Based Camp - Based Camp： Could Our Civilization Collapse in the Near Future？

00:00:00.000 would you like to know more hey malcolm hello simone we have such an exciting topic today

00:00:05.860 yes indeed can our civilization collapse discuss yeah i think this is such an interesting topic

00:00:14.800 because we hear people talk about this and we call them preppers or we we i think it's a very

00:00:21.880 easy thing to dismiss because if you look at the past couple hundred years civilization hasn't

00:00:27.600 collapsed i think the first thing to establish in terms of thinking about can a civilization collapse

00:00:32.440 is has it happened in the past and the answer is yes it's happened a number of times in the past

00:00:38.300 you know whether you're looking at the egyptian civilization or the roman civilization or various

00:00:42.020 periods of the egyptians that happened to them like four different times if you go through history

00:00:47.340 when you're talking about the new kingdom versus the old kingdom versus the middle kingdom that was

00:00:50.680 three periods of collapse with many collapses in between so when in egypt it got so bad they forgot

00:00:56.080 how to write came up with new systems writing they forgot how to draw it's really interesting you can

00:01:00.340 see art falling apart and then be reinvented not even rediscovered but reinvented in between these

00:01:07.620 collapse periods so i think rome presents probably the best model of a collapse we can look at for what

00:01:12.840 a collapse of our own society might look like yeah that's what people always discuss right the fall

00:01:16.920 of the roman empire and is quote-unquote western civilization fall yeah talking about western

00:01:23.000 civilization today is silly china to an extent evolved down a different civilizational route japan

00:01:27.940 evolved down a different civilizational route korea did if they collapse we collapse we're all tied 0.90

00:01:32.480 together at this point there's just civilization now but to go back in time with the collapse of

00:01:37.260 the roman empire to the average roman on the street they probably wouldn't have noticed that much

00:01:42.740 change in their daily lives as the collapse was happening they may have noticed that rules around

00:01:49.500 religious practices were becoming more orthodox supply lines like they they had less stuff in

00:01:55.160 their local stores or things were getting dramatically more expensive political figures may have been

00:02:01.280 increasingly becoming more radical acting but from their perspective and i'm talking about like in

00:02:07.240 the western roman empire so let's say someone in spain not that much would have changed from their

00:02:12.680 day-to-day life and also keep in mind with the collapse of rome you had the western roman empire

00:02:17.860 collapse long before the eastern roman empire did the byzantine empire and so there's this idea that

00:02:22.480 collapse means everywhere all at once goes road warrior right because that's what we see in media

00:02:28.720 yeah yeah road warrior water world we're picturing complete lack of infrastructure no government

00:02:38.800 but you're saying that's not what civilizational collapse is what i'm hearing from you is you're saying

00:02:44.040 it's poor services what exactly is it be a little more specific here it's a collapse of supply networks

00:02:52.080 it's a collapse of an economic system the biggest thing that's associated with civilizational collapse

00:02:57.180 is economic system collapse to the extent that once you have a collapse of an economic system

00:03:02.420 then you begin to have a collapse of a geopolitical order presumably this is some kind of irreversible

00:03:08.500 collapse because otherwise you could define the pandemic as a temporary civilization no what you

00:03:14.640 have to ask is what does it look like when it is what we saw in the pandemic part of what you see

00:03:20.180 during a civilizational collapse yes no for sure so i guess you could say that what many people

00:03:25.560 experienced during the pandemic is of what civilizational collapse would feel like you can't

00:03:30.940 get some products that you really want to get you you can't go to work or you don't have a job

00:03:35.800 or people aren't letting you work or traveling becomes more dangerous that's a really big thing

00:03:41.140 within civilizational collapse mobility in general mobility and one thing to remember is that culture

00:03:46.920 often doesn't completely go away it just becomes a lot less aggressive in terms of change so what you

00:03:54.560 see is culture become dramatically more conservative for often a period of like 100 200 years um and and

00:04:01.080 before that often culture is much more promiscuous or permissive i think is the word most promiscuous

00:04:09.340 oh so yeah so you're going from freedom recess to like cracking down you're in the middle of math class

00:04:18.540 yeah but then things begin to open up again after that period if things survive and that's where this

00:04:25.220 question gets really interesting so the first big point i'd make about civilizational collapse for a lot of

00:04:30.480 people when they think about the existing world civilization is there's this belief that we have

00:04:35.920 been on a consistent trajectory for the past 300 years or so and we're not in the middle of any

00:04:42.080 really big experiments at the moment like at the economic or geopolitical level and that's just

00:04:50.420 factually wrong we have started a number of really big worldwide society-wide experiments pretty recently

00:05:00.220 and these experiments affect people's daily lives so let's just globalism gender equality like sort 0.92

00:05:07.240 of women in the workforce and women being educated high levels of education in general so yeah but

00:05:11.900 with women being educated i think people look at that and they're they really misunderstand the scope 0.57

00:05:17.160 of that one women being widely educated and accepted into the workforce was one thing but the workforce 1.00

00:05:25.080 in the economy adapting to that to lower wages with the idea that you had doubled the amount of workers

00:05:32.320 in the economy that was the bigger fallout of that which meant that it really became almost impossible

00:05:38.680 and not that it was really that possible before it's actually a myth that on a global scale it was ever

00:05:44.040 realistic to raise a family on a single income but there was a period where in certain parts of the u.s

00:05:50.060 in europe it was possible for a 50-year period to raise a family on a one-family income that possibility

00:05:56.060 is just not there anymore so i think a lot of people they're like oh you could have women like 1.00

00:06:01.800 you actually see pushes for this now oh you could have women not be educated and that would solve the 1.00

00:06:05.960 problem or women not work but as long as some countries are engaging in women working that doesn't 1.00

00:06:11.640 really work then you're just choosing to be desperately poor is really what's going on when you make that

00:06:16.800 change at a society-wide level yes some people can be wealthy enough to make that decision but we're

00:06:22.100 past doing that anymore you see a similar thing with something like student debt right so student debt

00:06:27.940 is something that i think affects a lot of people's daily lives it's a big thing when people are like

00:06:31.980 what is your biggest stressor in your daily life a lot of people say student debt so in 1995 in the

00:06:38.200 united states there was nationally 200 million in student debt right now there is 1.76 trillion dollars in

00:06:45.740 student debt holy smokes so that's just like new like if you're looking at like 2000 versus where

00:06:54.060 we are with student debt today it's not the same kind of a game it's the same thing with national

00:06:59.900 debt national debt like really big amounts of national debt didn't really begin until the 70s

00:07:05.740 and then it began to distribute around the world but then you also have the same thing as a fractional

00:07:09.540 reserve banking system where if you want to hear people like the pontificate on that or currency

00:07:15.040 not backed by anything that's a fairly new concept and a lot of these are associated with conspiracy

00:07:21.240 theorists because i think a lot of the times when people started these experiments people initially

00:07:26.900 went out and said oh this will lead to immediate collapse and people started saying that for 10 20

00:07:32.080 years afterwards but the reality is if you look at rome if you look at the decisions that precipitated

00:07:38.260 the collapse those decisions happened about a lifetime before the collapse and that's how

00:07:44.960 civilizational collapses often work but the larger point here being we're in the middle of a big

00:07:50.540 experiment so what i really care about and what i think is important what should people be doing

00:07:55.840 what should people be doing if they believe that we won't be able to depend on our economic systems or

00:08:01.520 that international trade and international travel will become more and more limited like what lifestyle

00:08:06.860 changes or things should people be getting out of the way now like bucket list items yes so the the

00:08:12.160 constant talking point that we always have is that debt is this miraculous instrument when things are

00:08:17.260 growing and we've built our society like a pyramid scheme so for the past 300 years or so the economy

00:08:22.800 has been growing in aggregate all around the world when you shotgunned your money into the stock market 0.97

00:08:27.600 it grew you could be an idiot and make money on the stock market now this was because population the

00:08:34.140 number of workers was growing exponentially and the productivity per worker was growing linearly yes 0.98

00:08:38.880 technology is growing exponentially but productivity per worker was growing linearly and so this led to

00:08:43.880 this illusion of a constantly growing stock market and we begin to build a lot of our economic systems

00:08:50.420 like social security again a pretty recent experiment on those systems and a lot of governments have

00:08:54.960 similar unpaid systems like that and social security is basically a debt system in that we are taking out

00:09:01.600 debt like any unfunded pension program is essentially debt that is held by the person who you're promising

00:09:07.140 money to but you haven't actually given the money we're pretending like they're investing money but they're not

00:09:11.180 investing money and but you see this at the society level so debt's this amazing instrument when things are

00:09:15.540 growing if i make a ten dollar investment in something and eight dollars of that is debt and two dollars of that

00:09:19.320 is equity and it grows by twenty percent well my investment has doubled but if it shrinks by just

00:09:24.620 ten percent my investment is halved and so debt multiplies the prosperity when everything is

00:09:30.200 growing and so we had the society where population rates began to slow right at the same time as we

00:09:36.960 doubled the number of workers by putting women into the workforce in mass and so as population rates

00:09:42.340 were slowing we had an increasing adoption of women into the workforce which hid this massive decrease 0.85

00:09:49.040 in the worker supply but now that clock's beginning to become due and one of the things i i note is

00:09:54.920 that if you look if you say that america's fertility rate will fall the same rate it did over the past

00:09:59.280 10 years continuing into the future and there's one generation every 30 years that means for every

00:10:04.440 hundred americans today there will be i think it's 3.4 great-grandchildren uh now of course we'll

00:10:11.360 probably see some dieback in terms of population fall but no one has really handled that problem yet

00:10:16.980 so what this means is you're going to see a collapse of the basic infrastructure of our economic system

00:10:23.220 now what this looks like to simone's question is a lot like detroit i would say detroit is just a very

00:10:29.760 good picture of what a system looks like when it's collapsing because a lot of people that hear things

00:10:34.560 like oh housing prices are going to decrease and it's great when a housing price decreases 10 20

00:10:38.580 it's really bad when a housing price is always decreasing and everybody knows it always decreases

00:10:44.360 because then there's no reason to invest in it and houses go to a dollar and houses actually cost a

00:10:48.920 lot to upkeep so you end up with this endless urban blight actually this is a question i want to ask you

00:10:54.760 how would you prepare for that simone one is it's it sounds and this is not news to anyone but don't

00:11:00.080 depend on a pension plan or social security even if for example you work for a teacher's union or

00:11:06.960 something like it looks not great in terms of you depending on that in terms of investing on the

00:11:12.860 dark market for the next 10 years at least demographic collapse itself isn't going to be

00:11:17.480 driving that in fact ai may cause really high increases right but aside from that my intuition is

00:11:25.560 enjoy a really broad range of products while you can enjoy very inexpensive electronics while you can

00:11:35.980 it's hard for me to think that there's in the face of civilizational collapse considering how slow it

00:11:42.420 goes that there's even that much that that much you can do yeah but also it doesn't sound like

00:11:48.900 we're gonna get hit that hard as long as oh no it's gonna be bad okay so what how is our life

00:11:55.360 is how bad things were for the average american just 85 years ago just 150 years okay so what's gonna

00:12:03.240 get bad walk me through it just the amounts of poverty are going to be astronomical just just like

00:12:09.060 we're going to be impoverished other people who is going to be society everyone everyone and i think

00:12:15.960 that's the thing that's difficult for people to think about what does it look like for just rates

00:12:21.340 of poverty to be about 80 to 90 percent higher than they are today but what does it look like if you're

00:12:26.840 living in america today for america to have the same lifestyle that you experience when you go to a

00:12:31.880 developing country so people won't have jobs that's what you're saying is they just won't pay

00:12:37.900 very much the government services won't do very much there'll be much more corruption at all levels

00:12:43.300 it'll just be much more like a developing country and america is going to be more isolated from this 0.94

00:12:47.420 than any other country in the world as globalism begins to collapse america is actually the number

00:12:52.020 one beneficiary of this it's just a lot poorer yeah like when you read peter's eye hands the end of the

00:12:57.120 world is just the beginning the punchline to it is north america is actually looking pretty good in

00:13:03.060 this scenario um i mean it's it we will per his perception of civilizational collapse be more

00:13:09.620 isolated we'll have to depend on domestic production we won't have imported america looks well vis-a-vis

00:13:14.920 other countries it's still dramatically poorer yeah and i think that this is one of those things where

00:13:19.500 people are like oh no i'm struggling today and it's like no no no no no i mean like food scarcity

00:13:26.500 is a major thing for like 50 percent of countries populations that we think of as developed today

00:13:31.660 and like actual food shortages actual food shortages or just actual a lot bigger wealth disparity where

00:13:40.780 if the now this is something that i think people really misunderstand they're like ai will make us so

00:13:45.740 much wealthier or if people get that poor they'll rise up and our company did a lot of work in

00:13:51.540 venezuela so we really saw things continuing to get worse constantly things can get so so so bad

00:13:59.440 before people rise up especially in an era of technology it is very hard to rise up when the

00:14:06.440 government has autonomous drones and venezuela doesn't even have those but and so you just you

00:14:12.000 actually do not see revolutions just because things have gotten bad often the other thing that i think

00:14:18.740 people aren't seeing as much is governments are preparing for this that's what zero covid is about

00:14:23.360 that's what in china social credit is about it's about preparing for a collapse of their economic

00:14:29.280 system and i think one thing we always say about ai is that and this is likely a topic for a different

00:14:37.600 video or we can do it for the next video but ai is the tool that finally frees the bourgeoisie from the

00:14:43.160 proletariat they don't need you anymore they don't they and i and i think the masses of civilization

00:14:51.100 have never dealt with a period where genuinely the wealthy did not need them to maintain their

00:14:56.060 lifestyle and i think that they have this overestimation of how much the wealthy actually

00:15:02.720 care about them when push comes to shove when they may need to sacrifice a portion of their lifestyle

00:15:08.500 if you look at the sort of celebrity class today they literally think the world is about to die

00:15:14.260 because of global warming and they can't get off their private jets for five seconds

00:15:17.820 yeah okay so then the takeaway from this is what are you doing yeah one i think we're raising

00:15:27.140 our children to be independent to be both highly technophilic and resourceful online and with tech but

00:15:35.260 also highly resourceful and independent offline like we want to teach them basic agricultural

00:15:41.400 building fixing and survival skills and not just here's how to survive online and here's how to get

00:15:46.440 a job but if there is no economy to participate in how also can you thrive so that's one thing

00:15:51.820 two is i want to add to what you just said there because i think a lot of people make a mistake here

00:15:55.900 they try to teach their kids and their family to survive without technology as a way to deal with this

00:16:01.860 which is i'm it's not like a stupid approach it's just probably not an optimal approach it is an

00:16:07.900 option that people should be prepared for and in the event that like ai goes really off the rails for 0.68

00:16:13.680 some reason and you have to go full battlestar galactica really off the rails we're all going to die

00:16:18.780 it's just objectively true so what we're going to deal with is a period of increased hardship but we will

00:16:27.080 still have access to technology when you are thinking of farming what you need to be thinking

00:16:32.600 about is how do i farm with technology that my family can maintain and build themselves how do i

00:16:38.300 keep the local tractors running how do i having technology that you can work on yourself that's

00:16:44.300 what's really important the thing that you won't have access to is semiconductors so technology that

00:16:50.460 you can build with fewer semiconductors or you can build with recycled semiconductors is technology

00:16:55.380 you will continue to have access to the technology that's most likely going to become scarce is

00:16:59.780 advanced semiconductor technology yeah okay so there's that and then i think the other part is

00:17:05.400 like to enjoy late stage capitalism while it lasts you and i go on walmart walks in the morning and we

00:17:12.500 just enjoy what's on the shelf yeah yeah also enjoy it while it lasts travel internationally 0.97

00:17:17.720 see as many nations as you can go on cruises like just do stupid i don't know if that's my plan at all 0.82

00:17:27.740 it's certainly not really what we're doing with our kids so simone has this reaction to it right where

00:17:32.360 she's my reaction is really focus more on preparing our family intergenerationally to make it through this

00:17:39.100 yeah and i think one of the most important things about any collapse scenario is that you realize that your

00:17:45.220 country does not matter as a primary unit of account as much anymore when rome collapses focus on your

00:17:52.880 family networks you need to focus on the people who are ideologically similar to you who are your

00:17:58.900 cultural allies moving into the future and understand that just by investing in the stability of the

00:18:06.920 nation state you aren't necessarily investing in your own family's future in the same way you are

00:18:12.660 during a period of enormous growth so build your techno fiefdom build your tribe build your support network

00:18:19.900 what does it look like as our economic system begins to falter it's about relying on personal relationships

00:18:26.640 and about building and investing in those personal relationships at the intergenerational level

00:18:31.280 a personal relationship isn't really that important if the person doesn't have kids they're a strong family culture

00:18:37.100 but it is really important for other families that do have kids and do hope to survive into the future

00:18:42.760 because when you're building those networks those provide you with i think the beginnings of the next

00:18:50.680 of the foundation of the next economy and hopefully the next great civilization yeah which is exciting

00:18:55.900 right so you what you're focused on is oh if civilization is collapsing this is an opportunity i can get in on the

00:19:04.360 ground level here yeah i'm getting on the ground level of the next civilization that's what i'm

00:19:08.700 interested in we need the next civilization to be one that doesn't collapse because we can do that we can

00:19:14.360 build a never-ending renaissance but here i am i'm like oh enjoy it lasts and you're like you're like

00:19:19.660 i'm gonna i'm gonna you're like you're thinking like a looter ah smash the windows grab what you can

00:19:26.720 can't we just say yes to all the things you know enjoy it while it lasts build the next one i think

00:19:34.460 that's maximum fun um i think one thing we need to remember is as it becomes clear to people who have

00:19:39.820 overly invested in the existing system and expected it to care for them like people who over invested in

00:19:45.120 the expectation of social security over invested in the expectation of social stability and have become

00:19:51.460 this priest class in our society that don't really produce anymore but expect some level of social 1.00

00:19:56.780 status they are going to become angry and vengeful and i think we're already seeing this to some extent

00:20:02.740 because they see the lack of hope they have after basically enslaving themselves to this university

00:20:08.440 pyramid scheme where they put all this money to pay for this priest class and we we all try to put like

00:20:15.060 a gif here that i thought was funny of what like a university graduation looks like and people are like oh no

00:20:20.220 this isn't a priest class like have you seen the way these people dress and they talk in languages that

00:20:26.280 almost no one understands and they give you this this script of paper and a language that's like this

00:20:31.280 dead language and this is a priest class okay and you are paying money to nominally join the priest class at

00:20:39.860 the lower level at the hope that you may be able to join it at this higher level and have some sort of say

00:20:45.400 as the experts the people who decide what's true and what's not true in our society but really you

00:20:50.920 don't and instead you've just gone into life-shattering debt to support all of the other the people in

00:20:57.180 this it's insane it's not a good look like an obvious cult like our society is run by what to me

00:21:04.140 looks like an obvious cult but isn't that what it looks like when things are about to fall apart right

00:21:10.060 yeah but it's also what things look like when they're recreated no no a cult has taken over

00:21:16.800 our government you could say that and people are like no like when you talk to people who bought into

00:21:20.300 the cult they're like no no this cult knows what's true it's actually true this time and it's

00:21:27.280 bro they always say that they always think that the academic system today is not what the academic

00:21:35.280 system was 50 60 years ago this is a holistically the whole like for example let's just talk about

00:21:42.160 like the way that we determine status within the academic system we're talking about another new

00:21:45.620 thing this whole peer review system where like your status is determined by how many citations your

00:21:50.520 paper gets and then you get peer reviewed by other and yet we have found out you can submit things to

00:21:56.500 peer review that are just like what was it like mind comp but they had changed out the things for like

00:22:01.080 feminist sounding things or something and it got it passed peer review this entire academic system 1.00

00:22:07.480 it turns out it was a neat experiment we've only tried it for about one human lifetime and it's already

00:22:13.460 failing us okay academia used to be something different than what it is today and it used to

00:22:20.140 fundamentally function different than what it does today and if you look at the output of the academic

00:22:24.900 system it basically collapsed in the 80s per dollar spent the amount of money flowing into the

00:22:31.160 system rapidly increased but the amount of technological output rapidly decreased now you

00:22:36.360 can say oh invention's gotten harder invention should have been getting harder for the past century and a

00:22:41.000 half why didn't it decline before that it didn't because the way that the system operates is

00:22:46.900 fundamentally changed and one of the statistics we always love we talk about this in the sexuality book

00:22:50.160 but there was this great study of about 500 phds in the uh psychology of sexuality space and what

00:22:56.540 they found was that more than half of them said that they would actively occlude or not publish results

00:23:04.640 if it showed systemic psychological differences in in in the brains of males and females like the way

00:23:09.800 they process things yeah and that shows to me that this entire field is more interested in promoting an

00:23:19.100 ideology than it is in searching for truth anymore and people are like yeah but the good studies some good

00:23:26.660 studies might still get out there what about the other 50 percent and it's yeah but if you're doing a

00:23:30.580 literature review of the field now you really can't believe anything because what that means is if you're

00:23:36.980 trying to find is the truth some number between one and ten and you know that 50 percent of studies that

00:23:43.200 above number five won't be published then you and it turned out the real truth was actually

00:23:48.080 only number six you had to adjust for that and trying to determine what's true so you end up

00:23:52.820 determining seven or eight and it's created this world where it is very hard to use what's coming

00:23:58.400 out of academic fields to determine what's true outside of the few very hard sciences that are untouched

00:24:04.280 by this but the sciences i think that often matter most to how we interact with our daily lives like

00:24:09.580 psychology and stuff like that you have this huge replication crisis where but 50 percent of studies

00:24:13.900 can't re-replicate it so i'm just pointing out that i think when you have bought into the system

00:24:19.140 which you don't realize is how much of the system doesn't work the way people are saying it works

00:24:26.020 and how much it mirrors what historically we would have called a cult and i guess one thing that we

00:24:33.920 haven't even talked about and now you're alluding to it is maybe we've been seeing the signs of

00:24:39.960 civilizational collapse for a while 30 years starting with academia starting to crumble now

00:24:47.160 you're seeing mental health skyrocketing fertility is plummeting there are issues with pollution

00:24:54.060 they're beginning to get shorter yeah obesity is becoming a huge problem like people's endocrine

00:24:59.280 systems seem to be totally screwed up yeah there's a lot that seems to be really not working but it's

00:25:05.720 important to not approach this like a doomer and by that what i mean is i think apocalypticism is very

00:25:10.820 tempting right there's this tendency to want to be to just be an apocalypticist about things to say

00:25:16.380 everything will definitely end within x time period where i think the real approach to environmentalism

00:25:22.840 is yes there is a mass die off of species yes ecologies are going to adapt to that yes the world will get

00:25:28.880 hotter it will be harder for us on a massive scale potentially but no it's not going to kill us all

00:25:35.760 and it's the same thing when we talk about civilization collapse it's not going to be road

00:25:38.940 warrior it's going to be the worst of detroit when but without the rest of the world to bail us out

00:25:44.480 it's going to be like living in a developing country today it's not going to be the end of humanity 0.97

00:25:51.980 except and unless because this time you know you had the fall of the roman empire and stuff like that

00:25:57.280 they didn't have nukes back then and that's something we have to watch out for yeah that's

00:26:02.580 that's scary you know what i really want to talk about in the next one is how ai changes the economy

00:26:08.940 let's do it and what that means for the division of classes in our society that'll be fun to talk

00:26:15.820 about but i liked talking about this with you too even when it's the end of the world it's so fun

00:26:20.680 talking with you malcolm i love you a lot at least we'll have each other and the family and that's

00:26:28.900 the thing you build durable networks durable social networks and the most durable social network you

00:26:33.320 have yeah do it well if you're not a terrible person like even if you are podcast aren't we

00:26:40.440 aren't we your family all right i'll catch you on the flip side and i'll catch you on the flip side

00:26:46.880 you

00:26:48.940 you

Based Camp - May 26, 2023

Based Camp： Could Our Civilization Collapse in the Near Future？

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