Based Camp - September 13, 2023


The People's Front of Judea, Cultural Speciation, and Catholicism


Episode Stats

Length

27 minutes

Words per Minute

185.04155

Word Count

5,010

Sentence Count

284

Hate Speech Sentences

18


Summary

In this episode, we talk about cultural speciation and the Judean People's Front problem. In other words, what happens when cultures split into new, entirely separate cultures? How does this happen? And why does it matter?


Transcript

00:00:00.000 Are you saying that you're saying that Catholicism is a Nepo baby?
00:00:04.500 Catholicism is a Nepo baby. It's a Nepo baby of the Roman empire.
00:00:07.540 I mean, we, so, I mean,
00:00:10.440 there's many reasons why Constantine may have chosen. I mean,
00:00:13.560 obviously they're the reason he gave,
00:00:14.900 but a lot of historians think that what was actually going on there is he
00:00:19.180 really liked the Catholic church as an alternate administrative unit that
00:00:24.380 already had centers set up throughout the Roman empire,
00:00:26.960 which allowed him to implement many reforms administration in a box.
00:00:32.460 Yeah. It was like an administration in a box that allowed him to compete with
00:00:36.420 the deep state. Would you like to know more?
00:00:39.700 Hello, Simone. How's it going?
00:00:42.200 Very good. Malcolm.
00:00:43.720 I thought today we might talk a little bit about your theories on cultural
00:00:47.560 speciation. In other words,
00:00:49.080 how cultures split off into new entirely separate cultures.
00:00:54.060 Yeah.
00:00:54.220 So this is really important for us to talk about because we talk about the
00:00:57.580 evolution of cultures a lot on this channel.
00:00:59.860 The idea that cultures can be thought of as an evolving software sitting on
00:01:04.060 top of our genetically prescribed sociological predilections,
00:01:08.760 which is our hardware.
00:01:10.500 And so what's really cool about cultural speciation events is one,
00:01:16.040 we can see them in real time all around us.
00:01:18.900 And two, by studying them and by looking at them,
00:01:22.540 we can get a better understanding of why people,
00:01:25.740 one, do something that appears very weird in the moment.
00:01:29.180 And, and two,
00:01:30.900 the long-term consequences of this action and why it's important to like the
00:01:36.020 development of human societies and why we might even be genetically coded to do
00:01:41.540 this action that can seem really weird because it leads to faster cultural
00:01:45.480 evolution.
00:01:45.940 Right. Right. So this is,
00:01:49.380 we're going to talk about what we call the Judean people's front problem.
00:01:53.560 And this is from the Monty Python movie,
00:01:55.840 the life of Brian, because it's a great example of this.
00:01:59.260 There's this little group of four people who are the Judean people's front.
00:02:03.960 And this was about like the anti-Roman Jewish groups that were really common in
00:02:08.380 Rome around the time of Jesus, because this was just a thing in Rome.
00:02:11.420 You want, actually, if you want to see more about this, you can watch this show,
00:02:14.960 Rome. That's what it's called, right? The, the serial.
00:02:17.740 Yeah. That was good.
00:02:18.800 Oh, it's so good. It's so good.
00:02:20.660 So I'll just do this get, because I'd like to put it here or, well, you know,
00:02:24.080 we'll have a link to it, but we'll get copyrighted straight when we do it.
00:02:26.520 But essentially there's, there's like a small group of people in the,
00:02:30.860 in the Colosseum. Another guy comes up to them.
00:02:33.600 He's trying to join their group. He's, oh,
00:02:35.500 I'd really like to join the Judean people's front. And they're like,
00:02:38.660 are you sure you want to join? And they're like,
00:02:42.200 you got to really hate the Romans to join us. And he's, oh yeah,
00:02:45.340 I really hate the Romans. And then they're like,
00:02:47.240 the only thing we hate more than the Romans is the people's front of Judea.
00:02:51.800 And then the guy goes, I thought we were the people's front of Judea.
00:02:54.260 And they go, no, we're the Judean people's front. And he goes, oh yeah,
00:02:56.500 I hate the people's front of Judea. Oh, and of course the popular front of Judea.
00:03:01.180 And he's like, who's the popular front? That guy over there.
00:03:03.540 And it's the one guy sitting alone.
00:03:04.940 And what you see there is what we call a cultural speciation event.
00:03:09.020 And the key aspect of a cultural speciation event is typically you see this
00:03:14.700 one more with younger dynamic cultures,
00:03:16.600 but you see it across all cultures where the highest amount of animosity and the
00:03:21.620 highest amount of thinking about how you are different from people is about the
00:03:26.300 groups that you are most similar to,
00:03:29.120 not the groups you are most different from.
00:03:32.840 So a great place that you can see this,
00:03:36.240 if you're familiar with the effective altruists or the rationalists or the less
00:03:38.860 wrong community is between those communities, you know,
00:03:42.060 the effective altruists. And then you've got teapot Twitter,
00:03:44.400 and then you've got, you know, the post rats, the post rationalists.
00:03:47.560 And broadly, these people have a lot of the same views on the world,
00:03:51.780 but they are really obsessed with how, Oh, well,
00:03:54.160 I'm not exactly a rationalist. I'm part of this group.
00:03:57.120 Like they're much more interested in these subdivisions of the groups.
00:03:59.900 And these are all the things that I think the rational gets wrong.
00:04:02.720 The rationalist gets wrong. And that's why I really hate them.
00:04:04.840 Or these are all the things I think effective altruists gets wrong.
00:04:07.180 In fact, I'd say it's almost like being a hipster.
00:04:09.540 The way you could tell somebody is like basically an effective altruist.
00:04:12.840 If they have a 30 minute rant about why they hate effective altruists and
00:04:16.440 they're not an effective altruist, because if you care enough to have that,
00:04:19.800 then okay. Yes.
00:04:20.460 You're culturally adjacent enough to the effective altruist that you're
00:04:23.200 basically an effective altruist. Yeah. So, but this is,
00:04:26.380 this is really important because you see this across groups.
00:04:29.240 And so what's happening here?
00:04:30.760 Like why would you have the highest amount of animosity for the people who are
00:04:34.880 most similar to you? So one,
00:04:37.180 I think that the lay person's assumption is going to be, well,
00:04:42.220 I guess you would interact with that group more, or, you know,
00:04:46.060 you'd think about them more, but if that's true,
00:04:48.040 then you should get to know them better and have less of a visceral hatred of
00:04:52.120 them often. So I think what's actually happening is two things.
00:04:57.020 One, you cannot have cultural speciation.
00:05:00.240 Now speciation is where a new species splits off unless you can have cultural
00:05:04.280 isolation. And so instinctively, and, and one,
00:05:08.220 faster cultural evolution would have helped a population group outcompete other
00:05:11.800 population groups because their cultures would become better over time faster.
00:05:15.620 So you might have an actually an instinctual thing within a human to when a
00:05:21.000 cultural group begins to split,
00:05:22.740 to begin to feel animosity for the people across that cultural divide to you,
00:05:28.140 because if you don't have that,
00:05:29.400 you're going to have people moving back and forth across this divide a lot,
00:05:32.700 which will prevent the groups from actually splitting.
00:05:36.180 And now that people can be in like these online environments where they can,
00:05:39.300 without really any cost,
00:05:40.980 just sit around and indolently masturbate an emotional instinct that they have,
00:05:45.000 you will get people who basically spend their entire day online,
00:05:48.640 hating on cultural groups that are very, very similar to them.
00:05:51.600 I think that's what basically the subreddit singer club can be thought of is,
00:05:55.160 is people who maybe have a slightly higher emotional output and addiction
00:05:59.700 pathway to this form of emotional masturbation.
00:06:02.200 And so they just spend all of their time doing it to the rationalist community
00:06:06.020 or the EA community or whatever.
00:06:07.920 So it's,
00:06:08.420 it's really fascinating to me.
00:06:11.200 Someone,
00:06:11.740 I'd love to hear your thoughts on cultural speciation and you know,
00:06:15.760 have you seen it?
00:06:16.440 Like where have you related to it?
00:06:19.160 Yeah.
00:06:19.680 I mean,
00:06:20.000 where I've seen it most,
00:06:21.420 I think is in fan communities,
00:06:23.820 you'll see all these different sub genres come out and people,
00:06:27.260 I,
00:06:27.480 I think it more comes from a dominance hierarchy fight than anything else.
00:06:32.780 I understand that there,
00:06:33.920 that isolation plays a key role,
00:06:35.280 but I think the reason why you do get cultural speciation is that in these
00:06:39.000 little subsets,
00:06:39.800 you get people fighting to be the best and fighting to be the best often
00:06:43.340 involves saying,
00:06:44.580 here's my interpretation of our values.
00:06:46.460 Here's my interpretation of what we should be doing or focusing on or what it
00:06:49.500 means to be the best in our group.
00:06:51.000 And then someone else decides or refigures out that they can reach the top of
00:06:56.280 the dominance hierarchy as well by saying,
00:06:58.800 Oh no,
00:06:59.080 no,
00:06:59.180 no.
00:06:59.300 The rules are different.
00:07:00.440 Here's actually how you signal that you're the best.
00:07:03.060 Here's actually the values that we should be optimizing around.
00:07:05.540 And that causes the split.
00:07:07.140 And then there's a ton of animosity of course,
00:07:08.960 because they both claim to be supporting the same thing.
00:07:12.640 Maybe it's a fandom,
00:07:13.720 maybe it's a religion,
00:07:14.740 maybe it's a political cause,
00:07:16.380 maybe it's rationalism or effective altruism,
00:07:18.600 but they have very different virtue signaling and value.
00:07:24.080 And how do we allocate our time prescriptions?
00:07:27.240 And so that causes a lot of resentment between the group,
00:07:30.000 but also a ton of confusion.
00:07:30.960 And I think the life of Brian's skit is funny because also people have a lot
00:07:34.980 of trouble keeping it straight in the beginning.
00:07:37.120 And it does take,
00:07:38.680 like you say,
00:07:39.520 that high level of cultural isolation to actually turn into a speciation
00:07:42.940 event.
00:07:43.720 So if you are,
00:07:44.580 for example,
00:07:45.420 all just knocking about Rome,
00:07:47.400 being political activists,
00:07:48.480 there's going to be a lot of confusion and you're not actually going to be,
00:07:51.840 become separate,
00:07:52.780 distinct cultures or groups.
00:07:54.780 But if it is possible for one of those groups to isolate spinoff,
00:07:57.740 geographically go to a different area or become so different that they
00:08:01.160 don't even bear like an easy resemblance,
00:08:04.380 then,
00:08:04.720 then you get the speciation.
00:08:05.680 Yeah.
00:08:06.860 So then the question is,
00:08:08.000 how do you protect a new movement against this?
00:08:11.260 Because young movements are really susceptible to this.
00:08:14.520 Okay.
00:08:14.780 But hold on.
00:08:15.620 So why I'm interested in why you would say that we want to protect
00:08:18.680 movements from that,
00:08:19.560 because I think you've also argued in the pragmatist guide to crafting
00:08:22.320 religion,
00:08:22.740 that some very long lasting religions slash cultures have used this like
00:08:29.680 sort of speciation.
00:08:31.300 I'll word this differently.
00:08:33.220 Okay.
00:08:33.760 Okay.
00:08:34.020 When I say,
00:08:34.900 how do we protect a culture against it?
00:08:37.060 It's a bit like saying,
00:08:38.140 how do we protect humanity from their own greed and selfishness?
00:08:41.120 And the answer is capitalism.
00:08:42.580 I believe that this instinct can be utilized to make a culture stronger.
00:08:47.340 However,
00:08:47.860 and you've talked about how that happens.
00:08:49.740 However,
00:08:50.060 it is an incredible threat to young groups,
00:08:54.440 especially young groups that have a lot of intelligent males in them,
00:08:59.140 because these males will,
00:09:01.720 for the reason you said,
00:09:02.800 constantly try to split the group so that they can be at the top of this new
00:09:06.060 hierarchy.
00:09:06.400 They formed.
00:09:06.980 One of the reasons why young males often choose these niche communities to
00:09:11.160 identify with is through this identification.
00:09:14.500 They can be at the top of their local hierarchy,
00:09:16.860 just because it's such a small hierarchy,
00:09:18.220 or,
00:09:18.920 or at least they're not far from the top of their local hierarchy.
00:09:21.340 And I think a lot of men just genetically are unwilling to engage with a
00:09:25.840 group where they are far from the top of the hierarchy,
00:09:28.260 especially young men.
00:09:29.680 And so I think that that drives a lot of this.
00:09:31.340 And I think it's also why you have this culture of,
00:09:34.540 you know,
00:09:34.800 we call them evanescent cultures.
00:09:36.420 These are cultures that are specifically evolved to target youth.
00:09:40.440 And then they disappear after you leave a youth stage where kids will join
00:09:45.080 this wide diversity of youth cultural groups like goths or something like
00:09:48.580 that,
00:09:48.840 which then quickly disappear.
00:09:50.520 And we can have another episode on evanescent cultural groups because
00:09:53.340 they're very interesting and they have broadly the same characteristics
00:09:56.300 across generations,
00:09:57.100 but they wear different faces and it's,
00:09:59.500 it's,
00:09:59.820 it's useful to know about if you're a young kid going into them.
00:10:02.360 So here's what I think we do.
00:10:03.720 And this is,
00:10:04.300 we actually largely delineate this in the pragmatist guide to crafting
00:10:08.280 religion,
00:10:08.720 but it is to say,
00:10:10.460 so first identify the threat.
00:10:11.980 The threat is,
00:10:13.260 is that the cultural group becomes so fragmented,
00:10:15.500 like I would say happened to the rationalist community that it's not able to
00:10:20.280 stay around as a cohesive community.
00:10:22.020 That's able to offer people like a support network.
00:10:24.460 So you get this exogenous reasons to join in,
00:10:27.380 which I think is really important for groups that are going to last
00:10:30.540 intergenerationally.
00:10:31.760 So the way that you do it is you encourage the competition and you flag the
00:10:37.860 competition as,
00:10:39.420 as sort of meaningful,
00:10:41.000 but in so far as people don't dissociate with the umbrella group.
00:10:46.380 So by that,
00:10:47.020 what I mean is you can say,
00:10:48.100 I am this culture within this,
00:10:50.220 this cultural umbrella,
00:10:51.460 and I'm this culture within this cultural umbrella.
00:10:53.620 And then what you do is you create clear metrics for the cultures to compete
00:10:57.780 with each other.
00:10:58.600 So,
00:10:59.120 you know,
00:10:59.800 within our family office structure,
00:11:01.960 essentially this is done.
00:11:03.100 And within the larger index framework,
00:11:04.860 this is done where you say,
00:11:07.920 okay,
00:11:08.220 you want to choose to be a different cultural group.
00:11:10.280 Well,
00:11:10.740 then if you out-compete,
00:11:11.820 then you get more voting power in the family office where out-competing is
00:11:15.420 defined as either converting lots of people to your faction,
00:11:19.620 having lots of kids and having those kids stay within the culture
00:11:24.000 intergenerationally and choose to have a lot of kids themselves.
00:11:26.680 So it's giving you concrete success metrics,
00:11:30.440 which through continuing to adhere to bind you to the central organization.
00:11:35.300 And what's really fascinating about these concrete success metrics is if
00:11:40.560 somebody says,
00:11:41.040 well,
00:11:41.060 I don't believe in that set of success metrics.
00:11:43.720 I don't want to compete along that set of success metrics.
00:11:46.220 Well,
00:11:46.420 then they don't matter anymore anyway,
00:11:48.380 because they won't exist in the future.
00:11:50.500 If they have chosen a culture that's either not optimized around
00:11:53.580 intergenerational cultural transfer,
00:11:55.580 fertility,
00:11:56.180 or conversion,
00:11:57.340 then they're not going to exist in the future.
00:11:59.000 So it doesn't matter that they have become dissident.
00:12:03.040 So then in other words,
00:12:05.180 if you wanted to advise EA effective altruism,
00:12:09.340 if it could be a cohesive community and it's not,
00:12:11.500 so it's not like there's some leader that could do this really,
00:12:14.080 but if you wanted to prevent EA from fracturing to a point of
00:12:18.800 dysfunction,
00:12:20.180 you would find some way to sort of centrally acknowledge the various
00:12:23.920 factions.
00:12:24.560 And then I would build them a governance model that would use a similar
00:12:28.400 triumvirate model to the index,
00:12:30.300 but a bit different.
00:12:31.240 So essentially you'd have three groups that would each elect a member.
00:12:35.720 And then those three members would have to unanimously vote on sort of like
00:12:39.120 a dictator of the organization.
00:12:40.860 And this would be the central effect of altruism fund that they would be
00:12:43.980 electing the dictator for.
00:12:45.060 The three groups voting patterns would be one group was based on how much an
00:12:48.980 individual donated to the central fund or,
00:12:52.020 and then a lesser voting amount for how much they personally like work
00:12:58.180 responsible for raising for the funds.
00:13:00.640 You might get like half a point for every dollar you raised and a full point
00:13:04.080 for every dollar you donated.
00:13:05.700 Right.
00:13:05.900 And so that would be the people who are functionally able to out-compete in
00:13:11.120 terms of fundraising.
00:13:12.160 They would be one voting block was in the organization.
00:13:15.180 Another block was in the organization could be the number of people that you
00:13:19.800 have converted to being effective altruists and dedicating themselves to
00:13:23.160 effective altruists.
00:13:24.220 So this could be everyone that you've got to donate at least a specific
00:13:28.420 amount.
00:13:28.780 So say $10,000,
00:13:29.920 you consider that somebody who has become an effective altruist.
00:13:32.260 And then you're looking lifestyle wise,
00:13:34.260 how many people are living this?
00:13:35.260 So this one is focused on conversion,
00:13:36.800 like human outreach.
00:13:37.920 And then the final voting block,
00:13:39.360 which I think is important within any government is made up of all of the
00:13:42.080 past dictators.
00:13:42.820 So it would be like a branch of our government that was made up of only past
00:13:46.440 presidents.
00:13:47.340 And I think that that organization,
00:13:49.100 the way it's structured would intrinsically grow in both the amount of money
00:13:52.920 it had and the way that people were socially politicking within it,
00:13:56.820 because you're creating an environment where the way people like cheat in the
00:14:00.600 social politics only helps the end goals of the organization.
00:14:03.600 Now,
00:14:04.380 of course,
00:14:04.780 the problem with all of this is,
00:14:06.480 is nothing in that structure rewards actual effective giving.
00:14:10.360 Why didn't I choose to reward that?
00:14:12.280 It's because I think that effective giving can always be manipulated,
00:14:17.600 what that means.
00:14:18.900 And it can be used to allow groups to cheese the organization.
00:14:23.040 And so what you should always focus on,
00:14:25.780 if they cheese it,
00:14:26.680 you win at the end of the day,
00:14:27.740 is things that cause the organization to centralize and grow when cheesed.
00:14:33.620 But I also would love for you to touch on the way,
00:14:36.440 for example,
00:14:36.920 the Catholic church has spun off essentially skunk work subcultures.
00:14:41.360 Church is really unique and really interesting.
00:14:44.220 It is the,
00:14:45.620 the oldest,
00:14:46.980 I would argue,
00:14:48.160 continuing successful cultural group that I am aware of.
00:14:51.660 It would have been like genuinely successful.
00:14:53.960 So a lot of people wouldn't think like Jews are like an older cultural group,
00:14:56.920 but the truth is,
00:14:57.400 is Jews have undergone so many cultural re-envisions over the time period,
00:15:01.900 the Catholic church has been around that.
00:15:03.660 I don't know if I would call them a continuous cultural group.
00:15:06.440 It's more that they are a,
00:15:08.660 a quickly evolving cultural group,
00:15:10.800 but they are not continuous in the same way the Catholics have been.
00:15:13.940 Typically an organization like the Catholic church would collapse due to internal
00:15:18.240 cancers.
00:15:18.820 By that,
00:15:19.500 what I mean is if you look at our model of governance and stuff like that,
00:15:22.700 the longer a governance structure has been around or the larger a bureaucracy
00:15:26.680 is,
00:15:27.580 the more it is susceptible to internal cancers in which a small population
00:15:32.540 within an organization begin to self-replicate and just say,
00:15:35.960 give me more money,
00:15:36.560 give me more money,
00:15:37.140 give me more money.
00:15:37.780 I'm actually really important.
00:15:38.980 An example of this could be like ESG orgs within a company or something like
00:15:42.480 that,
00:15:42.700 right?
00:15:43.020 They,
00:15:43.300 they like a cancer,
00:15:44.400 they redirect blood flow to themselves and they just get bigger,
00:15:46.560 bigger like that until an organization basically dies.
00:15:48.820 Like this lumbering,
00:15:50.140 wheezing beast.
00:15:51.440 And,
00:15:51.540 and that can happen either due to how long it's been around as anyone,
00:15:54.680 you know,
00:15:54.900 who knows biology knows the longer lived an entity is the more prone it is to
00:15:58.360 cancer.
00:15:58.960 And,
00:15:59.460 and so,
00:16:00.180 you know,
00:16:00.360 in like whales and elephants,
00:16:01.740 you have really specific cancer preventing things,
00:16:03.980 but also the,
00:16:04.580 the bigger an animal is the more prone it is to cancer.
00:16:07.200 Again,
00:16:07.400 whales and elephants there,
00:16:08.300 but in turtles,
00:16:08.980 you have special cancer protecting mechanisms that are like really juiced up
00:16:13.560 because of their long lifespan.
00:16:15.380 Well,
00:16:15.540 no,
00:16:15.700 I mean,
00:16:15.960 this is just a thing,
00:16:16.760 right?
00:16:17.160 So the Catholic church has one of those as well.
00:16:19.160 It has a really powerful one of those,
00:16:21.140 but it also has a really powerful.
00:16:24.500 And this isn't there to say that it hasn't become cancer riddled in the past,
00:16:28.000 but then the,
00:16:28.980 the protestants split out of it.
00:16:30.300 And it had a competitor again,
00:16:31.380 and it had to get good again.
00:16:32.760 It couldn't just rely on its size to perpetuate it into the future.
00:16:36.440 But then the,
00:16:37.540 the,
00:16:38.200 the other big problem that Catholics have that all religions have is typically the
00:16:43.260 younger a religion is,
00:16:44.880 the harder it is.
00:16:46.140 And the older is the softer it is.
00:16:49.260 So by the,
00:16:50.200 by this,
00:16:50.620 what we mean when we talk about a soul soft religion,
00:16:52.740 it's a religion that has thrown away most of the things that other its members
00:16:57.360 from the general population.
00:16:58.760 And it's thrown away most of the things that make it hard to practice.
00:17:02.620 Ah,
00:17:03.040 you know,
00:17:03.540 that's a hard thing.
00:17:04.300 Let's not do that anymore.
00:17:05.500 So,
00:17:05.920 you know,
00:17:06.120 when somebody says like,
00:17:06.780 I'm a spiritual Christian,
00:17:07.780 they've,
00:17:08.180 they've reached such a soft iteration of Christianity that they are no longer
00:17:14.240 even recognizable as a Christian anymore.
00:17:16.120 It's a specific Christian denomination.
00:17:18.320 They've,
00:17:18.440 they've,
00:17:18.740 they've lost that part of their identity.
00:17:21.280 When you look at the groups that most differentiate themselves,
00:17:23.880 they're usually pretty young.
00:17:25.060 So you're looking at like Mormons are a pretty young cultural group.
00:17:27.940 Hasidic Jews are a pretty young cultural group.
00:17:30.840 Amish are one of the older hard cultural groups I can think of,
00:17:35.020 but still fairly young.
00:17:36.940 So Scientology would be a very young cultural group,
00:17:39.480 but also a very hard cultural group.
00:17:41.140 Yeah.
00:17:41.320 So back to the Catholic church.
00:17:42.700 I mean,
00:17:42.960 how did the Catholic church stay hard ish and not get soft?
00:17:47.540 Right.
00:17:47.820 That's an interesting question.
00:17:48.700 So what they essentially did is they spun out new young cultural groups,
00:17:55.580 like sort of skunk work facilities.
00:17:57.940 And that's what the orders are like the Franciscans,
00:18:00.760 et cetera.
00:18:01.200 And if you study the Catholic church,
00:18:03.660 you will notice a pattern with these orders is they first start.
00:18:07.360 And they're like all,
00:18:08.900 all of the dissonant ultra extreme intellectuals who want to go really hard
00:18:13.200 within the Catholic church.
00:18:14.200 They'll join the order.
00:18:15.120 And then the order grows.
00:18:16.680 It grows in power within the church.
00:18:18.200 It grows in size within the church.
00:18:19.920 And it eventually becomes incredibly wealthy,
00:18:22.140 incredibly opulent.
00:18:23.180 And then it dies out.
00:18:24.380 And then a new orders form.
00:18:26.140 But what's really cool is through encouraging this process,
00:18:29.580 the Catholic church is able to essentially take a syringe,
00:18:33.960 remove people from these,
00:18:35.960 these little cultured groups of,
00:18:38.180 of hard culture and re-inject them into the center of the organization.
00:18:41.120 And by this,
00:18:42.580 I mean the Vatican and stay much younger as an organization,
00:18:47.160 almost like they're sort of taking stem cell colonies and re-injecting them to
00:18:50.680 stay young,
00:18:51.380 much longer than you could otherwise stay young as an organization.
00:18:55.500 But in other words,
00:18:56.240 you're saying the Catholic church is basically leveraging dynamics of
00:18:59.600 speciation,
00:19:00.520 but in a way that gives it control.
00:19:02.820 So while the triumvirate model that you proposed for a modern young group,
00:19:08.440 that would maybe be a little bit concerned about factioning into separate
00:19:14.040 competing pieces,
00:19:15.320 they could also theoretically do with the Catholic church.
00:19:17.960 The reason I don't suggest the Catholic model is the Catholic model is a
00:19:22.480 model that like naturally evolved in a large organization that largely became
00:19:27.520 large because the Roman empire sort of borrowed it to help its administration
00:19:31.420 of a region that had already been conquered.
00:19:34.760 And,
00:19:34.880 and let's be honest,
00:19:36.060 it did not do a great job.
00:19:37.540 The Catholic church became essentially the administrative capacity for the Roman
00:19:42.200 empire.
00:19:42.760 It began to collapse almost immediately.
00:19:44.920 So it's something that,
00:19:46.540 that one did not work in its initial iteration very well to it's,
00:19:52.560 it's managed to stay alive.
00:19:54.060 It's managed to do okay,
00:19:55.740 but it has never been like exceptional.
00:19:58.880 A Catholic majority country has never been,
00:20:02.100 I would consider super,
00:20:03.880 super awesome in terms of like technological advancement or anything like that.
00:20:07.540 It does better than it should given how hierarchical it is,
00:20:12.940 given how long lived it is.
00:20:14.300 It is genuinely miraculous and really impressive.
00:20:18.060 And it may be the iteration of humanity that ends up surviving because of this
00:20:22.120 older advanced system it's using allows it to,
00:20:25.860 to live into the future,
00:20:26.940 but it's certainly not an ideal system.
00:20:29.260 And it requires that it be set up in an already giant organization.
00:20:35.340 So it's a model that I might suggest if I'm tomorrow with dictator of the U S and I needed
00:20:40.200 to find a way to keep American culture stable and surviving into the future.
00:20:43.940 I'd be like,
00:20:44.580 okay,
00:20:44.780 let's build Americana cultural nodes and begin it.
00:20:47.720 But if I'm talking about a culture that's growing from scratch,
00:20:50.480 no,
00:20:51.160 I do not think it's a very strong strategy.
00:20:54.320 Hmm.
00:20:54.860 Okay.
00:20:55.180 I mean,
00:20:55.300 you can understand why,
00:20:56.480 right?
00:20:56.780 If you're starting with just like a collection of families,
00:20:58.820 like the index,
00:20:59.520 like our cultural group,
00:21:00.560 you,
00:21:01.220 you can't spin out these like skunk works facilities.
00:21:04.100 You just don't have the resources to,
00:21:06.020 and you don't have the population to.
00:21:08.300 Yeah.
00:21:09.160 Yeah.
00:21:09.660 No,
00:21:09.920 that checks out.
00:21:10.660 So it's just something that you need a little bit more,
00:21:12.880 more age to do.
00:21:15.620 Yeah.
00:21:16.440 And I,
00:21:16.980 and again,
00:21:17.620 we,
00:21:17.980 we are remarking on that the Catholic church is still around and broadly
00:21:23.540 competent,
00:21:24.120 but I wouldn't say that it's ever been an exceptional.
00:21:29.620 It's never been.
00:21:31.900 Yeah.
00:21:32.740 It's never been in an exceptional majority religious.
00:21:37.400 group.
00:21:39.160 Catholicism has an interesting feature that I don't think I've seen in
00:21:42.080 any other cultural group,
00:21:43.580 which is that when Catholics are a minority population in a country or
00:21:48.700 geographic environment,
00:21:49.700 they tend to really out-compete other groups,
00:21:53.460 especially within bureaucracies.
00:21:55.560 So,
00:21:56.240 you know,
00:21:56.580 you can see this in the United States with Catholics making up the
00:21:59.500 majority of the Supreme court.
00:22:00.800 You can see this in the United States with Catholics being the dominant
00:22:05.180 intellectual voices in the conservative movement,
00:22:07.160 other than people of the Jewish cultural group,
00:22:08.540 which are the other really dominant conservative intellectual voice.
00:22:12.340 But when Catholics make up the majority of a country,
00:22:16.600 that country overall typically underperforms both intellectually and
00:22:22.460 economically.
00:22:23.660 It doesn't perform terribly.
00:22:25.380 It just performs very mid,
00:22:27.700 I guess I would say.
00:22:29.880 And this is also true if you look at the world stage.
00:22:32.400 So,
00:22:32.900 you know,
00:22:33.460 a disproportionate number of world leading intellectuals come out of the
00:22:37.200 Catholic cultural tradition.
00:22:38.580 However,
00:22:39.140 very few of them are coming from Catholic majority countries.
00:22:42.280 Then maybe Ireland.
00:22:43.660 Ireland might be the exception here.
00:22:46.260 If anyone has any ideas on what might be causing this,
00:22:48.880 I'd love to hear because I think it's a very interesting phenomenon.
00:22:51.360 I'm sure some people are going to try to argue that this is due to ethnic
00:22:54.860 reasons.
00:22:55.900 However,
00:22:56.400 that argument seems very uncompelling to me when I look at,
00:22:59.020 okay,
00:22:59.140 you've got Spain,
00:23:00.640 Portugal,
00:23:02.000 Italy.
00:23:03.080 You know,
00:23:03.520 these are,
00:23:04.720 even,
00:23:05.120 even if you do take a racist perspective,
00:23:06.740 these are majority white countries.
00:23:08.560 And,
00:23:09.060 and then you've got the Roman empire,
00:23:10.640 right?
00:23:10.880 Which,
00:23:11.240 you know,
00:23:11.680 did not fare very well under Catholic leadership.
00:23:14.080 Are we now arguing that the Roman empire was not a majority white empire?
00:23:22.960 And so that's why I'm just sort of discounting the ethnic explanations for this out of hand.
00:23:29.820 If I had to guess what it really is,
00:23:32.260 it's probably that a strict hierarchically run organization is going to do very well when
00:23:38.480 it's below a certain population threshold in the same way that like any bureaucracy typically
00:23:44.160 performs better when it's really small,
00:23:45.880 but perform very poorly as it gets larger and larger and larger.
00:23:50.360 Sort of like,
00:23:51.280 you know,
00:23:51.560 maybe like Google as a startup versus Google as a giant company.
00:23:54.520 And this comes to our theories of governance,
00:23:56.600 which we often talk about,
00:23:57.940 which is hierarchically run,
00:24:00.660 really strict governance models are often best,
00:24:02.940 but only at the extreme micro scale.
00:24:04.860 Once they get larger,
00:24:07.040 their efficiency begins to dwindle incredibly quickly.
00:24:10.420 And it's never been a really good at outcompeting,
00:24:13.660 except in South America.
00:24:14.760 Are you saying that you're saying that Catholicism is a Nepo baby?
00:24:19.340 Catholicism is a Nepo baby.
00:24:20.640 It's a Nepo baby of the Roman empire.
00:24:22.760 I mean,
00:24:23.260 we,
00:24:23.820 so,
00:24:24.900 I mean,
00:24:25.380 there's many reasons why Constantine may have chosen.
00:24:28.280 I mean,
00:24:28.440 obviously they're the reason he gave,
00:24:30.140 but a lot of historians think that what was actually going on there is he really
00:24:34.420 liked the Catholic church as an alternate administrative unit.
00:24:38.900 They already had centers set up throughout the Roman empire,
00:24:41.820 which allowed him to implement many reforms.
00:24:45.740 Administration in a box.
00:24:47.640 Yeah.
00:24:47.880 It was like an administration in a box that allowed him to compete with the
00:24:51.440 deep state.
00:24:52.220 So think of it like this,
00:24:53.460 right?
00:24:53.680 Imagine you wanted to replace the American deep state,
00:24:57.500 but you don't have communication lines like we do now.
00:24:59.920 You don't have the internet like you do now.
00:25:01.560 How would you conceivably do that?
00:25:04.380 If,
00:25:04.520 if,
00:25:04.800 if the old state sort of is antagonistic to you and you want to do deep
00:25:09.000 reforms where you've got to find an alternate governance system that
00:25:12.280 somehow already set up throughout your empire,
00:25:14.340 the church,
00:25:15.520 he was like great borrowing that it was a really actually very clever move,
00:25:19.700 but you know,
00:25:20.840 as we can see long-term,
00:25:22.100 it didn't work out.
00:25:23.440 Although maybe it did work out.
00:25:24.660 It worked out for the Catholic church because the Catholic churches is still
00:25:28.080 around,
00:25:28.700 but you know,
00:25:29.300 they,
00:25:29.700 they did get stomped by a number of,
00:25:33.380 they got stomped by the growing Islamic empire,
00:25:35.560 which,
00:25:36.240 you know,
00:25:36.480 and it's height did,
00:25:38.140 did better than the Catholic empire in his height in terms of scientific
00:25:42.080 advancement,
00:25:42.740 in terms of this,
00:25:44.800 the size of the administrative empire they were running,
00:25:46.820 but they also collapsed much faster.
00:25:49.080 I mean,
00:25:49.300 again,
00:25:49.520 this is what I'm saying.
00:25:50.280 The true genius of the Catholic church is its resistance to collapse.
00:25:53.820 Hmm.
00:25:58.020 Interesting.
00:26:00.320 Well,
00:26:00.920 I enjoyed this conversation.
00:26:02.460 I don't know.
00:26:04.440 I don't know how practical it will be for groups to prevent themselves from
00:26:12.260 splitting once they're already big and complex.
00:26:14.460 But what I can say is if you find yourself part of a split,
00:26:18.160 just make sure that your new split has a strong governing model that
00:26:23.620 prepares for this dynamic,
00:26:25.340 because it is likely inevitable.
00:26:27.720 So long as there are dominance fights within it.
00:26:32.660 So yeah.
00:26:34.680 Yeah.
00:26:35.060 Anything you'd add?
00:26:35.960 Well,
00:26:36.380 I don't know.
00:26:36.860 I mean,
00:26:36.980 I also add that the,
00:26:38.320 the,
00:26:39.220 a culture is a fad.
00:26:40.840 If you're not intending to raise your kids within it,
00:26:43.760 if the culture is about how you make friends,
00:26:46.100 it's a bad,
00:26:47.060 you know,
00:26:47.360 it's,
00:26:47.800 it will not exist intergenerationally.
00:26:49.820 Almost no culture that was dedicated to that has existed intergenerationally.
00:26:55.280 Yeah.
00:26:55.920 Fair.
00:26:56.820 Cool.
00:26:57.260 I love you,
00:26:57.820 Simone.
00:26:58.140 I have had so much fun talking to you.
00:27:01.240 I love you too,
00:27:02.240 Malcolm.
00:27:02.740 Looking forward to our next conversation already.