[0:00]We continue our discussion of the US Iran war that is happening right now. So, um, as you know, I made the prediction that the United States will lose this war. And last class, we did an overview of the military and strategic position. And today we're going to provide some theoretical framework for how to understand how this war will progress and why ultimately, I believe the United States will lose this war. Today I present to you a very important idea in game theory. And once you understand this idea, then you understand why things will turn out the way they do. Okay, it's called a law of asymmetry. Okay, law of asymmetry. And all this is saying is that the United States and Iran are not peers, they're not equals. United States is far stronger than Iran. And we should expect the United States to overwhelm and destroy Iran really easily. But the law of asymmetry states that that's usually not the case. It's usually the underdog that has the advantage. And we see this from history all the time. Okay, so when the Persians in about 490 BC invaded mainland Greece against Athens and Sparta. Persia at this time at that time was the first world Empire, get an infinite resources, infinite manpower, infinite wealth. And it lost to the Greeks not once but twice. And then the Macedonians under Alexander the Greek and they were like a tribal army, not a very large army. They were able to go into Persia, and Persia at the time was basically most of Eurasia and conquered it in about 10 years time. The Romans started off as a tribal people, which then built the Mediterranean empire. Then you had the Aztecs, you have, so the Vikings, so this happens a lot in human history. A people in the Borderlands, a tribe, a small ethnicity are able to conquer a great empire. And the law of asymmetry tells us why, okay? So I'm going to go over very slowly in detail how this law of asymmetry works. All right.
[2:49]So, um, let's look at an Empire. And there are three major advantages to an Empire. All right, the first is mass. This means that they have a lot of people. Okay, they also have an infinite amount of people. The United States has a population of about 350 million people, but remember, the United States can also draw on the populations of its allies, which includes the Five Eyes, the Anglosphere, but it also includes Europe. It also includes uh, East Asia, South Korea, Japan, basically wherever the Americans have a military base. Right, so most of the world are either allies the United States or vassels the United States. So the United States can basically draw on billions and billions of people for its wars, okay? So it's mass. Second is the idea of organization.
[3:47]Organization just means a hierarchy of bureaucracy and elite that allows you to organize your resources and your people in order to generate wealth, which is basically scientific technology, okay? Science and technology, which leads to the most advanced weaponry, okay? So think about the United States how they fight this war. They have these satellites that provide for precision targeting. They have these um airplanes, these F15s that are the most advanced weaponry ever in human history. Okay? So organization. Now the last great strength of the Empire is the idea of death. Death is the idea that because your people are infinite, because your organization is so strong, because your resources are so vast, you're going to afford to lose many, many wars, okay? It's not a big deal the United States loses this war in Iran, if they want to go back, they can go back with even more soldiers, even more um weaponry. Because their wealth is infinite. Okay, so these are the three major advantages of an empire in theory. Because of these advantages, an empire should be invincible and eternal. But we know for a fact that all empires fall and they fall very, very hard. And quite honestly, they don't last a very long time. Maybe 28 years, maybe 300 years for most empires. That's not a very long time. So we need to better understand what's going on, okay? Why is it that an empire with these vast resources, they all fall in 20 years, 30 years, okay? All right.
[5:48]So, um, what we need to understand is that all these advantages are ultimately disadvantages in the long term. All right, so let me explain what I mean. Mass, you have a lot of people, okay? When you have a lot of people, you create a lot of inequality.
[6:08]Why? Because there's competition for resources. There's too many people. Okay, and this often leads to debt and slavery. And as a result, your people become complacent, lazy, indifferent. They're competing against each other. They don't really like the government, okay? So they're not really that motivated to do anything to work or to fight wars. But especially to fight wars. So this mass looks like looks like an advantage in the beginning, over time it becomes a disadvantage. All right? Organization, um, means an elite. The problem with this is that over time, the elite become parasites. Why? Because they're way the way they make their money is through rent seeking. Rent seeking just means that you have power and you seek to monetize your power by exploiting the mass. All right, so basically landlords are classic type of rent seeking elite. And so they don't really work, but they make a lot of money because they own the land, because they control all the resources, because they control all the capital. And that forces the mass to go into slavery to go into debt, which is what's happening in America today. The problem with this is that everyone everyone wants to be part of the elite and they're too many elite over time, okay? So even though you have to lead have many, many kids, the uh power is a zero sum game, it's a hierarchy. And so this leads to the idea of elite overproduction. Okay, and this is a term coin by the historian Peter Turchin, okay? And his theory is that you have turmoil, you have wars, for example, the French Revolution. For example, uh the fall of the Roman Republic because there's too many elite and they start wars to gain power for themselves. Okay? So this organization, this elite leads to basically factionism or infighting. And that's what's happening in America today with the Democrats and the Republicans, they hate each other, they refuse to get along. It's leads to political polarization, okay? So another way of saying this is that an empire over time becomes insular. They don't care about what happens outside the world, all they care about is what happens in Washington DC, and as a result, um they make a lot of stupid mistakes, okay?
[9:12]Because you don't care. It doesn't really matter. And that's the idea of hubris.
[9:21]Okay, hubris is just blindness to your own arrogance of a violent arrogance that makes you make silly mistakes, but you don't recognize your mistakes, and you keep on repeating the same mistakes over and over again. Right, so yes, it seems like the empire is invincible, but if you actually think about it, the empire, its advantages becomes over time its disadvantages, which will lead ultimately to its downfall.
[9:54]Okay, so the mass leads to inequality, the organization leads to elite over overproduction, which leads to factionalism and death leads to hubris. That's why an empire must fall over time. But an empire cannot fall by itself, it needs an enemy that forces it to collapse. Okay? And so what happens is that an enemy will emerge that will um overwhelm the empire because it is able to take advantage of the weaknesses of the empire. All right? And so what are the weaknesses of this Empire? Well, the first major weakness of this Empire is that the people aren't really motivated. So if you as people are really motivated, you have a huge advantage, okay? We call this energy. Right? Now, as you're going to as an empire, you become insular. You refuse to admit your mistakes. You refuse to learn from others. If you're willing to admit your mistakes, if you're willing to learn, if you're willing to promote the best and brightest, if you're willing to be a meritocratic, you have a huge advantage, okay? And so this is the idea of openness. Now, the last idea is this, an empire, it's fractured. So if you're able to main maintain cohesion, if people are able to remain united, if they're able to have a common purpose, they'll be strong, okay? So if an enemy of the empire emerges with these three qualities, energy, openness, and cohesion, this enemy will defeat the Empire. Does it make sense? Okay. So, what I want you to focus on as you follow the news in this war between United States and Iran is ask yourself a question. Will Iran become an energetic, open and cohesive society? Because if it does, it will become invincible. The empire won't change because of hubris. It's too static, it's too stagnant, it's too bureaucratic. So the empire won't change. The empire will not admit its own mistakes. And quite honestly, Iran because because because it's a it's a still a country of 92 million people, it's still suffers from issues of mass organization and death. It's and so if it's able to transform itself into an energetic, open and cohesive society, then it will triumph over America. That is the fundamental question in this war, okay? Don't worry about America, its technology. Don't worry about the economy. Don't worry about these things, okay? Just worry ask yourself one question. Is Iran transforming itself? Are people becoming much more motivated? Are people in Iran learning from their mistakes and innovating and becoming resilient on the battlefield? Are the Iranians sticking together as a people? Okay? Because if the answer is yes, all three questions, then Iran will win and America will lose. Okay, doesn't make sense. All right. So that's just a theory. So let's, um, let me now discuss the Iranian strategy, okay? So, um, let's now talk specifically about America and Iran, okay? So America will have three major advantages in this war. Okay? These three advantages all are of course technology, propaganda and money, wealth. These are the three major strengths of the American empire. Right? Technology is just what you see every day, right? The satellites that are able to position target these airplanes, these B2 bombers, F15s that are the most advanced weaponry in the world. Okay? So America is home to the greatest scientists, the most advanced weaponry. That's just technology. Propaganda means that America controls information space. It controls the internet. It controls the world's most powerful media, including the New York Times, CNN, BBC. It controls YouTube, it controls Google. It controls the information landscape. America does not want you to know something, it can hide it from you. America can control the discourse, it can control how you think about the world. That's propaganda. Last thing is money, okay? And it's a very simple idea. United States controls the US dollar, which is the which is the reserve currency of the world. And the United States can print as much as much US dollars as it needs in order to win this war. It has an infinite money printer. Okay? And now and then it can use this money to bribe people to fight this war, right? It can it can pay for mercenaries. It can bribe ethnic minorities to rebel against the government in Iran. It can bribe Iranian officials to betray the government, okay? So looking at these three things, you would think that America is invincible, right? But again, we need to think about the loss of asymmetry and recognize that these advantages also disadvantages. All right? So let's discuss this. Technology. Well, you know, if you have the most advanced weaponry in the world, you become lazy, arrogant, and dependent on this technology, right? So the classic example of course is our school where you have access to chat GPT. Right? And like you become smarter because you have access to chat GPT. No, you become dumber because you become lazy. Right? Same with technology. You would think that with the most advanced weaponry in the world, America will become invincible, but instead, people become the American, um, military becomes too dependent on the on the technology, it becomes too arrogant, too complacent. Okay? It's like, well, you know, if we've got if we're in trouble, then we'll just send in the Air Force and we'll have him up, okay? So it leads to dependency. And this actually hampers innovation and resilience in the battlefield. And this is what you need to win, okay? You need to be innovative and you need to be resilient on the battlefield, but because of technology, you become too lazy to think for yourself. Right? So that's one problem. Propaganda, you would think that, oh, America America controls the debate, therefore that's a huge advantage. It's actually not an advantage, guys. The reason why is that in order for innovation and resilience to happen, you need you need to have open debate. Right? You need people to voice dissenting opinions. But if you control the information landscape, what you can do is censor. And that's what America's doing right now. It tells people to shut up and obey. You're not allowed to point out that this war is stupid and America can't win this war, otherwise you'll be kicked out, okay? So this means that there's really a lack of rigorous debate within the American government, within the American military, within the American elite. Which of course will lead to hubris. It will lead to bad decision making. No one's no one will points it out because they're too they're too afraid of pissing off the president and his people, so they're shut up and America will keep on making the same mistakes over and over again, okay? We call this tricking tricking your own Kool-Aid, okay? Basically getting high on their own supply is not a phrase that that we use. All right. Money and wealth. You would think, okay, well, that's this is this is it, man. We just buy everyone, we just buy the entire world and, uh, we're good, right? The problem is this. The problem is that if you bribe people, they're not going to fight for you, right? Because all they all they want is your money. So you bribe them, but then but then they'll probably take your money and run away. Okay? Or they'll figure out how to get more money out of you by cheating you. So right now, the Americans are going to fund these um militias and ethnic minorities and opposition groups against Iran, okay? Guess what, guys? These are hustlers. Right? They're not fighting because, um, they want more freedom, they're fighting because they want to rip off the US government. And so this money issue can be a problem in the long term because the people you're bribing, you can't even trust. And they're not that motivated to actually win this war for you. They're actually motivated to to scam you as much as possible, and they could be actually a problem in the long term because you're putting so much resources into these hustlers. Okay? All right. So, what this means is that America has three major problems. Okay? It has three major problems. The first major problem is the lack of political will. And all this is saying is that the American people don't want to fight this war. The American government doesn't even know why they're fighting this war. No one cares, okay? But for the Iranians, it's a struggle of life and death. If the American loses this war, they just go home and forget about it. But the Iranians lose this war, they all get killed, or they lose their country, they lose their society, they lose their civilization, they lose their identity. They cannot afford to lose this war, okay? So the first major problem that the Americans are facing is, they don't have any political will to fight this war, but they're still fighting this war anyway. Okay? The question then, of course, is why? Why why is this happening? This is actually the most important question and the most complicated, so so we'll save this for later, okay?
[21:07]Second is the idea of logistics and manufacturing. So America is very good at fighting short wars, okay? The reason why is they're advanced they have the most advanced weaponry, but they have manufacturing issues because as we know, America shipped all its factories to China. So America doesn't have any factories. So, yes, it has the most advanced weaponry in the world, but this weapon doesn't doesn't do any good if you don't have any ammunitions, right? You don't have any munitions, bombs, bullets. And you need factories for that. America doesn't really have these factories. Now, I understand that America is trying to is trying to upgrade its manufacturing capacity, but it's kind of slow. All right? So maybe five years from now, it will have manufacturing capacity to fight this war, but right now it doesn't. So that's that's another, um, major issue, okay? And then the last thing of course is casualties. All right. America, because it doesn't have the political will to fight this war, cannot afford to lose soldiers on the battlefield. All right? So it wants to minimize the death the it wants to minimize battlefield losses. Because if like 1000, tens of thousands of American soldiers are going home to America dead in coffins, I guarantee you, because the lack of political will, the American people will revolt. They will have protests, you will have, um, a lot of violence in the streets. It'll be like the Vietnam, uh, era again. All right? Okay. So, um, yes, I understand that America has technology, propaganda, and money, but as we discussed, these aren't really advantages. And these disadvantages are huge. The lack of political will, the lack of manufacturing, and the, um, lack of, um, of America cannot afford to lose that many soldiers in the battlefield, okay? And so this this situation now determines how America will fight this war, and we'll discuss this later on, okay? All right, let's talk about Iran.
[23:43]So Iran has a lot of disadvantages, okay? But I I I want to discuss right now their three major advantages that they need to emphasize if they are to survive this war. All right? The first is the idea of faith. Right? Remember that the Iranians are Shia, and as such, it's a religion of martyrdom, of eschatology. Of individual sacrifice for the greater good. The Shia are not afraid to die, and because their great religious leader, the Ayatollah Kamini was assassinated by the Americans and Israelis, they are motivated to seek vengeance, to martyr themselves for the greater good, to seek eternal paradise. Okay, Jihad. All right, that's the first major advantage. The second major advantage is terrain. And all this means is that Iran is a mountainous country. And it's huge. It's three times the size of Iraq. Um, so it's very hard for America to invade the country. In fact, most analysts will will will say will tell you it is suicidal for the American military to invade uh Iran, it is a mountain fortress, okay? It's a fortress. And the last issue is the last advantage is nationalism. All right? So the Iranians are Persians. And the Persians go back 5,000 years. It is one of the greatest civilizations in human history. And as we discussed last semester, in the ancient world, there were three great civilizations, right? The Jews, the Greeks and the Persians. And the Persian culture, it's vast, it's beautiful, and it's deep. And that's what gives the Iranian people a lot of pride. Okay? So when they're fighting, they're not just fighting for their religion. They're not just fighting for their homes, they're fighting for the entire civilization that goes back 5,000 years. All right? So these are the three major advantages that the Iranians have, okay? Faith means that they're not afraid to die for what they believe in. Terrain means that the Americans will have a hard problem invading the country. Nationalism means that the people of Iran know what they're fighting for. All right? So, but again, remember, everything that it seems like an advantage can be a disadvantage as well, all right?
[26:54]So let's go over what the problems are. With faith, you might have an issue of blindness, okay?
[27:03]Or zealotry, where you're not afraid to die, but that means that you're not thinking strategically, okay? Maybe you're going to waste too many soldiers on the battlefield, they're brave, but they're kind of stupid as well. Right, so you might have an issue where Iran is not using the optimal strategy because their soldiers are not afraid of death. And we're already seeing that where where the Americans have already blown up and destroyed the Iranian Navy. Now, any would have told you that the first thing the Americans would do is go to destroy the Iranian Navy. So you should probably not use the navy or hide the navy or block the navy yourself, okay? Because you want to avoid as many casualties as possible, but they didn't do that and and the Americans have now destroyed the Iranian Navy. Right, so that's issue of faith. Terrain, yeah, it's a fortress, but it can also be a prison, right? Where you're just sort of stuck there, and because it's a it's a mountainous region, it doesn't have that many resources. So Americans can actually disrupt your water supply, disrupt your electricity, okay? And cause general poverty and hardship for your people. Okay? And then nationalism. Yeah, Persia is a great culture, but remember that Iran is an ethnically diverse country. In fact, only 50% of the population of Iranian are Persians. Others are different minorities, okay? And so, um, you have then ethnic divisions, right?
[28:53]Okay, so looking at this, now we know exactly what the American strategy will be. Basically, the strategy will be to inflict as many casualties as possible on the Iranians. Right, to kill as many people as possible, destroy the infrastructure of Iran, so that the people don't have enough water, electricity, food to survive, okay? And the third, of course, is to, um, create as much ethnic tension in the country as possible by arming and encouraging and bribing ethnic groups to rebel against the Central government in Iran. Right? Okay.
[29:38]But again, what the law of symmetry asymmetry tells us is that the empire ultimately is not as flexible and open and dynamic as its enemy, okay? The weaker person is going to engage in much more self-reflection, self-debate, than the Empire, okay? Because the empire will become arrogant. And so ultimately, Iran should triumph over America. And in fact, what's going to happen is that this strategy that America will use against the Iranians will lead to their range becoming much more energetic, more open, and cohesive. Okay? So let's let's look at the American strategy specifically. Okay.
[30:50]Decapitation, okay?
[30:56]What you're doing is you're removing the elite, okay?
[31:10]What we call command and control.
[35:20]You're basically eliminating the capacity of Iran to govern itself to have a leadership, to have an elite. Right? Okay? So that's the first strategy. Second strategy is aerial supremacy.
[35:40]So again, America has the most advanced airplanes in the world. And the way that it's using its airplanes is to destroy as much military installations as possible. But it's also engaging in acts of sabotage, okay? So they're doing is they're carpet bombing.
[36:06]Okay, so they're carpet bombing Tehran, okay? They're doing soft targeting. Soft targeting means that instead of attacking military installations, you attack hospitals. Why? Because you're degrading the capacity, you're destroying you're degrading the state's capacity to rejuvenate itself, to be resilient, okay? Last thing is something called double tap. Double tap is this, okay? And it's really illegal or against international law. What you do is this, you attack a place, right? You kill some people. And then people try to come and help the people who are injured. It could be like, um, doctors, it could be emergency emergency personnel, it could be relatives, right? And then you strike again to create as much as as many civilian casualties as possible. Right? And the entire idea is to create as much fear and anxiety in people as possible so that they lose the capacity to resist. Right? And that will make that damage, okay?
[42:01]Okay, so you're like, okay, I understand all this. But why the hell is this war happening then? If I can tell you this, okay? I'm sure that their generals can tell them this as well. I'm sure that they know that this was the case. In fact, for years, America has been planning to invade Iran. And for years, the generals are like, no, that's suicidal. Let's not do this, okay? So why is this happening? And unfortunately, we don't know because the administration isn't telling us. At first, Trump is like, oh, because the nuclear talks didn't go well. But we know for a fact that the Iranians were willing to agree to all terms of the Americans. And then, uh, Marco Rubio, who's who's who's the Secretary of State, he came out yesterday and he said something really moronic. He said that why did we attack Iran? Because we heard the Israelis were going to attack first. And then the Iranians were going to respond by by attacking both the Israelis and us, the Americans. And therefore we have to preempt the Israelis by attacking first. That's just retarded, okay? Right, so they don't they don't know why they're doing this. But there has to be a reason, right? Okay, well, a clue is this.
[43:50]The clue is this.
[43:55]The soldiers are being asked, the American soldiers are being asked to fight this war. And again, no one knows why this war is happening. But this reporting that the generals are telling the soldiers, this is a war for for Jesus. This is a war to to create the second coming of Jesus, okay?
[44:20]This is, um, Jonathan Larson, and he's writing this on on substack, okay? US Troops Were Told Iran War is for Armageddon, the return of Jesus.
[44:39]Okay, so what is happening is that there's some crazy Christians in the American military, in the American government, okay? That want to use this war to end the world, to force Jesus to return. Okay, that is why this war is happening. Okay, I'm not saying I'm not saying that this is the reason why, but I'm saying like this is a possibility, okay?
[45:41]All right, this is Trump and he's all religious leaders that support Trump because they see him as the Messiah. They they see him as as this great hero who will cause the triumph of Christianity and the return of Jesus. And that's a possibility as to why this war is being fought. Okay, because quite honestly, there's no other reason. It's hard for me to come with another reason, okay? All right, so this is something that we will look at as we go along. What is this crap? What is Christian Zionism? Why would they think that this war in the Middle East will cause the return of Jesus? Okay, well, we'll discuss this later on.
[46:25]But I wanted but now it leads us to another problem, which is our entire class is all on game theory, right? Guys, this is kind of weird because what this suggests is that religion is more important. Okay? So, what's the point of game theory if people don't play by game theory? If all if they're just religious fanatics. All right? And the answer is this. The answer is, it's still game theory, but the problem is that what you think the game that you think they're playing is not the game they're playing. The reward that you think they want they want is not the reward that they they want, okay? We think in terms of material things. Okay, so money, resources, power. We think that the war is being fought over these things. And it's not.
[47:28]All right, the grand secret, the grand reveal of this semester, all this course is this. The real power, the real currency in the world is not money, it is human consciousness.
[47:49]Or basically attention. Okay, this is this is it, guys, okay? Once you understand this idea, you understand everything. But this I I didn't understand so so I I'll need some time to actually explain this. All right, this war is being fought to control the consciousness of the human race. Because it is our consciousness that creates reality itself. That's the source of all wealth and all power in this world. Okay, that's why this is happening. Any questions? All right, I'll see you guys next week.
