This Is How Empires Fall: Debt, Power & The Fight for Global Control | Tom Bilyeu Show

Tariff madness continues as markets bounce back a little. 70 countries line up to negotiate, but China ain't one of them. Instead, vowing to restrict rare earth metals from everyone. SCOTUS green lights deportations. Scientists go full Jurassic Park and Kawasaki premieres a robotic horse prototype that brings all new meaning to My Little Pony. Drew, how's your portfolio? You buying the dip? Buying the dip. There is Market's on sale. Got to got to do it, man. When the Woo! The fun continues. When your favorite pair of jeans are 20% off, you get excited. I'm looking at that same way at my stocks. Until the entire world market implodes and we're in a recession. It gets a lot harder to be excited about bottom and then it's like, okay, now my portfolio is on sale. Yes. speaking of markets, they bounced back slightly opening at 3%. So a lot of the loss from last week eating, but as of the time of this recording they're starting to be flat versus slightly down. So would be very surprised I mean, listen, there could be enough good news coming out about the negotiations that we found the bottom. I doubt it. This feels like we are still um yet to see how things are going to play out between the US and China. The US and China is the real play here. Um Yeah, so we'll see. There's an interesting tweet that came from Mr. Beast about his uh cocoa and how that's impacting him. Uh that is um an interesting place to start. So let's take a look at it. Uh he said, "Ironically, because of all the new tariffs, it's now way cheaper to make our chocolate bars we sell globally, not in America, because other countries don't have 20% tariff on our cogs." Uh and then the um the feed proceeded to go crazy. You need to give more information. This sounds very disingenuous and misleading. I think if he had changed one word, people would have understood it. Uh if he had said ingredients instead of cogs, people would understand. Cuz what he's saying is if we were in America and we were importing all this stuff from foreign countries that are now going to have tariffs on them, our costs would have gone way up. But because we're outside of the US, selling to a lot of places outside of the US, um we don't get the tariffs on our ingredients. Just as a simple way to say it. Mhm. So, this is where the tariff game gets complicated. I thought that this was an interesting window. It's obviously just one company. It's a company that's already manufacturing outside of the country. So, of course, um this is why you want to see as much nuance as possible to these tariff policies, which we're not getting nuance. We've talked endlessly about it. We can go into more again why he's not doing it in that way, or at least my generous read as Destiny thinks that I'm overly generous. Um but understanding that you're going to see a lot of things like this. And what would be great is if he were going in and being a little bit more careful and saying, "Okay, for things like cocoa that we don't manufacture in the US, um how do we make sure that those things aren't getting caught up in all of this?" And I think the fact that he isn't doing that, a generous interpretation would be um that he's playing a different game. And this is why I say, "Listen to Scott Bessent and Howard Lutnick. You're going to get a far clearer sense of what's going on." Uh and Bessent did a couple of interviews this um on Monday that I thought were really useful in terms of what's going on here, in terms of Trump treating this treating tariffs as adding this third layer to the utility of a tariff, uh not just to uh bring manufacturing back to the US, not just to address trade imbalances, but also as a negotiating tactic. And that's what uh drum Bessent is beating. And he's saying, "Listen, 70 countries, sometimes he said up to at one point." He said 70 and others. So, call it somewhere around there. Countries lining up to come and have a conversation with the US. Trump has very clearly telegraphed that if you come faster, you're going to get a better deal than Uh Bessant had signaled previously at the end of last week that, "Hey, chill. Don't retaliate. That is not going to be a good play." And history tells us that that is true. But, and I don't want to start conflating all these, we want to take them one at a time. But, something that we will talk about a little bit later in the episode is China's just playing a different game. Mhm. And to blind yourself to the game that China's playing would be a mistake. Yeah, I want to dive into Mr. Beast though cuz we've seen somebody similar say something in our live where they were in I think it was either Fiji or Vietnam where they were saying, "These tariffs can quite literally bankrupt me. I'll have to fire my seven employees. We'll have to cut back. We'll have to scale down." So, I understand, you know, big boat America in 30 years we're going to love this policy. But, what do you say to the small businesses, to the people that will get caught up, quite frankly, in the crossfire of this tariff war? The reality is that much like evolution does not care about any one person, uh evolution does not care about an entire generation, but ultimately on a long enough timeline, as they say, the long arc of history bends towards justice. But, that tell that to anybody in Gaza right now. Certainly doesn't feel like it. Uh tell that to Ukrainians. It doesn't matter. Even if on a long enough timeline that is true. So, the same with tariffs is there is going to be devastation. Trump is using this as a wrecking ball. Trump is trying to sow chaos. This is a big part of the reason that I try to get people to listen to Bessant. He's trying to speak directly to our allies and adversaries, quite frankly, and he's telling them, "Listen. Don't retaliate. That's just going to make things escalate." He's giving us the way to read Trump. I get it. I'm asking you to effectively swallow your pride for a minute. But, if you fail to acknowledge the US as arguably the most important economy because of how much of our GDP is based on purchases, but even if you're only going to give me second place, which I think would be foolish, but even if, uh to ignore our standing in the world as being that important would be a far bigger mistake for them than it is for us. Uh which is something that Dalio has tried to be very, very direct on, which is the country that is the debtor actually fares better in a trade war because people are relying on them. They're selling into them. We are the country that people sell into. Uh you ignore that at your own peril, but all of this, this great power war, is just they blind themselves intentionally or unintentionally to the people that are going to get trampled. In fact, the right way to think of this is this is Godzilla versus Mothra, and sure, entire cities are going to get obliterated, but it's not like they're doing it on purpose, but they need somewhere to fight. And so, it's just how it's going to be. And I I am merely trying to describe what is. I'm not trying to be callous. I understand that. I understand. Like, if I were back at Quest right now, whoa, like this would really be something that would be disruptive. And so, I'm merely trying to step out of the fray, describe the process that is happening, rather than saying, "Oh, this is how it ought to be." Um I think, and I've I've said this many, many times, I think Ray Dalio's emotional valence on this whole thing is the right thing, which is I don't know how this is going to play out. This is an insanely complicated system. All I can do is tell you you had to do something because there there is this loop, the debt cycle, the big debt cycle that Ray has written about extensively, that you can look back 500 years and you can see this cycle play out over and over and over, eternally tied to debt. And so, we are just at a point where we have an unsustainable debt that we've already accumulated that is accumulating at an unsustainable rate, and you have other countries, China chief among them, that are overly reliant on our own debt. And so, you get in this precarious situation where it's not sustainable for anybody. This moment was going to happen. And it only happens about once in a lifetime, maybe a little bit less. It's probably closer to averaging like 125, 150 years. So, it would be all too easy to grow up in a time where you just read about this. And we all happen to be living through this moment, and the odds of us living through it again are effectively zero. So, all of us are going to get to experience this once. It will be completely foreign to everybody that's going through it. And yet, if you look back in history, there are a ton of clues as to why we're here, how this is going to play out, um and why Trump would be so hell-bent to gain leverage now, because the US economy is a melting ice cream cone. Once you understand that, our status as the world reserve currency is a melting ice cream cone. Our debt, melting ice cream cone. Like you just you can't survive here for long. And so, um he's taken a couple big licks to stop the ice cream from dripping all over our hand, uh but the reality is that you have to do something. Otherwise, termination is inevitable. Like at least this maybe forestalls it for a meaningful amount of time. Maybe not. Maybe it accelerates it. I want to be very clear. I do not look into this future and go, "Oh, this is obvious." I am just trying to paint a picture of um you can take the Trump is madman bet. It just does not feel accurate to me. Trump may be wrong, but I don't think he's just acting crazy. There's a reason he's been banging this drum for 40 years. Yeah. And he put out a tweet on Truth Social talking about how people are already starting to make a deal. So, this is directly from Trump on his Truth Social. "Had a great call with the acting president of South Korea. We talked about their tremendous and unsustainable surplus, tariffs, shipbuilding, large-scale purchase of US LMG, their joint venture in an Alaskan pipeline, and payment for the big-time military protection we provide to South Korea. They began these military payments during my first term, billions of dollars, but Sleepy Joe Biden, for reasons unknown, terminated the deal. That was a shocker to all. In any event, we have the confines and probability of a great deal for both countries. Their top team is on a plane headed to the US and things are looking good. We are likewise dealing with many other countries, all of whom want to make a deal with the United States. Like with South Korea, we are bringing up other subjects that are not covered by tariffs, trade and tariffs, and getting them negotiated also. One-stop shopping is a beautiful and efficient process. China also wants to make a deal badly, but they don't know how to get it started. We are waiting for their call. It would happen. God bless the USA. We really are in a very powerful position. And it doesn't mean that when you flex that muscle, you don't create further problems for you down the line. But we are an incredible economic and military force. That is one of the base assumptions that gives you the highest predictive validity of why Donald Trump is acting the way that he's acting. He's like, "Hold on a second. We're this massive economy. We are this incredible global superpower militarily. We've been protecting everybody." You saw the leaked comments from uh Vice President Vance, who's saying, "Wait, why are we dealing with the Houthis when only 3% of our trade goes through here?" Like, "We won't even notice this." Uh you're doing it to help your allies, which we do all around the world. Now, it's problems with empire, so let's set that aside for a second. But Trump is coming in and saying, "I'm going to be recognized for that. I'm going to get my just deserts." Now, whether he is doing it intuitively, meaning it's just the guy that rose to power now is the guy that just internalized, "It's not fair." And I'm not saying that he's being some political genius strategist. It may be that um when the student is ready the teacher will appear. When the populace is ready the populist leader will appear. And the guy that just has this resentment to I can't believe Japan is keeping me out. I can't believe they rejected my potatoes. I can't believe that China won't let Facebook in but we've got to deal with TikTok. Right? He may just have like a fairness algorithm running in his brain that's making him lash out and be angry and he wants America to um be respected on the global stage. Fine. But this is the result of an economic setup that happens throughout history in a cycle. It is knowable. It is predictable. Ray Dalio has been trying to document this and scream from the rooftops and this is coming. He's been saying it literally for years. And now it's here. And so without people needing to believe that Trump is a genius, you want to understand what is that impulse that appears in the human mind that makes this so predictable. And when you are a declining power who goes how did we end up here? Why are we declining? And you see that you've got um these massive debts. You start asking yourself, wait a second. I'm not the one that got us in all this trouble with the debts. Why are we here? It is very hard to turn the mirror and look at yourself and say, oh this is the result of a lot of bad policies. This is the result of uh I hate to say it but when you've got more entitlements than you have tax dollars coming in, you find yourself in this position. And this is every reserve currency ever realizes that they can keep the party going for a distressingly long time by um raising foreign capital. Okay? So selling debt. And you bring that foreign capital in. You can also because you're the reserve currency, you can export all of your inflation to the whole world. And so, as you realize, "Oh my god, this works." And you push it a little, and there's no response. Push it a little. Nobody says anything. You push it, and push it, push it. And when you look at the graph of the M2 chart, it's comical. It's like for decades, we were pretty judicious about it. And then, all of the sudden, 5 years ago, we go berserk. And that's when Ray started going, "I know this movie. I've seen it play out." And so, that's the backdrop. And Ray, in fact, had a tweet. I don't know if we have it ready to pull up. But, he had a tweet where he's like, uh "Please don't make the mistake of thinking that this is just about tariffs. This is about the economic conditions that I've just walked us through." And that's the real thing that's happening right now. And to think that this is just a game of tariffs is to miss the um conditions that give rise to populism in the first place. And he lays out three factors. The three factors You've got to hear it, so I'll try it from memory, and we'll see if I can't, then we can go back. It's um internal forces, so left versus right, and that order is breaking down, as he says, cuz he's talking about this is a moment where these three forces break apart. The domestic political order is breaking down. Yep. And then, you've got the international political order is breaking down. And then, you've got debt that reaches unsustainable levels. And so, those three things become this cocktail that leads to this moment. And now, the licking of the ice cream cone, trying to reestablish an order that unfortunately, like you get rid of a lot of the available ice cream by doing it. But, it's like, "I'm going to be the one that's going to capture all this ice cream yumminess." And so, you like go ham on it for a minute, and now it's like, for a second, it doesn't look like it's melting anymore. Oh, it still is, and you just ate a ton of your ice cream cone. Uh but, for a second, you reestablish an order. And that is what we're doing. Now, eventually you always lose. And our I guess the ice cream in the the sun in this scenario, the antagonist in this story, China, is definitely not laying down. is debt. The antagonist is human psychology. We're going to pin it on China, but in this like we were China at the end of World War II. And what did we say? Sorry, guys. You're going to do it our way. And so, unfortunately, every empire experiences both ends of the spectrum. You become the dominant force because you're the rising power. Just luck, circumstances, good decisions, all of it. They lead to Oh, at the end of World War II, we were largely protected from the actual bombardments. Everybody was borrowing money from us. We were already a rising economic power. And suddenly, you know, at the end of World War II, we are just an undeniable force. And while it's not a simple process, but we win the negotiations at Bretton Woods. Everybody agrees, okay, Jesus, I guess there's nothing else to do. We've all borrowed so much money from them anyway. And they're in a position to continue to manufacture and help all of us get back on our feet. So, yeah, fine. Like they become as long as they're good people, we're okay with it. And for 70 or 80 years, it was magically delicious. And everybody benefited except the working class in America. And they were the ones that slowly over time began losing. But you really didn't hear people freak out about it until the 1990s. And that's when it was like, hold on a second. When you're letting China into the WTO, now we've got a problem. Because people that understand how this game plays out, they're like, it is so self-evident that now this idea of comparative advantage, let them eat flat screens. You're going to make all of my goods cheaper, for sure, but you're going to hand me back Detroit as this ghost town of violence. Yeah, at what cost? Um with the retaliatory tariffs the back and forth of China slap a 34% additional tariffs. Now all in, we're at 104% against tariffs against China. They also are now restricting their exports of the seven rare earth metals to all countries, but they're really saying so that we nobody can then trade with the US. Okay, this is a really interesting point. Uh there's two things going on here. So you've got a difference in timeline, so playing two different games. And then you have both countries trying to figure out how they stop leakage. So if you're China and rare earth metals are going to our allies, well then we're going to buy from the allies just like people accuse China of doing with the semiconductors that we've supposedly outlawed. And all of a sudden you look at Singapore and it's like, "Hold on a second. Singapore buys like the most chips ever and they've got like a population of 45,000." It's not that comical, but it's pretty close. So it's like, "Oh, okay." The odds that those are ending up in China border on 100%. Uh China wants to leverage something that they have, which were the rare earth metals, and they want to make sure that they don't go by way of our allies and make their way back to us. So you've got both of us doing these across-the-board actions that are designed to wall things off. And if this keep keeps escalating, this is exactly how you end up in a global recession where it's like there's just you've got Godzilla and Mothra fighting and everybody else is getting smashed in the interim. Now maybe the most important thing to understand here is the difference in timeline. This is democracy versus authoritarian rule. And so you've got the US that has wild policy swings every two to four years. So it's very hard to get long-term momentum going very fast. You're you're basically constantly tacking back and forth like you you would on a Left, right, Democrat, Republican. Exactly. And it's like, "Okay, wait, we're not going in the right way." Then you hard the other way. "Ah, it's too far. Go back." And so it's a pretty inefficient way forward. Now it fights against something like you find in an authoritarian regime like you're going to get in China where if you think of it this way, it's very helpful. In the US, we try everything and something ends up working. But, you diffuse your energy across a lot of stuff. But, just like the human immune system, the reason that we use sexual reproduction is it creates a variety in the immune system. So, one pathogen is unlikely to take out the entire population. Whereas, when you like do monocropping, now there's just no genetic diversity and a single fungus or parasite can just obliterate the whole thing because you have one genetic defense and if something bypasses that, everybody's toast. Um that's what China's doing. It's like top-down, we're going to bet on these very small number of things. And if something ends up hitting that small number of things that they're pursuing, they were efficiently moving in a direction. But, now they just get attacked, it's all over if they end up picking the wrong things. Uh now, China has a recent history of picking the right things. Yeah. So, and they certainly have their eye on AI which just strikes me as impossible to be wrong. So, I don't know that we're going to get a lot out of that, but it's important to understand that those are the two things that those are the two styles of government that are going head-to-head right now. Um China's playing a very long-term game. So, for them it's like, "Okay, well, cutting off the rare earth metals may not mean a lot now, but watch as we build massive energy surpluses. Watch as we build this gigantic dam that generates a ton of energy. Watch as we spin up nuclear. Watch as we spin up coal. Their rate of energy acquisition is I want to say at least five times faster than ours. If that isn't literally true, it is directionally correct. I If my understanding is we're going from like one to two and they're going from like 10 to 13. So, it's like, "Yo, we are uh we're way behind. And with AI, that is going to matter a lot. So, maybe this doesn't choke us out fast, But over the long term could really matter in 10 years, 15 years, when the rate that you have to make these chips is just unimaginable to today's audience. Yeah, and in our episode with you guys kind of touch on that how we put that embargo on chips and then China said, "Okay." They took a step back, started making their own factories, implement their own chips. I'm like, "You got us now, but in 6 to 8 years the best chips are now going to be made internally. We don't have to worry about that." to bring that [ __ ] online. That's like a 2026 thing. Yeah. So, woo, buddy. Be careful what you wish for. And th- that's the game that you're playing. Now, whatever China tries to do to us, like let's say that we lose the tariff battle, we get knocked for six, uh it's not like we just go away. We're way too big for that. We are not England where it's like all of our gains were done through essentially acquisitions. We're spread out, our population's spread out all over the globe, but our home populace is, say, only 45 million people. America's like 350 million. I mean, once you start factoring in all the undocumented illegal immigrants that we have, uh we got a lot. So, you're not going to see that kind of I would prognosticate. You won't see that kind of disappearance the way that England just fell off of the map of relevance. Uh you won't see that with America. Copy. And I So, I feel like we outlined the small business, we outlined the kind of US V China and all this all. But there's one thing that kind of keeps talked about, but we don't really kind of drill down in it, and that is what is actually coming back. So, I understand that we want to bring manufacturing back, but with this robot boom on the horizon, we Tesla announced that they're going to have a legion 6,000 of Optimus robots in production ready to go this year. Are we really going to bring back We're probably not going to bring back traditional manufacturing, but what is actually coming back? What is the positive result that we want at the end of this tariff game? We'll get back to the show in a moment, but first I want you to picture this. It's Monday morning. Your co-workers are texting about being stuck in gridlock while you're cruising past them, getting some fresh air, and actually enjoying your commute. It's not a fantasy. It's what happens when you switch to an e-bike. The average commuter spends over 54 hours a year stuck in traffic congestion. And if you live in a major city like LA or New York, you're looking at nearly a full week trapped in your car. If you're ready to upgrade your commute, check out Upway. They've created a marketplace for premium certified e-bikes from top brands like Specialized, Cannondale, and Aventon at up to 60% off retail. Each bike is professionally refurbished, fully certified, and comes with a warranty. A $1,700 Aventon that typically sells for full price can be yours for just 900 bucks through Upway. Plus, you can get $150 off any purchase over 1,000 when you use code impact. Head to upway.co and use code impact. Now, let's get back to the show. Please make sure at the end of this that we show that meme, the AI-generated meme of American factory workers. I really want to uh get get my fellow Americans uh on board. Okay, so here is the game. This this So, this is not what's going to be happening. Okay, so the reason I want to show this though is for uh an entire fractal. Um for anybody that's just listening and not watching, it shows a bunch of very lethargic, very slow-moving, very obese for the most part American workers. And they're moving slowly and awkwardly and don't really know what they're doing compared to um the just insane high-level not only efficient workers in China, but incredibly skilled workers as Tim Cook made very clear. And then at the end it says make America great again. Chinese trolls. Dude, this Well, I'm not even sure that that was made by somebody in China. I would be very interested to see that has such a Western sensibility about it, that level of mocking. Um China just normally gets to business or like they'll just make the direct threat. We're prepared to fight any kind of war that you want. Uh anyway, this is me. I honestly don't know. It's entirely possible that they have somebody in China that made that. But that felt more to me like America talking to itself. And I felt something really visceral when I saw that. And the thing that I would love to get Americans on board is like [ __ ] that. Do not let that be true. Like don't let it be true that we have become this disaffected um lack of pride-having, sloth-accepting nation of the Wall-E people at the end of Wall-E on the spaceship that have just completely let go of their um hunger and desire for greatness, man. I don't even need you to want to compete with the rest of the world. Just like want to be [ __ ] awesome. Mhm. And growing up as a kid, and this is so reflected in our movies of like and what I love about cinema of the '80s was it was a whole bunch of immigrants. You had Schwarzenegger, you had Van Damme, you had a bunch of directors from all over the world, accents everywhere. But they were all communicating this story of like the individual pursuing greatness, trying to be something extraordinary. And I have always like I've been so moved by that. So much of my mental model of what I'm capable of, what America's capable of, and America as an idea. I love the idea of America is a beacon to the people that feel that way and they want to come here. It's what I've always referred to as a foreign-born American, somebody that just saw that idea. I can go there and test myself against the world and see if I can make it. There was this old adage, I don't even know if kids know anymore, that people used to say about New York, if you can make it here, you can make it anywhere. And this idea of there's this one town in all the world that everybody comes to find out just how good are you? That energy, man, as a kid from like podunk America, for me, that was so cool. The thought I could move to a big city and I could get better and I could prove to myself that I could really do something. Like when I saw that meme, I was like, damn, I feel like that, unfortunately, feels like it captures so much of the energy for me of like how the American psyche is beginning to wither. Um I just don't want to see it, man. You will get your lunch eaten by the person who wants it more and the person that's willing to put in the time. I've started um I've talked about this certainly in the lives, which by the way, guys, join us for the lives. They are awesome. They're fun. I know that sounds terrible to me. So thank you. I've started doing this thing um where because I game and because I'm almost 50, uh my hand will hurt, so I have to ice it. And I used to do one finger at a time and I thought, let me just start putting this in like a big tub of ice. And it is startlingly painful. To the point where you're like, what? Like how is it that ice hurts this much? Like, my brain is screaming to take my hand out. And I thought, this is good practice of how long can I leave my hand in? And they've actually done tests on this about like, if you want to test mental resilience, they have people submerge their hand in ice water. It's fascinating. So, doing things like that, getting your diet right, working out, uh doing like hard cardio, putting your your whole body, your hand, whatever, in ice to see like how much pain can you tolerate, but more importantly, like, can you frame yourself as somebody tough enough to push through that difficulty? And it is incredibly powerful. And we're losing that somehow in the American subconscious. And I worry about that. Okay. That was all because you asked me, what do people expect to get out of this? And the thing that we have to get out of this is you want to be economically strong, so you need to be disciplined. You can't spend more money than you're making. You have to break your reliance on foreign capital, which is not something that people talk a lot about in all of this madness. This is one of the drums that Ray Dalio is trying to beat, trying to get people to pay attention to. Uh this isn't just about tariffs, this is about how much of your your uh debt is owned by a foreign adversary, who could they probably won't, but they could dump it, and that would have really traumatic impact on long-term interest rates. So, anyway, you've got a vulnerability there. And then also, all of your spending is deficit spending. You're doing everything through debt, and that is a very precarious situation to find yourself in. So, that's one. You need to get disciplined economically. Mhm. two, you can't pretend that you don't live in a world of great power politics, where the strong will do as they want and the weak will suffer as they must. And so, we are in a tractor beam with China that hopefully never, but could lead to warfare. The surest way to be invaded is to be weak. And this is inevitable. Do you think? Like, if we just keep doing business as usual, we don't bomb them, they don't bomb like Read the last, I mean, keep it recent. Read the last thousand years of history. It is a never-ending string of invasions. Just one after another after another after another. Like, it's history is startling because it is a forced glimpse into your own DNA and where you fall. Are you one of the people that cowers inside the castle gates? Uh are you one of the people willing to sell your children to avoid being conquered? Are you one of the people that will lay down your life to defend? Are you one of the people that goes across lands to enslave and conquer? And that's history. Just over and over and over. And we do so history is so big that we do a terrible job of pulling out the traits, the human traits, that reveal themselves when you start taking a 2,000-year view of history. You're like, "Oh, damn. Like, this is a thing. Like, humans are like this." Uh so, yeah. Uh it is inevitable. That is the long and the short of it. So, on the other side of this, we must be economically and militarily strong. And are the things that Trump is doing the right things? I don't know because I don't know if they're going to work. I just know you have to do something. And so we're coming off the back of 4 years of making the problem worse. And what we're doing now is like drinking baking soda. And when you drink baking soda, it will either if you're feeling nauseous, Mhm. if you drink baking soda, it either makes you vomit and then your stomach settles or it settles your stomach and your stomach settles. But one of two things is going to happen. You're either about to barf or like it's going to be the thing you needed to neutralize whatever is upsetting your stomach. So, that's where we're at. I don't know if this is just an accelerant that is going to spark a global recession or if this is not only addressing the problem that absolutely had to be addressed or if it's addressing the problem that absolutely had to be addressed in a way that will accelerate it and make the problem arrive much much faster. In in 2025, 2026, 2027, insert time frame here. Does it really make sense for China to invade? Cuz to me it's like There There I cannot fathom a universe in which they invade the US. feel like that's But I can imagine a world in which they invade Taiwan. So, this is a question. Now, they might be able to sidestep the need to invade Taiwan if they're able to spin up the semiconductors and they feel like we're able to make these ourselves. We don't care anymore. This move that we just made by bogarting the rare earth metals. Between that and the ability to make the best chips on planet Earth, let them do whatever they want. We don't care anymore. Got it. Um but maybe not. And this is all going to come down to China doesn't want you to think that their economy is weakened, but is it? Uh is China just stimulating stimulating, stimulating? If it is, how long can they do it for? If it's as long as the US was able to do from say 1971 until now, it's like they got a lot of room to play, man. Uh the problem is that they don't have the purchasing power that we have. So, how badly will it hurt them if we are able to not only pull away the American economy from them, but also create allies that then pull their economies away from them. Because they've made all these goods, if America pulls back, that's we stop buying Chinese goods, China goes into a deflationary spiral. One of the ways they will try to combat that is to sell to other allies. But if those allies like, "Hold on, we either can't because we now have a treaty with America that says that we can't." Yeah. Uh technically I don't think it'd be a treaty, but an agreement with America that says that we can't or we don't want to upset that. Because like in the case of South Korea, that they have military protections. So, South Korea's like, "Huh, we don't have the greatest history with China. I don't really want to be on the hook uh for my own military. I'd much rather the US military be able to protect me. So, will I forego the maybe of things with China for the yes of America? Yes." And so, now China's like, "Okay, well we have one less place where we can avoid our deflationary spiral." And so, that's going to be the game. Is everybody's trying to scramble, get their allies, and say, "Okay, uh this is a multipolar world. I've got all these people, you've got all those people." Now, that becomes a game of is then everybody fine? If then everybody's fine, cool. Okay, we've we've bought ourselves enough time to get to at least the technological singularity, where if one country wins the AI race, then all bets are off because they will immediately They will immediately have the opportunity to launch a soul-crushing cyber attack on any country that they want. Now, keep in mind, when we were the only ones that had nuclear weapons, we didn't do it. So, it doesn't mean that just because, let's say China, gets to ASI, artificial superintelligence first, it doesn't mean that they're going to launch an attack. Maybe they're No, no, no, guys, we've been telling you from the beginning. We want our sphere of influence. That's it. You guys have yours. We're not empire. Uh we don't pursue empire. We're not imperialistic the way that you guys are. We've tried to tell you that forever. You didn't trust us. You didn't listen, but it really is true. Let us live our life. We want to do things through cooperation. We don't want to try to control the whole We'll see. I've no idea. Uh but I would like to think that if America had ASI, that we would be like we were when we were the only ones with nuclear weapons. That we chill. That we want to see the world thrive. And the only reason that we're acting out right now is because the ice cream cone is melting down our arm. And if we can stabilize that, then hopefully we go back to the very good, very friendly, very encouraging behavior that we had at the end of World War It's probably Pollyanna, but it is a possibility. Copy. All right. In other news in Scotus news, they have ruled that the deportations that Trump has been sending Venezuelan gang members to El Salvador can continue. Let's get the read from NPR. The US Supreme Court is narrowly backing the Trump administration's efforts to continue deporting Venezuelan migrants to El Salvador. President Trump claims they are gang members. The high court vote was five to four. Conservative Justice Amy Coney Barrett sided with three liberal justices. The ruling means President Trump can rely on the rarely used wartime power, the Alien Enemies Act, to deport people. NPR's Human Events Bustillo reports the court did set a limit. The justices did say people need to have adequate notice of their removal and an opportunity to contest it. The judges also sided with the government in arguing any disputes need to be individually filed in the states where people are held. The ACLU and other organizations sued in Washington, D.C. and sought to represent all people who may be subject to the Alien Enemies Act in the U.S. What is your read on the Supreme Court justice allowing the controversial deportations to continue? We have clarity. So, ultimately, that's what we need. The The point of the court system as envisioned by the framers of the Constitution was that uh not that they would try to impose their own thinking, but that they would do their best to interpret the intentions of the founders to say, "Okay, given that the world changes fast and it's very difficult to like write down all these edge cases, this is what we think was meant." Um the number of times that the Federalist papers are quoted in Supreme Court decisions is like that, over 100. Uh and the rate at which they're quoting it, if I remember correctly, is increasing. So, we have our Constitution. We have documents that were meant to explain beat by beat what the Constitution was attempting to do, and then we have the judiciary not as people who are meant to make new laws. They are merely meant to be the most um like detached apolitical entity to say, "Okay, this is our read on the situation." Now, we all know that there's the human mind is has a frame of reference. They are appointed by one side of the aisle or the other. So, there's a reason that you can usually see the stuff break along political lines. I don't want to be naive to that. But, their role is really to remove themselves from that and say, "This is what I believe the intention was." And so, ultimately, what you turn to the Supreme Court for is clarity. And the here we have clarity. Now, what do I personally think about this? Um I'm not super close to this problem. I honestly haven't spent a lot of time on it, but I will default to uh culture matters. It matters a lot. We had an open border that is one, even taking the most like just sort of everyday approach to this, you cannot let people in at that rate without any sort of qualification as to whether these are going to be the kind of people that are coming here specifically because they felt the beacon of individualized American opportunity, let me come and test myself against it. Like, when people say that, "Oh, we're a nation of immigrants." Yeah, bro, we were a nation of immigrants when you came here and it was like, "No social safety net. You were like, I might get killed by uh exposure. I might get killed by Native Americans. I might get killed by other [ __ ] crazy psychopaths in my own state. Read about Massachusetts. Those kids didn't play in the early days." Um all of that stuff is when we became that group of immigrants. So, it was like, "If you got called to be here, you really want You were prepared to be tested." And all you wanted was a shot. Like, give me a shot. When you have immense entitlements and you send up the flag that says, "We're both the place where you can come and succeed if you win and if you fail, we got you." So, you set up something that is open to madness. The abuse being uh worked against you. And then the other side of this is you have foreign adversaries who are like, "Bet, I'm going to send a bunch of people in." So, the thing that often gets cited, and I think rightly so, is that all of the 9/11 hijackers came in through the southern border. So, um you know it's already happened once. Will it keep happening? And are there gang members that have been sent over here on behalf of a foreign entity? It's certainly possible. And so, you are you elect a president to make those kind of decisions. The president has told you this is what I think it is. Obviously, if you disagree, you should speak the hell up, and you should vote against him if you think that he's out of pocket. And then you turn to the judiciary to go, "Is what he's doing okay? Like, does this actually line up?" And so, you have your answers. Nice. Uh Pete Hegseth got a great answer um during the Netanyahu, President Trump press conference yesterday where he signaled for a trillion-dollar Department of Defense budget. First ever. Don't worry, everybody, we're going to we're going to lower these expenses. P.S. I would like a trillion dollars. But despite that, we have a tremendous military. That was a very small portion cuz we rebuilt the military during my first term. And we we have great great things happening with our military. We also essentially approved a budget which is in the facility, you'll like to hear this, of a trillion dollars, $1 trillion. And there's nobody seen anything like it. We have to build our military, and we're very cost-conscious, but the military is something that we have to build, and we have to be strong because you have a lot of bad forces out there now. So, we're going to be approving a budget, the and I'm proud to say, actually, the biggest one we've ever done for the military. Uh, we're cutting other things that were uh, under DOD, but under a lot of other When you look at, uh, a woman getting $2 billion for environmental and it had nothing to do with environmental and they had $100 in the bank and they give her $2 billion. Many, many of those cases. All that stuff is going to be cut out. $1 trillion, nobody's ever seen nothing like it. Okay, we're that phrase. We were talking about debt. We were going to war because we can't afford these bills. People can't afford groceries. Egg prices was $15 a month ago. But we got a trillion dollars to pay for guns to a war that we're not even supposed to be fighting. Help help me break that down. Well, first of all, you don't have that trillion dollars. You are already in debt. Uh, but you already had this budgeted at like what? 850? 850 billion, I think. So, um, I mean, look. What's another 150 amongst us? Well, it's a lot and we should not do this lightly and so I won't lie. I don't like the way this feels from the perspective of show me how much you've actually reduced the budget annually through the DOD efforts and then say, "And, uh, we're going to take I mean, is this 100% of what they saved? Is this 200% of what they saved? Is this 50%? I have no idea. Uh, but I want to see that so that as a voter, I can say either yes, I'm cool, good, I like that. Move that from whatever you moved it from to the military because listen, I'm a What would they call me? A China hawk? Like I'm worried about China. Whatever that makes me, that makes me. And, um, I'm also worried about America to be really honest with you. I think we're in a tractor beam. I think it is a two-way tractor beam. I think there's something in the architecture of the human mind that leads to this moment. I want to be very clear. This is not a China bad guy, we're good guy. This is [ __ ] human nature is crazy and very predictable and this is a tractor beam that we're both in. But the the is, I live in America. So, I live in America and I have a wild bias towards democracy over authoritarian rule. Uh so, with all of those things out on the table, um we have to be ready. Like, we cannot play around. And when I There There's an idea that I have has fired off in my brain a hundred times to bring up uh in this and I always resist, but apparently this time I'm going to stop resisting. Let's do it. There was a guy that was on Joe Rogan who was talking about In fact, as I tell this story, if you can try to find this, um type Rogan uh dead Taliban real fast, and we'll see if it comes up. And so, this guy was saying, "I don't understand No, that's not him. He He looks like the human equivalent of um a berserk Viking. Uh and nope. You'll know him when you see him, man. This guy just has the look. All right, this doesn't not work as well as I'd hoped it would. The problem is they all start the clips on Rogan. Um so, anyway, the guy is saying, "I don't understand the lone survivor story. If I was being pursued by seven Taliban people, that's a recipe for seven dead Taliban real fast." And I remember watching him talking, and I was like, "Oh, that's what a sociopath looks like." Like, he is just And he was talking about He was like, "We were in a firefight. I killed so many people." I think he said, "I stopped counting at a hundred." And so, I was like, "Jesus. Now, this is not somebody that I think is um having trouble sleeping at night." And I could be wrong, but there's this story that goes, uh why is it that sociopaths exist? And if you understand that you get invaded, your women get kidnapped, they get raped, your kids are killed, you're killed, um if you understand that that's the reality of life, you need people who have dead shark eyes that are just like, "Yeah, I'm I'm going to do the killing and that's that." Uh so, we need a military that is lethal. We need to understand that there are people in our country, in other countries, in every [ __ ] country that we all got them. And the country that is prepared to move those to the front of the deck and give them some guns, uh that's who you're going up against. And so, we have to be prepared for that. I would never want us to be offensive, meaning I would not want us to go on the offense. I do not want to be in war. As part of the reason that I was excited about Trump coming into office was the anti-war, anti-war, anti-war. I don't know that he's He does not strike me as somebody who's actually living up to that in um practice. Him. Him. Him. Him. Him. Is he? Yes. I never understood some of these other like veteran stories. You know, I never I never kind of like the lone survivor. I never understood the full story cuz I went out alone all the time. That didn't happen to me. Seven Taliban on my ass? You want to see seven bodies super quick? You know what I'm saying? Bring them boys up here, you know? So, I never really understood some of these other stories because I had such a different experience. I can't fathom if I was with five, you know, the times I was with five guys, you know, how many people I mean, I was with three guys, you know, how many people we killed in the Battle of Tora Bora? Hundreds. I just stopped counting. on my first day. That is so indicative to me of the world that we live in and we have had this really great run where we could act as if that was not the world that we were in for a very long time. Now, people that America dropped into to liberate, they knew pretty quick. Um but we're now in a position where we may I hope we never have to, but we may have to defend ourselves. So, I want to make sure that we are ready. So, I don't want to just spend extra money on the military and I also don't want to pretend that we don't live in that world. So, um If you had to pick one between like entitlements and military, it seems like you would rather cut entitlements than military. Um Jesus. I hate everything about that question. I'm definitely putting a gun to your head. At this moment, you can't afford to not have your military. But if you put yourself in that position, you will have a civil war. So, it's one of those where Yeah, do you want the destruction to come from the inside or the outside? Either way, you're going to be destroyed. Because no one's going to stand for that. You You can't just take it away. This is why we have to do something about the debt. We have to. We have to. Like if you want to continue to take care of the people that you've promised you're going to take care of, you have to. Um it's not an option. But, woo buddy, you can't leave yourself vulnerable, especially not at this particular moment in human history. You know, this is a great pivotal time in human history because where a lot of people are worried about life and grocery bills, Kawasaki just unleashed a new robotic horse and I'm here for it. I'm going to be honest, maybe I played too many video games, but I want to climb rocks on a motorcycle with legs. Um what what say you about the Corleone from Kawasaki, a hydrogen-powered four-legged robot? All right, very important that everybody understand this is just a prototype and all the footage, if you're watching, that is the stuff here in the showroom that they're showing, that's real. But, all of the stuff where it shows it moving, that is all fake. It's CGI. Um so, if this became real some number of years down the road, I can't fathom something like that coming faster than say five or six years, But, that would be awesome. I would literally bang the desk with my credit card and say ship it to me. I want it right now. Um But, again, this this is goes back to pornography and warfare. So, all of your breakthroughs, if this becomes necessary for warfare, it'll actually come into existence. And if it doesn't, it won't. This doesn't I mean this is like some Outback stuff that's just meant to get people excited about Kawasaki and the brilliant people that they have there. But, I mean other than maybe ranchers, is anybody clamoring for this? Not really. I mean this would have to have like They'll start talking about disaster relief. They'll start talking about warfare. Um but, your everyday thing, I mean there just isn't enough use for this, man. Because wheels, unless you get onto psychotically uneven terrain, are going to be way better off than legs. Um so, yeah. I mean this is more showcase than anything, but I love my future tech stuff, so I'm definitely here for it. Yeah. Um I mean, some people think that I can say the same thing about the dire wolves cuz I'm glad that we brought them back, but you just brought back something that can pretty much devastate an ecosystem cuz weren't dire wolves like these huge wolves that ate up everybody? And they were like apex predators in their day? I don't know enough about their ecosystem to know if this is a really terrible idea um or if this is uh hey, we're showing that we can bring back endangered species, but the dire wolf hasn't been seen for, my understanding is 10,000 years. Um It is also my understanding that the way that they've done this, they've taken a gray wolf, they've identified the genetic changes uh show the difference like that a dire wolf became uh gray wolves in the same way that gray wolves became my Pomeranian. And you could go in and go, oh, here are the genetic alterations that all that breeding changed. We can unwind those and begin to uh move evolution back. It's really quite brilliant. It's utterly fascinating. Um the question is what would be the impacts on ecosystems? That I don't know. Uh that is way outside my pay grade. So, we'll see what happens. But, as a proof of the ability to identify the genes that need to be altered, a real I mean, I think there's like 14 different genes that they had to alter to do this. Um and that something that has as big of a impact on the final animal um as what you see there, the difference between a gray wolf and a direwolf are visually instantaneously recognizable. Um so, we're obviously getting better at identifying what has to be edited in exactly what way and then going in and actually doing it and creating viable um creatures that survive. And we'll see if they survive in old age, but given the process that they're using, I would expect that they will. So, um all right, I'll be It It seems to me this is just a long-term gene editing play. Like, we're going to start with extinct creatures, get them live live uh get them alive, get them viable in the environment, and then once we realize, "Okay, we can alter genes and have something live two or three generations, let's start doing human trials." Um uh yes. So, given that China's already done human uh gene editing, yes, I think that that's inevitable. Um I for one like the idea of for sure non-germline gene editing. Okay, germline can be passed on, and given that there could be second-and-third-order consequences that we are not yet anticipating, we we don't understand gene editing as of today well enough where I would ever be comfortable with gene line editing germline editing. Uh but saying like, "Okay, uh you like I can't remember, I think it's thalassemia. So, Greeks have to get tested before they get married and have kids to see if they both carry the gene for thalassemia cuz it's devastating and kills the kid. Um but if you could go in and be like, "All good. Snip snip. Repair." Uh so, things like that are very advantageous. Um take things like being able to reduce cancer risks. Find out what are the genes. So, like there's a uh what is it? BRCA gene that indicates that you're likely to have breast cancer. Um so, if you could see, "Oh, you do have it, but we got you. Go in snip snip. Done. It's a single gene. Decreases your risk by 90% or whatever." Uh I think everybody'd clap for that. Sickle cell anemia, like certain cultural specific diseases and stuff like that. Exactly. So, now it's like, "Okay, well, where's the line?" Because if it's like, "Wouldn't it be nice if you could detect infrared? That'd be kind of cool." So, there are things that you'll be able to do. There are things that people are already doing, like the glow-in-the-dark cat, which I'm pretty sure is real. Um so, you can start crossbreeding the bioluminescence of like a jellyfish or plankton with a cat. And now you get a glow-in-the-dark cat. So, there there are huge implications in agriculture. Or think about we want to um grow plants on Mars to give it an atmosphere and we need to do it very rapidly. Okay, well, one thing that you could do if you can free up enough water uh is make something that doesn't need a lot of water. Make something that doesn't need as much sunshine. Uh make something that's super temperature-resistant. Like you just go in and alter the genes. And so, now you've got something that, yeah, it grows just fine on the Mars surface. You can do the same thing here. In fact, um David Friedberg from the All In podcast has a company called Mahalo, I believe. And that's basically what they do. They gene edit um plants. I think strawberries is like one of their big focuses. So, it's going to be amazing. It's just you have to be very careful about things that have downstream consequences because just like Genghis Khan, you can read his DNA in like 10% of the population or something. Uh but he only had Let's Let's give him like crazy credit. 2,000 babies? I mean, I'm not saying it's not a lot, but I am saying compared to 8 billion people that 10% of them were downstream of those 2,000. So, all of the sudden, if you put in you try to fix uh thalassemia or sickle cell, but you end up causing like some massive uh vulnerability to Ebola, whatever, I'm making it up. And now all of the sudden Ebola like sweeps and kills 3% of the global population. It's like, "Oh, shit." So, yeah. Be paranoid for now. Give me 10 years of like hardcore artificial superintelligence. We track all the patterns. We run a gazillion simulations. And we're like, "No, this is good." Sure. But until then, yeah. You had this um PSA because you talked about the lost drive of the American spirit. I kind of think it plays perfectly at this moment. When they want to say no and they don't know how to say it, we'll try to become victimy and say, "I can't because of this, this, and this." I love this quote from Julius Caesar, Shakespeare's Julius Caesar, where he plans his wife says, "Don't go to the the Senate. I had a horrible nightmare. You're going to get stabbed." So, the guy comes to get him and he says, "Go tell the council, Caesar will not come. That I cannot is false. That I dare not false or still. No, go tell the council, Caesar will not come." And there have been really good studies that show that to get out of depression, one study had control group, a group that had therapy, a group that had meds, and a group that did nothing but eliminate the words I can't and I have to from their responses. They said they had to say I choose not to, I choose to, I will, I won't. And they came out of their depression faster than any of the other groups. Every verbal thing we say that is not true hurts our bodies, hurts our psyches, and leads us to anxiety and depression. I I am a big believer that you become what you repeat. And I have a feeling that people are really going to take exception to what she's saying about depression. That you can basically do a simple like rule inside your head that I don't allow myself to say that I can't. I don't allow myself to play the victim. And that that begins the process of crawling out of that hole seems crazy. Um but that was huge for me. So, in my early 20s, I was sliding towards depression. I would come home and just lay on the floor. By today's standards, people would say that I was depressed. Um I would just come home and lay on the floor, and I would feel the synthetic fibers of my carpet pressing into my face. And I remember thinking I need to get up. But I just didn't want to. I didn't know what I was doing with my life. I really felt so afraid that I was cursed to have big dreams and no way to make them come true, and that I didn't understand a growth mindset yet. There was no Carol Dweck writing about this stuff. And so, I'm like, uh-oh. I have big dreams, but not the skills to pull it off. And that was devastating. And I started reading about the brain. I don't even remember what started that, but I started reading about the brain. And at the time, cuz this is in the '90s, at the time there was this idea of brain plasticity, and it was debated. Is it real? Can you teach an old dog new tricks? Some people were saying yes, some people were saying no. And I noticed that every time I thought about brain plasticity being real, I felt expansive. Made me feel good. And every time I thought that I'm just I I am who I am and I'm never going to be able to change it, I felt bad and I didn't like it. So, I was like, I'm going to act as if it's true that I can get better at something. And that meant removing the I can'ts and all of that and shifted to what Carol Dweck finally formalized and put in a book, which was I can't yet. I'm not good enough yet. Uh and so, once I started saying yet to myself, and this is all long before Carol. Um I felt not only did I feel better, but I started acting in ways that started moving me forward. And for anybody that knows my story well enough, it was herky-jerky, right? Then I end up rediscovering obscene amounts of laziness and it's only the shame of uh getting convincing a girl to marry me only to realize I'm laying in bed 4 to 5 hours a day every day uh that really then gets me over a line. But by then, I had the idea that hey, this brain plasticity thing really might be a thing. And so, be careful what you allow yourself to repeat in your head. Um this is why I try to anchor people on the Kobe Bryant quote, "Boos don't block dunks." So, uh no matter what, no matter how much people hate you, you can get so good at something that people can't stop you. And that doesn't mean you're going to be good right away. This makes me think of the tariffs. Like we can win. We can remain strong on the global scene. But it's going to be a game of skill acquisition. It's going to be a game of getting better at something. It's going to be a game of trying and being honest when they don't work and adjusting and moving forward. Um but if we can do that, then we really can win. What's the name of that book by Carol? Mindset. Nice and simple. Most important book in the English language. Wow. Okay. Yeah. Um that's all I got. If you're not already watching us on the lives, here is a bit of a highlight from today's live. Enjoy. Say, "Look at that." You're going to see what ends up happening. The problem is, as we go into the WTO phase in the '90s and really begin ramping up globalism, uh you bring China online. The US thinks, sort of in the way that um Netanyahu thought, "I can control the size of the flame." US thinks the same thing about the entire world. That this is going to be great for us. Uh we're going to be able to specialize in the things that we do well. We're going to be able to get cheap goods. Everybody likes cheap goods. We're going to drive the cost of everything down. We're going to bring on this uh modern economy where everybody makes the thing that they can make well, and everything gets a lot cheaper, and everybody's really happy. The problem is China uh we were not able to control the size of China's flame. Economically, they've now raced to be a pure competitor, perhaps even surpassing us, uh depending on who you believe in terms of their economy. And now, uh-oh, like we're in a place where we've hollowed out the manufacturing in the US. Uh we have a category of person that does not thrive in a white-collar financialized environment. We realize, "Huh, we've got deaths of despair on the rise." And on top of that, we're in a position where all the trade barriers that other countries erected to protect themselves from American dominance, um it now starts looking like this is burned through its usefulness. Now, Trump starts calling this out like 40 years ago and starts banging this drum saying, "This is ridiculous. As a business guy, I'm telling you if I try to do business in Japan, they just make it impossible six ways to Sunday." Now, China takes that same position in the global mindset, certainly the US mindset of like um "Well, guys, look, we were so small. We were only 5% of GDP, and so we needed all these things in a a WTO framework to protect us, to allow us to finally grow and um be able to rise our own people out of poverty. And of course, we deserve some extra handouts. Now that they're 15% of GDP, all of a sudden it's like, "Hold on a second. Um do we still need to be giving them all these extras?" That's part of what this moment is about is the US is being run by the guy that for 40 years has said, "This is a problem. These are the things that it's causing. We're being taken advantage of. We're protecting the entire world from a our military goes around the world and does this." You need look no further than Signal Gate to hear um J.D. Vance say, "Hey, hold on a second. 3% of our trade goes through here. Why are we the ones doing this?" Uh and it just goes back to the world order that was established post-World War II. So, we're having to renegotiate this. Now, given that the last time this happened was right after World War II with Bretton Woods, most people alive today just don't realize that world orders get negotiated. Mhm. That it's a fairly violent isn't the right word, but it's very contentious. It's not like people go, "Yeah, you be the strong ones." without arguing about it. Now, when you're doing it after a war and everybody's just so tired and there's been so much death, PS, I am expecting you guys to signal me if um chat has something that needs to be addressed. Mhm. Uh so, we're now for the most part the people with the the people who are cognizant of what was going on when Bretton Woods actually happened, they're all dead. So, this is a very um striking moment where people are being slapped awake by something that happens many times through history, but none of us were alive or old enough to be cognizant of what was happening. So, this feels shocking. I think we underestimate kind of the ripple effect that this has um because it's one of those things By way, sorry, you're going to let me get away with your original questions, what's going to happen? And I just gave you a recitation of where we are, and not what's going to happen. I'll leave it to you if you want to push harder. No, cuz I think that kind of set the stage for what's going to happen is that the global trade agreements will get renegotiated one way or another, whether it's favorable terms that match force or whether not. That's the underlying assumption I've got from your setting the stage. Yeah, I'll say it slightly differently, which is that um slowly over the last 70 or 80 years there's been a drift, and that drift is towards China. China has been a really big winner. I mean, look, this has been awesome for a lot of people. Certainly not everybody, and obviously developing nations have been continually held down. We need cheap labor somewhere. Uh people at Foxconn, for whom the nets were erected because people were jumping to their death, they're probably not loving all of the outcomes of it. But if I showed them a picture of Mao's China, they would probably agree that this is better. Um but this is not a only up, only good scenario. So, now we find ourselves in a position where this is US v. China. How's this going to play out? I think it's essentially going to have I don't think China This is Thucydides' trap. So, history tells me that China's not going to back down. They are going to push and push and push and push and push unless they are economically forced to negotiate. And so, there I can't get a bead on where China's market actually is. Now, I haven't done enough deep research to feel like oh, it's just too complicated, there's too much spin, too many lies. I just I'm going to have to look more deeply at that. Um but right now I don't have a good read on what's been and what's real about China's economy. China would have you believe everything's great. Um other people would have you believe that China's economy is weaker than they want you to believe because of the housing crisis, um where they basically were forcing people, but pushing people heavily to invest in real estate. Uh I've given my whole treatise in why populations will always gravitate towards that, so you don't have to say much to get them going in that direction. So, I think the real negotiations are going to happen not between the US and China. I think the negotiations are going to be who can gobble up the most allies. So, who gets the strongest trade relations? Um if the US can gobble up enough allies that we cuz we, I think, have to get our GDP to 4 or 5%. And so, that shifts the battle to AI. That's going to be the new sort of battlefront for if you can win in AI, then you have leverage against everybody else. So, there's going to be an insane race between the US and China to get AI dominance, not only from a military standpoint, but from economic. That becomes the only thing you have to offer people to say, "Get behind us." Uh because before we had the petrodollar, we had we were just the obvious choice to be the world's reserve currency. So, look up CRISPR-Cas9. This is crazy. CRISPR-Cas9 allows you to make a cat that glows in the dark. I'm not kidding. You can do insane [ __ ] The problem is we just don't understand right now the complexities of gene interactions. So, I've heard people say that height is actually the complicated interaction of environment plus like a hundred different genes. And once you start factoring epigenetics, which is like you've got all this potential for certain things, but it depends on what you encounter in your environment. Did you look up the glow-in-the-dark cat? Uh it's a glow-in-the-dark cat. Yep. So, uh yeah. This is exactly how they're bringing They brought the direwolf back. They identified the genes that you need to edit. I I forget how many they edited, like 14 genes. Mhm. Uh and that gets you a direwolf from a gray wolf. And then they're doing the same thing with the woolly mammoth. I forget which elephant, like the Indian elephant or something and then they're going to go in and edit the genes. Dude, this is crazy. You can actually do this right now and you get living creatures. Look at that. Uh it is bananas. And I know we've talked about this before, but you can create uh a baby using skin cells. You can generate sperm cells and egg cells from skin cells. Yeah, but we haven't made a baby yet from that. No. Okay, but we can. Yes, and uh that we know of. How about that? That's true. That we know of. Underground babies? Underground babies. The last thing I want to do is constantly beat a drum. China is um they've done amazing things pulling their people out of poverty. I am absolutely opposed to authoritarian top-down rule. But I will say uh that China uh given that they have already done gene editing on humans. Now, I forget. I think they got mad at the guy, but I don't know what the punishment was and I don't even know if the punishment that they put was real. We'll have to look at that. But um it's one of those the genie's out of the bottle. There's no going backwards. This stuff is knowable. Once it's knowable, it's going to happen and it's already known and people are talking about this and doing it and it is it's a real thing, man. It's a real thing. And so if uh this is such a terrible thing, but nonetheless, it doesn't matter if we do it or not, other countries will. Because if you're Venezuela or China or whoever and you're like you know one way we could get an advantage like if our population had a 15 point uh IQ increase, that'd be pretty useful. If our population was less likely to get cancer, on and on and on. And the single gene edits are so life-saving that good luck convincing people not to address it. Red light. We have a red light. And it's from Smarmy Bastards. Smarmy Bastards, let's go. Thank you, Smarmy Bastards. They said, "I have invested in Cult Foods because it's the only publicly traded cultured meat company." Mhm. Have you talked about that? I'm hopeful for cultured T-Rex steaks. Damn. Uh I have not. Uh I don't know any I know a little bit about um food cultures. I don't know about Cult Foods at all. Uh so, here we go. We have it pulled up on screen for anybody that's following along. So, I go back. Pioneering the commercialization of cultivated meat. Okay, so this is one where I do admittedly worry about the second and third order consequences. So, what you eat ate matters a lot. And so, if we're lab-growing meat, I would very much like some longevity studies to find out are there any problems? I know that eating things that were raised uh walking around eating things, I know the long-term effects. Now, it's possible lab-grown meat, oh my god, like we're all going to live to 150, but I don't know that. And I know you've got a shot at 120 by eating things that are natural. So, uh I will always have a bent towards that until there are long-term studies. Or maybe AI can just give us some answers, but yeah, I uh I'm very excited by it. I'm glad that it's happening. And I'm paranoid. So, then that goes So, this is the part of the utopia that we're thinking about that's not just robot computers and flying cars. It's also no disease. Because we could just gene edit everything. Yes, correct. I think that that is going to really become a thing because AI is going to be able to detect the patterns in biology that have so far alluded us. The fact that right now AI is pretty trash compared to what it's going to be say in 20 years. Mhm. Um and we're already able to do novel protein predictions and be accurate such that AI can go "Ooh, if you made a protein like this, it'll fold into this thing novelly." Meaning this didn't exist before. We can manufacture this and this is the shape that it will create. Pretty amazing. And that's what we can do today. Mhm. So, imagine where we're going to be in 20 years. Jedward. We have a switcher from Jedward. do. Jedward says, "Feelings mean little in terms of the terrible and great that will come from gene editing. Dating app hyper filtering but applied ruthlessly and directly to reproduction. Also, God, how much of our human DNA is native versus alien?" I feel we may have slipped on a tinfoil hat there at the end. Um my question would be does it really matter? Like if humans are if this is what an alien looks like, this is where we're at. Know what I mean? Yeah. Then then alien DNA just be normal like that. I just love how when we get to Utopia and we can do anything with our genes, people are still talking about dating apps. Like they're like, "Yeah, but the can we can you just match me with somebody instantly based on our DNA?" Like Chat, do you want us to continue with this because we can get crazy deep but it is going to require Drew and I to create a shared lexicon. So, first we'd have to define terms and then once we have terms defined, we can go down that path. But it I mean this is like we'd be getting off light if we did 30 minutes of this. It this is probably an hour. Yes, yes, go. got to cuz I see nose not really me? They're saying yes, yes, no, yes, not No, no, do whatever no, no, no, stop, please. Yes. Nah. I'm seeing a lot of yes. Yeah, throw up a poll. Ah, the poll. No, no progress here. No, next topic. Yes, yes, no, let's go, yes, no, no, do a survey, no. Yeah, this is God, this is going to be split down the [ __ ] middle. Uh, just like religion is. Uh, okay. All right, chat on this one. Uh, we will be purely democratic and we'll see what happens. the poll. Yeah, that's what I mean. Okay. So, if if poll says yes, we'll do it. If poll says no, we won't. Oh, boy. We live and die by this poll. This is interesting. Poll incoming. Cuz after this I still want to hear your transhumanism rant, so. I'm really trying to dodge that. That's what it really is. Why why not? Cuz you said this is like things that you'll get killed over for. So, that's what literally I mean that literally. I don't mean that figuratively. Uh, the only thing that protects me right now is this channel is small and the AI meteorite has not hit. If this channel gets big and the AI meteorite hits, people will come for the necks of the people that are pro um I don't even like the word transhuman, but that are pro merging with technology. Almost like this is a terrible analogy, but like when the tide of culture turns and then we want to throw the king out and like head him, it'll be like that. Like this guy used to say it, so let's get him let's get him next. Correct. Got you. So, right now, channel small, right now, don't have to worry about it. But, you say [ __ ] on the internet, it lives forever. But, just because you want you're okay with people being altered, they're going to be like you're the cause Like you're just going to be the the easiest ring to get to, cuz it's not like you're a gene scientist that's actually doing it. Won't we burn down the lab first? Uh, they probably will do that, yes. But, this is just like um you've got Elon in the government merely trying to stop fraud, waste, and abuse, and people are Blowing up Teslas. Trying Yeah. Defacing them, blowing them up, and he's had some ungodly number of credible threats. So, again, right now I don't have to worry about it. Yay! And maybe I never will. Maybe the channel just never gets to that size and I'm just some side character and it will be far bigger channels than I to stand for this stuff that will get the heat. I'm just well aware there are two things the world's going to turn against me violently on, and that is that I didn't have kids and that I am pro integration with technology. That that will have a period of deep unrest associated with it. Why do you think people are going to turn on you because you didn't have kids? Okay, so if you reach out into the future, you're going to see a wild resurgence of religion because religion gives meaning and purpose in a time where people struggle to find that and I'm very grateful for that. I think religion has served that purpose for a very very long time. Yeah. Uh and in all of that, people are going to say this is an affront to God because God made us perfect and God doesn't make mistakes. And so, what are we doing in here taking the power of God point. Say that again? my point. I never said No, no, no. I I don't think I am, but certainly you are not the first person that I've heard say this. I've heard this gazillion times throughout my life. And so, I will grant that you probably have a far more nuanced position than many people. Um but Protestants and Catholics who agree on like 85% of things were killing each other. Mhm. So, you can imagine when somebody's like there is no God and I didn't have real kids, I raised an AI child. People are going to lose their [ __ ] minds. So, hopefully not everybody. So, the AI child is going to happen. I don't see why it wouldn't. I'm already shopping for AI pets. I'm already building an AI pet inside of my video game. So, yeah. All of that stuff is is going to be what I see as a very enjoyable part of the human experience. All right, everybody. If you haven't already, make sure you're joining us on the lives. They are Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday at 6:00 a.m. Pacific time. They are a lot of fun. And until next time, my friends, be legendary. Take care. Here is the brutal truth about scaling. Most entrepreneurs don't outright fail, they plateau. And if you're stuck right now, you know how true that is. It could be that your revenue flatlines every time you step away, or maybe you're trapped in a commodity market that's racing to the bottom, or maybe you're one of the lucky people who is navigating a very complex partner dynamic that turns every decision into a battle. These problems and a whole lot more can seem impossible until you break them all down into first principles. My partners and I used this thinking to grow Quest Nutrition by 57,000% in our first 3 years alone and scale to a billion-dollar exit. And now I'm teaching this framework to a select group of entrepreneurs who are ready to scale. Now, I want to be clear, this is not for everybody because I'm looking to work with serious entrepreneurs that already have an established business and a proven track record of execution. If that's you and you want to learn how to break through your biggest business bottlenecks using first principles thinking, be sure to apply now. Just go to impacttheory.com/scale or click the link in the show notes. Again, that's impacttheory.com/scale. If you like this conversation, check out this episode to learn more. The world continues to reel from Trump's tariff madness. Vietnam backs off, China claps back, the stock market falls off a cliff, Bessent warns everyone to chill, Trump calls for the Fed to lower rates, they ignore him, and we had a record-setting live talking about it all.