Game Theory #5: The World Game

Today we examine the question, why is it that states, countries, nations, they rise and they fall. Okay, so let's start off with an example that you know pretty well. So this is the Warring States period, and at this point in history, there are many powerful states. Okay? So for example, the Chu, the Zhao, the Wei, okay? And if at this point in history, and this is about 250 BCE, I asked you to figure out, using game theory, which state would unite China, become the first great empire of China? Well, there are certain metrics that you would use to figure out which state would win out. Okay? So obviously you would look at population, who has the largest population? Okay? So the question of mass. Second question that you would look at is maybe resources, right? And resources, it's basically just farmland. So you would look at basically which areas had the most rivers, okay? And so you'll be like, okay, well this area, you know, looks very strategic, as is this area, as is this area, okay. And then you would also look at maybe technology. So basically, which state has the most scientists, which state has the most advanced literature arts. And then from these metrics, then you could do some analysis and figure out that maybe Chu would come conquer of China. Add some point, okay? But at no point, using any metrics, would you assume that Qing would conquer China. And there are certain reasons why. First of all, it's in mountains, so it's pretty poor. Second of all, it's pretty far away from the rivers and trade routes. And third of all, it's pretty isolated, okay? So you could not possibly imagine that the Qing Dynasty was, would conquer of China. But in fact, it is the Qing that would come and conquer all of China. And not only that, but if you look at most of human history, this pattern repeats itself. If you look at a region, the strongest nation does not come out on top. It's usually the weakest, most marginalized area that will eventually come and conquer the entire territory and create an empire. Okay? So clearly the way that we understand history, it's problematic, it's wrong. So what I want to, what I want to do is propose to you a new way to understand how empires come into being. Okay? And this was actually first proposed by a Muslim scholar, historian named Ibn Khudan. And he proposed the idea of abasaya. And all this word means is basically cohesion or group solidarity. His theory is that yes, the people in the margins, they're poorer, but, but because they're poorer, they're more unified, they are more, they focus more on solidarity, on working together. Whereas in the rich areas, they become too individualistic, they become too decadent, too corrupt. And ultimately that's why it's always these tribes from the margins that actually conquer the wealthy civilized areas. And this is a pattern that repeats itself throughout human history all the time. So it's almost like an iron law of history. So what I want to do is show you that there are actually three metrics that you can use to measure how dynamic a society is and how likely it is to triumph in the end. These three metrics are energy, Openness, and cohesion. Okay? Cohesion just follows the idea of abbasiah, which is just to say, how likely is it that these people are willing to work together? They see themselves as a team. Are they willing to sacrifice themselves for each other? Are they a family? Okay, so that's the idea of cohesion. Openness is a very important concept. And openness just means how willing are you willing to adapt, how willing how much are you willing to accept your limitations and be resilient? Okay? So you can think of openness as humility, as resilience. Energy just means that you're willing to work hard, you're focused, you have a clear goal, and you're motivated to achieve this goal. Okay? So these three metrics tell us how dynamic society is going to be. And using these three metrics, we can now better understand why that the Qing dynasty was able to conquer all of China. Okay, so the idea is that if you're rich, you're rich. What happens often is that you have low energy. And what this means is that the elite don't want to work anymore. They rather just exploit the other people, okay, the people. And because the people are being enslaved, they're too much in debt, they have low energy as well. For them, it's not really about building a great nation. It's not really about doing a great job. It's just about getting by. Okay, so, and then the idea of openness is that the elite become extremely corrupt. They become very insular, they become very arrogant. And so they refuse to admit that they're wrong. And. And as a result, society becomes stagnant. It doesn't really improve. And the idea of cohesion is that because of wealth inequality, because of corruption, people are much more individualized, people are much more atomized. Okay? And this allows for a new group to come in and conquer everyone. Okay, does that make sense, guys? All right, so I'm going to use. Sorry, I'm going to use actually another example, okay? An example is the Greek city states. And the Greek city States, it's really the height of human civilization. They gave us Homer, Plato, Thucydides, Sophocles, okay? Just basically the basis for all of Western civilization. Now, what's interesting is that for most of their history, the Greek city states, and these are basically like this small cities, okay? There are thousands of them and on average, about a thousand people each. There are some big city states like Athens, but even Athens is not that big. So at its height, Athens had about 50,000 people, okay? So these city states like Athens, Thebes, Sparta, okay, these are the major ones. And there are others who are Korean Argos, they're always in competition with each other, very much like the Chinese warring states as well. And again, if we were to look at the year 500 BCE, you would think that maybe Athens or Sparta would emerge as the grand unifier of the Greek city states. And in fact, what happened was that Athens did become an empire, but then the other Greek city states start to attack Athens and Athens declined over time, okay? And the advantage that Athens had over everyone else was just tremendous. First of all, Athens had the greatest navy. As you can see, the Aegean is primarily about who controls the seas. So Athens was able to control the trade routes in the Aegean. Therefore, it's the wealthiest city state, have the greatest population, has the most innovation, it has the most strategic location, it has the most wealth. So you just assume that Athens would come to conquer all the greedy states, but in fact, it was the Macedonians, okay, who came in and conquered all of the city states. And at this time in history, you couldn't possibly imagine that because the Macedonians were poor, they were isolated, they were not all cultured, they were uncivilized, okay? But again, they had energy, openness and cohesion, and that allowed them to conquer the city states. What's most, what's amazing is that even after this area was unified, okay, the Macedonians would then do the impossible and go over and conquer the great Persian Empire, the first great empire in human history. It was huge. It was Egypt, Anatolia, Mesopotamia, the Zagros Mountains, Persia. It was everywhere. And in a very quick amount of time, the Macedonians, under Axiom the Great, they sailed across the Aegean, landed a small fort, and then very quickly, in about 10 years time, conquered the entire Persian Empire. And at this point in history, you would think that the Persian Empire, sorry, you would think that the new maximum empire would be invincible. But then what happened a few decades later is the rise of the Romans. Who are the Romans? Well, at this time in history, we don't Know who they are, okay? Rome is probably here somewhere, okay? But as you can see, the entire Italian peninsula is being colonized by the Greeks and then the Romans, who are, you know, these poor, backward tribal people. Eventually, over time, they will conquer the entire Italian peninsula and they'll go and conquer the Greek mainland and then, of course, go south to conquer Carthage as well, and they will create the Roman Empire, okay? So this is a pattern that repeats itself throughout human history. The empire becomes corrupt, lazy, arrogant, and this gives opportunity for a troubled people, whether it's the Macedonians, whether it's a Qing, whether it's a Romans, to come and conquer all of them, okay? But another question then is, okay, if that's true. And so let's look at more examples, okay, of this. Let's look at the Aztecs. And the Aztecs is even a more stark example. So this is about the 16th century, 15th century, okay? As you can see, the Mexican peninsula, it's. It is divided into different warring city states, okay? Very similar situation to the Greek city states and the Chinese city states. Then what's happening is the Aztecs are going to come in from the north, okay? And the Aztecs are a poor tribe that's starving, okay? So they're basically from North America. They come in because they're looking for food and they're warrior people, so they're hired by other city states to fight for them. Eventually, they become too powerful, so they become isolated onto a marsh, okay? And this marsh, it's poor. And everyone just put them. Just assumed that they would starve to death in this marsh. What's amazing is that as a people, they became very creative and they turned this marsh into farmland. And over time, they will slowly come to conquer everyone, okay? And they established the Essex Empire, which rules over millions and millions. And then what happens, which is one of the greatest mysteries in human history, is you have another group of people called conquistadors from Spain, and There's only about 500 of them, okay, arriving about the year 1915. 19, they come in, and in like a very short amount of time, they conquer the entire ethnic empire and Spain comes to rule basically all of south and Latin America, okay? So even though, yes, we have a formula in place. Whichever group has the most energy, whichever group is the most open, the most cohesive, will conquer the other groups. It still doesn't explain to us how this happened, how this guy, hernaniquidates, with 500 conquistadors, was able to come in and conquer a land of millions and millions, okay? Now, there are historical explanations, including, of course, disease. People from Spain had diseases, and the Aztecs were not. Did not have the immune system to counter these diseases. Another explanation is the Aztecs believed that these conquistors were gods, and that's why they surrendered very quickly. Another explanation is that the conquistadors had allies, local allies, that were pissed off at the Aztecs. But again, these explanations, they sound. Okay, they sound like they work, but they don't actually give us the full picture of what really happened. And in game theory, what we're really trying to figure out is what. What happened? Exactly. Okay. It's a game. How are the players playing the game? What are their motivations? What are their incentives? Okay. Does it make sense? Okay, that's what we're trying to figure out, what actually happened in this instance. I want to look at one more example before we look into the theory game in game theory, okay? This is one of the earliest civilizations in human history, okay. In fact, it's considered the first great civilization of human history. It is the Sumerians. And what happened was that if you look at a world map, okay, this is a world map, right? Mesopotamia is the center of the world. Because you want to access the rest of the world, you have to go through Mesopotamia. And if you look at Mesopotamia, the center of Mesopotamia is a place called Uruk. Okay, Sorry, Uruk. Uruk. Okay. Uruk, which is here. Okay. As you can see, Uruk is the meeting place of the Euphrates and the Tigris. And if you look at this, the Uruk allows you to access the Persian Gulf, which gives you access to India. Okay. What we call the ibc, the indigenous valley civilization. And then you allow. And then traders are able to take the goods and cross to Egypt. Okay. And then you're able to go north to Anatolia. So why did Europe become the first great world city? Because it was the center of all global trade. So different people came together into the city in order to establish a trading post, okay? And over time, it grew and grew because it was very wealthy, okay? And over time, it's up colonies elsewhere, okay? So it's up colonies in other places. And then eventually, these different city states came into conflict with each other, which is the same process as what happened with the Chinese warring states as well as the Greek city states. And you would assume that one of these city states would conquer the rest, but in fact, again, it was these tribal mercenaries from an isolated region called the Akkadians. The Akkadians who would come and conquer everyone. Else, okay, the Akkadians, okay? And after. After they built the first empire, okay, then what happened is that other people come over and conquer them as well. And then you have people from the Zagwas Mountains, the Persians basically come in and unify the entire area and create the Persian Empire. So this is a pattern that emerges throughout human history. It's a pretty consistent pattern. Okay? We have theories as to why this is happening. Yes, we do know that groups that are energetic, open, and cohesive will triumph over other groups. But the idea of game theory is to figure out exactly what happened. Okay, so let's go over exactly what happened, and I will show you that what's happening is that as nations rise and fall, the games they play changes. Does that make sense? The game changes, and therefore their motivations, their incentives, their strategies change over time. All right? Okay, so are we clear about the history here? All right, okay. All right, so in the beginning, okay, game theory. Game, okay, rise. In the beginning, you as a people need to come together and build a land in which you can all prosper or at least have food to eat, okay? Therefore, the game is cooperation, and the mechanism, cooperation is actually religion. So in this first game, okay, what you're trying to do is you're trying to create a dynamic religion that motivates people to be energetic, to give them reason to work really hard, okay? And the people who are best able to articulate this religion become the elite. And this includes poets and priests. All right? Poets and priests. And at this point in history, it's basically a startup, okay? Everyone's enthusiastic, everyone's working hard. Everyone feels as though they're making a positive contribution to the world. But over time, what happens is that the elite, okay, become hereditary. The game becomes, how do I, the elite, pass on my privileges to my children? Okay? And the way they do that is by changing the. The religion, okay? The religion now becomes almost like a bureaucracy. So in the first game, the religion is about energy, it's about creativity, it's about working together, okay? But in the second iteration, the religion becomes like a bureaucracy, which is like, you must follow through rules of the game, okay? The rules of the game are set. There's a hierarchy, and you must obey this hierarchy. Okay? Now then, what happens is a process called elite overproduction. The idea of elite overproduction is that, yes, these privileges are being passed on to the children, but now over time, they have. There are too many children. And so what happens is that society breaks up into different factions, okay? And usually what happens is that these factions are divided according to the princess, okay? So there are four princes, okay, who are about to inherit the throne. There are four different factions that support them. That doesn't mean the prince is the leader of the faction. It just means that the prince is the symbol of the faction. Okay? All right. And at this time in history, the way that they reduce the conflict is the losing factions, what they do is they move away, okay? They're exiled, okay? And then they have to set up a new colony. And this is a process that continues where the losers of the game are forced into exile until there's no more place to colonize. Okay, and now you have the Warring States period. The Warring States period. And in fact, what's interesting is that the Warring States period is a time of maximum creativity for a civilization. Why? Because the idea of open, cooperative competition, okay, so back to the Qing, back to the Greeks, the Sumerians, There are different colonies, okay? And they're all competing against each other. And so you need to be open and innovative if you're a triumph, okay? At the same time, they're trading with each other. So they're sharing best practices, they're sharing innovations with each other. Okay? So this leads to the idea of open club competition, which again, marks the height of the civilization. So guess what, guys? China's been around for 5,000 years, but most of the innovations happened when it happened during the Warring States period. This hundred years when we had Kongzi, Confucius, Mengzi, Lao Zi, Zhuanzi. It's basically everyone. Okay? All right? And if you just look at other civilizations, it's the same for other civilizations as well, where if you look at the Greeks during the classical period, they basically created everything that becomes the foundation for Western civilization. Okay? Does that make sense? All right, now what's interesting is what happens next. Eventually what happens is these city states figure out that, you know what? Yes, the game is we compete against each other, but we can also choose to work together. Okay, how do you work together? By intermarriage. Okay? Intermarriage. And the idea of intermarriage creates the idea of equilibrium. And at this point in history, warfare becomes organized warfare. Okay, so remember, before, warfare was about innovation, but now when these elites from different city states, when they intermarry with each other, they have a new equilibrium. So they are above the state. Now, does that make sense, guys? All right, so now when they fight, it's not really about fighting each other. It's about reducing their population to maintain control. Okay? It's a Way to resolve the overproduction issue. We have too many people struggling for too many status positions. And the way you do that is for population control. So warfare becomes a mechanism of population control. All right? So even though these city states are still in theory, competing against each other, they essentially now have reached an equilibrium. And equilibrium, a number for equilibrium, is basically the idea of empire. Okay? All right, so now the game changes. Before, during world states period, it was a game to see which state would be the best, the most innovative, and that's why you invite people who could contribute the most to your city state. Okay? That's. That's why you were meritocracy. You only promoted the best and the brightest. Once you reach an equilibrium, you don't have to do that, okay? All you need to do is just maintain the status quo. And so what happens is you create this rigid hierarchy. And what matters is who reaches the top of this hierarchy. And as a result, you create court politics. Right, Court politics or factional struggle, factions. Okay? Does it make sense, guys? All right, so if you look at any court politics, the faction that triumphs is the one that's able to solve three problems, okay? Three problems. These three problems are. Secrecy, trust, and coordination. Remember, in theory, everyone has to obey the bureaucracy, right? But if you just play by the rules of the game, you're going to lose. So what you want to do is you want to cheat in the game the way. But if you want to cheat in the game, you have to do so secretly, okay? You have to do secretly. But if you do so secretly, that creates a problem of, like, how do you trust each other if you don't, if you. And if you. If you're doing all in secret, the problem is, like, how do you coordinate? How do you move together, right? Because you can't have meetings where you take notes because if you discovered, you'll all be executed by the other factions. Okay? So historically, the way we resolve this issue is through the idea of secret societies. Okay? So let's figure out how secret societies work. And this is true for China. This is true for the Greeks. This is true for the Aztecs. This is true for everyone, okay? But like, there's certain aspects of secret societies, okay? The first is the idea of secrecy, okay? How do you do that? Well, you do that through the idea of a hierarchy, okay? Hierarchy or compartmentalization. And so there are different. So within sigma societies, there's a hierarchy as well, where only people at the very top know what's going on. And if you want to join you're initiated, but you have to put that bottom, okay? And slowly you. You climb the ladder, okay? And this is to maintain secrecy, trust. How do you get people to trust each other? We get people to trust each other through the idea of transgression. Okay? So if we cheat unattached, together, we are much more likely to trust each other. Does that make sense? Because if you're caught, you all get punished, okay? So by bringing the law together, we. We can trust each other, okay? And the most basic type of transgression is the idea of ritual sacrifice. And the idea of ritual sacrifice is you basically decide to go kill someone together, okay? You capture that person, then for some ritual, you then kill that person, okay? Does that make sense? And then to solve the problem of coordination, you have the idea of eschatology. Eschatology is just mythology, all right? Like, why are you guys doing what you're doing? Okay? And the answer often is because we're trying to serve a higher God that wants to conquer the world. And we are her servants in this quest to conquer the world and end the world to make it a paradise. Okay? So different suicides have different eschatologies, but the system is the same. Okay? Does it make sense? And what happens is. And this is, like, really important, guys, Every faction has to form their own secret society. And now the Gimbal Empire becomes one of a struggle between different secret societies. Does that make sense? Meaning what? Meaning you don't care what happens to the empire. You don't care about the enemies of the empire. All you care about that you. Your team emerges on top of the game, okay? And so what does that mean? It means that you become, sorry, insular, all right? Okay? You become insular, you also become corrupt, okay? Because you need resources to play this game. So what you do is you steal from the people, okay? It's all. It's all about trying to steal as much as you can in order to feed your faction. You become insular, you become corrupt, okay? And then divided, okay? Do you understand? This is what happens because of different factions within the empire or the equilibrium. They become insular, they become corrupt, and they become divided, okay? Which is why they ought to be lose these trouble factions. Because the opposite of insular, of course, is open. The. The. The opposite of corrupt is energetic. And the opposite of divided is, of course, cohesive cohesion. Okay? Okay? Now we understand why ultimately the borderlands, the tribes and borderlands, are able to conquer the empire or the equilibrium, okay? Does that make sense, guys? All right? But there's Actually more to this, okay? And so what happens is that you have different factions, Okay, domestic societies fighting against each other. And again, from their perspective, all they care about is winning against the other factions. So what do they do? What they do is they invite other foreigners to come help them. Do you understand? Okay, so these are all called mercenaries, All right? And these mercenaries coming to them and their leadership is absorbed into the secret societies through eschatology, for transgression through hierarchy. Okay, all right, so this is what happens. These mercenaries actually invited in, okay? And, and, and like, but there's always contact, okay? Contact through trade, Banditry, mercenary. Okay, does that make sense? Because these people in the regions, they're so poor to do anything to survive. So they'll trade with you, but they'll also steal from you and they'll also come and fight for you, okay? What's important is that through trade they're becoming wealthier. Through banetry, they're becoming warfare as well. And by becoming, by working as your mercenaries, they are learning your best technology, your best fighting skills, your best weapons. Okay? Right. And then what happens is that the mercenaries eventually take over. At first they merge, but then the mercenaries just kill everyone and then take over. And that's how what happens. That's why the Qing wave to conquer the warring states. Okay, don't teach you this in history class, but according to game theory, what happened was that different factions of these different states actually invent the Qing to help them in their political struggle. And then Qing is basically conquered one by one by one. Does that make sense? Same thing happened with the Macedonians, right? The Macedonians came in and helped one city state, then they call it one city state and move on to the next. Okay? But there's always a certain part of that city state, a certain faction of that city state which invite the in the first place. Okay? Does it make sense? And this is a pattern that repeats itself throughout human history. Okay, so you want to know what's going to happen today, what's going to happen tomorrow? Just figure out which areas of the world are the most energetic, most open and most cohesive. And then figure out which empires are the most corrupt, most insular and the most divided. Okay? And then you'll figure out who will conquer who. All right? Does that make sense, guys? Alright, so I'm gonna give you two more examples to better illustrate how this works. Alright? So when I was in high school in Canada, we played a game called the World Game. And in this game it's very simple, okay? You're put into a team of maybe four or five players, okay? And then each team is assigned a country like maybe usa, Britain, India, Pakistan, Japan. And then each team is given an envelope, okay? And then within this envelope you're given certain resources, okay? So basically, you know, paper, scissors, ruler, okay? And then there's an organization called the World Bank. And what you're trying to do is you're trying to become the wealthiest country in the world. The way you do that is you take your resources and you turn it into commodities that, that the World bank buys from you, okay? So maybe like triangles and circles and squares, okay? But to create these commodities, you need resources, right? You need scissors, you need rulers, you need paper, you need glue, okay? But different countries will have different resources. So the United States has everything, okay? And Pakistan is interesting because Pakistan usually gets nothing, okay? There are no resources. But you're allowed to trade with each other, right? Okay. You're allowed to trade with each other, okay? So even though you have nothing, you can go to United States and beg and say, oh, oh, could I please borrow your ruler for today? Okay? Then you're going to put and says, hey, can I, can I borrow your paper for today? Okay? Or hey, I'll come work for you for free, right? You can trade. And so you play this for one day and it's really interesting what happens, okay? Usually what happens, I'm not saying all the time, but I've seen this happen a lot. At the end of the day, you look at who are the wealthiest countries in the world. What happens is, well, the United States becomes number one. Okay? Why? Because the United States just has everything in the world. It is the wealthiest country in the world. It has just too much resources, okay? But number two is interesting. You would think it would be Japan and Britain, but it's actually Pakistan, okay? The country that starts out with nothing at all. Why? Because they're forced to be the most energetic, the most open and most cohesive. Team members have to go and beg to work for free, okay? Other team members go and lie and cheat and steal, okay? They're forced to be resourceful and creative. Okay? The world game. And that's how the world works, guys. Just because you have the most resources, just because you have the most people does not mean you'll win the game at the end. What matters is how energetic your people are, how open they are, how resourceful they are. That's what matters, okay? And often they are open, energetic and cohesive because they're poor, alright? It's that simple. Pakistan has Nothing. So they are forced to be creative. Poverty leads to creativity. Okay? Another thing this is that if I were to surmise the future, I would say right now in East Asia, I would think that North Korea has a better future than China. Okay? Just based on history. And it'd be like, that's impossible. North Korea can even feed its own people. Well, I understand that. But if you know game theory, okay, and you understand the principles that we've learned today, then you're forced to conclude that in East Asia, North Korea has a better future than China. Because ultimately, it's about how open, energetic, and cohesive the people are, as opposed to how rich and powerful you are. Okay? Does that make sense? I will also point out another example. So before teaching in high school, I was teaching teachers how to teach stem, okay? STEM education. And I usually run two day workshops. And what I would do is I go into a school and I divide the faculty, the teachers into teams, okay? Like teams of like four or five. And there'd be like 10 teams, okay. There'd be a lot of teachers. And the way I teach is I would give them an assignment and I would give them resources and there'll be a competition. Okay? So for example, let's say that which team can build the fastest car? Okay. Toy car. Let's say that. Let's look at which team can build the best airplane. Let's look at which team can build a catapult. Okay? So I would give them some resources, I give them the assignment, and then they would work on it a whole day. Okay? Now what's interesting is at the end of the first day, you would have. I would rank the teams, okay? And then number two. And then day two, we would start the competition again with a new assignment. On day two, which team would finish first? Do you guys know? So after day one, all 10 teams are ranked according to their success. Okay? So team one has the best, Team ten has the worst. What happened the second day? Can you ask guests that? Team ten wins? Yeah. Okay. According to game theory, what happens is team 10 wins. And this is exactly what happens. The results are reversed. Okay? Number 10 shoots up to number one, and then number one falls all the way down. This happens a lot. It's actually common sense if you think about it, right? If you're the best student in the school, you never have to reflect. You never have to, like, think about how to improve because you're always number one. So. So you become arrogant, you become complacent. So after you graduate from school, what happens? You can't find any work because people find you too arrogant. You refuse to learn. You want to be the boss. You want people to just listen to you, okay? But if you're the worst student in a school, you're used to being laughed at. You're used to constantly adapting. So when you go to the workplace, you are much more likely to to learn. You're much more likely to focus on relationships. Okay? So in China, there's a joke, right? In school, there are two people that everyone hates, okay? The best student and the worst student. Why do you hate the best student? Because the best student's gonna graduate and come back as your principal one day. Why do you hate the worst student? Because he's gonna graduate and come back and give you a lecture on how to become rich, okay? That's why in China, everyone hates the best student and the worst student. And these are two students who will probably be the most successful, okay? Especially the worst student. Because the worst student, regardless of all his problems, he's open minded, he's willing to work hard, and he's willing to help build teams and make sacrifices so that others become his friend. Okay? Right? Yeah. We have a question. So like for example, for this case, in day two, the team 10 becomes the first one and the first team becomes the last. But will the, like, will the previously the first team been forced to be open and to be energetic and then be number one again on the third day? That is a great question. Thank you for asking it. Okay, so in my experience, this is what happens, okay? What happens is that if, what happens if we keep on going, right? What happens in day three, Day team, day, day three, day four. Okay, this, this, this, what happens? Team one really screws up on day two, right? They finish first in day one. Day two, they screw up day three and day four, they continue to screw up. Why? Because they don't know what they did wrong and they refuse to reflect. Do you understand? Okay, so we see this in history where an empire, once it rises, it falls and it never comes back. It never comes back. Do you understand? It never rises up again. Now, it's possible that new people come in and use the namely empire, okay? But it's not the same people anymore. It's a different team. So that's a danger of being number one. Once you're number one, you become so arrogant that becomes impossible for you to be humble again. Okay. Team two, we go down. Okay? So it's very unlikely that you have a system where, okay, team one, they fall, but then they Reflect and become number one again. Okay, it doesn't work that way. When societies fall, they just die off. It's possible a new group comes and pretends to be them, but. But they're actually a different people, and that's just the way that humans work. Okay, does that make sense? Yes. Okay. Yep. So on the third day, the Team 10 will become the second last group because they fall and the Group 9. Will be the first one. Is that the cycle that will go on? Yeah. So I've never run a day three, so I can't say for sure. Okay, but. But that. That's what should happen. Okay, all right. That's what should happen. Where, yes, team 10 will fall off and a new team will come into place. Okay. All right. And if you look at history, that's the way it is. Again, we don't have an example of where an empire fell, but then the people decide to, like, change their. Their mentality, and then they become the best again. Okay? So in the future, if we apply this theory, there should be three countries that will emerge as great empires in our history. Okay? Germany. Why? Because he lost World War I and lost World War II. Does that make sense? Guys, they were never an empire. They were never a world empire. So Germany, according to this theory, will one day come to rule the world, or at least Europe and Asia. Okay? And if you. If you actually look at their history, what happened In World War I, World War II, they lost millions of people, okay? So Germany will be one day a great empire. I'm pretty sure of it, actually. And then there's another country that will be a great empire, and that is Japan. Because Japan lost World War II, it was never a great empire. So Japan should come to dominate East Asia, according to this theory. Remember, the Americans dropped two nukes on Japan, Right? And also, if you look at World War II, the Americans destroyed Japan with firebombing. The Americans killed more firebombing than they actually did with the nukes, okay? But Japan was destroyed. It was humiliated. And now you go to Japan, you can see how energetic people are, right? You can see how open they are, and you can see how cohesive they are. You understand? Because Japan was destroyed in World War II, it's something that forced them to reflect as a people, and now they want vengeance, basically. All right? And the last country, of course, is Israel, right? Because Israel, the people in Israel believed that for thousands of years they were persecuted by other people. So these are three great empires that we will move towards in our history. Germans, Japanese, and The Israelis, does that make sense? All right, the Americans are done. How about China? Done. All right, look, look, guys, I mean, like, this is all just a theory, okay? But all I'm saying is look around you and ask yourself, are the people here open minded? Are they willing to learn from their mistakes? Do I ever say I'm wrong? Are people energetic? Do they take their work very seriously? If I give people an assignment, will they work really hard to make sure it's done well? Do people feel as though they're all part of one big group? Are they willing to make sacrifices for each other? Japan is okay. That's all I'm saying. And maybe even the North Koreans are. All right, does that make sense, guys? And again, it's all just a theory. All right? I'm just proposing to you a theory of how to understand the world. But what's actually going to happen? I can't actually tell you. Right. But according to theory, Germany and Japan and Israel will be the three great nations. Any more questions, guys? Yeah. Can you, can you? Yep. Yeah, but like, for example, the Japan that did, didn't have that much sources, so how could they succeed? I keep on telling you guys, you don't need resources. You can cheat, you can steal, you can beg. All right. Okay. Does it make sense? Yeah. Okay. Like if you go back to the world game, whichever team starts out with the least resources are often the most creative. Okay. When I mean creative, they'll just like go and like lie to people, says, you know, like, I'll come work to you for free, but then you'll steal some resources yourself. Okay. All right. Because absolutely no choice in the matter, right? Yeah, yeah. So I have a little questions. Like you say that those who are poorest and like in the most dangerous positions always have the most energy and cohesion to succeed. But I think eventually. Okay, let me be precise. Okay. Yeah. Just because you're poor does not mean you're open, energetic and cohesive. Okay. Does that mean that? But if you want to go from being poor to becoming rich, you have to be open, energetic and cohesive. Does that make sense? Yeah. So because in Africa they're poor, but doesn't mean they're open, energetic and cohesive. Yeah. So my question is like after they become successful and they are eventually rich, I think like, like all society, they may fall as like when they reach their highest state, right? Yes. Yeah. And so my question is like, you say that like Japan or Germany will eventually become the, like the leader of the like, regions. Regions. But like, I understand that after World war, World War II, the Japan and German had really developed very fast. But like now they are all wealthy societies and also the youngest, the new people in their country forget about the war and they, well, when they're born, they're born in the wealthy and like happy societies. So how can you make sure that the society, those society will continue to cohesion and developed, but not like just to fail like other rich societies? Okay, you know, that's a good question. That's a great point. Okay, you're absolutely right. Because after World War II, Japan and Germany became very wealthy. So if they become very wealthy, then in theory, shouldn't they become also corrupt, insular and arrogant? And the answer is no. Okay? And there's a good reason why. Because ultimately power means that you're able to impose your game on other people. You're able to make other people play your game and therefore you're able to extract rent from other people. Okay? And that's what, that's what these secret sides are fighting for. They're fighting for power. Who becomes the game master? The problem with Japan and Germany is yes, it became very wealthy, but the game master was America. And ultimately America decided that their money belongs to me. Okay? So an example of this is something called the Plaza Accords, okay? Plastic courts. Basically the plastic court just meant that Japan was becoming too wealthy. America got very annoyed. So America said to Japan, I want you to destroy your economy. And Japan's like how America says, I want you to spend too much money. I want you people to stop saving money and start spending money. Go, go overseas and buy whatever crop you want. Okay? Do you understand? So in theory, it seemed that Japan got rich, but Japan got rich, but it never had any power. It could not be a sovereign nation. Okay? Power means that you're able to impose your will on other people. Same thing with Germany, where, yes, Germany became very wealthy, but all that money went where it went to America. Right? Same with Japan. Japan, all that money went to America. How? Because they were forced by U.S. treasury bonds. Okay? And then America could do stuff to you. For example, America could force Japan to sign a plastic cord and force Japan to destroy its own economy. America could also destroy Germany's pipeline, North street, and there's nothing Germany can do about it. Okay? In fact, the German economy has been destroyed right now because Germany is a vassal state to America. So when Russia invaded Ukraine, America just basically said to Germany, you can no longer do business deals with Russia. But before, Germany required Russian oil and energy to fuel its economy. America also said to Germany, you can no longer trade with China. But before, most of German car exports were going to China, right? Yeah. And because Germany was forced out of the China market, China was able to develop its own manufacturing industry. Okay, does that make sense? Yeah. So it seems as though Germany and Japan became very wealthy. They were not. They were just vassal states to America. Okay, does that make sense? Yeah. So I have a question. So like you said that only those society who are very poor, but they want to, they have the ability to cohen to cohesions and be energetic. And they can, they can like eventually become the ruler of the regions. But what decide a society or a poor society to become energetic cohesions or not? Like why Japan or Germany have that energy, but like those other countries that may also like be defeated in the war or is very poor, cannot. Yeah, that's a great question. Yeah. So the answer, the obvious answer is a leader. Okay, so you look at the Mongols, right? The Mongols before the emergence of Genghis Khan, the Mongols were almost like a vassal state, right? Because the Mongols were divided, they were poor, they were willing to do whatever it took to survive. And so they became mercenaries to the Song. They became mercenaries to other groups as well. Okay? But then emerged Genghis Khan to unify everyone. And once he was able to unify everyone, the Mongols were very quickly able to destroy everyone else. Okay, so it's usually a great leader, but leader doesn't necessarily mean a general. It could also mean a poet, right? So someone like Homer or a great thinker to give you a new religion. Okay, so for example, the person had someone called Zarathustra, who we studied last semester, okay, Even Jesus. Okay, but someone to come in to say that we are a people. And it can be a poet, it could be a general, it could be a prophet, a priest, doesn't matter. Okay? But that one person then unifies the imagination of everyone into one cohesive group. Okay, does that make sense? Yeah. Okay, but that's a great question. Thank you. Okay. And that's why such certain groups are able to cohere together and other groups are not. Because one person is able to emerge. And you know, that's why. Okay, we'll talk about this later on. But that's why the world is the way it is. Why do we have organizations like the United Nations? Why do we have international development aid? The goal, guys, is to identify the possibility of a leader emerging and make sure he does not emerge. You understand? Okay. If you left Africa alone, Africa will be a lot better. But because you have all these schools, all these NGOs, all these organizations in Africa, what they're really doing is ensuring that Africa is in a continuous state of development, okay? If you just left them alone, they might starve, but at the same time, a great leader might emerge to unite all of them. You understand? Okay, but we'll talk about this next class. How the American empire controls the world.