Why War with Iran Was Inevitable—Economics, Oil & Eschatology Explained | Prof Jiang Pt 2 Impact Theory w. Tom Bilyeu

On this episode of Impact Theory, host Tom Bilyeu sits down with Prof Jiang for a riveting deep dive into the shifting dynamics of global power, the realities behind rising tensions between the US and China, and the future of the world order. Prof Jiang brings a unique perspective shaped by his own cross-continental journey—from childhood in China, to elite education in the West, and back to teaching in Beijing—offering insider insights into how both sides really view the ongoing geopolitical chess match. Together, they unravel the oft-cited “Thucydides Trap,” explore whether China truly seeks global dominance, and challenge common assumptions about the motivations of world leaders, including Trump’s moves in Iran and Venezuela. The conversation doesn’t stop at geopolitics; Tom Bilyeu and Prof Jiang also break down the cultural realities shaping policy, the role of eschatology and religious extremism in international relations, and what the coming fragmentation of global systems could mean for everyday people. Whether you’re curious about economic theory, fascinated by history’s lessons, or trying to make sense of today’s headlines, this discussion delivers sharp analysis and thought-provoking debate from two of the most insightful minds working at the intersection of East and West. Prof Jiang’s journey has been marked by unexpected turns and intense moments. After a major accomplishment (“we demolished it”), Prof Jiang faced confusion as news emerged about sending boats to Iran, prompting questions about the purpose and direction of these actions. As uprisings increased and more ships were dispatched to help, Prof Jiang grappled with uncertainty—especially when decisive action failed to materialize amidst tragic civilian losses. Amid rising tensions and talk of nuclear weapons, Prof Jiang’s story is one of critical questioning and navigating complex geopolitical events, always seeking clarity and accountability in turbulent times. Quince: Free shipping and 365-day returns at https://quince.com/impactpodDuck. Ai: Protect your privacy at https://duck.ai/impactShopify: Sign up for your one-dollar-per-month trial period at https://shopify.com/impactBlinkist: Start your free trial at https://blinkist.com/impactPlaud: Get 10% off with code TOM10 at https://plaud.ai/tomBlocktrust IRA: get up to $2,500 funding bonus to kickstart your account at https://tomcryptoira.comCape: 33% off your first 6 months with code IMPACT at https://cape.co/impactNetsuite: Right now, get our free business guide, Demystifying AI, at https://NetSuite.com/Theory https://netsuite.com/TheoryKetone IQ: Visit https://ketone.com/IMPACT for 30% OFF your subscription orderQuo: Try for free PLUS get 20% off your first 6 months at https://quo.com/impactPique: 20% off at https://piquelife.com/impactMonetary Metals: Future-proof your wealth at https://monetary-metals.com/impact What's up, everybody? It's Tom Bilyeu here: If you want my help... STARTING a business:join me here at ZERO TO FOUNDER https://tombilyeu.com/zero-to-founder?utm_campaign=Podcast%20Offer&utm_source=podca[%E2%80%A6]d%20end%20of%20show&utm_content=podcast%20ad%20end%20of%20show: https://tombilyeu.com/zero-to-founder?utm_campaign=Podcast%20Offer&utm_source=podca[%E2%80%A6]d%20end%20of%20show&utm_content=podcast%20ad%20end%20of%20show https://tombilyeu.com/zero-to-founder?utm_campaign=Podcast%20Offer&utm_source=podca[%E2%80%A6]d%20end%20of%20show&utm_content=podcast%20ad%20end%20of%20show SCALING a business:see if you qualify here. https://tombilyeu.com/call: https://tombilyeu.com/call Get my battle-tested strategies and insights delivered weekly to your inbox:sign up here. https://tombilyeu.com/: https://tombilyeu.com/ ********************************************************************** If you're serious about leveling up your life, I urge you to check out my new podcast,Tom Bilyeu’s Mindset Playbook https://open.spotify.com/show/47VE90Cittmo6TGGFqg2xf —a goldmine of my most impactful episodes on mindset, business, and health. Trust me, your future self will thank you. ********************************************************************** FOLLOW TOM: Instagram:https://www.instagram.com/tombilyeu/ Tik Tok:https://www.tiktok.com/@tombilyeu?lang=en Twitter:https://twitter.com/tombilyeu YouTube:https://www.youtube.com/@TomBilyeu Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices https://megaphone.fm/adchoices See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Tom Bilyeu?

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• 0:45Tom Bilyeu?

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• 1:07Speaker 01

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• 1:39Tom Bilyeu?

  Welcome back to part two of this incredible conversation. Without further ado, here we go.

• 1:46Tom Bilyeu?

  Okay, so as we look at this, when I was trying to map, come up with a mental model for why Trump was pushing the issue to go to war with Iran, I was legitimately confused in the beginning because I understood the attack on Ford Out. It's like, okay, they're about to get nuclear weapons. They chant "Death to America." Let's just blow up their nuclear sites. Cool. Did it. Hey, everybody, we demolished it. And then, like, all of a sudden, he starts talking about, well, we're sending all these boats to Iran. And I was like, why? I don't understand what's happening. And so then you've got all the uprisings and just more and more and more and more ships. Like, we're gonna help them out, all's well. But then we didn't move at the peak of them killing thirty thousand-plus civilians. So then I was like, what are we doing?

• 2:31Tom Bilyeu?

  And so then he starts talking about nuclear weapons again. And I'm just like, hold on a second. I thought that we already destroyed the nuclear capabilities. So what are we doing? For me, to make this all make sense, I was like, hold on a second. If you inject Thucydides' trap and you understand we've got a rising China, a declining America, then I'm like, this all makes sense. If Venezuela and Iran are a one-two punch to try to do whatever amount of quarantining or economic damage that we can do to China to make sure that they don't have access to cheap oil that's outside of our ability to sanction, I'm like, this at least makes sense. I'm not saying you should do it. I'm just saying I can follow your chain of logic. One thing, you'll talk about China for sure, but you don't often mention Thucydides' trap.

• 3:16Tom Bilyeu?

  Do you think Thucydides' trap is overblown? Do you think it just doesn't apply here? What's your thinking on, could that have been the reason that Trump actually made the move?

• 3:27Speaker 02

  So this is a great question. And so let us just assume that Trump is rational and that there's a logical strategy behind all this maneuvering in the Middle East. And the best explanation is that, right now, Trump is trying to negotiate with China, right? Trump, right now, understands that the US dollar is a Ponzi scheme. So it needs more consumers to buy into this Ponzi scheme. And China, for all its problems, the household savings rate in China is forty percent. So there's this untapped market in China that Trump wants to access. But how do you force China to agree to let Chinese consumers buy US dollars?

• 4:12Speaker 02

  Well, you do it by strangling the Chinese economy. Because remember, the Chinese economy is export-driven, therefore, it's reliant on on Imports like oil and food, China imports about a third of its food and two thirds of its oil. China gets a lot of its food from the western hemisphere, um, probably South America, right? So that's why we saw Trump announcing the Monroe Doctrine, the Trump corollary to the Monroe Doctrine, where the Americans would control the entire western hemisphere. So if China wanted to trade with the western hemisphere, the Americans have to collect a tax or a toll. And we're seeing this play out in Venezuela where um, the Chinese are continuing to buy Venezuelan oil,

• 4:55Speaker 02

  but they pay the Americans a tax or whatever, okay? So that's the strategy in the western hemisphere. And Iran makes sense because China imports most of its oil actually from the GCC, right? So once you control Iran and you control the Schaeffer-Homus, then you basically strangle uh, China. And now China is forced to buy more oil from the Americans, the Canadians and the Mexicans. Um, and, and so that would resolve the great financial crisis America is facing. It would basically save the US dollar. So from a rational perspective, this does hold, okay? But there's certain issues with this thesis, okay? The first issue is that from an economic perspective,

• 5:38Speaker 02

  it's very risky to use military force to resolve an economic issue. You don't actually have to go and occupy Venezuela or attack Iran. You can negotiate a grand bargain where, or a new trade alliance, which is more like BRICS, you know, a more collaborative model, okay? That's issue number one. Uh, issue number two is I think this facility's trap is overblown, okay? So let me explain my reasoning. I think that China and the United States are codependent. What I mean by that is that in nineteen eighties, America did offshore its manufacturing to China. What China did, which people don't really discuss is China

• 6:23Speaker 02

  offshore its elite selection and indoctrination to America. Meaning that the Chinese elite were educated in American colleges and universities. And so they have a very American mindset. In many ways, China has been calling up, sorry, America has colonized China, okay, America. And so the Chinese elite are very pro-American. And so you don't really have to strangle China. You just have to be like, make a deal with China. You just have to be nice to China because the Chinese are desperate for a deal. And there are many ways that this deal could benefit itself, right?

• 7:06Speaker 02

  So Trump has talked about welcoming 600,000 Chinese students to America. Trump has talked about selling digital currency to the, to Chinese consumers, right? Basically, it's this

• 7:23Speaker 02

  tokens backed by US treasuries. So there are a lot of mechanisms that he has to resolve this issue. I really think this US-China conflict is overblown.

• 7:35Speaker 02

  Primarily because China is not interested in being a hegemon. It's not even interested in controlling a sphere of influence in Southeast Asia. China is first and foremost interested in maintaining its national sovereignty. And creating trade routes that benefit the Chinese people. And I think the American policymakers understand this. And I think that this China threat has always been overblown to justify a lot of bloated spending in Washington DC. Right? So an example is AI where

• 8:15Speaker 02

  you know, the Americans are like, you know, we need to spend all this money on AI because if we don't do this, then the Chinese will do this, okay? So China is this imagined threat for many decades. And the last thing I will say is that people do not appreciate the level of cooperation between the Chinese and Americans in this world. So the classic example is if you look at what's happening in Shifan Wu's. Chinese ships are able to pass through, okay? And Americans are not doing anything to stop them. In fact, the American Scott Bassett, the Treasury Secretary, has said that we're allowing this happen to maintain stability in the global financial order.

• 8:57Speaker 02

  And both the Chinese and Americans are cooperating to maintain the stability of the global financial order, the global economy. But the Russians and Iranians are interested in repeatedly destroying the global economy and creating a new economic system that benefits them. Okay, so people don't appreciate that in terms of just pure economic interest, America and China are aligned and against Iran and Russia. If that makes sense.

• 9:29Tom Bilyeu?

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• 11:56Tom Bilyeu?

  Thanks for staying tuned. Now let's get back to it.

• 12:00Tom Bilyeu?

  It certainly makes sense. It is very different than certainly the mental map that I have of what's going on. And probably the mental map of a lot of Americans, uh, which is the absolute fascinating part about getting to talk to somebody like you who is, for people that don't know your backstory, I'll speed run it, correct me if anything is incorrect. Born in China, you immigrate to Canada when you're six. You are Ivy League trained here in the US, but end up going, I think, right back after college, heading back to China, uh, where you now live. We're speaking to you, uh, from Beijing, if I'm understanding it all correctly. Uh, you're a teacher there at a private school, but everything that you post online is in English. So I presume that your classes are taught in English. Um, so you have a really fascinating lens.

• 12:46Tom Bilyeu?

  Chinese by birth and nationality, trained in the West, uh, educated, it grew up in the West, feeling quite alienated, go back to China, uh, but still is like sort of a, um, somebody with a more Western mindset. Again, don't want to put words in your mouth, but it is a very interesting lens with which to look at this problem. So first, did I represent the history accurately enough?

• 13:12Speaker 02

  No, no, it was very fair and common, yes.

• 13:14Tom Bilyeu?

  Okay, perfect. So now, my mental map is that what's happening in the world right now is really a question of US and China. I'm looking at it very much like you, so it's interesting that we draw different conclusions. So I think for people that don't know you, which these days is a vanishingly small number of people, but you've got two issues. One, that you're looking at the world through the lens of game theory, and two, you're leveraging history to tell us what we're going to see in the future. And so when you look backwards at history, 12 of the last 16 times that a rising superpower collided with a declining superpower, exactly like the US and China, they went to war. So it's like, whatever,

• 13:54Tom Bilyeu?

  75% of the time, this ends in war. And so I've been looking at much of Trump's movements, who's somebody who's been banging the drum about China for a very long time, much longer than he's been a political figure, and saying, okay, this is a guy that's had his eye on China for a long time, who either intuitively or actually intellectually understands America's decline, understands China's rise, and is trying to find some sort of equilibrium. He's the art of the deal guy, so I think you're right. He's perfectly willing to cooperate, to get a deal done, to not. I don't think that Trump is going to make any play whatsoever to infringe on China in its sphere of influence, but you're the first person I've heard say

• 14:39Tom Bilyeu?

  that China doesn't want a sphere of influence. All they want is to be sovereign. So that is like the first bit of dissonance where I'm intrigued, I will certainly sit with it. My whole worldview is about, you're wrong about something, so you might as well race to figuring out what it is. And so, hey, maybe my whole frame of reference around the Cid's trap just isn't accurate, but I'm going to have a hard time metabolizing that one, I'm not going to lie. So, for instance...

• 15:10Tom Bilyeu?

  Help an American audience understand, right now, some percentage of us, I certainly don't think we're homogenized thinkers, but some percentage of us see US at war with Iran, China now has all these ships and planes circling Taiwan. We all look at that as like escalation, the people who think like this, which I am definitely one of, and go, oh, China is now seeing us with our eye off the ball. They've said forever that by 2027, they want to reunite with Taiwan, which would be a huge blow to our perceived modern way of life because of TSMC. And so that feels like, given that and the gold corridor in South America

• 15:53Tom Bilyeu?

  and some of the moves with the Belt and Road Initiative, just feel like, hmm, China's being more strategically aggressive than it sounds like you think they are. So help us understand why that's wrong.

• 16:07Speaker 02

  All right, okay. So, Fuzi D's trap was coined by a Harvard historian named Graham Allison. And he did it for his reading of Fuzi D's The Peloponnesian War. Okay, so I wanted to correct the understanding of the Peloponnesian War, right? Because the war started in Fuzi D's formulation, because Sparta was the hegemon and Athens was the rising power. And Fuzi D was wrong, okay? And so let me explain why. Sparta and Athens actually had nothing to do with each other. Sparta was an agricultural power and Athens was a naval power. So, the Spartans had a plantation economy

• 16:52Speaker 02

  where their entire system was based on exploiting slave labor. But because they did that, they were outnumbered by the slaves 10 to 1. And so they were always afraid of a slave revolt. And that was a consistent problem throughout their history because Spartans were notoriously brutal. And as such, they developed a very conservative enslaved society. And they were not interested in international affairs. The Athenians were very different. The Athenians were a trading power. And so they were very expansionist, they were very ambitious. Um, we know about the two because of the Persian Wars. So the Persians invaded the Greek mainland and the Spartans and Athenians were forced to come together

• 17:36Speaker 02

  to repel this invasion. But after this invasion was repelled, the Spartans were like, we're gonna go home and we're going to stay in our land and don't bother us ever again. And then the Athenians created something called the Dalian League, okay? Which was a alliance, um, very much like NATO today. But over time, the Athenians started to abuse their allies and turn them into vassals. And then these vassal states started to rebel against the Athenians. And this is what led ultimately to the Palestinian War. And then Sparta was dragged into unwillingly into this war. And then Persia was as well. So it's not as easy as Graham Ellison and Focidides are making it out to be.

• 18:20Speaker 02

  And there are parallels to our modern society where it seems as though China and America are at war. They're in conflict because these are two economic hegemon. But you think about it, the real issue is that America is trying to exploit its allies, right? So let's go back to two months ago when Trump was saying, I'm gonna take over Greenland. I'm gonna take over Canada. I'm gonna take over the entire Western Hemisphere. And you Europeans, you need to pay more in NATO spending. You need to move to 5%. And also, I'm gonna charge you tariffs for trade. Because we're America, we're indispensable, and you have to follow along because you're vassals, right? So that's really the real conflict going on in this world.

• 19:05Speaker 02

  Where America is trying to maintain the unipolar order and its allies see that America has become arrogant and is engaged in bullying behavior. So they're trying to break away somehow. And ultimately, if we just read the Palestinian War, this will lead to open conflict between America's allies and America eventually. And then perhaps China, Russia, we dragged in. But ultimately, um, China and Russia don't want a conflict with America. So, so, so, so does that make sense to you?

• 19:41Tom Bilyeu?

  I, I mean, it's certainly believable that nobody... Wants a war with another great power. It's just so destructive and can take so many years. I can certainly buy why Russia is creating. Because of what's going on in Ukraine, they would really not want to be a part of this. Now, I've read enough about Xi and how he's sort of the, what's the phrase? The ambition grows in the Eden, right? They've had China's heads, I don't have to tell you, but so much incredible success over the last 40 years. I mean, it's really breathtaking. And that has to leave somebody with the feeling of like, we can do even more.

• 20:26Tom Bilyeu?

  Now, this is so interesting and I am so grateful to you for letting me say these series out loud to somebody who's really in the middle of it. So in my reading about China and Xi specifically, there's this idea of the middle kingdom. And so a big part of my mental map of why I think this is like the most perfect Thucydides trap ever is that China's gone through, you know, the century of humiliation. You guys come out of that never again. We're not doing that anymore. We're thinking very long range. We're going to take our power back and you've actually done it. And so just like Trump strikes Venezuela and realizes, oh, like I've got a really good military. I can like really start doing some stuff here. I look at China and I go, how do you guys not look at what you've accomplished and go, oh, okay.

• 21:10Tom Bilyeu?

  Like we need to be methodical. We need to be thoughtful and maybe we've got a housing crisis right now. So maybe we need to chill for a minute, but we know how to play this game. And so we're going to keep going, keep going, keep going. And so from the Western lens, it looks like Xi is consolidating power. He's purging the military because he wants to get everybody aligned with his future vision, where he wants to take things. And it feels like somebody who thinks, hey, this is all working. I've got ambitions, but they're in terms of look at the gold corridor, right? So just you know, China wants to get off under the dollar. They're selling their debt. They're, again, this is speculation based on watching how you're moving, but the.

• 21:55Tom Bilyeu?

  Banks in China, the central banks are buying up a ton of gold. They're talking about, hey, guys, we're gonna back our currency. They're a little wishy washy about that, but they're buying so much gold and then appealing to the world to use the yuan as the reserve currency. You start putting two and two together and you go, oh, I get the play. Talking about housing gold actually in other countries. And if they can find a partner that will back them and say, hey, we vouch. The gold is here, it's not controlled by China, we've got it. Like you can just, the moves are so smart that I cannot help but then project onto it that this is somebody who's not stopping now. And so that's where I bump into the

• 22:40Tom Bilyeu?

  looking at China as just completely sanguine and like, yeah, I don't want any conflict. I get that they don't want open conflict, I can totally buy that. But they've got the big agenda with Taiwan and they've made so many smart ally moves that if I'm China and I'm watching the US alienate all of their allies while I've been building all of mine, while they're shooting themselves in the face economically. And okay, we've got a little bit of woes here, but like, we're gonna get back on track. We're far more disciplined, forty, you know, percent savings, all that. That just creates this mental model that I have of the ascendant China who's not gonna be told what to do by a clearly dysfunctional United States.

• 23:23Speaker 02

  I think that's a great analysis. And I think you're actually right in that China has been signaling its intention to replace the American financial order with a new BRIC system based on gold. And that's why it's creating the Shanghai Gold Corridor. So I think that, I think what you say makes a lot of sense. And I think it's, it's really part of Chinese policymaking to create as much economic diversity in the world as possible to hedge against the Americans. The way I look at the world is good game theory. Um, and for me, what's really important is how nations have behaved in the past.

• 24:02Speaker 02

  So when you say the Middle Kingdom, uh, the Middle Kingdom from a Chinese perspective just means that we don't care about the rest of the, rest of the world. Uh, we've never really cared about the rest of the world. All we care about is the eternal stability of China because historically, and this is very important, is that China has been poor and corrupt. And so rebellions against the government are very commonplace. And so your entire, uh, state apparatus is structured to ensure that local rebellions don't arise. And in the nineteen eighties, there was a solution to this problem of local rebellions.

• 24:41Speaker 02

  Uh, when basically the communist system had an agreement where we will engage in economic reform. And we will allow the elite to engage in corruption. Okay, um, and so that incentivized the elite to, um, uh, promote economic reform and turn away from the old socialist model of, of Mao Zedong. Um, and, uh, and in nineteen eighties, this was very controversial. Uh, but because of the financial incentives, the elite engage in market reform. But then you have a tremendous corruption problem.

• 25:18Speaker 02

  Also, where was this money going, right? They were engaging this corruption. They weren't putting it in China because, um, it was not safe because they were stealing this from the government, right? So this was being transferred overseas to America, to, um, Canada. And look, I mean, like, I don't want to spec- specifics, but I will tell you, like, the amount of capital, uh, that was being transferred overseas. Was just tremendous, okay? Uh, so much so that really, uh, the Chinese economy is now suffering uh under a deflationary uh spiral. Okay, but it was it was not just capital that went overseas, it was also the elite that went overseas, right?

• 26:00Speaker 02

  The children, the families of the elite all are now overseas. And I don't want to go into specifics, but you know, if they are overseas, where where are their national interests aligned, right? They want peace and harmony between China and America because they see China as a plantation economy. Where they can continue to exploit the economy and then take their ill-gotten aims and then and then take it over to the Western joy, a Western lifestyle, okay? And for many decades, this was just the way business was done in China. And it worked to the tremendous benefit of the Chinese elite as well as the Western economies. And then when President Xi came to power, he recognized that this is not sustainable in the long term.

• 26:42Speaker 02

  Eventually, our economy is going to collapse, eventually we're going to have rebounds all over the place. And so he started to clamp down on corruption and he started to focus on national rejuvenation. On creating a national identity and from him, for his, from his perspective, the way you do that is through uh unifying with Taiwan. And establishing an in- independent economic system um that is based on the Chinese yuan as opposed to a dollar. So um that was his intention, but again, the reality is that China is a very corrupt place. Uh, and so the elite are rebelling against him. And so these past two years, um, you know, and this is public information.

• 27:25Speaker 02

  Most of the generals in the military have been purged uh for corruption issues, for other issues as well. Meaning like the military does not have the political will to engage in a foreign conflict anywhere. Um, so, so yes, I understand there's the intention of the state, but then there's the cultural reality in which we live in. If this makes any sense, sorry.

• 27:52Tom Bilyeu?

  Makes a tremendous amount of sense. It is the kind of thing that explains your absolute meteoric rise. This is a very, very useful conversation. I'm very grateful. Okay, so that's a very clear picture of China that is very different, I think, than the common person in America would view it as. I'm going to put that back on the shelf, let it sort of sit in the background as we get back to Iran and look at what I want to talk about is we've got those two things. So we've got China's, the realities of everything. We've got US empire acting the way that failing empires do. They're flailing, they're acting like bullies, they're overextending, they're getting themselves

• 28:33Tom Bilyeu?

  in trouble, doing anything that they can to hold on to the vestiges of their empire. A thesis that you've put forward that I find very compelling is that the current world order, the post-World War II order, the monolithic US as global hegemon, those world orders are done, they're already dead. And maybe you're watching the death rose or whatever, but the new world order is coming. And I want to understand what does the new world order look like? And as with Iran as pivot point, what does it look like? How does this play out? How deep do we go?

• 29:14Tom Bilyeu?

  And why is there no sort of ability to preserve the current world order?

• 29:21Speaker 02

  First of all, the entire, the current global economic order is based on the premise of cheap oil, right? Because cheap oil is basis for everything. You know, like from the shared who moves, you don't just have energy, you also have fertilizer, which allows you to grow food. You also have sulfuric acid, which is what allows you to process semiconductors. Okay, so cheap oil, cheap energy is the basis for the entire global economy. The reality is the shared who moves is not going to open tomorrow. It's probably going to stay close for the next few years, meaning like the world loses. Access to cheap oil, okay? So we need to think ahead and see what this means for the rest of the world.

• 30:05Speaker 02

  And so I would say there are three major trends that we should expect in the next four to five years. All right, and I think, I think these trends will be very, very salient. So the first major trend is de-industrialization and de-organization. Meaning that it doesn't really make sense to have millions of people live in cities doing digital work. Why? Because the economy is unbalanced. You need people to grow food, and then you need manufacturing as well. Before, you didn't have to worry about this because it was a globalized economy where you can import food. All right, and like, just, just, just think about how, if you're a middle-class American, you basically have a higher standard of living than the Roman emperor.

• 30:46Speaker 02

  Because you could, you know, every day, go to the supermarket and eat avocados, cherries. You can have food from all around the world all the time. And again, this is because of access to cheap oil.

• 31:01Speaker 02

  But that, those days are gone. And, and basically, like, economies need to become a much more balanced economy. And that means moving people from the cities, especially young people, and moving them back to the rural areas so that they can grow food and be self-sufficient, okay? That's, that's going to be trend number one. So number, number two is, like, before globalization was the religion, was the faith of the times. But now, but now that globalization is collapsing because American power cannot longer support globalization, nations need to reassert themselves, okay? So you have the rise of nationalism, which then allows for re-militarization in order to protect their borders better, right? Because before, you could just rely on American military power for protection.

• 31:47Speaker 02

  But now you have to defend yourself, right? And you do that through rejuvenating people's sense of national pride and identity, okay? So nationalism, re-militarization is the second big trend. The third big trend is, uh...

• 32:02Speaker 02

  Mercantilism, okay? Basically self-sufficient economic spheres, spheres around the world. And it's gonna look, it's gonna look different, differently in different places where Europe might be a trading block onto itself. But in other places, maybe Israel, maybe Japan, um, create their own economic zones through military power. Alright, um, so, and then in the northern hemisphere, um, I think that America will come out okay because really, I mean, like, like, America is a superpower regardless, right? So, America retreats from the rest of the world, but, but then it, um, builds an economic system within the western hemisphere, and then it's fine. So, so, so, so, we're, we're seeing a rupture or splintering of the world and going back basically to nineteen thirties.

• 32:47Tom Bilyeu?

  That's wild. Okay, so who are gonna be the winners and who are gonna be the losers in this?

• 32:55Speaker 02

  Right, so, basically, um, whoever, whichever nation is most able to embrace these trends and transform their economies from one that is globally, um, dependent to much more nationally dependent will survive, okay? So, um, that's why I think that Japan in Asia is actually better positioned than China. Because the Chinese economy is too export orientated, okay? China, the Chinese economy just, just relies on dumping cheap goods onto the global market. And you can do that, again, with cheap oil and a global marketplace. But once, you know, nations start to go into war, and then they, they no longer trade,

• 33:40Speaker 02

  then China is forced to, um, become much more insular. And unfortunately, the Chinese economy is not balanced, meaning like, it's completely dependent on exports and consumers don't actually have any demand. Because, because, because consumers don't have any capital, they don't have any savings to spend money on. Uh, consumers are afraid of the future, they lack confidence, okay? So China is in a very tough situation because the Chinese economy and Chinese planners are not able to make the transition from one that is a global economy to one that is a much more, um, uh, regional economy, okay? Japan, on the, on the other hand, has a history. And a record of making radical transformations when the existence of their nation is at stake.

• 34:25Speaker 02

  Okay, so you just, you just look at Japan, you think, oh my god, Japan is completely screwed because they have an aging crisis. Because they are completely dependent on resources from abroad. They don't actually have their own oil. Um, and the Japanese economy, it has been in a deflationary spiral for the past twenty, thirty years. Okay, you think Japan is completely screwed, but when, when all hope seems lost, the Japanese somehow come together and then transform their entire, their entire system, okay? And so this goes, so I'll give you a few examples where, you know, um, in the twelve hundreds or thirteen hundreds, when the Mongolians were coming to invade Japan. And Japan at this time was, you know, like feudal, uh, system. They couldn't gather as a people.

• 35:09Speaker 02

  And we, and we, we opposed the Mongolian nation, not once, but twice. Okay, that's very impressive. And then go, go to Meiji Reformation, right? Which is the mid nineteenth century, when China had already been carved up by the Western powers. And Japan's like, okay, we need to industrialize now. And they did so in twenty years. All right, so much so that, yeah, so much so that Japan defeated Russia in the Russia-Japanese War. Um, and, and then you go, you go to the end of World War Two, when the Japanese economy was completely devastated. So what happened? The Japanese people came together and in twenty years' time, they became the world's dominant manufacturing power.

• 35:50Speaker 02

  Okay, the Japanese are a special people, never ever bet against the Japanese. So even though the things look darkest for the Japanese, they, they, they are remarkably resilient people. Uh, and cohesive people. So I think like they are the most likely to make the transformations necessary in order to survive the new, um, global order. Another thing I will say is the aging crisis, where every industrial economy is suffering from the aging crisis, right? You have people living in the, in the nineties, uh, into the hundreds. And they're not working, but they are just consuming a lot of resources. And every nation, industrial nation is going to suffer from this issue.

• 36:31Speaker 02

  Um, but the Japanese are different, meaning like, if you, if the Japanese nation is, is under stress and there's a crisis. And the elderly in Japan need to make the necessary sacrifices in order for their grandchildren.

• 36:46Speaker 02

  To survive, they will do so. And no other nation in the world will do this, okay? Get the baby boomers in America to make sacrifices for America. I mean, you can, you can, you can make the argument that a lot of the issues in America come from the fact that the baby boomers are a selfish, materialistic, uh, and self-absorbed generation that refuse to surrender power. Right? I mean, like, like, look at the baby, look, look, look how old their Congress is. You've got this guy Chuck Grassley, how, how old is he, ninety-four or something? He's still in, he's still there. What is he doing?

• 37:22Tom Bilyeu?

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• 39:00Tom Bilyeu?

  Thanks for sticking around. Let's get right back into the action.

• 39:04Tom Bilyeu?

  Yeah, it is, I have to admit, it is pretty wild. Yeah, Japan is a unique case. It brings up the question, so you're talking about people are going to get more nationalistic because they're going to have to defend their own interests. And Japan is a special use case, expect them to become a regional power because of their ability to coalesce, come together. Japan is also making waves here in the US because they're being so xenophobic. And absolutely just deciding, yeah, yeah, yeah, we're not doing any more immigration, which is crazy, given that they have this aging population, they have this demographic challenge, and they're gonna, you know, get rid of one of the easiest, maybe not the best, but one of the easiest ways to deal with it.

• 39:50Tom Bilyeu?

  I've heard you say some things that to Western ears is quite striking about diversity not being a useful thing at this time. Talk to me a little bit about that. What's the thesis there?

• 40:04Speaker 02

  Right, so the idea is that after World War II, there was a lot of discussion as to why World War II happened, and the agreement was excessive nationalism, right? These nations like Japan and Germany became fascist. And so what we need to do is to loot the national fever of people around the world, and then you have eternal peace. And so a concept that came into popularity at this time is something called the open society, where you have open borders, multiculturalism, diversity, and I'll celebrate it as a way to create common bonds among humanity. And for the longest time, this made a lot of sense. And clearly, I benefited from this, because I was allowed to immigrate from a poor village in China to go to Toronto

• 40:49Speaker 02

  and then get a full scholarship to study at Yale. So I clearly benefit from this system. But now we've reached an extreme where um to have any um sense of community, to want to belong to a group is considered racist and um backward and provincial. And I think that's just wrong. I mean, like, uh, I mean, like, I I've been watching um the spread of D E I um in the United States, and I just think it's it's just like, it doesn't make any sense to me. Um, I I I appreciate diversity. I preach, I appreciate multiculturalism. But to make it your official religion and to punish anyone who wants more balance in society,

• 41:34Speaker 02

  who wants to protect the American identity, I think, I think it's, it it, I mean, like, it's just uh wrong. Um, I think it's just fanatical. Um, and and I think that if you embrace too much multiculturalism, which is what the Europeans are doing, it will lead to eventually suicide, national suicide, okay? So the example is in twenty fourteen, you have, you have millions of these um refugees from the Middle East, fleeing war and terror created by the Americans, and they're going to Europe. And quite honestly, the Europeans did did not have the capacity to absorb these millions, tens of millions of refugees. But Angela Merkel, the German Chancellor, said, we can do this, okay?

• 42:15Speaker 02

  And it's been a dumpster fire for Europe, all right? You're talking about like civil war possibly emerging in Europe over the next five to ten years. You look at what's happened in Britain, in France, their populations are being replaced. Um, you know, and and and and I'm not saying this is, I I I'm not saying, you know, refugees are bad. What what I'm saying is that nations need to protect their own identity and value system, because that's what gives meaning and purpose to the local population. I I don't understand why people are allowed to immigrate where wherever, you know, we like, like, like, it's it's absurd to me where, you know, I'm from Canada, and there are a lot of Canadians who hate the Liberal Government of Canada because they're very authoritarian, and I I'm I'm one of them, okay?

• 43:00Speaker 02

  But you've just, like, you just shouldn't be able to, like, pack your bags and then move to America or Dubai or Singapore. You should, you should have to stay where you are and fight for your community. Because that's, that's, that's what we, that's what we've done throughout human history. Like, like, like, if we always had the option of like this, like, if we're unhappy, just move somewhere else. We would never have human civilization. Human civilization is a coming together of people with a common bond, with a common sense of identity, and then building on top of that, right? So, so, I mean, I, I feel, um, we've gone too far and we've embraced, uh, I mean, like the, the, the, the, the very common phrase now, very popular phrase is suicidal empathy, right?

• 43:44Tom Bilyeu?

  Hmm.

• 43:44Speaker 02

  Where you care too much about your neighbor and you, when, and when you, when you should really be looking after your own house.

• 43:50Tom Bilyeu?

  Yeah, that is, uh, that's an idea that's gaining a lot of traction here in the US as we all think through, how exactly do we deal with this problem? Um, the thing that I've been trying to convince my audience of is that, um, values matter. And so a lot of people are getting tangled up in this concept as if it were a race issue. It's not a race issue. When you find somebody that, say, shares your religion, but they're a completely different race than you, you're far more bonded over the fact that you share a religion than you are alienated, that they don't look like you. And for some reason, especially here in the West, we have just told the story over and over and over that everything comes down to your skin color. But I just refuse to believe that that's the experience people are actually having.

• 44:34Tom Bilyeu?

  Uh, it comes down to, do you click with somebody? Do you guys view the world the same way? Do you enjoy each other's company? And if you look exactly like me, but I can't stand to be around you, I don't have any sense of affinity towards you whatsoever. Uh, so, yeah, uh, that one's very strange to me. Now, speaking of that, as you were talk- sorry, go ahead.

• 44:55Speaker 02

  I, I feel, I want to jump in here, this is a very important point where DEI, multiculturalism, it's been used to, used to justify the bureaucratization of society, right? So this is not so apparent in America, but if you go to Europe and Canada, it's really apparent where these nations are essentially authoritarian, where you say anything now, uh, the police can come knock on your door, right? So you go, you go to England where, you know, if you are part of these like grooming gangs, well, the police don't come after you, but like if you post about grooming gangs, they'll come knocking your door, right? And so Franz Kafka writes about this in his book, The Trial, where- Barocrats don't bother with criminals because it's a pain in the ass.

• 45:37Speaker 02

  So they go after ordinary citizens because ordinary citizens are compliant. And it allows them to feel good about themselves and to, you know, collect their paycheck. So that's what we're seeing throughout the Western world, not in America, but in Canada, in, and in, and in Europe. Where you have the rise of this bureaucratic overclass that justifies its existence by virtually signaling, right? By, by stopping on, on people who, who want a sense of community and identity.

• 46:09Tom Bilyeu?

  Yeah, no, it's well said and it's wild that Kafka was writing about this. It just shows you that and some of the stuff Orwell was doing. These are just baked into the human psyche and so they repeat over and over. Cause these guys are writing from 80 years ago. I mean, this is not like recent stuff. This was very predictive a long time ago. Speaking of predictive, so part of what has made you so famous is that you made these predictions. A couple of years ago that Trump was going to get elected. This is before 20, the 24 election, that we would go to war with Iran and that we would lose the war with Iran. Now there's a key part of your thesis that we haven't touched on as to why all of this plays out.

• 46:54Tom Bilyeu?

  That we teased at the beginning and I think we should pull into center light now, which is the religion of it all. So, um, once you, you talk about eschatology, which I had never heard before. Uh, so I had to look that up. Uh, so if you would, it, given that it's basically religion, but in the extreme. Walk people through what eschatology is, why you use that word instead of just saying religion. And then why you think

• 47:19Speaker 02

  Right.

• 47:20Tom Bilyeu?

  That you're, we're never going to understand what's playing out right now unless we understand that.

• 47:26Speaker 02

  Right, so eschatology comes from the Greek word eschaton, which means the end. So eschatology literally means the study of the end times. But what it really means is your understanding of how the world ends, or how humans can become unified with God. And different religions have different eschatologies. So that's the word eschatology. And as you point out, it's usually extremists who embrace eschatology. But the problem with eschatology is that it's very, very powerful. Because as humans, there's always three questions burning inside our hearts. The first question is, where did we come from? The second question is, what are we doing here? The third question is, where are we going?

• 48:11Speaker 02

  And eschatology answers all three questions to the satisfaction of the human heart. And so that's what galvanizes, energizes religious extremists into action. If you look at eschatology, the most passionate people right now in America are people called Christian Zionists. Alright, so evangelicals are about a quarter of the American population. And then among the evangelicals, there are these very passionate people, who are only minority, okay, but they're Christian Zionists. And the technical term for them is pre-millennial dispensationalists. And so what they believe is that the world is theological,

• 48:52Speaker 02

  meaning that God has divine plan, that he voiced in the Bible. So if you read the Bible properly, it will tell you where the world is going and how it will end. And so what they believe is that God has divine plan. If you have faith in God, what you do is you accelerate the plan, okay? You cannot defy the will of God, but what you can do is accelerate his plan. And so these Christian Zionists believe that Jesus will return, but certain conditions have to be met before Jesus can return. So the first condition that needs to be met is that Israel needs to be reconstituted as a nation. Why? Because the Jews are God's chosen people.

• 49:35Speaker 02

  And God has a covenant with the Jews, which is the land of Israel, that God promised Abraham, their ancestor, okay? So that's the first condition that needs to be met. Same condition that needs to be met is um the Jews need to build Solomon's Temple, the third temple. Um, and then the Jewish diaspora have to return to Israel. They all have to return. Okay, you can't be living in the United States, you have to go back to Israel. Um, and then uh there has to be a war of Gog and Magog. Um, and then the Antichrist will emerge to lead the the Jews. Um, to threaten to threaten the Jews, sorry.

• 50:16Speaker 03

  I was gonna say, wait, hold what?

• 50:17Speaker 02

  To say, sorry, sorry, yeah. Uh, sorry, so i- it's very confusing because these eschatologists have different details. Okay? But then uh when the Antichrist um is most threatening the existence of Israel, then Jesus will return to save the Jews. And when he returns, Christians will rapture, uh sorry, raptured up into heaven. Okay, so you're Christian, you really believe in Jesus. Uh, when he returns, you're going directly to heaven. But if you're not a Christian, um then you're gonna suffer um uh uh uh then Jesus will introduce something called the millennium, a thousand years of eternal peace, uh where Jesus rules the world. And at the end of the millennium is the day of judgment,

• 51:02Speaker 02

  where um he will judge you a good person or a bad person. If you're a good person, you'll live forever. If you're a bad person, you'll burn in hell forever. Okay, so so that that's what these Christian Zionists believe. It's a very simplified version um um version, but as you can see, it's a very compelling story of what you should be doing, of of how you can accelerate uh the coming of heaven onto uh onto earth. And unfortunately, these Christian Zionists are embedded in the very fabric of American political life. So a good example where Peter Hegseth is a is a Christian Zionist. Um, he he um if you just, he has these um Crusader tattoos um on his body. He's talked about Rebuilding the third temple, okay?

• 51:45Speaker 02

  What that's an issue is, um, the site where they want to build the third temple is where the Isaac mosque is. So you need, you would need to destroy the Isaac mosque first in order to build a third temple. So the Isaac mosque is the third holiest site in the Islamic world. Only Mecca and Medina are more holy. And the Isaac mosque is apparently where, um, um, Muhammad ascended to heaven. Um, and, and for the longest time, Isaac mosque was actually controlled by Jordan. Um, and so only, um, um, Muslims are allowed actually in the Isaac mosque. But what's been happening these past few days is that, uh, the Israelis have shut off access to the Isaac mosque.

• 52:29Speaker 02

  And there are rumors that, um, that the Israelis might do a controlled demolition of Isaac mosque and blame it on Iranians.

• 52:39Tom Bilyeu?

  Yeah, and, uh, that strikes me as a terrible idea in that it will be, one, immediately, people will just assume that they did it. And then two, that that will galvanize the Muslim world against, uh, Israel in a way that has never happened before. Um, what do you think will happen if they destroy the mosque?

• 53:01Speaker 02

  It's all been planned out where destroying the mosque is very important. Because as you point out, it will galvanize the entire Muslim world against the Israelis. And two, and this is really important, is that you will see a surge of anti-Semitism throughout the world. Where everyone sees the Israelis as crazy fanatics and the Jews as enabling the, uh, the Israelis, okay? But it's all part of their plan. Because remember, for their plan to work out, first of all, all Jews need to return to Jerusalem. Um, and there has to be a war of Gog and Magog with the entire world unifies and attacks Israel, okay?

• 53:42Speaker 02

  So destroying Isaac mosque accomplishes both, um, objectives. And, um, yeah, I mean, I know that it sounds crazy, so, so, uh, so, so. Go ahead and ask some questions.

• 53:54Tom Bilyeu?

  Well, so the big thing is, how much credibility do you put in that this is really a driver? That these different eschatologies and there's more to talk about. But I think rather than detail out each of the different eschatologies, just to know this idea. You've got Christian Zionists believe one thing that's driving them to make decisions at the nation state level that may have had some influence in us going into the area, may have some influence in whether we are allies with Israel or not. Then you've got extremists within Israel that believe in things like the Greater Israel Theory, and they want to take over more land and they want to actually piss people off.

• 54:35Tom Bilyeu?

  And they want this war of Gog and Magog, which would be great if you, because there's a theory about who, what current nation states are Gog Magog, and they're both in play right now. And so, understanding that would be useful. And then like, people will at least have the package from which to understand where we'll go from here. But understanding whether you think this is a primary driver, whether you think this is just a fringe theory, and how much of this you actually think has predictive validity.

• 55:06Speaker 02

  When I do predictive modeling, I'm looking at different theories. And when these different theories converge together, I can make a pretty accurate prediction, okay? So there are three major theories that I look at when I make predictions. The first theory is game theory, which is I just look at the different interests of the different nation states, okay? That's game theory. And I look at historical patterns, which is like, how do empires behave as they decline? And so I look at Rome, I look at the British Empire, I look at different historical instances of empires in decline. The third thing is I look at eschatology, I look at religion.

• 55:44Speaker 02

  And why eschatology is important is that it's a script for people to follow over the centuries. And they can slowly build towards this script, okay? So when I do these three things, when I look at eschatology, when I look at game theory, and when I look at historical patterns. Then I'm forced to conclude that um they will eventually destroy the Alexic mosque and force the war of Gog and Magog. Okay, so um first of all, what I'm gonna do is explain to you how in their minds, how historical events should unfold, okay? How these current events should unfold. And then I'll explain to you the rigorous rationale for why this should happen, okay?

• 56:29Speaker 02

  Alright, so in the mind of these um religious extremists, and they're Jewish and Christian, they want uh this war in the Middle East to destroy both Iran and the United States, okay? Basically, they want the United States sending ground troops to Iran. It becomes now Vietnam. It is extremely unpopular in America. There's a national draft, there's a civil war in America. And now, America is forced to retreat from the Middle East. This is important because America is not actually part of this eschatology. And so, how do you get rid of the American empire? Well, you cause civil war back in America, okay? That's that's number one.

• 57:10Speaker 02

  Number two is that, once Iran is destroyed, um the Israel is able to achieve the Greater Israel Project. Because there's no there's no longer any uh local opposition towards um Israel. So remember, like by this time, the GCC nations are also destroyed, right? Because of of this war. So Israel is now very quickly able to achieve the um Greater Israel Project. And build something called the Pax Judeica, which is basically an AI surveillance state. Um and so it's basically what they did in Gaza these past ten years, and then scaling out across the um Middle East. And so what they're gonna do is, they're going to um allow transnational capital to come in

• 57:54Speaker 02

  and build up their AI infrastructure. And they're gonna import millions of laborers from India, China, and the Philippines to work um uh their their system. And Pax Judeica will become the main trading block for the world. Because if you are Russian, if you're Russian, you want to access African, the African market, you have to dose, you have to go through Patrick Decker, the greater, greater Israel. Uh, just because of how trade routes are, are, are established. Um, and then, um, greater Israel is then able to export its surveillance technology throughout the world. And help other nations build up their surveillance networks. Uh, okay, um, but then, um, because.

• 58:37Speaker 02

  Israel has destroyed Alexic Moss and built their Solomon's Temple, the third temple. This governizes the Muslim populations to rebel against the governments. These governments are actually very pro-Western, right? So, um, this creates this religious jihad fever among, um, uh, Muslim extremists. And so you see a reordering of the, uh, Muslim world where governments are thrown, uh, very much like the, um. Uh, air, air of spring, um, and, and, and, and so, and now what's gonna happen is that. Uh, the Muslim world is going to unify eventually again, uh, uh, and, and, and join an alliance of Russia and Iran.

• 59:17Speaker 02

  Okay, so by this time Iran will, will rebuild itself and then Russia, uh, will, um, uh. Of the Orthodox world will form alliance with the Islamic world and they will march against Israel. And it's called the War of Ghaq and Maghq, okay? And then, of course, this will lead to the end of the world, uh, where nuclear weapons might be used. Um, so that's how they perceive historical events playing out. Yeah, that, that, does that make sense?

• 59:42Tom Bilyeu?

  It's all very clear, there's an internal logic, the, um. The only thing that I'm trying to pin down is you've got three things. Are they sort of of equal value or do you think that one is bigger than the other? Because the eschatology part is where certainly my mental map is, yeah, these guys are on the fringes. Yes, there's like, they can get their own base riled up. But in a world that is governed far more by economics than it is by religious purity or enthusiasm. Um, I don't expect that to be the primary driver and a very weird set of events would have to. Trigger to get enough people to believe. Believe that I'm really try like I'm actually trying to bring back God.

• 1:00:28Tom Bilyeu?

  That it just seems like that part has the. It gives a nice flavor to the whole thing, but it would be the lowest in predictive validity. So I'm very curious if you think that has equal predictive validity to the other two. Things you walked us through game theory, historical precedent. Is this like an equal third player or is this like a well, just by way of mentioning everything? Let me throw it in.

• 1:00:54Speaker 02

  So um, let me try to explain this slowly. Because it's actually very complicated. Okay. All right, we first have to ask where does this eschatology actually come from? And what I think is that when you, whenever you have prophecy. It's probably a lost historical memory. Meaning like the prophecy that they have is something that historically happened before in the past. But we've lost the memory of it. And if you look at history and you try to, we can talk history. This prophecy, this eschatology, where would it come from? And um, the um, and I think it would come from the rise of Islam. And this happened in the seventh century. All right.

• 1:01:36Speaker 02

  So what's happening is like Persia and Rome are at war with each other. The Romans are called the Byzantine Empire. Okay, so you have two major powers, the Persians and the Byzantine Empire at war with each other. And they're fighting over Jerusalem. Why are they fighting over Jerusalem? Because Jerusalem is a major trading nexus. If you control Jerusalem, you're able to control Egypt. And Egypt historically has been um, the main agricultural nation in the Middle East. And at this time, the Jews. Were very much trying to reestablish um, themselves back in Jerusalem.

• 1:02:19Speaker 02

  Because they've been expelled from Jerusalem by the Romans. And so they went to the Persians for help. And they convinced the Persians to come in and and um at first it succeeded. But then the Byzantines struck back and we took Jerusalem and slaughtered a lot of um and of of Jews. So, under threat, they escaped into the Arabian Desert. And Jews have been in the Arabian Desert for a long time. And then they anointed their Messiah, a man named Muhammad, okay? And then Muhammad, Christian called the Constitution of Medina, which is this this um grand alliance among believers, okay? So his followers were originally called believers.

• 1:03:03Speaker 02

  And then they marched to um uh uh march against both the Persians and the Byzantines. And they were very quickly able to overwhelm uh both the Persian and the Byzantines. Why? Because by this time, both of these empires have been exhausted through years and years of war. And in fact, there was civil conflict within their nations as well. And so they offered, they really didn't offer that much resistance against a galvanized uh army of religious fanatics. Okay? And so uh um they were able then to establish the caliphate. All right, uh which was this grand alliance between Christians, Jews and uh and and Muslims. And we've lost this memory because um these, because those who succeeded this caliphate

• 1:03:49Speaker 02

  had invested interest in discussing the fact that um there's a revolution happening, right? Because now they're the empire, so they they want to disguise the revolution, okay? So, so, so is is this making any sense to to you so far? Are are are you?

• 1:04:03Tom Bilyeu?

  It it does, and I'm reading between the lines though, because really what I'm trying to establish, as I'm sure you're aware, this is the part of your thesis that people are gonna lean on and say, that's all crazy. That's conspiracy theory, you're applying way too much to this. So I'm just trying, I I think you think this is a pretty major part of the predictive um recipe. And that if you fail to understand that this religious eschatology is actually tied to historical events, so it's historical events said in a religious allegorical way. Then you're really missing something important. So that answered my question in terms of, I think you believe that it has predictive validity and that people are getting lost in

• 1:04:45Tom Bilyeu?

  the religion of it all, instead of realizing that this is just another way of saying, this is how things have played out historically. So yeah, it answers my question, assuming that that was an accurate representation of what you just said.

• 1:05:01Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, sure. Something to keep in mind is that for most of human history, we've kept history, lessons of history, using allegories, right? Using stories, because we didn't have writing. You didn't actually write stuff down. You actually told stories. And by telling stories, you have to make them much more imaginative. Okay? So I think eschatology is actually just lost historical memories of patterns that emerge through time. The reason why these religions are so powerful is that they have access to thousands and thousands of years of human history, right? Which they condense into patterns that then they relay on to their followers. Yeah, so another thing of saying

• 1:05:45Speaker 02

  this is that like game theory, historical patterns, and eschatology are actually aligned together. And that's why they're so powerful together.

• 1:05:53Tom Bilyeu?

  Dr. Jiang, this time has been absolutely incredible. I cannot thank you enough for taking the time to do it. And then also just your meteoric rise, I think, is extraordinarily justified. You've got such a unique take on this, obviously very deep, very broad in terms of your background in poetry and things that just give you such a different lens on this. Where can people follow along with you online?

• 1:06:15Speaker 02

  Yeah, so there are two ways to follow me online. And the first, the best way is through my YouTube channel, Predictive History. And then I have a Substack, which actually goes deep and analyzes geopolitical events to give you insight into how things should progress. And it's a predictivehistory.substack.com.

• 1:06:35Tom Bilyeu?

  I love it. Awesome, man. Thank you again for taking the time. And everybody at home, if you have not already, be sure to subscribe. And I will see you next time, my friends. Take care. Be legendary. Peace. Let's talk about a pattern that is guaranteed to be killing your progress. You know what you need to do. You need consistent nutrition. We all do. You need vitamins, probiotics, greens. We all know that we should be doing more of it. When your morning gets chaotic, you skip it. When you travel, you skip it. When your routine breaks, everything tends to break. And that inconsistency compounds against you every single day. AG1 is designed to solve the execution problem. One scoop, eight ounces of water, and you're done.

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