Patrick Watts | The End Of The American Empire & The Scorecard For Previous Empire Collapse

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#168 - The following is with Patrick Watts who is one hell of an interesting fella, this was a really fun episode to record!

The podcast is about the themes from his debut book, The End Of The American Empire. 

The End Of The American Empire – UK Amazon

The End Of The American Empire – US Amazon

It’s just come out in US and UK markets, so don’t hesitate a second to go and get it. Amazon link is in the description… this is a self published book from Patrick, so my hope is that the curious worldview audience will really make a difference in moving the needle here.

• 00:00 – Who Is Patrick Watts
• 01:23 – US Politics (Biden, Culture & Trump)
• 11:23 – Theory Of Rhetoric
• 13:49 – Patrick Watts… Self Confessed Americanophile
• 17:54 – Distinction Between An Empire & State
• 21:33 – Behind The Scenes Self Publishing
• 47:58 – John Perkins & Confessions Of An Economic Hitman
• 54:25 – Why Empires Have Fallen Throughout History
• 1:16:49 – 50% Of Pregnancies In The US Are Unplanned
• 1:19:13 – US Is The Most Mediciated Citizenry On Earth
• 1:20:13 – What Does A Collapse Of The American Empire Look Like?
• 1:33:30 – Serendipity In Patrick’s Life
• 1:45:35 – Favourite Fictional Character & Country Particularly Bullish On

Curious Things Mentioned During The Episode

• Geopolitics Starter Pack
• John Perkins & Confessions Of An Economic Hitman

🍻☕: https://www.buymeacoffee.com/ryanhogg

Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/ryanfhogg/

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

The following is with Patrick Watts, who was one hell of an interesting fella. Uh, the more and more we talked, both before and after the interview, it became really clear how almost exactly overlapping our interests are. So, needless to say, um uh this was a really fun episode to record. The podcast is about the themes from his debut book, The End of the American Empire. It's just come out in the US and UK markets, so please do not hesitate for one second, go out and go and get it. The Amazon link is in this podcast description, and this is a self-published book from Patrick. So my hope is that the Curious Worldview audience will really make a difference in moving the needle here. Uh refer to the timestamps for all the topics discussed, pump that good juice into the algorithm, which comes in the form of five stars, a five-star review. That's either on uh Spotify or on Apple. And also, I don't know if you saw, but in addition to this show, uh, my interview with Bill Browder last week, he comments on the Vowney in our interview just days before the sad news that came in the last few days. So, uh very timely topical. Check out that interview as well. And with absolutely no further ado, here is the great and powerful Patrick Watts.

SPEAKER_01 1:22

Um, yeah, it's that's insane, isn't it? You've got how is it 300 or million people? And the best two choices are both aging, both showing signs of mental decline. Um I think it's it's bizarre. It's uh I think Elon Musk suggested, didn't he, that there should be a uh you know, a cap on the age age limit of office. And I I kind of agree with that. Gordon Brown, our ex-prime minister, made quite a funny quote the other day where he said, I'm in that strange period where I'm too old to be a British Prime Minister, but too young to be a US, China, or Russian leader, which I thought was quite funny.

SPEAKER_00 1:58

You speculate in the book as to how they got to this position.

SPEAKER_01 2:03

Yeah, well, I think in general, both parties have kind of they've shown a bit of a disregard and a denigration of the democratic process and democracy as a whole. I think if you go all the way back to, you know, Bush and Gore in Florida, you know, and kind of the uh the early declaration of victory, and that that was, I think, the first kind of chink in the armor of the American democratic system. Um, and then you know, I talk a lot about the idea of succession legitimacy and that being a massive thing, you know, especially in democracy, you have to maintain the succession legitimacy, and at the moment there isn't there is none. And I think it's not just the obvious, you know, Trump literally trying to steal an election last time. That is the end or the current endpoint of this succession. You look at you know Bernie Sanders being kind of screwed out of the nomination for the uh for the Democrats uh for you know because they wanted to anoint Hillary Clinton. Then you had Hillary Clinton, you know, losing that election because she was an unpopular candidate, and then instead of kind of a bit of soul searching in a come to Jesus moment, the Democrats just you know blamed Russia. And obviously there was Russian interference, but that was not the sole reason why why she lost. So they didn't make the changes that they required, and they, you know, again chipped away at the legitimacy of the president, like him or not. Um and also it's it's crazy, isn't it, if you look at the statistics of how many of the recent presidents have won, um, even though they've lost the popular vote. So, you know, there's so many different parts of that system that just don't seem to work.

SPEAKER_00 3:33

Is there a more uh uh damning data point as to a failing democracy than that?

SPEAKER_01 3:39

Well, it's bizarre, isn't it? Because on the on the very face of it, you look at it and say, well, hang on, how many people voted for who? You know, it should be as simple as that. And I think I kind of speculate about what different alternatives are there, because obviously, you know, no one's perfect. In the UK, we you know we have the first past the post system, which means that my vote is worth you know differently to somebody else's vote in the country. Um, other states, you know, I think Italy, they have a way of just kind of making up votes so that you don't kind of have uh minority governments. So there's there's no kind of perfect situation, but yeah, I I think currently the actual legitimacy of the of the US kind of model is is in a bit of a shambles, and I don't see any result that I can forecast of this election that's going to change that.

SPEAKER_00 4:20

From a cultural or even social perspective, um, do you have an explanation for how the two options are both these shocking, horrible, unlikable people?

SPEAKER_01 4:33

I think the problem is there's um there's a really good book by a chap called Matt Taibi, uh called Hate Inc. And I read that about maybe about seven or eight years ago. And essentially that posits that after the after the Cold War, um the US was you know global hyperpower. There was essentially empire, there was no real challenger. You had the the war on terror, and you had kind of some disastrous um occurrences there. Um but in terms of a you know a direct challenger, there was nobody for the US to root against. So, you know, in in absence of that, especially after the conclusion of the war on terror kind of proper, you know, they the the media essentially whipped up these partisan feuds to essentially fight each other. So you've got this situation where everything is completely hyper partisan, um, and that has created the conditions where a candidate like Donald Trump can emerge. Um he is just a symptom of the of the situation. You know, the the people that are voting for him, especially the first time around, I don't think the majority of them voted for him because they like his character, they also probably don't like many of his policies, but they just feel completely ignored by the alternative. And the alternative was you know the Democrats who don't represent them whatsoever. Um for what it's worth, I actually think you know if Joe Biden had decided to quit or to say that he was only going to be a one-term president, he would have been remembered as one of their better presidents. Um but unfortunately he's been seen to be you know kind of forcing the issue and carrying on, and now you know he's incredibly unpopular. Um kind of kind of linked to that is unfortunately the unpopularity ratings of of uh the VP Kamala Harris. I think if she was much more popular, I don't think he'd be running. It's not her, you know, it's not necessarily her fault, she's just not unpopular, isn't she? So I think it's um yeah, it's an impossible situation. Plus the well, the Republicans for a start, that that party is now, as the Donald Trump Jr.'s son said uh on the on the 6th of January, this is Donald Trump's party now. You know, that was years ago, and it still stands, it's it still stands to reason.

SPEAKER_00 6:32

Yeah, Joey B is eighty-two years old. That's crazy. Surely you just want to retire, spend some time with the grandkids, play golf. Anything. Like it's anything, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 6:43

Walks in the city walks in the country, like to get on the memoirs, get get the presidential library up and running.

SPEAKER_00 6:47

But yeah, it's uh set down some legit memoirs. I mean, the man's lived a hell of a life.

SPEAKER_01 6:53

Yeah, and it's I think there's a part in the book where I kind of talk about, you know, is this kind of why wise old heads or just running out of options? And I think this it's it's easy to kind of label uh any criticism of either of those candidates as ageism, which I think is just so lazy because it's not ageist to say that somebody is probably too old to be doing a role like leading the free world. Um, you know, you wouldn't necessarily want an 82-year-old running your company, let alone, let alone the country.

SPEAKER_00 7:21

And yeah, from a I don't want an 82-year-old driving my car.

SPEAKER_01 7:24

I think um Joe Rogan has a joke on that. He says, like, you know, just just answer the simple question, would you let Joe Biden drive you home from the airport? And if the answer's no, then you shouldn't probably have him in church. So yeah, I think it's um I I think it's it's just really detrimental to where democracy is going in the US that that they have this, you know. I I thought it was bad when we had uh in the UK when we had to choose between you know Boris Johnson and Jeremy Corbyn. Um but you know, look this is even worse.

SPEAKER_00 7:54

Is the same hyperpartisanship that explains Trump explicable for Biden?

SPEAKER_01 8:00

I think Biden is not necessarily the hyperpartisanship. I think it's somebody, I can't remember who described the Democrats or the DNC anyway, as uh as an election racket. So essentially just put making sure that the elite members of the of the party are insulated from challenge so that they can uh, you know, it's it's your time, it's your time Hillary, it's your time Joe, you know, you're the safe pair of hands, etc. etc. So I don't necessarily necessarily think it's the hyperpartisanship that's created that. I think it's more the DNC wanting to kind of insulate and protect from any challenges that are too progressive. If you look at what they did to Bernie, you look at the reason that you know none of the actual genuinely progressive members of that Congress are actually anywhere near um positions of um you know challenging for the leadership, that's the problem. And there's there's an argument that if uh Donald Trump wasn't running and it was a more establishment uh kind of candidate for the Republicans, would the Democrat was the DNC and you know members of that elite prefer prefer that person to win than say a Bernie Sanders or a uh I don't know, Ilan O'Man or you know an AOC or someone truly progressive? Quite possibly, because they're all kind of uh you know, everyone's scratching each other's backs.

SPEAKER_00 9:12

One of those candidates would scream hyperpartisanship, I think, um a little more loudly, right?

SPEAKER_01 9:18

Yeah, I think so.

SPEAKER_00 9:20

Because they're so divisive.

SPEAKER_01 9:21

Yeah, I think the problem is every at the moment there is so much kind of division that everybody every candidate seems divisive for for whatever reason. And I also think people have forgotten that you don't necessarily have to agree with everything that a certain candidate says. You're never going to. It's not it's not possible. The idea is you should agree with enough and agree with maybe the character traits and personality that make that person worth supporting.

SPEAKER_00 9:46

Yeah, they're overall worldview.

SPEAKER_01 9:48

Yeah, exactly. Rather than, ah, well, there was that thing 15 years ago that I didn't like, therefore I hate them, therefore I'm not gonna vote for them. Because all it does is it leads to this kind of cynicism that we have now where you know people kind of become disengaged from the whole democratic process because they say, well, you know, they're all the same, or what's the point? They're all they're all crap, or what, you know, whatever. And it just means that you just completely shut down, you know, kind of any engagement with it. And I think kind of cynically, that served the uh kind of the olig the oligarchy in the American American system quite well because they don't want you to be particularly engaged, they don't want you to be, you know, following the money and looking at the bills and looking at actually kind of all the lobbying and like all the revolving doors, etc. They want you to just kind of get on with it and just vote one at one of them in each four years and kind of keep cracking on.

SPEAKER_00 10:32

I uh interviewed Sam Leith um recently. Uh he wrote a book about rhetoric, he's a journalist for the spectator, and he just made an observation. There isn't any sort of point behind it, but I did find it such a compelling observation, um, and that is that in the um modern American presidents, since Bush, it has no since Clinton, it has swung very violently from a rhetoric um uh politician to an anti-rhetoric politician. So starting with Clinton, smooth, perfect rhetoric, yeah, everyone agrees, charismatic, good speaker. Who wins after him? George W. Bush. Yeah. Overwhelmingly considered bad rhetorican, but in the bad rhetoric, people trust him more because they don't think there's this slick salesman who's actually tricking them into something. Yeah. Who wins after George Bush? Barack Obama, the greatest rhetorician, maybe still alive. And then uh and and he won because people acknowledge how good of a speaker is we want a smart person leading the country, etc. Then by the time he's out, the worst anti-rhetorician ever comes in, Donald Trump, you know, who is just um one of the things people loved about him, and they would openly say it is that he speaks so plainly, he speaks exactly to me, he uses the words of the everyday man, etc. It's it's blatantly anti-rhetoric, and um that's kind of when the trend breaks because Joe Biden came in over the top of the phone. I was gonna say not exactly opposite rhetoric. Yeah, exactly. Um but now we're in a position where there's two anti-rhetoricians, and it's uh almost it feels like people say we want someone smarter to pick it up. There's almost like a hunger for a great rhetorician. Uh, and so I don't know if there's an obvious point there, but it is an interesting observation.

SPEAKER_01 12:23

I think so, and I think the the one that stands out to me in that list is Obama, and I think because it's not just the rhetoric, it's more I genuinely think there was a true desire for the type of hope and change that he was discussing. And I think that did genuinely bring a lot of people together, and it just gave people a hope that maybe they could, you know, be better. But then I think the crash to come back down from that when they realized that actually, if you look behind the scenes, there are a lot of policies that weren't necessarily doing that. Um, you look at kind of like the expansion of the drone warfare program, for instance, that's you know, winning a winning a uh a uh Nobel Peace Prize and then being able to assassinate anyone on the planet, those those two things don't really go hand in hand. And I think once you come up from such a high, lofty you know position of hope, it's so easy to crash back down again, and then you return to cynicism. And who better to return you to cynicism than Donald Trump? And um it's quite funny what you say about you know the way that he speaks, there's a really good uh obviously, I don't know if you've watched South Park, but when they uh when they started yeah, they started running with uh obviously Mr. Garrison or Mrs. Garrison as as Trump, and it was just like you know, he'd say whatever he wants, and then uh all the crowd be like, Yeah, he just said he's just saying like it is, yeah, he's just one of us, and he's saying, like, don't vote for me, I really don't want this fucking job. And they're like, Yeah, God, you tell him. That always made me laugh. Yeah, legends.

SPEAKER_00 13:45

Um, so you write that you're a self-confessed Americanophile. Um, do you have any sense for where that came from to begin with?

SPEAKER_01 13:56

I think, like kind of everybody who grew up, so I'm uh approaching 40 now, you know, growing up in those kind of formative years after the end of the Cold War, uh, you know, the Hollywood myth, as I call it, it was exploding everywhere. You know, everything Amer America was about was big, it was brash, it was cool. It was uh, you know, the the well, I think you know, the commercial empire, if you want to call it that, the commercial and cultural empire was so pervasive and you know, every corner of the globe it seemed to touch. And even as a kid, I remember we always wanted to, we used to go uh holidaying in France, you know, it was lovely, but we kind of went every single year, got a little bit samey. We're desperate to go to America, you know, just to check it out. And like when we finally got there, it's it's so everything's so oversized, it's just um you know kind of bowls you over a little bit. And I think from my time, I've done quite a few road trips around and driven thousands of miles, um, lots of different states. Kind of I just like meeting normal people and talking to them and seeing what they think. And you know, by and large, everyone's been really super friendly. I like the fact that compared to you know, the UK, British people could be quite cynical, um, Europeans as well. Um, whereas, you know, in America, everyone seems to be very open, you know, very open, very friendly, happy to chat, you know, invite you in. And I that was I I really kind of just enjoyed that. And then the more that I would go back and the more that I would speak with people, the more that that resonated with me. And then once I started to scratch under the surface a little bit, I realized that okay, well, would I potentially have got that same reaction if I if I wasn't, you know, a white person? Maybe not. You know, and then I started to dig a little bit deeper, and then that's kind of what led me to want to scratch the itch of just seeing exactly what was going on under the bonnet, and then kind of leading to this situation where I kind of describe myself as a bit of a concerned friend, which is how I'm trying to write, you know, rather than um just being hypercritical and you know, football, which is not gonna help anybody, it's just it's sometimes more easy to kind of uh discuss with something what's going on when you don't have as much skin in the game. You know, I don't think I could have written this book if I was an American Democrat or Republican, because I think instantly one side, if you want to call them sides, is gonna come out straight away. Say, oh, that's you know, that's rubbish, you're not patriot, or whatever.

SPEAKER_00 16:03

Uh okay, so you mentioned um the enthusiasm of the Americans was something that you found uh particularly charming. I actually couldn't agree more. Um you know, as someone who's lived in Europe for such a long time, there is such a snobby obnoxiousness about Americans, especially like you know, American expats who I've dealt with in both Amsterdam and Stockholm. They people just say, Oh, they're obnoxious, they're always too loud, and you know, they they always ask too many questions and stuff, which is all true, and Americans could use a heavy dose of um social awareness, but the enthusiasm that underwrites it all, i it forgives everything because there's such a lust for life there, and uh Yeah, I I agree, I think it's infectious, and I I guess there's a there's a run I had a friend move over from the States uh to London recently, and she was she was asking me why uh whether it was true that people thought that Americans were really loud on the tube.

SPEAKER_01 17:01

Uh, and I was saying, well, yeah, no, the reality is yes, yes, yes, we do, because you kind of are, but in a way, like like you say, you compare that to a you know, London, everyone look at your feet, uh France, you know, don't even dare ask me a question in Paris. You try to put you know, try to speak some French and they're gonna look at you blankly and speak English back to you because they you know they don't rate you French. So, you know, I always quite quite enjoyed the American uh, you know, it is a it is a brashness, and I think uh they could definitely do with a bit of self-awareness on the whole, because you know, they are their influence is oversized everywhere on the globe, and it's sometimes kind of realizing that. And again, we kind of spoke offline about you know that kind of litany of sins that I've laid out pretty dramatically in the early chapter of the book. I think that's important. I think it's important to understand what's happened, you know, in the past for your country and happened in your name so that you can learn from it and be better.

SPEAKER_00 17:54

The book makes a um a really clear attempt to emphasize that you're talking about the American empire versus the American state. Uh why the emphasis on empire?

SPEAKER_01 18:08

I think if you're going to examine what uh parallels are kind of evident throughout history, the best way to examine that is through clear-eyed, realistic lens. So hiding from the fact that there is an empire present is not going to allow you to see all the parallels and make the most of them. And the reality is that there it is imperial. You know, that you know ever since the end of the Second World War, when the British Empire declined, you know, the Bretton Woods Conference, creating the IMF and the World Bank, installing the dollar as a reserve currency, you know, that started this kind of US-led um financial global system. So that meant that every kind of aspect of the world was touched by what America did. Then, you know, you build in kind of the military dominance, the military superiority. You know, the UK used to have a two-power standard in the British Empire days, which meant that the UK would spend more than twice the two next leading powers combined. The US has essentially an unwritten rule, but it's a 10-power standard. So they spend more militarily than the next ten combined. And they spend so it's about 800 billion big stars. And that's 800 billion, that's the Chinese is 200 billion. So, you know, there's that that's far and away, you know, greater power than any empire has had in history. I thought I talked quickly about the drone program previously, but you know, if you'd have said to Alexander the Great or Genghis Khan, listen, you can kill anybody you want anytime you want, you know, that power is unmatched. So I think it's important to understand that. And that's before you think about you know the uh yeah, the permutations of having Coca-Cola and McDonald's and everything. You know, it's just the entire culture has expanded through globalization, which has been obviously retreating now, but it's it's kind of taken over every aspect of the globe. So I don't think you can apply parallels from you know, why did the Aztecs collapse? Why did the British collapse? Why did the Mongols collapse? And how what can we learn from that if you don't first say, well, hang on, you know, that this is an empire here. We need to understand that and learn from it, rather than saying, no, no, no, we're we're benign, we're just a state, we're just getting on with it, they hate us for our freedoms, all of that, you know, that rhetoric.

SPEAKER_00 20:23

Maybe you could make a very explicit um distinction between what is an empire, what is a state.

SPEAKER_01 20:30

Yeah, and I think a state is a well, a nation-state is obviously controlling within its own borders. It doesn't have the the reach or the ability to act unilaterally, essentially without recourse. And that is what the the American the modern American system has and has been able to do for the last 30 odd years. So I think that is the difference. There might not be someone, well, you could argue as well that the president has quasi-imperial powers with the ability of you to use executive orders, which have been in the increase recently, uh, to be able to kind of obviate the requirement for um you know the checks and balances. Um so I think there's a there's an imperial element there as well. Um but yeah, I don't if you compare it to any other nation on earth for over the last 30 years, it has behaved in a completely different way because of the power disparity militarily, financially, you know, economically, and you know, just the the control of every other aspect of our lives. So that I think that's why it's it's key to address it.

SPEAKER_00 21:30

Uh I would just love to hear you um explain how this book came into existence, uh, because as I will hint at in the introduction at least, but I am heavily projecting onto the story that uh you have led so far in producing this book, being self published, um doing all the research yourself, like really hustling and grinding hard to get it out there. In front of as many interesting people as you can. So if you could please, just from over from wherever you think is relevant as a starting point, explain how this book came into existence.

SPEAKER_01 22:09

Yeah, sure. I was so I did an MA in uh I always I always wanted to do an MA at the War Studies Department at King's College in London, which is uh pretty prestigious, always sounded quite interesting. And then when I left university, the I kind of looked into it, realised it was going to cost 20 grand, uh, didn't have 20 pounds, let alone 20 grand. So I thought it's probably probably best to wait. Uh so I kind of um you know went went into industry, kind of built my career so that I and then after a while I realized there was still this itch that needed scratching, which is you know, I love my job, I love my career, but I think it's important to have kind of pursuits outside that, especially for me, I need to I have an academic urge. I want to find, I want to keep asking questions and keep learning. So I decided to do that just before kind of COVID. Um, it's actually quite a funny story because I've met my dissertation tutor uh and we met up and he said to me, Oh, you know, there's amazing libraries at King's and all these things. I said, I'm gonna, you know, you're gonna hate me. I've never actually been on campus because it was all distance learning, and I live in London, but I never needed to go, and I said, Oh, I'm gonna go for the graduation. And graduation was during COVID, so I've still never been on King's campus, and I walked past it every day. But while I was doing kind of the masters, my dissertation kind of brought into focus it was during the Trump presidency. So my dissertation focused specifically on President Trump and the kind of the impact of his attempts to challenge kind of global norms, like on a subconscious and a conscious level. And I examined that through a discourse analysis uh through the prism of NATO. Um while I was doing that, I realized that the idea that everybody was focusing so kind of myopically on Trump himself as the person was kind of a distraction. You know, they were ignored, focusing on the deficiencies of his deficiencies of his personality, of which there are many, but it was more as he was a symptom of American decline rather than the disease itself. And I thought as I was writing the dissertation, I would get these notes. I think, hang on, there's much more here. Uh it has to be written in a different way because it's far less academic. That would not be consumable uh or enjoyable for most people to read the dissertation. Which I have actually put that up on my on my website for anyone who's academically minded. But as I was starting to make notes and starting to get into it, I thought, hang on, I definitely think there's a book here. Um and then pretty much as soon as the MA finished, I kind of just got started getting on with it, started sketching out what I was gonna do. Um, I have a friend who is a writer as well, so I started chatting to him. He gave me some good tips. He kind of um, yeah, just kind of commit to it. The minute you start committing, you're an author. You know, the minute you write anything, you're an author. That was quite helpful. Um, you know, took myself away, went on, actually, you know, took myself to like an Airbnb in kind of the middle of nowhere there where there was nothing where I just had to write. So in the because obviously in the beginning it was quite tricky because you had to just yeah, it's it was good fun. It was just like if I don't commit like that, make I feel like making the effort to kind of put yourself in that situation means you're in the right mindset, and it's like, no, I am gonna write this thing, because I didn't know at the time how much time it would take, but you you know, you know it's gonna be a big undertaking. Um, and then yeah, it's kind of just evenings and weekends for the last three years, so probably I think probably one year to research, one year to write, and then one year to release. Um, and each each part's brought different challenges.

SPEAKER_00 25:37

Nice. I have three questions. Um, what was the advice your writer friend gave you?

SPEAKER_01 25:44

So, first one was he he said essentially that the writing retreat type thing, he said it's wet it's well worth doing, it's just take yourself away, um, away from distraction, um, also be accountable, uh, tell people you're doing it. So uh that I think that was quite important for me. I uh yeah, I I quite like that anyway, though, because I tend to live my life generally like that. Is once I once I verbalize it and you know that plan is out there, then it's on me to kind of make it happen. So I think that was quite useful advice from him. Um just also to be constantly constantly progressing. Even if it's even if you don't feel like it, even if it's you don't feel like you're doing your best work, it doesn't not necessarily every day, but at least at least every week, you have to be kind of moving. Because with this type of project that's so large, it could be you have those bad days where nothing comes, or you can't, you know, just you know don't really feel like it's flowing. It's easy to get dejected, and then it's just another, you know, another idea that you uh that you didn't follow through on and everyone takes a piss about. So, you know, that that's what I really wanted to try and avoid.

SPEAKER_00 26:50

Yeah, that's the worst, isn't it? But it's also you know the most likely outcome. Yeah, you promise something big. Alright, so you're away on these um dedicated writing retreats. How do you guarantee you minimize the distraction? Because you've still got a phone and you're still writing on a computer. How do you say to yourself, I'm fucking tossing that phone out the window and I'm not gonna open up YouTube, I'm not gonna open up Netflix. How do you guarantee that you maintain the focus?

SPEAKER_01 27:20

So I think uh the phone out the window is not that far from the truth. I like I like to write with music, so what I would do is I would take like one of those little Bose pebbles with me, so I so I had some tunes to listen to, but I would set that up next to me, but I would set the phone up as far away from me as I could uh in the in the room as I could see. So I just didn't see it and just get on with it. I'd have the internet on the laptop going, but like main because you need it for the research. But I think it's in the back of the mind the fact that you have taken yourself away and you're paying a couple hundred quid for the Airbnb or whatever it is, that you've made that effort, you've made that financial commitment and that commitment of your time, and you're not you know doing whatever else you could be on that weekend, that was quite reinforcing for me anyway. So I found it quite easy to clue in. So it's like, look, what what is the point? Like if you just sit here and watch Netflix, you've wasted your time, you've wasted your money, you know, you're an idiot. So that was always quite handy. I felt what as soon as I started to then get into the writing, I required that kind of isolation and that motivation far less because the kind of the project changed from something that I found was quite interesting to something that I then thought could actually be quite good, and then it became something that actually I thought needed to be written and read. And as soon as I kind of evolved to that last point, it became annoying. Yeah, and it became almost like an obsession, and you wake up in the middle of the night with notes and it's just constantly on your mind. So at that point, you know, I could write in my living room. And you know, I've got PlayStation 5, I love gaming, I've got you know Netflix, all the rest of it. But for some reason, you know, because I was cluing in, even if it was for two or three hours here and there, it's like, well, listen, I I desperately need to get these points down because I know how they now link with that thing I wrote in chapter two. So it it kind of evolves.

SPEAKER_00 29:01

Well, that's how you know you're onto something. I suppose that'll touch into the intrapersonal psychology at the end. Exactly. But um you'll love this little anecdote. Do you know who Leonard Mlodonov is?

SPEAKER_01 29:12

I don't.

SPEAKER_00 29:14

So he's a American um um world-class theoretical physicist, co-authored a bunch of papers with Stephen Hawking, in fact, co-authored Stephen Hawking's memoirs. Interesting. Um I I I love this guy so much. He's so interesting because he's a prolific author, first of all, social scientists. Um he's also a world-class uh academic, but he's also written episodes for Star Trek. And um, you know, being he's got this he's got this incredible creative bone. But anyway, but he's very prolific, right? He does a lot, and it's all um stuff which uh requires a lot of focus and attention. Anyway, when he wrote his most recent book called Emotional, he just had such a strict timeline and deadline that he followed perfectly, and it was I produce X amount of research um over the course of the next few weeks, I then go away on this writing retreat, and in five days the book goes from zero words to completed, no questions asked. And he's just got all of his research printed out, he brings a laptop with no internet, and he rewards himself at the end of the day with some takeout if it was a good day. And it's it's you know it's amazing that he could do it, obviously. Uh, not everyone can do that, but it's a very romantic idea of you know what, there is if there is a book in you, you no matter how busy you are, you can get it out there.

SPEAKER_01 30:41

I think that's yeah, that that would be my takeaway point from that, apart from the fact that he's clearly an animal, like that's militant. I'm I'm so impressed with that because uh yeah, I definitely don't think I could operate it on the same level as he does, but yeah, I 100% agree with that premise. If once uh if you feel there is a book in you, the minute you start to write it, then you are I then you are an author, and then it wants to come out, and then as long as it's I guess it's you're always gonna have distractions, you're always gonna have things that get in the way, and it might take ten years rather than one year because I'm in a position I don't have children, I've got a lot of friends who've got kids, like, and every time they say how do you find the time, I say, I haven't got kids, because I talk to them about their lives, and that you know they're hectic, they're stressful, they've got loads of stuff to do. So maybe for me writing this book, obviously there was a constant kind of nagging in the back of my mind that because of the uh subject matter, time is marching on, I need to get this down. Whereas if it was something, I don't know, fiction or something you know, where history has stopped 200 years ago, it could be ten years. And if you know, if you're even though I had those distractions, maybe I could have still got it out there. But because of, yeah, I needed to really get moving, it kind of gave me that kind of kick to say, look, look, come on, we got we've got to get on with this because things are gonna pass us by a little bit.

SPEAKER_00 31:54

Second question. You said that um it was important to have interests outside of work. What is your rationale behind that?

SPEAKER_01 32:04

I think the idea of just putting all of your kind of self-actualization. We talked a little bit about you know Maslow and his hierarchy of needs, you know, this idea that self-actualization of is gonna be what makes you feel good essentially, you know, it makes you feel like you want to get up in the morning, you cannot put the responsibility for that all on your career, uh, uh the same way that you cannot put all of the responsibility of that on your family. They can be elements of that that build a complete person, but they can't be all of it. And I think for me, I realized that I kind of went through what I call kind of a mild depression when I kind of reached a really good spot in my career. I'd built my business really nicely, and I kind of got to where I thought would make me happy and where I needed to be. And then I kind of looked around and thought, well, hang on, why am I not happy then? And then you feel kind of guilty because well, I should be happy, you know, and who am I to not be happy? I've got this great career, I've got a great wife, and all the rest of it, and I, you know, I'm I'm I should be happy, but I'm not. And I think that was because I wasn't addressing these other aspects of my kind of personality and my psyche and kind of really looking at what's what's required. So I think if you put all of that heavy lifting on your job, you're gonna end up in a bad situation. You're gonna become obsessed with it, you're gonna be obsessed with the material trappings rather than the actual growth. You're never gonna be satisfied because it's uh you're unless you're an astronaut or something you know really incredibly cool like that, I don't think most of us have jobs that are the be all and end all and give you so much meaning and you know interest. It's it's great if they can, and I think that that expression of kind of make your side hustle your main hustle applies, you know. That that's why it applies. Um, but I think again, since starting the my latest masters in uh consciousness, spirituality, transpersonal psychology, a lot of that work is it is building that self. It's you know, what are the elements of your of the self that need to come together to build the wider whole? And I think job can be one of them for sure, but it can't be everything. Family can be one for sure, but it can't be everything. And I think as soon as the sooner you realize that and you you know you you address that, the more likelihood you have of kind of sustaining a level of happiness.

SPEAKER_00 34:13

And so how fulfilled do you feel now?

SPEAKER_01 34:15

I feel incredibly fulfilled. I feel uh kind of just energized. It well actually it's uh it's a pivot before uh kind of a pendulum between energized and exhausted. Um but it's a uh it's a positive kind of fulfillment, and the the exhaustion that I feel when I've been kind of too immersed in so like well, a good example, like last August was when my the master the second the current master's degrees program started. The only reason I took that on was because in my naivety about the uh the book production process, you know, I'd finished the first manuscript last February. So the idea was ah that'll be out by July, no problem at all. So I'll start a master's in August. Uh I spoke to my editor, start a chat to him, and he's like, there's no way this is possible. I was like, I'm saying, well, whatever, we'll get it done. So then like last August came around, and obviously it wasn't out, and I still had so much to do. So I had my work life, which is nine to five, then I had the kind of the book still to complete, and then this master's as well. So although all the elements of that were incredibly fulfilling in their own way, and I appreciate every one of them, it was just so much that it just kind of you know almost overwhelmed me. So now I feel much more fulfilled because now the book is ascent is finally out there, I can concentrate more heavily on my work and I can concentrate more heavily on the masters and really give that the attention that it deserves, because that's so interesting. So, yeah, it's um it's always kind of it can be really uncomfortable but also incredibly rewarding to really look under the skin and really figure out exactly what's uh you know what's making you tick, why you why are you not happy or are you happy and you know, facing those shadows where you see them.

SPEAKER_00 35:54

Do you think that um the culture supports the idea of people pursuing interests outside of work?

SPEAKER_01 36:05

As in the Western culture.

SPEAKER_00 36:07

Well, it's hard to say the Western. Let's just say our culture, British and Australia.

SPEAKER_01 36:14

Um simply no, I don't. I think um on a really basic and kind of uh pretty miserable level, if you just look at like the funding for the humanities subjects, for instance, in like UK universities, you know, they're they're always on the slide because they're deemed not not important because they don't lead to just generating output. And I think uh the problem is, especially this kind of hyper-capitalist model that we all seem to be existing in, is your only, you know, the only value that you have is your measure of output. And I think that is going to become more and more of a problem when kind of AI comes along and starts to steal a lot of our jobs. We need to reassess that. We need to you know look at what human beings bring to society as a whole. So, no, I I think it would be much better if people were encouraged. And maybe, you know, maybe that is the utopia that hopefully we can get to, that if actually you're only working three days a week because you know you physically can't do any more because the work's been taken taken for you, maybe those two days are you know, go out, write a book, you know, do some painting, you know, be good in the community, do some volunteering. Maybe, maybe that's my utopia vision of being the optimist that I am. Hopefully, that's where we can get to. I think there's a lot of hurdles. Um, but that's where I'd like to go to.

SPEAKER_00 37:22

As a responsible person, which I like to think I am, or at least I'm trying to be, and I know most people who are listening to this are as well. You know, it's easy to just say, fuck it. You know, uh who needs a career, who needs to worry about, you know, whether the paycheck is coming in or not. I'm gonna pursue what I'm passionate about and what I'm interested in. But you know, I've got a wife, we're talking about kids, we you know, I think there's a responsibility that you should have some type of financial security, um just long-term thinking, and it's maybe a boring way to look at it, and it doesn't matter. But it's like this is the trade-off you're consciously making, and you're just gonna try and make it work with the passionate interest on the side, and maybe one day they'll become what you envision them to be. But anyway, it's uh it's it's a it's a constant back and forth I have in my head because Christopher Hitchens, this British journalist, is one of my most you know influential um people, uh uh uh role models, guys I really look up to. Um and there's this amazing interview with him when he's a young man talking about one of his first jobs and how he would just look at the clock desperately waiting for it to hit five, and he's so happy that he was so bad at that job because they fired him and it forced him to actually pursue what he was interested in, and it turned out great for him. But the crux of him giving this anecdote was just saying that he was never interested in a career, he was interested in a life, and it's such a brilliant way to summise it because that is then all the energies going in the right direction, irrespective of the money, and if the money works out, that's great.

SPEAKER_01 38:51

Anyway, yeah, I I definitely agree with that. I think I feel in a really privileged position that I I don't own the company, I am a founding member of the company, which I founded with friends, so I am incredibly motivated to make it a success. I really I've enjoyed building it, but I don't and I I like like my day job, I like talking to clients, so I don't sit there clock watching, and I also have freedom to kind of you know manage my day and and do the do these things that I want to do. If I need to go and study for a few hours, I can go and do that. That would be much more tricky if I was on a um you know a nine to five job uh as an employee, especially a job that I hated. So I think I feel very lucky.

SPEAKER_00 39:32

It destroys the soul, right?

SPEAKER_01 39:33

Yeah, it kills you because it's it's all well and good saying, well, actually, oh well, I should, if only I could do X or Y, then I could write these books I've been thinking about and all the rest of it. But so you've got to put food on the table, and we live in a society where it's not just the essentials that we require, you know, we're constantly you know encouraged to consume more and more and to want more. That's the whole capitalist model. So you're bombarding from that with that from like cradle to grave. So I think it's very high-minded and easy for me to say from my position, okay. Yes, I've built to where I am today, but I'm I'm very fortunate to be in that position. I have the time and the freedom to do what I love. Whereas I if I can see of many futures, potential futures that would not have worked out this way.

SPEAKER_00 40:13

Third question, the research. So, do you have any sense for how many books went into this book, how many papers? Um you know, is there some incredible Google drive somewhere with just like an incredible hive mind of your worldview about this book?

SPEAKER_01 40:32

So I wouldn't say there's a Google Drive. I think uh I certainly don't have a photographic memory, that's what I've realized, but I do I think I have an inc a very I'm lucky that I have a very good memory for retaining information uh in terms of kind of facts that I see and being able to recall them years later and thinking, hang on, that was from that book that I read 10 years ago. So a lot of the time where I was reading, like before I started my MA, I was reading books for pleasure that would then actually be featured within the MA. So all of the book f all the books that I was taking on, the information that I was gathering, unwittingly was building up my my research. And then throughout the MA, obviously I was reading and reading and reading, and then like the same kind of carried through. So, you know, there's there's kind of like cornerstone books that I've kind of highlighted within the acknowledgement section. Um, you know, John Perkins, who's been on your show, you know, Confessions of an Economic Hitman, that's certainly one. Michael Karlberg, um, Beyond the Culture of Contest, Juval Noah Harari, of course, with sapiens, and also a lot of Tim Marshall's work, just because it's you know making pretty uh pretty dense subject matter really accessible. So those are kind of like good kind of shining lights as I was working through, but that you know, there's there's countless books that would have have been touched upon that would have informed the uh informed the you know the arguments that I'm making. Uh a lot of Matt Taibi's work as well. Um I think we mentioned Hate Inc. already, but you know, there's a lot of work that he's done. So there's probably hundreds, aren't there, that you've touched upon. It's just a case of being able to retain something from yeah, well, Confessions of an Economic Hitman. I read that 20 years ago. Yeah, I can still remember it, and you think, ah, hang on, that links into chapter six when we're talking about whether it's Bretton Woods or the Belt and Road. That's interesting.

SPEAKER_00 42:14

So, any sense for the sheer number of books, um, amount of time that went into research versus actually writing it?

SPEAKER_01 42:21

Well, I think time-wise, it's probably a year, year, year. So year to research, year to write, year to publish. Um the amount of books has got to be a hundred plus. Um I was I was trying to think about I was trying to calculate the actual amount of time because they talk about Mozart's 10,000 hours, don't they, to make you know amazing at selling. And I thought, well, I certainly haven't spent 10,000, but I wonder how many it is. And it was it was clocking in at about 1500 at when I would at last count.

SPEAKER_00 42:48

And I thought But it's the culmination of a worldview, you know, it's not necessarily directly in service of the book, it's more in service of your understanding, trying to make sense of the world.

SPEAKER_01 42:58

Absolutely. And I think that's the reason that it's been remotely enjoyable, and I've actually managed to follow it through. And also I think one of the benefits of the self-publishing process, um, well, first of all, the kind of the democratization of the publishing process anyway means that you can actually do that, which is obviously really positive. You know, famously uh the JK Rowling was pretty pretty successful after self-publishing, and I think you know, many years ago you wouldn't be able to do it, you wouldn't have the tools available. So I think being able to self-publish means that you're not on somebody else's timeline, you're not on somebody else's restrictions, you're not, it's not a job, it's not a chore. Because I think that would have been really tricky because the book developed and evolved, and for instance, you know, the conclusion chapters completely changed after I started the the latest masters and really started to delve into the that side of things. If I had a strict timeline, you know, you have to get this out, you've had an advance, get this out within 18 months, you're gonna get a very different book. And I think that process, I don't think I would have responded well to that, I wouldn't have liked it because it ha I I like to grow organically and you know I want to I want to enjoy the process. It to be you know fun is a is a word I use loosely, but um yeah at times right yeah if it has been.

SPEAKER_00 44:07

So that that's a clear expression for um why you prefer self-publishing, but could you explain your thinking around the economics of deciding to go self-published and therefore sacrificing all of the sort of promotional advantage you get with a traditional publisher, um how you went into thinking about that?

SPEAKER_01 44:27

I think there's an element of kind of necessity as well that has to be addressed, it's pretty obvious. You know, it is very difficult to find representation as a first-time author, and that's that's a reality. I think if I'd have gone if I that had been the only way I wanted to go with it, and I had I didn't have the means and capability to be self-published, then I think I do like the subject matter is is striking. I think I write I write of quite well, so I think it probably would have been put up at some point, but it might take a number of years, by which point time will have marched on and the book might a lot of it might be obsolete. So I think you know, I made that decision quite quickly. I you know, I reached out to a few agents, I I understood that you couldn't really get into the publishers without the agents. I maybe reached out to maybe five or six. Um, when they didn't cut come back, I thought, well, actually, so this like what do I actually I cut all the in in the meantime? I was reading about what they actually do and what's required, and I thought, well, hang on, I can do all this, I'll just get on with it. And that's kind of my approach to most things is like, let's just figure it out. That we'll work out a way as we go. And then I've been really quite lucky that you know Stella, uh, you've been having conversations with this, you know, she manages me outside of work. She's incredibly capable and she's really you know loving learning every aspect of how how you know how you bring a book to publish as well. So having that help's been absolutely invaluable. But yeah, like the economics of it, I think you probably would earn more um, you know, by being self-published if it's incredibly successful, because you'd make marginally more on each on each book. Um but yeah, you do forgo the expertise, you forgo the you know the safety net.

SPEAKER_00 45:54

Um although the shelf space, do you think about that?

SPEAKER_01 45:58

In what regard?

SPEAKER_00 46:00

In physical bookshops.

SPEAKER_01 46:02

Uh as in the footprint, as in trying to get yourself out there.

SPEAKER_00 46:06

No, just literally having a book on shelves at you know big bookstops throughout London.

SPEAKER_01 46:12

So that will be something that it you know is is is possible and viable because we're not just publishing with Amazon. One of the things that decided earlier was it didn't want to just be an e-book. I didn't want you know, a lot of self-published, I think they just go down this route of just it's a Kindle book, maybe an audiobook as well, but like I wanted it to be a physical book. I like physically reading myself, so I wanted it to be in in bookshops. So we're we're actually publishing um kind of through a company called Ingram Spark, who basically they will distribute to everyone in the world. So we, you know, potentially territories from your from Australia. So you can you know you can buy it technically anywhere in the world. They they ping everyone the minute it's out with the bio, with the information, all the keywords, etc. And then they they buy it directly from them. So the idea for us was always I always had a vision of being walking past someone on a plane and somebody reading my book. Um and then ask, and then now you know, what do you think about that? Did you find it interesting? Uh so I can't do that if it's on the Kindle. So I I always wanted it to be that physical book, and then yeah, because of you know the situation with my kind of work life and being able to have the time um and also kind of the funds to do it, it meant that I could actually, yeah, I could you know put myself out there and kind of take that take that leap without kind of needing that safety net behind me.

SPEAKER_00 47:23

How are you gonna celebrate when you jump on the tube and see some young guy sitting down, legs crossed, reading the book?

SPEAKER_01 47:32

I often think about that because I I've recently last year I stopped kind of drinking um just because I realized that I wouldn't be able to do all the things that I needed to do. And I always said, I'm really looking forward to, you know, I have a I've got I still have whiskey in my cupboard, so I'm gonna have a really nice glass of whiskey to celebrate. So I think I probably will do that. I'll have, you know, I'll just I've got some really fantastic Nikkei whiskey from Japan, so probably just have a glass of that on the rocks.

SPEAKER_00 47:56

Well learned. Um John Perkins, in our correspondence offline, you've really emphasized that he's been influential to you and that book specifically. Um I'd just like to ask you, like, directly, what was it about Confessions of an Economic Hitman that you you know that that that means so much to you?

SPEAKER_01 48:15

I think when I read it again, almost probably two decades ago now, it was at the time where there wasn't that the Hollywood myth was still in full force. This idea that America was infallible, that America was benign, that it was not this this kind of empire that I kind of see it for it to be now and describe in the book. So to have everything, kind of his experiences um within kind of the underbelly of the empire, and seeing exactly you know what happened within his role, you know, kind of essentially, you know, putting debt onto all of these developing nations, I found so interesting because it just punctured that kind of worldview instantly. You know, that one book instantly. I was like, well, hang on, this this makes me question everything about what America's looking to achieve, what they're doing, why they're doing it, what are their motivations, what's actually going on. And then it led me to you know to to delve more into kind of the yeah, the CIA involvement in the 80s and things like that. So that one book just really punctured the veneer instantly. And it was it was so powerful. And I say I see now that you know from from his kind of website and what he's up to these days, and also listening to you know his podcast with you, that you know, he feels you know quite bad about obviously the work that he did, although at the time he thought that he was doing the right thing, lifting these countries out of poverty. But then, you know, from conversations with um, I think he quotes like the Ecuadorian Prime Minister and things, and saying, No, you realize what you're actually doing, like we we can't we can't get out of this, and now he spends a lot of time in Ecuador with indigenous communities trying to kind of make amends in a certain way. So, yeah, I I found that, and again, that's I find that kind of evolution of his like his worldview and his journey so so fascinating as well. Um, but yeah, it was it was hugely influential.

SPEAKER_00 50:00

Yeah, Rafael Correa, he's uh currently in Belgian um and supposedly is okay with doing an interview, but he doesn't want to do one over the internet. Oh really? So I've got to go down there. Yeah, yeah. Um introduce me to him after. I yeah, I'd be thrilled to talk to him. But I suppose there's also an element to John which I'm imagining you would resonate with, is um you know, he's deeply involved with um ayahuasca and getting in touch with his sort of spiritual side.

SPEAKER_01 50:35

Yeah, and I think um again, a bit like uh Graham Hancock, who's another inspiration in terms of um, you know, the way that he kind of is is open to questioning everything. Um I think in the West we kind of view uh ever since kind of the Timothy Leary, the you know, the whole war on drugs and you know psychedelics and everything getting thrown in with you know heroin and cocaine and things like that, you know, it's been just kind of ignored the potential benefits of kind of potentially expanding your worldview through kind of non non-ordinary states of consciousness, of which ayahuasca is is one, you know, even lucid dreaming, even kind of meditative states and uh kundalini yoga and things like that. You know, these are all just different ways of trying to address the reality of the world and trying to kind of make sense of it and ask questions of it. And I think that's why those experiences were so so powerful for John. Is you know, he probably has come from you know his existence pre-dat is kind of the most, you know, Western, uh scientific, you know, financial, you know, it's hyper capitalist, it's the opposite of what those indigenous would be kind of you know living and learning and teaching through their wisdom. So yeah, I think it's so powerful. Just to I think you need to be open to you know open to what what everybody else you know is potentially feeling or experiencing rather than just kind of closing things down or shutting them off or you know labelling them you know backward or ill-informed and all this, I think it's I think it's rubbish.

SPEAKER_00 52:01

It's a huge red flag to a lot of people the minute you bring up any type of drugs.

SPEAKER_01 52:05

I could talk about that, and I I will definitely talk about that because it is a red flag, and I think it's it shouldn't be. And I think the there is so much work now positively which is going to change that, which is really great. Like you look at kind of um you know legal uh ketamine studies, MDMA studies, uh psilocybin studies, which are helping so many people with PTSD, helping some people with depression, all of these type of things. So, you know, it's I think we're finally turning the corner and we're starting to see these you know these substances for what they can actually do and that you know that the help that they can provide. I think um there was a really good Netflix documentary about it. I forget the chap's name. He was on Joe Rogan as well, talking about it. Um, Michael something, but it's like uh Michael Pollan and um you know uh how to change your mind. And it was that I found that really powerful stuff as well, because it just shows you that there's so much wisdom within these um kind of indigenous cultures, and we've just kind of whitewashed all of it uh and completely denigrated it. Well, look at the conquistadors, right? When the Spanish went over to uh you know the you know the Aztecs and and what we now call the Mexican region, and you know, they destroyed uh any kind of um taking of Peyote, and they had to the they had to the indigenous had to rebrand it and call it something else so that the Spanish didn't know what they were actually talking about, because they realized that obviously they were incredible that the Spanish were Catholic and you know the whole Catholic system was predicated on the fact that the priest and the bishops they are the only way to talk to God, they're the only way to know God. And obviously, with if you realize that you shortcut that uh that bollocks because actually you actually can talk to God anytime you wish by just entering those states of consciousness, it kind of uh puts your uh your entire papacy on a bit of a uh house of crap.

SPEAKER_00 53:51

Absolutely shaky ground. Yeah. So there's um an amazing chapter in the book which looks at um other empires through history, and you're very clear in explaining that you can't devote time to every single empire, it's there's just too much, and so you're selective with the empires that you have. But then at the end there's this great scorecard of um why they collapsed, and then sort of uh some sort of uh what's the word? Kind of a parallel Exactly, some sort of parallel with modern day um American Empire. And so just to tee up that question, there's a quote that stood out to me, which is As with many empires before, the greatest enemy of the American Empire is likely to be itself.

SPEAKER_01 54:33

So the majority of empires throughout history have collapsed due to internal issues, not necessarily external assault. Um it's true, rising kind of challenger powers exploit that internal turmoil to apply the final blow, but more often than not, the causes of collapse are actually internal and not external. They could be, you know, they're they're multiple. It's very rare that you just have one. Um, you know, military overexpansion, incessant taxation, economic ruin, resource depletion, they all kind of contribute, um, all of which we kind of see at the moment within the American Empire. Um and I think the key at the moment and the key parallel I kept seeing time and time again was this idea of succession legitimacy. So when a um, especially when you have a powerful leader um like uh Alexander the Great or uh Genghis Khan, when that leader falls, the empire soon crumbles because you know the the idea of the you know the rule the ruled giving authority to their rulers, it's a uh it's a human construct. So you know you can rule through fear, but it's it the it's an acquiescence of a a majority to be ruled by a minority of of one or five or ten or five hundred. So that was something I found really, really interesting, and that's that was the main parallel that I saw. And also I think if you if you were to ask, well, if I was to ask you, what do you think is the the greatest challenge to the American Empire, how do you think it'll end, what would you say?

SPEAKER_00 56:02

Christ putting me on the spot here. Um I think the answer would lie I think it would be some type of cultural answer. Um but also I'm not that comfortable like saying with any sort of authority really what I think. But from the brief reading I've done of your book, Peter Sihan's work and stuff, I think that militarily the US is still not to be fucked with, really, no matter how uh good your uh you know other side is. And so they're not gonna be taken down by any sort of force. It would be, you know, some type of cultural self-destruction where you have just uh morons well not morons, but seemingly buffoons running the shop and a culture that is totally split down the middle where you could be neighbors with someone but consume a totally different worldview and therefore hate them. Um the downstream consequences of that.

SPEAKER_01 57:08

I think that that's an incredibly well-informed answer, and that was that the reason I asked that is because I know from our discussions that you probably there was an answer I thought you potentially could give, but I'm glad you didn't. But uh China. Or Russia. Or you know, something like that. Because if you and I think this lend leads into the wider kind of situation within the American kind of political, military, military, industrial complex, etc., is it's easy to create this external actor, this external danger, this other, this problem that we can focus on. Oh, the rise of China, the Russians are doing this, da da da. Whereas the reality is exactly like you said, that that it's much more likely that it isn't going to be China floating up to New York and landing some troops. It's just not going to happen. So the reality is it probably is an internal collapse, but most people don't tend to think like that. The only real the last few years, especially since Trump his first time around, there's been a lot more discussion about civil war, there's been a lot more discussion about a national divorce, the you know, the potential for secession, all of these things have been discussed a lot more. And I think if you go back 20 years ago, no one was talking about civil war, no one was talking about any of these things. And I think so much of that is due to that, you know, this kind of hyperpartisan, the media has a huge role to play in that, but so do both parties. Um, you know, they're in they encourage it because it allows uh allows them to maintain the the status quo for the oligarchy rather than people really questioning. You know, hang on, what who's who's who's lock who's paying for your campaign? Why are they doing that? What are they expecting from you? What's gonna happen if you get elected? You know, you don't they don't want people to scratch too, you know, too deeply under the surface.

SPEAKER_00 58:46

What do you think about Vivek Ramaswamy?

SPEAKER_01 58:50

That's an interesting one. I talked to my brother a lot about this because he was we're kind of going back and forth on who we think Trump might pick as his VP. Um, and I know Vivek was kind of put up as a potential option, um, as was Tulsi Gabbard and even RFK, who was what my my little brother said. Maybe, maybe those three, someone within them. I think I think Vivek's got some interesting ideas. I think he I don't think he'll be VP because I think Trump needs somebody who is sufficiently supplicant who will kiss the ring enough and also not steal any spotlight whatsoever, uh, which is why you know Mike Pence was the ultimate company man until they you know were chanting hang Mike Pence. Yeah. So like I think Trump will have to go with somebody who he knows is always going to be forever in his shadow. Um, so to be completely honest, I've not really followed Vivek's platform all that much. I followed a little bit about what was going on in the Republican primaries, but essentially it was a race for second, and but I think that was always the reality. So, and I think you know the fact that he kind of did that never he kind of fizzled out, really, didn't he? He landed a few good blows on Nikki Haley, and I was actually quite glad to see uh some some pretty honest observations about you know where her funding is come from coming from, um, what her views are in terms of the military industrial complex and kind of her you know her staunch backing for Israel against you know just completely without precondition. I completely disagree with that. So I quite enjoyed seeing a little bit of honesty in those debates. Um where he goes from here or what he you know, he he's young, isn't he? So he's compared to compared to the front runners for either party, he's uh he's a spring cheap.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:28

Yeah, yeah. Talk about an overachiever.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:31

Yeah, I think he's been busy, right?

SPEAKER_00 1:00:33

Yeah. Um no, the reason I just it yeah brought him up is because uh you round out your response there talking about if you just scratch a little bit below the surface, um, you know, maybe you start to see what's really going on. And it seems like that was what his whole shtick really was. And that's why he was so popular online, because a lot of people online they you know they consume enough media to the point where they do start to, I don't know, scratch maybe you're scratching in the wrong place a lot of the time, but still scratching somewhere below the surface, and that's why it's so popular.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:04

Yeah, but I agree with that. I think that sorry, go ahead.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:08

No, no, you go on.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:09

Well, I was just gonna say that links into kind of uh what we talked about, you know, chapter five within the media section, is like the state of the media today has created the conditions where people think that they they have to do that, they have to do their own scratching, if you want to call it that way. They you know, they have to delve deep and they have to do the this this idea of do your own research, which again I'm I'm I'm using inverted commas for that because I think it can be for good or for ill. Because you know, if you if you do your own research on everything, it means you can't trust anything. And as uh you know Yval Noah Harari says, the whole point of humanity and progress is you have to be able to trust other humans to have seen and experienced other things so that you can evolve. So I don't really like the idea of doing my own research on everything. I think that can be detrimental, but it shows the state of the massive distrust in traditional media sources after kind of well, everything, right? 9-11, uh kind of the reaction to the war on terror, then the Iraq war, the way the media jumped in line there. Um, I think recently, the uh kind of the censorship of anything to do with COVID, the uh even kind of the Russia-Ukraine conflict, asking any questions. You were a Russian apologist. So people are people are sick of it, they're sick of kind of being told what to think by these kind of kind of traditional media companies, especially when you realize that you know, where again, where are they being funded from and where's that coming from? So, you know, people have to do their own scratching. And I think, yeah, that's probably what what helped his popularity, right?

SPEAKER_00 1:02:34

Yeah. I really like what Sam Harris says about this issue. Um when everyone is doing their own research, uh very few people are actually qualified to confirm whether a source is honest, whether what you're reading is actually a fact, whether you can uh taste the pinch of salt in what you're consuming. Um, I'm as guilty of it as anyone. All of a sudden I'm regurgitating statistics that I just heard somewhere, but there's no there's no like high confidence that it was quality, and Harris is just making this um you know, he'll die in this hill, just basically bring back institutions, especially trust in media institutions, um, just because if we're not consuming the same worldview and we don't trust that that worldview is honest, we end up in this this i immovable place of polarization.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:30

Yeah, I think well, Sam's a smart guy, and I think he's absolutely spot on there. And I think if you look at um Kelly Ayn Conway and the first use of the term alternative facts, right, when she was discussing the idea of Trump's uh again, innocuous how many people turned up to see him. In the reality, who cares? It's it's irrelevant. But it started this kind of kickstart towards this path of my facts are not your facts, everything's subjective, I can kind of make them my worldview as my own. And the problem is you team that with the kind of the the algorithms that we consume all of our media from now, and it's just they're gonna feed you more and more worldview enhancing out uh out you know information, and also the more extreme that it is, the more you will engage with it, um because you like it or you dislike it. So those two things together are really harming the the kind of the information space, and it's it's tricky because on the one hand you think that all if all traditional media, if I'm completely cynical with them because they've lied to me before and they lied about this, they lied about that, therefore I'm only gonna trust new media, but the new media may not be fact-checked to the same level as uh an institution may, but also it may have its own uh you know reasons for being siloed or being partisan. Um, you know, I we were talking earlier about one of your um your guests, I forget his name, but you know, exactly that he makes exactly that point really well, and it's like you might have different levers and different motivations, subconscious or conscious, as to why you might pursue a certain story or pursue a certain argument. But at least if you had a fully independent, completely independent by you know uh bipartisan media, then it can question everything and it can just present the facts. And I think we've come so far from that over the last well, if you look hundreds of years ago, right? You we I talk a bit about in the book about information hegemony, this idea that you know, back in the day, without communicate instant communication, without this kind of information explosion, it's quite easy for an empire to control its information because what you say goes, no one can fact-check you because how are they going to do it? You know, send a runner, you know, halfway around the world. It's not possible. But as time's gone on and information has you know exploded over different media, then the idea of a state being able to kind of retain that information hegemony has has become much more difficult. So you kind of the one end of the scale is extreme censorship. So the way that China maintains information hegemony is just you know the grand firewall, or I think that's what it's called. You know, they just you know, it's just it's censorship, you just can't talk about it. The other way is that you can assume. Essentially create situations so that the citizens themselves essentially self-police. And that is where we are today, I think, is that we're all in our echo chambers, we're all only consuming the content that we like because we don't want to be made to feel uncomfortable. So we're essentially self-policing what happens. So I think these are all really dangerous states of play for media in general and discourse. Because it, you know, I like a conversation I have with somebody. And I think from writing this book, one of the first things I write in it is if there'll be a lot of things that people might not agree with, but understand the spirit that it was written. You know, I'm trying to help. Let's just have a conversation. Even if I completely disagree with you, I'll happily have a conversation with you. And some of the most rewarding conversations are when somebody changes your mind, not by trying to force you into submission, but just because they present facts or opinions that you didn't really that you weren't aware of. And you're like, oh, that's cool. I can I can amend my worldview. That doesn't it brings it all comes back to this idea of everything if everything is a contest, this culture of contest, it's zero sum, it's completely detrimental to any sort of human evolution. Because it's a case of, well, I I have to win this conversation. I have to win the who won the debate. Well, the debate should be the winner because we actually shared a lot of good ideas and we reached consensus to actually how can how can we use them together, rather than, well, you shanked that question, therefore you don't know what you're talking about. I won the debate.

SPEAKER_00 1:07:20

Even if you don't reach a consensus, but just there was a really well-expressed two different worldviews, and people consuming it as as a third party can take a little bit from each. They don't have to be this guy won, therefore everything he said was right. Yeah. And you know, like that's um how often, sometimes I think about this, how often do you ever actually change your mind on a point in the moment where you're proven that your point is on a bed of sand? I mean, it has to be such a crazy compelling argument to get you to do that. Usually what happens is you go away, you realize, oh shit, there are actually a lot of holes in what I'm thinking about this. Yeah. You consume a few more things, and then in your own time, in the presence of nobody else, you start to think, actually, no, I do think differently about this.

SPEAKER_01 1:08:07

I think that's right. And I also think that it's all kind of that kind of that self-reflection, that examination. Uh for I think because of the culture that we exist in today, it's easier to do that uh behind closed doors on your own. Because again, this idea of losing is so prevalent, this losing of face, this losing of everything. Whereas I think it's so again, it shows a lot about the negative aspects of ego as well. It's the fact that you know it's my ego cannot put up with the fact that you've made a point that kind of makes my point invalid or or less valid. And I I thought I knew better than you on these things. I think if again, if we could dial down the ego a little bit, then I think you're gonna end up with better conversations and the ability to take that maybe a little bit more instantly, rather than, well, I'll go away and think about it and do my own research, then I'll come back to you and I might begrudgingly say that you had a point.

SPEAKER_00 1:08:54

Yeah. But it but even that premise you just present is one of someone has to win and someone has to lose, you know.

SPEAKER_01 1:09:03

I think it's ingrained, isn't it? I don't I don't want that to be the state of things, and I think we need I it's not I think we should, I think we need to evolve uh away from this constant uh contest. I think I don't think we're ever going to get where we need to go. And it's it's something that I've been thinking a lot recently about this um this idea of human nature. And I think the actual phrase human nature is such a restrictive uh a restrictive kind of title that we have positioned upon ourselves. Because it just it's so limiting. We've decided that human nature is doggy dog, it's zero sum, it's hobsier and it's you know we fight against each other and that's that. But it doesn't need to be that. And actually, there's um it's I think it's uh it might be apochical, um, but I'm not sure. There's a the the black ants and red ants experiment. Um the the idea was if you put you know black ants and red ants together in terrarium, they would comp they coexist perfectly fine until you shake the terrarium up and then they attack each other. And I think David Attenborough's been misquoted as saying something about that. But the premise I think is correct, and actually, you know, Irwin Laszlo, and you know, he's quoted in that Michael Carbo book I was talking about, he's a systems theorist. He talked a lot about this in the 70s. Actually, if you look at what human nature is, it it does reward collaboration and communication. It doesn't necessarily have to be zero sum, but the problem is our entire worldview is zero sum. So everything is geared about me winning and you losing. And we are, you have kind of resource scarcity, some I would say manufactured, some obviously not manufactured, but you know, the idea is I have to grab as much of it as I can, and that if you can't get as much of it as me, that's your own fault. And we can't, that's not sustainable for human beings. So I think I think what I kind of my naive hope for maybe maybe the second book is to try and uh reset the parameters for um you know what for for a worldview and move away from this kind of dog eat dog competition. That's why I've been reading that that Thomas Kuhn book I was talking to you about, the um structure of scientific revolutions, because I think you know there's an aspect there of how do you change a worldview.

SPEAKER_00 1:11:07

Well, let's see if we can work a little bit more towards um closing out this book before we open up into what can happen in the next one. Sensible. Um there w if any stand out to you, specific examples from the chapter where it looks at old empires, uh why they fell apart and parallels with the US. Just a few that stood out to you as you know particularly interesting. I I do have a list of all of them here, but um if some stand out to you.

SPEAKER_01 1:11:38

Yeah, I think the ones that really stood out the most, so we mentioned succession legitimacy already um with the Mongols and Alexander the Great. I think those are pretty pretty prevalent. I think economically, if you look at the the situation with the British Empire and also the Roman Empire, both which I think were victims of uh kind of military overexpansion. The British, as you know, is in obviously in much more recent memories, it's hard easier to look at. You know, the it's not necessarily with the Romans. I think there's an argument that maybe it was a bit of largesse and a bit of decadence, and then it kind of crumbled because of that aspect of it. With the British, you know, they fought the First World War, they fought the Second World War. Uh the changing aspects of what people see as uh okay in the modern world, you know, it wasn't okay to have an empire anymore, which is quite right, you can't rule over people, it's not it's not all right. Things have evolved. But in terms of the economic side of things, I think there's a parallel there. That you know, whether or not the US declines today because of that debt that we spoke about, I don't know. But you know, the the British simply couldn't put you know pay for all of the military expenditure they had around the world, all the outposts, all the garrisons, all the you know, everything, and the navy, etc. So I think if you look at the vast sums being spent by the Americans to do the same, you know, is that sustainable? Possibly not. I think also an interesting one that came up a few times, and obviously with COVID very much in the recent memory, was this idea of kind of disease. If you look at the uh the Aztecs and the Incas, obviously a large uh contributory factor to their demise was the disease, obviously in this case imported by the uh by the Spanish conquistadors, but it was disease that kind of laid them low, as well as kind of you know the guns and the and the steel from uh from you know, guns, germs, and steel. Um whereas if you look at the uh there's many of the empires we mentioned around Europe at the time and also the the Mongols as well, you know, fell fell victim to the Black Death. So I think that idea of disease, that idea of pandemic, I think obviously we've had a kind of a brief taste of what a global pandemic can look like, and I think we can all agree it was pretty fucking miserable. Um I think that was with a really kind of low mortality rate compared to what could happen. Um so I think that is a potential parallel that I don't really want to think about, but I think it's possible. I saw only a week ago the Chinese have for some reason created a uh coronavirus which has a 100% mortality rate in the mice they tried it out on. So when you have things like that going on, and I think again when we talk about we spoke about the idea of kind of trusted media, you know, the idea of the veracity of the lab leak theory, you know, that's there's something that needs to be examined there, especially when you've got investigations like that happening, and you look at these previous empires that did collapse because of things like disease. So, yeah, I think it's interesting. There's there's lots of parallels that can be drawn kind of uh all throughout history, and it's as long as we're aware and we're you know actually open to looking at looking at the Americans as an empire in itself.

SPEAKER_00 1:14:38

I have not heard that anecdote about Chinese labs them testing a 100% mortality COVID virus. What on earth could be the rationale the incentive to do that? It's just too much of a downside. It's nuts, isn't it?

SPEAKER_01 1:14:58

There's um I mean there's a really good book you might enjoy by a guy called Toby Ord called The Precipice, and it's basically he's um he's actually he launched the effective altruism movement, which obviously Sam Bankman-Fried of famous because of him, but he he launched it, he's an Oxford professor, incredibly smart guy, um statistician, I think, but like ridiculously smart. And his entire book is looking at what are the existential threats to humanity. So, you know, one step further than what I address in the book, when I just talk about the threats essentially to the US, and I obviously I because of the brevity of the topic, I can't go into too much depth. Whereas he is looking at every single possible, you know, possible reason why humanity could end. And a lot of them are the type of ones that we just you know we discuss in the book. So you you have pandemic, you have um you know thing changes to kind of climate change, meaning that you can't generate food anymore. And I think we just I discussed kind of soil degradation, and I rem I forget which empire it is, I think maybe the Incas. One of the reasons that they collapsed, they were forced to reloca, or maybe the mines, and it meant that they couldn't generate food anymore. You know, if you can't feed your population, you're gonna die. And you know, the kind of the intensive farming that the US employs it's it's having that effect. Globally, it's similar, but you know, the US specifically, you know, the the what they the their farming methods are really, really not great for uh for the environment.

SPEAKER_00 1:16:17

So two shocking statistics which I got from your book, that fifty percent of pregnancies in the US are unplanned. Could that be true?

SPEAKER_01 1:16:29

That's uh exactly what I thought the first time I read it, and I thought that can't I thought that can't be true, first of all. I was like, that there has to be wrong. Um and then well, I reread it because I was doing the audiobook recently, and it came out again, and I thought that I've got to I've got to fact-check this. And I checked it again, and it is true. Um, I guess it's it's a crazy stat, and I suppose it'll be a cultural thing as well, because there's you know, what is an unplanned pregnancy? It doesn't necessarily mean unwanted. I guess that's the first point. It could be unplanned, but it can be, you know, in a culture that takes more babies to term because the religious uh restrictions or the cultural restrictions in abortion or the legal restrictions now in America means you're gonna have many more of these unplanned pregnancies that are actually taken to term. I think that was the more the issue. It's the fact that, you know, if these mothers, young mothers are not ready for these kids, those kids are gonna have a really tricky time if they even make it past, you know, the increasing infant mortality rates because of all the you know the fact that it's that they're not ready. And there's no support system and you know there's no maternity leave, all of those things. But yeah, that that was a stat that it really uh made me look twice as well.

SPEAKER_00 1:17:39

And do you have any sense for what that same statistic looks like, say, in Mexico or in Japan or in Australia?

SPEAKER_01 1:17:48

I actually didn't think I didn't do a I didn't do a comparison on that. I was more just like blown away by the statin itself, and I thought there will be there will be countries where it's far greater than that, right? Um but I think America specifically, because of this uh this cultural idea that you know you have to have you know you have to have these pregnancies, you have to bring them to term. You're kidding, this whole toxic debate about abortion and where we are with that means that that's far more of those pregnancies become actually, you know, children. Whereas obviously I suppose if you look at the stats for say Britain, where abortion is much less um kind of hated by the population or it's accepted or whatever, and it's legal, you're not gonna have a statistic like that because they're never gonna you're never gonna have the metrics.

SPEAKER_00 1:18:37

One more just totally damning statistic. The US is the most medicated citizenry on earth. It's estimated 66% of adults take prescription drugs compared with a 26% in the UK.

SPEAKER_01 1:18:50

Yeah, it's um it's quite worrying, isn't it? And I think um I I always r used to remember when we'd go to America and you always thought it was quite cool because you think, oh, I can buy as many paracetamol as I want in a big pot. Whereas in the UK you obviously couldn't. And at the time I remember thinking as I was a lot younger, wow, that's that's great, that's a real benefit. But now you realize that they there's it's so much medication, and and it's the problem is it's so intertwined with kind of the big pharmaceutical industries and big healthcare, and everyone kind of pushing these these um quick fix solutions, so you're not really addressing any of the actual underlying problems because then that links into you know the opioid crisis, right? And kind of how we got there, and then you know the oxycontin epidemic, which kind of now led to the fentanyl epidemic. So all of these things are intertwined with this this hyper-capitalist model.

SPEAKER_00 1:19:41

Um okay, so we have just been dipping our toe in the water. The book is it it's this incredible scorecard of everything wrong with America, everything great of America, but bringing up to the point of this is the American Empire, um, but ultimately leading towards you know, you don't bury the lead. What does a collapse of this US empire actually look like?

SPEAKER_01 1:20:06

I think the collapse, unfortunately, as I or so I think the most likely cause of collapse, as we've discussed already, is internal. It's internal division and it is whatever that results in. And I think unfortunately the most likely outcome from that type of collapse is civil war. Whether or not I think a civil war is as likely today as a lot of commentators are speculating, I kind of disagree. I think you polls can only be trusted so far. Um, you know, you have these polls of you know, X amount of, there's a pretty damning statistics, X amount of people would go out and shoot somebody or think that violence should be used to overthrow the government, all these type of things. I'd say, first of all, most normal people don't generally answer polls that often. Um a lot of them are kind of busy uh doing other things. It's always very small sample sizes. Um, but if that civil war does occur, um remember the first civil war, the only civil war in American history, occurred because one side and the other side decided that the the world view espoused by the other side did not allow them to continue. And it became so toxic. And that is where unfortunately it looks like we're getting to right now, which is why everyone's warning about this this civil war. What it actually looks like in practice, so there's a lot of commentary on this, the actual makeup of it would look very different to the original civil war. It's probably would take the form more of kind of like militia activity. Um, there's already been kind of spikes in attacks on infrastructure, you know, like power plants and things like that, um, in the last few years that the FBI are monitoring now, um especially since the 6th of January, you know, the the focus on domestic terrorism has come to the fore rather than kind of just um myopically focusing on you know Islamic terror and things like that. It's actually addressing the fact that domestic terrorism is real and a threat. Um, it's probably yeah, guerrilla actions, it's targeted assassinations, it's targeting of um of ethnic minorities and things like that, just to kind of build the premise that the government can no longer take care of you. And that's from that is where demagogues can take over, right? Because you can offer an alternative. The the the the social contract is I will provide you with, you know, well, then in peace, bread and land, but basically I'm just going to provide you with a roof over your head and you'll be secure and you know, a way to make some money. If that falls down and you can't guarantee that security, someone will step in and present an opportunity that they can, they could be that person. You know, Trump does a bit of that with his rhetoric as well, doesn't he? You know, I only I can save us, I alone can save us, all of that type of thing. But imagine that in a proper civil war footing, those messages are powerful. And I think there's um, you know, Alex Garland, the uh director, did um so one of one of my favourite films, ex machiner. Um he's also done uh Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:22:48

That we really have such similar interests. That's a easy top three for me, best of movies ever.

SPEAKER_01 1:22:54

So good. So he did 28 Days Later as well. Um he's a fantastic director, so he's got a film coming out. Um, it might as well be promotional for my book because it's called Civil War and it's all about US Civil War. And I think the actual the advert, the posters for the advert are the Statue of Liberty, similar to my book. Um I will say that I started working on mine a very long time ago, so it wasn't kind of rushing.

SPEAKER_00 1:23:17

Did you see that as synchronicity?

SPEAKER_01 1:23:19

Um potentially synchronicity, I think, but also just potentially a reflection of the kind of the concern and the worry of the times. Um I think there's been like I said, 20 years ago, no one was talking about civil war as a possibility. There you know, there's the odd talk about civil war.

SPEAKER_00 1:23:33

Yeah, you'd be laughed out of the room.

SPEAKER_01 1:23:35

Yeah, whereas now it is being you know discussed as a you know a real possibility, which is uh which is so worrying.

SPEAKER_00 1:23:42

So obviously to predict a future of infinite possibilities based on a finite experience of the past is folly. We cannot give a timeline, cannot say exactly what's gonna happen, but are you convinced that in our lifetimes we will see the demise, the fall of the US Empire, and it will be replaced by something else?

SPEAKER_01 1:24:08

Within our lifetimes, I'm not convinced. I think it's very possible. Um, but I think it, yeah, like you say, it is difficult to have a crystal ball, but I think all the elements are there for empire collapse, um, the ones that we kind of mentioned, especially this the social um division. Um whether or not it occurs in our lifetime, I don't know. The one thing that is clear is that it will occur at some point because that's what empires do, right? They end. Right. So that that is a fact. The timing of it is up for discussion, and the manner in which it collapses and kind of how much uh suffering is a cause of that collapse, I think, is is still to be decided. Whereas I think that was kind of the reason as I was writing this book, why I became more energized to write it and complete it, was I want to raise that point and let people know and just say, look, you be be careful because you're going down a route that might be difficult to come back from. Um and I think one of the questions I asked myself in the book and asked myself uh as I was writing it was why I I've talked about how dreadful so many of the aspects of the American Empire are. So why do I want this situation to continue? Why do I want this empire to continue? And I think that was quite a um that involved a lot of introspection to try and understand that question. Um and I think quite simply it's because you have I'm taking the world as it is while also taking it how I want it to be, but addressing the fact that if it collapses tomorrow, the you know it won't be a nice democratic world that changes. It will be chaos, and it's the authoritarian regimes that are on the rise, not the democracies. And I think that was what kind of made me want to put so much energy into this to say, look, guys, you could be such a force for good. You've got the demographics, you've got the natural resources, you've got the common language. You actually, you know, at your heart you have these kind of these ideals of freedom and liberty and all of these things, which you know, everybody doesn't have those. You do have them, so you have this potential to be so great, and you could lead the world into a peaceful multipolarity in the future, you know, based on compassion, based on kindness. But we have so much more that has to be done to get there. And I don't want what you often find is these big seismic changes only occur after massive calamity, but that massive calamity is so damaging. If we could just stop the massive calamity and just shortcut and get to the get to the healing and the changing, I think that'd be much more positive for everyone.

SPEAKER_00 1:26:25

The other day, I think Sweden was warned that we may have to mobilize. This is now getting into fake news territory. I don't remember exactly what was said, but it was very alarming. Real news, very alarming. That's that's fact. Okay, exactly. So now I'm thinking, am I am I am I gonna actually live through violent conflict?

SPEAKER_01 1:26:53

How old are you? 29. Oh, you're so you're getting mobilized. Yeah, I think it's uh the it's an it's interesting, isn't it? Because I also think there's a wider point to be made as to why this conversation is happening now, and that's one that seems to be getting picked up now. I saw it straight away because of my because the dissertation was on Trump, then I saw this instantly went the so 16th of January was Iowa, right? So Trump runs away with Iowa. 18th of January, the head of uh Jen Stoltenberg and other, so the head of NATO, but also other either active NATO commanders or previous military, previous NATO commanders use the C-word. They talk about conscription. For the first, you know, Britain has not talked about conscription in my lifetime, and before probably before that for many years. It's discussed then because they know that this is specifically exactly what I wrote about in the dissertation is Trump was NATO's worst enemy. He was constantly baracking them, he's constantly having it go at them saying, you know, you're free riding, no one's paying for it, pay for our protection, like a mob boss. They are terrified that this idea that Trump comes back in, the taps are turned off, the funding is pulled, Ukraine is forced to surrender, whatever. But also that you know NATO has the rug pulled from under it. So, how do you mobilize your government to get people's minds in gear to that reality? You talk about conscription. Average person is thinking not thinking, I want to go in the fucking trenches. So you're going to be talking to your MP and saying, listen, mate, maybe give them a little bit more cash if that's what they need if that's what they're asking for. But you know, in the UK, I think we've got 170,000 troops down from 200,000. I think those are the figures. And it's it's just a good recruiting tool, isn't it? It's like we're gonna be at we could be at war with Russia in three years' time, which again, the idea that NATO or the UK is gonna be directly at war with Russia, I think, is it's still quite far-fetched because this these are nuclear-armed powers. So where does that end? Where does that thinking end? Is this you know is this nuclear war then? And the idea that we're now we're kind of getting ourselves ready for a worldview that allows nuclear war as a thing. Like it's it's I think it's ludicrous. But ludicrous. Yeah, and it's it's nonsense. And I think that's what that's what that conscription message was, and it yeah, so it wasn't fake news, it's it's coming from all of the kind of the NATO heads, and obviously Sweden's just joined NATO, right? So for them it's front row centre, they've been they've been neutral. I think interesting for them.

SPEAKER_00 1:29:08

I wish we'd stayed neutral. It's tricky though, I can see why they did it.

SPEAKER_01 1:29:14

Yeah, I can see I can see both sides to the argument. I think it's um nobody expected Russia to to kind of launch that war the way that they did. Um, everyone thought borders were settled in Europe and that was that, and I think that really shocked you know a lot of people in Europe into action. Um yeah, it's it's tricky, isn't it? You can see both sides of the argument for Sweden.

SPEAKER_00 1:29:37

It's absolutely devastating. I I've had on a guy, Oleg Kuchedenko, oh sorry, Alex Kuchedenko, several times in the podcast and maintained correspondence with him. Ukrainian fella. You know, super nerdy. He's a developer, right? Um, my age, he's got a wife, he's got a kid, and he's not he doesn't give a fuck about politics, you know. He's not even that much of a nationalist. He's he's not willing to die for Ukraine. The Ukraine he grew up in is you know, it wasn't a place that shone brightly upon him and his family. Having spoken with Alex about his own situation has among many other things, but made me sort of realize how lucky we are in our own countries, that we weren't born into this other situation. But also just how arbitrary it is that he's gonna be going off the wall, but potentially he's gonna be able to shoot other people. He's not interested in shooting other people, let alone being shot at himself. He's got his own family to look after. You know, I'm not gonna judge him for a second if he hightails it out of the country with his wife and kid, yet other people in his town would, and those same crazy dynamics might be put upon us. Um it's just totally nuts. But I think it's like we're definitely getting away from it.

SPEAKER_01 1:30:58

No, no, I I think it's relevant. I think for me it's this is the curse of nationalism. I think nationalism is one of the most toxic ideologies in human history, and it's the cause of so much unnecessary suffering and pain. And I was born on this bit of rock that you weren't born on, therefore I hate you. Like it's complete nonsense. And it's exploited by weak men, weak small men like your Putins, and arguably Trump as well, all of these people throughout history who they use nationalism to whip up a frenzy, whip up a fervor, get you to hate the other. You know, you have to hate that person. Why? Oh, he took your job. Did he really? Or is that actually because there's rampant inequality for all these other reasons? No, he did that. Hate him instead. And then, yeah, like the the end point of that is go and shoot that guy. And it's like, well, hang on, like, I don't even know that guy. I don't know anything to do with this. This is not something that I've signed up for. And you know, with the Russia-Ukraine conflict, it's it's a it's just been a cascading kind of domino effect to get us where we are today, and now I don't really see how I don't really see the way out of it. It's um it's really difficult to see how kind of what that solution is. Do they end up just completely militarized, just full of you know, you know, US and Europe European equipment, just kind of pointing outwards at a pretty hostile, you know, m bigger neighbor on the border? Probably that has nukes. That has nukes, and it's always this nuclear question and this idea now that we're yeah, this that's what shocked me the most with this whole thing is this normalizing of entering into the conversation, this idea of like prepping for a nuclear war, being ready for a nuclear war. There's a reason nuclear war is taboo, there's a reason that it's outlawed, and there's a reason that we don't do it. So I really that's what worries me the most about what's going on is like it's almost preparing people to accept that as a potential possibility. That should not be a possibility under any circumstances. So if your conversation, if your worldview or your politics or your nationalism or whatever is taking you down that path, you need to make steps to change that.

SPEAKER_00 1:32:58

Okay, well, Patrick, we've been speaking for a while now, so uh three final questions that I like to ask as many guests as possible. Um, the first of which being, what is the role that serendipity has played in your life?

SPEAKER_01 1:33:12

So for me, I think kind of serendipity and synchronicity are kind of different versions of kind of two sides of the same coin of communication from the universe, creation, god, whatever your worldview uh allows for the for the lexicon, kind of nudging us in the correct direction if maybe we're not following it, or reminder that we're on the right path if we are. So I think it is that way of communication. If you believe in kind of an idealist understanding of reality with kind of non-local shared consciousness like that of Bernardo Castrup, uh this makes even more sense because serendipity becomes less about chance and more about manifestation. And I believe that if you're in this co-created manifestable universe, that's what these messages, these glimmers, this serendipity represent. Um I've always been kind of more interested as well in the serendipity, because serendipity, by its very nature, is talking about good luck, right? It's a good luck event. I think it's more interesting when you don't realize or is not always noticeable as good fortune right away, and it might even seem to be the exact opposite. And it's only on reflection than you could see it was actually this universal kind of nudging you to the right, the right area. Um, I've had a f a few major kind of um actions like that in my life, which at the time have not felt serendipitous at all, and you're like, this is terrible, like what the hell's going on? But on reflection, you realize what was actually going on was to kind of nudge you to the path that you needed to be. So much so that now I keep a journal of serendipitous or synchronistic events so that I can't yeah, it's well again, all links into kind of the transpersonal psychology and the growth aspect of that, but it's by doing that, it reminds yours myself of kind of the events themselves, but also their meaning, but also it allows me to be more perceptive and receptive to their occurrence. So I think by doing that, by becoming more aware, you are likely to afford more power to serendipity in your life. So you again, I think it's kind of this this virtuous circle. You know, the you you you can manifest those more positive outcomes. Obviously, you know, not there's this there's caveats, um, but generally appreciating synchronicities and and and uh yeah for and serendipity for what it is, and and not kind of you know head down, you know, if you're a if you're a pessimist, for instance, you're gonna always you can potential to have a bad outcome twice. You know, you're gonna have the bad outcome in your mind when you imagine it, and then you're gonna potentially have the bad outcome again when it occurs. If you're an optimist, you're only gonna potentially have one bad outcome because you've not imagined the negative outcome, and you might have no bad outcome because it doesn't occur. So I think that's the way I try to kind of live anyway, is just uh don't worry about the bad stuff because if it happens, it happens, you just have to deal with it. Whereas uh it can be quite paralyzing, I think, otherwise.

SPEAKER_00 1:35:57

That must also make you an attractive force to people in your life. Um, you know, optimism is is an extremely attractive personality trait, if it's a personality trait at all, but just character character, part of someone's character.

SPEAKER_01 1:36:09

Yeah, I I hope so. I think you know, I think I'm a I'm a good friend, I'm a good sounding board for people. I always try to be there and try to be available, and you know, I think people feel like they can talk to me, which is nice. But but yeah, I think it's it's tricky, isn't it? Because I've that optimism, you know, is kind of is natural to me now. I can see when other people don't kind of share that, and you know, you kind of feel sorry for them because it's like it's all well and good me saying, Oh, why don't you just be optimistic? Why do you and it's like we have it doesn't work like that, and my brain isn't wired that way. So, and I've had conversations with people very close to me, and you know, I it's a it's uh for me that's work to appreciate that I'm kind of lucky in that worldview. A lot of people, if you don't have that, being told by somebody who does to just look on the bright side or whatever is gonna be quite patronizing and probably pretty fucking annoying.

SPEAKER_00 1:36:54

Absolutely. So now you're keeping a diary, um, you'll have you'll easily be able to uh reference these moments. But can you speak about maybe one or two absolutely pivotal pivotal moments of serendipity that you've experienced?

SPEAKER_01 1:37:08

So there was one that came to mind which was pretty substantial, which again, as I say, at the time did not feel serendipitous at all. It felt like terrible. So with my with my ex-wife, uh so I'm divorced now, we're we we kind of grew apart, we're very good friends. Um, you know, it's the best thing for both of us, so you know, we're both very happy, uh kind of you know, separate. But at the time, just before that, we were very close to trying to complete on a property together. Um, and that would have been a huge undertaking in terms of kind of leveraging debt-wise, and this is when mortgage rates were on the floor, you know, like 1%, 1.5%. If there was a basically an issue that came up with the property we were going to purchase, um party ball agreement is called, but basically it was just a boundary issue. It just meant that for whatever whatever we tried, whatever happened, I threw everything in terms of like effort, and so did she. We tried everything to get this deal across the line, it just would not happen, just couldn't be done. And then shortly after that, we realized that you know, we, you know, time a few months went on, and we realized that probably actually we needed to address the maybe the fact that we should be separated. Then once we made that decision, and obviously I've been able to kind of, I think, grow as a person more just on my own than in a relationship, but that decision not to make that purchase, if I'd have done, if it that hadn't happened and we've been able to follow that through, the interest rates at 5% would have we would have been crippled, completely crippled. So my entire life, entire world would have changed. I wouldn't have been able to write this book. My even my every aspect of my life would be completely different to the detriment. And at the time, we you know, it was just like, God, what bad luck. You know, I can't can't believe how much bad luck we're having in not getting this deal across the line. And then interestingly, I spoke to the estate agent six months later, because I still chat to him, he's a nice guy, and he said, um, oh yeah, the the other people who had the uh had the offering after you, they had no issue with their mortgage, it just went straight through, like the mortgage company didn't care about the party board agreement. And it's just like, wow, that's so interesting. Because now I appreciate that as actually incredibly serendipitous because that path was not the right one for me. So that was quite a big one. Um there's another one which, as a part of my uh master's degree, I had to choose a module um for uh a kind of an optional module, and I had chosen to look at kind of what they call psi. So, you know, it's things like um aspects of non-local consciousness which could be scientifically measured, which could prove non-local consciousness. So things like remote viewing, which the CIA were involved in a lot in the in the you know in the Cold War, um things like telepathy, all of these type of things. I was really interested in that, and I chosen that. And then on the day that I was the last possible day I could have to change my mind, I had a just a kind of nudge in the back of my mind saying, I want you should change that to uh consciousness after death, you know, what happens to you when you die? Um and I changed it. I just followed my intuition. And then I didn't really understand why I had, and then as I started kind of working through, uh we I built a presentation with some other, you know, we worked into groups, it was really great experience, and we were working on near-death experiences by a chap called Pim van Lommel, Dutch guy back in the 70s, really interesting study. And I started talking to my little brother about it, and he said, Oh, that's so interesting that you're learning about that. You should talk to mum about her near-death experience. I said, Well, what are you talking about? I don't know anything about this. And I knew that when, so this is the my youngest brother, when he was born, there were severe complications. Um, and I knew that, but I didn't know much more. Um, I hadn't really asked much more. So I started to my mum about it, she said, Yeah, yeah, I've not really spoken to many people about it, but actually told me all about it. I won't go into too much there because it's private, but you know, we had an incredibly rewarding conversation, and then you know, I passed her on all the research that I'd been doing, and since that point, one of the things that I can share anyway is that one of the problems for most people who have near-death experiences is that most people don't believe them, um, and because it's easier just to say you made it up, it's hallucination, or blah blah blah. But there's so much evidence that proves that's probably not the case. Well, I say I'd say definitely not the case, but let's hedge it. And she said having that conversation with me had changed so many aspects of how she viewed decisions she'd made in her life, and she didn't realize that other people had even had them. She felt so much better from having that conversation. I knew instantly, ah, that is why I made that decision. So for me, you probably call that more synchronicity, but I would say again serendipitous because it was the luck. If you call it luck, I don't, I'd call it something else, but that nudge to make that decision meant that I had that conversation with her, meant that she was able to kind of move and progress and evolve in her in her own head. So, yeah, those are the two probably kind of biggest ones that have um that come to mind. But yeah, that they're they happen all the time if you if you care to look at them. I actually I've had one more which is more funny, um which might make your hair stand up, but it's um I was getting uh my first tattoo, so I have a quite um quite a big tattoo on my shoulder, and I was a little bit scared about it. It's like it was a six-hour in the chair type job, but I'd never had one before. And what part of it is I wanted to have a seven on on the tattoo. And the artist, she's amazing. Uh, she was just kind of like, no, basically. I'm I know what I'm doing. I don't want it to look shit. And I was like, fair enough, but I'll talk to you about it on the day because you know, I just wanted a small, I just wanted to know it was there because you know, my I had sevens are very important in my life for lots of different reasons. So on the morning that I was gonna have this tattoo, which I was still a bit nervous about getting it and be a bit nervous about speaking to her, I walk out my front door, and what is there? An upturned seven of hearts, like right in front of the first step I take outside my front door. And I'd not mentioned just a playing card. Just a playing card, seven of hearts, upturned. And I'd not mentioned this to anybody, I'd not told them I was thinking about this seven, I'd not I hadn't told anybody anything. And I remember looking at that, I left it there, I didn't want to pick it up. I just laughed and I had a smile on my face, and then when I and then I just thought, okay, well, first of all, don't worry about getting it done, it's gonna be fine. Second of all, it's all gonna work out and you're doing the right thing. And that one I just thought was, yeah, not maybe not the same impact as the other two, but incredible.

SPEAKER_00 1:43:07

Absolutely incredible. And look, mate, they are three, particularly the first two, just phenomenal examples of serendipity. I'm so happy you made the distinction between how negative moment can also be uh serendipitous when you uh look back on it. But yeah, the the whole point of it is just acknowledging how there are totally random influences that you have zero control over that can be totally directional in your life. Um and just acknowledging that they're there is uh yeah, I mean I I think at least you know a super liberating thing to do. 100% Yeah, and I I I I'd love to talk to you about it some other time, but you know, there's been 170 episodes now, and I've asked that to like 120 of the guests. You know, you really do get some phenomenal answers, especially from people who are ridiculously successful in their field, and how you know it was a small, large moment, but at the time, very, very small moment of serendipity that sort of put them in the place to get the thing that then took them to the matched them along the way, put them, you know, it's a little tiny thing, and it's you feel it like it's inconsequential at the time, or you don't really realise the import of it until you take that step back and you see it.

SPEAKER_01 1:44:21

And again, if you think if well to go into the physics of it, but if you realise obviously that time is not not linear, time is occurring all around us, we just don't understand it. That's un that's why you understand how these these synchronicities occur because you know they're not occurring before or after, everything's occurring at the same time, but we just you know we've we've we don't understand their higher dimensions.

SPEAKER_00 1:44:40

You'll um you'll you'll really like Brian Class's book, Fluke. You mentioned him earlier, the soundbite about how he thinks about media. Um but yeah, that book he just wrote. I'll give that a read for sure. Patrick, two more, completely non-empire related. Yeah. Unless you pick someone from Star Wars. But who is your fictional favourite fictional character?

SPEAKER_01 1:45:03

So I did actually think of Star Wars because I'm a I'm a big star. It's kind of like Star Wars or Marvel I was going down, but I actually actually settled on Gandalf, uh, obviously from Lord of the Rings, because like wise, measured, but also like courageous, brave, like an absolute badass, uh speaks truth, speaks truth to power a lot, uh, and pretty handy in a scrap as well. So yeah, I'm gonna go with Gandalf.

SPEAKER_00 1:45:29

I love it. What a great answer. Um, and then finally, a country that you are particularly bullish on.

SPEAKER_01 1:45:37

So just to define bullish, we mean someone that might see kind of um bright things or big big big things in their future.

SPEAKER_00 1:45:43

Precisely.

SPEAKER_01 1:45:44

Yeah, so I think I kind of settled on Mexico um on that because another instance where we see the world exactly the same.

SPEAKER_00 1:45:53

This is in no one else has said Mexico, anyway. And now you've said it. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:45:57

I'm quite surprised at that. Because for me, you know, geographically, obviously being the bridge between kind of uh North America and South America, uh, they've got the demographics, they're on the rise economically, they're working pretty hard to clean up like the crime and the corruption. I think when they move when they're able to move on from the kind of the war on drugs and the effects that that's had on them that's been essentially imposed on them by the US, you know, when they're able to move on from them, I think they can really thrive. Um so yeah, I'd probably say probably say Mexico. I'm I'm actually heading there in April as it happens, so I'm quite quite looking forward to that. It's um great country, so beautiful, right?

SPEAKER_00 1:46:32

I just want to add on to some of the bullish points you made, but if America does well, and the further they decouple from China, Mexico is the biggest benefactor of that. Yeah. Um and with this insane border situation that's happening particularly over the last six months to a year, you know, there's so much discussion about how it fucks America's labor economy, which obviously it does. Half the people that go there, more than half, are not Mexican. They're Venezuelan, they're Brazilian, they're but Central American. And the those that don't make it over the border will then be now living in a border town or Mexico and willing to work for less than the Mexicans that live there. And so the exact same labor economics happen there, but that's totally missed by you know the the the big dialogue about it, um, which is such a shame because I mean Mexico's got enough fucking problems already. The fact that the insatiable demand for cocaine and all the other um horrible drugs, which fuels the entire uh economics of the cartels, um they also have to take responsibility for being the ones that are demanding it largely. Um so many great things. I mean, I could talk about Mexico for uh forever, you know, but a 150 million population, uh incredible culture, one that values work, one that values family. I mean, these are two really important inputs into a thriving society. Uh they're an ancient culture, they have the best food, incredible history, phenomenal art. Um just you can be in a Jurassic Park down in Chiapas all the way up to the best beaches in the world. So yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:48:18

I think one one point on what you say about the hard work, the work ethic that's quite uh important, I think often forgotten as well, is when uh when people talk about kind of the Hispanic vote in in America, where who are the Hispanics gonna vote for? It's just presumed that they will vote for the Democrats. Because the idea is because especially because Trump's rhetoric is so anti-immigration, actually, the a lot of the Hispanics vote for the Republicans because they value this idea of hard work. And again, whether or not the Republicans are gonna look out for them is another story, but they actually that work ethic is so enshrined in them that actually they vote you know larger in larger numbers for Republicans than you would expect because of that very reason. So, yeah, I think it's definitely going to benefit them when you know when they continue to rise themselves, if they can just deal with kind of the more internal corruption, the crime side of things, which again I think they're working their way out of, but it's just not a it's not an instant solution, is it?

SPEAKER_00 1:49:11

No. It's one of the most wicked problems which may never be solved. I think the demand for the demand for the product which makes the entire system happen actually has to be the solution. You cannot fight a problem on the supply side when demand strips it twice.

SPEAKER_01 1:49:37

Well, pro well prohibition doesn't work, and you also can't wage war on words, adjectives, or nouns. You can't wage a war on terror, you can't wage a war on drugs. This is this is nonsense.

SPEAKER_00 1:49:48

Oh, that's a nice way to put it. Is that you? Or are you quoting someone else?

SPEAKER_01 1:49:51

That is me, but it's true, right? That's a really nice way to put it. It's also to cut unfortunately, this is the situation at the moment. The idea of we will destroy Hamas completely and indiscriminately, like you're and we will destroy fundamentalism. Like you're creating more fundamentalisms by inhumane actions. So you can't destroy these words. You know, these words are they're just words. You need to deal with the the things that have created the situation in the first place.

SPEAKER_00 1:50:19

Well, look, Patrick, um I hopefully uh it's it's been made clear to you throughout our correspondence, but I am in I'm I deeply admire what you've done in creating the book and also uh enjoyed reading the book and have loved talking to you. So yeah, thanks so much, mate.

SPEAKER_01 1:50:39

Thank you very much. I really appreciate uh you having me on the on for a chat. It's been uh it's been great.