Professor Jiang: Three Predictions On the Collapse of the World Order

Could war and global trade breakdowns trigger a modern Bronze Age collapse? Uncover the hidden geopolitical forces dismantling the American empire and what this shift means for our future. Professor Jiang Xueqin is a renowned geopolitical analyst and Yale educated scholar who applies rigorous historical patterns and game theory to forecast the world's most catastrophic conflicts. He returns to reveal the hidden vulnerabilities of our modern civilization by mapping the intricate connections between natural resources, military hegemony, and global supply chains. This urgent analysis provides a framework to help everyday people find meaning and resilience amidst the impending global chaos. In this episode, he explains: ■ The Innovation Equation: Why technological progress is strictly dictated by specialization multiplied by globalization. ■ The Petrodollar Collapse: How the entire global economy relies on US military hegemony and the Middle East. ■ The Next Geopolitical Flashpoints: How severe water scarcity and shifting demographics in the Global South will trigger mass migration, intense polarization, and potential civil wars across Western societies. ■ The Financial 9/11: Why the next catastrophic terror attack won't target physical buildings, but rather critical financial data servers designed to wipe out bank accounts. Chapters 00:00:00 Intro 00:02:20 Where Is the World Heading? 00:10:26 What Would a Collapse of Civilization Actually Look Like? 00:14:13 Who Are the Houthis—and Why Do They Matter? 00:16:52 Why This Is Different From the Iraq War 00:23:20 Why Is It So Hard to Believe a Collapse Could Happen? 00:26:44 Could War Actually Reach American Shores? 00:30:07 Ads 00:38:52 How Immigration Could Push Politics Further Right 00:41:45 What Happens Next With Iran? 00:42:47 How Iran Could Disrupt Global Trade 00:44:29 The Iran Prediction—and What Happens Next 00:46:22 Could This Trigger a Massive Migration Crisis? 00:47:47 What Would Trump Do Next? 00:48:57 Can Trump Back Out of This War? 00:49:57 Prediction #1: Could New York City Face a Siege? 00:53:34 When Could This Conflict Actually Happen? 00:58:22 Prediction #2: An Attack on U. S. Financial Infrastructure 01:02:23 Ads 01:03:28 Why Getting Back Into the U. S. Could Become a Problem 01:09:56 Prediction #3: Messi Becomes President of Argentina 01:12:47 Why China and Japan Could Go to War 01:20:57 How Far Would the U. S. Go to Defend Taiwan? 01:21:42 Could Russia Invade the Baltics? 01:25:32 Can Russia Make a Deal Instead of Going to War? 01:26:59 Does Trump Actually Want Ukraine to Win? 01:29:13 What Could Stop These Global Conflicts From Spreading? 01:35:42 How the Average Person Can Prepare for What’s Coming 01:41:03 How AI Changes the Global Power Struggle 01:42:46 Why AI Surveillance Could Be the Bigger Threat 01:46:33 The Biggest Personal Challenge—and How to Overcome It Follow Professor Jiang: YouTube - https://link.thediaryofaceo.com/4JsRjcX Instagram - https://link.thediaryofaceo.com/8w2GsYk X - https://link.thediaryofaceo.com/CpR2Wf5 Substack (geo-political analysis) - https://link.thediaryofaceo.com/3wjOVqX The Diary Of A CEO: ◼ Join DOAC circle here - https://doaccircle.com/ ◼ Buy The Diary Of A CEO book here - https://link.thediaryofaceo.com/BWjLTZK ◼ Shop The Diary Of A CEO collection: https://thediary.com/collections/shop ◼ Get email updates - https://link.thediaryofaceo.com/5IB1H6E ◼ Follow Steven - https://link.thediaryofaceo.com/AGU9QP4 Sponsors: Bon Charge: https://boncharge.com/DOAC for 20% off Stan - Visit https://coach.stan.store/?ref=stevenbartlett&utm_source=youtube&utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=episode11 Shopify - https://shopify.com/bartlett

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

• 0:00Speaker 00

  I think there are a lot of people who do not like what I'm saying. I am one of the most polarizing figures in the world right now. But I'm trying to prepare everyone. And what I want to explain to you today, Stephen, is why the world is collapsing. Because having studied patterns of history and global supply chains, I now recognize and I have a framework to predict the future. And I brought to you three horrifying predictions structured around nine eleven.

• 0:23Steven Bartlett?

  So what are your predictions? I've been dying to know.

• 0:26Speaker 00

  My first prediction, if there is another nine eleven attack, it will be an attack on the US financial infrastructure. Imagine one day you open your iPhone and you're looking to buy a coffee. And all the money in your bank account has been wiped out. And they don't know when or how long it will take them to retrieve it. I believe that's what makes Americans most vulnerable and therefore the most easily traumatized.

• 0:47Steven Bartlett?

  What's prediction number two?

• 0:49Speaker 00

  Is that Lionel Messi will become president of Argentina.

• 0:52Steven Bartlett?

  Oh, wow, I wasn't expecting that. And also, do you think Trump is going to have a third term?

• 0:55Speaker 00

  Let's take the friendly bet and say a hundred dollars. Trump gets a third term to be a siege of New York City.

• 0:59Steven Bartlett?

  Prediction three.

• 1:00Speaker 00

  My third prediction is that.

• 1:02Steven Bartlett?

  Are you sure? You don't think that the US will actually do that very well?

• 1:05Speaker 00

  Well, I understand a lot of this is going to be extremely pessimistic. But we are living in a time of not just war, but also the regression of civilization. We basically hit the height of technological advancement.

• 1:20Steven Bartlett?

  The word collapse you use there is a strong word.

• 1:22Speaker 00

  Yes, I am positive that we are seeing the collapse of civilization. All the stuff that we might have seen on television, it is coming to us in our lives. And the world is essentially running out of time. And I will paint a clear and simple picture of what is about to come.

• 1:39Steven Bartlett?

  What would have to be the case for none of these sort of catastrophic things to take place?

• 1:42Speaker 00

  Well, the only thing that gives me hope is.

• 1:45Steven Bartlett?

  Guys, I've got a favor to ask before this episode begins. The algorithm, if you follow a show, will deliver you the best episodes from that show very prominently in your feed. So when we have our best episodes on this show, the most shared episodes, the most rated episodes, I would love you to know. And the simple way for you to know that is to hit that follow button. But also, it's the simple, easy, free thing that you can do to help us make this show better. I would be hugely grateful if you could take a minute on the app you're listening to this on right now and hit that follow button. Thank you so, so, so much.

• 2:20Steven Bartlett?

  Professor Zhang, what is front of mind for you at the moment? Your energy is giving me some things on my mind. What is that?

• 2:30Speaker 00

  I think that we are living in a time when the world is collapsing. And so what I want to explain to you today, Stephen, is how we got to the world that we are in and why it is collapsing. So first thing I want to explain to you is the petrodollar system, which is the basis for the global economy. So let's go back to year nineteen forty five. And this is the end of World War Two. And the United States is dominant.

• 3:09Speaker 00

  The United States will manufacture goods for Europe and for Japan, which were destroyed in World War Two. So what the United States said is, we will lend you the US dollars in order to purchase the goods that we will export to you. But you have to promise to pay us back in gold. And the United States became complacent. They were spending money they shouldn't have been spending. The United States went from a credit nation to a debtor nation. So in the year nineteen seventy one, Richard Nixon said that the US dollar would no longer be pegged to the gold.

• 3:53Speaker 00

  And so the question now was, if the US dollar is no longer pegged to gold, then what is the value of the US dollar? So Richard Nixon had to create demand for the US dollar. And so three things happened after the something called the Nixon shock, nineteen seventy one Nixon shock. Okay, so the first was the creation of the petrodollar. So Saudi Arabia and other countries in the Middle East agreed to sell their oil only in US dollars. So if you want to buy oil, energy, you need US dollars. Late seventies, early eighties, China said the same thing.

• 4:35Speaker 00

  If you want our cheap manufactured goods, you have to pay in US dollars. Mid eighties was something called the plastic cord, where Japan agreed to take all its savings and buy US treasuries.

• 4:55Steven Bartlett?

  So it's essentially they're buying a promise from the US?

• 5:01Speaker 00

  All this is based on promises, right? The US dollar is a contract. It's a promise. China promises to give you manufactured goods. And Saudi Arabia promises to give you oil. This system, the petrodollar system, create the world that we live in today. So let me explain why. All right, so this is a semiconductor, all right? And it's a basis of all technology, of all computer. And there are three critical elements in a semiconductor. Silicon, they are gallium, and they are germanium.

• 5:45Speaker 00

  Okay, there are many more elements, but these are the three most critical. And these three together allow semiconductors to achieve almost impossible technology. For example, precision missiles, satellite communication are all based on these three elements working together.

• 6:09Speaker 00

  Why we have these three elements in place is because of this global system. Because silicon is mainly manufactured in China. About sixty, seventy percent of the world's silicon comes from China. Seventy percent of gallium comes from China. Ninety percent of the world's germanium comes from China. Now, for semiconductors to work, the process is this. The United States, mainly in California, Nvidia or Apple, they will design very advanced semiconductor chips to power the iPhone, to power your video games.

• 6:52Speaker 00

  Then the United States will send this chip design over to Taiwan and Malaysia for the manufacture of these chips. The Netherlands and Japan will create machines to print out these semiconductors. So a company in the Netherlands called ASML, they manufacture lithography machines that are worth four hundred million dollars each. Then these lithography machines and the chip design go to Taiwan, primarily Taiwan, but also Malaysia as well, in order to manufacture these chips. And then these chips are then sent to China to be put into appliances.

• 7:35Speaker 00

  So when you see this semiconductor, you're not just seeing a piece of metal and plastic. You're really seeing the world converging together. So I want you to remember this formula. And this will help us explain how the world works. This formula is very simple. Technological progress is correlated with specialization times globalization. This is the formula.

• 8:04Speaker 00

  So it's very simple. Our technological progress is premise on more countries being able to specialize and these countries being able to trade freely with each other. And what makes this all possible is global trade. That is supported by two things. The first, of course, is the US dollar. The second thing that's most important is is the US military hegemony.

• 8:30Steven Bartlett?

  Hegemony meaning?

• 8:31Speaker 00

  Meaning there are no peer competitor. There is no one who can challenge the United States in control of the seas.

• 8:40Steven Bartlett?

  So you're coming now to the point of why you think, because the the claim at the top was that the world is collapsing.

• 8:45Speaker 00

  Exactly. I bring this all up because we need to appreciate what technological innovation is. If technological innovation is specialization times globalization, then we are living in a time of not just war, but also the regression of civilization. So in other words, my argument to you today is we've basically hit the apex, the height of technological advancement. We cannot go any further. Because in order for technology to progress, you need greater specialization and you need greater globalization.

• 9:28Speaker 00

  But what we're seeing right now is this war in Iran. It will cause a chain of events that will force all nations to become much more general. Okay, so you will see a decline in specialization. And they'll become much more nationalistic. They will need to create self-sufficient supply chains. So you will see a decline in globalization. And therefore, technology, the progress will have to decline.

• 9:54Steven Bartlett?

  The word collapse you use there is a strong word.

• 9:56Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 9:58Steven Bartlett?

  Is that the word you meant?

• 9:59Speaker 00

  That's exactly what I meant. We are living not through World War Three. We are not living through a shifting of the global order. We are, we will live through the next twenty years, the collapse of civilization itself.

• 10:15Steven Bartlett?

  The collapse of civilization itself?

• 10:17Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 10:19Steven Bartlett?

  Are you sure?

• 10:20Speaker 00

  I am positive that we are seeing the collapse of civilization.

• 10:25Steven Bartlett?

  Give me some definition around the collapse of civilization, because people could infer that as, oh, you know, the the dollar is not going to be as strong. Or they could say, okay, we're not going to innovate as much. Or I don't know if your prices are going to go up. But the collapse of civilization.

• 10:36Speaker 00

  Yes, so let's go back to World War Two. Okay, in World War Two, if you lived in Europe or Asia, it really seemed like the end of the world. Tens of millions of people died in that war. But at the same time, you had a superpower that was emerging, the United States of America. So at the end of World War Two, America was so powerful that it was able, at the end of World War Two, to create a new world order and basically finance and defend this new world order called Pax Americana. And we are seeing the last days of Pax Americana.

• 11:19Speaker 00

  And then you ask yourself, well, then let China emerge. Or maybe Russia will emerge, or maybe Israel will emerge to replace Pax Americana. And unfortunately, what we know is that systems in decline, empires in decline, do not go willingly. Okay, so the historical analogy I would use is the Bronze Age collapse. Because the Bronze Age was very similar to this period in our history when the entire world was globalized. Because in order to make bronze, you needed both copper and tin. And these places were found in different places of the world. And that allowed for global integration.

• 12:04Speaker 00

  But because of global integration, over time, that led to massive inequality, debt and polarization. And so when the system collapsed, the entire world collapsed. So I I would argue the closest historical analogy that we have to today is a Bronze Age collapse.

• 12:26Steven Bartlett?

  What was life like in the Bronze Age collapse? Or how was it different pre-Bronzage collapse versus post-Bronzage collapse?

• 12:33Speaker 00

  So during the Bronze Age collapse, what happened was there was a perfect series of crises that caused systematic collapse. Okay, the first was change in weather patterns, climate changed, which led to famine primarily in Europe. Okay, we have famine and people are starving. What do people do? They migrate, okay? They migrate to areas that have food. And that this this place is primarily going to be Anatolia and Egypt.

• 13:11Speaker 00

  These migrants overwhelm the systems of Egypt and Anatolia. And this would cause a cascading effect where the entire world lost order. These migrants were called the sea peoples. And they were destroying traditional hierarchies and authorities. And once that happened, then the very fundamental elements of civilization disappeared. So if we apply this analogy to today, then I'm going to paint for you a scenario of what might happen. All right, so we have this war in the Middle East that is only expanding. It's bringing in more and more countries.

• 13:57Speaker 00

  So as you may know, since we last spoke, basically, all Iran's proxies have been brought into the war. This includes the Houthis, which occupies this part of Yemen.

• 14:11Steven Bartlett?

  So the Houthis are a group of military that are in favor of Iran?

• 14:16Speaker 00

  The Houthis are an ethnic group in Yemen. And Yemen is a country that is divided according to tribes. The thing about the Houthis is, first of all, they live in the mountains. So it's almost impossible to dislodge the Houthis. So it would be a tribe for five years. It didn't work. The other thing about the Houthis is they are a Shia tribe people. Now, there are Shia Muslim and there's Sunni Muslim. The vast majority of Muslim in the world are Sunni, about ninety percent of the entire global Muslim population. The Shia are about ten percent. And as a result, because they're the minority, the Shia are much more fanatical than the Sunni.

• 15:01Speaker 00

  And this has always been historically true. They believe in martyrdom. So in other words, the Houthis will fight to the death. They're not afraid of death. Okay, and the third thing about the Houthis that we need to appreciate is they control this critical choke point called the Bab al-Mandad Strait. This is, this is the Red Sea. So a lot of trade has to go through the Red Sea. Now, what we know is Iran has already closed off the Shuham Hoomous.

• 15:38Speaker 00

  And the easiest and cheapest way for Saudi Arabia to get its oil to East Asia and South Asia is by the sea. So Saudi Arabia cannot actually transport its oil. Okay, so that's the first group that is now involved in this war, the Houthis. Then you have Hezbollah, okay, which is in Lebanon, right here. And they are now fighting Israel. Hezbollah is also a Shia group. So they are also very fanatical. And then you also have Iraq, the Shia militias, that are basically their own independent militaries.

• 16:22Speaker 00

  So all four are been brought into the war. You have Iran, you have the Houthis, you have Hezbollah, you have the Shia militia in Iraq. Why is this important? Because they spent the entire Middle East. And so we are now seeing expansion of the war. And over time, what might happen is more and more nations have been brought into the war to protect their own interests.

• 16:50Steven Bartlett?

  How is this different from, you know, I grew up with this Iraq war? And there was lots of conflict in the Middle East. There was always fighting going on. And it's, it feels like it's been a function of my, of my childhood is that the Middle East are always fighting in some capacity somewhere. And, you know, eventually there's a peace in Iraq and the war kind of stops. And ISIS is decapitated or whatever. And it just kind of moves around a little bit.

• 17:12Speaker 00

  Yeah, great question. But what's happening today is very different from two thousand and three. Two thousand and three, the United States went in to get decapitate Saddam Hussein and his government. And that was easy to do because you had a government that was not very popular amongst the people. So America specializes in shock and awe military tactics. The problem today is you have four different groups. You have the IRGC in Iran. You have the Houthis in Yemen. You have Hezbollah in Lebanon. You have the Shia militia in Iraq.

• 17:56Speaker 00

  They are decentralized. They are fanatical. And they share a similar eschatology. They share a similar religious framework. And as a result, what we know is

• 18:11Speaker 00

  the United States military is not very good at fighting guerrilla insurgents. We know because of what happened in Afghanistan as well as Iran. These two are what is often referred to as as forever wars, where the United States spent two hundred dollars over over twenty years to try to squash insurgents, and they failed miserably. So because these four groups are coordinating, but they're decentralized, this means that this war can only expand over time. Now, Saudi Arabia is feels threatened by the Houthis.

• 18:51Speaker 00

  So what Saudi Arabia has done is, most recently, it's signed something called the Mecca Accords, Turkey and Pakistan. Okay, so Turkey and Pakistan and Saudi Arabia now must come to each other's defense. And it seems to me of these three countries, Saudi Arabia will be the first to invoke this mutual defense pact against the Houthis. So you can see a situation where Pakistan, Turkey and Saudi Arabia is brought into war to try to dislodge the Houthis. But we know that the Houthis in a mountain retreat are almost invincible. So this war can only expand.

• 19:35Speaker 00

  And the Houthis, in response, what they can do is destroy the energy infrastructure of Saudi Arabia. The Houthis have ballistic missiles, they have drones. And Saudi Arabia is this giant lake of gasoline, ready to be blown up or lit up by the Houthis at any time.

• 19:54Steven Bartlett?

  You know, back in the early two thousands, there was the al Qaeda, there was ISIS, there was, you know, there was still Hezbollah and Hamas. So how, how is this different? Because there was lots of military militant groups.

• 20:05Speaker 00

  Great question, okay? Why this is different is there is after coordination amongst these groups. So al Qaeda, ISIS, they were working separately. But the, there are three proxies, okay? You have the Houthis, you have the Hezbollah in Lebanon, you have the Shia militia. They all report back to the IRGC in Iran. And here's the kicker, this is really important. Both China. And Russia are supporting Iran in this conflict. China is supporting Iran through the Belt and Road Initiative, basically transporting goods to Iran through this corridor.

• 20:47Speaker 00

  And Russia is supporting Iran through the Caspian Sea. As a result, Iran, in theory, could fight this war indefinitely. Okay, that's one thing that we have to appreciate. There's a clear alliance in place to make sure that Iran and its proxies can withstand this war. The other thing that's really important for us to appreciate is that the Middle East, it is the heart and center of the petrodollar system. It takes all these barrels of oil in the GCC countries

• 21:27Speaker 00

  and transports them to India, Pakistan, China, Japan. Okay. And what then happens is the East Asia takes these barrels of oil, energy. Could you put the Mill Brothers in Japan?

• 21:51Steven Bartlett?

  What are these little figurines you're asking me to put in Japan?

• 21:53Speaker 00

  So this represents Japan's contribution to the global economy. So it takes energy from the Middle East and turns them into manufactured products, consumer electronic products for the world to consume. It makes these in US dollars and China, Japan, and the GCC all invest their excess savings in the United States, which allows the United States to focus on innovation, to create places like New York City. New York City is also a very specialized area because it basically is the financial center of the world. Okay, so all this is the petrodollar system. As you can see, the system is dependent on free trade.

• 22:36Speaker 00

  But once the oil stops flowing, then what happens is China, Japan are no longer able to make the manufactured goods they need to export. And the United States loses all these recycled US dollars. So the three biggest buyers of US treasuries, basically the three biggest financiers of the US economy, basically the AI bubble are Japan, the GCC, and China. So we will see a cascading effect where maybe in a few months' time, the system collapses.

• 23:18Steven Bartlett?

  Do you know what, Professor? One of the reasons why I think it's quite hard for, and I'm just going to be completely honest, people can take this as they take it, but it's just me being honest. One of the reasons why it's quite hard to believe that, you know, the world is going to collapse and that this is going to be like the Bronze Age collapse. I was actually reading about the Bronze Age collapse after you mentioned it. And what I pulled up here says, "The late Bronze Age collapse was a rapid, violent, and widespread societal breakdown that occurred in the Eastern Mediterranean between approximately 1,200 and 1,150 BCE. Before the collapse, the region was heavily globalized. Major superpowers like the Egyptians, et cetera, et cetera, were deeply interconnected through diplomacy,

• 24:01Steven Bartlett?

  royal marriages, and complex international trade networks. But within a span of just 50 years, almost every significant city in the Eastern Mediterranean was destroyed, and many were never rebuilt." And there's a map which I'll throw up on the screen which shows this breakdown. I, here's my honesty. As a 34-year-old, I have lived a very

• 24:24Speaker 00

  Charmed life.

• 24:25Steven Bartlett?

  Charmed life.

• 24:26Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 24:27Steven Bartlett?

  As it relates to, you know, history and the things that happened in history. So when we hear these things that, you know, the society will break down, there'll be civil collapse, we don't really have a reference point as like Gen Z's and millennials, really. Our parents and their parents, they have, you know, reference points from World War II, et cetera, in the 1940s, et cetera. But we don't really have them. So it seems all to be quite, you know, that can't happen to us.

• 24:50Speaker 00

  Yeah, you're absolutely right. And I think a lot of the issue is the world has been constructed in a way to maintain the privileges of the Western populations. An example I use is you say that we've lived a charmed life. Well, if you've been, if you lived in Iraq, Afghanistan, these places, you did not live a charmed life.

• 25:19Steven Bartlett?

  Yeah.

• 25:19Speaker 00

  Because the United States came and attacked you for no particular reason. And they destroyed the very infrastructure of your society. Even today, Iraq and Afghanistan are engulfed in political violence and war and political assassinations. And so you've never known if you were a child in Iraq or Afghanistan. And even in Africa, you've never known peace, stability, and prosperity. So the inequality in the world is stark. And we in the West have been extremely privileged to be sheltered from a lot of chaos in the world. In fact, the US empire is designed to ensure

• 26:03Speaker 00

  the populations never have to suffer the tragedy and suffering of other people. And what I'm trying to say is this US empire is breaking down. And there's nothing that we can do to stop it. So all the suffering that we might have seen on television, it is coming to us in our lives. And we need to be aware of it.

• 26:27Steven Bartlett?

  When you say it's coming to us in our lives, it's coming to us in our lives.

• 26:32Speaker 00

  The same political violence, the same chaos, the same political polarization that has infested the rest of the world.

• 26:42Steven Bartlett?

  Do you think war is coming to our shores? Because we now live in a post-nuclear bomb era.

• 26:49Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 26:50Steven Bartlett?

  And that seems to have created, in a weird way, a bit of peace between superpowers.

• 26:54Speaker 00

  So I'm going to go to the screen.

• 26:56Steven Bartlett?

  Okay.

• 26:57Speaker 00

  And I'm going to paint you a picture of our global supply chains and what it means for global supply chains to break down using a few maps. And these maps, I hope, will paint a clear and simple picture of what is about to come.

• 27:18Steven Bartlett?

  Can I ask you a question before we go to the screen?

• 27:19Speaker 00

  Sure.

• 27:19Steven Bartlett?

  Have you always been pessimistic about the future?

• 27:23Speaker 00

  No.

• 27:23Steven Bartlett?

  When did you become pessimistic about the future?

• 27:27Speaker 00

  I became very pessimistic about the future after Brexit and the election of Donald Trump.

• 27:36Speaker 00

  Because I was an immigrant who grew up in a very poor family. My father was a dishwasher, and he was a dishwasher for 30 years before he retired. We were so poor, we couldn't even afford a car. We never took any indications. But I worked hard. I got into Yale University, one of the best colleges in the world. And not only that, but I went there on a full scholarship. So from my perspective, the world was perfect. It was a meritocracy. It was a place that rewarded talent and hard work. So I believe that the world was governed by reason, by logic, by science, by truth, by good people.

• 28:21Speaker 00

  And when Brexit and the election of Donald Trump happened, I was traumatized. Brexit was the British people turning away from globalization. The election of Donald Trump, from my perspective, was the American rejection of meritocracy, of reason, of truth, of order. And when that happened, it sort of told me what I believed about the world didn't really work. And when those things happened, that forced me to reflect deeply on why the world was breaking down.

• 29:06Speaker 00

  And those events led me to today. Because what I'm trying to do is I'm trying to figure out patterns of history, principles of society that allow us to better understand ourselves. And that's why I drew you this formula. Because traditionally, we understood innovation as maybe coming from universities. And having studied history, having studied global supply chains, I now recognize that, no, technology just comes from specialization and globalization. And this not only is an analysis of the current world, but it also gives us a framework to predict the future, right?

• 29:47Speaker 00

  So if in a time of war, specialization and globalization break down, then in theory, technology should break down as well. Okay, and that's what I'm trying to do. I'm trying to figure out how and why we are where we are today.

• 30:03Steven Bartlett?

  So you wanted to draw something on the whiteboard?

• 30:05Speaker 00

  Okay, right.

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• 32:10Speaker 00

  So this is a summary of the global supply chain network. And we can see how it involves the entire world. You are not able to build semiconductor unless you have a globalized economy. So there's been a lot of talk about China controlling the elements, right? So China manufactures about 70% of the world's silicon and rare earths, China controls about 70% of rare earths. What people don't appreciate is it works both ways, okay? So China does export a lot of silicon and rare earths, but it also needs to import a lot of helium

• 32:52Speaker 00

  in order to sustain its semiconductor manufacturing process. The reason why is helium cools these semiconductors in a way to allow it for to be manufactured, okay? So helium is a cooling agent. Another thing that people don't appreciate is people think that China has a monopoly on rare earths. But America, in a place called Spruce Pine, Spruce Pine, North Carolina, this area has monopoly on high-quality quartz. It controls about 90% of the world's high-quality quartz, which you need in the silicon manufacturing process as well.

• 33:35Speaker 00

  Okay, so if these nations start to stop trading with each other, technology would cease to progress. Now, something to keep in mind is it's not just semiconductors that are dependent on the global supply chain. Food is also very dependent on the global supply chain. So what we're seeing is a stark contrast between the North and the South. So the North, okay, produces most of the world's fertilizer. And the South, okay, primarily Africa, the Middle East, and South America, they import a lot of the fertilizer. This map shows it much more clearly, okay?

• 34:19Speaker 00

  So ammonia is a very important component of fertilizer. And as you can see, most of the ammonia production plants are actually in the north of the world, Canada, United States, Europe, China, Russia. So the South, the global South, is dependent on the North for food. In a time of war, when global supply chains break down, the North might lose access to fancy wireless smartphones. The South will face famine, okay? Why is this important? Because the world is rife with conflict. The main issue that we will face next 20 years is not oil, it's actually water. All right?

• 35:03Speaker 00

  So this map that we're seeing right now is actually telling us where the next major geopolitical flashpoints are. So basically, if you see red on the map, it means this place has water scarcity issues. And the red issues tells exactly where wars will erupt, okay? So even the United States, if you look at the western part of the United States, they do have water scarcity issues. And actually, if you go to the western United States, Colorado, California, Arizona, these places, they're fighting over the Colorado River. Because the Colorado River is what supplies most of their water.

• 35:48Speaker 00

  You go to the Middle East and you know that the Middle East is almost like a dynamite ready to explode. And what this war will do is aggravate all the tensions in the Middle East. India itself is facing water shortages, which brings it into conflict with China, okay? So this one map, if you can just see it, it basically tells you where the next geopolitical flashpoints will be. It means a place that is most likely to go to war or have conflict or political violence for the next 20 years. Okay, but also here is Northeast Asia. Japan is here, North Korea is here, okay?

• 36:33Speaker 00

  So that's another major flashpoint. So this is what over the next 20 years, where war is most likely to break out, okay? But what's important to appreciate is once war breaks out, there are third-order effects causing conflict to spread around the world, okay? This is a really important map for us to appreciate as well. This map tells us fertility rates around the world. As you can see, Africa has the world's highest fertility rate, followed by the Middle East, okay?

• 37:10Steven Bartlett?

  So they're having the most children per couples.

• 37:13Speaker 00

  That's right. Why is this a problem? Because if you go back to the previous map, this area is also where there is the most geopolitical tension. And so if there are more and more children, young people being born here, they have no choice but to migrate. And where will they migrate? Probably to Europe. And you're like, well, okay, well, then what Europe should do is turtle up. Europe should build walls and prevent these migrants from reaching Europe. But Europe has its own problem, which is the aging crisis, okay? So look at what's happening where the fastest aging populations

• 37:55Speaker 00

  are in fact in the most developed nations, including Japan, Europe, and North America. So if you have an aging population, you need to provide cheap healthcare, nursing. What does that mean? It means you have to let in more immigrants in order to surface the aging population. And what will happen then is domestic conflict, where you have more migration into Western societies, which brings them into conflict with the native populations. And therefore, it is possible you have civil war as well as political violence and even the possibility of revolution.

• 38:41Speaker 00

  Okay, so these maps collectively paint a very grim picture of the world that we're living in.

• 38:51Steven Bartlett?

  On this page here about immigration causing civil war, political violence, revolution, wouldn't it just be the case, as we're seeing, that these Western societies will increasingly elect right-wing political parties? Which is kind of what we're seeing. We're seeing, you know, parties in the UK like Reform, Serge. I think there was news yesterday in Germany of the political party there. We're seeing, I mean, we're seeing the same in the United States as well.

• 39:16Speaker 00

  That's a fantastic point. That's exactly what we're seeing. We're seeing the AFD surge in Germany. You know, MAGA being very dominant in the United States. We're seeing Vox in Spain. So in theory, what's going to happen is these countries become much more right-wing and then they block out immigration because that is your main policy platform.

• 39:39Steven Bartlett?

  And that should stop the civil war.

• 39:41Speaker 00

  The problem is, what do you do about your aging population?

• 39:45Steven Bartlett?

  Robots.

• 39:46Speaker 00

  Exactly, right? That's what you would think. But what we're seeing is a breakdown in global supply chains. Robots depend on copper, right? Which you get from Chile, Peru, China, Australia. These are pretty faraway places from Europe and the United States, right? You also need lithium, which you get from the lithium triangle. Again, pretty far away. You also need silicon, which is mainly manufactured in China. You need rare earths, which again is really manufactured in China. So you have this huge issue where, in theory, you could use robots. But when global supply chain breaks down,

• 40:30Speaker 00

  you have to figure out the cheapest way to resolve the labor issue. And the cheapest solution is immigration, right? People, I had to say this, but people are much cheaper and much more expendable than robots.

• 40:46Speaker 00

  So I know this is a bit scary. I know this is really depressing, okay? But what if the United States were able to win this war in Iran? And conduct regime change? Then our problems are solved, right? Now Iran is under control of the United States. And we're back to globalization where oil is able to flow to South

• 41:24Speaker 00

  Asia, to East Asia, and then they manufacture goods. And then recycle their profits into the economy. And with all this money, AI is able to innovate to a point where we achieve AGI. And then we solve all the world's problems, okay?

• 41:43Steven Bartlett?

  So what happens next with this whole Iran situation?

• 41:48Speaker 00

  So unfortunately, it has now developed its own momentum. All right, so let me explain what is most likely to happen. Okay, so you have Iran.

• 42:02Speaker 00

  And you are now controlling the Shorf Humus, right? You have the Houthis and they control the Baal and Mandad Strait. You have Hezbollah, which can threaten the Suez Canal. You have the Shia militias that can also threaten the Mediterranean, right? From a game theory perspective, what Iran should do next is take the initiative and disrupt all global trade. The reason why is the US empire is based on the petrodollar. It's based on global trade. When you disrupt global trade at the same time, there's no way for the United States to respond.

• 42:45Steven Bartlett?

  How could they disrupt global trade?

• 42:47Speaker 00

  What they can do is start to attack randomly. Okay, so what Houthis can do is attack Saudi Arabia.

• 42:58Speaker 00

  Iraq can attack Israel. Iran can attack the Shorf Humus. Hezbollah can attack the Suez Canal, okay? And why you do that is you're creating uncertainty and chaos in the global trade system. Why is that important? Because the global trade system is built on confidence. And that's what drives insurance, okay? So if you're an insurance company, you're like, oh my God, these countries are, sorry, these actors are completely out of control. The United States has lost control over the situation. You can no longer insure global shipping. If you can't insure global shipping, global shipping ceases to work.

• 43:41Speaker 00

  All right, so this is the madman theory. And this is Iran's best play moving forward. And the reason why is the United States does not have the military capacity to respond to a coordinated, random strike across the Middle East.

• 43:58Steven Bartlett?

  So is this your prediction? Is this what happens next?

• 44:01Speaker 00

  I don't want to make this prediction just because there are lots of factors I do not know. Okay, so first of all, I don't know politically what the situation is in Iran. Certainly, the IRGC would want to do this. But there are political factions within Iran who would think this is too provocative. And it's possible the entire world would unite against Iran if Iran were to do this.

• 44:27Steven Bartlett?

  So what is your prediction in terms of Iran and what happens next?

• 44:30Speaker 00

  My prediction is this will only escalate. How it will escalate, I don't know, okay? But the trump card, to use a pun, for Iran is to start to disrupt global trade. But the United States has a response. And this response is to attack Iran's critical civil infrastructure, which includes desalination plants and power plants. And this would be worse than using a nuclear weapon on Iran. Because without power plants, the people in Tehran, I say about 10 million people, they face starvation because a lot of this food is refrigerated.

• 45:15Speaker 00

  This is how the war becomes almost civilization destroying. If Iran were to completely disrupt global trade and if the United States were to destroy the power plants of Iran.

• 45:28Steven Bartlett?

  Obviously, that would be horrific and inconceivably horrifying for the people that live in Iran, the innocent people that are caught in the middle of this. You don't think that the US would actually do that, though, right?

• 45:39Speaker 00

  I think the United States would be forced to do it.

• 45:40Steven Bartlett?

  You think they'll be forced to do it?

• 45:41Speaker 00

  Yes, according to game theory, they will be forced to behave like this. Because we need to appreciate this formula. Where the more power you have, the less imagination empathy you have. And so the idea is, you don't think killing millions of Iranians is a too heavy a price. It's all worth it if you can maintain the empire. The hubris leads you to believe that the gods favor you. And you ultimately win and triumph in this great struggle.

• 46:20Steven Bartlett?

  Can't you create a huge migration crisis where people start fleeing from Iran up into Europe because they are starving?

• 46:29Speaker 00

  Exactly, right? Not just Iran, but Africa as well, because they've lost access to cheap energy and fertilizer. So you have all this migration into Europe, which would overwhelm European, the European social fabric, which would overwhelm the European state. But unfortunately, this has been happening at a much slower pace ever since 2014. When, for whatever reason, the United States chose to destroy Libya and caused civil war in Syria, which caused millions to migrate into Europe. And as you remember, the Europeans in the journalist accepted all these migrants,

• 47:12Speaker 00

  which is leading, which has led to tremendous social friction and political tension in Europe today.

• 47:19Steven Bartlett?

  So your prediction here, if we conclude then, is that the US won't win this quote unquote war in the Middle East?

• 47:24Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 47:24Steven Bartlett?

  Because they can't defeat Iran and its proxies. But also, your conclusion is that this is going to continue to escalate in the Middle East?

• 47:31Speaker 00

  Yes, and already what we're seeing are other actors being drawn into the war. So the most recent news is South Korea has authorized a naval contingent to go and try to secure the Shorf Humus.

• 47:45Steven Bartlett?

  What would you do if you were Donald Trump?

• 47:49Speaker 00

  I mean, what would I do if I were Donald Trump? I would push all in. I would start attacking power plants in Iran. Because if I take any half measures, I would just look weak. And I'm only going to create more problems. I would only incentivize Iran and its allies to be more provocative, to be more aggressive. So if I'm Donald Trump and I'm in this situation, I would just push all in.

• 48:20Steven Bartlett?

  Do you think millions of Iranians theoretically?

• 48:24Speaker 00

  Well, I start this war, right? Then I have to win this war because I can't lose this war. I refuse to lose this war. I mean, again, I understand the concerns, okay? But if you want to understand how these leaders think, this formula gives you the best window into the psychology, which is because of so much power, they lose the capacity to imagine different possibilities and have empathy for the suffering of the people in the world.

• 48:55Steven Bartlett?

  Couldn't they just back out? Couldn't they just, couldn't Donald Trump just say, do a big press conference where he says, we won this war in Iran, we destroyed their military, their naval bases, it's done. And Iran will no longer have a nuclear weapon.

• 49:07Speaker 00

  The entire petrodollar system is premise on two things. The US dollar as the world reserve currency and the aura of inability, invincibility of the US military.

• 49:21Steven Bartlett?

  If they look like they are beatable, then the US as its image is sufficiently tarnished.

• 49:29Speaker 00

  Right.

• 49:31Steven Bartlett?

  What are your predictions? I've been dying to know.

• 49:33Speaker 00

  So I brought to you three predictions. And because we are so close to the anniversary of 9/11 in New York City,

• 49:43Speaker 00

  I structured these predictions around the anniversary. And so these will be three fun but horrifying predictions, okay? All right, so my prediction number one is there will be a siege of New York City. All right, so let me explain my logic. I was here last time and I said that Donald Trump will get a third term. And he's been joking about it. He's been talking a lot about it. He's been so so truthing about it. And so let's imagine what happens if Trump gets a third term. Well, you would have a lot of pissed off people, especially in the major cities of Los Angeles,

• 50:27Speaker 00

  San Francisco, Boston, Chicago, and New York City.

• 50:31Steven Bartlett?

  We should probably just pause there because there is a constitutional ban on serving three terms. The primary barrier being the 22nd Amendment, which was ratified in 1951 by Franklin D Roosevelt, who won four elections. It establishes a strict term limit for the presidency. And the text in this 22nd Amendment explicitly says, no person shall be elected to the office of the president more than twice. So how could that happen?

• 50:58Speaker 00

  Well, let's just say there is a national emergency. And the president is forced to suspend the Constitution. Then he could theoretically have his third term. It's also possible that in 2028, he decides to run as the vice president and have his son, Don Jr., run at the top of the ticket. And then once the election is over, then Don Jr. would resign. And then Donald Trump would become the president. And there's nothing in the Constitution that prevents him from doing that. So there are two possibilities.

• 51:40Steven Bartlett?

  There isn't anything in the Constitution that allows the US president to suspend the Constitution in a, in a time of a national emergency?

• 51:47Speaker 00

  It's president. So for example, during the American Civil War, Abraham Lincoln was able to suspend habeas corpus, which is a constitutional right in the US Constitution. And during World War II, Franklin Delano Roosevelt also did many unconstitutional things. For example, interning the Japanese population in caps. There's nothing this report could do against this. Because a lot of US politics is convention. It's agreed upon norms. But if a US president is like, well, screw these conventions. There's nothing anyone else can do about it.

• 52:30Speaker 00

  All right, so let's imagine, okay, just for the sake of this argument, Trump gets a third term. What will happen is these cities that are democratic will be in open revolt. Meaning they will refuse to pay taxes to the federal government, but they will also not welcome ICE federal agents into their cities. Which creates conflict between local law enforcement and federal law enforcement. And historically, if that were to happen, then the president, US president, usually thinks that he has the responsibility to quash this insurrection, right? And so this would over time lead to the siege of New York City.

• 53:12Speaker 00

  Where maybe federal forces along with possibly militias from other states, possibly red states that favor Trump, they would try to besiege New York City by cutting off the food supply and water supply to New York City. And this will be a conflict that could go on for years and years.

• 53:32Steven Bartlett?

  And what year would that take place, 2028?

• 53:35Speaker 00

  It could happen right after Trump secures his third term.

• 53:39Steven Bartlett?

  Do you think Trump is going to have a third term?

• 53:42Speaker 00

  Do you want to bet?

• 53:43Steven Bartlett?

  Yeah.

• 53:44Speaker 00

  I think he will get a third term.

• 53:46Steven Bartlett?

  How much you want to bet?

• 53:47Speaker 00

  Let's take a friendly bet and say a hundred dollars.

• 53:49Steven Bartlett?

  Do you know what? I've never said this before, but I actually did have a bet with two random guys on Facebook. I don't use Facebook, but I did bet with two random guys on Facebook a couple of years ago. They told me that after Donald Trump had lost the election to Joe Biden, they told me that he was going to stay in power. And so I said, there's no way he stays in power. And they said, no, he will. So then, and then they offered me a bet. They said a thousand pounds each. We bet you he's going to stay in power. They were like Q and on people. And I said, fine. And they actually did pay me when he came out of power. They transferred me a thousand dollars each. I gave it to charity, but so I'm more than happy to make another bet if you want to make a bet.

• 54:22Speaker 00

  Yeah, let's do it. Hundred dollars, hundred US dollars.

• 54:24Steven Bartlett?

  Hundred US dollars. And you're betting that Trump gets a third term?

• 54:27Speaker 00

  Yes, I think he'll be in power after 2028. Is that fair? Like, like he'll be in power after 2028?

• 54:34Steven Bartlett?

  When's the election?

• 54:35Speaker 00

  Well, the election should be November 4th, 2028. But I didn't say he would win the election. I just said he would get a third term.

• 54:41Steven Bartlett?

  So you're saying that he will refuse to leave office? Or find another way to remain president beyond the date of the inauguration?

• 54:51Speaker 00

  Yes, I'm saying that on January 21, 2029, Trump will still be in the White House.

• 54:57Steven Bartlett?

  Okay, I'll take that bet.

• 54:58Speaker 00

  Okay.

• 54:59Steven Bartlett?

  For everyone's clear. And please do remind me to cash in, lads.

• 55:03Speaker 00

  Hundred dollars.

• 55:03Steven Bartlett?

  Okay.

• 55:04Speaker 00

  Hundred dollars may not be worth anything at that time, but it's hundred dollars, okay?

• 55:08Steven Bartlett?

  Okay.

• 55:08Speaker 00

  All right, so again, we are just assuming for the sake of argument that Trump is in office in his third term. There will be political violence across the United States, primarily in New York City. And if the federal authority is being challenged by a city or local state authority, then the president will take this very seriously and send in forces to quash this insurrection. Maybe other cities will be much more compliant. But New York City has a very charismatic mayor in Zohran Madani. And New Yorkers, you don't mess with New Yorkers. When they get angry, they get really, really angry.

• 55:49Speaker 00

  So this, I think, is very likely if Trump gets a third term, to be a siege of New York City.

• 55:56Steven Bartlett?

  He would almost be 83 years old.

• 55:59Speaker 00

  I mean, we say that, but like the amount of energy he has, right? The fact of the matter is, the guy eats cheeseburgers every day. He gives a press conference almost every day. He's always on social media tweeting out something stupid. For example, he's tweeted out that, you know, all of North America is now the USA. I'm not sure if you've seen that yet. And he's talking about taking over Canada and Greenland and Cuba. So I don't know where he gets his energy, but he seems really energetic. I'm not sure if you've ever interviewed Obama?

• 56:35Steven Bartlett?

  Michelle Obama?

• 56:36Speaker 00

  Okay, but like, if you just looked at the picture of Obama in 2008, he was a really handsome, really young, very vibrant man in 2008. You fast forward eight years and he came out just decrepit, okay? He was, he had aged like at least 20 years in his office. Donald Trump, for whatever reason, has not aged that much.

• 57:04Steven Bartlett?

  Hair dye and fake tan?

• 57:07Speaker 00

  He, so there's something really weird about Donald Trump, which is a lot of US journalists in Washington DC have his direct personal cellphone number. And they can call him and they will talk for an hour.

• 57:23Speaker 00

  Like, the guy is the president of the United States. And if you are just an average Washington journalist, you can call him and talk to him for an hour a day. There are journalists who go to the White House, interview him and says, like, we tried to get, we tried to like leave like an hour ago, but he made a stay and talked to him some more. He went and let us leave. So I don't know where he gets his energy from, but he's extremely energetic. And he loves that attention.

• 57:54Steven Bartlett?

  Okay, what's prediction number two?

• 57:56Speaker 00

  So again, we are approaching the anniversary of 9/11. And there are a lot of people who fear there will be another 9/11 attack on the United States. Just because you have a lot of actors that are very angry at the United States and who may want to seek vengeance against the American people. In that case, if there is another 9/11 attack on the United States, I believe it will be an attack on the US financial infrastructure. Okay, so let me explain my reasoning. What was 9/11? 9/11 was an act committed by terrorists in order to traumatize the population

• 58:40Speaker 00

  into self-destructive violence. Is that a fair statement?

• 58:44Steven Bartlett?

  I don't really know. Is that, was that the?

• 58:47Speaker 00

  So let's parse the statement. 9/11 was an attempt to traumatize the American population into self-destructive violence. What I mean by that is you're taking the symbols of American power, which are like these airplanes, as well as the Twin Towers. These are symbols of American power.

• 59:07Steven Bartlett?

  And the Pentagon and?

• 59:08Speaker 00

  And the Pentagon, and the White House. And you're destroying them. And for the longest time, American people believe that these are symbols of American invincibility. Our planes, our the Pentagon, the Twin Towers. And to see them destroyed like that would traumatize the population. In fact, it did traumatize many, many people. And the idea is you traumatize them into a self-destructive violence, which means like they want vengeance. And so what do they do? They went to the Middle East, fought against the Taliban in Afghanistan, then went to attack Iraq. Then this war spread to Syria, Libya.

• 59:50Speaker 00

  And we can say that these 20 years of these former wars in the Middle East have been very destructive for the United States. It's caused a huge fiscal deficit. It's caused the American military to lose a lot of prestige. It's caused a lot of corruption in Washington DC. It's been very bad for the United States. All right, so if you're the terrorist and you look at 9/11, you're like, okay, well, I want to do the same thing, which is like, I want to traumatize people into self-destructive violence. How can I do so? Well, I need to traumatize them, right? Me flying planes into the new, the new Twin Towers doesn't do that because people are now used to, they've been normalized into this sort of violence.

• 1:00:35Speaker 00

  So how can I induce trauma into people? Well, there are different possibilities you can use, right? So let's do a thought experiment. What would happen if one day you open your iPhone and you're looking to buy a coffee? Well, you scan your iPhone and it doesn't read. And you're like, well, there might be a problem with the bag. You call the bank, you can't get food to the bank. And like after hours and hours of frantic anxiety, you finally recognize that there was an attack on critical US financial data servers. And so all the money in your bank account has been wiped out.

• 1:01:20Speaker 00

  And they don't know when or how long it will take them to retrieve it. What do you feel?

• 1:01:27Steven Bartlett?

  Concerned?

• 1:01:29Speaker 00

  I would say you would feel more than concerned. I would say you would feel a lot of anger and anxiety and frustration.

• 1:01:35Steven Bartlett?

  That must be hard to do. Surely, taking out the financial infrastructure for everybody for a long enough period of time where they start to feel real world consequences.

• 1:01:44Speaker 00

  Would you say nine eleven was hard to do?

• 1:01:46Steven Bartlett?

  Yeah.

• 1:01:47Speaker 00

  I would say so as well. I can possibly imagine them doing this. So there is certain creativity to these people. And I would not rule that out. But I'm just saying, if another nine eleven happens, it is possible what we'll see is the destruction of the US financial infrastructure, which would drive millions of people into a mad frenzy. You've worked your entire life to save up $2 million. That $2 million is your retirement.

• 1:02:20Steven Bartlett?

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• 1:03:04Steven Bartlett?

  Nothing kills that early enthusiasm you have for a new idea than that first initial step to get going, being difficult, complicated or expensive. And you need to save as much time and money so that you can focus all of it on growing your actual business. And that's what Shopify gives you. Head over to Shopify.com/Bartlett and you can start your free trial right now. You said to me at the top of the conversation, you're having difficulty getting back into the United States recently.

• 1:03:32Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 1:03:33Steven Bartlett?

  What do you mean by that?

• 1:03:35Speaker 00

  So I think there are a lot of people who do not like what I'm saying. I would say I am one of the most polarizing figures in the world right now. So the story is that the Iran war happened in March and it made me famous. And I was really afraid that this fame would annoy and frustrate a lot of Americans. And so I decided that I should not actually go to the United States at this point because it's most likely that I come here and I could be held in detention by customs. I could be deported. And so that time period was extremely scary for me.

• 1:04:19Speaker 00

  And I refused all offers to come to the United States. There were quite a few people who wanted me to fly to the United States to be interviewed. So then what happens over the summer, the war started to die down. I thought, okay, let me fly to Canada where my family is. And I'm in Toronto and I'm going to try to enter the United States by ear from Toronto. So on August 5th, I went to the Toronto airport, Pearson. It was like seven o'clock in the morning because I had an early flight to Los Angeles. I told them that I was going to go on the Theo Von Show for, and I'll be in the United States for two weeks, which was all true. So when I'm at customs, the immigration officer asked me a lot of questions,

• 1:05:03Speaker 00

  but I handle all these questions pretty smoothly. Then he asked me, do you have a travel letter for your son? Because my son, Chris, who is eight years old, he's traveling with me. And I'm like, what is a travel letter? And again, this is like seven o'clock in the morning, so my brain's not working. He's like, call your wife. Like, okay, so I tried to call my wife. My wife is in the shower. And so then the immigration officer says, okay, you have to go into secondary to be interrogated, to make sure that your son, Chris, is traveling with you willingly. So we go into secondary and it's like seven o'clock in the morning and my flight's at 8:30. And we're waiting for like an hour and I'm freaking out because it seems like we'll miss our flight.

• 1:05:44Speaker 00

  And during this hour, I'm texting my wife and she's giving me the birth certificate. She's giving me all the materials I need to prove that this son, that Chris is my son. And then at the very last minute, we get called and a minute, a minute, I'm able to resolve the issue. And I tell him I'm going to go on the Theo Von Show and I'll be there for two weeks. So I'm in the United States and I get contacted from other podcasts to do interviews and I travel around the United States. And I forget about the two week promise to the immigration authorities because I'm not sure if you know the law, but I'm a Canadian citizen. And therefore I don't need a visa to come to the United States.

• 1:06:27Speaker 00

  You know, if you say I'm coming for two weeks, but you stay a month, it's usually not an issue. I go back to Toronto and I come back to do this podcast. And so yesterday, I am put in, yesterday, I'm ready, okay? I have my travel letter. I have my son's birth certificate. And I go to the immigration officer and they still put me in secondary. But basically, I think what happened was I said certain things during my podcast interviews that piss off some really powerful people in the United States. A lot of things that I said were related to something called the Clean Brick Memo, which you have. The Clean Brick Memo was published in 1996

• 1:07:12Speaker 00

  and it laid out a plan for how Israel can become the dominant hegemon in the Middle East. It's written by a study group and part of the study group, there were two individuals. They were Richard Pearl and Nicholas Thife. These two would, in the George W. administration, sorry, George W. Bush administration, go work in the Pentagon. And these two, along with Paul Wolfowitz, were the chief architects of Iraq war. So I named these people and I explained how this war in Iran follows from the Clean Brick Memo. And their goal is to establish Israel as the regional hegemon. And I think this is what got me into a lot of trouble.

• 1:07:55Steven Bartlett?

  Why do you think that got you into a lot of trouble?

• 1:07:57Speaker 00

  Because I'm a Canadian. When I come into the country, they usually don't bother me. And so for them to question me, I think it was because some top officials basically requested that I be put in secondary every time I come to the United States. And I also believe this because I have a friend, Max Blumenthal, who is a very good US journalist and he was in Iran covering Khamenei's funeral. And in response, a social media influencer named Laura Lumer demanded his arrest. And so when Max Blumenthal came into the country, and he is a US citizen, by the way,

• 1:08:41Speaker 00

  his devices were confiscated. And now Max Blumenthal is suing the Department of Homeland Security for illegally confiscating his devices. And so I think that we live in a time when unfortunately the empire is in decline. And because of hubris and arrogance, they are trying to silence their critics rather than accept our constructive criticisms.

• 1:09:10Steven Bartlett?

  Okay, so it's a theory.

• 1:09:12Speaker 00

  Actually, wait, they never told me why I was put in secondary, but he hinted at me that every time I come to the United States, I will be put into secondary to make sure that I'm coming to the United States for legitimate reasons. Also, he hinted at me that it is possible that once my I-94 expires in six months, they will not renew it, meaning they will not allow me in the country anymore. I hope I come back to the United States. I have the deepest admiration for the American people. I think that the Americans are the most open and generous people in the world. But at the same time, I do appreciate that we are living in very interesting times.

• 1:09:54Steven Bartlett?

  Prediction three.

• 1:09:55Speaker 00

  Okay, my third prediction is that Lionel Messi will become president of Argentina.

• 1:10:03Steven Bartlett?

  Oh, wow, I wasn't expecting that.

• 1:10:04Speaker 00

  Yep, so I wanted three new predictions that were funny and interesting for us to discuss. So why I make this prediction is that Argentina is working very closely with the United States and Israel at this moment. You are a British citizen, so you will appreciate that Argentina has recently demanded the return of the Falklands. And Donald Trump has voiced support to Argentina. So I'm asking myself, why are they so concerned about the Falklands? And not only that, but if you've been following the news,

• 1:10:49Speaker 00

  Javier Millay has become very close with Benjamin Netanyahu. Argentina and Israel have very strong relations. In fact, Argentina is welcoming Israeli investment and immigration into Argentina. And apparently, if you are an Israeli citizen and you go into Argentina, again, you can fact check this, but from what I understand, you have immediate access to the healthcare as well as pension, which makes actually no sense because they're not Argentina citizens, right? So it seems very much that Argentina is working very close with Israel and the United States. And the reason why I think that Israel and Argentina are working very close together is

• 1:11:33Speaker 00

  right now, there's almost a civil war in Israel when Mesopotamian Jews, who believe this war in the Middle East will usher in the end times and the coming of the Messiah, and secular Jews, who are like, these people are insane. And so the only way to resolve this conflict is by exporting secular Jews elsewhere. And it seems to me Argentina is a very good place to export them. So, but then you're like, hey, how do you get the people of Argentina to accept this massive immigration into Argentina from Israel? Because Israel is not very popular in Argentina.

• 1:12:17Speaker 00

  I think the best way is to make Lionel Messi the president of Argentina and his popularity will be enough to let all these Israelis into the country, him as well as the reclaiming of the Falkland Islands, right? These two things, you know, the god of Argentina becomes president and Argentina reclaims the Falklands from the British. And I apologize to you as a British citizen.

• 1:12:45Steven Bartlett?

  It's okay, I like Messi. You also mentioned to me that you think Japan is going to go to war with China or China is going to go to war with Japan.

• 1:12:53Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 1:12:53Steven Bartlett?

  What makes you think that?

• 1:12:55Speaker 00

  Well, because every Chinese believes this. Yes, so it's the funniest thing, but like, for the longest time, people believed that China will eventually invade Taiwan. This is what's very commonly accepted in the West. But if you actually go to China, no Chinese actually believes this and no Taiwanese actually believes this because this is not the way that China actually goes about its foreign policy. It does not go and invade other countries. Or in its most recent history, it has not been that aggressive. The last war that China fought was in Vietnam. This was in the mid, early eighties, okay? So it's a long time.

• 1:13:37Speaker 00

  But if you go to China today, everyone believes that China and Japan will go to war. And to appreciate this, you have to understand the geography of Southeast Asia.

• 1:13:52Steven Bartlett?

  Should you turn up, throw something up on the screen?

• 1:13:53Speaker 00

  Yeah, okay. So what I want to do is use geography to explain why conflict between China and Japan is inevitable at this point. Okay, so you have Japan, okay, and you have China.

• 1:14:14Speaker 00

  Okay, so the first thing to appreciate is that these are two very different countries. China is a land power that is self-sufficient. Japan is a sea power that is dependent on resources from abroad. So historically, China was probably an agricultural nation. Japan, in order to survive, engaged in piracy. So the Japanese have always been pretty militaristic. They have a very, they had a cybernetic culture for the longest time. They were always at war with each other. And the Japanese people are extremely resilient and cohesive because the geography of Japan is very unstable. There's lots of earthquakes, there's a lot of tsunamis.

• 1:14:57Speaker 00

  So they have to work together as a people in order to survive. This is important because this war in Iran is affecting both China and Japan. China will probably have to deindustrialize. But if Japan doesn't do anything, then it's possible in the next 50 years, Japan ceases to exist. Because not only is Japan dependent on energy and imports and resources from overseas, but it has an aging population. It has the most elderly population in the world. So in a time of war, when the United States is no longer able to give you protection, Japan needs to create resource colonies.

• 1:15:40Speaker 00

  And historically, Southeast Asia, right here, has been the main resource colony of Japan. If it does not have Southeast Asia, the United States now becomes the main benefactor of Japan. And Japan doesn't want to be in that position because that's what happened in World War II, when Japan got most of its energy from the United States. And when the United States embargoed Japan, Japan was forced to declare war on the United States. Okay, so the United States can provide Japan with all its energy needs, but that would make Japan completely subservient. So Japan wants to basically access the resources of Southeast Asia. There's a problem though, and that problem is called Taiwan.

• 1:16:23Speaker 00

  Taiwan is right in the middle of the South China Sea. And if China and Taiwan were to reunify, what China could do now is embargo Japan. I'm not saying China will do so, but I'm saying that China has the option of doing so. And Japan sees that as a threat to its existence. In fact, a few months ago-

• 1:16:49Steven Bartlett?

  When you say embargo, what does embargo mean?

• 1:16:51Speaker 00

  Embargo means you blockade, okay?

• 1:16:54Steven Bartlett?

  But if they did this, wouldn't the whole hell would break loose? You know, Japan are going to attack China, Taiwan, it's going to get messy, it's going to impact trade.

• 1:17:03Speaker 00

  So I'm not saying that China would embargo Japan, but I'm saying it has the option of doing so.

• 1:17:08Steven Bartlett?

  But you are saying that China is going to attack Japan?

• 1:17:10Speaker 00

  No, no, no, no, I'm saying there's a conflict between these two nations.

• 1:17:13Steven Bartlett?

  Okay, I thought you said it was inevitable.

• 1:17:15Speaker 00

  Yes, so let me explain how this would draw, how this would play out, okay? So Japan sees Taiwan, the Taiwan issue, as vital to its national security interests. And that's exactly what Prime Minister Takeuchi said a few months ago. And when she made that statement, China overreacted. So before you had millions of tourists from China visiting Japan a year, now most of them are not allowed to go to Japan. And it's very likely that China and Japan will have a conflict over Taiwan. Now, the thing to remember is it does not benefit any nation here to go to war.

• 1:17:59Speaker 00

  Because as you point out, all chaos would break out. What you need to do is create leverage to negotiate better terms, okay? So what Japan is doing is saying, okay, look, we can't take on China directly. Because China is too powerful. But what we can do is build alliances to possibly challenge and if we have to embargo China, right? So what Japan is doing is building alliances with the Philippines

• 1:18:31Speaker 00

  and Australia and India.

• 1:18:37Speaker 00

  And together, these four nations, even without the United States, they could, in theory, choose to embargo China, right? What Japan needs is access to Southeast Asia because that will be the main source of its resources going into the future. So that is the scenario being played out. Now, China does not want to come into a conflict with Japan. Why? Because China is seen as the big bad dragon in this area. And if China is seen as too provocative, that would basically incentivize all of Southeast Asia to gang up on China. So you can see alliances between India, Southeast Asia,

• 1:19:21Speaker 00

  Taiwan, Philippines, Australia, South Korea, North Korea, Japan versus China, okay? So the way to resolve this issue is use a proxy in order to threaten Japan, in order to develop more leverage over Japan in negotiations, right? And that proxy, of course, is North Korea.

• 1:19:49Speaker 00

  So North Korea has the potential to shell South Korea because most of the population of South Korea lives within 20 minutes of North Korea. And so in theory, North Korea could flatten Seoul in just a day, okay? Most of North Korean artillery is actually by the border. What North Korea could also do is lobby missiles into the Sea of Japan and rattle the Japanese, okay? So this is the dynamic being played out where Japan, through its proxies, part of the Philippines, is challenging Chinese naval dominance in the South China Sea. And China will use North Korea as a proxy to threaten South Korea and Japan.

• 1:20:34Speaker 00

  Over time, as the United States retreats from the Asia-Pacific, this conflict between China and Japan will get worse and worse. And the main reason why is it is in the strategic best interest of the United States to foment as much tension between China and Japan as possible.

• 1:20:57Steven Bartlett?

  But it could compromise Taiwan, no?

• 1:20:59Speaker 00

  Who cares?

• 1:21:01Steven Bartlett?

  The US care about Taiwan.

• 1:21:02Speaker 00

  No, it doesn't.

• 1:21:03Steven Bartlett?

  I thought that's where we get all of our semiconductors from.

• 1:21:06Speaker 00

  But what does Trump want to do? He wants Taiwanese to move their semiconductor industry to the United States. And that's already happening where TSMC, the main semiconductor company in Taiwan, has opened a, I believe it's $20 billion, new factory in Arizona. So if there's a conflict between China and Japan, the tension becomes worse and worse. The Taiwanese semiconductor industry, it would be forced to relocate to the United States, which would be in the best interests of the Americans.

• 1:21:42Steven Bartlett?

  You also think that Russia are going to invade the Baltics?

• 1:21:47Speaker 00

  Yeah, okay, so now we'll shift focus and go into Europe, all right? Okay, but is this pretty clear?

• 1:21:55Steven Bartlett?

  Yes, it is clear.

• 1:21:56Speaker 00

  Okay, right now, you have NATO or Europe?

• 1:22:03Speaker 00

  Supporting Ukraine

• 1:22:07Speaker 00

  in its war against Russia.

• 1:22:11Speaker 00

  Okay, and most of this war is actually happening in eastern Ukraine. And Russia seems to be winning a lot of territory in eastern Ukraine.

• 1:22:23Steven Bartlett?

  But everybody's saying that Ukraine are fighting back really, really well.

• 1:22:27Speaker 00

  The reason why is what Ukraine has chosen to do in these past few months, which has changed the contours of the war is Ukraine is using drones to attack Russia's energy infrastructure.

• 1:22:39Steven Bartlett?

  And just hitting Russia in general is making the people of Russia change their perception.

• 1:22:43Speaker 00

  Exactly, right? So before this conflict was contained to eastern Ukraine, it didn't affect the people of Russia. In fact, it really was helping the economy of Russia because Russia could still export its oil around the world. Now, Ukraine, what Ukraine is doing is using drones to attack the oil refineries of Russia, which is causing economic pain on the Russian people. And this is making Putin increasingly unpopular. Okay, so the contour of the war has changed. So if you're Russia and you're looking at this, you think your enemy is not Ukraine, you think your enemy is NATO Europe. Why?

• 1:23:26Speaker 00

  Because Ukraine, the drones are being manufactured

• 1:23:31Speaker 00

  in Germany

• 1:23:34Speaker 00

  and the UK and other places as well. So in theory, Ukraine could fight this war to infinity because its manufacturing hub is in Europe. Europe is also providing Ukraine with infinite financing as well as intelligence. Okay, so if you're Russia, you're like, wait a minute here. Over time, we can't possibly win this war of attrition because we're fighting Europe and Europe's manufacturing capacity is well protected behind the NATO alliance. Okay, so what I need to do is provoke NATO in Europe into coming into Ukraine, basically force them out of their

• 1:24:18Steven Bartlett?

  shell.

• 1:24:19Speaker 00

  Shell, right? And so what's been happening is Germany and Russia have been in conflict these past few months. In early August, there was a drone attack on Leipzig Airport, okay Leipzig Airport.

• 1:24:36Speaker 00

  And the Germans blamed the Russians. And in response, the Germans closed down the Russian consulate in Bond as well as remove certain Russians from Germany. Russia is retaliating by closing the German consulate in St Petersburg. And the Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has said, we are in a similar situation to 1941. What happened in 1941? The Germans invaded Russia. Okay, so in other words, Russia recognizes that if they just leave Europe alone and just fight this war in Ukraine, they will lose in the end.

• 1:25:16Speaker 00

  So they must force and provoke Europe into mass mobilization to defend Ukraine. And one way to do that is by hitting critical manufacturing infrastructure within Europe.

• 1:25:32Steven Bartlett?

  Do you think Russia, Russia's next move is to attack within NATO, Germany, the UK, et cetera?

• 1:25:38Speaker 00

  It has no choice, it has to do this.

• 1:25:40Steven Bartlett?

  Can't it just do a deal? With Trump? Like, you know, they're trying to do a deal at the moment, aren't they? Jared Kushner is apparently trying to get a deal done between Ukraine and Russia and.

• 1:25:49Speaker 00

  So if the United States, do you want peace between Europe and Russia? Or do you want war between Europe and Russia? Well, from a game theory perspective, you're good off with war. Why? Because if there's war, Russia can't sell its energy overseas. The United States has monopoly over energy now, right?

• 1:26:11Steven Bartlett?

  This causes global instability, though. If there's a war here, then it's going to impact the US in a big way.

• 1:26:16Speaker 00

  Well, then why the United States invade Iran, right?

• 1:26:19Steven Bartlett?

  Because they thought it would be an overnight Venezuela situation where you decapitate the leadership, everyone rises up, you have a favorable leader in the country that is subservient to you.

• 1:26:29Speaker 00

  Great, exactly. And this is exactly how the empire thinks, right? We already use this formula, right?

• 1:26:35Steven Bartlett?

  Yeah.

• 1:26:35Speaker 00

  Now, if we apply this formula to Europe's situation, then the thinking is, well, Putin is a paper tiger. He is very unpopular at home. If we just force this war for another two months, if we continue to attack the energy infrastructure of Russia, then eventually the people will rise up and overthrow Putin. Right, the same logic.

• 1:26:58Steven Bartlett?

  So therefore Trump wants the Ukraine to win? Or he wants Ukraine to keep doing what they're doing?

• 1:27:05Speaker 00

  Well, Trump personally doesn't care, right? Because the more war there is, the more the Europeans are forced to rely on American energy.

• 1:27:17Steven Bartlett?

  Okay.

• 1:27:19Speaker 00

  So if you're Putin, what you need to do is force the Europeans into war in Ukraine. Why? Because there's only really only one path to victory in this scenario. The path to victory is to cause instability and violence in Europe, okay? The idea is if you force Europe to mass mobilize, the people would rather overthrow the government than agree to take up arms against Russia. That's a theory, okay? But Russia has exactly one path to victory. And that is to cause as much instability and violence as possible within Europe.

• 1:28:02Speaker 00

  The best way to do that is by forcing the Europeans to mass mobilize their population. Okay, but for that to happen, what Russia needs to do first is declare total war. What total war means is the mass mobilization of your society. So what's important for us to appreciate is so far Russia has not declared war on Ukraine. It is a special military operation, which means that Russia is relying on volunteers to fight this war. In a time of total war, Russia could mobilize its adult population. And we estimate there are at least three million

• 1:28:46Speaker 00

  reservists in Russia, ready to be called up to arms. Mass mobilization in Russia would force mass mobilization in Europe. And this is how the war is most likely, will most likely turn out.

• 1:29:03Steven Bartlett?

  I mean, I guess the other thing that's, I mean, listen, Professor, there's a, it sounds like there's a lot of conflict on the way.

• 1:29:11Speaker 00

  There's an acceleration underway.

• 1:29:12Steven Bartlett?

  What would have to be true for us to sit here in 2036? And for there not to have been a conflict between China and Japan? For the Iran situation to have cooled off? The Ukraine war is either, you know, where it is now or it's regressed?

• 1:29:29Speaker 00

  The Clean Break Memo. This changed history.

• 1:29:32Steven Bartlett?

  So what are you saying specifically? What would have to be the case for none of these sort of catastrophic things to take place?

• 1:29:38Speaker 00

  Okay, in the year 1995, okay, this was published in 1996. Netanyahu came into power in Israel in 1996. In 1995, we lived in a world of neoliberalism, something called the Washington Census. And the idea is we have developed a new model of history. If people just traded with each other and consumers just bought goods, we would have peace forever. Okay, this is what we call neoliberalism, Washington Census. And Bill Clinton was the main proponent of this idea. And in order to achieve this vision for global peace,

• 1:30:24Speaker 00

  what he did was promote the Oslo Peace Process, which sought to create a two-state solution and bring peace in the Middle East, right? The two-state solution is the Palestinians and Israelis agreed to live side by side. And at that time, the main thinking was that once peace happened in the Middle East, once this two-state solution was created, then they would start to trade with each other. Israel and Palestine were brought into the GCC and they would be part of the global supply chain. And once prosperity comes to Israel and Palestine, they would have no need to ever hate each other again. This is called the Oslo Peace Process.

• 1:31:09Speaker 00

  Okay, and again, at that time, this was just how policymakers in Washington understood the world. Right, it worked in China, it worked in Japan, it worked in Germany. The Japan and Germany were these really militant nation-states, but then we allowed them to trade. We allowed their consumers to have air conditioning, SUVs. And now they're just really peaceful people. So why can't we do the same thing in Israel and Palestine?

• 1:31:35Steven Bartlett?

  So what is the Clean Break Theory, in a sentence?

• 1:31:39Speaker 00

  The Clean Break Theory is this. Netanyahu came into power and basically his argument is we can never, ever trust the Arabs not to hate us. We are Israelis. We have been promised this land by God. And the Arabs see us as enemies and whatever we do, they will always hate us. So screw peace, screw compromise. Let us become the regional hegemon because that is our manifest destiny. That is what God told us to do. That is what is written in the Bible and that's what we were born to do. Okay, and this is something called the Clean Break Memo.

• 1:32:24Speaker 00

  And the Clean Break Memo had three major pillars that have all been achieved today. Okay, the first pillar is stop the Oslo Peace Process. Do not give more land to Palestinians because the Palestinians are animals. And the way to treat animals is by beating the crap out of them. Okay, do not treat them nicely, they will,

• 1:32:50Speaker 00

  they will hate you.

• 1:32:51Steven Bartlett?

  So wait, are you saying that the way to stop all of the pessimism that we talked about happening is by the Clean Break Theory succeeding?

• 1:32:59Speaker 00

  No, no, no, no. What I said was 1995, there was already a theory in place called neoliberalism that offered a solution to the Israel-Palestine issue that has been plaguing the Middle East for the past few decades. And if they had followed that through, then we would live in a very different time.

• 1:33:17Steven Bartlett?

  Okay, so to my question, my question is, and what would have to be the case for this, all the things you've described, the wars and the conflict not to happen?

• 1:33:25Speaker 00

  Right, what would have happened is the United States had pressured Israel into seeking peace with the Arab nations.

• 1:33:33Steven Bartlett?

  Okay, so the US need to get Israel to be friends with the Arab nations?

• 1:33:39Speaker 00

  Yes, you force it because Israel simply depended on you for technology, for financing, for arms. Israel is the biggest recipient of American foreign policy aid.

• 1:33:54Steven Bartlett?

  So just for those that want to know what the Clean Break Theory is, it was, it's called A Clean Break, A New Strategy for Securing the Realm. It refers to a prominent 1996 policy documented and then prepared for Benjamin Netanyahu by a study group led by American neoconservative strategists. Did he read this memo?

• 1:34:15Speaker 00

  He commissioned it.

• 1:34:16Steven Bartlett?

  He commissioned it, okay. And the key objectives of the Clean Break are, as you said, the first one, abandoning land for peace, which advocated for moving away from the Oslo Accords framework, shifting to a posture of peace through strength and peace for peace without giving up any territory. Number two, regional dominance. It recommended transcending the Israel-Palestine conflict by focusing on weakening regional adversaries, specifically advocating for the containment or removal of hostile regimes in Iraq and Syria and dismantling the Iraq-Syria Hezbollah axis. And lastly, preemptive action. It urged Israel to abandon defensive containment policies in favor of proactive offensive strategies.

• 1:34:54Speaker 00

  And that's exactly what Israel is doing today. This is what Israel has done for the past 30 years. It has promoted regime change in Syria, in Iraq.

• 1:35:04Steven Bartlett?

  And so the conclusion here is to stop this sort of conflict escalating, they have to reverse course with this strategy.

• 1:35:11Speaker 00

  The US needs to contain Israel, yes.

• 1:35:14Steven Bartlett?

  Okay.

• 1:35:16Speaker 00

  But what I'm arguing is it's too late because you've already unleashed these structural forces that will collapse the global trade system, in which case it's every nation for itself. I mean, you've already created the conditions for Japan and China to go to war. You've already created conditions for Germany and Russia to go to war. It's no longer, you can't put the genie back in the bottle again.

• 1:35:42Steven Bartlett?

  What does this, you know, a lot of, most of us aren't involved in politics. So we just kind of watch this stuff and we have to sort of figure out what to do with our families and our lives in spite of this sort of craziness that we see in the news and the global conflict and all that stuff. What is the advice that you have for the average person?

• 1:35:59Speaker 00

  The best advice I can give to the average person is believe in God. So I am a product of the meritocracy. I received the best education in the world. And I feel the best education in the world makes you think the world is materialistic, God doesn't exist. And as a result, in my twenties and thirties and forties, I was a deeply angry, depressed, frustrated person. Because if God doesn't exist, there's no order and structure to what's going on. And it's just complete chaos.

• 1:36:42Speaker 00

  And there can be no hope or light in chaos. And because I married a wonderful woman, who I think is really an angel, because I have like three beautiful children, I do believe there's a plan and a structure and order and reason to the world. And I've come in the past two years, and it's only been recent, okay? It's only been the past two years when I have a true belief in God.

• 1:37:15Steven Bartlett?

  So it's all going to be okay?

• 1:37:17Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 1:37:18Steven Bartlett?

  Great.

• 1:37:19Speaker 00

  Yes, but you need to believe in God and you need to focus on your family. Then it will be all right.

• 1:37:30Steven Bartlett?

  So don't focus on protesting in the streets or elections or any of those things or?

• 1:37:37Speaker 00

  If you believe in God and you focus on your family, sometimes you're compelled to take action. Because I believe in God, I live a life following one simple principle, which is speak the truth. Why am I on your show? Why did I spend the past month

• 1:38:02Speaker 00

  going on so many different podcasts? Because it's important people know the truth. If you really believe in God, if you really focus on your family, you have a personal and more responsibility to speak the truth. If you know what's going to happen, then speak it. Why are you doing this? What good will it do? It doesn't matter. It's just like your faith in God compels you to live the truth and to speak the truth and to spread the truth. So just because you believe in God doesn't mean, okay, now I believe in God and now I can just sit back and hide in my room and play computer games all day. It doesn't mean that.

• 1:38:43Speaker 00

  It means if you truly believe in God and you believe there's a plan, then you have to take action. And you have to participate in the world because why else would God create you?

• 1:38:54Steven Bartlett?

  So why is God letting all of this stuff happen? When I look around the world, I see lots of wars and conflict. Russia, Ukraine, the Middle East, lots of other things breaking out at the moment. Why would God let this happen?

• 1:39:06Speaker 00

  What is the path to wisdom?

• 1:39:11Steven Bartlett?

  Struggle, pain, failure.

• 1:39:13Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:39:14Steven Bartlett?

  Couldn't we just have the wisdom without them?

• 1:39:17Speaker 00

  Or could you?

• 1:39:20Steven Bartlett?

  So we've got a lesson to learn.

• 1:39:22Speaker 00

  We have many lessons to learn. But if you are truly a spiritual person,

• 1:39:27Speaker 00

  you're thankful for this time because this struggle, this suffering allow us to transcend ourselves. Are we here to make a lot of money and drive fast cars? Are we here to learn what it means to be truly human? To learn what love is? To develop a deeper connection with God? I mean, I think we're here first and foremost to be truly human. And that means living a life of love, empathy and imagination. And so we go back to that formula where if you have too much wealth, you have too much fame,

• 1:40:08Speaker 00

  you have too much power, it's impossible for you to truly have imagination, empathy and love.

• 1:40:16Speaker 00

  So how do you correct this? Will you create a world of crises? Because in a world of crises, everyone, you and me, we're forced to look deep down and ask ourselves, what is truly important to me?

• 1:40:30Speaker 00

  What gives me happiness? What is meaning and purpose in my life? And I think the answer is it's my love for the people around me. And that's the answer that we'll all come to. And once we come to this answer, then I think that is the great spiritual awakening that could possibly redeem all humanity.

• 1:40:51Steven Bartlett?

  Professor, what's the most pertinent thing that's front of mind for you at the moment that we haven't talked about?

• 1:40:56Speaker 00

  Well, I mean, we did talk about the coming conflict between China and Japan, and I worry a lot about that.

• 1:41:02Steven Bartlett?

  What about AI? We didn't talk about that. And that's kind of overlaid on all of the stories we've talked about because it's to do with robotics, it's energy, it's semiconductors, chips, it's US-China.

• 1:41:13Speaker 00

  Yeah, so that's a great question. And so if we go back and talk about global supply chains, this formula is very important to understand. Technology equals specialization times globalization. So in a time when global supply chains are breaking down, in time of war,

• 1:41:31Speaker 00

  AI cannot make that leap into AGI. So what will happen is AI will be repurposed as a control grid rather than AI developing the intelligence necessary to reduce scarcity, to solve the most pressing medical problems of humanity, to solve climate change. AI will be repurposed to monitor and surveil all of us.

• 1:42:02Steven Bartlett?

  I think that's going to happen irrespective of, you know, I think governments are going to be increasingly interested in and capable of monitoring all of us all the time. Because we have cameras, we're here in New York City at the moment, there's cameras everywhere. They're just a little bit dumb. They don't really talk to each other.

• 1:42:18Speaker 00

  Yep.

• 1:42:19Steven Bartlett?

  With AI, they can all talk to each other.

• 1:42:21Speaker 00

  That's right.

• 1:42:21Steven Bartlett?

  Professor's walking down the street and he's off his way to this hotel and now he's in a hotel and.

• 1:42:25Speaker 00

  I agree that is the most likely trend. But what I'm saying is all these crises will accelerate this trend. Because let's just say you have a siege of New York City. Well, Palantir will use this opportunity to develop autonomous drone warfare that is controlled by AI.

• 1:42:45Steven Bartlett?

  So is that your big concern with AI, is surveillance?

• 1:42:48Speaker 00

  That's not the big risk I see. The big risk I see is how AI can cheapen

• 1:42:57Speaker 00

  the human experience, how AI is almost dehumanizing. Because what people like Elon Musk and Peter Thiel and Sam Altman are saying is computers are so much smarter than us. And it could be true that AI will eventually be able to do mathematics, do medical diagnostics much more efficiently than we are. But ultimately, we as humans, we're here to love, imagine and have, and be kind to other people. And that is what the human experience is. And if we focus too much on AI, that diverts and distracts us from our true mission, which is one of spiritual growth.

• 1:43:42Steven Bartlett?

  Our true mission is spiritual growth.

• 1:43:47Steven Bartlett?

  What do you, what gives you hope?

• 1:43:50Speaker 00

  Well, the only thing that gives me hope

• 1:43:55Speaker 00

  are my children. Right, you met Chris, but I'm here because of Chris. Honestly, if I didn't have children, first of all, I don't think I would be this successful because I wouldn't have much purpose and meaning in my life. But honestly, at the same time, I think that without children and I was suddenly this famous, I would become very corrupted very fast. I would just focus on the fame, I would try to make as much money as possible. Because without children, the only purpose in life is competition against others, right? To prove that I am materially more successful than other people. And so I would just try to make as much money as possible for myself in my 50 minutes of fame.

• 1:44:39Speaker 00

  But now that I have children, I'm much more concerned about building a legacy for them and setting a good example.

• 1:44:48Steven Bartlett?

  Are you worried about Chris's future?

• 1:44:50Speaker 00

  I'm not.

• 1:44:50Steven Bartlett?

  You know.

• 1:44:51Speaker 00

  I'm not at all worried about his future.

• 1:44:53Steven Bartlett?

  Why?

• 1:44:54Speaker 00

  Because my wife and I have loved him to the best of our ability. And the fact that we love him gives him the confidence to live his life to the fullest. We see every day Chris as a gift from God.

• 1:45:12Steven Bartlett?

  But if the world is collapsing, in your words, and Chris is in that world?

• 1:45:16Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:45:16Steven Bartlett?

  Are you not concerned?

• 1:45:18Speaker 00

  I'm not at all concerned.

• 1:45:20Speaker 00

  Because we are here in order to have a spiritual awakening. And all the crises, they will induce deep reflection in order for us to fulfill our purpose. I don't know why Chris is here. When Chris was two years old, he literally told us, Mom, Dad, I'm from another world. And he named that world. And I'm just an alien visiting you guys. And my wife and I, we weren't surprised, we're like, we knew this, yeah. We knew you were an alien, we knew you came from another world. And we knew that you came here to experience humanity for all our faults and all for, for all our problems.

• 1:46:04Speaker 00

  And we see you, we love you, but we will do whatever we can to empower you on your mission. And we're going to try our best because ultimately it's your life, it's your mission, and we cannot ever control you. Love is about trust. Love is about liberation, liberation from your own anxieties and liberation from the need to control others.

• 1:46:33Steven Bartlett?

  Professor, we have a closing tradition where the last guest leaves a question for the next, not knowing who they're leaving it for. The question left to you is what is your biggest challenge and how are you working on fixing it?

• 1:46:44Speaker 00

  My biggest challenge is my fear, my doubt, my paralysis. I went to the US border yesterday. And now I'm afraid that I will never be allowed back in the United States after I leave. I'm afraid that I might get banned from a lot of countries because all I do is talk trash about different countries. I've talked trash about China, I've talked trash about Canada, I've talked trash about the United States. If I get banned from all three countries, I'd be in a lot of trouble. And so my constant challenge is to maintain my faith in God, maintain my faith in my family, maintain my faith in my purpose.

• 1:47:30Steven Bartlett?

  I hope you're doing, you have a wonderful son. He's so, he's so

• 1:47:34Steven Bartlett?

  curious is the vibe that I got from him.

• 1:47:37Speaker 00

  He's a gift from God.

• 1:47:39Steven Bartlett?

  Very, very curious. I just met him in the green room then and he was like, he's playing with some Play-Doh, lots of toys and stuff like that. And I'm not surprised that he is your son from the 15 seconds I spent with him.

• 1:47:50Steven Bartlett?

  Because he's very, very curious and clearly going to be a very smart young man, so congratulations.

• 1:47:54Speaker 00

  Thank you.