SHNEAKO - Professor Jiang： Fame Is A Curse

00:00:00.000 You know, I saw a lot of your fans were saying that you were thinking about stepping back.

00:00:05.280 I saw you posted something on Substack.

00:00:07.580 Has it been overwhelming?

00:00:08.720 So you've had a major rise, I think, obviously, because you got so much of this right.

00:00:13.680 But personally, how are things for you?

00:00:16.020 I was going to reach out and email you, but I didn't.

00:00:20.660 Maybe I should have.

00:00:23.660 Right.

00:00:24.060 Yeah, so March was really hard because when the war started February 28th, I couldn't sleep for two weeks because I was so anxious and afraid.

00:00:36.040 You know, I have three kids, and I'm just worried about the world that they will inherit.

00:00:41.760 And I was just following the news for two weeks straight, and my mind was like a beehive.

00:00:48.960 And there were also some attacks against me.

00:00:52.340 there was clearly a smear campaign that was coordinated because

00:00:55.120 certain influencers were using the same talking points and using the same

00:00:58.780 um um it seemed as though they got the same memo basically but i really didn't mind that i was

00:01:05.160 more concerned about like where this war might go and where this might might lead it was making me

00:01:10.340 very anxious and um and then you know a lot of people reached out um and i was overwhelmed with

00:01:18.420 media requests and i had to turn a lot down just because because i had just so many commitments i

00:01:24.980 wanted to like maintain teaching my class and i reached a point where i actually don't want to do

00:01:32.260 this i don't want to be the center of a storm i don't want to be the center of attention like what

00:01:36.020 i specialize in is doing deep analysis um and trying to tie current events to historical um

00:01:45.620 patterns and try to um offer some insight and clarity as to how the future might reveal itself

00:01:53.060 and that's something i've been doing for the past two years and something i really enjoyed doing

00:01:56.740 and in the beginning you know when i was when i was when i only had like you know 20 000 fans

00:02:02.340 um it was really rewarding was very edifying um everyone was really happy to have found me

00:02:07.860 it seemed that as though it was a really small club and everyone enjoyed being in it but then

00:02:12.740 as you know this past year i became more and more prominent and then in march i sort of blew up um

00:02:19.060 everywhere and that um put me in the eye of the storm and i asked myself the question i asked

00:02:27.860 myself is am i capable of still doing insightful analysis while being a celebrity of some sorts

00:02:38.020 and if the answer is no then i should stop being a celebrity and continue doing uh research and

00:02:44.500 teaching because that's my value to the world that's what i should focus on um and so i was

00:02:50.100 seriously considering just not doing youtube and taking some time off and just trying to clear my

00:02:57.380 head and trying to get some perspective on what's going on because i don't want to be influenced by

00:03:04.980 this attention I don't want to be a player in this game right but you know

00:03:12.380 as things moved on I recognized that the internet it has no attention span you

00:03:18.060 know it you know you and eventually people just shift focus and so and I was

00:03:26.820 able to manage my schedule more properly so I so my plan now is I want to

00:03:33.880 continue teaching until the end of the semester when my contract runs out. And then I want to

00:03:42.040 do more traveling to see more of the world and hopefully do some lectures. Because I talk a lot

00:03:49.360 about geopolitics, but I think it's very important to experience the world. So I've been invited to

00:03:56.360 a conference in Moscow in late June. And I'm really excited about that because I've never

00:04:01.340 been to russia even though i talk a lot about russia i would love to visit japan at some point

00:04:05.900 because i've never actually visited um japan um i i would like to go to europe um and i would like

00:04:13.440 i would like to go back to the united states visit south america so um i really think it's important

00:04:19.580 for me to um do more deep dive research and um i want to continue to do my youtube because i built

00:04:29.800 very strong following and they really enjoy learning from me i want to continue doing my

00:04:34.440 sub stack um at some point i want to switch gears and write a book uh to really systemize game theory

00:04:43.320 um in a way that allows people to start um um thinking in terms of game theory themselves

00:04:51.320 and yeah so right now um i i was in i was in mid-march pretty um anxious pretty depressed

00:05:02.860 with the state of affairs and i i felt that for my mental health and for the sake of my family i

00:05:08.760 should take some time off um but fortunately i've been able to manage a lot of stress uh more

00:05:16.340 effectively and so i like to continue doing what i'm doing but at a much more manageable schedule

00:05:22.820 so basically cut back on media requests podcast interviews and maybe move like scale down the

00:05:31.380 teaching uh before i was uploading like three lectures a week and that uh was pretty unsustainable

00:05:37.520 um so maybe in the future i'll move towards one or two lectures a week so can so continue to

00:05:44.000 update my community continue to educate my community but making sure that it's long-term

00:05:49.140 sustainable i'm happy to hear that i was worried i was and i think i didn't reach out because i'm

00:05:54.520 like okay you haven't figured out there's but it uh i'm sure you saw the attacks and you knew

00:05:59.480 but yeah we still want the lectures three a week that's a lot you know since the war ramped up

00:06:05.580 even uploading a lot and i was really surprised at how much you were able to do because

00:06:09.640 it's recorded it's an you know the average about an hour long an hour lecture so it must be a lot

00:06:15.760 of preparation a lot of notes and you do it in one take no cuts and when i saw that your mic cut

00:06:23.120 off because you know you probably all over the place it was i was worried you were gonna you

00:06:27.520 were gonna quit but that that's good to hear does it feel like you've been at the start of this war

00:06:32.360 in an ideological war or a spiritual war um yeah i mean i i feel as though um there's so much

00:06:43.640 temptation to take advantage of my celebrity right so a lot of people have reached out

00:06:50.280 and said you know they want me to invite me to a lecture um people have invited me to do a podcast

00:06:56.140 and they'll pay for my immediate appearance um there are a lot of people in china who've reached

00:07:01.800 out and they want to um make me famous in china basically i'm not famous in china i'm actually

00:07:08.160 more famous it's really strange but i'm actually more from the united states and i i'm in china i

00:07:12.400 purposely keep a low profile so i think my priority is um i can't get distracted by any of this like

00:07:20.440 i'm very i've been very clear uh for the longest time these past few years what my mission is my

00:07:25.840 My mission is to raise my children and to be good people, and to be a good role model

00:07:31.780 to them.

00:07:34.020 My mission is to educate people to the best of my ability.

00:07:38.240 If you want to get educated, I want to provide the best education to you possible, and my

00:07:43.800 mission is to constantly learn about the world, to constantly maintain my curiosity, maintain

00:07:51.240 objectivity and try to provide enlightenment uh to human humanity okay so those are my three major

00:07:58.440 missions and this is something that i set out for myself a long time ago when i started to have

00:08:02.840 children um and i want to maintain my my mission so you know i mean i'm getting millions of views

00:08:11.800 on youtube and you know i mean i could easily monetize it and retire a millionaire in a few

00:08:17.240 years right um but i don't want to do that i want to keep myself lean and hungry i i want to provide

00:08:24.600 restraints on myself i i don't want to make life easy for myself i mean like i i mean i i want to

00:08:31.480 maintain a very disciplined uh rigorous lifestyle where i'm forcing myself to be to be the best i

00:08:37.720 can be um so but you know at the same time it's always like well you know i mean you have three

00:08:44.840 kids and you get famous in china then they can go to the best schools everyone will be nice to them

00:08:51.800 and they have nothing to worry about for the rest of their lives and honestly if i were younger

00:08:58.440 you know if i'm in my 20s and 30s i would easily give in to all this temptation but i've reached

00:09:03.960 a point in my life where um i don't actually care anymore i don't really don't care about the wealth

00:09:11.800 or the status or the power or the fame i just know who i am and i know what i want to do and

00:09:20.280 i'm very focused on achieving my my mission so yeah there is temptation um it is a spiritual war

00:09:28.280 but i feel i feel as though i'm very fortunate in that i've reached an age where i can handle

00:09:34.520 um all this temptation pretty well and i've reached an age where i have the maturity

00:09:40.200 and the perspective and experience to know what matters and what is right you were i mean you got

00:09:47.940 it right uh all the media appearances that you've been on you were on the tucker show you were on

00:09:52.960 piers morgan and on the last appearance you had on my stream you mentioned how you thought the

00:09:58.240 patrick bet david show was going to be a setup you got it spot on they recently posted a podcast

00:10:03.580 and a video where they were criticizing and they were saying that you were a fraud because of that

00:10:08.840 that clip obviously well that was showed that you predicted that attack just like you predicted the

00:10:15.140 attacks on iran so were you wait so so so so um i will be on a show tomorrow i i've agreed to go on

00:10:26.540 the show because i feel it's important to engage different perspectives yeah um so i was on the

00:10:32.900 medi has seen show um and you know he spent an hour sorry he spent half an hour with me

00:10:38.820 i think 10 minutes of it was he was just lobbying um uh criticism accusations against me and um it

00:10:46.980 was not a pleasant experience i mean he's he's very aggressive and he's very provocative um but

00:10:53.220 i felt that for my audience it was good to see me in in in this sort of situation it's it's good that

00:10:59.860 i'm not in a bubble and i'm willing to hear different perspectives and so i i think it's

00:11:04.660 important for me to confront my critics and to provide my um side of the story i i you know we

00:11:12.180 talked about this last time but i think the most important thing is to be open-minded and to engage

00:11:16.340 people in good faith debate some people may not may not have good faith but i think it's very

00:11:21.060 important to set the principle of it's really important to engage in debate just for your own

00:11:26.100 self-learning remember last time we spoke you were saying that a lot of these debates

00:11:31.460 or loud panels can be a waste of time and it's better to sit down with somebody you disagree with

00:11:36.340 and have a contentious conversation but how do you differentiate those loud debates between

00:11:43.300 a an exchange of ideas right so i mean um i think i think a very quick limits test is how long is

00:11:50.180 it going to be if it's 10 minutes you know they're looking for sound bites because i've been on tv

00:11:54.260 before and i i know what tv is like they're looking for you know the gotcha moment um but so

00:11:59.780 david um patrick that david to his credit has given me two hours so it should be a two-hour

00:12:05.620 conversation um and so i think i have enough time to elaborate on certain points that i was not able

00:12:12.260 to elaborate on say maybe pierce morgan because i was 15 minutes right um and the other thing is

00:12:18.580 how many people are in this debate right so you want pierce morgan the panel there's like three

00:12:22.420 or four people they're all shutting over one another and i don't really enjoy that sort of

00:12:26.940 thing um but i think with um patrick bed david it'll be me and and his people so i would love

00:12:34.300 to see that i mean they have been pushing the war quite a bit i saw recently i don't know if

00:12:39.080 patrick was on it but they had several of the other co-hosts they're essentially saying that

00:12:43.520 they want to keep on escalating this conflict which you've spelled out in your lectures was

00:12:48.020 it's just going to be a disaster. I like what Joe Kent said. He said that they should retreat

00:12:52.780 and they should try to negotiate and work with Iran to reopen the Strait of Hormuz.

00:12:56.780 There's no other opportunity. It seems like they're getting closer to a ground troop invasion.

00:13:01.760 So if they keep making this mistake and listening to people like, I don't know if you know,

00:13:05.940 Loomer, she's saying that she wants the United States to bomb all the mosques in Iran. I'm not

00:13:12.300 even exaggerating to bomb their power plants. It seems like that was just hit and they are,

00:13:16.920 Iran's refusing to negotiate at all because they hit the power plants. 0.66

00:13:21.080 And a lot of this is straight up war crime.

00:13:23.380 It doesn't even seem like war crime has a real meaning anymore because they are not

00:13:27.960 going to face pressure from the Geneva Convention, from the United Nations.

00:13:31.140 They just get away with it.

00:13:34.060 Yeah.

00:13:34.660 Yeah.

00:13:35.220 No, I think Joe Kennedy is absolutely right. 1.00

00:13:37.460 If the United States were to just stop this war and retreat, Iran would be perfectly happy

00:13:46.220 to go to the negotiating table because what people forget is that there are different factions

00:13:52.560 within Iran as well. There are many factions who don't want this war to continue because obviously

00:13:59.040 this will be devastating for the civilians and it's going to take years and years to build back

00:14:06.340 a lot of infrastructure. So if the United States were to retreat today and close their Middle East

00:14:12.200 basis iran would be pretty happy to negotiate a deal with the united states where both would

00:14:19.160 be responsible for the general who moves and they would share tolls and tariffs i guarantee you

00:14:24.760 in the united states were to say to iran we're leaving let's make a deal that benefits both of

00:14:29.400 us iran would be like absolutely and you know what iran would be like you know what if you want to

00:14:34.600 come and invest in our country and if um um you want us to join the usd system uh if you want us 0.67

00:14:41.880 buy us treasuries we'd be happy to do so you know just strike a deal like like china did with uh

00:14:47.560 china in the 90s right where china was given most favorite nation uh trading status you had tons

00:14:54.920 of american investment and expertise flowing into the country and in return china started to buy a

00:15:00.200 lot of us treasuries you're going to be more than happy to make this deal to be ecstatic about making

00:15:05.320 this deal so the big question is why not make this deal it's mutually beneficial it's win-win

00:15:14.520 it would bring peace to the world the art of the deal but the heart of the deal yes we know

00:15:20.600 i mean look if you if you watch uh predictive history you you could see that that's not going

00:15:25.560 going to happen. This is the effect of hubris. I mean, just look what Trump's saying. I mean,

00:15:30.660 this morning, that's what he should do. That's obviously the only outcome. It's going to be a

00:15:35.440 disaster. He is completely losing his mind. I don't know if you think that he has some cognitive

00:15:42.460 issues going on. It seems like a senile old person. It's a straight up disaster. And since

00:15:49.240 the last time I spoke to you, Pam Bondi has now been fired. They're saying that she's going to 0.78

00:15:55.440 be repositioned in the private sector. She's no longer attorney general. Hegseth was questioned 0.86

00:15:59.680 and pressed for firing eight top generals within the military. It seems like, although, I mean,

00:16:06.140 they've been declaring victory for four weeks. I don't know what type of victorious war this is.

00:16:11.460 If nothing was accomplished besides killing civilians, the Strait of Hormuzes closed,

00:16:16.420 our economy is up, oil's up. Everything that you have laid out in your lectures has come true. 1.00

00:16:22.760 And this is probably going to keep being the disaster that it is. 0.73

00:16:27.780 In your last, in the Pax Judaica Rising lecture, you were talking about how this is probably going to be the decline of the American empire.

00:16:36.420 Do you still hold that position? 0.98

00:16:38.780 Yeah, I absolutely do.

00:16:40.500 I think this is the end of the American empire.

00:16:42.640 The thing about war that people don't appreciate, because it's been a long time since we fought a real war, is that war makes people crazy, right?

00:16:51.000 It's like if you're in a fight, and maybe you didn't mean to get in a fight, and maybe in the beginning, the fight was over the pittiest things.

00:17:03.980 And the observers think, oh, well, let's argue and push each other and then punch each other, but then this thing will stop.

00:17:11.120 But once you get in a fight, the adrenaline takes over, right?

00:17:14.360 And you just want to win no matter what.

00:17:17.260 And you can do anything to win.

00:17:21.000 So what's happening is that they make the military.

00:17:26.520 Maybe they were not in for this war, but now that they're in this war, they want to win this war at all costs. 0.70

00:17:35.180 And you look at a guy like Peter Hexap, whenever he does a press conference, I swear to God, it's almost like he talks war as though he's having an orgasm. 0.65

00:17:47.680 orgasm i mean do you get that impression where like he just loves this right yeah and he says 0.77

00:17:53.200 like negotiating with bombs it's like he's climaxing yeah like like it's it's these people are

00:17:59.060 it's these people are insane and i think that's what war does to people you know you go to world

00:18:03.720 one where you know for years they were throwing millions of people to the devs in the trenches 0.61

00:18:09.000 they were ordering millions of men um to go run into machine gun fire and you and then you're

00:18:17.640 You're like, why would they do that?

00:18:20.680 That's irrational.

00:18:21.840 But you have to understand, war makes people crazy.

00:18:24.880 So as this thing progresses, you're going to see more craziness, more madness on the part of Trump and Hexiav.

00:18:32.660 I mean, Hexiav loves this thing.

00:18:34.800 And then Trump doesn't want to lose face, right? 0.96

00:18:37.480 He fears, I mean, the thing he fears most is humiliation, being called a clown, being called incompetent. 0.97

00:18:45.020 He's a very insecure man. 0.94

00:18:46.180 So I think that they're definitely going to bomb power plants.

00:18:52.100 And they are going to definitely bomb desolation plants.

00:18:56.420 And they're definitely going to send ground troops.

00:18:57.860 This thing will just escalate and escalate.

00:19:00.120 And the problem is that as this becomes much more crazy, as this becomes much more mad,

00:19:07.620 the American people will become much more desensitized to this madness.

00:19:12.240 and eventually things become much more normalized

00:19:15.200 until America finds itself in total war

00:19:17.700 and that's the real fear.

00:19:42.240 Thank you.

SHNEAKO - April 06, 2026

Professor Jiang： Fame Is A Curse

Episode Stats

Summary

Transcript