In this episode of the Xenosystems series, we continue our discussion of Nick Land's work on the concept of the IQ Shredder. In this episode, we discuss how cities create IQ Shredders, and how they change the way that civilizations function.
00:00:33.760We're going to be jumping back into the series on Nick Land and his thought.
00:00:38.940Today we're going to be looking at a subject that is not new to Nick Land.
00:00:42.800He's not actually the originator of the idea.
00:00:45.460But he does have a very nice summary of kind of the concepts and his thoughts on it here.
00:00:50.360We're going to be talking about IQ Shredders.
00:00:52.440We're going to be talking about the phenomenon of cities.
00:00:55.040What they end up doing to civilizations.
00:00:57.260How civilizations that concentrate their talent inside cities change the way that they function.
00:01:04.500And why kind of this current modern iteration of this phenomenon might lead to some very interesting and different results that society is going to have to overcome in the long run.
00:01:15.740But before we do all that, guys, let's go ahead and hear from today's sponsor.
00:01:19.880So obviously you want to take control of the frame.
00:01:23.220You want to take control of the debate.
00:01:25.100But you also want to take control of your health.
00:01:27.840Which is why today I need to discuss a pressing issue with you.
00:01:31.540Which is the FDA's attempt to control a powerful health supplement called NMN.
00:01:35.880This controversy surrounding NMN highlights how certain forces seek to manipulate the market and limit consumer access to beneficial products.
00:01:45.480And with the sell of NMN possibly coming to an abrupt halt at any time, it's crucial to act quickly.
00:01:51.900The reality is that centralized control over health products can lead to a lack of choice and innovation for consumers.
00:01:58.460The FDA's action to potentially reclassify NMN as a drug instead of a supplement only serves the interests of big pharmaceutical companies while leaving consumers out in the cold.
00:02:09.900The FDA is attempting to change the status of NMN supplements to be classified as a drug, which would allow pharmaceutical companies to control it.
00:02:18.260The move isn't based on the efficacy or safety of NMN, but is aimed at cornering the market and taking the supplement away from you, the consumer.
00:02:25.980And with the sale of NMN potentially stopping at any moment, now is the time to secure your supply.
00:02:32.440NMN, or nicotinamide mononucleotide, is a precursor to NAD+, which has been shown to provide numerous health benefits such as improving energy, weight management, endurance, strength, and even anti-aging.
00:02:46.260By potentially reclassifying NMN as a drug, the FDA is restricting access to a supplement that could significantly improve people's lives.
00:02:54.660Despite the controversy, you still have an opportunity to take advantage of Black Forest's NMN supplement.
00:03:00.320I just got this in, guys, and I'm looking forward to the boost in energy levels, mental clarity, and overall well-being.
00:03:06.760Everybody says once you start taking this supplement, you'll wonder how you ever manage without it.
00:03:11.700With the sale of NMN potentially coming to an end due to the FDA's actions, now is the time to act.
00:03:17.620Black Forest's NMN is available for purchase, and you can even get a 10% discount using the code ORIN at BlackForestSupplements.com slash ORIN.
00:03:27.380So stand up for your right to access beneficial health products and fight back against those who seek to limit your choices.
00:03:33.580Make sure to check out the link in the description below and use that promo code I just mentioned to get your discount.
00:03:39.560All right, guys, so let's go ahead and get started looking at Nick Land's work here with the IQ Shredder.
00:03:47.000Now, like I said, this concept is not original to him.
00:03:50.380It's actually original to another very important kind of writer and blogger for neo-reactionary thought who goes by the pen name of Spandrel.
00:04:00.920He was one of the original people who kind of came up with this idea.
00:04:05.160And it's so often the case when we look at some of Nick Land's work, he's often already in the process of a conversation.
00:04:12.240He's often like, you know, when we look at the Dark Enlightenment, he's really already read Yarvan.
00:04:18.760He's talking about his ideas and exploring them in more detail, kind of applying his own thought, his own kind of trained philosophy to the thoughts of Yarvan.
00:04:29.460This is a part of his Xenosystems series, but it is really a fragment that is in the context of kind of an ongoing discussion on the topic.
00:04:40.980So I'll be filling some of that back in.
00:04:43.240Now, before we get started, I want to talk a little bit about cities, right?
00:05:02.640It's not just somebody like Nick Land or Spandrel.
00:05:05.000You don't have to go to kind of out there, neo-reactionary authors to kind of look at this concept.
00:05:10.580You could read somebody like Christopher Lash in The Revolt of the Elites, or you could look at somebody like Charles Murray in Coming Apart.
00:05:17.800And they talk about this phenomenon of kind of gleaning the social capital away from the hinterlands and gathering it into centers of population.
00:05:28.920So, for instance, what does everybody need to do right now to kind of raise their social level, climb the social ladder, and improve their chances of getting a better job?
00:06:10.260And even the larger towns that have an okay one, they're not very prestigious.
00:06:14.740If you want to get a really good job, if you want to make big connections, which is probably the more important part of college, then you need to go ahead and go to these bigger schools that are in these population centers.
00:06:28.840Well, you have to take what is more or less an IQ test, right?
00:06:32.040You have to take SATs, you have to take ACTs, you have to take these tests that go ahead and skim kind of the top cognitive population from any given area.
00:06:45.600Well, a lot of the people, you know, if you had a more regional society, many people from kind of the lower or middle classes who kind of broke through and had a better IQ would have grown up in those areas, they would have stayed in those towns, and they might have been leaders in those towns.
00:07:02.020They might have had, you know, they might have started nice, good businesses, there might have been elected mayor, or they might have, you know, done something to better their community.
00:07:10.620They would have been high-functioning members inside their class, inside their community, right?
00:07:28.940Oh, that means somebody who is from the town in which the university is, but is not part of the university.
00:07:36.540And they're usually looked down on because they were not selected by this kind of class selection machine, this IQ selection machine, and drawn in.
00:07:46.120They're just kind of the local stock, right?
00:07:48.540So maybe they don't belong here in the sense that even though it's their town, right, that it's even though it's literally the place they live, they don't belong in your sphere of kind of highly selected people.
00:08:01.500And so what happens with these colleges?
00:08:05.360Well, they suck talent out of all these different areas, and they concentrate it in these usually more urban areas, these more populated areas.
00:08:14.760So now these people who would have been leaders in their hometown, they would have been businessmen, they would have been politicians, they would have been, you know, valuable members of the church, they would have solved community problems.
00:08:26.520They could have elevated kind of the level of their class, the level of their town.
00:08:36.760They've been selected out by these kind of IQ selection machines that combs through our society and pulls out all the most promising people.
00:08:47.740And it picks those people up and it places them into these cities, right?
00:08:52.000Now, Charles Murray, in his book, Coming Apart, warns about this cognitive selection because for him, it actually creates a scenario where there's too big of a cognitive gap.
00:09:03.560See, further back in human history, when we didn't have a bunch of machines and we didn't have a bunch of mass production, we didn't have a lot of things to do our work for us.
00:09:14.020Intelligence was important, but it wasn't the only important skill, you know, your skill in combat, your brute strength.
00:09:22.120There are many things that could have been necessary to kind of survival of the community, to your personal survival, to your family survival, these kind of things that weren't IQ, right?
00:09:32.720But now that we have moved away from much of that, now that we've replaced much of that kind of labor, that muscle power, even that combat with machines and automation, these kind of things, mass production, really IQ becomes kind of the most important thing.
00:09:51.220And so now all of these people who are being selected for IQ are being pulled out of these areas to which they were born, where they could have bettered, and instead they're being concentrated here.
00:10:02.400And for Murray, that's a problem because that means that the people with the highest IQ, instead of, say, marrying someone in their hometown and kind of raising the general level, will instead move into these areas.
00:10:16.380They will only date and marry each other, and that means that you will continually get higher and higher IQ children from those mating groups, but they will be more and more concentrated inside a particular class, inside particular geographic regions.
00:10:32.260And so for Murray, that's a huge problem because as the value of IQ intensifies, as your society becomes more and more dependent on high IQ jobs, where that becomes the only thing that is valued in many positions, the only thing that's rewarded, you are concentrating IQ in one class or one geographic area, and you're denying it to all the others.
00:10:56.680And so for Charles Murray, that was his big concern, and that's going to play in somewhat to what we're talking about here, though Land will have a very different opinion on that and a different concern.
00:11:08.000Of course, this is also true of kind of the globalist perspective as well, right?
00:11:15.220A lot of people, you hear this all the time from conservatives that are still trying to do some kind of midpoint on immigration, and they'll say things like, well, we only want the best immigrants, right?
00:11:25.840We should have a selective system, we should have a point system, we should only take the best people to fill jobs that we can't fill otherwise, and there's a whole bunch of reasons that's wrong.
00:11:38.740I need to do really a series on immigration in general.
00:11:43.080I'll probably do that here in the not-so-distant future.
00:11:46.120But one of the reasons that that's a problem is that it brain drains all these other countries, right?
00:11:53.180I remember distinctly, my buddy was in the military, and he was serving in Afghanistan, of course, during that war, and he's talking to his translator.
00:12:01.360And his translator is telling him about all these nice families that used to live there and how there used to be people who are doctors and stuff.
00:12:08.440And he says, well, what happened to him?
00:12:13.000Why is it all kind of this backwater stuff?
00:12:15.380And the guy says, well, because anybody of quality left decades ago, right?
00:12:19.180Like, if you could get out, you did get out.
00:12:21.600And so all the people that could have bettered Afghanistan, that could have had a possibility of being competent leaders and providing community support and increasing the quality of life, they're all gone, right?
00:12:35.960And so not only are you taking kind of the best and the brightest from your region, regions inside your nation, and you're centralizing them inside these cities, but if you globalize, if you have this kind of open borders initiative, or even if you have a very selective process that only brings in people of a certain productivity, intelligence level, wealth, whatever,
00:13:01.000even if you have that, you are sucking those people away from the places they live.
00:13:07.460You're denying the places they live the highest quality people who would be most likely to provide competent leadership, bring their communities to better places, raise the intelligence level, build infrastructure, found companies, all of these things.
00:13:24.520They're all gone because they all ran away to these better places where they concentrate all these IQ capable, you know, high IQ capable people, right?
00:13:35.740And so this is a problem that happens all the time.
00:13:39.200To be really clear, and this is going to be one of the tensions in this essay once we get into it, is that the question is, is this a one-time problem we're facing right now?
00:13:49.060Is this a problem specifically of modernity?
00:13:52.000Or is this a problem of kind of wider cultures?
00:13:55.220Is this a cycle of history that civilizations go through as they kind of mature?
00:14:01.100I think if you are, if you're familiar with me, you know, I'm a little bit of a cyclical history guy.
00:14:07.360And I think that these are cycles that we go through.
00:14:10.220I think we can see this, you know, the cycle of history, pulling people off of their land into these cities, kind of eating, chewing them up, spitting them out and causing a very particular phenomenon.
00:14:23.800In fact, Oswald Spengler, in Decline of the West, goes into this in great detail, explaining kind of why the metropolis, the giant metropolis, we think of that as like the height of the civilization when it builds this, you know, the great Roman city or New York or something like that, Hong Kong.
00:14:41.040And that's like the height of the civilization.
00:14:44.500But for Spengler, that's actually like the downslide of the civilization that's going to lead to the death of civilization because you're taking all of your people of competence.
00:15:34.760He's in a dialogue with some of the other neo reactionary kind of thinkers of the day.
00:15:41.140So when we get into this, remember that this this is a dialogue that's happening here.
00:15:44.820This is just something that he kind of wrote spontaneously.
00:15:47.280There are all kinds of anti tech com arguments that impress people who don't like techno commercialism.
00:15:56.580Anything appealing to a feudal sensibility with low tolerance for chaos and instability and a reverence for traditional hierarchies and modes of life will do.
00:16:07.320That's a little bit of inside baseball.
00:16:08.900So let me explain what he's talking about here.
00:16:10.520So in this time and, you know, still today, for those who are reactionaries, who who aren't just conservative, but kind of reject many, you know, many tenets of what people call progress.
00:16:27.420There is there's a little bit of a disagreement.
00:16:30.900Right. There's a couple of different factions.
00:16:32.660People will just say neo reactionaries or reactionaries as if it's all one thing.
00:16:37.240But it's not that they kind of all have a general disagreement with kind of the current system, but they don't all have the same goals, the same values, those kind of things.
00:16:47.500One of the factions is the techno commercialist.
00:17:05.560This is why Land is called an accelerationist in this sense, because he thinks that we just need to go faster to kind of to reach an escape velocity and get away from the problems of kind of what might be seen as, you know, human cyclical history.
00:17:19.760There are others who are more of a I want to return to a simpler time.
00:17:27.020Right. I want to return to natural hierarchies.
00:17:31.700I want to I want to get rid of many of the things that I see as a problem with kind of the modern world and return to different forms of social organization that were more popular in the past.
00:17:41.900And what he's saying here is that there, you know, that there are a lot of arguments for kind of against the techno commercial side by kind of the more traditional side.
00:17:55.260They'll have a lot of problems with what's going on.
00:17:58.320And he dismisses some of them because they just don't share the same goals.
00:18:01.840But as he's going to say here, he's going to say this one, the IQ shredder problem is a real one.
00:18:07.740And if you're a techno commercialist, if you're somebody who embraces this kind of technological acceleration and thinking that the technology in the future will solve this problem, then you need to take this one seriously.
00:18:17.680Because while some of the other arguments against your position might just be because they share different values, this one really attacks kind of the heart of of the techno commercialist option.
00:18:29.600And so he's going to say that this is something we need to pay attention.
00:18:34.620And here's where he's going to say it.
00:18:36.140I kind of skipped ahead a little bit, but here he says it.
00:18:38.360There's one argument, however, that stands apart from the rest due to its complete independence from controversial moral or aesthetic preferences.
00:18:46.260Or in other words, due to its eminence, it does not seek to persuade the proponents of hyper capitalist social arrangement to value other things, but only points out coldly and actually that such arguments are demonstrably self subverting at the biological level.
00:19:06.260He's saying, again, there might be some disagreements from people who prefer tradition and those who prefer this kind of technological acceleration option.
00:19:19.340This one is not just, well, we value this part of humanity or spirituality, religion, this kind of thing, and you value advancement technology.
00:19:29.780So we just have different values and those things can't be resolved.
00:19:33.740He's saying that's not the case when it comes to the IQ shredder.
00:19:37.000This is a very real problem that strikes at the very heart of techno commercial ideas.
00:19:41.280Ideas, for anybody who's not invested in all this lingo, an easy way to just think about it is this, is can technology actually solve this problem, right?
00:19:51.020Like, like, is this a problem of eternal problem of human organization tied to the human condition?
00:19:57.560Or can technology actually outrun the societal fault?
00:20:03.140And that's what he's going to be investigating here today.
00:20:06.440Is the IQ shredder an inevitability that will impact everyone's society?
00:20:12.820Or is this something that technology can outrun?
00:20:15.840It does not seek to persuade, or I did that part, sorry.
00:20:20.800The most devastating formulation of the argument, and one that has given, was given its convenient name, was presented by Spandrel in March 2013.
00:21:52.520Again, it's a very nice place to live as long as you understand that there are very serious restrictions on kind of how you can live there, which is probably why it's a nice place to live.
00:22:20.380First, if you're going to create a civilization like this, it needs to be attractive to talented and competent people, right?
00:22:27.860You have to be attracting a certain type of person to concentrate IQ in a place like this.
00:22:33.940Now, if you have been paying attention to the series, you might have come across the one where me and Prudentialist talk about patchwork, which is Curtis Yarvin's system of basically a million little Singapores.
00:22:50.200Nick Land was a big fan of this, right?
00:22:51.860He that's one of the reasons he latched on to this, because he felt like that was a very good solution to the many of the problems he was facing.
00:22:59.040And so in that argument, you know, you kind of have these little patches and each one governs itself and people can leave anytime they want.
00:24:37.700So it needs to have an economic system that is very particularly good at doing this.
00:24:42.500So it's going to be highly capitalistic.
00:24:44.260It's going to have this kind of evolutionary aspect to it where it's burning away what doesn't work and it's selecting for what works and it extracts it at kind of the highest level of efficiency possible.
00:24:56.640And four, it is effectively specialized within a wider commercial network to which it provides valuable goods and services and from which it draws economic and demographic resources.
00:26:08.980There's a serious issue with people in metropolitan areas having children.
00:26:14.140They, you know, people, high IQ people who are very driven by their jobs, who are obsessed with production and focusing on their jobs, they tend not to have kids.
00:28:05.980In sum, it skims the human genetic stock regionally and even globally, in large part due to the exceptional opportunity it provides and for the conversion of bioprivileged human capital into economic value.
00:28:20.500So more or less a restatement of what I was saying there, right?
00:28:23.960That it skims through the entire region or even the globe.
00:28:28.220It pulls people in because it's got all these amenities.
00:28:54.400But it's because these large cities can offer rewards that a local city can't.
00:28:59.180If you're a high IQ person and you're living in the middle of nowhere in some kind of rural area, then the best you can do is like be the mayor of the rural area.
00:29:10.060Which, you know, is better than not being that.
00:29:12.480But if you're a really high IQ person, you might be able to run a Fortune 500 company or lead a nation or, you know, run a military or be an advanced researcher at a high powered, you know, or be a high powered attorney in some law firm somewhere.
00:29:29.820Like there's a lot of things where you can make a bunch of money and have a lot of amenities and live a live the life of a true elite, a lush elite, right?
00:29:37.420You can do all of these things if you move to a city, but you can't do that if you stay in your region.
00:29:43.820So this has always been something that humans do.
00:29:46.300They move for opportunity, especially if they're kind of excuse me, if they're gifted kind of beyond their station, beyond, you know, the kind of the current area they can live in.
00:29:56.580But the problem is that we're going to get this on a on a much more massive scale, right?
00:30:01.760It's not just going to be you moving from kind of your village to the big town that's 100 miles away.
00:30:08.520We're talking about like going across the world to Singapore, right?
00:30:12.140So this is a much higher kind of concentration and a much wider net that it's throwing to cast and skim kind of all the best and Bryce and push them into the IQ shredder.
00:30:23.560So from a strictly from a strictly capitalistic perspective, genetic quality is comparatively wasted anywhere else.
00:30:34.300Consequently, spontaneous current currents and economic incentives suck in talent to optimize its exploitation.
00:30:42.460So basically saying if you're only looking at it from like the viewpoint of capitalism, if you're only looking at it from the viewpoint of kind of this production, then there's this then kind of human capital is wasted anywhere else.
00:30:59.440If you're a brilliant person, then, yeah, it's great that you might be sitting in the middle of, I don't know, Iowa and making sure that like your town has better water and, you know, has a better fire department.
00:31:13.880Like it's nice that you're leading them over there, but if you could have been curing cancer somewhere, if you could have been making trillions of dollars, if you could have been doing something that would have been vastly increased income and productivity and everything, then in the purely capitalist perspective, you're wasted where you are.
00:31:35.680Now, if you're not purely interested in just efficiency, if you're not just an efficiency brain, if you're not just a hyper rationalist, then you might care more about your city, your town, your family, your community, your people, then you care about the abstract, you know, efficiency of Singapore.
00:31:56.880So you don't care. You stay in your hometown. Right. But he's saying from a purely capitalistic perspective, that the only thing you're thinking about, then your efforts are kind of wasted there because you're not you're not factoring in like, well, these are my people.
00:32:10.460This is this is my tradition. This is my homeland. And you're only thinking about the purely mercenary capitalistic efficiency of the whole thing.
00:32:17.800Then you're wasted there and you would be more efficient and more useful being concentrated in a city somewhere.
00:32:23.640Now, he's going to acknowledge this. The solution is not for everybody. Right.
00:32:28.880If you think this sounds simply horrific, this argument is not for you. If you you don't need it.
00:32:34.860If, on the other hand, it conjures up a vision of terrestrial paradise, as it does for the magnetized migrants, it draws in.
00:32:41.840Then you need to follow it very carefully. So what's he saying there? He's saying, look, I get this argument is not going to be for everybody.
00:32:47.720If you're a traditional person, if you're somebody who is tied to your religion, if you're tied to your homeland, you're tied to your family, your tradition, if you value those things more, then this argument is not going to make any sense to you.
00:33:01.960You're not going to care. Right. It doesn't matter. So so don't worry about this.
00:33:05.460He's focused on people with his particular goal, which is kind of this focus on accelerating kind of technological achievement and kind of escaping what he sees as a problem of kind of human existence.
00:33:22.260Right. So he says, look, a lot of people who get drawn to these things who want to move to like a Singapore, they don't care about that stuff.
00:33:29.700They're willing to leave their homelands, leave their families, their languages, their cultures, whatever.
00:33:33.800And they're willing to move here because it's kind of a it's kind of a paradise. Right.
00:33:37.900Again, you might not like the way Singapore handles certain things, but it's a much nicer place than most other areas of the world because it specifically does not allow certain people.
00:33:48.940It specifically does not allow certain behaviors. Again, it's executing drug users, those kind of things.
00:33:54.440It doesn't mess around. Right. And so because of that, it produces a very particular outcome.
00:33:59.700That might not be for everybody. That might not be desirable for most people. But if it is desirable, then you need to think for certain people, then you need to think about this problem.
00:34:08.900Right. Because while you might have that paradise now in Singapore, because it has extracted all of these high IQ people, it is also shredding their IQ.
00:34:18.640Right. It's getting rid of it. It's slowly breaking this down and disposing of it.
00:34:22.500And so there's a there's a shelf life on this. Right. You're burning resources to generate a particular lifestyle, but the lifestyle you're generating, it cannot self-sustain.
00:34:34.120And so this is so the thing he's pointing out is like this is a very serious argument that people who embrace this technological accelerationism need to take seriously.
00:34:45.540It's a real problem that will continue to present itself in the current model that they have.
00:34:50.820And so if you ignore it, you'll just run out of resources to burn IQ wise demographically. Right.
00:34:56.680And you'll end up with an unsustainable future.
00:35:01.780The most advanced models of near reactionary social order on Earth work like this.
00:35:06.880Hong Kong and Singapore, like said, is his examples here.
00:35:09.660Combining resilient ethnic traditions with super dynamic technic economic performance to produce an open yet self-protective, civilized, social, socially tranquil and high growth enclave of outgoing broad spectrum functionality.
00:35:27.240So he's saying you've got these kind of these models that he's looking at.
00:35:31.900You've got the Hong Kongs and the Singapures and have a very specific tradition. Right.
00:35:35.440They're trying to promote a very specific culture. They're very protective of it, but they are open to things like immigration.
00:35:42.520It's not just an ethno state. Right. Like they have a they they are skimming again.
00:35:47.180They have to they have to skim like the this these high IQ IQ people from many different cultures, many different backgrounds all over the world.
00:35:54.720And so he's saying that that does you know, that is a way that they have this set up so that it can continue to kind of produce the outcomes that they're looking for.
00:36:04.540The outcome, as Spandrel explains, is genetic incineration.
00:36:08.620All right. So now we're getting to the IQ shredding part.
00:36:12.860This this little quote here is is a quote from the Spandrel piece.
00:36:16.220I'll go ahead and read it. But for context, basically, he did like a kind of a fake dialogue with the leader of the.
00:36:24.500The kind of the head of Singapore or was the head of being Lee Kuan Yew.
00:36:30.040But let's let's go ahead and jump in here real quick.
00:36:50.020Well, for context, what what the the kind of fake interview with Spandrel there is trying to say that Eclipse there is that Singapore has a very selective system.
00:37:03.620Right. They're they're only picking the best or only picking the brightest.
00:37:06.700They're they're skimming the top off of everybody.
00:37:08.880And so they're they're relying on the fact that as they increase their population through immigration, it's only from the brightest.
00:37:17.800Right. It's only the brightest from Indian, India, from from Western countries, from China.
00:37:23.620They're bringing in only the most talented people. Right.
00:37:26.660But here comes the big question. Right.
00:37:28.640Can you do this forever? And that's that's kind of what he says next.
00:37:31.600How many bright Indians and bright Chinese are there, Harry?
00:37:40.040Well, engage in finance, marketing, rat race and depress their fertility rate down to 0.78, wasting valuable genes just so your property prices don't go down.
00:37:53.480All right. So that so that that's the big thing is getting to here.
00:37:56.120Right. Is that basically Singapore, because it's because of the nature of metropolitan life, the kind of cosmopolitan life, people tend to have fewer children.
00:38:10.020Now, there are many, many reasons for this. Right.
00:38:12.420The first, you know, child care becomes extremely expensive.
00:38:16.120The cost of educating children, like when you get in these larger cities, that the normal schools are garbage.
00:38:21.600So you have to you know, you have to pay more to put people into these into these schools, children into these schools.
00:38:31.900Extra space for children becomes very difficult. Right.
00:38:34.400On top of this, there's also the problem, of course, of just just time.
00:38:40.960Right. When when both adults in kind of a relationship are completely dedicated to their careers, the way that you probably have to be to get into a place like Singapore, then you are selecting individuals who are not going to have time to have children.
00:38:56.040Right. They're not going to be able to care for their own children.
00:38:57.940They're not going to be able to raise their own children.
00:38:59.860They're not going to be able to devote the time.
00:39:01.320It's going to look less and less attractive.
00:39:03.120And this is something that Oswald Spangler talked about.
00:39:05.480I did a video on this if you want to get his thoughts very specifically.
00:39:08.380But Oswald Spangler talked about how once you get to a certain stage in civilizations, people just stop having kids because it becomes less and less attractive.
00:39:19.440Kind of the amusements, the distractions, the cultural and life goals of people become too interesting, too different and too demanding.
00:39:30.460And they kind of drive out the desire to have children. Right.
00:39:34.200And so all of these things kind of take away from the fact that people are going to have children.
00:39:38.380Also, obviously, you have people who are more likely to regularly use things like birth control and reliably use it. Right.
00:39:43.960So they're going to engage in more careful behavior.
00:39:46.340They're going to they're not going to have as many accidental children, those kind of things.
00:39:49.840And so all of these things kind of come together and they kind of make it less likely that people will have kids.
00:39:56.780And so you're you're not you're selecting for high IQ, but you're also ironically selecting for people who are less likely to have more children and pass on that IQ.
00:40:04.900And that brings us to a really interesting question.
00:40:11.080Like do people do civilizations eventually get too smart and too developed to reproduce themselves?
00:40:18.180Right. Is is the reproduction itself a function of a society that is less less developed?
00:40:25.880So this is something, again, that that Oswald Spangler talks a lot about that basically once a society has to ask, will they have children?
00:40:50.580Of course, places like Japan and Korea are famously cratering their birth rates like South Korea is not even going to exist at this point because because the culture there is all about getting into these schools, studying all day.
00:41:04.040Everyone, you know, everyone spends all their time at work or at school, they don't or in these kind of amusements and distractions.
00:41:10.560They don't have kids. They don't form families. Right.
00:41:13.180And so, you know, is there is there such thing as a society that is too high IQ?
00:41:19.120Is there is there part of the human condition that once people get too smart, they become too involved in kind of the Byzantine ins and outs of their culture, all the different things they can pursue as a side project that aren't families?
00:41:34.020Do they eventually just break themselves apart?
00:41:37.540I think the answer to this question is actually yes.
00:41:39.760I'm kind of I'm kind of on team cyclical history here.
00:41:43.300I think this is a natural part of how civilizations are born and die.
00:41:56.320It kind of solidifies itself, make kind of makes its greatest impacts and then kind of slowly withers away over time as kind of the things that it built start consuming more and more of its kind of human capital.
00:42:08.800And the people lose the ability to kind of continue their society.
00:42:13.200So I'm not going to continue with the.
00:42:16.720Oh, I'll read one more paragraph here because the rest is just is just in talking between kind of different different people of that time.
00:42:28.640But let me read one more one more paragraph.
00:42:30.320The most hardcore capitalist response to this is to double down on the anti-human acceleration is this genetic burn rate is obviously.
00:42:39.700So we need to convert the human species into an auto intelligent roboticized capital is as fast as possible before the whole process goes down in flames.
00:42:48.760I don't expect the suggestion to go to be well received in reactionary circles.
00:42:53.200So for people who just like ran screaming for the exit here, what he's saying is very honestly, very radical, right?
00:43:35.420He wants this, uh, the kind of this tradition to continue.
00:43:38.360He wants it to be carried on to something else.
00:43:40.420And so his, uh, his solution is distinctly not human, uh, believe it or not, uh, you know, he, he is down for kind of this terminator future.
00:43:49.640And he says, basically we can't escape this cycle.
00:43:53.480It is, it is, it is very, it's built into kind of the core of humanity that we will go through this over and over again, that this, uh, you know, uh, IQ shredder phenomenon will produce itself.
00:44:04.940That, uh, we will keep getting this concentration of intelligence in cities, uh, and then they, they will kind of slowly but surely burn out, uh, kind of our, our, uh, our civilization because they'll concentrate all of the highest IQ people from other parts of, uh, the region and bring them in and then kind of burn their intelligence on things that don't matter, like financial manipulation and, you know, having the nicest restaurant and that kind of thing.
00:44:30.800And he says, humans are just not going to solve this problem.
00:44:33.660Uh, he doesn't, you know, a lot of people are like, well, you can incentivize smart people to have kids.
00:44:40.040You know, there's a lot of, uh, some of these, uh, Norwegian countries are trying to do this now.
00:44:44.120Scandinavian countries are trying to do this now where they're, uh, uh, you know, pay, trying to pay people to have kids, subsidize people to have kids.
00:44:51.700Uh, Nick Land doesn't even go for that.
00:45:15.840We convert humans into roboticized capital.
00:45:19.320We, we need, basically we need to get people into thinking machines here real quick.
00:45:23.140We need to turn, uh, the things that are human into things that are non-human, uh, so that the genetic, so this kind of genetic burn rate of IQ shredders can be escaped, right?
00:45:33.860We can, we can achieve, uh, uh, escape velocity, uh, and, and, uh, kind of transfer our consciousness, transfer our intelligence into things that will not be subject to this process because it seems like we can't get out of it.
00:45:48.320And like he says at the end, you, even in his kind of, um, more out there reactionary circles, he doesn't, he doesn't think this is going to be popular, right?
00:45:55.360Because it's a very controversial thing to say that the thing to do is to just go ahead and, uh, put the, put the pedal to the floor, accelerate this process and go through this.
00:46:05.460Uh, personally, I am not a fan of that solution.
00:46:09.300I'm pro I'm on team human here, right?
00:46:12.180Uh, uh, so, so I would not agree with land.
00:46:14.580I would be one of these reactionaries that, uh, for whom the suggestion does not work.
00:46:18.460However, I still think it's very important to, to think about this problem because it is a very real process.
00:46:24.240And if we are not on this landian solution, right?
00:46:28.280If we are not, uh, if we are not somebody, uh, who wants to accelerate this, this process and, and find some kind of technological, uh, you know, robotic solution to this problem, then we have to think about it.
00:46:41.480And thinking about it means understanding that this might be a future, uh, a function of our civilization that we have to go through.
00:46:49.640This might be a period in time of our civilization that we have to go through before we make it to the other side.
00:46:54.560But, uh, cultures don't just, you know, completely burn out and die.
00:46:58.200They, they, you know, something new is born, right?
00:47:02.340And so it could be that this is a moment in time that, uh, you know, kind of human, you know, modern humans are going through that they have to reach the other side of and then start again.
00:47:12.800But that could mean that there are very difficult problems.
00:47:15.340And one of the problems could be the fact that we are shredding IQ in these cities.
00:47:19.420We are concentrating IQ in these cities.
00:47:30.680It brings up something that's very, uh, very difficult problem.
00:47:33.960Something that really no one is thinking about that.
00:47:36.500We don't have a lot of people working on.
00:47:38.220Uh, it's, it's a consequence of our lifestyle and of our kind of, uh, current obsession with production, uh, that we don't really grapple with.
00:47:46.620Um, we just kind of say, oh, you know, we'll figure it out.
00:47:49.380And then we kind of just barrel through it.
00:47:50.760And it might be that, that no civilization does have the discipline to address this issue.
00:47:55.480Or maybe we could, maybe we could be the first civilization that's able to do that by making certain sacrifices and think about it a certain way.
00:48:02.220But we can't do that until we're at least looking at the problem.
00:48:06.640Land solution is something I think a lot of people wouldn't like.
00:48:09.300Uh, so if you don't like land solution, it's start time to start thinking about another one, because if you don't, uh, the problem he's talking about is very real and you will keep running into it over and over again.
00:48:44.060I think, um, I think Sargon or perhaps, uh, Scott Mannion, I think is also someone who talks about this to some extent.
00:48:52.080Uh, so yeah, it could be interesting though.
00:48:54.280I think, you know, I think that, uh, while obviously the country's, uh, originally founded, uh, mainly on the Anglo, uh, kind of paradigm, uh, America has very much become its own thing.
00:49:06.360Uh, much to the stress of some people in England, uh, but it, but it is its own character.
00:49:11.860And so while it may be interesting to talk about those roots and, uh, maybe that distinct from a wider European project, um, I think that it's, it's hard to pretend that America, um, did not kind of, uh, turn into its own thing later on.
00:49:26.380So, but that might be worth addressing.
00:49:37.000Florida Henry, I think you said that earlier, but you kind of figured out exactly where we were going, right?
00:49:41.400That, that there is a very real problem that IQ actually seems to be something that selects out for, uh, you know, kind of reproduction.
00:49:50.420Uh, and so, uh, if you are concentrating people into these cities and people are much, much, much less likely to have, uh, children once they're in them, then you do end up in this IQ shredder, this intelligence death spiral.
00:50:02.400And that is really the core of the problem that he's talking about there.
00:50:05.660Uh, but, but some, again, the, the real issue, the reason that this one, it's different this time, you know, that's again, cyclical recurring.
00:50:13.120It's an issue that happens over and over to civilizations, but this time it's happening on a global scale, right?
00:50:19.100Previously when this happened, it might've happened in the Mediterranean, Italy, Rome, you know, it might've happened across some other kind of dying empire.
00:50:27.860But in, uh, this case, because we have a more global, uh, view because, you know, it's very easy to recruit and draw from all these areas.
00:50:36.420And there's these elite networks that let you do it in a moment's notice.
00:50:39.500And we have far more complicated commercial networks that let them, you know, distribute these things and draw demographic resources from these areas.
00:50:46.140Like land talked about, uh, it's now a much wider scale, right?
00:50:49.900So this is no longer a problem that just fits inside one particular region or one particular, uh, you know, uh, empire.
00:50:57.460But something that could expand to the whole globe, right?
00:50:59.900Because it's, you're literally pulling intelligence from all of these areas, from all of the nations of the world, not just from say, you know, the small rural village next to your large town or even your regional empire, but, but the entire globe.
00:51:13.140So it does change the nature of the problem, uh, to some extent, or the scale of the problem, I should say, the, the, the nature of the problem stays the same.
00:51:19.440So, uh, to tell us for $5, if the end of IQ, uh, optimization is AI, maybe shredding it.
00:51:27.080Isn't so bad for treads reminds me of whose idea that high IQ people buy into the techno society again.
00:51:54.540But then we end up in like this, like Wally scenario, right?
00:51:57.220Where, where we're, where the genetic stock is all kind of really low IQ, high time preference, uh, people who make terrible decisions for themselves, but they have a AI that basically kind of shepherds them around and, and takes care of them.
00:52:15.460Or, uh, what's the, um, what's the HG Wells time machine.
00:52:18.680And I'm trying to remember the two groups.
00:52:20.560I think one of them was like the, uh, the Elam, right.
00:52:22.660But, uh, but, you know, these, you know, beautiful people who walk around and they just find fruit everywhere and they're eating and everything's taken care of for them.
00:52:29.940And then you find out it's because, uh, you know, kind of these evil, uh, uh, you know, uh, terrible looking guys in the underworld are, uh, are kind of, uh, consuming them.
00:52:43.020So, so, you know, you could end up in that scenario where yes, um, you know, you're, you're in this kind of beautiful paradise to some extent because AI is taking care of you, but you're actually just being farmed.
00:52:52.440Matrix style as a battery or as, as, uh, you know, camera ballistic food.
00:52:56.360So there's all kinds of terrible possible, uh, sci-fi out, uh, outlooks there.
00:53:15.220I certainly, uh, certainly appreciate good, good to know.
00:53:17.700I have exactly at least one supporter, uh, if, if I decide to, to take the purple, um, you know, if I, if I choose not to, to, uh, refuse the crown three times, then I know I've got at least, uh, one, one guy back there.
00:54:10.340Again, uh, this will be part of the wider series on Nick Land.
00:54:13.760So I've got a playlist of all the different, uh, kind of essays and, and kind of thoughts that I've had.
00:54:18.560Uh, looking over, uh, many of Nick Land's works.
00:54:21.380So if you want to watch that, you can always go back to the playlist, uh, on YouTube and kind of get a wider idea of what's, uh, what's going on.
00:54:29.200This is just one of many things in a broader conversation about Nick Land, re, neoreactionary thought, uh, philosophy, that kind of thing.
00:54:39.360If it's your first time, uh, make sure that you go ahead and subscribe to the channel, of course.
00:54:45.040And then if you would like to get these broadcasts as podcasts, you just want to get the audio, uh, cause you're mowing the lawn or working out or whatever, and you don't want to see me scroll through text.
00:54:54.860Uh, then you can go ahead and subscribe to the Roman McIntyre show on your favorite podcast platform.
00:54:59.200It's on iTunes, it's on Spotify, it's on Google play, it's on all that stuff, uh, and more guys.
00:55:04.720So make sure to go ahead and check it out.
00:55:06.860And when you do leave a rating and a review that really helps, uh, drives the algorithm and everything.
00:55:11.780Uh, of course you can, uh, also don't forget, you can watch these things on rumble odyssey and blaze TV.
00:55:18.200Uh, if you want to support that way, that's always a great help.
00:55:20.700Lots of good content over there as well.
00:55:23.060Uh, all right, guys, I'm going to go ahead and wrap that up, but thank you for coming by.
00:55:26.540And as always, I will talk to you next time.