Elon Musk versus Communism

hello

yo hello can you hear me yeah good news

okay great thanks uh so yeah thanks for

uh

accepting the debate uh so basically

uh you know just ran across some of your

videos and i like you know some of the

analysis that you've done in china but i

think you're just missing a few key

points so just sort of wanted to debate

that um yeah

okay

so i i i've watched some of your videos

and a lot of your debates seem to be

sort of disor like unorganized so i kind

of got three points that i sort of

wanted to touch on so i i kind of want

to summarize that and then maybe we

could go through each of them

sure all right so

one i have so i say china is flourishing

uh because i think china is a

technocracy and not necessarily because

they're marxist leninists um that's my

first point

uh two

would be that i think america can sort

of adopt this

technocratic approach more and sort of

uh do better than you know where america

you know currently stands uh and then

three

uh why i don't think chinese polarity is

good sort of it's going to encompass the

first two points

so yeah those are my three points so i

guess do you want to get started with

one my my first point on

why i think china is flourishing and

it's because it's it's a technocracy so

i think

i think china really uses their

technology as well of course their their

central government has a lot of control

over

uh you know all of their businesses and

all of their tech businesses

specifically and i think they're able to

sort of gather that data

with no restraint like maybe in the us

and really able to use that information

to sort of control and you know control

their population and so i think that's

sort of one of the reasons why they're

more efficient and i don't i don't

necessarily think that you know even if

they weren't marxist leninists i think

they could stood you know they would you

would still see growth similar to to

what we've seen

so the first question i have to ask is

are there examples of tech technocracies

in history that are not marxist leninist

uh i would say

no not really uh i i i could kind of see

south korea and maybe

you know not not a strong not the

strongest example i i would say to be

honest china is the strongest example of

a technocracy um

but i don't necessarily again i don't

necessarily think that being marxist

leninist like i i could see america

being a technocracy in its own way or

like other developed countries it

doesn't necessarily have to be just

marxist-leninist countries so can you

please uh what do you mean by a

technocracy what does that mean oh and

someone someone in the chats of

singapore that's not a terrible example

but don't worry about chat but what what

what to you is an example of a

technocracy

yeah basically so the elite the ruling

class basically

being you know cultivated based on

technical skills and and engineering

skills rather than you know some sort of

other uh criteria like you know

political affiliation or whatnot so just

really you know like engineers and

technical people really moving up the

the latter into the ruling class

okay um

and

so why is it that you think in china

specifically as opposed to the rest of

the world

there is a cultivation of um engineers

as opposed to like political ideologists

or lawyers as in the case of the us

that climb the ladders

yeah so i um i don't necessarily think

that china explicitly went out to do

this i think it's uh i guess in a way

they did there there's a book out there

uh i can't recall uh oh um yeah there's

a book out there that i recently read

that sort of touches on china and it's

it being a technocracy uh but basically

the book

summer you know the summary of the book

basically is that there there's there is

some confucius uh

philosophy that sort of

uh you know sort of states that it that

it likes to uh you know that the the

ruling class basically should be based

on you know skill and and you know

technical you know just skill and just

intelligence in general right so i think

sort of some other confusion and other

you know more uh religious uh

you know philosophies have sort of

naturally you know combined with you

know their marxist leninist views and

sort of sort of it happens to be that

you know they it sort of happened to be

like the perfect storm uh but i don't

again i don't necessarily think them

being marxist leninist exclusively is

the reason why that you know that

they've sort of adopted this

technocratic uh approach um you know

like i said i think the u.s is an

example south korea other examples

singapore japan i think those countries

can also

be you know would take a more of a

technocratic approach as well

right but those countries are not um

what i would call

um

i'm inventing this word multi they don't

have an ability to deal with the

multi-cyclical

um

booms and busts of their economy when

they have long-term trends of decline

and stagnation

they don't have the ability as in the

case of china to reinvigorate their

economy and offset these kind of falling

rates of profit so it seems to me that

in the case of south korea and japan and

those countries

when there is an economic miracle it's a

once it lasts temporarily and then when

there's a decline the decline seems to

be long-term

right yeah but i think it's because

the financial

institutions are really what controls

like more the liberal countries right

but uh you know we've never had a real

society uh well again again maybe except

china where the technocrats uh or the

engineer types are the ones that are

actually engineering the the economy

it's the financial class that does that

in liberal countries but my argument

would be that if there was more engineer

types they would kind of foresee the

debt cycles and address them accordingly

right but you know what the problem with

um having a so-called technocracy is

is that

there is a great deal of politics and

legitimacy and statehood that is

non-technical that's based in something

kind of spiritual right it's the

connection between the people and the

state

and it's also the overall intentions of

the state in the first place what does

the state actually want to do

um

in a non-technical sense like here

there's you can't explain

this technically because the intention

is human like is your goal to maximize

the welfare of your people and and

advance your economy

well then how do you go about giving

purpose and meaning and explanation to

that in a non-technical sense

so while china

is ruled by engineers in terms of the

people who are carrying out the policies

the ones who are actually responsible

for the overall orientations in the

chinese economy

are

um ideologists right spiritual

ideologists who draw from this kind of

populist legitimacy from the chinese

people so

there's a balance in china between the

kind of technocratic engineers who are

just you know getting things done and

making sure it works

and on the other hand the kind of more

spiritual or even moral

guidance provided by the party

leadership

and yeah i mean without the party

without the party leadership i would

argue that china china's um

technocracy if you're gonna call it that

would not work

uh well i i know you're explaining how

china is but i i sort of i sort of think

that that ideology portion is sort of

limiting them to be honest i think if

they went full technocratic

and sort of you know obviously this is

not going to happen because they are

marxist leninist i guess ideologically

but uh if they somehow was you know were

able to get rid of it um i think they

would grow even more you know so

in what ways is the ideology

impeding china's development

well i think political ideologies in

general impede uh you know the the more

science of you know the more science

what are specific examples in china

i mean you know if at the expense you

know if the chinese people saw that

uh you know tech companies for example

were sort of uh violating the the you

know the rule you know violating some

sort of human rights with its people

they might step in and sort of uh stop

any sort of progress that goes on you

know whatever example that is you

probably have seen examples of that like

let's say like limiting video gaming or

something uh for a certain you know age

range like that that could technically

hurt and not that you know this is not

the greatest example but you know

something like that would technically

interfere with you know the the

the revenues of these tech companies and

if it was uh you know if that example

was sort of uh

you know

another you know it's not the greatest

example but that's an example of one

where you know the chinese government

saw that as like a

negative

to the people and so they sort of

stopped it

so

um

if

well to me that's the paradox of of

technocracy right because technocracy

cannot account for the purpose of

the rule of the technical engineers for

what

see a technic a technique right i don't

want to get too much into like derailing

but

technique is based on what it's based on

technique the word technology comes from

the greek techne right which means to be

able to

reproduce or replicate some kind of form

right

so

this is something that is subordinate

though to

the logos right which is the overall

purpose and the overall reason

for

um the technique right

that gives it actual

purpose

so

i cannot see how a technocracy can

ground its own rationality for what

reason are we um

uh

engaging in this technology what is the

reason for it

well i guess the purpose would just be

to to run the economy or run the country

as efficiently as possible um i guess

that would be the end goal and that's

what does efficiency mean exactly

so just you know profitability uh for

the country overall country you know i

guess some countries most countries

measured in gdp you know there's

obviously other metrics like purchasing

power and whatnot for its citizens but

basically the country initially

extracting as much

you know resources as possible

okay i can give you an example though of

how that might um be a problem for

the country and actually that it's

paradoxical it's actually the same

reason why capitalism has internal

contradictions

so

there are periods of chinese policy

making where they have to implement

policies that actually harm

profitability right that put the country

in debt to build infrastructure and so

on

and meanwhile the accumulation of super

profits

um

profitability itself does not address

the actual human needs and human wants

and longings of the population

uh itself

if profitability is going to be measured

formally right if we measure profit for

example in terms of money

or in terms of some kind of numbers

then this will actually

inevitably come into contradiction with

the actual profitability of wealth in

general of actually producing things

so sometimes in order to have more

things this has to come at the expense

of the way in which you measure

wealth right to have more wealth you

often have to implement policies that

come at the expense

of profitability uh in in the symbols of

wealth which is money

yeah i mean that's something that

chinese government is well aware of yeah

i mean that is true but for example like

you know tech companies in the us for

example they build infrastructure right

you can make an argument that they

probably could build infrastructure

right now better than the us government

could

so i don't necessarily think that uh you

know infrastructure wouldn't be built um

if engineers ran the country i think

they would see that as you mentioned you

know they would see that there would

need to be strong infrastructure right

but the problem is that private

companies will not take on the immense

risks of accumulating so much debt

like the government will yeah well of

course this is hypothetically if if

those engineers were running the country

not not as it currently stands in the

u.s or the west in general but if yeah

if the engineers were running the

country i guess they would be able to

use the state's you know capital to to

go into debt like

country you know govern like businesses

already go into debt for things but you

see what the problem was that i

described before which is that if we

have a technocracy right

then

the

the goal is to very impartially without

any sentiment or whatever as you put it

any political ideology impeding it or

any any human rights

the goal is merely to increase

efficiency right to maximize the overall

wealthy economy and then what do people

decide to do with that wealth who cares

right we're at least getting things done

right

the problem though is that

if it is truly technic if it's

technocrats who are responsible for this

increase in efficiency as technologists

their only manner by which they're going

to be able to measure efficiency is

through somehow formally right for

example through numbers

um like gdp and and so on and so on

when and this can um inevitably

become something

removed

from the actual production of wealth

and i don't see how

and i don't see how a technocracy can

solve this problem only if you have a

more overarching goal of increasing the

welfare of the people

which is very much not something that

can be easily formally defined right i

mean what does it mean to increase the

wealth for the p well it means to

uh look out for their well-being it

means to also increase their wealth and

overall human flourishing but that also

means you know

um isn't that implicit in every country

anyway

i don't think so no

okay well i i think it is i think every

person would want what you just

described and i think everyone sort of

believes that maybe the way they go

about it right but um

the problem is that in the

informal democracies right

the way in which that that is

implemented is through like for example

the formal electoral process and that's

how people give expression to what they

want

and then the politicians that they elect

will in turn do the things that the

people want and everything's fine but we

we're confronted with this paradox

that

the people that they're voting for

are not in fact doing what they want

and people are dissatisfied things are

not getting done and the stated

intention of a society that increases

liberty and prosperity or for all or

whatever right uh is not

being realized right so

yeah i think part of that though is just

an efficient way of governing and like

even tallying votes right like we're not

we don't even

like it's not even electronic in a lot

of sense like a lot of it is still

handwritten and it's just not effective

i think you could have a a vote the way

we sort of do with representative

democracy and still be more effective

and just take like surveys and and votes

directly electronically

i don't think that's possible because

when it comes to a more fundamental

question of sovereignty

that is not something that people can

vote for and in this sense people do not

know what they really want right when it

comes to the overall sovereign

yeah so someone would obviously be

giving them choices right to choose from

it's not going to be just a blank slate

of hate right but the issue with western

democracies is that these elections

tend to be like existential choices

about

the overall nature and character of the

state especially in the united states

today like for example in an election

between trump and biden

um

so it's this whole sovereignty of the

state the whole purpose of the state's

existence is being imperiled

through some kind of formal mechanism

that is itself

conditioned by the state so this leads

to all manner of paradoxes trump quality

election illegitimately

yeah i see what you mean but in my

example in my technocracy example i

wouldn't trump and biden obviously

wouldn't even be

uh up for up

up for an option right because they're

not technical in any way they're not

really so where where will you draw

the source of your um

popular legitimacy

i mean i don't necessarily think it has

to be democratic uh no

in terms of like who or maybe i'm

misspoken or not understanding but

well

how are you going to

have a government that the people are

not going to be

so dissatisfied with that they're going

to take up arms and and consider you

illegitimate as a government

yeah i mean in in this current state

we're obviou the the

you know governments already exist so

obviously we're not starting from a

clean slate so i think in the us for

example there could be ways to to do

that you know if there was someone

someone that's more technical like i

don't know like a popular tech ceo like

elon musk or something or you know any

sort of jeff bezos or any like jeff

bezos maybe isn't popular to the average

american but elon musk is a good example

because he is popular to americans uh if

he ran for president i think he would

win easily uh and and so even if he's

not you know if even if he's not the

most technical person you know that

that's sort of the image that he's

marketed himself as so that would be

like a first step and maybe you know

later later leaders after him would be

actual tech ceos for example but that

would be an example for me someone like

elon musk would be perfect because he

was popular yeah

but the reason musk is popular right is

actually not because

of anything relating to technology

actually

but because he projects a very

ideological image of a kind of fantasy

right going to mars

through tech

yeah as a science fiction fantasy

exactly

it's still something ideological right

it's still something pathological it's

like the pathos it's not

it's not

this pure kind of cold rational

calculating technology it's all manner

of human charisma and human fantasy and

human um

unconscious desire and so on and so on

no i agree but i don't have to be that

ideological right if we were

implementing this in real life i

wouldn't mind that elon someone like

elon musk actually ran and want he would

be a first step to actually getting a

technocracy going uh and you know i

understand what you're saying

but what i'm trying to say is that

elon's popularity does not come from his

technical expertise

yeah i mean that is true

we're witnessing a so here we're

witnessing a contradiction

between

pure technical governance right and the

kind of more i guess ideological stuff

that's like spiritual and very

ill-defined kind of

more subterrestrial

um legitimation from the people right so

there is this contradiction that has to

be settled and i don't think

a technocracy would be capable of

selling now elon while popular

um

i don't even think would be able to

muster the necessary

uh legitimation and willpower from the

american people in order to realize such

an all-encompassing technocratization of

the society i mean

for example let me just put it this way

the more you want to be technocratic the

more you have to attend to the people

spiritual ideological etc etc needs

right and the communist party has been

able to get away with its technocracy so

to speak

precisely because

through its history and through events

like the cultural revolution which

taking on a transcendent kind of

prohibited unconscious status it has

taken care of all of that ideological

um human stuff right and only because it

can take that for granted

is it able to get away with its sweeping

um

and by western standards non-democratic

technocracy

yeah i see what you mean but i i think

elon would still be an example i

understand what you mean when you say i

think the technocrat leader would have

to sell to the american people in some

way so they would be doing pr sort of

how elon musk was right more futuristic

image of the of the us but that doesn't

necessarily mean that they can't sell

that to the american people and then

also be uh you know also have like a

sort of a deep state of sorts or some

sort of board of actual

expertise that actually can determine

their actual technical prowess right so

there could sort of be like a two-end

sort of thing where you sell to the

american people this future of like you

know this some sort of like

uh solar punker you know like some sort

of futuristic vision of america and then

behind the scenes actually deal with the

technical portion of actually running a

society right well believe it or not

the

providing a kind of

fantasy and i don't mean fantasy in a

denigrating sense but just something

that's like you know something that

tickles our kind of um

our longing for like an aesthetic right

that is actually not enough um

projecting an ideology or or a fantasy

is not enough to actually maintain power

for for a sovereign so in china's case

for example

it's not just because the communist

party has an ideology

um that it it sells the chinese people

that it gets away with all the technical

stuff

it also entrusts

the chinese people with their own

independent relationship to

verifying the legitimation of this

ideology

through um

and this is changing now but it's

transitioning into a new form what we

can broadly call a popular form of

property right

um so the chinese land or something yeah

like land precisely land yes

and then it's shifting from agricultural

land now

to single unit apartments that can be

owned

by the chinese citizen

and it's not just single unit apartments

but it's also becoming easier slowly but

surely

for the average chinese citizen to take

out credit from banks in order to start

businesses so all of these things

represent a type of economic trust

that the government is giving the people

that is not necessarily something that

can be premised by technical efficiency

but is more a deeper form of trust

between a government and its people

yeah i agree what you're saying

obviously the the way the us would do it

wouldn't be exactly the way uh marxist

leninist government would do it right

but i i still think i don't necessarily

think the american people would want

uh land necessarily i think you can sort

of promise them uh some sort of value of

of the country in different ways not

necessarily having it to be land that's

debatable obviously but

uh

i do agree sorry go ahead

yeah i was gonna say yeah i don't think

it has to be land necessarily and like

you said

you know china's i guess moving more

towards like apartments and houses and

whatnot which i guess is still sort of

you know it's still going to be land

right it's still land at the end of the

day but i think the american people can

get you know they can get a piece of the

pie and it doesn't necessarily have to

be land it would be in in the american

context but and i don't necessarily

think that technocrats

uh would care to be as pro-people like

the chinese government is but

yeah that's where the problem comes in

because you can probably recognize that

there is a paradox of populism we're

facing right so for example for

something as mundane as taking vaccines

right and and public trust

in the technocrats who are making the

vaccines

um there's no trust right there's no

trust in the pharmaceutical companies

producing vaccines so when the technical

experts want to do something as mundane

right as have a vaccine mandate

um there's a populist uproar and look

what's going on in canada with the

truckers so how are technocrats going to

resolve the paradox between trying to

run a country as technically efficient

as possible

and also feeding the beast so to speak

the beast being the popular

um

wilder the wild and popular um

uh and more kind of spiritual

sentiments of the the people right

because i see what you're saying yeah

it's kind of a contradiction yeah um

i would say you could sort of and i

think governments try to do this maybe

because again our our governments in the

us and in the west aren't aren't

engineers and aren't technical people

they either see it and don't address it

or they don't even see the issue at all

but i think you could sort of slip

you know like a pill

uh you know you can sort of like feed

the american people and then slip a pill

and uh in the sense that you could i

think if you offered the american people

enough benefits they would take the

vaccine and if the messenger of the

vaccine was like trump for example or

elon for example someone that's actually

popular i think they could slip they can

actually get more people to take the

vaccine uh with enough you know with

enough passion with some sort of benefit

coming along with it not then just

you're gonna get fired but hey you know

here's the vaccine and then here's you

know i don't know this is sort of crude

but here's more money here's money or

you know here's this or that whatever

the benefit is i think you can sort of

slip the pill in with with the uh the

dessert source i remember um debating

destiny and actually arguing your point

but he also brought up the point and i

that wasn't exactly what i was arguing

but it's still a good point i mean

which is that trump

surprisingly right when he spoke

favorably about the vaccine he was

booed by the crowd in one of his

speeches

which means

there is a more fundamental issue that

the public does not trust the intentions

of the government as a whole

for telling people to get this vaccine

or at least trying to force them to

right

so you have a more fundamental issue of

trust where people cannot help but see

political

and human motivations and intentions

behind the policy making of technocrats

right people don't trust

these technocrats to have so much

immense power behind them because the

technocrats may say that they're acting

on behalf of the cold and blind

impartial facts of science

but people tend to see that science is

anything but that right i mean that's

why

you have so many conspiracy theories

like the view that the earth is flat for

example can proliferate right because

people don't see

people don't trust this idea of a cold

impartial calculating science they know

that

yeah i don't think you can actually sell

it to the people that way i don't think

you necessarily need to i think the

technocrats that you see now are sort of

explaining to the people like they're

scientists or something i don't expect

them to be scientists right yeah i would

i would sell them an image and then also

behind the scenes you know actually

implement the actual uh mandates it

wouldn't be uh you know i'm not going to

tell them hey this is why logically abc

why you should take it i would sell them

an image or you know give them some sort

of popular rhetoric and then slip that

in you know behind the scenes and i

think that's how you you would have to

do it um

but yeah just sort of addressing that

but and i don't think trump does that

right none of the technocrats now do

that they sort of technocrats will just

tell you hey take the vaccine otherwise

you're going to kill other people

uh and that's not really it but don't

you think this is also why technocrats

are not capable of of sovereign rule

right all they can do really is kind of

act as a servant of a sovereign's will

but they cannot themselves draw

the will to actually

um

rule a

people yeah i mean you might be right

yeah maybe the the technocrat sort of

speak at the top would have to be more

charismatic and understand that portion

of it but i don't think you have to

necessarily separate the two skill i

think there are ceos out there that are

that are examples of someone who could

be charismatic and also who has a

technical background another issue

which is why i actually don't think the

chinese ideology hampers china is

because

i actually think technocracies have a

tendency to stagnate

and i predict they would because there

haven't really been much many examples

in history

because technocrats since they're

operating based off of um

kind of this um data and which means

precedent things that have already

happened

they're unable to take the risks the

contingent risks of bold

risks into the unknown that only someone

with a kind of

sixth sense of a broader popular

spiritual orientation

in order to actually define and frame

the terms of the kind of greek techne in

the first place the the form in the

first place

like a technocrat

doesn't understand the deeper laws of

the dialectic governing

uh laws of social revolution right how

how it happens that

the data that they actually are

working with comes to actually present

itself in the way that it does like it

can it has the data but it doesn't have

the why behind the data like for example

um

did those two necessarily do they have

to be separate necessarily i mean you

could imagine someone that has the

ability to combine them both right

or maybe yeah i i do think ideally both

should be combined but the problem is

that when technocrats rule they are

blind to the deeper laws and forces of

um historical change

and social revolution

which makes it them very which makes

them kind of i mean there are examples

of this in marxist leninist countries

for example

um broadly there was the example under

stalin right where stalin did initiate

this

revolution the social revolution which

drew in more of the russian masses into

culture and politics and and society and

law

and this led to the rise of a

technocracy

and when it came time to initiate an uh

more another one of these revolutions

right to

have a revolution in what we call

marxism the forces of production

the technocrats actually um

turned against stalin right under the

disguise that he didn't know what he was

doing technically

but this technocratic mentality only

disguised

a very untechnocratic defense of the

status quo in terms of like a class war

basically so technically you're saying

yeah that's like they will defend the

status quo

in the name of techno technical

expertise but it has nothing to do with

any blind technical knowledge but just

the defense of the ruling the ruling

class basically yeah i mean i agree i

see what you're saying i could see that

being a potential problem i don't

necessarily think it would be

detrimental to keep a technocracy going

i think if

maybe there needs to be like a sort of

like a board of directors sort of system

similar to how businesses are run where

you do have more of that spiritual

and philosophical person on the board

for example you know um

they don't all have to be engineers

right but uh if they're you know but i

think you could sort of that approach

would you know sort of to address both

fronts that you're sort of discussing or

you're sort of mentioning i think those

things could hypothetically be addressed

in some way and of course no society is

perfect so there's going to be issues

regardless but um you know i think

that's a start at least to

a you know a better society and i think

america and most of the western world

they're sort of trying to do both right

they're sort of trying to be

technocratic but also trying to linger

on to and hold on to some of the more

spiritual and philosophical part of

their countries but it's not working um

because you know because of various

issues of course but i think there's

sort of is a way to

uh for america to sort of uh

go all the way technocratic and like i

said someone like elon musk or someone

that's popular

that's more tech you know that's more

seen as technical at least could sort of

jump start that in my opinion but um

yeah that's my i guess that's one of

that's the first point out of the three

i don't know if you wanted to move on to

the second one or not but

i think the point is kind of still

unresolved but we for the sake of time

if you want we could move on

yeah i mean i don't i don't think

there's a i think it would just be a

agree to disagree sort of thing because

i don't think like you said there's not

that many examples of technic

technocracies out there so there's not

not much that we could point to um

more of a philosophical uh

debate i guess rather than sort of a

results oriented one but yeah uh so

point two again i sort of just touched

on it but i think america could adopt uh

america could adopt this uh technocratic

approach i think it's not doing it

enough you know i think

trying to you know limit google meta

apple and some of the tech

companies now are doing just more harm i

think i think you know i know at some

point they're probably going to try to

break those companies up right in the us

uh and and i think they shouldn't i

think they should just let them

continue to do what they're doing um can

you repeat the um

the first bro thing you said a bottle

dropped on on the floor i couldn't hear

it

yeah yeah so basically that

yeah so basically that

uh the govern the u.s government it

appears that they're they're gonna at

some point try to break up these quote

unquote tech monopolies

but my point is i think the tech

monopoly should be unleashed uh you know

for this future tech technocracy uh like

i said i think most of the western world

is trying to become technocracies

they're just doing it in a terrible way

sorry go ahead

yeah yeah i'm done basically so not to

be ideological but in marxist terms we

have a word called the forces of

production

and to me tech

has not actually replaced the forces of

production but has become an interface

with which these forces of production

can be guided

and because of that

i actually think that the tech

monopolies are limiting right now the

forces of production as all monopolies

inevitably do and that actually

successfully breaking up tech monopolies

will allow new um

platforms more or less

um to flourish to an even greater degree

than the ones before so it's almost kind

of like a tree gets overgrown you chop

down the tree

and you know it's has seeds and there's

you know like five new trees in instead

and so i think that's um the paradigm we

have to start thinking is that these

tech monopolies like google for example

try to solve the problem of

any company is inevitably going to

become short-sighted in its ability to

actually have a vision and the reason

for that is because

being able to draw a vision

um

for the future and for technologies

is a result of a specific relationship

between human beings people

and

governments right like for example

google and the tech platforms arose from

a very specific relationship between an

economic relationship i should say

between the people and the government

after world war ii

um

and also the research universities and

and and the grants given by the

government that invested in them and

this is the fruit of that was silicon

valley right that thing

right

but eventually there comes to be an

upper limit to

what monopolies can do and how much they

can innovate

and google tried to solve this problem

for example by just buying up all the

newest tech startups

but the issue here is that google

there's a conflict of interest sometimes

because google doesn't know how to

integrate some of these new technologies

from these startups with its overall

ecosystem

which inevitably leads to buying up a

lot of new promising startups

only to

basically like

neutralize them from ever becoming

anything right

and this is what a lot of these tech

platforms are starting to do and it's

leading to in my view uh

stagnation in in innovation

yeah i don't necessarily disagree i

think part of that also is that

the government is sort of not looking at

um you know the tech i guess the the

purpose of the the government that the

u.s has is not necessarily to help the

tech

companies per se it's more you know it's

more ideological than that i think uh i

i in my view is that if the if the

government that we currently had were

more engineers and tech focused even if

google and some of these quote-unquote

monopolies existed i think they can work

with the government to sort of

be more innovative i don't necessarily

think that the innovation is being

impeded because they're monopolies per

se but because the government sort of

tries to cut them down but they do it

ineffectively and then because of their

own uh you know business shortcomings or

you know whatever short-sightedness you

know there can also be um

you know i guess impeding of of

innovation but i don't necessarily know

if you can measure that in any way

either so

you know

yeah

i think that um

the problem though is that these

companies are accumulating an immense

concentration of wealth that is coming

from

the rents basically of of

the use of their platform and also

intellectual property right

the problem is that these tech platforms

are accumulating so much of these rents

on top of infrastructure that comes from

the government and this infrastructure

is outdated and the tech monopolies are

not able to replace the inf the

government infrastructure they take for

granted but it's almost like they're

using them parasitically

while

just

accumulating this immense immense amount

of money and wealth

and not using that money in a way that

actually goes back to where

the source was which was you know from

the government and from the people and

so on and so on and i'm not saying they

should give more of their wealth to our

government because our government is

horribly inefficient and it i agree with

that it's completely outdated but i also

think that's

that also incriminates the tech

companies too because it's this very

inefficient government that these tech

companies

owe their existence to

and still rely upon

to continue to exist

if we fundamentally upgraded our

infrastructure

and fundamentally you know made

investments from the government actually

or through government banks i should say

through a central government bank into

like promising small tech companies not

with the purpose of neutralizing them

but in the with the purpose of actually

giving them a chance

um i actually think that these tech

monopolies would collapse i mean

the free ride and free pass that they're

getting

that our government has has given them

i think would come to an end

um

to me i really disagree but i think if

even if let's say the government spent i

don't know like 20 trillion dollars and

really tried to upgrade the

infrastructure in a real meaningful way

i think the the googles of the world and

amazon's would still have an advantage

even if the smaller businesses and

startups do have a chance i still think

google and amazon just i um i actually

so

i want to preface and clarify um i think

our government is horribly inefficient

it's a horribly inefficient overgrown

bureaucracy so i'm not saying i want the

government to just throw 20 trillion

dollars to upgrade infrastructure i

think we do need a fundamental

revolution

in this this country i'm not talking in

like an ideological sense but let me

just put it this way right so we need an

institutional revolution we need to

break up we need to like extinguish a

lot of these bureaucracies and a lot of

these red tape and just restructure how

our government works and how it

functions right

that's a very important thing

we have to do before we talk about

printing more money we need to establish

something like

a central bank a government central bank

we need to reinstate things like

glass-steagall which promotes a

productive productivist oriented uh

developmental policy on part of the

government

now once we do all of these things

the special interests and special

relationships that are that are

in bed with our government like wall

street and in turn from wall street to

silicon valley

those will collapse so these monopolies

will no longer have the advantage that

they do by being in collaboration with

the current kind of corrupt bureaucracy

and i think this would lead to a blank

slate where

you know new startups and new

technologies and new paradigms will have

a chance

um i think google and amazon are

actually symptoms of our stagnation i

think if we want to actual

real you know unleash the forces of

production and increase technological

innovation

we have to look at these

these monopolies for what they are

they're massive hoarders of wealth who

don't use this wealth productively

yeah i mean i see what you're saying i i

do think that just objectively the the

us will probably collapse at some point

in the near future but

the way i see it is the the power grab

that's going to kind of come from that

is going to be you know i think it's

going to come a lot of it from the tech

companies so that would be the

opportunity for these tech companies to

really seize power uh to i try to yeah

um

i i've i've seen speculation about that

before i just don't see these tech

companies as having

the necessary independence like they

already have infrastructure they already

have unless the us you know unless the

currencies just collapse worldwide they

still have immense amounts of power and

influence still well i i don't think

they have enough independent

infrastructure i think you're kind of

underestimating the extent to which big

tech is still not only reliant on the us

government

but even worse more reliant on two

things right the democratic party i mean

most of all reliant on the democratic

party and also wall street silicon

valley has never actually declared any

independence from from wall street so

it's still beholden to the same people

who control the democrats which is the

wall street financial class no i don't

necessarily disagree with that but i'm

saying like let's imagine tomorrow if

just everything started burning and

collapsing right like the government

like people no longer believed in the

government everything collapsed like

objectively i even though i do agree

that a lot of the infrastructure that

that companies in general rely on are

sort of you know comes at the ben you

know comes from the government i i do

still think that objectively

um

right now um you know these tech

companies still have capital uh to sort

of

uh you know gather and try to seize

power in some sort of way

they have people right they have

employees uh there a lot of them

probably are already moving away solely

from the u.s dollar right they can see

they can see that it's you know there

there's crypto you know there's i know

there's people that are starting to

invest companies that are starting to

invest in other types of currencies uh

so they're seeing the writing on the

wall already so i think they would have

capital uh to sort of utilize to try to

seize power in some way maybe they might

not win out but they you know i i think

if it were to sort of you know in the

immediate sense that that would be sort

of how a technocracy could possibly

happen i think in in that kind of

scenario which would be like a warlord

scenario where like power is up for

grabs basically right i don't actually

think big tech i think big tap would

completely collapse i mean it's reliant

on the government to such an extent that

it would be non-operational not only in

the technical sense of like running

their companies

technologies and platforms

but even in like the organizational

sense of having a corporation i mean the

whole thing would just come tumbling

down but on the other hand

you would have gangs right gangs would

survive an apocalypse because the reason

for that

is because gangs are organizations

that command a loyalty from their

members not simply because they pay them

as employees but because they take like

oaths and blood vows and this

fundamental sense of loyalty and

brotherhood and willingness to die for

the gang and

and um all of the dynamism of like

states and and like political loyalty

you do find that in gangs but in a tech

company i mean you don't find i mean

employees of amazon are not gonna die

for jeff bezos they're not gonna you

know take up arms and and sacrifice him

i mean

maybe you could say that

higher they can hire military though

right if they have capital like the

companies themselves

they would have to be so yeah they would

use crypto right because the us dollar

would be worthless at this point or

other other government currency right

like the one or yen or whatever else

they they yeah but

um

the problem with that is in terms of

hiring private mercenaries is that they

will never be able to draw

um

draw from like a segment of the

population

to fight for them right which means that

in terms of a war they just be holding

out against a uh

a mass of people that are fundamentally

hostile to them which is the people

right gangs on the other hand can

replicate i mean like i'll just put it

this way right

the reasons why people join gangs is

because of some kind of fundamental

human loyalty right it's not just

because of that but that's what cements

it's like a blood oath right

whereas if it's just for hire

then um when the going gets tough

will mercenaries really die for the

dollar no right so

all of like the dynamics of how a state

is built and how a warlord becomes a

sovereign

uh are not gonna be there for a tech

company but they will be there for for a

game

no i agree that maybe gangs that are

based on like you said based on uh you

know loyalty

versus just money it's going to be it's

probably going to be stronger right and

more uh yeah more cohesive in a way but

i still do think that um and obviously

this is hypothetical we would have no

idea what would actually happen but i i

do still think that if ever if the

country collapsed today everyone would a

lot of people would be out of work

i think i think people would willingly

uh take any job uh and and i guess in

this scenario uh you know being like

arms for the for these tech companies

wouldn't be out of the question uh right

you know but

we have to understand things like the

origin of money and the origin of of

like how economies right and at some

point you do get to this kind of

shakespearean or freudian

like

like how are social bonds glued in the

first place right and gangs really do

tap into the essence of that

in ways that mercenaries don't so no

matter how desperate people are

um when you are being high output this

way when you're being hired as a

mercenary because you're unemployed

you're engaging in a voluntary

transaction right i will give you my

services and you will give me money

well that transaction is operating

within the confines of rules ultimately

right like it's not theft it's it's a

rule

well gangs don't have to

gangs aren't limited by the rules of any

market right when a gang

gets a soldier it's not because they

were hired and you know

they're merely transacting some money or

resource for you this more fundamental

glue that binds people together

um is being used right you're you're

you're you have a loyalty to a

brotherhood you have loyalty to a cause

or an ideology or something something or

maybe a

a culture or a community something

fundamental there is going on where

people are willing to give their life

right

um

or no i get what you're saying yeah i do

i get what you're saying

all i'm saying is that

the the tech technocracies would or like

the tech companies would have uh you

know resources to use in in some sort of

a breakdown of society and this is like

not even considering outside investment

but

resolutions

other countries usually invest in

revolutions right so like china or you

know a lot of these countries that

already have like google and tesla and

amazon in their countries already might

have interest investing in whichever

side is going to war so we we couldn't

even rule out uh these tech companies

getting funding from outside governments

so you know

obviously this is a high complete

hypothetical yeah

no i mean it's good to entertain i think

but the thing is that these tech

companies are not going to be able to

give

the reason why i don't think they could

draw have any legitimacy is because what

they would lack is purpose they would

lack an actual vision and reason

something to die for right to be loyal

to an idea some kind of logos right this

is what tech companies lack

and

political parties and gangs on the other

hand have that i mean i don't have any

experience in this myself but for

example my parents did come from a

country that was experiencing like a

thing like this right

which was the civil war in lebanon i

don't know if you're familiar but that

was a civil war where there was like a

thousand gangs and a thousand parties

and a thousand

groups

that were basically

spawned you know spontaneously

um

clans and factions and families i mean

if mercenaries in this scenario i mean

they would just be holding out against

this whole chaos but they would not

have a chance basically to vie for

legitimacy of statehood and government

yeah i mean i agree i mean you know we

hypothetically you know the dem what is

left of the democratic party could try

to align with the tech companies in that

way right so you never know the kind of

alliances that would be made to sort of

push forward but i still do think that

the tech companies have enough capital

and enough influence to where they would

sort of try to leech on to whichever

factions sort of winning out and sort of

uh side with them ideologically and uh

hopefully that springboards them on to

being

ruling class you know

the issue is that in a warlord era

capital

is

um

is uh

is accumulated at the point of a gun

it's not like something you get for

market transactions well sometimes it

could be but

you know you have warlords roaming

around and let's say there's an oil

refinery you don't pay for it you bring

your guns and you take that refinery and

you you make fuel right

or let's say there's um peasants farming

land you don't go to those peasants and

and buy their crops you at the point of

a gun exact attacks from them right say

we need this much grain and housing and

so on and so on

so the distribution of capital

becomes reset i mean like for example a

tech company may have like 500 bitcoins

right but because there's no environment

of free voluntary market exchange but uh

instead of a war basically a war of all

against all where people are fighting

for resources and and goods at the the

barrel of a gun

i mean they can try and pay for the oil

refinery for example

but

um

that's not gonna do them any good when

you can just take it

from the the barrel of a gun you know

you know i see what you're saying yeah

obviously guns are going to be more you

know they're going to be more

effective in controlling people than

money when it's broken down but i do

think fundamentally in this new like

crypto economy i do think they could you

know people freely have you know crypto

wallets on their phones so you don't

necessarily even need a uh institutional

bank some of these crypto wallet

companies are even outside of the us so

yeah hypothetically yeah so

hypothetically we would all have wallets

on our phones now you can make the

argument that the phone services would

all go down which i guess that's that'd

be a fair point um but assuming that

somehow the phone services are still

online in some sort of way um you know

people do have some way of you know

capturing or retaining some sort of like

you know

money um

for to spend but i i ultimately agree uh

you know realistically there probably

wouldn't be a technocracy forming in in

a revolution um or like a

like a warlord era right yeah in like a

warlord era yeah it probably wouldn't be

a technocracy maybe if like again maybe

whatever's left of the democratic party

you know maybe they latch onto that and

maybe try to you know force their way

that way but

realistically i think uh sort of the

technocracy route would be getting

someone like elon musk or a tech ceo

that's actually popular with the

american people and try to get them

elected um that would probably be the

only realistic way of getting some

because like i said i see the west as

sort of being a technocracy but they're

just not good at it um so yeah um

again i uh

i mean

i not i mean not to like

pull this bullshit because it's kind of

not that it's kind of besides the point

but you know elon can't run right yeah

yeah yeah because yeah i know he's

outside yeah obviously but he's he's

he's like south african right so yeah

but i get what your your point is like

someone like elon or maybe if there's a

change in legislation hypothetically

like something like that yeah yeah

yeah he's a perfect example because he's

actually popular but it would have to be

someone like him that's a citizen well i

i think the issue is that they would not

only have to be popular and well liked

but they would also have to be populists

right and a populist

is basically promising uh the people

that they're gonna crush the they're

gonna drain the swamp crush the

establishment

and give the people something right and

i don't really think elon

has that in him i think what elon does

is kind of he's popular because he gives

people something to look forward to and

he he stokes our imagination

but what he's not is a

a warrior he's not like a militant

leader who's gonna you know

direct you know

the army of the people to storm the the

headquarters and

you know drain the swamp and all this

kind of trump trump stuff right

yeah yeah he does that's a perfect

example he's he's the great best example

i can pull right but it would have to be

it would have to be probably be someone

that's more it would probably be like a

combination of him andrew yang and

probably someone that's more you know

because andrew yang is probably more

political than elon musk would be but

he's you know he's not as popular i

think um

if anyone wants

substantial change in the country i

don't really think it's possible within

the current political parties that exist

i just

yeah you're probably right realistically

it probably yeah this government even

andrew yang i mean like it's so sad but

you know

even if he were to run as a democrat and

become very popular i mean there is a

democratic corporate establishment like

it's like a machine and they would just

snuff him out basically right yeah yeah

it's not the best example but yeah i

think the u.s is basically done for um

but i i think you know again they're

probably i don't know if it'll be in our

lifetime um but i'm more arguing from

like a ideological point of view rather

than you know realistically uh

realistically yeah this country's

probably done but um you know what i'd

like to see would be more of a

technocracy sort of in the way china

china runs it um so yeah that's my

second point i guess maybe we could get

to our last point yeah we can move on to

the third okay so the third point would

be why i would be against chinese

polarity in any sort of way

um this this sort of you know obviously

we can see that china is you know

probably gonna be the uh you know the

the number one country you know the

hegemony sooner or later you know um but

i think this is not good personally uh

just because um i think it's gonna

affect

some of the southeast you know some of

the asian countries that that currently

have you know protection under the u.s

hegemony uh example number one would be

japan um you know i'm partly japanese so

they would probably go after japan first

right you know due to world war ii and

you know i'm pretty sure there's not

good blood between the two countries

uh so i think some of the uh asian

countries would kind of get the wrath of

china uh if you know if china grows to

be even stronger i

i don't think china

uh has bad intentions toward japan um i

actually think japan would probably fare

better under chinese guidance or

hegemony as opposed to the us because we

can see what's going on in japan now is

that they have a demographic crisis you

know there's the economy stagnating and

um the population is declining i think

um a more special relationship with

china

and chinese investment and and

infrastructure as opposed to the um

us-led model

would probably help

the japanese economy and the japanese

people in a

profoundly better way

i think the only people who would lose

out though

would probably be the japanese ruling

class and and the kind of

establishment which seems to not be

faring

that badly

despite the stagnation the majority of

japanese people are facing

yeah i mean idea yeah like yeah best

case scenario i think that would be the

case but i think just due to recent you

know history i don't think it would fair

that either if if somehow china took

over japan or had so much influence that

you know there was a lot of chinese in

in japan i think

japanese people would just become

second-class citizens frankly i i don't

think that's true because i think china

does have a lot of sensitivity around

the discussion of

japan's role in world war ii and the

whole history

but when it comes to japanese people i

don't think chinese people harbor bad

feelings toward the japanese people i

think um

i actually think there's a kind of

more recent and resurgent sense of

now this is extremely controversial

right like to say this but

there's so much nuance to it that it'd

be hard to explain but

before the 30s right before the period

of or the 20s i forgot when but

i think there is some chinese sympathy

with japan's initial

um

modernization after the meiji

restoration and the aspiration of just

this idea of an independent east asian

power i think chinese people

sorry um thinkers in china

are starting to kind of

um look upon this with sympathy and

admiration now obviously the the

japanese invasion of china and the you

know the

world war ii yes i mean it's a complete

black spot spot in history but this more

overall view of kind of japan's vision

before of creating like an

um

an independent asian polarity i think

some it's something that is very much

admired in china today especially more

recently okay but if china had a more if

china had a more revengeful approach and

the u.s pulled out of japan what would

stop china from just going in and

invading japan there would be no i don't

think china has any reason to want to

invade japan

um japan maybe not physically but even

just being you know even just uh you

know financially or just a kind of a

grip on japan uh

in a way to where japan like you said

let me put it this way

china

that when the communist government in

china was in was um first come came to

power right under mao

um

the japanese collaborator who was the

he was the boy emperor of the the qing

dynasty he was reinstated in um

the republic of um

in manchuria during there was a puyi the

uh the japanese puppet government in

manchuria

he was a japanese collaborator right i

mean he i mean he directly collaborated

with the imperial japanese government

and

you know the the government in in

manchuria was pretty brutal toward

the

the red you know the red army and the

people's liberation army and so on

um

but even he was

like completely forgiven right he was

allowed to be a normal chinese citizen

he wasn't he didn't even face any

repercussions so i don't think that the

chinese view is one of um revenge

against japan at all i mean if they're

not

even gonna like do anything against

this huge collaborator i don't think

they have any bad designs or vengeful

designs on on japan

i mean i guess that would be a sort of a

fake sort of a gamble that i guess japan

wouldn't want to even sort of

deal with right like the way japan is

now they're going to be safe under the

u.s no matter what so i actually

i don't know about that because

it seems like a lot of the

majority of the aggression is coming

from the us against china and china's

posture

is basically defensive right

and because of that

japan

is

endangered

under

the us basically because it's it might

get entangled or thrown into a conflict

between the us and japan

that in no way

benefits japan or

japan has anything to do with

yeah i mean like the even the dispute in

the south china sea between japan and

china um you know you could say that's

sort of influenced by america which

probably is right because japan japan is

able to be more aggressive knowing that

the us's allies

would be allies in that conflict but

that's like an example uh if you saw it

from a purely uh pessimistic point of

view that you know there's already sort

of a tension there just

merely based off of history and just

even proximity right to each other uh

and then if if the u.s

protection was gone i think a lot of uh

a lot of countries would sort of see

chinese influence grow a lot more even

if it wasn't a complete invasion um

which it probably wouldn't be in this

day and age uh it would still i think be

enough influence to where i mean you see

it in africa right there's a lot of

african uh political parties that are

solely that have been solely created to

try to remove chinese people from their

country so that's like an example that i

would probably see in japan where there

would be just so much chinese influence

that effectively even if they weren't

taken over physically they would

basically become second-class citizens

in some

sort of in like the israel-palestine

kind of kind of way

well the thing in africa though is that

what you're seeing in africa is that

china is making investments in africa

um

productive investments that can be paid

off eventually and when they're not able

to be paid off

chinese banks have been very forgiving

in terms of debts and so on so they're

not

tricking africans into a bad deal

it's just that a lot of these

governments in africa are very corrupt

and so they're not negotiating the terms

of these deals with china

in a way that's favorable to the people

well that's not really china's fault

because

china isn't propping up any governments

or having coups to have governments

favorable to it it's just working with

whatever government

is there right is in charge

uh as far as japan's concerned

i don't think there would be be any

threats to japanese sovereignty as far

as disputed territories are concerned

um

china seems to be willing to work with

countries bilaterally to to resolve

these negotiations and disputes it just

doesn't like it when like

europeans or americans get involved

because it sees this as a not only an

encroachment on china's sovereignty

but on an encroach an encroachment on

the sovereignty of both parties involved

like why should the us be involved

in a dispute between two asian neighbors

right east asian neighbors which with

with you know very

very um

ancient historical ties right

so

yeah but the conflicts now are with the

with the uh implicit u.s uh backing

right or maybe even expose the u.s

backing yeah and in this hypothetical

japan would be well this probably

wouldn't be a case but if japan was on

its own

china would have no worry about u.s

threats maybe japan would have other

allies that sort of can try to back them

up which is probably would be the case

but uh either way if if that power is

not does not equal to china they could

sort of bully them right um

which would be my concern i i don't

think china

um would act as a bully in regards to

japan

because

when we see countries that china is very

well within its capacity of bullying

um

neighbors like afghanistan for example

china could could have bullied the shit

out of the afghan government under

hamid karzai right

but under that government i think it was

actually under the taliban where even

that would even even be better right

um

when it came to negotiations of

territorial disputes

china was extremely generous i mean

it settled the negotiation in which it

gave the majority of the disputed

territory to afghanistan and only took a

small part right

um because it was an unsettled boundary

right

so i think when we look at precedent

where china was able to act as a bully

um

it hasn't

yeah but wouldn't you still say that

that would be china still looking at how

would the u.s react if they were to

bully these countries in this way like

it would still threaten the us in some

sort of way right

i don't think even the u.s would would

have been able to do anything about it

but wouldn't don't you think that they

would see that as uh as china trying to

grow even even stronger than you know

you can kind of see it with ukraine

right like

just because russia and ukraine are

having their attention you know the u.s

and the west in general see that as a

threat i think i think a good example is

is uh taiwan

yeah taiwan's a good example yeah yeah

taiwan's for example yeah

um china

well china doesn't even really bully

taiwan right it even respects the system

in place in taiwan it's just insists

that taiwan is

i mean part of china right well

informally it is right so that would

that's why i didn't use that example

yeah make the argument that formally it

is literally the republic of china but

right yeah so the the issue is that um

i don't think china is another nazi

germany is what i'm trying to say i

don't think they have designs to conquer

or bully or humiliate neighbors or

people i think

they want

sincerely in their material

self-interest they want peaceful um

win-win

um

uh coexistence and mutual development i

think that's how china's economy works

right

um i don't think it has any interest in

creating an economy that's based on war

and conquest and i don't think i don't

think they would be nazi germany or like

fascist states at all i i think they

would still i think it would be more

economic uh so you know you would

probably see a lot of chinese companies

in japan right um

you know tencent and all the tech

companies and all the other businesses

you'll just see so it would basically be

a i could see a scenario where there

would be a ton of chinese people in

japan physically just as citizens uh and

and if you know japanese culture you

know that you know japan doesn't really

like outside uh i think um

japan

yeah so that would be gross to the

japanese people but i think if china had

that power there would be no way for

japan to really what if um if china has

a huge amount of economic power within

japan that would be because the japanese

themselves

found it proper uh profitable but

japanese sovereignty will not be

encroached upon

by china so if japan wants to limit

immigration from any country it sees fit

to i mean it's still able to

exercise the sovereign um you know the

sovereign

will of

within the bounds of its its territory

right i mean china's not going to tell

the japanese government that you know

they can't limit immigration or they

can't do this or they can't try to

invest in their own companies

when it comes down to it

i think if there's too much chinese

companies that have power in japan

that's probably a problem internal to

japanese politics if the japanese people

want to have their own platforms and own

businesses that's their responsibility

to

you know have a more protectionist

government and implement policies that

favor japanese industry

and china um is not going to interfere

in that

well my point would be that they would

be they would forcefully do that right i

think they would for because it would

benefit china

financially to have businesses set up in

china are in japan right you can make

that argument but the the minute it has

to do so forcefully is when it has to

bring in

two things china does yeah does not want

to have to deal with right which is a

military

occupation or coercion and politics

right and china does not china wants

economic deals it does not yeah but

japan if you if you know about i mean

japanese defense force which is pathetic

like they would stand no chance to try

well i'll put it this way so

japan is a consumer-based economy right

right it's not a resource-rich place

like africa is which china actually does

need economically right

right and china has been very favorable

and fair in the way it works with

african countries it's not forcing

anything it's there's a mutual win-win

benefit african countries need capital

investments and china needs resources so

there's a you know there's this kind of

mutual relationship they have going on

that that benefits both of them

as far as what china needs from japan

though i don't

i don't know what china would

necessarily need even from a perspective

of of um

self-interest what they would need from

japan right i mean yeah i mean it's a

large consumer market i guess for

chinese goods but it's not nearly as

large as say africa or the middle east

or india

or even you know europe so

i don't know what china would gain from

interfering in japan so much

yeah well i guess my argument would be

that i think naturally japan would be

protectionist economically right if the

us were to collapse right like 150 years

ago the west had to force japan to open

up i think naturally japanese people

tend to be more conservative in that way

where they're they're more

protectionists so if in this

hypothetical scenario china did want to

set up shop in japan forcefully uh my

argument would be that they would be

able to militarily if they wanted to and

i and if i guess if someone and if the

chinese ruling class were to be

ill-willed i don't see why they wouldn't

want to do that uh it would it would

benefit them in any way and they would

sort of get get you know they could if

they were vengeful they could do that

right just based on the last hundred

years of how i think maybe you could

make try and make the case i would

completely disagree with it would be to

be more rational is that

japan would be an economic competitor to

chinese industry right and that's why

china would want to stifle japan because

it's it would compete with china on the

international stage

but

there are countries that already compete

with china on the international stage i

mean

also iran right is a rising power which

is going to have its own domestic

industry and it there's going to be all

sorts of

competitors with chinese brands that are

going to emerge on the international

stage

but iran's like a china it's in the

chinese sphere though right so iran

wouldn't be the best yeah i mean but

that just goes to show that even if a

country like iran can work with china to

such an extent and also develop its own

sovereign industries that may

potentially eventually compete with

china

i don't think china is going to

use military force

against countries that it can it

considers potential

economic competitors i think china wants

to maximize win-win cooperation to the

highest extent possible

yeah i mean i guess you can make the

argument that that's how things are now

but that's also again with

implicit u.s uh you know that's what

that's with us being one of the polar

polarities right in the eu um i guess in

this hypothetical if japan was sort of

not a part of that us uh you know

polarity anymore and sort of had to

cling on to smaller allies i i still

don't see i guess you could you can make

the argument that china would be uh more

benevolent in that way but it didn't you

know take more of an a peaceful approach

but i guess if they wanted to and if if

the ruling class wanted to sort of go

after japan for

the past i guess they could and japan

can't really stop it well to be fair

don't you think the us could also do

whatever it wants to japan

yeah i mean i guess it could but i guess

there's different philosophies right and

japan also didn't subjugate america

well i know i think those specific

philosophies though point to america

being far more likely to do something

like invade japan i mean if there was a

japanese populist uprising that wanted

to promote

reinvigorate the japanese economy in an

industry

and you know come at that's going to

challenge western financial institutions

that have

you know propped up the japanese economy

in the latter part of world war ii i

think america would put it on the table

to do something like invade japan and

the reason i think so is because well

one american

you know it it bombed it only used

nuclear weapons once which was

against japan

for no reason other than to to scare and

intimidate the soviet union i mean it

didn't need to do that but it did

um it's like america has a kind of

nihilistic and immoral philosophy of

just

very machiavellian and very much i mean

it it it in in hiroshima and nagasaki it

dropped those bombs

for absolutely no it didn't do so

because it needed to win the war it

didn't do so for any other reason than

wanting to have a geopolitical

intimidation of the soviet union so

hundreds of thousands of lives murdered

basically

for

a very cynical cynical purpose and then

second of all

the u.s has a history of

invading countries that defy western

financial institutions and and um insist

upon their own sovereignty

uh in the past and

and china doesn't you know

so i mean i don't disagree with you that

the us more likely would be the one to

do that but if there was some sort of a

more populist uprising in japan but i

guess our in our hypothetical scenario

the us would be collapsing in some sort

of way right it's after the u.s lost her

germany uh in in any meaningful way that

i'm saying that china would sort of try

to aggress on japan so we would this is

under the assumption that u.s has sort

of declined in the in the world stage so

yeah yeah so i guess you could still

make the argument that even after the

decline if there was some sort of state

in any formal way i guess that that

whatever's left of the us could still

try to take over japan but i i don't

really i think they would lose strength

when it comes to matters like these

there's always going to be possibilities

right

in order to cultivate well i think the i

think giving trust a chance

should i mean you can assume the worst

about china's intentions and design

china's going to do the worst thing

possible to japan right that it that it

can

but i think there does need to be a leap

of trust now japan can try and give

china a chance basically and if china

transgresses

uh in the way that you're describing i'm

sure that the japanese people

will not tolerate it right

yeah i mean i think there's already a

mistrust of japan just knowing japanese

people there's already a right but but

you have to admit from a historical

perspective i mean the only time china's

invaded japan was not under a chinese or

han chinese dynasty but it was under the

yuan

dynasty and it's not because of chinese

aggression against japan it's the the

mongols invaded everyone right they

invaded china they invaded java i mean

they invaded

the world right so

there was that um yuan inva invasion of

japan

beyond that i don't think china's ever

exhibited any aggression against japan

in history

yeah i mean you can say that it's

irrational but just knowing the

sentiments of japanese people they

already have a sort of a mistrust of

chinese people in general

like the opinions that they have so

right

yeah so i could see it getting ugly if

if there was any sort of uh but i think

this is also a misplaced um misplaced

hostility because i think if the

japanese focused more on their internal

antagonisms i think that would take off

a lot of the

negative focus on on china i mean you

would agree that japan is not in a very

good state right now right i mean

japanese industries is declining the

japanese economy is stagnating there's a

demographic crisis there's a spiritual

crisis a moral crisis right

existential crisis of of japan so i

think

entering into a new asian era right

would probably reinvigorate japan

um

as the only shot basically of of

preserving and reviving the japanese

civilization i mean it's under america's

leadership we see the kind of nihilism

the path japan um has gone down it's in

no way beneficial to um the japanese

people

no i agree with you there all i'm saying

is that i could see the china even if it

wasn't militarily i could see a chinese

puppet state you know a chinese like a

pro-chinese government in japan like i

could see that being a possibility if

there was a real u.s collapse right like

um a pro-chinese government uh which

would be unpopular with the japanese

people

yeah i mean i guess yeah i guess in a

way but it might be forceful right but

if there's a ruling class that's pro

china uh

you know i could see it being ugly again

i could see japan japanese people being

second-class citizens in that way if if

they really lost the ability to fight

back in any mean meaningful way again

because militarily they have no chance

i think any country that wants to be

independent has to have the will

to have confidence in itself that it

will defend itself and its own dignity

and again i know you can't take my word

for it that i don't believe china has

these designs on japan

but whether it's china or whether it's

um

timbuktu right any country you want

right um

it's you can i think there's one of the

things i'm thinking of is that

i think there's maybe this kind of

over dependence japan has on the us

where it no longer

thinks it has to take sovereignty in its

own hands but rely on bigger powers in

general right

and

it's a it's a pattern

you know you can kind of see in japanese

society as well i mean the birth rates

are in decline people don't want to get

started families

um

as much as they used to and

you know it's like it's like something

that permeates

from you can completely correct me if

i'm wrong this is just from what little

i know about japanese societies is this

kind of crisis of of um

self-determination and sovereignty in

general right

so

dependence on america has a bigger power

and an inability to return to japanese

sovereign power

is a cri is a kind of existential crisis

i think is facing japan because the most

recent memory of japanese sovereignty

uh was during world war ii which led to

the completely disastrous and

catastrophic result

so what i actually think

um is that

hypothetically and speculating what i

think is actually more likely is that

china will be a new impetus and new

possibility for japan to reacquire its

sense of sovereignty and sense of

selfhood

it's not going to be dependent on china

like it was dependent on america because

china doesn't want that china doesn't

want countries to be

you know

dependent on it and under its kind of

coercion in the way that

america has it right china wants

countries to be able to take care of

themselves china can't china struggles

to govern itself right so it doesn't

want to be governing all these other

countries i think china would prefer an

independent japanese government to

govern the japanese people

um and that's why i mentioned before

that china is increasingly sympathetic

to the pre-world war ii and

pre-1930s kind of japanese

modernity

because it perf it it

it doesn't want japan to become

an imperialist power that invades other

countries but it also would probably

prefer a japan that is

self um

that is sovereign right that's not

dependent on a bigger power at all i

think china

and japan

can come to a point historically where

they both respect each other and respect

their independence

yeah i mean that would be again yeah

like you said that would be best case

scenario but i i think there's just an

antagonism that maybe you might not be

aware of just knowing japanese people in

general they're just suspicious of

chinese people just you know i i i yeah

but i i think

that if i were to talk to japanese

people telling me about this problem

within their country i think i would say

focus on

the issue of the contradiction of the

japanese establishment right because

right now japan is not in a very good

state and i think if you focus people's

attention um against the status quo

you can

put the question of chinese relations on

the back burner a little bit right

because i think japan is facing bigger

problems than that right now

yeah i agree yeah i think realistically

um this is sort of this would be sort of

deviating from the the actual point but

yeah realistically us would prob the us

would probably be a bigger threat at

this current moment if you know because

there are if you know anything about

japanese politics there are conservative

movements in in japan that are like real

imperialistic uh you know they're sort

of like trying to bring back the old

japanese like uh energy uh and then sort

of politics and like you know

like denying any sort of atrocities that

might might have happened during world

war two there's like a real conservative

movement in japan that's sort of brewing

so sort of like how you see trump or you

know what well some people say like

trump or you know like more uh radical

right-wingers

like you're starting to see that in

japan in some sort of way so

my argument would be that

you know yeah i agree that america seems

to be the bigger threat well they are

right the the japanese constitution has

literally been written by the us so

um yeah so i see that as a bigger issue

but all i'm saying is i think china

hopefully they would be more you know

peace they would take a more peaceful

approach but i'm saying that that would

just be off of just good faith i don't

see i don't see why materially they

would do that um

well i think um it would have every

reason to be i think we need to start

shifting to a

view about the new world order that's

emerging right

where

we kind of came from european modernity

which is this very cynical view of

hobbesian view that you know if you can

act like a pirate and a barbarian you

will so it just gives rise to this

cynicism where the default is like

um

barbarism towards your neighbors right

but if we actually study

the history let's just focus on asia

specifically for the past few thousand

years we can see that there were times

where

i mean hundreds of years could pass

where

all sorts of dynasties and governments

could engage in aggression but because

of things like

honor right because of things like um

precedent and customs and traditions

they just consider it

prohibited and and not something there

was attempts there were times where

chinese dynasties could have like

developed

um

these specific gunpowder technologies

and they didn't because of the confucian

ethics and these these are not just like

um

you know

uh some kind of like

completely um

miraculous good faith i think things

like

uh honor

ethics and so on these are what define

our humanity in the first place right so

we should start looking at a

post-hobzyan kind of view of

international relations where we

shouldn't assume that just because

someone has an advantage of power

that they're going to

that it's a jungle right where it's just

gonna be complete

um doggy dog and and the bigger dog eats

the small dog because believe it or not

that's not how human civilization has

worked for the majority of the time that

existed i mean there were a lot of

instances of

conquest and so on

but yeah

yeah i agree precisely yeah things like

honor right things like um

things like tradition and president

have had a very very huge role in

governing the interaction between

civilizations

before european modernity and i think

we're entering an era in which this is

starting to become a factor again right

it's not the only factor but it is

starting to become

a working factor

yeah yeah i i see what you're saying

there yeah that is true maybe if china

takes a more hands-off eastern approach

maybe you know but like i said it could

it doesn't have to necessarily be

military force but i could still see a a

pro-china sort of a quasi-puppet state

in japan you know just just being

pro-china right not necessarily that

it's taken over by china but uh just

being just the government in the ruling

class in japan being pro-china just

because china has so much influence on

that region um i could see that being an

issue still and i think that would that

would still and that would antagonize

the japanese people um in in some sort

of way so i i think that would be ugly

regardless you know i think either way

if the u.s collapsed things would change

anyway but i could still see china being

a threat to japan in some way maybe

their way of living currently which you

can make an argument maybe it's a good

thing um

but uh yeah that would be my i guess my

last point there

okay

cool um yeah that was pretty much it i

think we had a pretty uh reasonable

conversation uh i don't think we can we

resolved anything but uh you made some

good points that i maybe should consider

hopefully i made you know good points uh

i know i don't i didn't really hear i

haven't really heard

uh you know i've heard you guys talk

about technocracy or you know just like

a new sort of approach in any sort of

way so i think it was a good

conversation so i don't mean i don't

hopefully you don't find this insulting

but there's some people in my chat who

are telling me i've debated you before

is it true

uh no i don't think so okay uh i don't

know why they're saying that but some

people in my chat are saying like you

were a libertarian before and i debated

you or something

uh yeah i'm not really sure about that

but

okay uh just yeah i'm seeing jason i'm

not sure who that is uh

but yeah i i i personally don't

remember anything but

people are telling me that so i just

so okay sorry about it i don't know

maybe yeah i don't know maybe uh i have

a voice that sounds familiar to jason or

whatever i don't know but uh yeah okay

cool well thanks for the conversation i

guess all right thank you