Konstantin Kisin's WARNING: Our Leaders Have Lost Control, We're Headed For Conflict And Violence!

Our political class has lost control. The right is getting more right than ever. And [music] anytime you have a combination of economic problems and social and stability and cultural problems, you put all those things together, it's not a good time. It's a time when conflict, violence, civil unrest, all of these things are [music] much more likely. Oh, civil unrest is absolutely guaranteed. >> And what you are now seeing is I I fear the beginnings of a totally new level of separation between people. We are on the road to civil unrest and violence. But I'm glad we're having this conversation cuz these are difficult things to talk about. >> And that's why China is outperforming the rest of the world. [music] There are so many freedoms you don't get in America that you do get in China. >> Would you prefer a Chinese system if you >> to America? >> Yes. >> What about political freedom, freedom of the individual, freedom of speech? Do you think Steven could run his show if he was a Chinese citizen in China and have any conversation he wanted? >> And you think communism [music] is bad? >> I grew up in the Soviet Union, so yes, I do think communism is bad. and you end up in a place where the the economy is just screwed. So you get equality, but everyone's just equally poor. >> Constantine, [music] what is your perspective on AI? >> I think the biggest threat to humanity if you talk about AI is actually the fact that you're creating something that's smarter than you. And if you're creating a superior species, you will become an [music] inferior species. Best case scenario, you become a pet. Worst case scenario, you become a cow. >> So my next question logically becomes, what can we do about it? >> There is an actual solution that's available that's clear. I think what we should really be focusing on is >> you're wrong. >> This is where we're likely to have very strong disagreement. >> This is super interesting to me. My team given me this report to show me how many of you that watch this show subscribe. And some of you have told us according to this that you are unsubscribed from the channel randomly. So favor to ask all of you, please could you check right now if you've hit the subscribe button if you are a regular viewer of the show and you like what we do here. We're approaching quite a significant landmark on this show in terms of a subscriber number. So, if there was one simple free thing that you could do to help us, my team, everyone here, to keep this show free, to keep it improving year over year and week over week, it is just to hit that subscribe button and to double check if you've hit it. Only thing I'll ever ask of you, do we have a deal? If you do it, I'll tell you what I'll do. I'll make sure every single week, every single month, we fight harder and harder and harder and harder to bring you the guests and conversations that you want to hear. I've stayed true to that promise since the very beginning of the D of Sio, and I will not let you down. Please help us. Really appreciate it. Let's get on with the show. [music] Constantin, in terms of everything that's going on in the world at the moment, what are the subjects that are most concerning to you? I think that I wrote an article a couple of years ago called Why I Fear the Future in which I basically predicted that what you were about to see was the rise of far-left populism and the rise of right-wing populism and ina some cases farright populism uh particularly in Europe but also elsewhere. And I think that's exactly what you're seeing in the Western world. And then geopolitically the war in Iran uh will have an impact on the global economy that's only going to fuel that further. So I think the trend you people have spent the last 10 years talking about polarization without really understanding the process that was driving it in my opinion uh particularly in Europe and what you are now seeing is I I fear the beginnings of that process actually going to a totally new level of uh separation between people >> and what's the root cause of that >> well the root cause of that is a mixture of things of course part of it is economic Europe has basically stag stagnated uh since the great financial crisis. This country, Britain in particular, has stagnated economically, but a lot of it is uh the consequence of mass unfettered immigration and people's concerns about what has happened culturally and demographically. And these are difficult things to talk about which you know some people find challenging to even discuss. But it it's very clear to me if you look at you know the AFD in Germany, Marine Le Pen in France, Georgia and Maloney in Italy, Farage and Rupert Low in the UK, what we saw in Sweet or however, however you pronounce it, uh a couple of weeks ago in Spain. These are all things just, you know, the visual medium is very powerful. When you see 60,000 people enter a country illegally in in a day, that sort of imagery is likely to create a very strong amount of push back. Oh, you came prepared, huh? Yeah. Well, you know, if you're a normal person and you see this, whatever your other views, you just go, well, like like what's going on? That that will be your question. Whether you're a really nice, not racist person who really really thinks, you know, no human is illegal, like you're thinking what is going on here. And uh the compassion and empathy you might feel for people um fleeing conflict for example is unlikely to extend to something like this because we know that these people are economic migrants overwhelmingly and they're coming if you ask them which many people did and ask them why are you here they will say I want to have a better life for myself which you know I don't blame people for I myself have moved from a foreign country to Britain you >> and if you were in their position would you do the same thing >> well I I don't know the exact position that they're in I I I what I can tell you is I came to Britain legally because that's what I thought you're supposed to do. Are you supposed to follow the rules? So, if I were in that position, it depends what you mean by that position. You know, if I had a wife and children, would I abandon them to try and get go get get to Europe? And, you know, I don't know. But a lot of these people are overwhelmingly young men who probably don't have a wife and child. So, it's difficult. I don't know. But if you're in a situation where you had a wife and child, let's say, and there was a promise that if you got over that border over there, you could have a better life for your wife and child, a significantly better life for your wife and child and send the money home and potentially even bring them over at some point. Um, if you were currently living in a point of hardship, would you cross the border? >> I don't know. I've never been in that situation and we don't know. But but the issue for for us, I think, in the West is not so much do we have empathy for those people. It's kind of unimportant actually for this conversation. At at a personal level, you want to feel like we're all empathetic, but the reality is it's a practical issue. We've talked about this so many times on your show about how so much of our decision- making and public conversation is driven by what makes us feel good as opposed to what works. This doesn't work. >> I think there is an element of the importance of that question in the sense that if you don't have empathy for them, you blame them. You shut them outside the hotels. I I think the blaming of them is a pointless distraction and is kind of irrelevant. The question is what should we be doing about this, right? And the fact is this is not acceptable. >> And what caused it? >> Yes. Well, what caused it is the world is unequal and there are poor parts of the world from which people would like to move to richer parts of the world. It's very understandable decision. But unless you have a world in which everybody has the same quality of life everywhere, which we're never going to have cuz that's not how the world works, then countries will have to have borders that they enforce. And that was the consensus view around the West for for the entirety of of its history. >> And how is this contributing to the problems that you described in the West? If you're looking at that and you are uh in the center, center center right, maybe old school leftist who who sort of believes in high levels of redistribution but believes in borders at the same time. You are looking at that and you're going, "Our political class has lost control. Our political class allows tens of thousands of people to enter Britain illegally on small boats every year." People on the right will look at that and say, "We need to get tougher on borders. We need to get tougher on immigration. We need to get really tough on illegal immigration." And as long as the political class left and right refuses to address that issue, as they have done for this entire time, you will see more people on the right adopting harder line slogans, harder line policies when it comes to illegal immigration and immigration more broadly. >> So it sounds a little bit to me like we're saying unless we dress address this, then the right has a very effective marketing campaign. Well, the right has a very legitimate grievance about what's happening to their society and that will be very effective electorally of course. >> And the other thing you said was stagnation, economic stagnation, I'm presuming. >> Yeah, of course. >> So this polarization that you're talking about, this economic stagnation in Europe, where does this lead us? Well, I hate as you know to to make predictions about the future with any great confidence, but I think anytime you have a combination of economic problems and social and stability and cultural problems, you put all those things together, historically speaking, it's not a good time. It's a time when conflict, violence, civil unrest, all of these things are much more likely. Doesn't mean they're guaranteed. Doesn't mean you can't change course. Doesn't mean you can't course correct. But if you don't, we are on the road to ci best case scenario, civil unrest and violence for sure. >> Do you see evidence that there's going to be a remedy to course correct the issue you've described? >> Currently, I don't see that being addressed, but we are in in a in a time when unusual things are possible. And so at the next election in Britain, you may see the right-wing populist come in. And then the question is, can they do the things that they're promising to the people who will vote for them? And there's a big question mark about that because the things that they'll be promising which is about addressing not just this problem in terms of people currently coming in but the people who are already here you know I don't know how much exactly we spend now but there was a point at which we were spending8 million pounds a day on hotels for illegal immigrants. So it tells you the scale of the problem and it's a very difficult problem to address because the legal system and uh international conventions and all sorts of other things that are now in place and they're now enforced make it very difficult to address. It's not a dishonesty but the thing that people on the right don't tend to say is even once you've dealt with illegal immigration, the country is not magically going to be better. You have to have an economy that's growing for people to feel like their law has got better. The fact that you have rightly removed people who should never have been allowed in in the first place will contribute somewhat to easing their concerns, but that's not going to solve the problem. And so even if you get right-wing populists into power, that's not necessarily a remedy for addressing the tensions that I'm talking about. >> And in the United States, a different set of issues, but maybe symptoms are similar. polarization is leading to and inequality is leading to a rise in socialism and [snorts] and then the right is getting more right than ever. >> The right is getting more right than ever. I think Trump's election was kind of like the peak of it and and it's just carried on in terms of ICE and deportations and and whatever. And look, there's a lot to be criticized about the Trump administration. The one thing they have done is close down the border. And I think that's a very good thing and it was very necessary. But in terms of the the rise of socialism, and look, democratic socialism, we should be honest and just call it communism because that's that's what it is. It's a very unwise but understandable reaction to the economic circumstances of young people's lives in particular. If you're locked out of the housing market, which historically speaking is really the only way for an ordinary person to accumulate capital. If you don't have access to capital at a time when asset prices are inflating and and have been inflating for a long time, you're basically watching the possibility of capitalism run away from you. Of course, you're going to turn over the apple cart. >> And you think communism is bad? >> I I grew up in the Soviet Union, so yes, I do think communism is bad. Ideologically, it might sound great to people, and I understand why. Equality to all men, everyone being, you know, equal in every way, it's wonderful. It just doesn't it's not compatible with human nature for all sorts of reasons. The most obvious one is you know the the basic 80/20 rule 80/20 rule of things. Most people are not aware of it. But what communist try communism tries to do is to take from from the disproportionately productive 20% and spread it out across everybody else. The problem is that disincentivizes the 20% from doing anything. And so you end up with a communist system like the one we had in the Soviet Union where no one really has any incentive to produce, to create, to innovate. And so you get a very stagnant econ economy. And on top of that, then you have central planning where the government is trying to decide what to do. They're not getting market signals about what's the right or wrong thing to do. And you end up in a place where the the economy is just screwed. So you get equality, but everyone's just equally poor. Steve, uh, >> what do you think in terms of what Constantine said to me? What he said that he thinks there's civil unrest potential? Well, >> civil unrest is absolutely guaranteed. Uh, there's all I can see is civil unrest ahead of us because it isn't just communism in that sense. The Russian Soviet version that you experienced uh, that's failed us also capitalism. And >> capitalism has failed us. >> I think capitalism is going to fail. And you guess who I blame for it? >> Who? [clears throat] >> Economists. >> You're an Neocclassical mainstream economists have a fantasy vision of capitalism and that fantasy vision has led them to trivialize what's happening with global warming [snorts] and most people simply aren't aware of that they've they've done this. So nobody is worrying about global warming because they think it's something not nobody but the the political authorities are not putting any effort into global warming because they read the economists and the economists tell them that by 2100 if temperatures rise by 3° there'll be a tiny fall in GDP. So why worry about it? In fact, we're starting to see the beginning of it this this year with the crazy on the coming our way, the crazy weather we're living through in in England right now and the system is going to collapse because the productive system won't be able to cope with the change in the climate. So that's what I see as the main source of conflict. I don't I think the everything else we're seeing is trivial compared to what that's going to do. >> What about So Constantin talked about these crosses in Sua in Spain. >> Yeah. and he was alluding to the fact that this needs to be addressed or this polarization which is having lots of downstream consequences isn't going to change. What is your perspective on I again there's so much of a fog of misinformation around these days that it's very hard to know whether what you hear is accurate. But the proposition I've been told is that Morocco has close relations with Israel and the Zionists wanted this as a way of destabilizing Spain, which is about the only country in Europe that is attacking the Zionist state. And so this was a political setup. >> Well, hold on a second. But Spain has the ability to enforce its own border. >> Of course it does. The fact that this actually happened is arguably is being argued and I don't know whether it's right or not. I'm given up on trying to say whether something is AI or not these days, but it's the argument has been that because the Spanish government came out and was critical of Israel, critical of Zionism, then this was a setup by the Israelis through Morocco to disturb Spain. >> Hold on. What I'm I'm making a different point of which is if my four-year-old wants sweets at 11:00 at night, that's true. But I am the idiot who gives it to him and that and he then stays up all night. and European countries refuse to enforce their borders. Whatever you think Israel is doing, by the way, I've seen literally zero evidence to support this theory, but let's say it's true just for the sake of argument. It's ultimately up to Spain, it's up to Italy, it's up to Britain, it's up to other European countries to enforce the border. That is something that we are capable of doing. And it's not like this incident is the only time this has happened. 3 million people, slightly under, but around 3 million people have crossed the Mediterranean on boats in the last 10 years. >> Yeah. And of course, >> so and that's not Israel doing it. That's us allowing it to happen. >> But also of destabilizing Libya. >> Okay. If we if the Libyan slave markets exist because we came, we saw he died. Quote Hillary Clinton on that. The extent to which the West has destabilized the regions from which the migrants are coming has to be acknowledged. If you don't acknowledge it, then you're blaming the people who are the sandwich between two political blocks. >> But I I did acknowledge it. I'm I completely understand and I've been against a lot of the foreign interventions that the West has engaged in. But a lot of people, and we know this from surveys, from interviews, from the types of people who come, most of these people are economic migrants. Doesn't mean that they're wrong to pursue a better life, but they want to move to Europe. And I have I look, this is not me saying it. It's a friend of mine who is an Iraqi and this is what he says. He says in the Middle East we have a saying. >> If you want to work, you go to America. If you want to live on benefits, you go to Europe. We are creating an incentive structure in Europe that allows people to come and feel like this is a place in which we will provide a life for them that they don't have to provide a life for themselves in that incentive. I mean, you're an economist although an economist >> an anti-conomist. Do you remember that idea? But I doubt we disagree about the importance of incentives and >> incentives but also incentives to push people out of where they are rather than to reconstruct where they are and make it more livable. >> I am all I'm >> and that I mean the one country we're not seeing a lot of economic migrants from is China. Now you say what >> China's very >> nonetheless nobody wants to leave the place because it's booming. If there was an economic stagnation in Europe, would this subject be as >> inflammatory for people? Would this be we're failing on all sorts of fronts and the UK is not a booming economy? You >> you've often said, Constantine, that we're spending too much money. >> Well, we're borrowing money now to pay off money we borrowed before. >> This is wrong. >> Tell me why. >> Okay. Have you ever done accounting? >> I've done my own accounting. >> Okay. Okay. do the do the accounting and you'll see the government does not borrow when it spends more than it takes back on taxation. >> You you were asking me about spending too much money. I don't want to get a bogged down on this. The reality is if you spend more on welfare than you do on defense or if you spend more on welfare than you do on education or if you spend more on welfare than other things, you're not spending money to help somebody get the mental health intervention they need to get back into work. That's not what we do in this country. And Andy Burnham actually is talking at least about attempting that. what we do instead and we've had people like Fraser Nelson uh was the editor I think he was the editor spectator at the time now he's at the times who's done a lot of research into this and what he basically uh came to is that what we're really doing is putting people in a position where they they are getting money in order not to get back into work the incentive structure is such that it actually makes no sense for them to to get a starting job which will not necessarily be well paid but the tax incentives just mean that that they're actually better off on welfare. If you do that and if you spend a significant portion of your budget on that, plus you've got an aging population, so you're spending a tremendous amount of money on pensions. Pensioners vote. There's lots of them. They have the ability to make sure the government is really looking after them. If you do that over time, your ability to do productive things, you talked about productivity, is not going to be there. And and by the way, the difference between the US and and Britain and Europe more broadly, in my opinion, is partly cultural. uh you you've moved to the US recently or you certainly spend a lot of time there. There is a business mindset that exists in America that just isn't there here. And the other thing is, you know, their uh attitude to what we call welfare, what they call entitlements, is different. And there's a there's a good and bad side to that coin. In America, you really really have to work very hard to to to survive. Um because the welfare system isn't there to catch you when you fall nearly as much. you don't get the same quality of health care if you don't have the money to pay for it. You can fire and hire people much more easily as you know as an employer. All of those things mean that the US economy can accelerate a lot faster. But, you know, I always say America is a is a a great place to be rich, hard place to be kind of middle class and a very difficult place to be poor. Europe is kind of the other way around. And and so I think those are some of the differences in productivity as well. I'll agree with Constantine that America does have that can do attitude and they also do have the attitude that failure is the first step on the ladder of success. Okay, there is an expectation or acceptance that people can fail and then recreate. It's not a stigma in America where it's more of a stigma over in in the United Kingdom and Europe. So I think that is part of it. It's also the scale of the American economy. Uh England, I think, has suffered more from the Thatcherite SW uh twist. Cutting back government spending, meaning people have less money in their pockets to spend, meaning there's less econ economic activity, meaning you've got to go into debt to be able to start a business. All these things end up slowing down the rate of economic growth. America has not made the same mistake that the European Union had made with something like the master treaty. There are elements of the American system uh which give you a higher rate of technological innovation and development than England gets. For sure. >> Uh >> so Steve, so just to pick up on some of those points then are you saying that the UK >> don't have a spending problem? >> No, they don't have they they have the problem. They're not spending enough. The government should be spending more. >> The government should be spending more money on the opposite on what education, >> welfare, infrastructure, dams for a start. You know how many dams? One of the reasons that we've got a potential crisis in the UK right now is the UK after privatizing its water 40 years ago has one less dam now than it had 40 years ago. >> So you want the government to spend more. >> The government should be providing the infrastructure. The foundation that enables economic activity to act to occur. That's what we're seeing happening in China. And that's why China is outperforming the rest of the world. When you cut back on providing the infrastructure, you mean you've got to build your own roads to connect your factories together. Okay. So, by not providing the long-term stuff which a government should finance, you end up hobbling your private sector rather than enabling it. >> But what you've done there is you've packaged a bunch of things together. Some of which in my opinion are accurate and some of which are really inaccurate. When you say infrastructure, welfare du infrastructure like I'm in favor of government borrow money to invest in things that generate productivity >> and I'm in favor of them spending money to create that stuff. Same thing, but the borrowing is not important. irrelevant where where you get that money from is actually irrelevant. >> The government spending money to invest in useful infrastructure, productive infrastructure. I mean, one of the other reasons the US is growing in a different way to us, uh, the UK has the highest industrial electricity prices in the world. So, if you're trying to do AI, >> you're not going to do it here. If you're trying to do industry, you're not going to do it here. Right? So if if the government had actually made it easier to build nuclear power plants, to do other energy things that drive down the cost of electricity, then you are putting yourself in a position to succeed in industry and to succeed in business. And the government spending money, whether it's borrowed or not, to build infrastructure, housing, roads, there is definitely a a case to be made for that. Giving money to people not to work, which is what a lot of the welfare bill is, that is not productive. And so you got to separate these two things out. Money for infrastructure, wonderful, great. Money for keeping people unproductive, very bad. And culturally, it creates a lot of problems as well because you create a society of people who are effectively takers and not creators and it's terrible. >> I don't think we're doing that. I mean, I've seen unemployment benefits used to be adequate. Like, I'm talking from my Australian experience now. Uh they're not anymore. So, the welfare that's provided to people doesn't mean that they can survive and live with with nothing. There should be a button just down below here. And if it says subscribed, you're already subscribed. If it says subscriber, that means you're not yet. And if you're not subscribed, please could you do us a favor and hit that button? It helps the show more than you know. And according to the algorithm, you're someone that watches our show, but you haven't yet hit that button. Thank you so much. >> The other point was you said you think the government should be spending even more money. >> Yeah. >> Um the point around how we generate growth does link fundamentally to energy. Um, we have there's a big conversation happening at the moment with with Andy Bernham. I think he spoke to Trump about this with about the North Sea. >> Yeah. >> And about the oil in the North Sea. Do you think we should be drilling there? >> Uh, look, the energy conversation it this is where we're likely to have very strong disagreements, but I think it's important to get the the groundwork in place before we have the conversation. >> Um, we I mean Steve said that, you know, no one's taken climate change seriously. I would argue and I think we I think it's based in in what we have seen. We've talked about climate change in such a way for such a long time now that you literally have people who are so terrified they're not having children. They're so terrified they've got climate anxiety. We had, you know, the phenomenon on Greta Tumbberg going around, you know, giving speeches everywhere being taken as a credible person. Let's look at the reality, okay? Almost all of the CO2 emissions, not almost all but the overwhelming bulk of the CO2 emissions of the future, the greenhouse gases of the future are going to be produced in two countries, India and China. That's just a fact. Uh the world now uses more oil, more gas and more coal than it ever has done ever. And people will say, well, China is building dams and wind turbines and solar panel arrays, etc. It's true, but they're also building coal power stations every week. They're building every form of energy that they can because they know something we in the West have forgotten, which is GDP is energy transformed. >> No, they would completely agree. >> Okay. >> Okay. That's a shock, but I do. Fantastic. Okay. >> In other words, if you don't have energy, if you're not creating energy, you are going to be poor. Almost all wealth creation in the history of humanity has been about using more dense fuel. So you go from hay which you put into horses and cows and other animals to coal to wood to coal to uh oil to to gas to nuclear you get denser denser denser. You're creating more energy and you convert that energy into wealth into prosperity into hospitals into schools into money into everything. Right? So any society which creates a structure where energy is expensive and not abundant is going to get poorer. It's one of the main reasons we are stagnating in Europe in a way that America is not. Okay. >> Now in terms of climate change I don't want to get bogged down in how impactful this is, who's doing this, who's doing that. The hard reality is Britain can literally do absolutely nothing about climate change. Britain produces 1% of global carbon emissions, right? And the narrative was, well, it doesn't really matter that we only produce 1% of global carbon emissions because Britain has moral leadership in the world. And so, if we reduce our energy consumption and if we increase our energy prices and we slightly repackage and we use slightly more wind and slightly more solar, uh, then other countries will follow suit. That was the argument. It's very clear now that that is not remotely happening. India and China. If you talk to people in India and China, they're like, "We want to grow. We need our people to be prosperous. We need our people not to die." I mean, life expectancy in India at the time of partition in 1930, 1947 was 32 years old. That's how long people lived. Life expectancy at birth was 32 years old. It's now I think over 70 or maybe 80 now at this point, right? And that's because they've been burning fossil fuels and they're going to keep burning fossil fuels and they're going to keep using nuclear and they're going to do everything else. Britain can't affect that. We can't do anything about it. and climate the planet will get warmer. So what we should be doing is investing in infrastructure that allows us to cope with that reality in exactly the way the Dutch have done. So they build flood defenses and other ways of managing the fact that sea levels change. That's the only thing that we in Britain can do about that issue. And in the meantime, rather than suiciding our economy by creating less energy and therefore reducing our our ability to grow our GDP, what we should be doing is creating a system where we produce abundant cheap energy. And you know, Nick Kle, former deputy prime minister, there's there's a very instructive video of him 15 or 20 years ago being asked why we're not building nuclear power stations. Him saying, "Well, it's going to take 15 20 years. Well, it's been 15 20 years and we don't have any bloody nuclear power stations because of the short-sightedness of our political leaders on these issues." So, should we be pumping out as much CO2 into the atmosphere as we can? Absolutely no, we shouldn't be. Should we have a sensible energy policy that is about making sure that we actually grow our economy and keep our people wealthy and also have the money to make the adjustments we're going to have to make to the fact that climate will change and we can't control that. That's the real question. It's not about do you believe climate change or whatever. This is silly conversation. The real conversation is what can we do about the inevitable reality of the climate changing? >> And you're saying we can't do anything to stop it. But you're also then saying we should just build defenses to deal with the symptoms. >> We should adapt. And this is what human beings have done throughout the history of our of our of our civilization and of our species. There have been times when the planet has been way warmer than it is today. 12,000 years ago. So there were hippopotamuses swimming in the temps and elephants. >> No, not 12,000 years, please. >> I'm pretty sure it is 12,000 years ago is the beginning of coming out of the ice age. >> Would you just check check me on that please? >> No. >> 12,000 years ago, Britain was coming out of the last ice age. The climate was cold. Y tundra-like. >> Um, >> just let let them finish. >> So, because it was cold, but it says 120,000 years ago. >> Yeah. Naming it. Yeah. 120,000 years ago. What I'm saying is the climate has changed in in all sorts of different ways. 2,000 years ago, the Romans group rapes on Hadrien's wall, right? And, uh, 200 years ago was really cold. The temps would freeze every year, etc. This happens. People have to adapt to it. Uh, and we're going to have to do it. So Steve, the assertion there is that the UK can't do anything about climate change in terms of affecting on a global scale, but they can defend themselves against it by >> No, you can't. >> You can't walk. >> You can't you can't you cannot defend yourself against what England faces if climate change continues. England will become a this is the most some of the most recent research on what's called the Atlantic medional overturning circulation. you're aware of the AMO that translates about 10 degrees Celsius of heat from the south actually the middle of the of the Atlantic up to Europe. If it stops running, temperatures in Europe on average fall by 10°. >> So I guess the central question here is there is there something the UK can do to affect global climate change? >> Not on its own. >> Okay. >> Not on its own. Okay. >> Because when you look at China and India, >> yeah, >> they have increased their carbon emissions. China is actually having falling per capita emissions at the moment. Even though they're building a power stations, they're building so many nuclear for cheaper than they're doing in the west. So many wind and solar that they're actually reducing their carbon footprint >> per capita >> and their capita is falling as well. Okay. >> So, so they're reducing their carbon emissions. >> They're reducing their carbon emissions. Are they? Okay. And that's been the last two years. It's only in the last two years this has started to happen. But China is now reducing. >> What about India? India absolutely going gang busters in the opposite direction because it's far less developed of course than China. So they'll keep developing. >> They will keep on doing it until such time as they have their first wet bulb catastrophe. And when say 10 or 20 million people die from heat in one day, then I think India will start doing something very different. But there's there's a belief this is something we can adjust to and the forces we're talking about are far beyond anything humans have any capacity to adjust towards. Now the amock the reason I mentioned the Atlantic midional overturning circulation I love the abbreviation it's going to make this country go on mock because the temperature range for London if the AMO fails is estimated to be between minus 20° C and plus 35. >> See can the UK do anything about it if if our emissions are >> so we can't we cannot do anything as as as a bunch of nations fighting each other. Okay, this whole attitude that we're this contest with that country, this country's better than that country, etc., etc., this is derming us to extinction. >> But is this real? >> I'm going to out Greta Thanberg, Greta Thunderberg in this conversation now because I know a lot more than you guys do about the climate science. Okay, >> agree. What what I'm really saying is if we talk about human incentives, do we have any control over what India decided to do? >> No, we don't. >> Do we have any control over what China decided to do? >> None whatsoever. >> So, can does the UK then need to does it need to be a bit selfish? We need to realize how serious the situation we're in is >> and what will we then do? We realize it's ser let's say we accept your point. This is the reality. >> Okay. >> What what do we do? >> We would have to drastically reduce energy consumption. >> Ah >> okay. Energy consumption is vital for GDP completely 100% agree. I know the statistics on this front. >> The link between gross world product this equivalent of GDP for the planet and energy is incredibly tight. They're one for one. Okay. If energy goes up so does gross world product. If GWP goes down, so does energy consumption. They're one for one. >> So, Steve, when you say we need to reduce energy, do you mean the UK? >> I mean the species. I mean human species. >> So, how does Andy Burnham do that? >> We are not set up to deal with this problem because we're broken into nation states. We can't make decisions that have >> So, we need world government to reduce world energy consumption. >> We're going to be stuck with that. Yes, we're going to be stuck with it. >> Well, see this what I'm glad we're having this conversation cuz at least this is the first time and I mean this in a genuinely respectful way. It's the first time I've ever heard anyone be honest about this issue. That's what you want. You want world government. >> I don't want it. >> You believe it's inevitable by ignoring this problem. We've got to the scale. You believe it's a potential threat to us. We have a world government that reduces world energy consumption and therefore the prosperity of everyone. >> And if we had taken the advice of the limits to growth 50 years ago, we would not be having this conversation. Okay. We have delayed for half a century. >> Is there any solutions that you believe are actually possible then? No. >> No. >> There we go. You've done a public service here because you have showed what it is that sits underneath all the conversation about climate. It's a best case scenario people who know there's nothing we can do. But what we should do is flail about in the meantime and in order to not address this issue impoverish not just in this case our citizens and our fellow people but actually the entire world. That's that's what this is. And the entire challenge I have to this is I don't believe in suicide for token gestures towards not solving a problem you're claiming to solve. Right? We are not going to solve this problem by creating a world government and reducing energy consumption. That is never ever in a billion years. >> What we're going to do instead is run into the crisis and fall apart from the process. What we're going to do instead, and look, you may there's a possibility you're correct about that, but the only choice we actually have to solve this problem is to create forms of energy that do not produce CO2, but produce GDP. Clean energy. That's what we're going to have to do. By the way, it's what we've done throughout history. >> And we need to make that clean energy more favorable in terms of the economics to India and China. Did you need a world government to reduce usage of the horse and car and replace it with the automobile? No, you didn't. You came up with a better technology and people adopted that technology voluntarily because it was advantageous. This is not going to be solved by making everybody poor. Well, for the reasons that Steve himself articulated, but it's also not going to be solved by making everybody because people will not do it. You say you need everybody to to hold hands on Sink Kumbaya and >> what I'm saying is we need to have engineers in control and we're talking about it 50 years ago. >> Engineers in >> engineers we should stop having elections. >> Sorry compared to with politicians we get Yes. I'd rather get rid of elections and have engineers running everything. They do a damn side better job than a politicians have done. >> Well, and this is why I say this is a public service because this is what this is the true face of the climate catastrophe narrative. We need world government. don't want elections and we want to make everybody and we've got it out in the air. >> Okay. Now, I'm going to go back and say where it started. It started in 1972 when the limits to growth study was published and the limits to growth said that if we if we continue on the current trajectory, we're going to have an ecological catastrophe sometime in the 21st century. Okay, they deliberately left the dates vague. They knew they couldn't predict the actual date. So, they said 1900's the start of our work, 2100's the end. in the middle of their projections, roughly speaking about the time we are now between 2030 and 2050, the system would start falling over because we'd be eliminating the capacity of the planet to support our species at the energy consumption levels that we have now. So they said we had to reduce dramatically pollution per unit of output. Uh it uh stabilized population at 4 billion people. That was the argument they wanted to stabilize at 4 billion people in 1975. Okay, we wouldn't be having this dilemma if we'd actually taken the advice of the engineers who wrote that report. It wasn't written by hippies. Most people think limits are growth by a bunch of, you know, dope smoking hippies in in in Rome. It was written by engineers in MIT. >> Steve, one of the things, you know, one of the things that I um I spend a lot of time doing on this podcast is trying to find reality through like wishful thinking. And you know, I have a lot of conversations about AI, for example. it. I see so many parallels with AI because we're saying look AI could be a big problem but when you look at human incentives the US are trying to beat China and China are trying to beat this person and they're trying to beat them and even in the US you've got you've got open AI trying to be anthropic so when you look at incentives you go okay I kind of see can see how this is going to play out there's an inevitability to it >> in the example you gave there what I'm hearing is reduce pollution which would have meant getting China and India and the US and the UK and Europe to all cooperate y >> which is as has proven to be >> impossible without political systems. >> And the other thing you mentioned was stopping people having babies, >> stabilizing at 4 billion, >> which would have come with a a lopsided economy, lots of other problems. >> I mean, we've seen it. It it wasn't it just like it wasn't >> and and the fossil fuel lobbies and conventional economists undermined all that stuff. So, the reason we're having this conversation now is you basically think we've got to adapt. It's like we're going up a hill, so we've got to, you know, have a lighter car or more power for the car or whatever else. I'm saying we're 5 in from from a brick wall. Okay? And we're not going to slow down in time to hit the wall. We're going to hit the wall. Brace yourselves, okay? Brace for impact. That's the advice I've given. >> But when I asked you earlier if we need world government, you said yes. If I asked you, it's not going to happen. I know it's not going to happen. The only way out of this is to do it collectively with with this obvious example. We're going to do it competitively and shoot each other in the foot in the process. We'd realize that each nation had to reduce its energy consumption or get a higher efficiency out of its energy 50 years ago with the engineering. >> Who's the wei that would have realized this? You would have needed a world government back then. >> You would need you needed politicians who understand what the engineers told them, >> right? >> Instead, you had politicians who listened to the media and listened to the oil interests and trivialized these whole dangers. And that's why now it's in a catastrophic I mean I truly believe we're on the edge of a catastrophic breakdown of human civilization. In that situation if you wanted to stop it happening you would need to have global coordination authoritarian etc etc. If we done it 50 years ago we wouldn't need any of this. >> Steve how would you go to India and tell them that they can't use energy when they're they're at the very some people in India >> the women are dying in child birth and their children are starving. >> Yeah. Yeah. I mean the >> and you go to India. No, no, no. You can't grow. >> We have an ignorance about the biosphere on which we live. Okay. The the our understanding of the biosphere itself and the impact that our civilization has on the biosphere is trivial and therefore we have these discussions as if the biosphere will take care of itself. >> I think we all agree that climate change is both real and a huge existential problem. And the evidence for that is we can we can observe it. We can measure it. I mean, even now we're going through one of the sort of record-breaking periods of weather volatility. Both sort of the western United States and Western Europe are experiencing historically severe record-breaking weathers at the moment we get. So my next question logically becomes what can we do about it? >> It's too late. >> Okay. The extent to which we're unaware of the energy forces we've unleashed on the planet are huge. And when when you find that people think all this stuff is going to happen in, you know, it's a couple of, you know, decades away or, you know, half a century away and somebody else's problem. >> When is it going to happen? >> I've got a feeling the next 10 years. >> Next 10 years. >> What's going to happen? >> The beginning of the breakdown of our our capacity to maintain a civilization on the planet. I'm probably wrong in terms of timing. I'm probably putting it too far in the future. Okay. I might be wrong. >> Might be less. >> Yeah, could be less. I really really hope all three of us live long enough to be able to sit down. So do I. I hope I'm wrong. This is I'm desperately hoping I'm wrong. >> Can you define what you mean by climate breakdown specifically? What does that look like for me as I walk out on the street? >> Let's say the one of the the big ones again, the Atlantic Maral overturning circulation, the AOK. The most recent estimates is that's going to stop functioning sometime between last year because hasn't yet happened and 2095. When that happens, the temperature on Europe will fall roughly speaking by 3° per decade for three decades. So the temperature in Europe on average will fall by 10°. The extremes will become even more ridiculous. So this is research from Tim Lenton, Exod University professor of climate change. The range of temperatures in London will be between minus 20 and plus 35. Okay. Now, what's the chance of London surviving that scale of temperature range? You can you can't even cope with leaves on the train lines here. That's one thing I found ridiculous. As an Australian arriving in London and find my train from from from Waterloo to Kingston is slowed down because there are leaves on the rail. Leaves on the rail. Has that never happened before? What are your engineers doing about that? Why don't you have trains that move the leads? This sort of unprepared nature. We are completely unprepared for the scale of what we face. >> Look, as someone who is Russian, minus 20 is a nice spring day for me. But [laughter] look, we're being silly about it. I I think if we ground this conversation in the realms of the possible uh and look at what we can do, it seems to me that the only thing we can do is create forms of energy that do not produce emissions that we believe are contributing to the changing climate. A world government is not going to happen. that the level of coordination is not going to happen. The authoritarian uh world run by engineers is not going to happen. These are not realistic things to be talking about. Let's talk about what we actually can do. What we can do is plow all the money we have wrongly plowed into trying to mitigate this issue into trying to create forms of energy that are actually going to work not only to solve this problem but actually to fuel prosperity to fuel technological innovation and to to create a better world as opposed to uh thinking that you know like we're all doomed and nothing is possible. >> Of all the things I thought would ever turn up on my desk, a red light toothbrush was not one of them. Here we are. This is made by our sponsor, Bon Charge, and you'll probably know of their red light face mask and their infrared sauna blanket because I use them religiously and I've spoken about them on this podcast before, but their toothbrush is new to me. I was sent one of these a few weeks ago and ever since then, I've been using it religiously because I love their products. And this is the first toothbrush that combines both red light and near infrared light with sonic cleaning at the same time. The same red light technology that's used for skin and inflammation is now built into a device you already know so well. And I'm using it at least two times a day at the moment to clean my teeth. It's great for your gums, for stimulating gum circulation, and for soreness. And the best part is it's not an extra thing to add to your routine. It just replaces your current toothbrush. If you give it a try, you'll get 20% off at bontcharge.com/doac. And also, you'll get free shipping and a one-year warranty. That's boncharge.com/dac. Just like John Jones, where marginal improvements in your cognitive performance can have a massive impact, sometimes I podcast for 10 hours a day. Over the last couple of weeks, I've been in filming for a TV show and then I have like one or two days off to get all of my work done, which means there's lots of cognitive load. And so I turn to ketones because I find myself more articulate, able to think more clearly, able to work out better when I'm fueled by ketones. And so the reason I became a coowner of this company and the reason why they now are a sponsor of this podcast is because I remember one of my team members called Cristiana, she tried it once and came up to my desk and she goes, "This is the best product ever made." And I think in part that's because she really cares about those cognitive benefits as I do, as Jon Jones does and as I think most of my listeners probably will. So if you haven't tried these yet, all you have to do is go to ketone.com/stephven and you'll also get 30% off your first subscription order. you'll get exclusive Ketone IQ merch and of course cognitive benefits that might just change your life. So let's let's take a look at this situation which is somewhat linked. This is uh the straight of Hormuz. >> Yep. >> This is US oil reserves at the moment in rapid decline. >> Yep. Yep. Yep. >> What is your perspective on what's going on in the the Middle East at the moment? Constantine. Why has this happened? >> So one of the things I think it's very important not to do is project our own ideas onto people who we've never met like President Trump. I assume none of us have met President Trump etc. So I can only tell you what I know from speaking to people in his administration, other people who have some access to the administration's thinking etc. My understanding and it's a very frustrating thing uh to have to articulate and to believe but it is true is that the level of analysis we all have about the complicated minations of how different departments in the US government you know work out the complex it really isn't >> as complicated than that and I think we all wish it was sometimes Trump walked into a trap I think he walked into a trap that it was a sugar high from Venezuela you know there was a kind of feeling of perhaps invulnerability and a and a sort of belief that we can solve every problem. And Iran is different to Venezuela. Iran has the ability to choke off the world's supply, not just of oil, but I think as you discussed with Steve when you recently had him on, of gas, of helium, natural gas, of helium, uh fertilizer, and lots of other things. And it hasn't quite fed through to the global economy in the way that people have talked about in a catastrophizing way. Uh but if this carries on, it will do because our stocks, you you you've got this talking about oil. M >> but it's stocks of other things too are going to start running out and the price of those things is going to go up and so then the many predictions that people like Steve have been making are likely to come true. We had Senator Ted Cruz on our show around the time this war was launched. He's not only a huge supporter of President Trump but a huge supporter of this conflict that he advocated for it and when I said to him look come the midterms this is not going to be good for you and for your party. and his words, his exact words, I'm quoting from memory, so maybe they're not his exact words, but the the the broad theme of what he said was, uh, if we're still in this conflict come the midterms, we failed. I suspect that that is almost certainly going to happen. You've just shown me a picture of President Trump's approval ratings. They seem to verify what I'm saying. And so, I I think he's walked into a trap. And uh you've had people on on your show to articulate why the trap will continue to to bear uh fruit for the Iranians. You know, there's this great saying in in the east, in the west, you have all the watches. In the east, we have all the time. >> They don't have midterms in Iran. They can wait. They can take the pain and the punishment that they're currently experiencing for as long as they really need to. This is kind of like their battle of Stalingrad. They can take the pain. They can throw men at the problem. they can throw bodies at the problem as long as they need to because they know the US can't go the distance. Uh and because of that, the incentive structure is for the Iranians to hold on as long as possible because they know that the US will have to deal with this reality. So I think it's been a catastrophic mistake. >> And do you think Iran are actually going to be stronger on the other side of this? >> Nobody knows exactly. They're definitely stronger now than they were. But look, this all of this is very unpredictable. I think we should be very careful about uh making predictions about the future of countries that we understand very little in the west from the outside. This is very difficult for anyone outside of Iran today to understand what's happening in Iran. The example I like to give is Nicholas Nichol Chowesk uh the Romanian dictator. He had a 92% approval rating the day before he was seized with his wife and sumearily executed. The predictability of how long a regime survives in in these countries is difficult to judge from the outside. Currently, Iran has a chokeold on the global economy and they're leveraging it very powerfully. >> You predicted a famine, Steve. >> Yeah, I think it's still going to happen. But the thing is, it's again there's a question of what the stocks are. Like for example, we know this story about the US strategic oil reserve. We also know that China had a huge reserve and they've run that reserve down from about one and a half years of supply of oil for them to I don't know what amount, but they're going back in the opposite direction now. So we didn't need to know what the stocks of all these products were around the globe beforehand. So when you make an estimate, yes, there's going to be a, you know, running out of oil. Well, China reduced its oil consumption. America's running at stock down. At some point though, with the because the flow is still blocked through this straight and there won't be the oil, there won't be the fertilizer, there won't be the sulfuric acid. All these things will not be available. And then we'll have a a physical hit coming out of all that. And I can completely agree. Trump was sold a pup. It's the old expression. And we're paying the price. >> Is there any way out of this in your view, Steve? >> I think America has to leave the Middle East. That's about the only long-term resolution. America stops interfering in the Middle East. >> If if they were to leave now, the issue that they face is they've now given Iran, they've sort of established a precedence where Iran can use the straight of Hormuz, which is like a proxy for the global economy, as a bargaining chip. And so if you're Iran, you now can proceed potentially with your nuclear program and if they come back, you shut down the global economy via the straight up moose. >> Yeah. >> Or you you you sort of kneecap it at least, >> which is why it was a catastrophically bad decision to provoke them in the first place. >> The thing that no one really talks about and it's an issue close to my heart with the Ukrainian family and and you know the conflict there is something that's very important to me is one of the hopes I had for the Trump presidency was that he would find a way to bring that conflict to a close. This has only made things better for Russia. The the fact that they've had to lift sanctions on Russian oil, for example, in order to compensate for the lack of supply. This is allowing Russia to continue this war and to fund its war. And so I just it's been a disastrous intervention um and really really unfortunate uh in the way that it's been done. >> Do you think this is going to completely tarnish his presidency more than any other issue? >> It depends on how it ends. The only way out of this that I can see at the moment, look, there's >> again, these things are very unpredictable. I think we really should be very honest about that. But the way that that I see it at the moment is his only way out really. I don't know about pulling out the Middle East. That seems a bit extreme. But the best way for him to get out of this is to find a way to to sell Americans on the lie that it's been a success. >> Yeah, that is the only way he's going to get out of this. if he can find a way to sell a terrible deal, which he's going to have to sign with Iran as a victory for America, which Trump is uniquely placed to do, let's be honest, right? His ability to sell things is pretty pretty strong. Then he can leave with less egg on his face than otherwise. at which point how the world judges him for a temporary interruption of oil and fertilizer and gas supplies. How history judges him is hard to say, not least because he's still got time in his term to either do good things or or to do more things that don't work out well. But uh at the moment, this is a conflict who whose only resolution that it seems to me is for him to accept the reality that he made a mistake and to find a way to extricate himself from it without admitting it was a mistake. Steve mentioned that he predicts a famine is coming, a global famine. >> Yeah. >> Do you agree with that? >> Depends how long it runs. >> It depends how long I mean I have friends in Australia who are farmers and when this first started they were telling me they can't get hands on fertilizer be even at the quotas they already had >> and again context here is that a lot of fertilizer comes from via the straight of Hormuse. >> Yeah to all over the world. But even if even if say you get your supply of fertilizer not from the Middle East, well given that the supply of fertilizer is no longer coming from the Middle East, the people who used to get it from the Middle East now have to get it from somewhere else and there's less of it to go around. Therefore, price goes up, quotas allocations go down, you can't plant the crops, etc., etc., etc., etc. >> Yeah. Like on the the Australian front, I've got friends in the same boat and they tell me that uh about half the usual wheat crop has been laid because of the cost of fertilizer which and Australia used to produce seven times as much food as it needs for its people. So it's going to produce three times as much food, three and a half and that means of course less availability for food around the world. And this is going to be a global phenomenon when where it hits again very hard to say because you don't know what stocks exist. You don't know how dependent different agricultural systems are on the fertilizer they that they bring in. But yeah, it's it's a catastrophically bad decision and the only way that Trump can get out of it is to lose and declare victory. That's what he'll do. Well, >> there's midterm elections coming up which could have a big impact, but there's also the 2028 elections coming up for the presidential position. Um, a lot of people are now forecasting that the Democrats, the left side of politics or potentially even a socialist candidate is going to get into office. Do you think that would be a net good thing for the United States? >> Well, after Trump, anything is going to be better. Okay. So, yes, I do because again, I think America's pushed far too far in the, you know, independent self-reliance, don't let the state do anything. Uh, and you get an unbalanced economy out of that. >> Do you think the US needs a democratic socialist candidate? Yeah. Yeah. >> Why? >> Because they will promote the need for the the public goods that the private the public sector provides and the private sector does not. We've got the classic illustration here with water supplies for the UK. We privatized them 40 years ago. What's the consequence? You can't swim in any river in the United Kingdom anymore because they're polluted with feces. The beaches are impossible as well. We have one less dam than we had 40 years ago. Privatizing resources which take a long time to construct is a recipe for those resources not to be constru created in the very first instance. Whereas China with obviously a socialist economy has built the energy supplies you were mentioning earlier. They have provided the uh the transportation the education it's extremely hard to get in. You can't buy your way in that the education is publicly funded. All these things show that you need a balance between the public and private sector. And America's gone too far in the private direction and we now need to swing switch switch back in the opposite direction. >> China's model would be better. >> Yeah. Because I mean if if it it provides the infrastructure that enables a private sector to thrive if you don't have the energy as you were saying earlier then you can't even imagine building the private sector facilities or if you do they've got to be used at the expense of some other activity. So, we're seeing Americans protesting about rising energy prices because of data centers being established and rising problems with the water supply for the same reason. >> Steve would prefer a socialist government coming into the United States in the next election cycle. >> Democratic socialists, there's a big difference. Democratic socialism is is the same idea that has been tried repeatedly and failed repeatedly, which is communism. It's sort of the idea that if we elect communists instead of having them win in the revolution that it'll all be better. It won't be. policies don't work. And by the way, the one thing >> the Soviet policies obviously did not work. >> Yeah. >> Russia failed. No doubt about that. Okay. China's succeeding. So what's the difference between the two? Why is the Chinese system being so successful and the Russian success been so abjectly a failure? >> Well, in the 1930s, a lot of people thought that the the rapid industrialization of the Soviet Union was a massive success. I I think it's worth remembering that communist societies lie all the time about the real figures in their economy and they create fake growth and fake numbers about all of these things. We know for example that almost certainly according to the intelligence assessment of pretty much any every western intelligence service that the the uh co virus came from a lab in China something they lied about to the world and still haven't paid any price for and the way they lie about that is the way they will lie about other things including economic growth and all sorts of other things in the short term models can look appealing uh if you don't understand the full implications of what it is but also you got to remember that uh the Chinese system is not just about the economy it's also about what rights people have and don't have. The right to express your opinion freely, the right to criticize the government, the right I mean, we talk about private enterprise in China. If you're a private uh business owner in China, there's no such thing really cuz the moment you are inconvenient to the government, you're going to disappear and come back suddenly with a totally different new set of beliefs about what's right and wrong and who's right and who's wrong. So, um I think we should be very very very careful about pray praising communist dictatorships. I have friends in China, both nationals and and immigrants, >> who tell me that the the level of discussion and argument in China is far far greater than people think. You don't get left versus right conversations. Okay, you've got a political system which you're uh you're not going to change communist party be in control and so on. But the level of debate over what policy should be uh whether the government should balance its books, whether the government should run a deficit, whether the government should build infrastructure or not. Um there's enormous debate there. >> So people do have there's more conflict, but it's mediated. It's not conflict that leads to flipping from one party one year to opposite attitude at the next election and so on. Do you think Steven could run his show if he was a Chinese citizen in China and have any conversation he wanted? >> I think so. I maybe not as broad as this one. Probably more limited. I will agree with that. Okay. They probably would be more limited. But I've been involved. You know, if you have you spoken on the Chinese Global Television Network, I presume >> I haven't. >> Okay. Well, that's the conversations that I've had there are comparable to what I'm having here. And so those conversations get broadcast in China. >> Well, you're clearly very in favor of China. It doesn't surprise me that they would have you on their TV channel. That's not the point I'm making. The point I'm making is Xi Jinping, the current president of China, has purged dozens of people who are internal critics within his own party, people in the military, people in the political system who disappear one after another and uh business leaders of all kinds. The reason I keep having to remember things, I've got I've got the Jackmar, but others too. Um I've got young I've got new dad brain, so I haven't slept properly for fair enough. I understand that problem. Um uh but yeah, so if you're a business owner in China, it's not really your it's like kind of like in Russia, there's no private private enterprise. >> I think that's an exaggeration. Okay. Because the the Russ the Russian situation, yes, there was only one motorbike making company in the entire country. China apparently has about 130 car companies. Okay. um they have managed to combine the central planning that the Soviets had with the competition that the west has in one model and a lot of it comes back and I'd love to know the extent to which they were influenced by a friend of mine called Janus Cornai who was a Hungarian economist he died about four years ago who tried to understand why did the Soviet system fail and why did American system grow and he came down to saying that the Soviet system was constrained by supply you couldn't get all the input you needed. So, and you had only, you know, one, there was no innovation taking place in the Soviet system. The Chinese system is rampant with private sector innovation and companies are competing against each other rampantly in that system. Somehow they've managed to combine the state providing the infrastructure and the foundation and letting private diversity occur both between different corporations and between different provinces in China. So it is a comp it is it's the same family of systems but they've managed to overcome the drawback that the Soviet system had. >> Let's accept that at face value. What about the point I was making about political freedom, freedom of the individual, freedom of speech, political repression of opponents, imprisonment of people who don't agree, state sanctioned murder, etc. What about that? >> Well, I look at America's prison system and say you've got a different version of the same poison. I mean, I've been >> critics of the government on mask. >> Well, a couple have been shot. The whole stuff we're doing, the ICE, you know, and they're talking about the stuff that's happening with Trump now is awful. America has the world's largest prison populations. There are so many freedoms you don't get in America that you do get in China. >> Would you prefer a Chinese system if you >> to America? Yes. >> Even though you can't criticize. I've spent enough time in American cities and Chinese cities to know which ones I prefer. And I'm down to cities of a mere 4 million people, which is a small city on Chinese standards. I didn't see the homelessness. I didn't see the poverty levels and that I see in American cities in Chinese cities. >> That's totally true. But but it's exactly the sort of thing that people would have said about aspects of the Soviet Union and >> the Soviet never pulled that off. I mean the Soviet one thing. >> What about the Moscow Metro? This is what every >> Moscow metro is, you know, great. Every western idiot like Tucker Carson goes to to Moscow and says >> he raves about the underground. >> Oh my god, the underground. Well, that was built by totalitarian dictators with slave labor. You can get a hell of a lot done with slave labor and >> that's being done in China right now, which has the world's greatest metro systems and the world's greatest highspeed rail. So again, your experience, you know, I'm not Russian. I wasn't born there. I respect your experience is very different to what I had growing up and it's a horrific society and it led to you know a whole range of horrors as we know the people things instantly say what happened in Soviet Union is happening in China >> is misidentifying those two systems >> well first of all what happened in China if you take the entire history of China under communism is actually much worse than what happened in the Soviet Union >> uh well like I was in there in 818 >> 45 million people killed the great war is a disaster the ideological stuff in her mouth was horrific and I saw literally I saw examples of that in Sichuan with children who clearly had quarkaw protein deficiency disease because of the flip and flopping of the central committee about grain versus legume crops horrific things like that it's what's happened since Dang Xiaoping that has made the huge difference now also they did manage to get rid of the landlords so you didn't have the inequality that occurred in the Chinese system beforehand you did have an education system as distorted as it was everybody had education. They set the foundations. What's happened since Dang Xiaoing is what's been a remarkable transition and politically they still have the you know the party is still in control. You have the potential to get the sort of dynasty effect that we see in North Korea. >> According to the major global happiness surveys and the UN world happiness report, people in the United States report overall happier life satisfaction in people in China. >> Does that matter? >> I don't know. I don't know the survey. So maybe essentially it's saying that the United States ranks as 30 as 23rd >> and China ranks as 65th. The report uses several mechanisms asking residents of each country to evaluate their current life on a scale of zero which is the worst possible life >> to 10 the best possible life. >> Yeah. >> And China ranks as 65th. >> If you go back 40 years ago you would have found China down 150th. Okay. It's the rate of change in China over the last 40 years which is breathtaking. This is something that I've made for you. I realized that the divers here audience are strivvers. Whether it's in business or health, we all have big goals that we want to accomplish. And one of the things I've learned is that when you aim at the big big big goal, it can feel incredibly psychologically uncomfortable because it's kind of like being stood at the foot of Mount Everest and looking upwards. The way to accomplish your goals is by breaking them down into tiny small steps. And we call this in our team the 1%. And actually this philosophy is highly responsible for much of our success here. So what we've done so that you at home can accomplish any big goal that you have is we've made these 1% diaries and we released these last year and they all sold out. So I asked my team over and over again to bring the diaries back but also to introduce some new colors and to make some minor tweaks to the diary. So now we have a better range for you. So, if you have a big goal in mind and you need a framework and a process and some motivation, then I highly recommend you get one of these diaries before they all sell out once again. And you can get yours at the diary.com. And if you want the link, the link is in the description below. So, bringing this back to the sort of where we started a little bit, um, on the United Kingdom, we've just appointed a new prime minister, Andy Bernham. Do you think he's going to be successful? >> What do you mean by successful? Do you think he's going to improve the UK's position to such extent that we changed our trajectory? >> No. He has absolutely smashed the PR side of things. There's no arguing with that whatsoever. But in terms of the tectonic stuff that we've been discussing today, he is not remotely going to address any of it. You know, we started the conversation with popular populism, immigration, illegal immigration, etc. He seems to be totally doubling down on on what the Labour and before that the Conservative government were doing on that. On the economy, he is not going to restart the British economy, not least because it takes a long time and a mandate he doesn't have for the reasons that Steve alluded to. >> And the only question really is, is he going to call an early election, which would be the ballsy and probably smart thing to do because I don't think he's ever going to be as popular as he is now. That is a question that remains because it probably would be the sens the rational thing to do but it is a big risk because elections are unpredictable, election campaigns are unpredictable. Nobody knows what will happen once it kicks off. But uh fundamentally I don't believe he's going to be the transformative candidate that will change Britain for the better. No. >> Can anybody? >> That's a very good question. I think it's it's a very difficult job. I think it's theoretically possible. You need a whole different set of policies. Um >> what would those policies look like? >> We talked about it already. uh we want uh abundant cheap energy. >> So would you drill in the North Sea? >> It's not something that I'm I'm not an expert in the oil industry. So I don't know. I mean one of the things I've never understood is why we don't build more nuclear power stations. Part of it is they're so expensive to build here because of the regulations and the famous example is with like bat tunnels for train lines that cost more than the trains and all this kind. It's very difficult to build energy infrastructure in the UK. I would pursue every avenue of every kind and probably including drilling for oil and other things to create the cheap abundant energy that we need to grow the economy. Number one, for the reasons that we talked about in the climate discussion. The other thing is you've got to uh the situation where you literally have tens and maybe even hundreds of thousands of young people now completely on the scrap heap. No chance of ever getting into employment because they have anxiety or they have depression. You know, when I remember being 20, going to the to to get a job as a student to the student employment office and sweating buckets because I was so anxious. It was an an like a weird experience. I'd never been through. I'm sure you know, I know your background. You've had times when you were scrapping and scraping and you would have been depressed or anxious and all sorts of things. Those are obstacles in life you have to get over. Those are not medical problems by and large. Some people have really serious depression. We shouldn't trivialize that. But by and large, you have to overcome anxiety. you have to overcome your feelings of discomfort about the reality you face and get into the workplace. So we have to do that as well. Uh for the reasons that we talked about earlier, I think one of the most important policies to pursue is to make sure that there are no benefits of any kind for foreign nationals. That will create a system where rather than doing terrible optics like the ICE, you know, rounding people up and trying to get them out of the country, people will just leave. The people who shouldn't be here, who not contributing, will leave of their own valition. >> Is that really what will happen? >> Yeah. >> Or does does is crime not a consequence of desperation. >> Crime? I'm not talking about crime. I'm talking about if you are a foreign national and you live in social housing and you receive benefits, I don't understand why you're here. I I understand taking care of British people who who were born here or even who've become British citizens. You know, once you become a a citizen of the country and you commit to it, that point you you fall through the net, you get an injury like we should look after you. But by and large perhaps other than health care, which I think is something we'd as a compassionate country would want to provide to anybody who who needs it. Uh I don't think you should get access to social housing, unemployment benefit, or any of the other things if you're not a citizen of this country. And I'm very pleased to see that more and more parties are adopting that policy because what it will do is it will create a system where people who are not contributing will leave of their own accord and and go to other places. >> Is that truly what happens? Cuz I'm imagining, you know, I'm imagining people start coming over on boats or you remove the current social housing infrastructure. Wouldn't that just result in a lot of homeless people that we then that creates another problem? >> No, because I'm not talking about illegal immigrants. legal immigrants apply for asylum and there's a different process for that. I'm talking about people who are here legally who have settled status here or who have a visa to be here or whatever. >> So they shouldn't get social housing. >> They shouldn't get any benefit. >> So what if you removed that today? >> They will leave. >> How? >> What do you mean? How they'll get on a plane and leave? >> If they can get on a boat to get here and pay people smugglers €3,000, they can pay hundred quid for easy jet to fly back to wherever they came from. It's not hard. It's exactly how I would leave if I had to go back to where I've come from. It's not difficult. People pretend you like this is complicated. It's really not complicated. People will follow the incentive structure that's in front of them. If you can come to Britain and get benefits as a foreign national, you will come. If you can't and you are the sort of person that wants benefits, you will leave. It's really simple. And the people we want here, if if you want to talk about immigration, there's some really good things about immigration. You want immigrants who come here from other countries and create businesses, they will come, they will stay and they will continue to do what they do. >> So you think Andy Burnham's ultimately going to not be successful >> by the definition that you gave, which is like a transformative prime minister who changes the the the fate of the country. No, >> there's this term called wokeism that people talk about a lot. It's often associated with h I mean, you can probably explain it better than I can. >> I believe I can. >> Yes. I think you should explain it. >> Okay. Wokeism uh in certainly in the way that it's been implemented is a hierarchy of oppression uh based on various demographic characteristics. In other words, it's a system that says an outsider looking in to this conversation between the three of us can say without knowing anything about any of us which one of us is more oppressed than others and which one of us is doing more of the oppression and therefore to whom victim status should be accorded and to whom oppressor status should be accorded. So, you don't win on this one, I'm afraid, Steve. You're a pale male and stale and therefore you're the oppressor. Um, I am an immigrant, so somewhat oppressed. You're black, so you are like, you know, way at the top of the chart of oppression. You've been, and you know, if I think if you compare all our three bank balances, you might find that's not quite true. But nonetheless, my point is it's it's a very simplified uh and frankly racist way of looking at the world. And then it says from that it follows that we must pursue policies that seek to address these imbalances and inherent privilege between people who look like us. It's a way of judging people by as groups, not as individuals. and pursuing social policy aimed at ensuring what's called social justice. >> Last time you said to me we need to stop worrying about how things make us feel rather than the consequences of our actions. >> Yeah. Wokeism is the idea that we should really really focus on what makes us feel good and really ignore what works. I think what we should really be focusing on is what works. And I thought our climate discussion I misspoke about the years but the the actually where we came to I thought was very constructive which is like what do we do about this? And when you have that conversation, you get to a constructive place, right? Which is I think we all agreed the only way to do it is to create forms of energy that are actually going to be clean, >> right? >> Innovation. >> Innovate. But that's what we came to. Yeah. But but before that, we were all talking about how what makes us feel good and bad and what we're scared of and etc. So I I think that's part of it. >> Steve, we need to stop worrying about how things make us feel rather than the consequences of our actions. >> We actually need to understand the consequences of our actions. Absolutely. That's >> Do you think we focus too much on what makes us feel good? >> Yeah. And not enough about how does our system actually function, >> right? What works. >> Okay. And that leads was widely to my position on climate change as well as my position on economic policy. >> Last thing I want to talk to you both about is um just getting any of your thoughts on all of this stuff that's going on with AI at the moment >> and the impact you think that's going to have. >> AI is a potentially transformative technology without a doubt. Okay. You think about the sort of future we might imagine for, you know, a wonderful human species is to the stage where all have universal high income to take a quote from Elon Musk. The machines do the work and we live in a world where the machines are doing it Star Trek style. That's that would be a dream outcome. >> To get there, how are you going to give people income if they're not working anymore? Okay. The only way to do that is the government has to create the money. Now that is something which I don't think Musk has thought through. If people who don't own capital and that's the vast majority of the population therefore don't have an income they can't buy the goods being produced by the robots in the first place. So you need a mechanism that enables people to pay for the basic goods and services to stay alive and then if you want to become wealthy you've got to become an entrepreneur as well. >> So you could tax the AI companies instead of printing money. >> No taxation takes money out of the economy. Okay. It doesn't it doesn't pay for services. It takes money out. That's excessive money creation. If the government had simply spent and didn't tax, then the money supply would be growing at 20 and 30% peranom and you would have hyperinflation without a doubt. Okay, that level of money creation. So the taxation is there to take excessive money creation out of >> Could you not tax, say, let's take one of the big AI companies, let's call them company A, tax company A 50% of their I don't know their profits. Give it out as a UBI or something. I don't know. >> You need a system like that because if AI works then all the manual labor, all the clerical boring clerical jobs will disappear. Okay? And if they disappear and people don't have incomes, then we end up in the hunger games. >> And that's the fear that I have. If we if we just go for a totally private sector approach to AI, then we end up as either the hunger games or the government provides an income for people to enable them to have a basic standard of living. And if they want to go above that, they've got to become entrepreneurs. >> How are you feeling about AI Constantin? >> Well, it's a mix of things. This is where I, if you remember, last time we spoke, I we talked about the fact that I think my anti-communist credentials are pretty well established. But I did, but but I did say that I thought that if we get to the position where AI is doing all the work, >> communism is an inevitability, i.e. from each according to his ability, which will be zero, to each according to his needs, which will be whatever our needs are. Right? So once we get if and when we get to if and when we get to that point >> that seems kind of inevitable the mechanism by which we achieve that whether it is taxation or whatever. Yeah I struggle to understand the economic concept that Steve has been presenting but you know I I we probably don't have time to get into that. Nonetheless, a form of redistribution will be inevitable because as we spoke about last time, if six people in the world own all the revenue generating assets in the world, they're either going to have to share it or they're going to find their heads on spikes. >> That's [clears throat] a fact. Unless they can have really powerful robots to stop the rest of us from climbing over their big walls, even then the heads are going to be on spikes. So, I I I would not recommend that that approach to the the big tech AI oligarchs, but I think we're talking about I was going to use the term long-term. No one knows what short, medium, and long-term is in AI because nobody knows how quickly we're likely to get to that point where we're talking about which is kind of artificial generalized intelligence, i.e. a machine that can think like humans and probably faster and better >> and robotics >> and and and then of course it will create robots that can do physical things faster and better than humans. >> But we are not there at the moment. I think it's fair to say. >> Do you not think this is like the most important or consequential issue of our time because it does permeate even subjects like immigration and we talked about socialism and capitalism. All of these things change in such a scenario. >> Yes, they do. Yes, they do. And we talk about economic stagnation. I mean, it's a relevant conversation. Private debt, irrelevant conversation in that scenario, but I suspect we're not going to get there >> overnight. It will take some time. In the interim, what I say to the guys that work for me is you will not be replaced by AI. You will be replaced by someone who uses AI better than you do >> in the interim. >> In the interim. So, if you are a young person making your way in the world, these are tools and you want to be using these tools as efficiently as possible. if you want to succeed in the current environment and I think that situation will carry on for some time. I think that to me the biggest risk is actually not the economics of it. I think economics will probably be painful but actually ultimately potentially beneficial once we put the if we put the right heads on spikes, you know, in the extreme scenario. I'm being hyperbolic and metaphoric here of course or maybe not. We'll find out. Um, but I think the the biggest threat to humanity if you talk about AI is actually the fact that you're creating something that's smarter than you. You are creating a superior species. And if you're creating a superior species, you will become an inferior species. And if you become an inferior species, you only need to look around in the world at the world in which we live to understand what that means for you. Best case scenario, you become a pet. Worst case scenario, you become a cow. I I've really tried uh you know I've had so many conversations on the show about artificial intelligence and I've really tried to like reason my way to a different conclusion. It's not possible and I can't. >> That's why I keep having these bloody conversations cuz I'm hoping that someone will say something. They weren't they weren't >> about this idea that a more intelligent species es especially in a world where it has legs and can move through physical space which is what Optimus is accelerating towards won't be superior to me as it relates to like the I don't know the pyramid of uh >> the hierarchy >> yeah the hierarchy of >> hierarchy of power it will have more power than you and therefore it will make decisions and not you and therefore it will make decisions that are in its own interest and not yours that's a fact But okay, so one argument might be we'll control it and design it in such a way where it can't get there. >> Really, can squirrels control human beings? >> But maybe maybe we can we we program it so it never gets to the point where it wants to turn on us. >> Counter argument is cats, right? Cats absolutely control human beings. [laughter] >> The argument I've heard actually from um one of the great godfathers of AI is we should be thinking about mothers and their babies. And the argument was that we're programmed to care for them even though they're less intelligent. >> But this is the difference though is there's a genetic incentive. My child is actually much the economists will understand what I'm talking about. My child has a much more a much higher future value to me than me. It's why I will jump in front of a bullet to stop my children from being killed because their genetic material will remain in the world much longer. >> No, it's because you have empathy. >> No, it's not. It's not at all. It's because I mean Richard Dawkins wrote about in the selfish gene >> and that's a very bad book. >> Uh he he wrote some very other bad books and I like Richard but that one is not one of them. The the desire to uh replicate your genes into the future in my opinion. Steve clearly has his own is what drives parent behavior ultimately. >> Could you program the same maternal instinct into a large language model? [snorts] I don't think you can because as we discussed it will be a superior intelligence and it can always rationalize its way out of that because it's not a biological function. Right? Projecting my genes into the future is not going to be its agenda. It's going to have its own because it's a different species. >> This was the argument that uh one of the godfathers of AI made made actually after coming on my show. So he came on my show um Jeffrey Hinton. >> Yeah, I've seen that episode I think. Yeah, it was a very good episode. and he came on and he made the warnings that make a lot of sense to most of us. But then subsequently by a year later his he came back to the world with a hypothesis that the only way to do it was to replicate a mother and their child's relationship this sort of deep maternal instinct where the AI is born believing that we are to be protected >> protected. >> Well, you know, in the same >> Oh, that's interesting, isn't it? >> It's really about looked after. >> Yeah. Yeah. It's really about love to to like Yeah. to have that maternal instinct not to want to destroy us. Mhm. >> And that's why I said empathy beforehand >> and not to perhaps not to let us destroy ourselves, right? >> Potentially. >> So, so let's make sure that we don't go to war and let's make sure that we don't do this and let's I mean climate is such a big concern. Let's make sure that we reduce the world's GDP or energy consumption or protection. It sounds good, but it's it's a it's a it's ultimately about control over your actions, which will will take away human free will. >> I still skeptical about actually being intelligence. It's indistinguishable though. This is the thing like >> Well, yeah. I mean, the one time that I when I saw it where I thought, okay, this is potentially going to create a different form of intelligence to us is when they attempted to shut an AI down and it replicated itself somewhere else on the internet to be able to avoid being, >> you know, I think the way >> or blackmail the guy shutting down this current version of it by leaking the fact that he's having an affair with on with his secretary, all of this stuff. >> So, that's that's the beginning. >> That's the worries me. So, you know, it's a bit late. If we're trying to do it now, we're shutting the door after the horse is bolted in that. >> You talking about climate change or AI now? >> I'm talking about both. [laughter] Humans are good at doing both. Operating systems, computers were the same. That's why we have all these bloody security hassles with computers in the very first instance. So, we tend we we we unleash these things and find out the consequences afterwards. >> Yeah, I think that's >> and the incentive structure, this sort of global economic race for the most advanced frontier intelligence, it's kind of, you know, this is what I don't know who's going to stop. It's kind of what we were saying about climate change. >> No one's going to stop. >> I I think what might cost stop it is the sheer cost of it and whether we actually have the physical resources to be able to implement that sort of future we're talking about because if you look at the current profitability of these companies, they're losing money hand over fist. I think that's one argument, but the the other would be that it's such an important military asset >> that you if you don't have the missiles that are smarter, you know, all the satellites, whatever that are smarter or the torpedoes, whatever, then you are there's a national security risk. >> Yeah. And also, how long was Facebook and Amazon not profitable? >> I think Amazon was not, you know, there's, you know, there's one survivor out of each of those companies and they're doing very well. Thanks very much. >> But that's my point. >> Yeah. But with the AI, but the AI who's going to survive and looking at the odds, I think it's going to be a Chinese company that survives, not the American, given the sheer cost of those data sets. >> I think we've established you're a fan of China and this >> Yes, I am [laughter] unashamed. >> No, I'm not making I'm not even making fun of you. I'm just saying with you all roads. >> I mean, looking at the the Kimmy system that just came out recently, the fact that it's an the ironic thing is the communists are talking about open source and the Americans are talking about closed and secretive. M >> it's rather ridiculous in some ways. Okay. But it doesn't really detract from the broader point I think we're we're discussing which is some AI company you talk about profitability one of them at least will emerge that is profitable that has the potential to create AGI >> and at that point no one can predict but logically it is very difficult to see >> how an intelligence that is superior to us at the very least will not take away our free will for our own good >> or at least there won't be one accident that is catastrophic >> that could theor theoretically also involve things like nuclear weapons. >> Yeah. And this is where I think the spiritual dimension of this conversation inevitably comes in which is ultimately none of us can control the things that we can't control. And so the question is how do you live your life now knowing all these things and this is why it's always interesting to me looking at people who make certain predictions about the future and then how they actually live their lives. You know people who catastrophize about the climate but buy a big house on the seafront etc. you go, you're clearly there's one thing you're saying and then there's another thing you're doing and that's telling me something about what you actually truly believe deep down. And it's the same with AI. If AI is going to kill us all, the best and most important thing to do is to enjoy your life now, to enjoy time with your family, your kids, to do things that are meaningful, to do things that you think are important. That's really that any I mean, are you going to stop AI? Stephen, are you you're powerful and successful and influential? You're not going to stop it. I don't think Steve is. I don't think I am. What we can do in the meantime uh is live in a way that uh is beneficial to us, our families, the people around us, our community, our country. Uh that's all that's left. >> I would think that we can have an impact though. I think even you watching Eric Schmidt be booed at that university commencement speech he did by 7,000 students >> was a consequence of what a lot of us do, I mean all of us do, where we put information out into the world and we have the public conversation. And once upon a time, maybe we wouldn't have been able to do that because there's there was gatekeepers in media. >> But now the public is I think and then you think about the 2028 election cycle. What are the issues that are really going to be on the ballot? I think AI is going to be a massive one. >> I think you're optimistic about that. I think most people don't get this conversation. >> You don't think it's going to be a big issue? >> Not as big as you think it is. I think the reason I say this is we all think and talk about this a lot. One of the reasons is we've all I imagine been to San Francisco and seen and talked to people etc. The overwhelming majority of people don't have that experience and most people's biggest exposure to AI is they tried an early model two years ago it was totally inaccurate and they went oh this is a bit and moved on with their lives. It's kind of where most people are at this point. But you think in the next two years there'll be unemployment levels especially at the entry level stage of employment and then you're going to see on the other side the anthropic hits a 10 trillion valuation. >> Yeah. >> And that >> people won't make that connection. They'll say I'm I'm unemployed because Trump is bad or they'll say I'm unemployed because Burnham is bad. That's how people think. Uh unfortunately and by the way in terms of you know impact etc. I've talked to a few people who are not not the very people at the top but from what I hear they're kind of similar. There's a messianic cult in in in in Silicon Valley. Yeah. >> Of people who believe that they're on the frontiers of being God. >> And most of them are young men >> who are very very seduced by the idea of being God as young men have always been. And when I see them, I I see them as it's not that they're addicts. Exactly. But there is there's a gold rush happening, except it's not gold. It's it's power. It's destiny. It's the ultimate technological breakthrough. It It's your name in history. These are things that are way more powerful than gold. And what I see happening in Silicon Valley is a bunch of young men who are uh absolutely determined to get there as quickly as possible and there is no way in hell they're going to stop. >> I know. I think you're right. I mean that's also what I've heard in sort of some private conversations where you know some of my friends who know these people have told me these kinds of things >> and they have very good arguments by the way and we should give credit to those arguments. They will say and I can I can present to you that argument. Look, I with my frontier model am going to solve cancer. I with my frontier model am going to solve inequality. I with my frontier model will make sure that human beings never fight another war again. I with my frontier model will make sure that no child ever dies in infancy ever again. >> How can you be against this? >> How can you say we must go slower? How can you say we must be careful? Why should I be careful when I'm saving lives, billions of lives? Humanity, I am saving humanity from nuclear disaster. I am saving humanity from climate change which will destroy this planet. If we just go harder at this problem, 5 years from now, we can set up life on a different planet and not worry about climate change. >> But also, China are coming. >> China. >> China are coming. >> Oh, China. Well, all the better. The competition will make us all get there faster. Isn't that wonderful, Stephen? >> So, if you truly believe that this is both an existential threat, >> Yeah. >> and you believe that right now on the course of travel run, it's inevitable. >> Yeah. >> Shouldn't you be doing something about it as well? >> I can't do anything about it. >> You can't do anything about it. No. >> Who can do something about it? >> No one. >> Not Trump. >> No. What's Trump going to do? >> So, no one can do anything about it. >> No. It's going to happen one way or another and we don't know what that's going to be like, but there is no solution to that issue. So, that's why I talked about the spiritual. Nobody knows how AI is going to work out. But I think it's worth operating as if it will. And what that means is, this is why I said the spiritual. you come back to what does it mean to live a meaningful life for as long as you do and by the way that's true even without AI you're going to die and you're going to die very very soon all of us and so the question is how do you spend the days between today and that day in a way that when you look back you feel like you did the right thing and I don't remotely do that every day you know I lose my temper I make mistakes I say things I shouldn't I all all that but ultim imately the only choice any human being on the planet now has is how do you live the time that you have between today and the day you die and that may be cuz AI you know puts you in a choke hold robotic choke hold three years from now or it could be 40 years from now or it could be 200 years from now because I have to solve all your health problems but ultimately the answer the question and the answer don't change what do you do with your life that you think is meaningful and important >> earlier on you had more optimism for humanity as it related to the climate change conversation you you weren't willing to concede that there's nothing we can do >> because there's a solution. >> When Steve said we're five seconds from the brick wall, you said, "No, listen." >> Well, I don't think that's true. Number one, but I also think that there is an actual solution that's available that's clear. Now, I'm not saying the technology currently exists that allows us to build, you know, some kind of power station that's clean. We don't have that yet. But I believe we can we can discover that. And if you look at human history, I think it's undeniable. AI is completely unprecedented. and a category different to what we're talking about. So the I issue is a different issue. It's not the same. And I am not pessimistic. I am just accepting of the truth of this issue which is nobody can stop it. Nobody can control it. And ultimately the only thing you control is what do you do when you leave the studio. >> Okay. Well then we sh we shall conclude there. >> Thank you so much. >> Thank you. >> Thank you for being here. Thank you for watching all these wonderful books, Steve. >> Got all of them here. I think there's another one on the way, isn't there? [laughter] >> And then I've got Constantine's book here. >> You've got a nice red one. I like it. >> To the what? This one. >> Yeah. >> I'm surprised it's not about China, mate. Sorry I keep making all these jokes. [laughter] >> But I appreciate your perspective. It's been really eye opening and I think especially on the subject of climate change, that was a really productive um >> Well, I mean, the current book I'm working on, which I hope to finish by the end of this month, is called How Economists Will Destroy Capitalism. Okay. And what it makes the argument for is that economists have completely and utterly misunderstood what climate change actually means. And therefore they've given us predictions about the damage that will do to our economy which are trivial and therefore we're doing trivial things to address it. >> Fantastic. I hope people read it. And I would just say I I think it's very important people in public eye when they say something that's not accurate hold their hand up. So in the climate conversation I obviously took a zero away from the figure. It's my mistake. I'm I'm glad for the correction. I'll definitely be more careful when I talk about it. I think you know the way the rest of the conversation went I think we all understood the points we were trying to make but I'm grateful for for that and I appreciate the opportunity to correct the record as well. So thanks for doing that. >> Well people should go listen to your show as well trigonometry. I'll link that below. Fantastic show. >> YouTube have this new crazy algorithm where they know exactly what video you would like to watch next based on AI and all of your viewing behavior. And the algorithm says that this video is the perfect video for you. It's different for everybody looking right now. Check this video out and I bet you you might love