are now facing this huge army.
And when this happens, as with the clash,
these women who are raped, they come screaming forward
in the middle and say, stop, stop, stop.
You’re my husband. You’re my father. We don’t want you to fight, okay?
Can you read, please?
Then it was that the Sabian women, whose wrongs had led to the war,
throwing off all womanish fears in their distress,
went boldly into the midst of the flying missiles with disheveled hair and rent garments.
Running across the space between the two armies,
they tried to stop any further fighting and calm the excited passions
by appealing to their fathers in the one army
and their husbands in the other
not to bring upon themselves a curse
by staining their hands with the blood
of a father-in-law or a son-in-law
nor upon their posterity
the taint of parricide.
Parricide.
Parricide.
If, they cried,
you are wary of these ties of kindred,
these marriage bonds,
then turn your anger upon us.
It is we who are the cause of the war.
It was we who had wounded and slain our husbands and fathers.
Better for us to perish rather than live without one or the other of you, as widows or as orphans.
The armies and their leaders were alike moved by this appeal.
There was a sudden hush and silence.
Then the generals advanced to arrange the terms of a treaty.
It was not only peace that was made.
The two nations were united into one state.
the royal powers was shared between them, and the seat of government for both nations was Rome.
Okay, so this couldn’t possibly happen, right?
So these women are abducted, the fathers try to rescue them,
and then the women say, hey, it was our fault.
Like, let’s just all be one big family, okay?
So this is one of the founding myths of Rome.
And I keep on saying this, but like, just take all Roman history,
and just, like, throw it in the garbage, okay?
Because it’s basically all made up.
All right, so Rome becomes more and more powerful, and now they have a king, okay?
But over time, their king becomes very corrupt.
Their king is Sarcanius Superbus.
Superbus just means arrogant.
And his son falls in love with a noble woman named Lucretia.
But Lucretia is already married to a man named Colantinius.
And so the prince decides to go, you know, rape her, okay?
and yeah okay they found lucretia sitting in her room prostrate with grief as they entered
she burst into tears and to her husband’s inquiry whether all was well replied no what can be well
with a woman when her honor is lost the marks of a stranger call lady call it teeness collegianess
are in your bed but it is only the body that have been violated the soul is pure that shall
bear witness to that but pledge me your solemn word that the adulterer shall not go unpunished
it is sextus tarquin who coming as an enemy instead of a guest forced from me last night
by brutal violence a pleasure fatal to me and if you are a man fatal to him they all successively
pledged their word and tried to console the distracted woman by turning the guilt from the
victim of the outrage to the perpetrator and urging that it is the mind that sins, not the
body, and where there has been no consent, there is no guilt. It is for you, she said, to see that
he gets in deserts. Although I acquit myself to the sin, I do not free myself from the penalty.
No unchaste woman shall henceforth live and plead Lucretia’s example. She had a knife concealed in
her dress which she plunged into her heart and fell dying on the floor her father and husband
raised the death cry okay so she is raped by the prince and um her husband and best friend uh the
best friend is named lucius brutus okay they try to console her and they know she’s distraught okay
but but lucretia is like no i don’t be consoled i want i want revenge we’re romans man we fight to
bitter end if you hit me i go kill you if you kill me i go kill your entire family okay and that’s
just the roman way so what happens is like brutus lucius brutus he leads a revolt against the king
and the king is forced out of rome and um now rome is republic it’s it’s now run by the nobility and
a lot of people are unhappy with the system because before if you’re good friends with the
king you do whatever you want but now you have to follow the laws of rome and so people conspire
against the new um republic and a couple of conspirators include two of lucius buddha’s
sons okay his two sons and the conspiracy is found out and all the conspirators are arrested
and they’re condemned to death lucius buddhist decides he’s going to put his own sons to death
so he orders and organizes the execution of his two sons okay their punishment created a great
sensation owing to the fact that the consular office imposed upon a father the duty of
inflicting punishment on his own children he who ought not to have witnessed it was destined to
be the one to see it duly carried out youths belonging to the noblest families were standing
tied to the post, but all eyes were turned to the consul’s children. The others were
unnoticed. Men did not grieve more for their punishment than for their crime, which had
incurred it that they should have conceived the idea in that year above all of betraying
to one who had been a ruthless tyrant and was now an exile and an enemy, a newly liberated
country, their father who had
liberated it, the consulship
which had originated
in the Junian
Junian house,
the senate, the plebs, all
the Rome possessed of human or divine.
The consuls took their seats,
the lictors
were told off to inflict
the penalty. They scourged
their bare backs with rods
and then beheaded them.
During the whole time, the father’s countenance
betrayed his feelings, but the father’s stern resolution was still more apparent as he
superintended the public execution. So you’re a father, right? And these are your two sons. You
love your two sons more than anything else in the world. You are forced by the law to execute your
two sons, okay? Now, most fathers would be like, you know what? I’m going to call in sick. I’m
going to go home and sleep until my sons are dead. Lucid’s Buddhist is like, no, I’m going to
actually watch my two sons get killed.
Not only that, but I’m gonna organize their execution.
Okay?
And we can imagine, okay, this is Lucius Brutus,
and he has to watch as his sons are being beheaded
right before him.
And he’s the one ordering their execution.
As you can see, people are disgusted.
They have to look away.
And people are looking at his expression.
And you can see the emotional turmoil in his face, right?
There’s hatred, there’s disgust, there’s contempt,
there’s guilt.
He hates himself, right?
He hates his son, but he hates himself even more.
There’s all this crazy energy, hateful energy,
that’s being unleashed.
The Roman way is to take all this energy
and turn it against your enemy, okay?
That’s the secret of the Roman military.
To create a society so hateful, so angry, so vicious,
that people have all this demonic energy in them
that they can now use against your enemy, okay?
So let’s see what happens.
What’s going to happen now is
the king decides to attack Rome
because this conspiracy has failed, right?
What Lucius Putus is going to do is
ride out and meet the army head-on, okay?
Can you read, please?
So two armies from these cities
followed Targon to recover his crown
and chastised the Romans.
When they had entered the Roman territory,
the consuls advanced against them.
Valerius, with the infantry and phalanx formation,
Brutus recon…
Reconitring.
Reconitring in advance with the cavalry.
Similarly, the enemy’s cavalry was in front of his main body,
Aaronus, Tarkin, the king’s son, in command.
The king himself followed with the legionnaires, whilst still at a distance,
Aaron distinguished the consul by his escort of lictors.
As they drew nearer, he clearly recognized Brutes by his features,
and in a transport of rage exclaimed,
That is the man who drove us from our country, see him proudly advancing, adorned with our insignia.
Ye god, avengers of kings, aid me.
With these words, he dug spurs into his horse and rode straight at the consul.
Brutus saw that he was making for him.
It was a point of honor in those days for the leaders to engage in single combat,
so he eagerly accepted the challenge, and they charged with such fury,
neither of them thinking of protecting himself.
If only he could wound his foe that each drove his spear at the same moment through the other’s shield,
and they fell dying from their horses with their spears sticking in them.
So you see what happened, okay?
So Brutus is traumatized by the execution of his two sons.
There is now a void in his heart.
There is now a tear in his heart, right?
But this tear is unleashing all this energy that he can now use against his enemy.
That is a secret.
Trauma is a drug.
The Roman way is to use trauma as a drug to empower you against your enemies.
okay all right so um the problem though is that um the roman army is much smaller than the king’s
army so romans are forced back into their city they have to hide behind their walls and they’re
under siege and there’s a woman nobleman named musius and musius decides to offer a proposal
to the senate he says to the senate listen we’re never going to beat this king’s army what i can
do is i can sneak into his camp and assassinate the king and so the senate is like sure so muses
swims across the tiber and he sneaks into enemy camp and he sees it’s payday okay so so there’s
two men uh the king secretary giving out cash giving out money to the soldiers they look the
same they dress the same and muses doesn’t know which is which and at this point he should be
like you know what i’ll come back another day and figure out who’s the king but now he’s like you
you know what it’s 50 50 you know it’s a coin flip so he takes his dagger and he stabs the guy
and it turns out to be the secretary and he’s arrested okay and he appears before the king
and he and the king says to him you tell me the truth or i will burn you in this fire and then
musia says okay the truth is this i am one of hundreds of young roman men who have sworn to
come and kill you one of us will succeed i fail today but tomorrow someone else will come if he
fails someone else will come as well and then um the king says are you telling the truth if you
are not telling the truth i will burn you alive and the moose is is you know what he takes his
hand okay he takes his hand he puts in a fire and his hand is being burned okay he’s just like
the king is freaked out he’s like you romans are the craziest bastards you guys are demonic i’m
out of here okay the war is over all right all right can you read please here alone and helpless
in the utmost peril he was still able to inspire more fear than he felt i’m a citizen of rome he
said. Men call me C.
Musius.
As an enemy, I wish to kill
an enemy, and I have as much
courage to meet death as I had to
inflict it. It is the Roman nature
to act bravely and to suffer bravely.
I am not alone in having made this
resolve against you. Behind me
there is a long list of those who aspire
to the same distinction. If then
it is your pleasure, make
up your mind for a
struggle in which you will every hour
have to fight for your life, and
find an armed foe on the threshold of your royal tent.
This is the war which we, the youth of Rome, declared against you.
You have no serried ranks, no pitched battle to fear.
The matter will be settled between you alone and each one of us singly.
The king, furious with anger and at the same time terrified at the unknown danger, threatened
that if he did not proudly explain the nature of the plot,
which he was darkly hinting at, he should be roasted alive.
Look, Musius cried, and learned how lightly those regards their bodies,
who have some great glory in view.
Then he plunged his right hand into a fire burning on the altar.
Whilst he kept it roasting there, as if he were devoid of all sensation,
The king, astounded at his pre-international conduct, sprang from his seat and ordered the youth to be removed from the altar.
Go, he said, you have been a worse enemy to yourself than to me.
I would invoke blessings on your courage if it were displayed on behalf of my country as it is.
I send you away exempt from all rights of war, unhurt and safe.
the muses reciprocating as it were this generous treatment said since you honor courage
know that what you could not gain by threats you have obtained by kindness 300 of us the foremost
amongst the roman youth have sworn to attack you in this way the law fell to me first the rest in
the order of their law will come each in his turn till fortune shall give us a favorable chance
against you okay so the roans are crazy okay they are demonic all right so um none of this is true
okay it can’t possibly be true you can’t put your hand in a fire and like not feel anything okay but
where this is coming from is from the uh proto-indo-european myth remember when you
discuss the steps people they have mythology okay so what the what the rooms are doing is
they’re taking this mythology and they are adapting it to their own history okay so everything that
we’ve read is not true but the romans thought it was true okay and remember people don’t cannot
differentiate between fantasy and reality so something you think as long as you believe it
is true then um it’s true okay and this is how romans behave so um um yeah so the story of
lucius brutus kicking out uh the tarkins um is the story of the third man stealing the cattle okay so
basically stealing a throne from tarquin and the story of the man sacrificing his twin the story
of romulus and remus okay all right all right so now we get to the most famous of all um roman
epics called the Iliad and so at this time again Augustus Caesar has a problem in that everyone
acknowledges the Greek culture to be superior why because of Homer okay because of the Iliad
remember we read the Iliad and we remember how the Iliad ends with an act of love and forgiveness
and compassion right Achilles feels guilt for for what he’s done for killing Patroclus he takes out
this rage on hector right which is a very which is a roman way and then prime comes and forgives
achilles by kissing his hand and this um allows achilles to escape his guilt and they uh forgive
each other and in the face of priam achilles sees his father in the face of achilles prime
sees hector and so they hug and they uh weep together okay and this idea of love as a unifying
force of the universe becomes the basis of greek culture and of greek civilization the rich don’t
like this for them if you’re a culture based on hate love is the greatest enemy okay so what is
going to happen is augustus caesar is going to ask a poet named virgil to rewrite this story
in a way that puts hate at the center of the universe and that love okay all right all right
So this is the Iliad by Virgil, considered one of the greatest books in human history.
It is a complete piece of crap, okay? It’s propaganda, all right?
When you read it, you see how terrible it is.
And basically, Virgil, who was the most famous poet in the Roman Empire at this time,
he’s being ordered by Augustus Caesar to write the Iliad.
And they write it together, basically.
Basically, with each draft, Virgil has to read it to Augustus Caesar,
and then Augustus Caesar tells him how to rework it
so it captures the Roman spirit. When Virgil was about to die, he asked for the book to be burned,
okay? Because he, as a poet, understands that if you are using the gift of God, poetry is a gift
of God, to promote hatred, then you’re gonna burn in hell, man, okay? So he asked for this book to
be burned, but Augustus Caesar, no, no, I like it the way it is, okay? So this is a rewriting
of the iliad what’s gonna happen is this the greeks have broken into troy and they’re killing
everyone okay and the son of achilles uh named pyrus is killing the sons of priam and prime
faces uh pirates and he tells pirates you’re the son of achilles achilles was a noble person
have you no mercy and the people’s like no and then he kills pirate prime okay all right so can
can you read please? Suddenly, look, a sign of Priam. Priam, my bad. Priam, Pallides just
escaped from slaughters as Pyrrhus’ hands, comes racing in through spears, through enemy
fighters, fleeing down the long arcades and deserted hallways. Badly wounded, Pyrrhus
hot on his heels, a weapon poised for the kill, about to seize him, about to run him
Okay, so this is very similar to the death of Hector, right?
So remember, Achilles kills Hector and Priam witnesses it, right?
And something is happening here where Pilate is being killed in front of Priam.
So again, it’s a rewriting of the Iliad.
Keep on going.
At that prime, trapped in the grip of death, not holding back, not checking his words, his rage,
you, he cries, and you and your vicious crimes.
If any power on high recoils at such an outrage, let the gods repay you for all your reckless work.
Grant you the thanks, the rich reward you’ve earned.
You’ve made me see my son’s death with my own eyes, defiled a father’s sight with a son’s lifeblood.
You say you’re Achilles’ son? You lie. Achilles never treated his enemy Priam so.
No, he honored as suppliant’s right. He blushed to betray my trust.
He restored my Hector’s bloodless corpse for burial, sent me safely home to the land I ruled.
Okay, so this is the end of the Iliad, okay?
So he’s reminding everyone the Iliad is a story about love, forgiveness, compassion, okay?
With that and with all his might, the old man fling his spear, but too important how to pierce.
It merely grazed Pyrrhus’ brazen shield that blocks its way and clings there, dangling limp from the boss, all for nothing.
Pyrrhus stouts back, well then, down you go, a messenger to my father, Pellius’ son.
Tell him about my vicious work, how Neoptolemus degrades his father’s name.
Don’t you forget. Now die.
That said, he dragged the old man straight to the altar,
quaking, slithering on through slicks of his son’s blood,
and twisting Priam’s hair in his left hand,
his right hand sweeping forth his sword, a flash of steel.
He buries it hill deep in the king’s flank.
Such was the fate of Piriam.
His death, his lot on earth, with joy blazing before his eyes, her ramparts down, the monarch who once had ruled in all his glory, the many land of Asia, Asia’s many tribes, a powerful trunk is lying on the shore, the head wrenched from the shoulders, a corpse without a name.
Okay, so all Roman school children have to memorize this poetry.
And obviously, if you are a Roman school child, and you know that Priam is one of your ancestors,
you have a deep hatred of the Greeks, okay?
So the entire purpose of the Iliad is to create hatred of the Greeks in order to create a
Roman identity.
All right, so again, the Greeks were the greatest civilization we ever had.
Why?
a civilization based on reflection on debate on openness this is um a modern reactant of the play
the trojan woman okay this is a play by eupodes that discusses what happens to the trojan woman
after troy falls they become enslaved the children are killed and so the greeks when they watch this
play they have to watch their own darkness they have to see for themselves their own heart of
darkness it causes tremendous empathy for their enemies okay this is a very idea of civilization
and what do the romans do they do this okay gladiators they watch lions eat people they watch
men kill each other okay that’s the roman way the greeks want to understand and feel empathy
for other people the romans just want to kill other people right um and in america today
we have a very similar roman culture as well this is american football of course and um it is pretty
violent okay it is pretty barbaric all right the greeks for fun what they really do is they
organize dinner parties called symposia symposium um and in the symposium what happens is that
people come together and they have conversations about love about poetry about life they will drink
wine but the wine is watered down okay so they can keep on drinking for a long long time the entire
argument is just to have a conversation all right all right and so this is the idea of the symposium
okay this is a famous painting of Alkabaides coming in and having discussion with everyone so
in Athenian culture what’s important is to be a great speaker to be intelligent to engage people
and debate and conversation and philosophy okay and what do the romans do instead um they get
drunk and they throw up and they have orgies okay so the woman what women super fun is that these
huge feasts these huge banquets and what they will do is they will goblin on the food in the first
course they’ll go outside and throw up okay they will throw up the food so they can they can join
the second course they will wolf down the food and then go and throw up again okay and guys this is
wild people on the streets starving to death okay okay this is uh the roman way okay so this is um
the feast this is almost a reenactment of the rape of sabine woman right so they take um these myths
so uh the death of lucretia uh musius uh burning his hand the rape of the sabine woman and they
And they use it as entertainment for the societies, okay?
So this is really the beginning of secret societies, right?
So what secret societies do is they take these myths
and we enact them out in order to build solidarity
and trust and cohesion among the secret members.
This is a picture of Nero just getting drunk,
having a lot of sex, okay?
So it’s pretty pointless existence.
And of course, in America, you have this.
I don’t understand why is it that people think it’s fun
to do drugs, get drunk, and then go party all night, okay?
But apparently, it’s supposed to be a lot of fun.
Okay, all right, so that is Roman culture.
So Rome becomes a dominant empire at this time,
and it is an empire based on hatred.
And it seems life is hopeless,
so what will happen is the universe will send a messenger to remind people there’s still hope
because there’s god in you and this person’s name is jesus right so we’ll discuss jesus
next class okay so jesus responds to the roman empire so i’ll take some quick questions um
from youtube and then i’ll end the class okay all right so what does it mean to be a great man
okay so I say that love is unifying force of the universe but then you have
these great men who come and conquer people so which is which okay um so in
my eye in my understanding of things put prophets are the greatest men okay
people like Zoroastrian Homer Jesus these are the the always in the Bible
These are the great individuals of human history because they represent the truth, okay?
They are messengers of the monad.
And then you have people like Julius Caesar, Alexander the Great, Napoleon, who are conquering, okay?
And they have been identified as great men of history.
But I think it’s really Homer and Dante and Plato who are the greatest people
because they create civilizations based on their ideas.
They actually change the course of human history based on the ideas.
Whereas people like Napoleon, Julius Caesar, Alexander the Great,
they’re more like a culmination of the trajectory of human history, okay?
If that makes any sense.
All right, let’s move on.
All right, yeah, so Alexander the Great, he loved the Iliad.
So what did the Iliad mean to Alexander the Great?
Okay, so to understand this idea, think of a play, okay?
We all want to put on a play. We all know the script, but we need an actor to play a certain character.
And then we’re like, you know what, Alexander the Great plays Achilles, okay?
So it’s expected that Alexander the Great will behave the way of Achilles in the Iliad.
How did Achilles behave? Achilles saw himself as a young romantic hero.
He was going to die on the beaches of Troy in order to achieve eternal glory, okay?
That’s why Alexander the Great could not stop fighting the war.
in every battle he was leading the charge because he wanted to die in battle he wanted to be achilles
only by dying in battle could he achieve the fame of achilles okay so um he was acting out
the play what’s what’s important is that he himself saw himself as the reincarnation of
achilles and everyone else saw him as also the uh precipitation of achilles as well okay
so that’s how this works all right um this person asks why is it that denmark norway these
canadian countries are so different from other countries okay well first of all they’re small
okay they’re really small countries millions of people everyone knows each other if you go to
denmark everyone knows the prime minister of denmark maybe she was their neighbor or their
friend if they don’t know the prime minister then they know a friend who knows the prime minister
So it’s a really small place, okay, that builds cohesion.
That’s number one.
Number two is, guys, Denmark, Norway are really cold places.
That means that people spend a lot of time
indoors together talking and becoming friends, okay?
And also because it’s so cold, they have to work together.
The third factor is these countries are surrounded
by lots of dangerous enemies, Germany, Russia, Sweden, okay?
Sweden okay and as such they learn that it’s really important to stick together
and to work together now what’s interesting is that if you go to place
like Holland you go and you think it’s very egalitarian but what’s really
interesting is that it’s actually one of the most unequal places on earth because
the aristocrats have a lot of money what the problem is the difference is like
the aristocrats understand like if the people are happy there’s more safe okay
So, the aristocrats will actually promote and support the welfare state because of social cohesion, okay?
Alright, a couple of questions.
So, we are moving to the age of digital technology, artificial intelligence.
Does it mean that empires will change over time?
Okay, this is something that I will discuss towards the end of the semester, to the end of this course.
And it’s a really interesting idea where, okay, you’re an empire, you’re lazy, arrogant, and stupid, but maybe with artificial intelligence, you have more control over people.
And in theory, that’s true, okay?
Once you have the AI system, you’ll be able to control people better.
But you have to first build the AI system, and that takes a lot of effort and energy.
And if you’re in a dying empire like America, you don’t have the energy to build this AI system, okay?
What you do have is a lot of desire and motivation to create an AI scam, okay?
So ChatGPT, it’s a scam, guys.
It’s not really doing anything.
But you can actually take this technology and create like a matrix to enslave people psychologically, mentally, okay?
And we’ll discuss this towards the end of the semester.
We call this transhumanism, all right?
All right, okay, so the Athenians and Spartans
didn’t want to destroy each other,
but that led to the rise of Macedonia.
How did that happen?
The answer is because they didn’t care, okay?
Do you understand?
They’re the empire, so they think they’re invincible.
If an empire believed that a challenge could arise,
they would never, ever fall, guys.
If an empire recognized that it could fall one day,
it would never, ever fall.
It’s because of hubris,
because it’s so arrogant, lazy, and stupid that it falls,
okay so it’s impossible for either athens or or sparta to imagine that macedonia would one day
overtake them all right um last question is about secret societies um how does this societies work
all right so this is something that we’ll discuss towards the end of the course okay but
why is it that six societies are so powerful all right so i understand this let’s just do a thought
experiment all right so imagine this there’s four groups of 100 people each okay this is this huge
mountain the himalayas and the task is to get everyone to the top as soon as possible okay as
quickly as possible there are four teams okay team one is like you guys can do whatever you
want okay we don’t care team two is like if everyone gets to the top you get a million
dollars each right team three is one of the team members has a child who’s gonna die unless you get
to the top because at the top is this magic doctor who can save your son okay that’s team three team
Team four is there are these demons that are chasing you and you won’t be able to sleep,
you won’t be able to live in peace if you don’t stop running from these demons, okay?
So guess what?
Team one, team two, team three, team four, who wins?
Team four, obviously, right?
That’s secret societies.
Secret societies create so much trauma, they create so much guilt and hatred and contempt
that they’re forced to keep on moving and running, okay?
the Roman way, guys. Okay?
Remember, it loses Brutus.
He killed his own two sons. What do you
do after that? Well, you have to go
kill someone else, okay? And then
after you kill him, what do you do? You go kill someone else.
And you keep on going because
the guilt of killing your own two sons,
it’s too much to bear. If you just
stop and you rest, your
sons will appear before you as ghosts.
And they’ll be like, Dad, why did you kill us?
What did we do? Why did you kill
us? You cannot bear
that guilt. So you have to keep on moving
forward you rush forward okay even if it kills you all right so so at this time we have so much
guilt you either conquer the world or you kill yourself your choice and that’s why secret societies
are so powerful guys okay not because they have secrets okay i i actually don’t know if they have
secrets or not all right but i imagine they don’t have secrets but i imagine like they do so much
evil in the world that they can only do more evil in order to escape the evil that they’ve already
done okay it’s as though demons are chasing them it doesn’t make sense guys all right so questions
so i think i did not fully understand the part which the romance rape of those
women’s and women’s blame the sins on themselves i think that part i think it’s a bit confusing i
think okay so um first of all you need to understand all this woman history is nonsense
okay none of it is true these are all just mythologies to create the woman character
okay so the rape of the seven woman um didn’t really happen but what the custom is if i go
kill you i kill you and i steal your wife okay so so so it is a metaphor for war that doesn’t
make sense okay okay and um but what this is saying is like if you go and kill your enemy
and you steal his wife the wife will thank you all right so it’s creating this mythology all right
but why would the wife thank you the wife won’t thank you the wife will hate you but do you care
not you don’t care okay the winners write the history you understand when you become a slave
you are not allowed to speak you’re not allowed to think for yourself you have to do whatever
the man tells you to do right does that make sense so even though you feel hate for the man who’s
killed your family you’re now a slave so you lost your soul and if you lost your soul it means i can
do what i want to your mind as well as your body okay so this is the roman way and guys um it’s no
different from any empire that emerged after the romans okay the british empire is the same way
the american empire is the same way as well in that if we conquer you we can now implant anything
into your soul because your soul is now ours okay so if you go to germany and you see what you talk
to germans the germans will tell you oh we are the worst people in the world we’re the most evil
people in the world we did the holocaust we started world war one we started world war two if
you give us any like opportunity we’ll start wars for no reason okay you go to japan same thing okay
Okay, so the winners write the history, and the losers have to accept this history.
Okay, does that make sense?
Any more questions, guys?
I remember when you were talking about Julius Caesar,
you said the only reason why he survived was because,
or like survived the Holocaust, not the Holocaust,
but like people in Rome were being killed, I think,
and he was able to survive because his father had a lot of money,
had a lot of wealth.
but you also mentioned that he was a part of the populace.
So how does that add up?
Okay, yeah, that’s a good question.
So to remind you, the conflict arises
between upper nobility and lower nobility.
So upper nobility are just optimists,
people like, I have all the power.
Lower nobility are the children who are like,
I want the status.
So yes, Julius Caesar did come from a very wealthy family,
but he didn’t have status.
So money and status are not the same thing.
And that’s why there’s the civil wars,
because the people who are part of the elite
aren’t able to access power.
So they scheme on how to access power.
So look at Donald Trump, okay?
Donald Trump has money, but he doesn’t have power.
That’s why he ran for presidency, okay?
Okay, does that make sense?
So remember, all these conflicts that happen in the world
are always between upper nobility and lower nobility,
between the have a lot and the have some,
but want some more, okay?
It’s never between rich and poor.
The poor don’t do anything.
The poor just, like, I’m poor, I’m useless,
I’ll just sit and die, okay?
That’s what poor people are like.
Middle class people, rich people are like,
you know, I want more, okay?
They’re aspirational, okay?
Is that clear?
But I think if the middle class,
like, if they want more, the more higher class,
they will not allow the middle class to,
they won’t allow them to have more,
like, they will suppress them.
Yeah, and that’s what creates the French Revolution, okay?
All right, all right.
Any more questions, guys?
Okay, great.
So remember, this is the Roman Empire.
We’ve done the Roman Empire,
and it’s an empire based on hate.
And people’s lives under the Roman Empire,
it’s just terrible.
There’s massive slavery, there’s massive debt,
there’s massive corruption.
And so now will emerge another poet prophet named Jesus
to try to redeem people, okay?
So we’ll discuss Jesus next class.
Source: Predictive History