RadixJournal - August 10, 2026


Revelation 20-22


Episode Stats


Length

23 minutes

Words per minute

144.24

Word count

3,375

Sentence count

134

Harmful content

Toxicity

11

sentences flagged

Hate speech

15

sentences flagged


Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Toxicity classifications generated with s-nlp/roberta_toxicity_classifier .
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
00:00:00.000 All right. So let's jump into Fiore. As you can tell by his name, he's an Italian monk living mostly in the 12th century.
00:00:14.340 He actually died in 1202. His works are broadly supported by the popes of his time.
00:00:25.800 He was a monk in the region of Calabria,
00:00:30.940 and they eventually became a Cistercian monastery.
00:00:36.040 They were actually so poor that they were too poor for the Cistercians.
00:00:41.200 Believe it or not is the little detail I learned in this book,
00:00:44.820 that the Cistercians were worried that you have to have enough food and drink to survive, 0.60
00:00:50.480 and they were so dedicated to their vows of poverty that they did not achieve even that. 0.95
00:00:59.500 Similar story to Martin Luther, the sort of, not quite a conversion story, but an epiphany or a call to action.
00:01:07.400 This was the crusading times, and Fiore actually went to Jerusalem and was so taken by being in the real place
00:01:17.580 that the Gospels depict that he actually dedicated himself to the monastery,
00:01:24.160 and he gave up his aristocratic and well-to-do background.
00:01:31.400 So what are his major contributions?
00:01:36.580 First off, I think this is the basic structure of his thought,
00:01:43.960 is a correspondence between the Old and New Testaments.
00:01:48.300 Now, it probably tells us something about his influence
00:01:51.300 that that is something that is taken for granted
00:01:54.860 by most all Christians.
00:01:57.040 They want to see Jesus everywhere in the Bible,
00:02:00.820 including the Old Testament.
00:02:04.460 And even if he wasn't the first to do this,
00:02:07.900 this became a major factor in the way
00:02:11.620 that he was reading the Bible.
00:02:13.140 And he was, in a way, reading the Bible backwards because the book of Revelation was the lens through which he saw everything.
00:02:22.080 This vision of the Antichrist and the destruction of the world and the coming Jerusalem and triumph of Jesus is how he looked back at the entirety of the Bible.
00:02:34.320 But he also did something profound, and this is why earlier I said he's like a Hegelian five or 600 years early, or he's like Francis Fukuyama, or he's Marx even, hundreds of years before those people would come on the scene.
00:02:51.280 I think you can properly do an intellectual genealogy to him, and that's that there's a correspondence between the Old and the New Testament, but that actually reveals to us the present, and so you can understand history by understanding the correspondence between the Testaments. 0.68
00:03:14.560 And reading the book of Revelation, he actually made a correct prediction to Lucius III that Jerusalem would fall to the Muslims. And this occurred three years after he spoke these words, and he, of course, became a famous, you know, Nostradamus avant la lettre, etc.
00:03:35.080 He was able to think of history. And in this way, history itself becomes sacred. So Nietzsche had a poignant line in the gay science where he criticized Hegel for holding off atheism for a bit, in a way.
00:03:57.500 God is dead, and many of the people, the last man doesn't even care in a way, but someone like Hegel, what he did was that he made the profane or the secular holy. 0.64
00:04:14.040 So yes, God is dead. It's hard to believe in those fairy tales as anything but metaphors, but actually history itself is sacred.
00:04:25.520 And, you know, if you know just a little bit about Hegel, you know of him as a philosopher of history, the notion that the spirit, interesting term, Geist in German, passed him when he saw Napoleon on a battlefield.
00:04:43.360 And that basically the slaughter bench of world history that seems to be irrational, primitive, horrible, or even boring is actually working its way out to an end point, a revelation, you could say.
00:05:02.420 And he saw that actually in the Prussian state. But other people, the left Galians that we talked about a few weeks ago saw that as working itself out into socialism and communism, etc. Francis Fukuyama, famously or infamously, it works itself out in liberal capitalism, where there's some democracy and some freedom and some capitalist economics, and this is the final state of things.
00:05:30.340 You can't really criticize Americanism. After the fall of the Soviet Union, there's no alternative. And even the critics of Americanism are themselves Americanist. So people will say, oh, well, yeah, you say America's so great. Well, why are there all these homeless people?
00:05:49.520 Or, you know, why are grocery prices going up so much? But all they're basically saying is that, you know, we've got the ratio of democracy and capitalism a little bit off and we need to fine tune it.
00:06:05.540 they're not really criticizing america even the far left maybe this is changing now but even the
00:06:12.580 far left was embarrassed by the soviet union and not willing to put forward the soviet union as
00:06:17.760 a real alternative or as uh the ones in the know leading us to a brighter future and for fukuyama
00:06:24.680 we have reached the end times and um it's interesting in that book he it's the the end
00:06:30.240 of history and the last man so he worries about the end times creating the last man as Nietzsche 0.95
00:06:36.060 understood it this dumb boring Walmart shopper or corporate middle manager who has no spirit he's a 0.83
00:06:45.880 man without a chest there's no desire in the world there's no frontier to conquer you're not going to 0.99
00:06:53.080 sail your ships into uncharted seas you're just going to sort of uh netflix and chill for the
00:07:00.220 next thousand years which is uh maybe uh accurate um anyway uh so joaquin he he basically had a
00:07:10.440 vision of a harp at one point which he thought of as an epiphany and it's a kind of triangular harp
00:07:17.420 and that the...
00:07:21.840 Richard, can I ask a question?
00:07:24.520 Yeah, sure.
00:07:26.820 Do you know that if there's any...
00:07:28.620 So this formulation,
00:07:29.980 who's the first person to bring forward
00:07:32.140 this formulation of the last man?
00:07:34.400 It's a Nietzsche.
00:07:35.740 It's a quote from Nietzsche.
00:07:36.480 Yeah, the last man is a Nietzschean.
00:07:37.680 I'm not sure.
00:07:38.340 Okay, so he invented that.
00:07:40.640 Yeah, Cagle actually mentioned
00:07:42.340 the death of God, interestingly,
00:07:44.160 in a slightly different way than Nietzsche,
00:07:46.440 but yeah.
00:07:47.420 In the phenomenology of spirit.
00:07:50.100 Do you think it's related to Son of Man?
00:07:55.400 I think so.
00:07:57.220 Yeah.
00:07:58.140 But yeah, with an ironic difference. 0.88
00:08:01.440 I mean, we could even read that passage from, it's in the gay science and then it's in Zarathustra as well. 0.88
00:08:07.200 But the last man knows that God is dead. 0.66
00:08:10.360 so i mean i think it's easy to to look at like pictures of the people of walmart and you have
00:08:17.940 these like adq blobs in wheelchairs who are shockingly obese and you know eating twizzlers
00:08:25.100 or whatever like i i think it's easy to say that's the last man but i i think that's not 0.99
00:08:30.800 quite what he's getting at he's almost getting at the not necessarily the master of the universe
00:08:37.200 like a george soros but like the guy who's a middle manager at amazon but gets invited to davos
00:08:43.780 that's almost the last man yeah i mean the concepts do you know that god is dead
00:08:48.940 the concept doesn't care in a way yeah yeah no no i i'm familiar with both concepts and they seem
00:08:56.620 unrelated ultimately i mean as we've discussed on this show you know uh the son of man seems to be
00:09:02.100 a kind of designation, especially for Jews, it would seem,
00:09:06.200 or that's my reading, like son of Adam and so forth.
00:09:09.960 So they seem unrelated.
00:09:12.060 So in other words, son of man almost is like an evolution from man.
00:09:16.600 And whereas...
00:09:17.660 So the last man is that as well.
00:09:19.900 Yeah, but almost kind of just a devolution,
00:09:22.640 a devolution with no positive, right?
00:09:25.320 Well, I wouldn't say that actually.
00:09:27.500 Okay.
00:09:28.200 I think they're similar.
00:09:30.000 I mean, it...
00:09:32.100 One, he's the son of God and the son of man. That is Jesus Christ. But I think the last man, too, is a sort of person that's... Nietzsche hated the last man. I mean, no doubt about it.
00:09:50.220 but he is still a person who's sort of overcome history.
00:09:55.860 You know, he'll never need to be drafted in the army
00:10:00.020 and go invade some country at the whim of some prince or another.
00:10:08.260 He'll never fear starvation.
00:10:11.740 And he's just going to Netflix and chill. 0.97
00:10:14.380 There's like an irony where he's both kind of dumb, but then he's also sort of the product of all of mankind, if you understand what I'm saying. 0.99
00:10:30.580 Yeah, I know. I mean, I think that they are, one obviously is pejorative, and the other, especially from the Jewish perspective, is not pejorative. 0.96
00:10:39.960 it's positive um but i but it they are related in the sense that it does seem that these the
00:10:48.020 same conditions are leading to the same type the same type or or we could regard them as two
00:10:55.260 different types but they're emerging from the same conditions ultimately right they're a devolution
00:11:00.460 or evolution for uh from man for better or worse yes it also reminds us again of the concept of
00:11:09.340 jesus as um uh the alpha and the omega right in the and the second atom someone in the chat said
00:11:18.540 the last atom uh gavin said that but i don't know if the term last atom is used maybe it is
00:11:23.240 uh or but the term the second atom or the new atom yeah um in any case i'll let you uh i'll
00:11:30.840 let you continue well don't you think as as well like i i do think they're related because
00:11:35.340 you know jesus doesn't arrive in the book of judges or something where there's all this just
00:11:43.960 warfare and you you have like the rule of these badass chieftains you know they're they're hitting
00:11:52.600 spikes into people's heads and you know sacrificing their daughters to y'all i mean it's it he doesn't
00:12:00.040 live in that world he he lives in a a more civilized age but but also a sort of more
00:12:06.600 decadent age you know it's it's sort of like you know we don't need to do that anymore just
00:12:14.180 love one another man you know i i think he's like the big lumbowski or
00:12:20.780 zoran mandami or something i i there is this like post man that is never going to
00:12:29.540 need to struggle in the way that previous humans absolutely had to struggle i mean previous humans
00:12:38.140 most of your children wouldn't reach the age of three you know and just death was everywhere
00:12:47.340 yeah i i think you're right i think that you're right they they are but it's almost like they're
00:12:52.300 seen from uh two different perspectives again the last man seems a kind of a pejorative designation
00:12:58.520 definitely but as someone pointed out in the chat and i'm looking at bible hub right now um
00:13:04.660 the last adam i.e the last man is is a um apathet that's also given to jesus and it may be given in
00:13:14.060 multiple places i'm looking at uh one corinthians 15 45 so it is written the first man adam became
00:13:21.920 a living spirit the last adam a life-giving spirit and that's a reference to jesus yeah
00:13:28.880 i think if the way that i would put it it's it's like if if the antichrist in the jewish
00:13:38.340 and christian imagination is someone who is absolutely a false christ on one level but but
00:13:44.920 also opposed to the meaning of Christ. It's almost like Nietzsche turned the last man
00:13:53.900 into a sort of antichrist. Now, he declared himself the antichrist, of course. But what I
00:13:59.180 mean is that this last man is everything to be despised. And it's not quite that he's dumb 0.99
00:14:07.520 It's that, or that he's evil or wicked. 0.99
00:14:11.020 Nietzsche liked people who are wicked.
00:14:13.840 You know, he's a Bacchiavellian.
00:14:16.600 He wanted Chisera Borgia on the seat of Rome.
00:14:19.300 It's that he's too comfortable and too moral.
00:14:23.480 And we need to rage against the bourgeoisie.
00:14:28.900 I mean, he wouldn't quite put it that way,
00:14:31.040 but you understand my point.
00:14:32.320 Like it's, we need to rage against people
00:14:35.300 who are comfortable and moral
00:14:36.840 because that that's the ultimate form of nihilism and so the last man almost become like in the
00:14:44.460 structure of his thought the last man is almost the antichrist if you will in the sense of this
00:14:51.320 like embodiment of everything terrible yeah and i mean another reading of the last man uh
00:14:58.820 is also what the last man jesus produces which is the christian right yeah it's the last man
00:15:06.260 And as it's described in Revelations, as we'll read, I mean, essentially, it's a return to Eden.
00:15:12.440 So esoterically, it's a kind of return to a period of softness and decadence, ultimately, is what's being described, because that's what Eden is.
00:15:21.280 And this New Jerusalem described in Revelations is clearly a reference to Eden.
00:15:26.500 It's got the tree of life, the river of life, and so forth.
00:15:31.640 And so, yeah, it's showing a cycle.
00:15:34.600 And this is something that I've argued before.
00:15:36.040 is that it's not we can look at it as linear right um but ultimately what's implied is a cycle
00:15:43.120 you're back at the beginning of the story you're back at eden and this is also implied with um
00:15:49.020 north smith where there's also a kind of version of adam and eve after ragnarok in north smith
00:15:55.760 including the returning christ figure of balder balder who dies and rises again yeah yeah yeah
00:16:02.220 I mean, even those details alone, we like in the book, we just fucking hammer Norse myth.
00:16:06.760 I mean, we just like, we end it.
00:16:08.360 So to speak.
00:16:09.080 All right.
00:16:09.580 Yeah.
00:16:10.080 Thor's hammer.
00:16:10.900 Yes.
00:16:11.280 Yeah.
00:16:11.560 You people in the DR, you kind of pissed us off. 1.00
00:16:14.120 And so we're going to nuke this. 1.00
00:16:16.540 We're just going to nuke it.
00:16:18.420 And we probably even went overboard.
00:16:20.720 We spent a little time and delighted in just like pointing out all, all the reasons why 0.88
00:16:26.100 this is clearly Christian propaganda, essentially.
00:16:28.460 But even these sort of details that we're revealing now, we're not even revealing. These are available and known. I mean, these people who are like Norse bros and like Viking dudes or whatever, they should know these things. Right.
00:16:40.780 I don't think that they're familiar with these very basic details that we're providing here.
00:16:46.820 And but yeah, so I but but to get back to the point, it's it does seem that maybe these kind of conditions of decadence, because that's also what Nietzsche is describing with The Last Man is essentially a period of super abundance and decadence so that man loses his purpose.
00:17:08.900 life is too easy and so forth this is essentially the new eden or new jerusalem uh that's implied in
00:17:16.660 the metaphor of eden even the word eden uh the garden so eden means like luxury essentially
00:17:23.460 decadence right yeah um and that's why things go so topsy-turvy ultimately in eden with adam and
00:17:31.700 eve in genesis right yeah um getting back to fiore just um here for a little bit but so he had this
00:17:40.900 image of a triangular harp and so the the strings of the harp you could say are the two testaments
00:17:49.220 and so they they both need to be struck to make music so there's harmony and that's harmony and
00:17:57.140 And so the Old and New Testaments are one.
00:18:00.160 You can see Jesus in the Old Testament.
00:18:02.700 The mock sacrifice of Isaac by Abraham
00:18:06.440 or aborted sacrifice of Isaac by Abraham is Christ.
00:18:11.740 As I'll mention in this passage, I'll read,
00:18:13.920 he brought Daniel into the book of Revelation, etc.
00:18:18.560 They're both apocalypses.
00:18:20.780 But he also saw the triangular harp as basically the Trinity.
00:18:25.580 so the the father son and holy ghost and these things are present at all times and god was there
00:18:37.580 from the beginning but jesus was there from the beginning he is uh firmly on the side of philo
00:18:42.340 quay the spirit proceeds from the father and from the son it's all one thing and you know god yahweh
00:18:51.700 is there at the end and jesus is there at the end but god and jesus are there at the beginning at
00:18:57.100 the same time through the holy spirit and it's usually described as uh fiore having a concept of
00:19:03.540 the um three ages the age of the the father the son and the holy spirit um it i guess the way he
00:19:12.460 would describe it and i learned this from chilton is that it's sort of three states in the sense
00:19:18.920 that all three of these things are present at all time um there's sort of two ages of the old
00:19:27.100 testament and the new but the these states are present at all time but you can in fact see uh
00:19:34.300 a predominance of one state over the other so the old testament is the predominance of the father
00:19:41.400 It's the time of law. It's a bloodier time. The thousand-year period that Joachim came at the end
00:19:51.100 of was the period of grace after Christ. And eventually, we'll see the predominance of the
00:20:00.920 Holy Spirit. So in a way, God is dead. He died on the cross for our sins. And there's going to be a
00:20:09.560 new period of grace. Fiori was not, like Martin Luther, at least at the end of his life, a
00:20:16.080 rabid anti-Semite or anything like that. He was looking forward to the conversion of all Jews
00:20:22.020 and the conversion of every single being on this planet. And earth would become a giant monastery. 0.57
00:20:30.640 There would still be the presence of law and the Father. There'd still be the presence of Jesus
00:20:35.820 and the the sun obviously uh but it would be a it would be a holy spirit age or or state
00:20:43.540 it's important distinction and so we would live in a monastery and engage in love and charity
00:20:50.420 uh basically uh until the end i mean i don't know enough about marx to know if marx read
00:20:58.080 uh fiore uh you could still trace a genealogy to someone like marx obviously hegel too
00:21:05.920 um and uh so it's i i think i think nietzsche was extremely insightful when he said that
00:21:14.300 you know god is dead but we've made we've made holy history or our time and i i think you can
00:21:23.640 even see this on the left like they're they're atheist in a way they don't quite believe the
00:21:29.700 history but they believe in god and spirit and that's really what joaquin was getting at so i'm
00:21:36.500 just using this example because it's relevant i mean someone who's like a hipster zoran mamdami
00:21:42.180 voter if you ask them like put a gun to their head and say do you think christ you know rose
00:21:48.960 from the dead they'd probably be like uh no not exactly we don't have enough historical evidence
00:21:53.800 for that uh but you know the the spirit of rebirth and uh coming to save the world and
00:22:00.440 bringing about a greater state of humanity like yeah i believe in that bro um that's how they
00:22:06.860 would think of this thing they are christians the left are a bunch of christians and uh the right
00:22:15.740 are just sort of like still living in the age of the father or something. It's like law. Don't be
00:22:21.800 gay. And that's basically how they understand the Bible, the Matt Walsh Testament of don't be gay. 0.99
00:22:29.900 And the liberals and leftists have sort of fully understood the Bible where it's okay to be gay,
00:22:37.220 man, but it's okay to be straight too. It's just about love. That's what it is. I mean, I'm giving
00:22:43.480 simplistic kind of ridiculous examples but like this is the thought process we're going to one
00:22:50.280 day live in a in manhattan a a giant monastery of all the world's people just sharing everything
00:22:58.440 getting along law would still be present but uh charity would be predominant and so it is a um
00:23:08.900 well i'll just be honest it's fucking wrong it's entirely i hate this but this is it i mean we've 0.51
00:23:17.520 been living in the age of defiore for a thousand years actually you could say 0.91