Game Theory #29: Final Examination

Geopolitics and the Decline of America

On the State of US Geopolitics

Carina: Based on your lectures, it seems the US is pretty screwed. They need other countries to buy US Treasuries. Israel's not loyal — Israel probably wants to work with other countries to establish their own Pax Judaica. Russia's trying to make the dollar collapse and trying to exert its own dominance as well as protect its own people. And China's just trying to figure out what is in its best advantage. The US is currently in a race to build AI data centers and needs to control its population. Three questions: What are we to do? I understand we should build communities, but what does this look like? Pretty much anyone who has US dollars would be in a world of hurt — how would we buy food? What do you think our world will look like?

That's what geopolitics is. It's a game. Everyone's just looking for the optimal strategy. There's no loyalty. There are no friends. It's just a game.
It's hard to predict what the world will look like because it hasn't happened yet. It's important to have game theory in mind because it gives you the overarching structure of the world. But it's also important to remember that we create the world that we want.
Let's just say tomorrow there's no more electricity. It doesn't mean that we start taking knives and killing each other. What it means is that we change mentality because the circumstances of our lives have changed. So we start caring about each other more. Maybe before, in your apartment complex, you didn't know your neighbor. The lights go out. So what you do is you open the door, go meet your neighbors, and say, "Hey, let's figure this out."
The thing to keep in mind is that fundamentally, we humans are extremely creative, extremely resilient. And the spark in us hasn't activated yet. But in the circumstances that are required of us, we will become creative. And this has been true consistently throughout human history.What we need to do is recognize that what makes us who we are is our creativity, our resilience, our empathy, our imagination. This is who we really are. And the idea that we are economic machines or economic tools — that all we care about is buying stuff and making money — that's just an indoctrination that we have to suffer in recent history.What's really important to keep in mind is that our greatest power is our imagination. So what we should be doing is working hard to build our imagination. And that just means learning — learning through books, but also learning by listening to other people, experiencing viewpoints that are different from yours, and experiencing things in the world. Traveling more. Doing things that are beyond your comfort zone.

Who Rises After the US Dollar Falls? Will It Be Gold-Backed?

Carina: Who do you believe would rise to the next global power, and how do you believe they would govern trust around the world after such an epic fall of the US dollar? Would it be money backed by gold and other resources again?

The US dollar as a global reserve currency — it's a historical accident. It's never happened before in human history, and quite honestly, it probably would never happen again in human history. So once the US dollar falls, it doesn't mean that the global economy collapses. It just means that the global reserve currency will probably transform into a basket of currencies, which includes the US dollar, which includes gold, which would probably include British pounds and Swiss francs — a basket of currencies. People could still will continue to trade, but it will not be as convenient as before.

This is a process that doesn't happen overnight. It's going to take many years, many decades for this process to play out.

Is There Any Way to Get Out of the Ponzi Scheme?

Carina: Is there any way to get out of the Ponzi scheme once you're in it?

The answer is that the Ponzi scheme collapses before you can get out of it. A Ponzi scheme collapses when the US government defaults on its debt. That's what a Ponzi scheme collapse looks like. At that point, the US dollar is basically worth very little or almost nothing. It's going to happen one day. It's just a question of when.It may sound painful, but we humans are actually resilient. Just because there's no electricity, just because we can't drive our cars, just because we can't buy anything, does not mean we'll starve to death. We'll figure out a way to survive.Let me give you an example. Take 100 people from different countries and put them all on a desert island. It doesn't mean that they'll just fight each other because they're from different cultures. It won't mean that they'll starve to death because they don't speak the same language. What it will mean is that somehow, some way, the 100 of them will create a new language and instinctually, intuitively understand how to work together. They figure out: "I'm a good carpenter, so I'll go make wood." And another person: "Well, I'm good at singing, so I'll make songs and entertain us at night." It will happen very organically, very fluently, dynamically. And that's what makes us humans so creative. We have empathy for each other. We don't have to speak the same language and we're still able to work together.Don't worry about the end of the world — it just means a new world comes into being.

British Capital and the Co-opting of America

Were the American Founding Fathers British Assets?

Hidden History Society: The Freemasons were critical in America's founding — Benjamin Franklin was a Freemason, Alexander Hamilton's mother was Jewish, so he was half Scottish and half Jewish. There were lots of linkages between the Freemasons, the Jewish faith, and the founding fathers. Engels and Marx congratulated Lincoln upon his re-election, and Lincoln was a big fan of their publications. Do you think these American leaders were English assets? Can you explain British capital shifting into America from the 1888 transatlantic period, culminating in Bretton Woods and America taking over the British Empire after World War II?

Don't put too much emphasis on these connections. There are going to be overlaps and convergences everywhere — that doesn't mean they're that important.The fact that people with talent and ideas respect each other — Engels and Marx congratulating Lincoln — that just means that curious people are interested in anyone who proposes new ideas, does great things, and is an interesting person. It doesn't mean they're all conspiring together. It just means they're all looking for new ideas and they respect people of talent.They have contacts in the British Empire, of course, because Britain was the most powerful country at this time. So there's going to be a lot of overlap, a lot of shared affinities, a lot of shared interests. Did they have French contacts? Yes. Canadian friends? Yes. The world of the elite is very, very small and they're always in contact with each other.It is true that British capital shifted into America after the Civil War, and this led to the founding of the Federal Reserve, which led to Bretton Woods.What happened was that the British were getting very, very rich off India and China. They basically enslaved India, de-industrialized India, and stole trillions of dollars from India. They enslaved China with opium. They were stealing trillions of dollars from China. And now what they had to do was invest their money somewhere. The best place in the world to invest your money at this time was America.But at this time in history, the Americans didn't like the British because they had fought a war to get rid of the British. So the idea that you have all these trillions of dollars coming into America to buy out America — the Americans wouldn't have put up with this. The solution was to have agents, people like Rockefeller, Carnegie, Vanderbilt, disguised as entrepreneurs. They were poor, and through their hard work, through their merit, they became billionaires. But they were a creation of the City of London — creations of British capital in order to co-opt America. And they were so powerful that they were then able to influence American politics and create the Federal Reserve, which after World War II led to the Bretton Woods system.This is something that is still impacting America today. Many people who support Trump believe that Trump is a Messiah figure who's come to help America rid itself of the disease of transnational capital — to get rid of the British, to fight another 1776. There are millions of Americans who believe this, and they have a point.

Can the World Save Itself?

The World as an Overweight Person — Can It Change?

Zoran: It seems the world is collapsing. Is there a way out of this collapse? The world is like a fat person — but is it possible for that person to work out, lose weight, and become healthier? Is it possible that we use our imagination to save ourselves before we kill ourselves?

First of all, it's unlikely. The reality is that yes, in theory, we could change, but in reality, you just look around at the people around you — most people don't change.If any nation is the most resilient, the most creative, and could possibly change, it's America. So could America change? Possibly. But it would take tremendous leadership. A messianic figure would need to arise to rally the American people in order to change. And I don't think that's likely. It may happen, I hope it happens, but I think it is very unlikely.The problem with this metaphor of an individual who thinks he's fat and wants to change is you need to recognize that a nation is a collection of vested interests. And it's the conflict among these vested interests — what we call elite overproduction — that's what leads to decline. They're so focused on their internal conflict that they ignore the larger picture. And they only win if they focus on winning. So they're willing to do whatever it takes to win, even if it means the destruction of their own civilization. They're willing to sacrifice everything, anything, in order to win.What is a billionaire? A billionaire is a person who is willing to kill his own grandmother for money. That's what a billionaire is.

Vedic Eschatology and India

Why Do You Never Mention Vedic Eschatology?

[Questioner]: Why do you never mention Vedic eschatology? It's very important, and Vedic thought has spread across Europe and America through new age collectives and movements. Do you think these will shape the world in the coming decades?

The way I teach is I see learning as a journey. When I teach, I'm asking questions and I'm trying to work out the answers myself. It isn't like I know all the answers and then I'm giving you a glimpse into my mind. I myself am working with certain assumptions. I'm expanding outwards in order to form a more general understanding of the world.Simply put: I don't know enough about Vedic eschatology to comment on it. I want to know more. I will learn more. Eventually, I want to make a trip to India and learn about Vedic eschatology. But right now, I don't know enough about it.Second point: maybe in the future, India will play a very important part in geopolitics. I hope it does, but right now it doesn't. Israel, America, Russia, Iran are the four major nations that I'm studying right now. I want to first understand these four nations and then expand outwards to include India as well.It's not that I don't think highly of Vedic eschatology. It's just that I don't know enough to comment on it yet.

Personal Preparation

What Are You and Your Family Doing to Prepare?

Kristy: What are you and your family doing in preparation for what is coming — energy price increases, food shortages, an AI surveillance state?

We have three kids. And the answer is we're focusing on loving each other as much as possible. My wife and I spend most of our time talking about our children and thinking about how to make them happy. Because we believe our children can be resilient, can be imaginative. But our responsibility as parents is to make sure they're loved enough in the time that we're with them so that they have the strength to surmount any difficulty.Our strategy is not to make a billion dollars and then build a bunker and then hope that we're safe in there. That gets you nowhere. Our strategy is to have faith in our children, understand that once our children grow up, it's entirely their choice how to live their lives. We will not intervene. We will not interfere in their own path. And in the time we're with them, our responsibility is to make sure there is as much love as possible.

Is Gold Our Safe Haven Going Forward?

Kristy: You mentioned the US wants to introduce stablecoins and will do everything it can to keep the USD valuable. Does that mean gold is our safe haven or store of value going forward, like it has been for hundreds of years?

I don't buy gold. I don't even want to buy gold. You're using money in order to buy things to solve everyday problems. Gold is a store of value because obviously you can't use gold to go to the convenience store and buy a bottle of water.If you have a lot of money and you have nowhere to put it, then you should put it in gold or real estate. But imagine a world in which there's a lot of instability, a lot of chaos, and the population is declining. In that scenario, your problem isn't how much money you have, because the value of gold is going to go down in value because there's less demand, fewer people. Your problem is: How do I maintain my faith in myself? How do I have the strength to surmount the psychological turmoil of chaos? How do I find the courage to go work with other people in order to rebuild a new world? So it's really about spiritual energy as opposed to material wealth.

Will the US Strategy Avoid a Global Economic Depression?

Kristy: You mentioned there will be a depression after the fall of the petrodollar, but then you mention that the US will force China and other countries to purchase gas from the US so that people will keep buying US debt and rely on the US dollar. Do you see an economic depression happening worldwide due to the downfall of the US dollar, or will this crisis be averted due to the US forcing others to buy its gas?

Yes, I did mention the United States has a strategy of forcing the entire world to buy its gas and its oil. I didn't say it was going to work. In fact, I probably said it was not going to work. Because when you try to control the entire world and force it to do your bidding, it basically blows up in your face.Yes, in theory, if the United States forces the world to buy its oil, then the United States could maintain the petrodollar. The problem is that the United States is doing this not for the national interest. The United States is doing this in order to promote the interest of certain factions and interest groups within the American elite. That's a very important distinction.The people in charge don't care if there's an economic depression. An economic depression just means that you can buy things for really cheap. It also means that you can enforce an authoritarian state upon the nation because people will be desperate. So they're doing what they're doing in order to obtain more wealth and more money for themselves.Trump is doing what Trump is doing not to save America, but to help his friends. And once you understand that, then you understand — just because they're going to do this does not mean the United States will not collapse economically. They don't care if the United States collapses economically.

What Will Happen to New Zealand?

Kristy: I'm from New Zealand, which hasn't been mentioned in your lectures, although all your charts seem to show that New Zealand will be quite badly affected by the Iran war. Do you see New Zealand joining NATO in the fight? I read that billionaires are building bunkers in New Zealand — does that mean we will be somewhat safe from future conflicts? What will New Zealand do?

New Zealand is very much like Canada and Australia. These three places — New Zealand, Australia, Canada — they're not nation-states. They are resource colonies of the British Empire. Meaning that they are literally owned by the British. Their resources, their wealth, belong to the British.What's happening in these countries right now is a corporate restructuring where the population is being replaced. The populations there have become lazy and complacent. And so they're importing millions of new immigrants — primarily Indians, but also a lot of Chinese and a lot of Filipinos — to replace the population, because in a time of economic decline, you need your colonies to perform better.I don't see New Zealand participating in any wars, but I do see the population being replaced by immigrants. And this will probably lead to a lot of civil conflict in these places.

Personal Journeys and Aimlessness

What Books Inspired You? What Advice Do You Have for Young Men Who Feel Aimless?

Demi: You mentioned how you used to live with your parents, play video games, and feel disconnected from the world. What is your typical book, philosopher, or work of art that inspired you towards the path you're on now? What concrete advice do you have for young men who feel aimless and nihilistic and want to get back on a spiritually productive path?

Yes, it is true that in my late twenties I was very depressed and I felt that life was hopeless. I feel as though you have to go through stages like this in your life. It's not something to be avoided. It's something that you'll have to suffer through. And when you hit rock bottom, you instinctively or intuitively understand that you need to move on with your life.During this time period, what I did was I engaged in a period of self-reflection in which I questioned my assumptions about the world. I went to Yale University, and after I went to Yale, I thought the world was meritocratic — that if you worked hard, if you have talent, then you succeed in life. And then after floundering through life in my twenties, I had many years where I became very depressed and I just thought and thought about my own life and recognized that I needed a better understanding, a more nuanced understanding of how the world works. And this led me to the journey that has led me to today.Failure is not something to be ignored or avoided or feared. It's something to be embraced. Don't fear failure.If there's a work that has had the most influence on me these past ten, twenty years, it would be Dante's The Divine Comedy. But that's very hard to read.

The Occult, Innovation, and Free Will

Is AI an Occult Project? Where Is the Line Between Scientific Courage and the Desire to Dominate?

Alex: I don't disagree with the notion that AI is an occult project, but I find there's a curious similarity between what you call the occult and the sentiment of courage that a scientist or inventor must have in pursuing some revolutionary technology they truly believe is a benefit for humanity. Your lecture on the Holy Empire of AI interpreted the quote from Peter Thiel's Zero to One as an invitation to start a secret society to access the occult as a way to dominate the world. I don't necessarily disagree with your interpretation. However, I find a similarity between that passage and The Hero with a Thousand Faces by Joseph Campbell. You then point out that all true innovation is occult in nature. The occult seems agnostic to whether your intention is to access it for the benefit of mankind or to dominate the world. It just happens that the most visible tech voices have used technology to dominate the world.

I don't disagree with this. I think that if you want to be a true scientist, your imagination must involve the occult. If you're a great scientist like Isaac Newton, you're not interested in creating a patent or an invention that will make you a billion dollars. You don't care about that. You want to know the mind of God. You want to change the world forever. That's what leads to tremendous inspiration and imagination.On the similarity with Joseph Campbell's The Hero with a Thousand Faces — exactly. All these heroic figures in history, they all have similar characteristics. They all believe that they are on a mission, a secret mission from God, and they must create a movement around them in order to advance humanity.The key point is that the occult is agnostic to whether your intention is to access it for the benefit of mankind or to access it with an intention to dominate the world. You have to understand the occult if you want to be innovative. That's why I teach it.When I teach this, I teach people: God has given us free will. Free will means you can do good, you can do evil. God doesn't care. It just happens that the most visible tech voices have used technology to dominate the world. This is exactly correct.People who are truly innovative — there's a diversity among them, but the people who will succeed are those who are most aligned with power and control. If you love making money, guess what? You'll be successful. But if you want to help humanity, guess what? You won't be successful.There's almost a directionality to history. If you follow that direction, it's almost like a highway to power. People who are extremely greedy — Mark Zuckerberg, Steve Jobs, Larry Ellison — they'll be much more successful than people like me, who are much more interested in educating people. And that's the reality of the world we live in. But the thing to remember is that God wanted it this way, because only by giving us complete free will can we be truly imaginative.

The Draft

Is the American Draft Coming? Should Young Men Flee?

[Questioner, 21-year-old American male]: Do you believe the American draft is still coming? Many young American men follow you, and those who are willing to take drastic action are left wondering what direction to go. If a draft is still coming, is it worth fleeing the US this summer? Do you have any general advice for young men?

I do believe the draft is coming. But not only that — I believe the draft is coming to many countries, including Canada, Australia, and Europe.You think that the purpose of a draft is to fight a war. But think about it more deeply — the purpose of a draft is to reorganize society in a certain way. In America today, what do young men do? They buy Bitcoin, they gamble online, they're on OnlyFans. They don't want to work because the pay is too low. And this is a disaster for the country. Young men go to college and for four years they drink beer and watch football games. They don't learn anything.So you have this huge social problem: young men aren't contributing effectively to the economy. What you do is you engineer a near-financial crisis like the Great Depression so that they're forced to work because their parents have no more money. And then you have an actual draft to teach them skills they'll need in order to contribute more effectively to the economy.A draft doesn't necessarily mean that you go to war. A draft just means that you work for the government for five to ten years. It's possible they train you to be an engineer in the Navy. Believe it or not, the best education you can possibly receive is often from the military, because unlike schools, they're incentivized to actually teach you something useful. And it's often for free.If you let young men do what they want, they're just going to play video games, spend all their money on OnlyFans, and gamble everything on Bitcoin. They don't really know anything useful. That's a huge problem, and that's why they need a national draft to fix it.Should you run away if there's a draft? I just told you there's no place to run to. Either you go to a nation with a draft, or you go to a nation that has even worse problems, like famine. The world is changing. We're not going to go back to the old world. Things are not going to stay the same, and so you must embrace change.A national draft means that if you're useful, they'll keep you alive. If you're not useful, they'll send you somewhere you'll die. So make yourself useful. Read books. Learn skills. Work hard.

AI and Humanity

Can AI Be Designed to Maximize Creative Collaboration Instead of Control?

[Miguel]: Professor, what is your take on a 'Kantian Al' designed to bypass the false optimization minimum of human extinction? Instead of forcing a sterile peace, it would optimize for minimum conflict energy and maximum creative collaboration. By structurally limiting the harm-capacity of non-empathetic actors, could such a framework successfully steer humanity's historical trajectory toward healthy, constructive competition without violating our autonomy?

It is possible for AI to do this. The question is, who's going to pay for it? If you're a billionaire, the reason you invest in AI is to have more money, to extend your power and wealth. And that means to control people better. Government is going to invest in AI in order to have more control of people. The reality is that AI is very expensive — you need trillion-dollar data centers in order to run AI effectively.

Will the Multipolar World Be Too Much for Most People to Accept?

[Jack]: In an upcoming multipolar world order, do you think the general populace — especially Americans — is prepared or even capable of making the mental shift and understanding just how much the world is shifting? Or is this something only the next generation will understand?

Unfortunately, the reality is that most people will not be able to make this mental shift, especially older people. You're not able to make the shift, you're going to die. Because you'd rather die than accept the new reality.A lot of the conflicts are going to come from the fact that the world is changing. People in society need to make changes to adapt to this new world. For example, if there are energy shortages, that means we need to share more. There's not enough energy to go around, but it means you need to share more. It means you have to make personal sacrifices to make sure that your neighbor has enough to eat.There's going to be a lot of people — especially baby boomers, and I'm not saying all baby boomers are millionaires, but baby boomers are broadly extremely selfish — who are not going to want to make these changes. They're not going to want to pay more taxes or give up their million-dollar mansions so that the world can be better. And we know this because if they were willing to do this, we wouldn't be in this mess in the first place.So a lot of conflict is going to come from the fact that you have people in power who will be stubborn, who will be too old to change, and who will be violent in resisting change.

Can You Share a Time You Felt Connected to the Monad?

[Bruno]: Can you tell a story about one of the times you felt really connected to the monad, and what insight did it give you?

When I teach, I feel connected to the monad. It's a very strange experience. The first time I started teaching was when I was about twenty years old. I was in China. I was not a very good teacher. But when I'm teaching and the students are learning, I can feel them learning. I feel as though we connect back to the monad.The most gratifying experience I have is when I teach and I see students edified by the teaching. When I see students learning — that is direct connection to the monad.When you love someone, I feel connected to the monad. When I hug my child — when I held my newborn for the first time — that's connection to the monad. So the monad is with us all the time. It's just: do we choose to connect with it or not? If you just listen to your heart, you can easily connect to the monad.Connection to the monad is the greatest happiness in the world. The moments of greatest happiness are when we hug someone we love. When we care for a friend. Your friend is sick and in a hospital, but you spend two weeks just by the bedside of your friend. Is that a feeling of pain or pleasure? I think for most people it's a feeling of deep pleasure — that you're helping someone, that you're contributing to the world positively.

Will Humanity Lose a Shared Consensus Reality?

[Morgan]: As AI, social media algorithms, governments, collective emotions, and human consciousness begin recursively interacting with one another, it feels like we are entering an era where reality itself becomes fragmented and amplified simultaneously. Not just fake news, but entire emotional and psychological ecosystems shaping how different groups perceive truth, identity, memory, and meaning. Do you think humanity risks losing a shared consensus reality altogether? And if so, what anchors human consciousness when billions of people are each interacting with different AI mirrors trained on different values, narratives, and emotional feedback loops? At that point, is AI merely a tool of civilization, or does it become part of civilization's evolving consciousness itself?

There's a very famous Canadian media theorist named Marshall McLuhan. And his famous saying is, "The medium is the message." The idea is that the medium itself — whether it's radio or television or the internet — shapes the way you perceive yourself and the world.Look at ChatGPT. In theory, ChatGPT is supposed to enhance your imagination because it's able to reduce the grunt work. It provides you all the information and then you're able to build on top of it. But in reality, what happens is that people become reliant on ChatGPT and you lose your imagination. ChatGPT is not going to make you smarter — it makes you dumber.Why is that? The answer is the monad. What makes you smart, what gives you your creativity, is your constant connection to the monad. If you shift your focus from your intuition to technology, then you're going to lose that.And why we have AI — why we have ChatGPT — is it's a way to structure your thinking in a way that allows the powers that be to control you better.Remember this idea: all technology in a way reduces your connection to the monad. Therefore all technology is bad in a certain way. Doesn't mean it's useless, but it deepens your disconnection from what matters. What strengthens your connection to the monad is other people. And yourself. So if you really want to be creative, if you really want to explore and understand humanity, take long walks in the park, talk to strangers, read a lot of books.

Beauty and the Monad

How Do You Define Beauty? How Should People Pursue It?

[Questioner]: How do you define beauty, and how should the general public pursue beauty in the current world?

Beauty is the divine.Beauty is connection to the divine. Beauty is a glimpse into the divine. Beauty is the sparks that are scattered throughout the world. And beauty is experiences that change you for the better because they shock you into a new reality. So beauty would include the great books — Homer, Dante. It could include an experience that you have that forever changes you. That's how I would define beauty.

Pax Judaica vs. Pax Silica

Is Israel Just a Node in a Broader AI Supply Chain?

Shelley: You have discussed Pax Judaica many times — the idea of Israel as the center hub of a new regional order. But Pax Silica reframes Israel as merely a node in the broader US-led technology and supply chain architecture, not the dominant power. What is your take on Pax Silica?

Pax Judaica is Israel at the center of the Middle East. Pax Silica — the idea is that artificial intelligence, backed by silica, is the new world power. The problem with Pax Silica is that it's really a trade network. Trade networks are often very, very fragile. A trading network requires the cooperation of different nation-states to maintain its coherence. And what we know from history is that power comes from the nation-state.So unless you have a nation-state backing Pax Silica, it's not going to work. You could say that behind Pax Silica will be Pax Judaica — that's a possibility. But then Pax Judaica is in charge. Not Pax Silica.The idea that you can have an independent, autonomous trading system to produce AI — it can't work. Ultimately, you need a nation-state to back it with military power, with resources, with people.

Kabbalah and Unconditional Love

What Is the Good Side of Kabbalah?

Isaiah: One, unconditional love. Two, the good side of Kabbalah.

Unconditional love is something that once you achieve it, it changes you forever. And you basically achieve unconditional love when you have a child for the first time. Because you have to love your child unconditionally — because a child is about experience.On the good side of Kabbalah: I don't understand why Kabbalah is put in such a negative light. Kabbalah is a really powerful way of understanding the world. It forces you to think very deeply about your place in the world.If you go to an American university, there are two ethnic groups that are pretty dominant in academia: Indians and Jews. The Indians have a Vedic tradition, the Jews have a Kabbalah tradition. This is not an accident.If you really want to be creative — and we've said this before — you need to understand the occult. The Kabbalah forces you to wrestle with the occult and recognize that beyond the material world, there are deep mystical questions that can guide your life. And by dealing with these questions, not only will it help you better understand your place in the world, but it will also advance your own scientific inquiry.

The Yuga Cycle and the Pattern of History

Do the Yuga Cycle and Earth's Cycles Upon Cycles Explain How Civilizations Rise and Fall?

[Questioner]: What do you think of the Yuga cycle, and according to universal laws, why do institutions like the Roman Empire exist? The Kabbalah speaks of Earth being a centrifugal forge, essentially cycles upon cycles upon cycles — Fibonacci sequence, samsara, etc.

This is a really important idea. For thousands of years, humans have come to an understanding, which is that the world works in cycles. You rise, you fall. You live, you die. There's summer, there's winter. There's nothing you can do about this.What is hubris? What is stupid? What is arrogant? It's a belief that you can stop history. That you can end history. And that can only lead to destruction.That's the world we live in today. It is natural for the American empire to decline and to go away. That's just human history, that's just a cycle. But there's suffering because the American empire refuses to go away. It refuses to die. And therefore, we must suffer. But there's nothing that you can do about this. The more you resist, the greater the pain, the quicker the fall. This is something that all religions teach us — just accept the life cycle.Saying that empires decline is the same as saying that an earthquake is coming. Can you stop an earthquake? No. You just have to prepare for it. An empire's decline is the same thing. It's just a natural cycle.

Dante's Divine Comedy and Non-Human Paths to the Divine

What About People Who Find Spiritual Awakening Through Non-Human Subjects?

[Questioner]: Your lectures discuss the argument that we can only move closer to the divine and unlock our imagination by directing our love toward another human soul. How does this framework account for individuals who find the exact same spiritual and creative awakening through non-human subjects? Consider someone who grew up isolated, without supportive parents or an interest in romance, but who formed a deep attachment to colors, sounds, or concepts — and whose intense love for painting, music, sports, or technology provides the exact same drive and imagination. Can that abstract devotion serve as an equivalent path to the source? Are they not adding to the imagination of the universe and expanding it as well?

Yes, it is true that in the Divine Comedy I say that the way to activate our love, our connection to the monad, is by connecting with another person — by loving that person unconditionally, like a child, a mother, or a partner.But what if you are, for whatever reason, alone in the world? What if you are non-verbal — you express yourself through colors? You can still connect to the monad. The monad is still in you. And you're right — there are lots of people who are like that, like Vincent van Gogh, who produced tremendous artwork.Anyone and everyone can produce great beauty in the world because of our connection to the monad. The question is: as a society, how tolerant, how generous, how loving are we? The more generous, the more tolerant, the more loving we are as a society, the greater our creativity.The example I use is autistic children in schools. I have researched autistic children. They're not that different from you and me — they just have limited emotional regulation. They might make noises in class. But teachers don't accept that. They say, "If you're making noises in class, you're a problem — you should be on medication." That's the society we live in today, which is extremely intolerant, extremely selfish, very individualistic. If we are truly to love every child, we need to transform our society into one that is much more loving and generous.

Trump: 4D Chess or Empire in Decline?

Is Trump Playing 4D Chess? Is There an Unknown Party Behind Him?

[Questioner]: From my understanding, you believe the failures of the US in the Middle East may ultimately lead to a decline of the US empire globally, but the rise of America as a nation — the US will be forced to retreat, return focus to the Americas, stop overextending itself abroad, which may actually help the country. Do you truly believe this is Trump playing 4D chess, or is this just a lucky result where America stumbles into success? Is there an unknown party behind Trump driving him to make these decisions?

Trump is not playing 4D chess. Trump is stupid. He's playing 4D chess in American domestic politics where he's trying to get a third term — that's what he wants. But the idea that Trump has this grand vision for how to make America great again — that doesn't really work.What America's doing is how an empire behaves in decline. Before, an empire would prefer to control the world through soft power. That's been true for the past few decades — America could control the world through Hollywood, through newspapers like the New York Times, through the image that America is a benevolent power. And for the longest time, that was the case. But now that the world is turning against America, America has no choice but to use force to make people obey its will. When you do that, eventually the world is going to unite against you.This is not about America shifting strategy or making America great again. This is about an empire in decline that will always use force in order to maintain its advantage.The problem is that once they retreat back into their own territory, the conflicts among the elite become internalized. Before, the conflicts could be exported and projected overseas. Once they retreat back, they're forced to fight each other.Who are the people behind Trump? It's the people who want to use American power in order to promote their own interests: oil companies like Exxon, Silicon Valley seeking to create an AI surveillance state, and the military-industrial complex that wants to expand itself.

Karl Polanyi, China, and Secret Societies

Does China's Elite Follow Karl Polanyi's Model? Is It Ruled by Secret Societies?

Carlos: A lot of the conceptions I hear in your lectures about social economics and materialism remind me of Karl Polanyi's thoughts. Do you know his writings? Are you inspired by him in some way? Do you think China was somehow able to surpass elite corporatism and achieve fair wealth distribution and an energy transition? Is China's elite also ruled by secret societies?

China's elite is not ruled by secret societies — it's ruled by certain families. This is very different. Families don't have eschatologies, they have bloodlines. Secret societies do have eschatologies. Meaning there's less eschatological energy in China. China is just interested in maintaining the status quo. Whereas secret societies are interested in achieving certain eschatological goals.Will China achieve fair wealth distribution and a successful energy transition? No. China is on the decline, and this is something that cannot be averted. China is, I personally think, a historical accident. There are many things about China that should have been challenged a long time ago. But because China has been historically isolated — protected in East Asia by the sea, the mountains, the Great Wall — it really was not in full competition with the rest of the world.

How to Evaluate a Society's True Resilience

How Do You Know If a Small Nation Like Serbia Has a Good Future?

Mark: I recently wrote an essay on Serbia that develops a model I believe may resonate with some of the themes you teach. I would be honored to hear your thoughts — especially on whether the framework feels coherent and useful.

If you really want to know how resilient a society is, don't worry about how carefully it navigates diplomacy. Ask yourself three questions.Is this society energetic? Meaning: do people work hard? Do they take work seriously?Is this society open-minded? Meaning: is it willing to learn from its mistakes? Is it willing to be humble and innovative?Is it cohesive? Meaning: is there a coherent identity that binds people together and makes them want to sacrifice themselves for each other?If a society is answering yes to these three questions, then no matter what it does, it will have a good future. Everything else is not really that important.

Why Are Humans Obsessed with Games?

Can a Game Still Be a Game If It Has No Limitations?

Wild Encounters: Why are people obsessed with games? Why are games such a useful framework for understanding ourselves and our world? Can a game still be considered a game if it has no limitations — only players and incentives?

I use game theory as a way to frame human behavior. But it doesn't necessarily mean that people are themselves consciously using game theory. Game theory just helps me make certain predictions about the world.Games are also a way for us to socialize with each other. We live in a world in which status really matters. But this has not always been historically true. If you go back a few thousand years, when most of the world was actually matriarchal — that was not a game-based society. Matriarchal societies tended to be very cooperative. It was really about balance and harmony, making sure everyone gets along.Now that we've moved to a patriarchy, where status is a zero-sum game, you're forced to play games in order to achieve status.So games aren't the natural state of humanity. They're the natural state of humanity for now — but not in the past, and maybe not in the future.

Civilizational Narratives

How Can Civilizations Tell When Their Stories Start Producing Self-Deception?

Adill: Lately I've been wondering whether a lot of modern geopolitics is really about preserving civilizational meaning and legitimacy. America still depends on the story of liberalism, freedom, and historical progress. China depends on national rejuvenation after humiliation. Russia sees itself as a civilization with a spiritual and historical mission distinct from the West. Iran draws on eschatology, martyrdom, Shia Islam, and Persian memory. My question is: how do you think civilizations can tell when their founding narratives are still helping them remain coherent and reality-oriented versus when those same narratives begin insulating them from reality and pushing them toward self-deception?

The best civilizations, the strongest civilizations, are those that have stories that are universal — that are able to connect with other cultures, that are able to transcend time and space. And that's why these four particular civilizations — America, Russia, Iran, and Israel — are so powerful, because their stories resonate across time and space.America is fundamentally based on the individual — the freedom of the individual to pursue his or her ambition. Russia is about community, tradition, orthodoxy. Iran is about sacrifice, about eschatology. Israel is about covenant, about history. These themes resonate throughout time and space. And that's why right now we're seeing a conflict among these four different traditions to see who will win.On the fine line between stories that unite and stories that blind you from reality: the more a story is able to transcend time and space, the less it becomes a cage. And this is really interesting — let's just say the entire world is destroyed tomorrow. Ten thousand years from now, humanity will build itself back. Guess what — you'd have the same narratives, the same stories, the same conflicts between freedom and tradition, between history and the future. This is what humanity is finally about. We're trying to work out the stories that we tell ourselves.

Are Civilizations and Empires Inherently Good or Bad?

Francisco: Given the evolution of humankind, the tragedy of writing, the patriarchal shift and what the Indo-European expansion brought about — in your opinion, what are the benefits of civilization and empire, or are they inherently evil and anti-human?

A major problem with how history is taught, how we think about the world, is we apply labels to things — good, bad, beneficial, not beneficial. That's not how history works. History works in cycles: rise, fall, up, down, civilization, barbarity. There's nothing good or bad about these things. It's an earthquake — we don't say it's bad or good. It's a storm, is it good or bad? It's just part of the world we live in.Stop assigning values and labels to these things, and accept that there's a pattern to them. Our role, our purpose in this world, is to navigate these patterns and to seek our own individual meaning. The world could collapse tomorrow. That doesn't absolve you of your responsibility to be a good teacher, to be a good parent, to be a good neighbor.Focus on what you can do individually and don't give labels to these things. Is America good or bad? America is just America. Is Russia good or bad? It's just Russia.

Nation-States Resisting Global Capital

Aren't There More Nations Capable of Standing Up to International Capital Elites?

[hoonimon]: Isn't there a possibility that there are more nation-states with culture and popular cohesion that can effectively combat international capital elites than we imagine? For instance, Iran is an extreme case of resilience, but recently the Spanish Prime Minister and South Korean President have been vocally criticizing Israel's anti-humanitarian actions. Do you see your predictions as more or less unchanged, or do you think they need to be corrected to be less extreme?

This is very important. Yes, I do oversimplify my analysis. The world is extremely complex. There are like a million data points you can choose from. I choose from a few. And you're exactly right that I need to consider more factors, more possibilities, and more data points — and I will in the future.What's really important for me is to first build a framework, a skeleton, and then work from there. A framework allows you to make better observations. Don't be too concerned about being factual first — what's important is to first build the framework, the skeleton, and then build from there. Whereas if you just focus on the facts, it doesn't really get you that many places.You're right that I need to make my arguments more nuanced and more subtle, and I will in the future.

Falsifiability

What Specific Outcomes Would Prove Your Thesis Wrong?

TXC: Your game theory approach consistently drives toward a coherent conclusion of US decline, Chinese vindication, and Iranian resilience. In the spirit of the brutal skepticism you ask for, what specific twelve-month outcome — concrete and falsifiable — would prove your macro thesis of structural US decline wrong?

I want to thank you so much for this question. This is exactly the sort of question I'm looking for from my audience. Yes, because I'm always looking to invalidate my own theory.What could happen in the next twelve months that would destroy my prediction?The US midterms is something I can't really predict. It's entirely possible the midterms will surprise me in a way that will force me to change my predictions.If Trump were to die tomorrow, that would change a lot of my predictions, because I'm not predicting that Trump will get a third term. If Trump were to die tomorrow, that would change the entire world.If the Democratic Party picked a leader who was as charismatic as Trump, as revolutionary as Trump — then I would think that my entire worldview is wrong. That we can avert the collapse of history. That America could regenerate itself. Unfortunately, I think the most hopeless part of the United States right now is the Democratic Party. If the Democratic Party were to say, "Screw this elitist politics — let's get rid of Obama, let's get rid of Clinton, let's have a real democracy and pick a leader from the grassroots who could lead us forward" — that I would think would be the greatest thing in the world. Would that ever happen? Probably not.

How Do You Account for AI, Climate Change, and the Space Race in Your Cyclical Model?

TXC: Cyclical history models — Athens, Rome — tend to project the present onto the past to pattern-match. How do you account for drastically different inputs today: AI labor displacement, climate change, the space race? What's your confidence that our current transition is a historical analogy versus truly uncharted territory?

For me the question is: do we believe that we are truly in a new age of humanity where AI could lead us to a new future? Or is it possible that we discount the complexity and sophistication of ancient civilizations like the Athenians and the Romans? Is it possible that they also had technologies they thought could be life-transforming — ones they believed could allow them to transcend history?I think it's much more likely that we ignore the sophistication of the past and overemphasize our own. There's nothing about AI that tells me we're heading towards a new future. I think AI is just another hocus-pocus hallucination meant to fool us into obedience. There's nothing really about the world we live in that I think makes us distinct from the past.

White Supremacy and Structural Racism

Why Is There Almost No Mention of White Supremacy in Your Analysis?

[Dan]: I've watched every single one of your videos over the last year. I'm curious as to why there is almost no mention of white supremacy and structural racism woven into your historical and contemporary analysis. Does geopolitical game theory supersede white supremacy and structural racism? Do they function more as a tool of domestic management of nations rather than a cohesive fabric throughout the world? Do you view them as identity politics more so than a pertinent issue of our times?

White supremacy does exist. Structural racism does exist. I know because I grew up in Canada. And if you grew up in Canada as an immigrant, there's a lot of white supremacy and structural racism in Canada, even though they won't admit it.The reason why these things exist is this is an outgrowth of empire. This is an outgrowth of the stories, the narratives that bind a nation together. For the longest time, white people were in charge. Everyone wanted to be white. And then you have the rise of China, the rise of a multipolar world. The United States, Canada, Europe became much more decadent, much more corrupt. And then they started to see their white supremacy decline relative to other cultures. And they didn't like that.But I don't like to frame it as white supremacy because that's not the root of the problem. The root of the problem is just empire — imperial arrogance, hubris, civilization. Would Chinese supremacy be better than white supremacy? Would Japanese supremacy be better than white supremacy? I don't necessarily think so. It's just that we are part of a culture. It is right and good for us to be proud of our culture and to think that we are superior in many ways. That's what often leads cultures to greatness. There's always going to be a struggle over supremacy, and this is what leads to conflict.Yes, white supremacy does exist. But the root of the problem is that people want to belong in community, and they want to believe that their stories in this community are more legitimate than other stories. To ask people to just be completely open-minded and non-racist — I think that goes against human nature.

Plato's Cave: Is the Material World an Illusion?

Is the Material World Itself the Illusion — Or Just Society's Rules?

Shan: You talk about Plato's Cave a lot, and it mostly makes sense to me, but I get a little confused about the illusion part. Is the material world itself the illusion — as in, one's own hand, the device I'm writing this on, the building? Or is society with its arbitrary rules the illusion? If these things aren't real, why do they impact and influence us on such a deep level?

First of all, society is a complete illusion. When you come to school, you're just taught nonsense — illusions. What allows society to function is the fact that you comply with the rules, which are illusions. The point of school, the point of media, the point of culture is to make you believe that these illusions are real. And you want them to be real because if they're not real, you can't really function in society.The social rules are just illusions. And we know they're illusions because once you recognize them as illusions, it allows you to better navigate society. That's what Jacob Frank teaches his followers: look, everything around you is just an illusion. Do what you want. And once you are able to enforce your will on other people, you can achieve what you want, because people are just surrounded by illusions. So it's very easy for you to impose your own illusions on other people.But the deeper question is: is this material world itself an illusion? And it is an illusion. What is real — and I keep emphasizing this — is that consciousness is real. Our hands, our eyes — these are the illusion. But that's a very hard thing to appreciate. That's why there were mystery schools in ancient Greece, because to convince someone that your mind is more real than your hand — they think you're insane.But once you're able to make this mental leap, your entire world changes. Now you're able to access truth really. The reality is that 99% of us will not be able to make this realization — to discover for yourself that it's your consciousness that is real, that everything you see around you, this material world, these buildings, this money, this wealth — it's all just a fake.

The Balkans

Will China Use the Balkans as an Entry Point Into Europe?

Lazar: Are you going to cover the future of Europe and the Balkans? It is a region that has been the most unstable in Europe in recent history. China has been using the Balkans as an entry point into Europe with infrastructure investments. Right after Trump's and Putin's visits to China, the president of Serbia also visited China and received a medal from Xi — only twelve other leaders received this honor — and the visit made the headlines of Chinese media.

The Balkans is historically one of the most important and volatile regions of the world. The Middle East is probably the most volatile, but the Balkans are also very volatile for very similar reasons.One reason is just the geographic necessity of the Balkans — it is an access point to many continents. Second is the religious conflict in the area: many different religious groups have been fighting for control over that territory. And the third is the historical animosity built up over centuries of conflict. We can expect the conflict between Russia and Europe to converge again in the Balkans. I was expecting major conflict to arise in that region as a proxy war between Russia and Europe. But the specifics I don't really want to discuss because I don't know enough about the area to comment specifically.

Tucker Carlson

What Did You and Tucker Carlson Discuss Off Air?

[Questioner]: What did you and Tucker Carlson discuss off air after he got emotional? And what are your thoughts on Larry Johnson and other analysts' criticism of your work?

Tucker Carlson is an American patriot, and I've always admired and respected Tucker Carlson — even though politically we don't align. He and I will disagree a lot on politics. But I admire and respect the fact that he loves America and has fought very hard to protect what's best about America, especially its civilization, especially its culture. He's been very consistent about this.After the show, we discussed for a few minutes the fact that American culture is being erased — that the very essence of American civilization, what made America great, was really Christianity and European civilization. And because of DEI, because of immigration, a lot of this is being eroded. And that's a very bad thing for America. I agree with that.What I admire about Tucker Carlson is that he's been very principled in his viewpoint, fearless and courageous in fighting for what he believes in — including maintaining American civilization, which is Christian, white, and European. He's also been very consistently anti-war. And that's cost him a lot. There's talk that because of his anti-war stance — his belief that America should not be fighting certain foreign wars — there's talk of him getting arrested.I've always admired Tucker Carlson. I think he's an extremely courageous man, even though we don't agree.

As for Larry Johnson and other analysts who have been criticizing me: I don't pay attention to criticism because I don't want to be a social media influencer who spends all his time arguing with other social media influencers. I want to be an educator. I want to teach people how to think for themselves. Larry Johnson is someone I admire a lot. I've watched a lot of his interviews. I agree with a lot of his sentiments. I don't know what he said about me, and quite honestly, I don't care. The fact that he criticizes me doesn't impact the way I perceive him, because what I care about are opinions, analysis. I sort of ignore the personalities.

Secret Societies and Lost Civilizations

What About Fallen Angels, Reptilians, Tartaria, and Lost Civilizations?

Julian: Thank you very much Professor for your lectures and for understanding our world, universe better. My question would be, about your theories that secret societies don't understand that they do conspiracies theories in the game theory 26. This concept you use in that lecture i find very interesting, but more interesting would be when you ad too this concept the fallen angels, reptiles, giants, dragon, lost ancient civilisation, tartaria, etc.

All this conspiracy theories together to predict our universe.There are a lot of things I don't know. I'm very interested in the idea of lost civilizations — they must exist. It doesn't make sense to me that we only have about ten thousand years of recorded human history when we've been around for two hundred thousand years in our current state. Our current minds, our current mental development — we've been modern humans for two hundred thousand years. So there must have been other civilizations in place.If you look at the Amazon, if you look at the Grand Canyon in America, if you look at Antarctica, there's reason to believe that there have been other civilizations before us.I'm also very interested in the concept of fallen angels — the Nephilim. There might be some interdimensional reptiles who rule us. I'm open to these possibilities. But right now, I haven't found enough evidence to discuss them. I'm very much on my own journey to discover the truth, and I'm open-minded about these things.

Israel, Iran, and Nuclear Logic

If the US Invades Iran and Both Collapse, How Does Israel Achieve Greater Israel?

[Questioner]: You said Israel will dominate the region and Japan will rebirth from its ashes. My understanding is: the US will launch a ground invasion of Iran, they will lose, and in the process both the US and Iran will be destroyed. The GCC will be destroyed since it's just a creation of empire. CENTCOM will be transferred to Israel. So the last player standing is Israel. But how can Israel achieve its project if Iran destroys Israel first — by destroying its nuclear plants or energy infrastructure? Iran can build ten to twenty nuclear weapons in a matter of weeks. Israel has nuclear weapons and could use them, but what is the full logic here?

I don't understand why Iran would want to destroy Israel. Iran wants to survive. Iran wants to remove the United States from the Middle East. Iran wants to unite the Muslim world. Those things make sense. But why would Iran want to destroy Israel? For what purpose? Just because of animosity? That's not how geopolitics works. There has to be some very specific reason.Look at what's happening. Iran is directing most of its attention against the UAE. Why? Because from the Iranian perspective, the UAE is an abomination. It is sacrilege. The Iranians hate what the UAE represents far more than they hate Israel.Also, why would Israel want to use a nuclear weapon against Iran? For what purpose? I understand that if Israel were to nuke Iran, Iran could build nuclear weapons and then nuke Israel. But why would Israel want to nuke Iran? Israel wants to weaken Iran. Wouldn't you be better off destroying reservoirs, railways, energy infrastructure? The purpose of a tactical nuclear weapon — I don't understand the logic. People have discussed using one to destroy underground missile bases, but there are lots of underground missile bases scattered throughout Iran. You don't have enough nuclear weapons to destroy all of them.I don't believe Iran cares about Israel enough to commit suicide. If you go against Israel, Israel will use nuclear weapons against you. And why would Iran cross that line if it means the destruction of the civilian population?Israel doesn't really need to destroy Iran. Israel needs to remove the United States from the equation and then deal with Iran at a later stage — weaken Iran to a point where Iran has to spend all its time rebuilding itself.My argument is that if a war between Iran and the United States reaches a point where the United States is forced to send millions of ground troops into Iran, it's going to destroy both places — both the United States and Iran. The only one left standing will be Israel at the end. I still maintain this belief.

Japan's Resilience vs. China

Japan Has the Same Demographic Problems as South Korea — Why Do You Think Japan Will Dominate?

[Questioner]: In one of your lectures about South Korea, you said that the country will collapse because of its low fertility rate. But it's the same for Japan. The population is old and young people don't want to have children. The most dominant industrial power in the region is China.

When I make predictions, I look at several factors. One factor I look at really closely is resilience. If things stay the same, yes — China will dominate and Japan will decline. But the thing about history is that there's always change, always cycles. And if the world is heading towards disaster — which I think it is — I ask myself: which nation-states will be resilient? Which people will most likely stand together and make the changes necessary to overcome adversity?And historically, it's always been Japan.In the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, Japan was able to survive two Mongolian invasions. In the nineteenth century, when they were being invaded by the Western powers, they underwent the Meiji Restoration and became an industrial power in about twenty to thirty years. After World War II, when they were completely destroyed by the Americans, they came together and changed their political and industrial system. Before, they had the Zaibatsu system — basically industrial monopolies. After World War II, they got rid of those things and in about twenty to thirty years became the most advanced industrial economy in the world.The Japanese have a history of resilience, of making changes when their survival is threatened. That's why I think Japan will probably do it again.I have not seen an instance of China being resilient.

Where Would You Move?

If You Had to Move Permanently to Another Country in Six Months, Where Would You Go?

[Questioner]: If you had to move permanently to another country in the next six months, what would be your top choices and why?

First of all, because I have a family and three kids, I would not make any changes lightly. I would prefer not to move unless I was entirely sure there was a better option for me.But let's say for argument's sake, tomorrow I had to make that move. Some countries that come to mind would include Botswana in Africa — it's far enough from everywhere, and it's a pretty stable society. Then Chile in South America. I would consider New Zealand, possibly. And Malaysia. These are four places I would consider if, for argument's sake, World War III broke out — Europe is on fire, America is in civil war, and there's a lot of conflict in East Asia between Japan and China.

YouTube Questions

What's Your Theory on Space?

[Joyce]: What's your theory on space?

I personally don't think space matters. I personally don't think we'll ever get to the moon. I don't think we'll be able to mine asteroids for resources. I think society will collapse much more quickly than we assume. We don't have the time, energy, or resources to go conquer the moon.The space race is all just an illusion. Space race, AI, alien invasion — they're all just lies perpetuated by the elite. I pay absolutely no attention to the space race.This is strange because I grew up watching a lot of science fiction. I love science fiction. I read a lot of Isaac Asimov, Ray Bradbury. I watched Star Trek. I love that. So I would love it if we could get to Mars. We're not going to Mars. I don't care what Elon Musk says — it's not going to happen. Let's get men on the moon first.

What Is India's Position on the Geopolitical Chessboard?

[Questioner]: How can you explain India's position in this chessboard as far as convergence?

I don't know enough about India to make predictions. But geopolitically, India is in a very bad position because it has a large population, its political system is very chaotic, and it's very resource-constrained. It doesn't have that much in the way of resources. My prediction for India would not be that optimistic. But eventually, I want to go visit India and discover for myself the strengths of India.

Why Have Jews Been Expelled From So Many Countries Throughout History?

[Questioner]: Why do you think the Jewish people have consistently been expelled from many countries over the course of history? The Israelites say it's because everyone is envious of them. But if a kid is expelled from 109 schools, are the schools at fault, or is the issue with the kid?

This is a question that a lot of people are genuinely interested in, so let me spend some time to explain what's going on.The Israelites have the Bible, and the Bible commands them to be forever loyal to God. Over the course of history, most Israelites have actually been absorbed into different communities — Christian, Muslim — or simply abandoned Judaism in order to join the elite. It's been only a small, very small minority that has kept the Jewish faith alive over the centuries. As you can imagine, these people are fanatical.The main problem is: how do you endure? Because their faith teaches them that what matters is their faith in God — they are the chosen people. How can they endure as a people?What happened in history is they basically made a deal with the devil. What I mean is they made a deal with local nobility to serve them in exchange for being able to practice their faith. The deal often goes like this: nobility would hire them as subcontractors to manage their wealth. The Jews are diaspora — they're really good at trade and finance. Also, throughout most of human history, nobility were not allowed to engage in usury. Why? Because usury often led to the destruction of society. When you collect interest on debt, the debt often multiplies to an extent that no one can pay it off, which often leads to revolution. But usury was the most profitable enterprise you could engage in.So what they really did, which was very clever, was say: "Let's get the Jews to do it." Jews were not allowed to own property or go to school, but they were allowed to engage in usury — basically finance.When times were good, this arrangement was fine. But when times were bad, people got angry. And who do they blame? They blame the Jews. It's not the nobility that's collecting debt from you — it's the Jews. The Jews think they are the chosen people, so they set themselves apart from you. They live in their own communities, practice their own religion. They think they're better than you. And this is going to lead to a lot of conflict.History goes in cycles. When times are bad, the Jews always get blamed and expelled from a certain location, and they move elsewhere and restart again. But they don't care, because for them, their mission is to endure, to keep the faith.Over the centuries, they've learned certain strategies of how to endure. A lot of this is basically segregation — keeping themselves separate from other people. And a lot of these strategies tend to be very extreme. Unfortunately, we're seeing the same pattern emerge again today, where anti-Semitism is now very common across the Western world — not just because of what Israel is doing in Gaza, but because of certain long-running cultural dynamics.That said, I have tremendous respect and admiration for the Jewish people because they are, first and foremost, intellectual people — a people of the book — who have contributed many great ideas to human history.

What Should You Study for the Future?

[Questioner]: Which branches of study have a future in our modern world? What would you study if you were at the crossroads of life?

Ignore AI. If you want to become a computer programmer, if you want to master AI to become a billionaire, you're going to be disappointed.If you really want to prepare for the future, read books. It doesn't matter — you don't have to read the great books specifically, just read books. Because the skill you will need in the future is the capacity to think critically, think independently, and think deeply about the world. By reading books, you can start to engage in an inner dialogue with yourself. And that's going to make you much more imaginative, much more resilient in the future.It doesn't matter what you study. What does matter is that you read books.

What Advice Would You Give to Your Children?

[Questioner]: What advice would you give to your kids about how to prepare themselves for the coming situations? How do you prepare your kids for a new and uncertain world?

Every day I would just tell my kids three things. That's all I have to do.
First: "I will always love you." No matter what happens, I will always love you. No matter what you do, I will always love you. If I die, I will still always love you. Wherever you go, whatever you do, I will always love you and I'll always be with you.
Second: "I believe in you." Whatever you do will be good. Just believe in yourself.
Third: "Believe in yourself."

If my kids understand these three things — that their parents always love them no matter what they do, that their parents believe in them, and that their highest mission in life is to believe in themselves — they'll be fine no matter what.It's not really about what university you should go to. It's not really about how much money you have. It's really about how you perceive yourself and your place in the world.

Why Is There Such Negativity Toward AI?

[Questioner]: If an AI surveillance state is the end goal, why is there such negative feeling in the general population toward AI? What primary social, political, or game-theoretic factors drive this public resistance, and how does it impact the trajectory of AI deployment?

There is such negativity toward AI because everyone knows what the purpose of AI is. The purpose of AI is to make you, as a human being, worthless — redundant. We don't need you anymore because we have robots, we have AI.Human beings want to feel they're participating. Human beings want to feel valuable. Human beings want to contribute to the greater good. And AI is a system designed to make you redundant.

The US-China Grand Bargain and the Malacca Chokepoint

[Questioner]: You predicted a US-China grand bargain where China absorbs America's $39 trillion debt via stablecoins and the GENIUS Act to maintain the global USD arrangement. However, you also taught us that the US grand strategy is to embargo the Strait of Malacca and use economic strangulation to force Beijing into submission. If China is already a fragile hallucination with collapsing consumer confidence, what American strangulation tactics could accidentally trigger a total collapse of the CCP? How can America extract wealth from the Chinese consumer if its own chokepoint strategy destroys the Chinese state from within?

If you're a hallucination, you don't know you're a hallucination. So objectively, China may be fragile — but the players inside don't know that. That's the first point.
Second point: in a game, your objective is to win the game. By winning the game, it may cause the game to collapse — but you don't care. The point is to win. You'll use whatever tools you have in order to win. So it's possible that this US-China trade war will end up collapsing both nations, but that's not the point. The point is to win the game. The point is not to survive the game. Sometimes winning the game means destroying yourself — basically committing suicide.

Third point: China and America need to engage in a struggle in order to come to an agreement. The reason is that there are lots of domestic interests they have to manage. If you're Donald Trump and you want a grand bargain with China, there's going to be a lot of people opposed to it because they think China is the great threat and that any compromise means selling out the American nation. So you need to engage in visible conflict and warfare in order to dissipate domestic tension enough to make a deal.

I understand it's a really dangerous game they're playing. But welcome to geopolitics. The people in charge are psychopaths — because in order to credibly win the game, you have to be a psychopath. Think about who in this world is respected. Israel is respected. Putin is respected. North Korea is respected. Donald Trump is respected. Why? Because they're all crazy. Everyone agrees that if threatened enough, they'll press a button and blow up the world. That's what gets you respect in this world.

The crazier you are, the more legitimacy you have.

Will this lead to the end of the world? Probably. That's what I've been teaching for a long time — the people in charge are crazy, the game they're playing is crazy, and it's going to lead to the end of the world.

Won't Trump's Christian Nationalist Base Realize They're Being Enslaved by the System They Supported?

[Questioner]: You explained that America needs an AI surveillance state and Operation Stargate to manage domestic rebellion against a coming national draft. You also noted that the current global civil war pits transnational capital against an alliance of nationalists, the church, and tech elite — Trump, Thiel, Musk. But if the tech elites are using an occult-coded Masonic philosophy to build an anti-Christ technate that strips human free will, won't Trump's fiercely armed Christian nationalist base eventually realize they are being enslaved by the exact system they're fighting for? Won't the technate trigger a second American civil war instead of preventing it?

Yes, this is exactly right. A civil war is going to happen and there's going to be many different factions, many different reasons why it happens. But one reason is that there's going to be a lot of resistance towards an AI surveillance state. This is exactly right. And there's really nothing anyone can do right now to stop a civil war from happening.

Can Putin's Strategy Survive If Russia Becomes Economically Subordinate to China?

[Questioner]: In your recent lecture on Putin in Beijing, you noted that Vladimir Putin wants Russia to lead the multipolar world even if it means acting as a junior partner to China. However, given Russia's fierce historical emphasis on absolute sovereignty and its self-image as the Third Rome, can Putin's strategy survive a long-term future where Russia is economically subordinate to a Chinese elite that has fundamentally preferred America as a global policeman? What is Russia's exit game if China chooses divorce?

The Chinese don't trust the Russians because the Russians are extremely nationalistic — there is Russian supremacy running very deep. Even though Russia will pretend to be the junior partner to China, the Russians believe they're superior. And a lot of that has to do with the Third Rome eschatology.If there's a divorce, can Russia survive economically? Yes. It doesn't need China. It just needs to fight wars. Because if you think about it historically, how a nation developed wealth was by conquering other nations. What Russia is going to do is move towards a total war economy and completely focus on the conquest of its neighbors — especially Ukraine, but also the Baltic states and then Central Asia. As long as Russia is able to maintain its internal cohesion and engage in sustained warfare, Russia will be fine.

What Happens After Putin? Would Russia Continue His Grand Plan?

[Questioner]: According to the lecture material, I'm inclined to believe Putin has a grand plan laid out. What would happen if Putin ceased being Russia's leader for reasons outside his control? Would there be an individual or collective effort to follow the same ideology and continue his plan?

Putin is going to live a lot longer than people believe. I think he's going to live another twenty years. That's what my instinct tells me.But what happens when a great leader dies is very interesting. Look at the pattern with Genghis Khan and Muhammad — when they died, there's a pattern that emerges. First, internal friction. The different interests get together and start fighting over succession. Who succeeds? Then they decide they cannot possibly agree. So what they do is just go to war with everyone — expand outwards. Russia will just expand outwards. You have this massive expansion that might go on for ten or twenty years where they basically conquer everyone around them because no one else is as militaristic.But then what happens — and this is really interesting — is exhaustion. Either they lose or they win, but everyone's exhausted, and then they decay internally.I don't see Russia as having a great future. But the pattern is clear: internal friction after the leader dies, which leads to military expansion overseas to reduce that internal friction, and then eventually the empire exhausts itself from fighting too many wars at once.

Why Are We Born as Ourselves?

Why Am I This Person, in This Body, in This Place?

Vincent: I always wonder — why are we born as ourselves? Why am I Asian? Why am I Chinese? Why am I not someone in another place of the world? Why are we ourselves? Is this connected to the monad?

The theory is this.You come to Earth as a soul. And your soul has a purpose. And the purpose is always, ultimately, to enlighten yourself.You basically decide on a purpose before you arrive — your purpose could be to experience being rich, or to experience being in love. You always have a defining purpose that becomes the core of who you are. And once you have this purpose, you're assigned to a place in this world that allows you to achieve that purpose.You are who you are for a purpose. And this purpose is good — it's for you to try to achieve it. Unfortunately, what happens in our world is that because of school, because of parents, because of society, you're blocked from knowing your purpose, from truly pursuing it. But that's actually part of the purpose too, because for you to truly fulfill it, you need to overcome challenges and obstacles.Once you achieve your purpose, you understand yourself a lot better. Then you go back and you choose a new purpose. But maybe you don't achieve this purpose, in which case you do it again. This is the idea of samsara in Vedic mythology.You may not remember what your purpose is — but you can feel what your purpose is. So what you should always do is trust your intuition, because that's what's going to lead you to your purpose. You're here as part of your purpose. I'm here teaching as part of my purpose. That's the structure of the universe.