All language subtitles for English (auto-generated)_en_0_Game Theory _14_ The Law of Proximity(1080P_60FPS)

Last night there was a major escalation

in this war. So, the Israelis have

bombed the Iranian

uh oil fields.

And in response, the Iranians now are

attacking the um energy infrastructure

of the GCC. Okay, so let's have a look

at what this attack looks like.

This is Qatar.

Okay, so Qatar provides

20% of the world's LNG.

Um and this is a major escalation.

And again,

um as I pointed out last class, the

first strategy of Iran is to destroy the

global economy, okay? And this is how it

will do so. It also attacked Tel Aviv

in response for the assassination of

their de facto leader, Ali Ali Larijani,

okay? So, this is what the attack looks

like.

Um as you can see from this picture,

this is a cluster warhead, and it is

impossible for air defense to stop this.

So, Tel Aviv is getting pummeled. We

don't have footage because it's being

censored right now.

And you would think that

um Israelis

would want this war to end as soon as

possible because Tel Aviv and other

cities are getting just destroyed in

this war. And again, there's really no

way for the Israelis to defend

themselves against um Iranian ballistic

missiles.

But unfortunately,

there are many Israelis who are very

happy about all this destruction.

All right?

And so this is one of the

uh more influential rabbis

in

Jerusalem.

He's talking in Hebrew, but what he's

saying is that this war of destruction

it will bring about the return of the

Sorry, not the return, the coming of the

Messiah.

And it will happen on Thursday, which is

today.

Okay? So they are not at all saddened by

what is happening. In fact, they are

quite animated. They're very excited

about what's happening. So again, you

cannot look at this war from a

geopolitical lens. You have to look at

it from an eschatological perspective.

All right? So um let us look at

where we are in the

war so far. And as you can see, it is a

regional war, and both sides are seeking

maximalist objectives. And what this

means is the United States and Israel

wants to destroy Israel, especially its

capacity to be a nation-state. And so

right now,

um the Americans and Israelis are

attacking their leadership, decapitating

their leadership, as well as targeting

their economy.

And later on, um as this war progresses

and escalates, they will start to target

in civilian critical infrastructure,

including water.

Okay? And it's already happening.

Um they also want to have a divide and

rule uh strategy where they want to

provoke ethnic conflict in Iran and

divide uh Iran up into ethnic enclaves.

And this is what we call Balkanization.

The Iranians on the other hand want to

destroy the entire global economy. You

do that by attacking the

energy infrastructure of the GCC.

Because again, the entire basis of the

global global economy is cheap energy.

Okay? So, as this war progresses, you

will notice certain things. All right?

So, eventually, the Americans will have

no choice but to launch a ground

invasion.

>> [snorts]

>> And

one possible

attack vector is here, which is Kharg

Island.

This is where Iran stores about 9% of

its oil for export. And so, the idea is

that if you take Kharg Island, you will

destroy

the Iranian economy and thus its

capacity to sustain this war. The

problem with Kharg Island is that it's

easy to take, but it's hard to defend

because of the coastline, right? Which

case, you have to also take the

coastline.

But then, you deal with the Zagros

Mountains. And so, you have to expand

outwards. Okay? So, this is what we call

mission creep.

Where you cannot justify the war.

So, what you do is you put in some

soldiers and then

the mission creep becomes just just

justification for the war. Okay? So,

that's one thing to

spot as you read the news. Kharg Island

will be a flash point. Another

flash point will be Saudi Arabia.

Because right now, the Iranians are

attacking Saudi Arabia. Now, what Saudi

Arabia can do is declare war on Iran.

This is important because Saudi Arabia

has a mutual defense pact with Pakistan.

So, that if any are attacked, the other

is obligated to come to each other's

defense, okay? This is important because

as you can see, Pakistan opens up the

eastern front, okay? So it's possible

the Americans can attack from the east.

The other thing The other thing that's

important is that Pakistan has nuclear

weapons.

And um

um it is possible nuclear weapons are

used. I again, I strongly believe

tactical nuclear weapons will not be

used, okay? But once Pakistan is in the

war,

nuclear warheads are now at play.

Okay? Another thing to watch is how this

war expands elsewhere, okay? Because

when the time is appropriate, what will

happen is

that um

the Iranians will activate their

proxies, uh the Houthis, and they will

close off another critical choke point,

okay? So now, what hap- what's going to

happen is that there will be two

critical maritime choke points that are

closed off, thus isolating the GCC and

thus cutting off the world's access to

cheap energy. And when they do that, we

we can expect global retaliation and

other forces what to come in to secure

cheap energy.

Okay? It's possible the South Koreans,

the Japanese are forced into this war

because they are so dependent on GCC

energy.

All right?

All right.

So these are things that we will um

uh look for in the next few weeks.

Something else that is um

um creating attention on online is

people are speculating that Benjamin

Netanyahu is dead. And the reason why is

that he's he's not been seen in a public

setting for many days. There have been

cabinet meetings and Netanyahu usually

chairs them and he's not there, okay?

The other thing is that there are fake

AI videos of him giving speeches.

And it's pretty blatant these are fake.

So, people are speculating that he is

dead and they're trying to cover it up.

Uh this is a picture of him visiting a

cafe in uh Jerusalem to prove he's not

dead. The problem is that this cafe is

in a mountain and it will take him about

like 50 minutes to drive there. So, why

does he go there? Why doesn't he just

have a cabinet meeting or get on the

phone with Donald Trump to prove he's

still alive? All right? So, but I

personally don't believe he is dead. He

could be hiding somewhere

um or he could be injured. What we do

know is that the Iranians are killing a

lot of senior Israeli officials,

including the head of Mossad, their spy

agency. And Netanyahu's residence was

also targeted in Tel Aviv. So, that's

that's a really interesting question.

How are the Iranians able to target so

many so so many of the top leadership of

the Israelis, okay? But not only that,

but

uh this is Ali Larijani and he is the

head, the de facto head of the Iran war

effort.

>> [snorts]

>> And he was assassinated

um yesterday or 2 days ago and the

Iranians have confirmed this, okay? So,

he's confirmed to be dead. And

um people, analysts, are extremely

worried about this because he is a very

pragmatic person and so you can

negotiate with him, right? So, once this

uh war reaches a certain point where

both sides are exhausted, then it is

possible to approach him and say, "You

know what? Let's just negotiate a

ceasefire." And he'd be willing to

because he's very experienced. He's also

very influential, so he's able to bring

together the different factions of the

Iranian government and negotiate a

ceasefire. With him dead,

it is now almost impossible

to foresee a ceasefire.

Okay? So, let's discuss why

um you really don't want to do this sort

of stuff. You don't really want to kill

um other nations' leaders, okay? And so

you let's just use a analogy.

Let's imagine in the streets there are

two gangs at war with with each other,

okay? Gang A and Gang B. Okay? Gang A,

Gang B.

>> [snorts]

>> And if you look at gangs, they are

structured as hierarchies, okay?

But there's a lot of autonomy among the

different sections, okay?

And what holds uh the gangs together, of

course, is the leader.

So, when these two gangs go to war, what

they try to avoid is killing each

others' leader.

Why? Because um a war is often used to

achieve certain political objectives,

right? And so the point isn't to kill

everyone, the point is to negotiate um

a treaty that is most beneficial to you.

And you do that by negotiating with each

others' leaders, okay? Because they have

the authority to implement the treaty.

That's the first reason. The second

reason is

if you kill

the leader, then more people

there'll be a competition to replace the

leader, right? And during a gang war,

the person who is most violent, the most

extreme, will often become the new

leader, okay? So, by killing this

leader, not only do you cause

uh conflict among the gang, but you also

cause a massive escalation in the

conflict um between these two gangs, and

there's really no way out. That That is

why historically you do not target other

nations' leaders because then there's no

off-ramp.

Okay?

So, by targeting um Larijani, Israelis

and Americans have ensured that there

will be no off-ramp now. This war will

be fought to the bitter end. And

unfortunately, as we discussed

previously, that is the objective here.

Israelis and Americans are interested in

maximalist aims to destroy Iran

permanently.

Okay? And the Iranians are also

maximalist in that they want to destroy

the global economy permanently

in order to restructure reality itself.

All right. Okay.

So, this leaves us with three major

questions that I want to look at today,

okay?

The first big question is

how

are these leaders dying?

>> [snorts]

>> It's not that easy to kill a leader,

right? Because he's protected by

security.

And usually we There are two ways to

figure out where the leader is, okay?

There's human intelligence,

called HUMINT, and there's signal

intelligence, called SIGINT.

Okay? Human intelligence, signal

intelligence. Signal intelligence just

means electronic eavesdropping, where I

listen in on your telephone calls, where

I track your IP address, okay? And

Israelis and Americans are obviously

very sophisticated in that. And the

Americans and Israelis are saying that

we are using electronic surveillance in

order to track these people down.

I don't think that's convincing. I think

the most um

import

the most important source, the most

reliable source of information is human

intelligence. Having spies embedded in

local networks to spot for you where

they are, okay?

That's the most

um that's the best way to figure out

where they are.

So then this raise the question,

how are these Israeli citizens getting

this human intelligence, okay? All

right, that's the first question we want

to look at. How are these leaders dying?

Second question is like, why are they

dying?

Like, what's the point of killing them?

Right? Because once they die, they can

just be replaced. And they're often

replaced by a more

extreme

um individual, okay? So that's the

second question we we want to look at.

And the third question we want to look

at is

what

does

this mean

for the war

and the world?

Okay?

What do these decapitation strikes

ultimately mean for how this war will

progress and how this will affect the

world the world in general, okay? All

right, so those those are the three big

questions

I want to look at. So to answer these

three questions, I want to introduce a

new idea to you, okay? It's called a law

of proximity.

The law of proximity,

the idea is this.

>> [clears throat]

>> Whenever you play a game, you're not

just playing one game. You're playing

many, many different games.

And the game that you choose to play is

the one that is most proximate to you,

the one that is close most close to you.

And that impacts your decision-making

the most. Okay? So that's the law of

proximity. So let me explain to you what

this

uh means using a analogy, okay?

Let's just use your life. You are

probably actually multiple games every

single day. All right, so let's let's

let's let's examine this. The first game

you play, of course, is the family game,

right? So, you might have

parents

and you have siblings, okay?

And the game you're playing, of course,

is to win attention from your parents.

And to do so, depending on who your

siblings are, you might use different

strategies including doing well in

school or being a pain in the ass.

Unfortunately, my kids choose to be a

pain in the ass, okay?

Um yes. The parents are playing another

game, which is

>> [clears throat]

>> um social

um

um prestige, right? So, they're

competing against other parents to have

the best family possible, all right? So,

and then not only do you play game at at

um home, but you also play games at

school, right?

All right, so when you go to school,

you're competing against your classmates

for attention and popularity, but you're

also playing

um a game in the school to get the best

grades so that you can you you can get

into a good college, right?

Then you go to work

where you're competing in order to win

the favor of your boss and to be popular

among your colleagues.

Then you play a city game where you live

in Beijing and you want Beijing to be

better than maybe Shanghai or Shenzhen,

okay? And then you play a game of maybe

nation where you want China to be

stronger than Japan, okay? So, as you

can see, every single day you're playing

multiple games even though even though

you may not recognize it. And again,

what's important is the game that is

most important to you is the game which

you are most close to, right? The one

that you can see in front of you.

Okay, does that Does that make sense?

Okay. But, this is also true for nations

as well, where we think

that the game is

uh

um between nations.

But, really the game is within nations.

And the conflict

within nations is the one

conflict that determines how nations

behave against each other.

All right. So, we So, today what what we

will do is we will look at three

examples of of this, okay? We will look

at the civil conflicts in America, in

Israel, and in Iran to figure out why

they behave the way they do, and then

figure out how this war will progress.

Okay. So, clearly, there is a civil

conflict right now in America.

Okay, you have the Democrats

>> [clears throat]

>> and you have Republicans.

Now, what's odd is that even though

these two different political parties

are war with each other, they both

support the war because their calculus

is different. Okay? So, why do the

Democrats support this war?

Well, it's because they believe

that this war will be extremely

unpopular in America, which will allow

the Democrats to dominate in the

midterms in November, and then win the

presidential presidential election in 20

uh 28.

And they believe that this war will be

so unpopular, it will destroy Donald

Trump

and um allow the Democrats to rule

forever. It will basically destroy the

Republican Party.

All right? And so, that is your

strategy. And if you think about it,

actually makes a lot of sense.

The Republicans have a different

strategy, which is

this war may be unpopular,

and this war

>> [snorts]

>> may

um

um make America lose,

but

it's okay.

Why? Because in a time of war, the

president has something called the

Emergency Powers Act, okay? Emergency

Powers.

Emergency Powers allows the president to

essentially suspend the Constitution and

to suspend or delay elections.

Also, um the Republicans want to pass

pass something called Safe America Act.

>> [clears throat]

>> Okay? The Safe America Act.

Um which means that if you are a voter,

you must present ID in order to vote.

And you think that this is

um well, reasonable, but historically,

the idea of checking ID is a way to

discriminate against minorities, right?

To have police officers there to scare

uh minorities.

And that's traditionally how

um

racism was enforced in in America. Okay?

So, in other words, the Republicans have

many different strategies of either

cheating

or manipulating the elections. They can

also, I have to say this, but if the war

is going really badly, what they will do

is call up a national draft and cancel

the elections, okay?

All right? So, these are two different

strategies going on. But as you can see,

this is not really about America

defeating

Iran. This is really about the Democrats

or Republicans trying to

obtain power and keep it, okay?

All right.

But, what's important for us to

understand is that it's not just about

the Democrats and Republicans at war

with each other. There's actually a much

deeper divide in America, okay? And this

divide is a conflict between the

um elite

and the counter-elite.

>> [clears throat]

>> Remember how we introduced the idea of

elite overproduction, right?

Uh this is a

Peter Turchin idea.

And he argues that what leads to civil

war is that you have too much too many

elite who want to be the ones in power.

Power is a zero-sum game, and therefore

when you have elite overproduction, they

have to go to war against each other in

order to

um have the power, okay?

And so,

what's going on? Who are the elite and

who's the counter-elite? Well, I mean,

to put it very simply, the Democrats

represent the elite, and the Republicans

represent the counter-elite, okay?

So,

um the Basically, the elite is the

empire.

And counter-elite is um MAGA, which is

America first. And so, they have two

different um

um ideals

for America. The empire is to maintain

the current global order,

right? And MAGA is to retreat back into

Western Hemisphere and focus on

um Americans' core national interests.

All right. They're also divided into

finance

and um AI,

okay?

So, in other words, Wall Street are the

main backers of the current elite.

And then Silicon Valley are the main

backers of the counter elite.

Okay? So, this these people are

interested in maintaining the status

quo.

They are interested in a revolution.

All right? And so, this is the main

divide in America that will eventually

lead to a civil war, like like an actual

civil war. Okay? But, right now,

um they're fighting over foreign policy.

So, I will discuss this more in

um the future. Okay? But, um I want I

present to you now. So, let me give you

a con- concrete example of why they're

fighting. Why are people in finance

fighting uh with people in AI?

And there's a very good reason.

Because if you're able to control

Washington D.C., if you're able to

control the levers of government, you're

able to make a lot of money for

yourself. Okay? So, let's look at this

concretely.

>> [clears throat]

>> Okay. What people don't really

understand is that both finance and AI

are bubbles that will burst. They're

parasites. Okay? So, finance um is a

parasite because there's something

called a private credit bubble.

All right?

Private credit bubble it I mean, the

idea of private credit is very simple.

Rather than banks issuing loans to

companies, companies privately issue

loans to other companies.

And you would think that these companies

would be very careful

with

who they lend to and how much they lend

to, right?

That's not true, though. Okay? Why?

Because in 2008, these banks destroyed

the global economy

and the American government bailed them

out.

Right? They suffered no consequences.

This This idea of moral hazard. If you

do not suffer consequences for your

stupidity,

well, you're just going to be more

stupid in the future, okay? So, these

companies believe that we control

Washington D.C. Therefore, we can be as

risky and stupid as we want. So, they're

giving out lots and lots of silly loans

to companies because they collect a fee

for these loans, right?

And then, when these loans don't

actually work out, meaning the companies

go bankrupt, what they do is they say,

"Oh, we'll we'll lend you some more

money to keep afloat, okay?" So, now

this problem has reached about $2

trillion.

And so, they think that, "Okay, well,

worst-case scenario, the government will

bail us out if we all go bankrupt

because we're too big to fail and all

our friends are in government."

Okay? That's their mentality.

And in 2008, that worked.

But there's a problem

today, which is there's also another

group that's doing the same crap, okay?

And it's called the AI bubble.

All right. So, if you look at AI bubble,

you have you got companies like

Microsoft, um OpenAI,

uh Oracle, Nvidia,

uh okay, lots lots lots and lots of

different companies.

And the way they operate is they just

lend money to each other, okay? It's

like, I give you a billion dollars, then

you give me a billion dollars, and now

we have two billion dollars.

Okay? It's a circle jerk.

And and it's getting a lot of money from

the GCC

and other investors. The problem, of

course, is what's happening in the war,

right? So, if the GCC can no longer put

more money into this bubble, then

eventually this bubble will have to

burst.

But they're like, "That's

Why? Because we control Trump. We

control the White House. We are the

stock market. Therefore, Washington D.C.

will bail us out, okay? So, that's the

war going on where you have two

parasitic forces,

the finance sector and the and the tech

sector, and they are all looking for

government bailout when their bubble

burst.

But they the government doesn't have

infinite money. It can only bail one

side, right?

So, they're going to fight over with the

government they're going to fight over

who bails who out, okay? If the

Democrats can win the House and the

presidency in the 2028, then the private

credit people will get bailed out.

But if Trump and his people stay in

power in 2028, then the AI people will

get bailed out, okay?

So, that's the civil war going on in

America

uh right now. We'll discuss this more

later in the future, but I just present

it to you

uh right now, okay?

And then of course you have the um

Israelis, Israel. People don't really

appreciate

how divided

Israel is. This is about 2020 when you

have like a million people in Tel Aviv

calling for the resignation, the

impeachment,

uh the jailing of Prime Minister

Netanyahu.

Because Netanyahu, like most Israeli

politicians, is very corrupt. Okay? Um

and to avoid going to jail, Netanyahu

proposed changing the judiciary,

changing changing the laws. And so,

there's these massive protests against

Netanyahu. And at this point in Israel,

um it seemed as though Netanyahu was

going to fall from power and go to jail

for the rest of his life. But then of

course, October 7th happened.

Okay? October 7th happened, and then

we or Israel is now in permanent war.

That gives him emergency powers, okay?

All right.

To give you a sense of how divided

Israel is, let's look at the Knesset,

which is a parliament. Guys, this is a

lot of political parties. As you can

see, none of them are dominant, okay?

The biggest Likud, which is Netanyahu's

party party, it has about 30 members.

But,

it cannot rule by itself. Therefore, it

has to join with other political

parties, okay? It has to be a coalition.

But, look you look at its enemies. Well,

its enemies also have a lot. So, it

seems as though Israel is a extremely

divided society, and it is, okay? People

don't really appreciate this.

You know, a lot of people talk about a

Jewish global conspiracy. What people

don't really understand is the Jewish

people have never ever gotten along. So,

you go back to the to the time of Jesus,

and there were like three major factions

in Jerusalem. There were the Sadducees,

there were the Pharisees, and the

Essenes. They all hated each other.

In in the year 70,

the Romans sent a huge army to destroy

Jerusalem. Okay, and you would think at

this time the people in Jerusalem would

get together and unite and defend

Jerusalem because otherwise they'd all

be killed.

Well,

they didn't get together, okay? And the

Romans destroyed Jerusalem and burned

down the second temple and massacred a

lot of Jews. So, the Jews have always

had this problem where they're extremely

creative and intellectual, but that just

leads to massive infighting, okay?

>> [clears throat]

>> All right.

So, these are the leaders of uh the

different political parties of Israel.

And again, I hate to say this, but like

they really hate each other. It's not,

you know, uh

like a show. They genuinely hate each

other. And that's why um Israel has been

politically been so dysfunctional these

past few decades, okay? All right. So,

now I want to discuss

where the major conflict in

Israel is. Okay, so I would say there

like the two major conflict is

represented by

Tel Aviv

and Jerusalem.

These are two cities in Israel and they

are the two major cities of Israel and

they represent two different centers of

gravity, two different visions for

Israel.

Uh, Tel Aviv is democratic.

>> [clears throat]

>> Jerusalem is a theocracy.

Meaning it's it's religious, okay? Uh,

Tel Aviv is um, open.

Meaning it actually has a lot of

homosexuals, right? And you can imagine

people in Jerusalem aren't happy about

this. So, they're very conservative.

>> [clears throat]

>> Okay.

>> [snorts]

>> Okay, cosmopolitan.

>> [clears throat]

>> Uh, tradition.

All right. So, these are two vastly

different um,

visions of for Israel where Tel Aviv is

this is open, democratic, modern,

progressive city. Lots of homosexuals,

lots of open ideas, very secular, very

outward looking, very western.

Jerusalem is the complete opposite,

okay? Very religious, very conservative.

And they again, they hate each other.

And the fact that Tel Aviv is getting

destroyed right now in this war, people

in Jerusalem are actually okay with

this, okay? They're not like, "Oh my

god, they're killing Israelis." No, no,

no. Tel Aviv is the

great Satan. Let's just destroy it so

that we can um,

build a theocracy, okay? All right. So,

let's look closely at where they where

they disagree, okay?

So, Israel is kingdom David.

>> [clears throat]

>> Right? But,

Tel Aviv and Jerusalem perceive David

differently. Okay? So, for people in Tel

Aviv, David was the king when Israel was

at the height of its glory, when it was

an open, cosmopolitan,

>> [snorts]

>> creative, innovative empire. And that's

what they want Israel to be.

The people in Jerusalem see this see

David as a different person.

They see David as primarily a

um

uh poet prophet.

And they see David as the exemplar.

As the favorite of God because he

redeemed himself and repented himself in

the eyes of God, okay? So, redemption

and repentance.

All right.

And what they focus on is the story of

David where David is king and one day he

wakes up and finds he's in love with

Bathsheba.

And so, he basically has sex with

Bathsheba. Bathsheba gets pregnant and

that's a problem because Bathsheba is

married to someone else, Uriah the

Hittite. So, what does David do? David

has him killed, okay?

And David can do this because he's king.

But, God finds out and sends the prophet

Nathan to tell David, "You've sinned."

And at first David refuses to admit that

he's in the wrong. But then, there's

his child with Bathsheba dies. And David

falls into tremendous grief. And every

day he's praying to God for forgiveness.

He's asking for redemption. He is

repenting. And God forgives him. And in

this process, not only does David become

a better person,

but he becomes

united with God. Because now they're

best friends. Now they talk every day.

And that's what the vision for that

people in Judaism have for Israel. A

nation that engages in redemption and

repentance. They don't care about this

war. Don't care about Iran. Don't care

about the United States. Don't care

about the greater Israel project. They

care about the Jews finding God again

and being loyal to God. And that is what

will bring peace to the world, okay?

That is how they see the world.

This is how how they perceive things.

They They believe that in every person

there's a divine soul, okay? That comes

from God. But it is a It is trapped in

the animal soul.

Okay?

So Tel Aviv is the animal soul.

>> [clears throat]

>> And

this is the divine soul.

All right?

So what the animal soul is, you seek

material comfort. You want to have sex.

You want to get drunk. You want to

party. You want to drive a drive a

Ferrari, okay? This is all animal.

But inside of you is the divine soul

that only seeks to be with God.

Okay?

And so we are constantly in a struggle

between the animal soul and the divine

soul.

And so from their perspective, Tel Aviv

represents the animal soul of Israel.

Jerusalem represents the divine soul of

Israel. So it's okay if Iran is

destroying Tel Aviv. Good. Also, they

recognize that war is good because if

people really want to find God again,

they need to suffer. They need They need

to lose everything before they recognize

the glory of God, okay? So think of um

the book of Job.

When Job was Job is a character in the

Bible who's very wealthy.

And and so God decides, you know what?

Maybe he's only faithful to me because

he's very wealthy. So, Job loses

everything and this heightens his faith

in God, okay? So, that's the vision that

these crazy religious zealots have in

Jerusalem, which is like let's destroy

Israel so that we can refine,

rediscover

our love for God, okay? The destruction

of Israel will lead to the redemption

and repentance of the Israeli people and

therefore peace in this world.

The Messiah will finally come. That's

why

the rabbi was constantly talking about

um

on Thursday the Messiah will come

because he feels it's so close. There's

so much destruction. There's so much

war. So, the Messiah must come because

now the Jews recognize that only God can

save them. Therefore, when you will it,

when you pray for the Messiah, when you

want in your heart, that's when the

Messiah will come.

Okay, but you need to create the

conditions when people really want the

Messiah.

Okay? So, that's the civil conflict

going on in

um

Israel. And again,

these people in Jerusalem, these

fanatics, they don't really care if the

world if the world is destroyed because

this world is fake anyway. Who cares?

What matters is the divine soul, okay?

All right.

Yeah. Um you have you have a question,

um Vincent?

Like you said the Messiah is coming

today, which is Thursday, and like

>> No, I didn't say that. Uh? I didn't say

that.

The rabbi said that.

>> Uh, the the rabbi said that like the

Messiah is coming today, but like will

the coming of Messiah really affect

China and those countries or is uh

all their personal beliefs?

Okay, listen. I I know this is hard for

you guys to understand.

But, China doesn't matter, okay? Only

Israel matters. United States, China,

Russia, does that matter? Look at that.

Matters is Israel.

Okay? Only matters is the people in

Israel, the Jews.

Their spiritual state will determine the

fate of the world. Once the Jews

um unified with God, then peace and

prosperity will come for the rest of the

world, okay?

All right?

>> [clears throat]

>> Okay. So, um now I want to talk about

Iran.

Okay? This is the political government

structure of Iran. Now, one thing I

notice is that it's very complicated,

okay? It's divided into the religious

aspects, okay? Some of the

experts, and the secular aspect, which

is

um the um

uh

government, okay?

So, it's a government, but

the Islamic clerics are at the very top.

And this is the dual identity

of Iran, okay? And

this is the uh their last presidential

election. As you can see, it's a pretty

divided country, where people in the

middle voted for Jalali,

but people in the outskirts voted for

uh uh

Peseschkian, okay?

So, there's a lot of conflict in

Iran. Not just political, religious, but

also ethnic as well. All right. So So

let me explain very quickly what I see

is the major divide

in Iraq, okay? So of course, you have

um the Islamic theocracy

and they're in conflict with

um

secular nationalists.

And then of course, there's ethnic

groups as well.

I don't really think the ethnic groups

matter that much, okay? What really

matters is the conflict between the

secular nationalists and the Islamic

theocracy.

All right. So basically, the rural-urban

divide.

Uh people who are educated and want to

see Iran as a secular state that

promotes democracy and progress and

science versus these um religious

individuals, okay?

Now, what happens is that in a war,

um

you become more extreme.

So what happened is that is the Islamic

theocracy will transition into Shia

eschatology

or martyrdom, okay? Where they think

that this war is about return having a

12th Imam,

Mahdi, who is the basically the Messiah,

return to lead them to war against the

Great Satan, which is Israel and the

United States, okay?

So over time,

uh the Islamists will become much more

radical.

This will force the secular nationalists

to also become much more radical as

well. So they will become Persian

exceptionalists, okay?

What What this just means is that

Persian exceptionalism which just means

that Persia

is the greatest civilization in human

history and therefore is worth dying

for. It's worth fighting for.

The survival of the Persian civilization

is much more important than the survival

of the Iranian state.

Okay? So, the great question for the

Iranians is are they able to reconcile

the differences between these two

strands of the culture or will this lead

to civil war in Iran, okay?

Um

we are seeing civil war in Israel, we're

seeing civil war in America.

>> [music]

>> Iran cannot afford to fight a civil war

at this time because they're being

bombarded by two very public nations,

the Israel and America, okay? But

unfortunately, the law of proximity

teaches us that people are much more

interested

in their own internal conflict than the

outside

global conflict, okay?

And so,

this understanding

now gives us

um helps us answer the three big

questions of today, right?

How are these leaders getting killed?

Why are they getting killed? And what

will this mean for the rest of the

world, okay? And so, the first two

questions, how they getting killed, why

they getting killed, they're getting

killed because of all these civil

conflicts within these nations, okay?

These different factions are providing

intelligence to their enemies in order

to limit their internal enemies.

Right? That's Again, I don't have

evidence, but I think according to game

theory, that's the best explanation for

how these leaders are getting killed

because again, it's not that easy as a

foreign nation to identify

the location precisely of that leader,

okay? And what we're seeing in this war

is both the Iranians and Israelis are

doing a very excellent job of killing

each other's leaders. And that's not

actually common.

All right? So, I think this a civil

conflict within these nations offers the

best guide, the best understanding of

why this of why this is happening, okay?

This third question is where's the

where's the

uh world going?

As you can see from these conflicts,

um it seems as though the world can only

become much more theocratic in the end,

okay? So, what's happening is, at the

end of the day, this war in Iran uh in

the Middle East, it's really a war

between two different competing visions

of the world, okay? You You have the

global

secular

financial order.

Okay? And this is

the world that we live in today. And

they're fighting, again, a nationalist

theocracy.

Theocratic

order.

All right?

So, this is what we can expect over the

next 5 to 10 years, where Iran becomes

much more theocratic and extremely

nationalistic.

Israel, a balanced democracy, then

braces theocracy. America will also

abandon democracy and embrace theocracy.

Because that is a general trend of the

world.

Okay?

All right?

Okay. So, um what I want to do in next

class is discuss how the world will

change in the next 5 to 10 years. All

right?

Okay, any questions?

Okay.

Uh you mentioned that Israel have um

two divided parts and one represents the

animal soul and the other represents the

divine soul. Like I I can substitute

this logic to a a single person like

like people are always struggled with

like identify or not like separating the

divine soul and pursue the a divine

soul, but they cannot get rid of the

animal soul. Is there a way or we can

only struggle at us in our lives?

Okay, so first of all, it's important to

understand that that this is how

religious people in Israel frame

the um

conflict in Israel, okay? What the a

conflict between the animal soul and the

divine soul.

Um the people in Tel Aviv would frame

the debate as one between progress and

tradition, right? Going forward or

staying backward. All right? So so um

that is uh so people in Tel Aviv and

Jerusalem would would see this in a in a

different way.

Um

but as you point out, there's some

validity to this idea that we're all

struggle

uh between the animal soul and the

divine soul. And I would say that for

the past 20 years,

we only have been indulging in the

animal soul, okay? We've abandoned

divine soul. And that's why I think

people are so desperate for uh change.

And And this is what's leading to so

much conflict around the world, where

the human soul is is off balance.

Okay? Where we are too materialistic and

not spiritual enough. And what we know

from history is that if you if a a

society goes too far in one extreme,

they swing back to the extreme. Okay?

And that's what we're seeing where

one good outcome, I [music] think, of

all this conflict around the world is

people start to recognize limitations of

money, [music]

of materialism,

of individualism. They start to embrace

more spirituality, community, family.

Because quite honestly, you don't have a

choice in the matter, okay? If you if

you're like, you know, I want to buy

myself a Gulfstream jet and I want to

have like, you know,

a huge company, you're you're you're

you're going to be disappointed, okay?

Um

as I will show you next class,

the world is heading towards an economic

depression.

Okay? Basically, a a splintering, a

rupture in the world.

And so, you're not going to be able to

to afford to fly to Maldives for

vacation. There won't be avocados in the

supermarket.

Okay? But that's this this But all this

means is now you have a chance to focus

more on introspection, on reflection,

on family,

on asking yourself, what makes me happy?

What gives me meaning and purpose in

life? And the answer, of course, is each

other.

Okay? And maybe this is a good thing.

Maybe this is the intention of the

universe. Maybe, as the people in

Jerusalem would say, this is really the

plan of God.

Okay? And

I I don't It's unfortunate that all this

war and suffering is happening, but

again, what a lot of people who are

religious will tell you is

we can only find redemption through

suffering and through pain and through

tragedy.

All right?

Okay?

Any more questions, guys?

Okay. All right. I'll see you next

class.