Game Theory #5: The World Game

Today we examine the question, why is it that states, countries, nations rise and fall? Okay, so let's start off with an example that you know pretty well. So this is the Warring States period and at this point in history there are many powerful states. Okay. So for example, the Chu, the Zhao, the Wei. Okay. And if at this point in history, this is about 250 BCE, I asked you to figure out using game theory which state would unite China and become the first great empire of China. Well, there are certain metrics that you would use to figure out which state would win out.

Okay, so obviously you would look at, okay, who has the largest population? Okay, so the question of mass. The second question that you would look at is maybe resources, right? And resources, it's basically just farmland. So you would look at basically which areas had the most rivers. Okay? And so you would be like, okay, well this area looks very strategic, as is this area, as is this area. Okay? And then you would also look at maybe technology. So basically which state has the most scientists, which state has the most advanced literature, arts, and then with these metrics you could do some analysis and figure out that maybe Chu would come to conquer all of China at some point.

Okay. But at no point using any metrics would you assume that Qin would conquer China. And there are certain reasons why. First of all, it's in mountains, so it's pretty poor. Second of all, it's pretty far away from the rivers and trade routes. And third of all, it's pretty isolated. Okay, so you could not possibly imagine that the Qin dynasty would conquer China. But in fact, it is the Qin that would come and conquer all of China. And not only that, but if you look at most of human history, this pattern repeats itself.

If you look at it, the strongest nation does not come out on top. It's usually the weakest, most marginalized area that will eventually come and conquer the entire territory and create an empire. Okay. So clearly the way that we understand history is problematic. It's wrong. So what I want to do is propose to you a new way to understand how empires come into being. Okay? And this was actually first proposed by a Muslim scholar, historian, named Ibn Khaldun. Okay. And he proposed the idea of asabiyyah.

And all this word means is basically cohesion or group solidarity. His theory is that yes, the people in the margins, they're poorer, but because they're poorer, they're more unified. They focus more on solidarity, on working together. Whereas in the rich areas, they become too individualistic. They become too decadent, too corrupt. And ultimately that's why it's always these tribes from the margins that actually conquer the wealthy civilized areas. Okay? And this is a pattern that repeats itself throughout human history all the time. So it's almost like an iron law of history.

So what I want to do is show you that there are actually three metrics that you can use to measure how dynamic a society is and how likely it is to triumph in the end. Okay, these three metrics are energy, and cohesion. Okay, cohesion just follows the idea of asabiyyah, which is just to say, how likely is it that these people are willing to work together? Do they see themselves as a team? Are they willing to sacrifice themselves for each other? Are they a family? Okay, so that's the idea of Openness is a very important concept and openness just means, how willing are you to adapt?

How much are you willing to accept your and be resilient? Okay, so you can think of openness as humility, as resilience. Energy just means that you're willing to work hard, you're focused, you have a clear goal and you're motivated to achieve this goal. Okay, so these three metrics tell us how dynamic a society is going to be. And using these three metrics, we can now better understand why the Qin dynasty was able to conquer all of China. Okay, so the idea is that if you're rich, okay, you're rich, okay, what happens often is that you have low energy.

And what this means is that the elite don't want to work anymore. They'd rather just exploit the other people. Okay, the people. And because the people are being enslaved, they're too much in debt, they have low energy as well. For them, it's not really about building a great nation. It's not really about doing a great job. It's just about getting by. Okay? So, and then the idea of openness is that the elite become extremely corrupt. They become very insulated. They become very arrogant. And so they refuse to admit that they're wrong.

And as a result, society becomes stagnant. It doesn't really improve. And the idea of cohesion is that because of wealth inequality, because of corruption, people are much more individualized, people are much more atomized. Okay? And this allows for a new group to come in and conquer Okay? Does that make sense, guys? All right. So, I'm going to use, sorry, I'm going to use actually another example. Okay, an example is the Greek city-states. And remember the Greek city-states, it's really the height of human civilization. They gave us Homer, Plato, Fidities, Sophocles.

Okay, just basically the basis for all of Western civilization. Now what's interesting is that for most of their history, the Greek city-states, and these are basically small cities. Okay, there are thousands of them and on average they're about a thousand people each. There are some big city-states like Athens but even Athens is not that big. So at its height Athens had about 50,000 people. Okay, so these city-states like Athens, Thebes, Sparta, okay, these are the major ones and there are others, Corinth, Argos, they're always in competition with each other, very much like the Chinese Warring States as well.

And again, if we look at the year 500 BCE, you would think that maybe Athens or Sparta would emerge as the grand unifier of the Greek city-states. And in fact, what happened was that Athens did become an empire. But then the other Greek city-states started to attack Athens and Athens declined over time. Okay? And the advantage that Athens had over everyone else was just tremendous. First of all, Athens had the greatest navy. Okay, as you can see, the Aegean is primarily about who controls the seas.

So Athens was able to control the trade routes in the Aegean. Therefore, it's the wealthiest city-state. It has the greatest population, has the most innovation. It has the most strategic location. It has the most wealth. So, you would just assume that Athens would come to conquer all the Greek states. But in fact, it was the Macedonians, okay, who came in and conquered all the city-states. And at this time in history, you couldn't possibly imagine that because the Macedonians were poor. They were isolated. They were not at all cultured.

They were uncivilized. Okay. But again, they had energy, openness, and cohesion. And that allowed them to conquer the city-states. What's amazing is that even after this area was unified, okay, the Macedonians would then do the impossible and go over and conquer the great Persian Empire, the first great empire in human history. It was huge. It was Egypt, Anatolia, Mesopotamia, the Zagros Mountains, Persia. It was everywhere. And in a very quick amount of time, the Macedonians under the Great, they sailed across the Aegean, landed a small force, and then very quickly, in about 10 years' time, conquered the entire Persian Empire.

And at this point in history you would think that the new empire would be invincible, but then what happened a few decades later is the rise of the Romans. Who are the Romans? Well, at this time in history, we don't know who they are.

Rome is probably here somewhere. Okay. But as you can see, the entire Italian peninsula is being colonized by the Greeks. And then the Romans, who are, you know, these poor backward tribal people, eventually over time they will conquer the entire Italian peninsula and they're going to go to the Greek mainland and then go south to conquer Carthage as well and they will create the Roman Empire. Okay, so this is a pattern that repeats itself throughout human history. The empire becomes corrupt, lazy, arrogant. And this gives opportunity for a troubled people, whether it's the Macedonians, whether it's the Qin, whether it's the Romans, to come and conquer all of them.

Okay. But now the question then is, okay, if that's true, let's look at more examples, okay, of this. Let's look at the Aztecs. And the Aztecs are an even more stark example. So this is about the 16th century, 15th century. Okay, as you can see the Mexican peninsula, it is divided into different warring city-states. Okay, very similar situation to the Greek city-states and the Chinese city-states. Then what happens is the Aztecs are going to come in from the north. Okay. And the Aztecs are a poor tribe that's starving.

Okay. So, they're basically from North America. They come in because they're looking for food and they're a warrior people. So, they're hired by other city-states to fight for them. Eventually, they become too powerful. So, they become isolated onto a marsh. Okay? And this marsh, it's poor. And everyone just assumed that they would starve to death in this marsh. What's amazing is that as a people they became very creative and they turned this marsh into farmland and over time they slowly came to conquer everyone. Okay. And they established the Aztec Empire which rules over millions and millions.

And then what happens, which is one of the greatest mysteries in human history, is you have another group of people called the conquistadors from Spain and there's only about 500 of them, okay, arriving about the year 1519. They come in and in a very short amount of time they conquer the entire Aztec Empire and Spain comes to rule basically all of South and Latin America. Okay. So even though yes we have a formula in place, whichever group has the most energy, whichever group is the most open, the most cohesive, will conquer the other groups, it still doesn't explain to us how this happened, how this guy Cortés with 500 conquistadors was able to come in and conquer a land of millions and millions.

Okay. Now, there are historical explanations including of course disease. People from Spain had diseases and the Aztecs did not have the immune system to counter these diseases. Another explanation is the Aztecs believed that these conquistadors were gods and that's why they surrendered very quickly. Another explanation is that the conquistadors had allies, local allies that were pissed off at the Aztecs. But again, these explanations sound okay. They sound like they work, but they don't actually give us the full picture of what really happened. And in game theory, what we're really trying to figure out is what happened exactly.

Okay, it's a game. How are the players playing the game? What are their motivations? What are their incentives? Okay, does it make sense? Okay, that's what we're trying to figure out, what actually happened in this instance.

I want to look at one more example before we look into the theory of game theory. Okay, this is one of the early civilizations in human history. Okay, in fact it's considered the first great civilization of human history. It is the Sumerians. And what happened was, you look at a world map. Okay, this is a world map, right? Mesopotamia is the center of the world because if you want to access the rest of the world, you have to go through Mesopotamia. And if you look at Mesopotamia, the center of Mesopotamia is a place called Uruk.

Okay, sorry. Uruk, okay, which is here. Okay, as you can see, Uruk is the meeting place of the Euphrates and the Tigris. And if you look at this, Uruk allows you to access the Persian Gulf, which gives you access to India, okay? Or we call it the IVC, the Indus Valley civilization. And then traders are able to take the goods and cross to Egypt, okay? And then you're able to go north to Anatolia. So why did Uruk become the first great world city?

Because it was a center of all global trade. So different people came together in the city in order to establish a trading post. Okay. And over time it grew and it grew and grew because it was very wealthy. Okay. And over time it colonized elsewhere. Okay. So it set up colonies in other places. And then eventually these different city-states came into conflict with each other, which is the same process as what happened with the Chinese Warring States as well as the Greek city-states. And you would assume that one of these city-states would conquer the rest.

But in fact again it was these tribal mercenaries from an isolated region, called the Akkadians, the Akkadians who would come and conquer everyone else. Okay. And the Okay. And after they built the first empire, okay, then what happened is that other people came over and conquered them as well. And then you had people from the Zagros Mountains, the Persians basically, come in and unify the entire area and create the Persian Empire. All right. So this is a pattern that emerges throughout human history. It's a pretty consistent pattern. Okay, we have theories as to why this is happening.

Yes, we do know that groups that are energetic, open, and cohesive will triumph over other groups. But the idea of game theory is to figure out exactly what happened. Okay. So, let's go over exactly what happened. And I will show you that what's happening is that as nations rise and fall, the games they play change. Okay? Does that make sense? The game changes and therefore their motivations, their incentives, their strategies change over time. All right. Okay. So, are we clear about the history here? All right. Okay.

So, in the beginning, okay, game theory Okay. Rise. In the beginning, you as a people need to come together and build a land in which you can all prosper or at least have food to eat. Okay? Therefore the game is cooperation and the mechanism cooperation actually So in this first game, okay, what you're trying to do is create a dynamic religion that motivates people to be energetic, to give them a reason to work really hard. Okay. And the people who are best able to articulate this religion become the elite.

Okay. And this includes poets and priests. All right, poets and priests. And at this point in history, it's basically a startup. Okay, everyone's enthusiastic. Everyone's working hard. Everyone feels as though they're making a positive contribution to the world. But over time, what happens is that the elite, okay, hereditary. The game becomes, how do I, the elite, pass on my privileges to my children? Okay. And the way they do that is by changing the religion. Okay. The religion now becomes almost like a bureaucracy.

So in the first game, the religion is about energy. It's about creativity. It's about working together. Okay. But then in the second iteration, the religion becomes like a bureaucracy, which is like, you must follow the rules of the game. Okay. The rules of the game are set. There's a hierarchy and you must obey this hierarchy. Okay. Now then what happens is a process called elite overproduction.

Okay, the idea of elite overproduction is that yes, these privileges are being passed on to the children, but now over time there are too many children. And so what happens is that society breaks up into different factions. Okay? And usually what happens is that these factions are divided according to the princes. Okay? So if there are four princes, okay, who are about to inherit the throne, there are four different factions that support That does not mean the prince is the leader of the faction. It just means that the prince is the symbol of a faction.

Okay. All right. And at this time in history, the way that they reduce the conflict is the losing factions, what they do is they move away. Okay? They're exiled. Okay? And then they have to set up a new colony. And this is a process that continues where the losers of the game are forced into exile until there's no more place to colonize. Okay? And now you have the Warring States period. Okay? The Warring States period. And in fact, what's interesting is that the Warring States period is a time of maximum creativity for a civilization.

Why? Is the idea of open cooperative Okay. So, back to the Qin, back to the Sumerians, there are different colonies, okay? And they're all competing against each other. And so, you need to be open and innovative if you're to triumph, okay? At the same time, they're trading with each other. So they're sharing best practices. They're sharing innovations with each other. Okay? So this leads to the idea of open competition, which again marks the height of the civilization. So guess what, guys, China's been around for 5,000 years, but most of the inventions happened when?

It happened during the Warring States period. 100 years when we had Confucius, mons la, it's basically everyone. Okay. All right. And if you just look at other civilizations, it's the same for other civilizations as well, where if you look at the Greeks during the classical period, they basically created everything that becomes the foundation for Western civilization. Okay, does that make sense? All right. Now what's interesting is what happens next. Eventually what happens is these city-states figure out that, you know what, yes, the game is we compete against each other, but we can also choose to work together.

Okay. How do you work together? By intermarriage. Okay. And the idea of intermarriage creates the idea of equilibrium. And at this point in history warfare becomes organized. Okay. So remember, before, warfare was about innovation, but now when these elites from different city-states intermarry with each other, okay, they have a new equilibrium. So they are above the state now. Okay. Does it make sense, guys? All right. So now when they fight, it's not really about fighting each other. It's about reducing their population to maintain Okay? It's a way to resolve the elite overproduction issue.

We have too many people struggling for too many status positions. And the way you do that is through population control. Okay? So warfare becomes a mechanism of All right? So even though these city-states are still in theory competing against each other, they essentially now have reached an equilibrium, and equilibrium is basically they have All right. So now the game changes. Before, during the Warring States period, it was a game to see which state would be the best, the most innovative, and that's why you invite people who could contribute the most to your city-state.

Okay, that's why you had a meritocracy. You only promoted the best and the brightest. Once you reach an equilibrium, you don't have to do that. Okay, all you have to do is just maintain the status quo. And so what happens is you create this rigid hierarchy, and what matters is who reaches the top office. And as a result, you create court politics, right? Court or factional struggle, factions. Okay? Does it make sense, guys? All right. So if you look at any court, the faction that triumphs is the one that's able to solve three problems.

Okay, three problems. These three problems are and coordination. In theory, everyone has to obey the bureaucracy, right? But if you just play by the rules of the game, you're going to lose. So, what you want to do is cheat in the game. The way But if you want to cheat in the game, you have to do so secretly. Okay? You have to do it secretly. But if you do so secretly, that creates a problem of, how do you trust each other? If you're doing it all in secret, the problem is, how do you coordinate?

How do you move together, right? Because you can't have meetings where you take notes, because if you're discovered, you'll all be executed by the other factions. Okay? So, historically, the way we resolve this issue is through the idea of secret Okay. So, let's figure out how secret societies work. And this is true for China. This is true for the Greeks. This is true for the Aztecs. This is true for everyone. Okay. But there are certain aspects of secret societies. Okay. The first is the idea of secrecy. Okay. How do you do that?

Well, you do that through the idea of a hierarchy. Okay. Hierarchy or compartmentalization. And so there are different so within single societies there's a hierarchy as well, where only a few people at the very top know what's going on, and if you want to join you are initiated but you are put at the bottom, okay, and slowly you climb the ladder, okay, and this is to maintain secrecy. Trust. How do you get people to trust each other? Well, you get people to trust each other through the idea of so if we cheat on attached together we are much more likely to trust each other.

It makes sense, because if you're caught you all get punished. Okay. So by breaking the law together we can trust each other. Okay. And the most basic type of transgression is the idea of ritual Okay. And the idea of ritual sacrifice is you basically decide to go kill someone together. Okay. You capture that person, then for some ritual you then kill that person. Okay, does that make sense? And then to solve the problem of coordination you have the idea of eschatology, which is just mythology. All right, like why are you guys doing what you're doing?

Okay. And the answer often is, because we're trying to serve a higher god that wants to conquer the world, and we are his servants in this quest to conquer the world and end the world to make it a paradise. Okay. So different societies have different eschatologies but the system is the Okay. Does that make sense? Okay. And what happens is, and this is really important, guys, every faction has to form their own secret society. And now the game of empire becomes one of a struggle between different secret societies. Does it make sense?

Meaning what? Meaning you don't care what happens to the empire. You don't care about the enemies of the empire. All you care about is that your team emerges on top of the game. Okay? And so what does that mean? It means that you become Okay. You become insular. You also become corrupt.

Okay. Because you need resources to play this game. So what you do is you steal from the people. Okay? It's all about trying to steal as much as you can in order to feed your faction. You become insular. You become corrupt. Okay. And then divided. Okay. Do you understand? This is what happens because of different factions within the empire or the equilibrium. They become insular, they become corrupt and they become divided. Okay. Which is why they ultimately lose to these struggling factions, because the opposite of insular of course is open.

The opposite of corrupt is energetic and the opposite of divided is of course cohesive, cohesion. Okay. Now we understand why ultimately the borderlands, the tribes in the borderlands, are able to conquer the empire or the equilibrium. Okay, does that make sense, guys? All right, but there's actually more to this. Okay, and so what happens is that you have the different factions, okay? Societies fighting against each other. And again, from their perspective, all they care about is winning against the other factions. So what do they do? What they do is they other foreigners to come help them.

Hey, do you understand? Okay. So, these are what are called All right. And these mercenaries come into them and their leadership is absorbed into the societies through eschatology, through transgression, through hierarchy. Okay. All right. So this is what happens. These mercenaries are actually invited in. Okay. And there's always contact. Okay. Kind of through trade. Okay, does that make sense? Because these people in the regions are so poor they'll do anything to survive. So they'll trade with you but they also steal from you and they also come and fight for you.

Okay. What's important is that through trade they're becoming Through benetry they're becoming wealthier as well. And by working as your mercenaries they are learning your best technology, your best fighting skills, your best weapons. Okay. Right. And then what happens is that the mercenaries eventually take over. Okay. At first they merge, but then the mercenaries just kill everyone and then take over. And that's what happens. That's why the Qin were able to conquer the Warring States. Okay? They don't teach you this in history class, but according to game theory, what happened was that different factions of these different states actually invited the Qin, who basically conquered them one by one by one.

Does that make sense? Same thing with the Macedonians, right? The Macedonians came in and helped one city-state. Then they conquered that city-state and moved on to the next. Okay. But it was always a certain part of that city-state, a certain faction of that city-state, which invited the Macedonians in the first place. Does that make sense? And this is a pattern that repeats itself throughout human history. Okay? So if you want to know what's going to happen today, what's going to happen tomorrow, just figure out which areas of the world are the most energetic, most open, and most cohesive, and then figure out which empires are the most corrupt, most insular, and the most divided.

Okay? And then you'll figure out who will conquer who. All Does that make sense, guys? All right? So, I'm going to give you two more examples to better illustrate how this works. All right? So when I was in high school in Canada, we played a game called the World Game.

And in this game, it's very simple. Okay, you're put into a team of maybe four or five players. Okay. And then each team is assigned a country, like maybe USA, India, Pakistan, Japan, and then each team is given an envelope. Okay. And then within this envelope you're given certain resources. Okay. So basically, you know, paper, ruler. Okay. And then there's an organization called the World Bank. And what you're trying to do is become the wealthiest country in the world. The way you do that is you take your resources and you turn them into commodities that the World Bank buys from you.

Okay? Okay, so maybe triangles and circles and squares. Okay, but to create these commodities, you need resources, right? You need scissors, you need rulers, you need paper, you need glue, okay, but different countries will have different resources. So the United States has everything. Okay. And Pakistan is interesting because Pakistan usually gets nothing. Okay. There are no resources. But you're allowed to trade with each other, right? Okay. You're allowed to trade with each other. Okay. So, even though you have nothing, you can go to the United States and beg and say, "Oh, can I please borrow your ruler for today?" Okay.

You go to Britain and say, "Hey, can I borrow your paper for today?" Okay? Or, "Hey, I'll come work for you for free." Right? You can trade. And so you play this for one day and it's really interesting what happens. Okay, usually, what happens, I'm not saying all the time, but I've seen this happen a lot. At the end of the day you look at who are the wealthiest countries in the world. What happens is, well, the United States becomes number one. Okay. Why? Because the United States just has everything in the world.

It is the wealthiest country in the world. It has too many resources. Okay. But number two is interesting. You would think it would be Japan or Britain, but it's actually Pakistan, okay? The country that starts out with nothing at all. Why? Because they're forced to be the most energetic, the most open, and the most cohesive. Team members have to go and beg to work for free. Okay? Other team members go and lie and cheat and steal. Okay? They're forced to be resourceful and creative.

Okay? The World Game. And that's how the world works, guys. Just because you have the most resources, just because you have the most people does not mean you'll win the game at the end. What matters is how energetic your people are, how open they are, how resourceful they are. That's what matters. Okay? And often they are open, energetic, and cohesive because they're All right? It's that simple. Pakistan has nothing. So they're forced to be creative. Poverty leads to Another thing is that if I were to surmise the future, I would say right now in East Asia, I would think that North Korea has a better future than Okay?

Just based on history. And it would be like, that's impossible. North Korea can't feed its own people. Well, I understand that. But if you know game theory, okay, and you understand the principles that we've learned today, then you're forced to conclude that in East Asia, North Korea has a better future than China, because ultimately it's about how open, energetic, and cohesive the people are as opposed to how rich and powerful you are. Okay, does that make sense? I will also point out another example. Okay. So before teaching in high school, I was teaching teachers how to teach STEM.

Okay. STEM. And I usually ran two-day workshops. And what I would do is I'd go into a school and I'd divide the faculty, the teachers, into teams, okay? Teams of like four or five. There'd be like 10 teams. Okay? There'd be a lot of teachers. And the way I teach is I would give them an assignment and I would give them resources and it would be a competition. Okay, so for example, let's look at which team can build the fastest car. Okay, toy car. Let's look at which team can build the best airplane.

Let's look at which team can build a catapult. Okay, so I would give them some resources. I'd give them the assignment and then they would work on it a whole day. Okay. Now, what's interesting is at the end of the first day, I would rank the teams. Okay. And then number two, and then day two, we would start the competition again with a new assignment.

On day two, which team would finish first? Do you guys know? So after day one all 10 teams are ranked according to their success. Okay. So team one has the best, team 10 has the worst. What happened the second day? Can you guys guess?

You can't find any work because people find you too arrogant. You refuse to learn. You want to be the boss. You want people to just listen to you. Okay. But if you're the worst student in a school, you're used to being laughed at. You're used to constantly adapting. Okay? So when you go into the workplace, you are much more likely to learn. You're much more likely to focus on relationships. Okay? So in China, there's a joke, right? In school, there are two people that everyone hates. Okay? The best student and the worst student.

Why do you hate the best student? Because the best student is going to graduate and come back as your principal one day. Why do you hate the worst student? Because he's going to graduate and come back and give you a lecture on how to become Okay? That's why in China, everyone hates the best student and the worst student. And these are two students who will probably be the most successful. Okay? Especially the worst student, because the worst student, regardless of all his problems, is open-minded. He's willing to work hard and he's willing to help build teams and make sacrifices so that others become his friends.

Okay. Right. Yeah, we have a question. So for example, in this case, in day two the team 10 becomes the first one and the first team becomes the last, but will the previously first team be forced to be open and to be energetic and then be number one again on the third day? That is a great question. Thank you for asking it. Okay, so in my experience this is what happens. Okay. What happens if we keep on going, right? What happens in day three, day four?

Okay, this is what happens. Team one really screws up on day two, right? They finish first in day one. Day two, they screw up. Day three and day four, they continue to screw up. Why? Because they don't know what they did wrong and they refuse to reflect. Do you understand? Okay. So, we see this in history, where an empire, once it rises, it falls. It never comes back. It never comes back. Do you understand? It never rises up again. Now, it's possible that new people come in and use the name of the empire, okay?

But it's not the same people anymore. It's a different team. So, that's the danger of being number one. Once you're number one, you become so arrogant that it's impossible for you to be humble again.

Team two, they go down. Okay. So it's very unlikely that you have a system where, okay, team one, they fall but then they reflect and become number one again. Okay. It doesn't work that way. When societies fall they just die off. Okay. It's possible a new group comes and pretends to be them but they're actually a different people. And that's just the way that humans work. Okay. Does that make sense? Yes.

So on the third day, team 10 will become the second last group because they fall and group nine will be the first one. Is that the cycle that will go on?

Okay, Germany. Why? Because they lost World War I and lost World War II. Does that make sense, guys? They were never an empire. They were never a world empire. So, Germany, according to this theory, will one day come to rule the world or at least Europe and Asia. Okay? And if you actually look at their history, what happened in World War I, World War II, they lost millions of people. Okay? So, Germany will one day be a great empire. I'm pretty sure of it actually. And then there's another country that would be a great empire and that is Japan, because Japan lost World War II.

They were never a great empire. So Japan should come to dominate East Asia according to this theory. Remember the Americans dropped two nukes on Japan, right? And also look at World War II, the Americans destroyed Japan with firebombing. The Americans killed more with firebombing than they did with the nukes. Okay? But Japan was destroyed. It was humiliated. And now you go to Japan, you can see how energetic people are, right? You can see how open they are. And you can see how cohesive they are. You understand? Because Japan was destroyed in World War II.

It's something that forced them to reflect as a people and now they want vengeance basically. All right. And the last country of course is Israel, right? Because Israel, the people in Israel believe that for thousands of years they were persecuted by other people. Okay. So these are three great empires that we will move towards in our history. Germany, Japan and Israel. Okay. Does that make sense?

Okay, that's all I'm saying. And maybe even the North Koreans are. All right, does that make sense, guys? And again, it's all just a theory. All right, I'm just proposing to you a theory of how to understand the world, but what's actually going to happen, I can't actually tell you, right? But according to this theory, Germany and Japan and Israel will be the three great Any more questions, guys?

But I think eventually All right.

They're fighting for power. Who becomes the game master. The problem with Japan and Germany is yes they became very wealthy, but the game master was America. And ultimately America decided that their money belongs to me. Okay. So an example of this is something called the Plaza Accord. Okay. Plaza Accord.

Basically the Plaza Accord just meant that Japan was becoming too wealthy. America got very annoyed. So America said to Japan, I want you to destroy your economy. And Japan's like, how? America says, I want you to spend too much money. I want your people to stop saving money and start spending money. Go overseas and buy whatever crap you want. Okay? Do you understand? So in theory it seemed as though Japan got rich, but Japan got rich and it never had any power. It could not be a sovereign nation.

Okay. Power means that you're able to impose your will on other people. Same with Germany, where yes Germany became very wealthy but all that money went where? It went to America, right? Same with Japan. Japan, all that money went to America. How? Because they were forced to buy US treasuries. Okay. And then America could do stuff to you. For example, America could force Japan to sign the Plaza Accord and force Japan to destroy its own economy. And America could also destroy Germany's pipeline, Nord Stream. And there's nothing Germany can do about it.

Okay? In fact, the German economy has been destroyed right now because Germany is a vassal state to America. So when Russia invaded Ukraine, America just basically said to Germany, you can no longer do business deals with Russia. But before, Germany required Russian oil and energy to fuel its economy. Okay. America also said to Germany, you can no longer trade with China. But before, most German car exports were going to China, right?

Okay? So it's usually a great leader. But leader doesn't necessarily mean a general. It could also mean a poet, right? So someone like Homer, or a great thinker to give you a new religion. Okay? So for example, there was someone called Zorah, who we studied last semester. Okay? Even Jesus. Okay? But it's someone to come in to say that we are a people, and it could be a poet, it could be a general, it could be a prophet, a priest, doesn't matter. Okay. But that one person then unifies the imagination of everyone into one cohesive group.

But because you have all these schools, all these NGOs, all these organizations in Africa, what they're really doing is ensuring that Africa is in a continuous state of development. Okay? If you just left them alone, they might starve. But at the same time, a great leader might emerge to unite all of them. You understand? Okay. But we'll talk about this next class. How the American Empire controls the world.