Video summary
The speaker introduces the concept of "late stage liberalism," a mindset where individuals believe economic prosperity, global stability, and the free flow of money are permanent laws of nature rather than fragile constructs requiring active maintenance. This perspective leads people to assume that skyscrapers will always be built without consequence and that nations like the United States possess an unbreakable economy due to their influence and passport privileges. However, the speaker argues that this illusion blinds society to the reality that economies function on specific physics where money is paid for outcomes, not products alone. True economic engines are driven by entrepreneurs who take significant personal risks, often putting themselves in financial danger while ensuring employees get paid, a dynamic that late-stage liberals fail to comprehend because they view wealth as something that simply grows on trees rather than the result of diligent problem-solving and resource coordination. The speaker contrasts this passive worldview with the harsh reality required for economic survival, illustrating it through an anecdote from 2010 or 2011 when he lived in Los Angeles with his wife earning only $50,000 a year while working freezing facilities to prototype protein bars on Easter Sunday. To those living within late-stage liberalism, such sacrifice is invisible because they lack the frame of reference for how value creation works; instead, some radicalize this ignorance into calls for violence against successful individuals who are merely trying to build solutions and charge fair prices. The speaker emphasizes that while he acknowledges the necessity of armed resistance in extreme scenarios like a Chinese invasion or Houthi attacks on shipping lanes, advocating for such measures during peacetime is delusional. He points out that most people would not shoot back even when being shot at, highlighting how difficult violence is to execute and why it should remain an absolute last resort rather than a political tool used by those safe from consequences. A significant portion of the discussion focuses on the dangers of "crashing" systems without understanding their mechanics, using Argentina as a cautionary tale. The speaker notes that Argentina once competed with America for immigrants but descended into a century-long cycle of coups and economic collapse due to mismanagement, whereas Turkey's invasion of Cyprus resulted in division rather than war because both sides eventually moved forward diplomatically despite the initial aggression. He criticizes those who demand the crash of the US settler state or call for violence against Israel without grasping how international cooperation, customs enforcement, and naval policing are essential for global trade to function. These critics often fail to see that their own desire for a "zombie apocalypse" stems from an inability to map economic cause-and-effect relationships, leading them to support narratives of oppression while ignoring the complex realities of state-building in places like Egypt or Palestine where aid money was misused instead of fostering self-sufficiency. The speaker concludes by challenging the simplistic value systems often adopted by activists who equate being oppressed with moral superiority, noting how this logic can be manipulated to justify extreme outcomes regardless of historical context. He questions whether using billions in aid for warfare against Israel was a wise strategy compared to building an independent Palestinian state capable of standing on its own two feet, similar to the eventual diplomatic resolution seen after Cyprus's division. While he maintains that if China were attempting to seize territory here today, he would fight back immediately, he argues that long-standing conflicts where children have been playing with fire for decades are not valid reasons for continued violence or terrorism. The ultimate message is a call to understand the intricate machinery of economics and geopolitics before advocating for systemic collapse, urging society to focus on building leverage through cooperation rather than resorting to acts that destroy the very foundations people claim to protect.
Read the full video transcript
I really want to cement in our
community's mind the idea that I'm
calling late stage liberalism.
>> In the moment that you grab the gun like
Fanon says, you're no you're you're
you're no longer oppressed, you're now
free.
>> What ends up happening is
people grow up in a world where
skyscrapers can get built, nobody's
being
uh thrown in prison for something that
they said, and so you just think like
the world's pretty good. Uh it will
always be like this. There's always
going to be money. The countries don't
go broke because our country hasn't gone
broke, that you have influence all
around the world, that you can travel
wherever you want, that the American
passport is like a free ticket basically
anywhere. This is great. This is
wonderful. And this just is how the
world is. Late stage liberalism is where
it is so ingrained in people's minds
that the money will just always flow,
the money trees will always grow, that
you don't realize that you can break
your economy by breaking entrepreneurs.
You don't even realize it's
entrepreneurs that create that. Not uh
I'm not trying to oversell or
overcelebrate entrepreneurs. I'm just
saying that economies have physics, and
the only thing that gets people to pay
money is that they get a result. So
people don't pay for products, they pay
for outcomes. And so what entrepreneurs
do is they go, I really want to make a
lot of money. I want to separate myself
from the pack. Money is resources. I
want access to more resources, and I
realize the way to get those resources
is to solve a problem, to find a thing
that people really care about and give
them a really dope solution where I
create this economic engine that outputs
something more valuable than the inputs.
And there's a whole class of people that
are just wired like that from an
evolutionary standpoint. You give them
the cultural milieu, the political
policies where they're able to do that
without too much risk, they're able to
aggregate capital, borrow money, all of
that stuff. The output is this
incredible economic system that we call
capitalism. Okay. In late stage
capitalism, we start breaking that
because we believe it's a law of the
universe. We don't realize that it's a
bunch of psychotic [ __ ] like me
that will lose sleep thinking about
[ __ ] um trying to solve problems,
dealing with all the difficulties,
putting their own money at risk, being
the only one to lose. My employees have
always and will always get paid, even
though I'm not getting paid. People
don't understand that that's how this
[ __ ] stuff works. There were two of
us in 2010,
maybe even 2011, two people in my
household living off of $50,000 in Los
Angeles. And on Easter Sunday, I had my
wife in a freezing facility making a
prototype batch of protein bars. No one
gives a [ __ ] It's like they just
money flows. That's how they look at it.
They literally don't understand that No,
no, no. There there is a class of people
that want to do this thing, driven by
their own thing. All you have to You
don't have to clap for them. They just
want a shot to build the thing that
solves a problem in your life,
charge a fair price for it, and that's
it, and that's the game. But we get to
the point, which you're about to see in
this clip, where they think that it all
grows on trees, we need to be violent.
To what? To confiscate
things from the people that show up on
Easter Sunday in the [ __ ] cold to
make the bar when there are two people
living off of $50,000 in one of the most
expensive cities on planet Earth. They
don't even have the frame of reference.
They don't understand how the economy
works. And so they start talking about
violence from the safety of a world
where it just all works.
>> Just to say that in the class, my
students' heads explode.
Right? To tell them about violence. Do
you know why their heads explode?
Because violence sucks. And even in like
Vietnam,
it's some cra-
light I I don't know the exact figure,
but this is going to be so close. 70% of
people will stand on the line while
being shot at, and they won't shoot
back. Like violence is hard to get
people to do, and this is why you have
like sociopaths
continue through the gene pool, even
though you think we all hate them. But
the reality is when you start fighting,
you want to throw some psychopaths at
the other team cuz you're like, "I don't
want to shoot." I think in most firing
squads, they know one person has a blank
so that everybody can tell themselves I
was the one with the blank. Violence
should be a thing where people are like,
"What?" The most last resort thing you
can imagine.
>> As an sometimes revolutionary essential.
>> We actually need to crash the US settler
state.
>> What do we mean by crash? This is
somebody who thinks, "Okay, we're going
to crash this thing." Oh, but they're
still going to be groceries at the
grocery store.
Uh my AC unit is still going to work.
No, it's not. You're going to get
[ __ ] stabbed to death at the grocery
store because you got the last block of
cheese. These people are out of their
goddamn minds. They are so lost in a
frame of reference where [ __ ] just shows
up. They can't imagine that this is all
a bunch of people working in a
coordinated fashion, very hard, very
diligent, that there's so much
cooperation.
That's required. International
cooperation. That somebody has to police
the seas. That somebody has to stop the
Houthis from bombing ships. Somebody has
to stop pirates. Somebody has to make
sure that things get through customs.
That there isn't so much corruption that
we can't get anything done. These are
the same people that if you say, "Hey,
zombie apocalypse, do you want to live?"
"Oh my god, no way. Like I want to be
one of the people that gets taken out."
[ __ ] you were asking for a [ __ ]
zombie apocalypse and you somehow think
that there aren't going to be negative
consequences. At least I want to survive
the zombie apocalypse just to see what
the [ __ ] happens. These people actively
want to cause the zombie apocalypse.
This is so wild, dude.
People need to understand how the
economy works. Like they actually need
to be able be able to map it from
beginning to end. Like even at just a
high level to understand how this stuff
works. Ray Dalio's made cartoons for
you. Play the cartoon over and over and
over. And once you can teach it, then
come talk to me about what crashing the
economy looks like. Oh, and by the way,
walk me through Argentina. Walk me
through how Argentina goes from
uh doing better than Canada, being able
to compete with America for immigrants,
more immigrants would go to Argentina
for opportunity than America, to them
for 100 years becoming a constantly
couped government, people struggling to
like survive, to eat, to being just a
total economic backwater for 100 years.
It is wild to me that people will use
words like we have to crash the colonial
state.
>> And literally strangles the tentacles um
that are reaching into the Israeli
state.
>> So, we must stand with the armed
resistance and work right now to end
this impunity by disrupting the flow of
weapons to the Zionists cuz
>> One thing I really want to know from
these guys is like what what is their
value system? If you're running an
algorithm that says, "If you're being
oppressed, you're the good guy." It's
like play that out. The level of mad
that people have against Zionists,
Israelis, they were the oppressed
people. That's exactly how they got.
That was the narrative, I mean the
truth, but they used that narrative to
get Israel. And then they really did
something with it. Like they really
turned it into an incredible state that
doesn't have access to the oil resources
and all that, and yet they were still
able to build a thriving economy. They
were able to build a place where, I
mean, I don't even ask you to look at
Palestine, look at any of the other
uh Muslim countries around there. Look
at Egypt. For all of Bassem Youssef's
like thunder and
uh like noise, he had to flee Egypt
because he was worried they were going
to imprison or kill him. It's wild to me
like how hard in the paint that he goes
and always tells people, "Ah, why do you
keep asking about Egypt?" Dude, you fled
the [ __ ] country. That's why I'm
asking about Egypt. Israel made a place
where gays could be
safe. Aren't they oppressed?
So, I don't like I understand why we
hate that they came into a country and
we're like, "Hey, we got a playbook.
We're going to import import import
import until we are politically and
economically powerful enough that we're
going to take it over." I get it. I'd
[ __ ] fight against that. If China was
trying to do that here, I'd fight fight
fight fight fight fight. They've been a
country now for a hot minute. The
question we should be asking is, how
does Egypt become a more stable place
where people are thriving, where people
don't have to flee? How does Palestine
actually become a state? Like, what what
do we want to see them do? They had
billions of dollars in aid and they were
like, "We're going to use this to
fight." Was that a good use of that
money? I would say no. I would say this
should have been a total economic game.
They should have been doing anything and
everything they could to not need
anything from Israel to be able to stand
on their own two feet even though,
again, you have a parallel so that you
can understand what this could have
looked like. Turkey invaded Cyprus and
took over like 30% of the island, took
over the most powerful economic port,
all of that. Like, literally the world's
most similar like thing happened and
same thing, places divided, but they
didn't go to war with each other. I
mean, they invaded, they took over, but
then
the Cypriots in the south just said,
"We're just going to get on with it."
And diplomatically, they're still to
this day, whatever, 70 years, not 70
years, 50 years later, they're still
like trying to like get it resolved
diplomatically, but they just built
their state. They they let go of what
happened and they just move forward.
That would be my pitch. I'm not asking
anybody to like the Israel came into
existence, but saying that like this has
got to be a violent struggle instead of
let's just focus on we still have this,
let's build this up, let's make this
awesome, and then you can put yourself
in a position where you have leverage.
But, when your go-to is acts of
terrorism, like that's wild, man. Full
disclosure, if China invades, I'm going
to [ __ ] shoot bullets. Like, it is
what it is. But, when you're talking 70,
80 years later, it's like, uh, kids were
playing the wrong game.