The qualities of Silicon Valley and its position as "America's America" that you two talk about here, can only exist as long as America stays prominent in the world, at least in the top ~3 countries given its size and population. But this requires that America be functional politically, something that Silicon Valley intellectuals tend to ignore because it's a dirty complex problem that doesn't nicely fit into their abstract "clean and beautiful" intellectual models. OTOH, China absolutely understands the dirty complex politics of the real world, and directs its elite intellectual capacity to solving these problems. This has been a tradition there both since ancient times ("seek truth from facts") and from its modern adoption of Marxist materialist methods of analysis. For Silicon Valley to preserve itself, it absolutely must get involved more heavily in the dirty complex politics of America as a whole, that is to fix America's decline. I am talking here not about rich elites schmoozing with politicians, but about actually directing SV's intellectual productive capacity towards solving political issues from a macroscopic perspective. For example, US manufacturing is stagnant due to a whole host of societal issues, not all of which have solutions under the US legal system. But SV can do things that USG can't do, that can still have huge positive consequences politically and socially.
Good point. China's other strength though is its long-sightedness. Probably the trends pushing the US towards decline vs China are already too far gone, China has always had strong human capital and it's growth has already reached an exponential critical mass and the US doesn't have time now to meaningful re-industrialise. If the US was serious about staying competitive it would have moved to contain China in the 90s or 2000s, which was something SV lobbying groups did push for at the time but they we're out bid by other groups, particularly finance.
SV is intellectually immature and dishonest. They created internet that we have right now, internet is not a natural thing it is just a bunch of curated platforms which are specifically designed to be that way. OK, so here is a question: is the internet design well designed and well curated. SV will never admit their cultural limitations and only hiding behind some libertarian lunacy.
@@almusquotch9872 That's like saying China didn't have time to re-industrialise from the 50s. It's never too late to do something for a country, and putting it off only makes things worse. And staying competitive isn't about containing other countries but about improving yourself, it's not like China got to its position today by "containing other countries".
@@worldsnake6531 What I mean is that if the US wants to maintain its military dominance over the medium to long term it needs a stronger industrial base than China, and China is now too far ahead for the US to have a chance of catching up unless it can somehow outpace Chinese growth rates. China didn't have a hegemony it needed to maintain in the 50s and also had the strong fundamentals needed to overtake the US. "it's not like China got to its position today by "containing other countries"" No, but the US did contain the USSR, Germany and the British Empire to reach it's current position.
Burja is correct that Europe has previously had mass migrations. They were almost always intra-European phenomena. Even the barbarian invasions that ended the Roman Empire were mainly Europeans and often, as we now know from paleo-genetics, light on the "mass" part. Has there been a mass migration into Europe from another continent since the First Farmers arrived from the Near East? The current masses arriving in Europe are mostly from even farther afield, which means more distant genetically and culturally. The Italians who have migrated to France in the last few centuries constitute a very different and much less disruptive alteration of French genetics and culture than the appearance of Algerians, Senegalese, Vietnamese. The numbers in the present case are also much, much larger relative to the time of the migration period. In short, I think his analogy is very misguided. His idea to develop a special economic zone in the US is counter-intuitive and shrewd. It could be the industrial equivalent of Silicon Valley (which used to be much more industrial itself). Texas is the place for it. This much is obvious. In the Midwest, the unions would cause it to be stillborn. Besides, Elon is already in Texas. One reason for some optimism on Europe is that there are strong signs of a nuclear renaissance in America. I predict much of Europe will follow when the new reactor designs are proven safe and affordable. And those who don't follow--will buy energy cross-border from those who do. In the next few years China will fall further behind in chip quality since it will take at least that long (probably longer) to build the equivalent of the latest ASML machines. Also: ASML is developing the next generation, which may be 10-15 years out. Is the West any better at protecting its highest value IP than it was in the Cold War? I doubt it, though I don't think China can rely upon the type of ideologically motivated spies that contributed especially to the early decades of Soviet espionage.
What a strange world we live in. While people in the U.S. talk about culture, parties, events, and dancing, elsewhere in the world, conflicts rage on. In the Middle East and Ukraine, lives are being lost in wars. Most conflicts around the world will end immediately the moment the U.S. withdraws its diplomatic, financial, covert, and military support.
The "fueled by" rethoric is so stale and nonsensical. This is not the cold war were the US fights proxies like in Vietnam. The entire world including the US would be better of, richer, and in a safer position if e.g. Russia was not at war, stayed stronger and did not thereby become China's vasal; same for the middle East. Neither the US, nor anyone else in the OECD gains from these conflicts.
Consultants types, and especially the very good ones, become so articulate, concise and structured, that a lot of the cognitive effort that you would normally have to use to understand their incoherent babling is now not being required. This lack of friction counter intuitively makes it harder to focus on the conversation.
Yes, but Silicon Valley people are usually illiterate when it comes to history, geopolitics, etc. I've found this to be the case in most "transhumanist" communities of various sorts, which SV is aligned with imo
Intellectual vigor of this episode is truly lacking. i had to constantly skip forward. I like to hear from people that are smarter than me, where I have constantly rewind the conversation.
The first section of the episode was mostly discussing Bismarck. To be fair Bismarck does remarkable research. The conversion is good past that. U.S. having great controlling Europes foreign policy, China outcompeting or catching South Korea in many sectors with just one or 2 provinces, death of countrysides, cities as IQ & populations sinks, industrial society being unsustainable, European superstate & over education. It was wide ranging. Samo normally goes much more in depth on specific topics tho
Great episode. Love listening to Samo.
Would subsidizing rural towns or farms to keep more people rural increase the birthrate?
Incredibly insightful conversation
Thank you both for a very informative and interesting discussion.
really excellent, 2 of my favorite thinkers
The qualities of Silicon Valley and its position as "America's America" that you two talk about here, can only exist as long as America stays prominent in the world, at least in the top ~3 countries given its size and population. But this requires that America be functional politically, something that Silicon Valley intellectuals tend to ignore because it's a dirty complex problem that doesn't nicely fit into their abstract "clean and beautiful" intellectual models.
OTOH, China absolutely understands the dirty complex politics of the real world, and directs its elite intellectual capacity to solving these problems. This has been a tradition there both since ancient times ("seek truth from facts") and from its modern adoption of Marxist materialist methods of analysis. For Silicon Valley to preserve itself, it absolutely must get involved more heavily in the dirty complex politics of America as a whole, that is to fix America's decline.
I am talking here not about rich elites schmoozing with politicians, but about actually directing SV's intellectual productive capacity towards solving political issues from a macroscopic perspective. For example, US manufacturing is stagnant due to a whole host of societal issues, not all of which have solutions under the US legal system. But SV can do things that USG can't do, that can still have huge positive consequences politically and socially.
Great observation!
Good point. China's other strength though is its long-sightedness. Probably the trends pushing the US towards decline vs China are already too far gone, China has always had strong human capital and it's growth has already reached an exponential critical mass and the US doesn't have time now to meaningful re-industrialise. If the US was serious about staying competitive it would have moved to contain China in the 90s or 2000s, which was something SV lobbying groups did push for at the time but they we're out bid by other groups, particularly finance.
SV is intellectually immature and dishonest. They created internet that we have right now, internet is not a natural thing it is just a bunch of curated platforms which are specifically designed to be that way.
OK, so here is a question: is the internet design well designed and well curated.
SV will never admit their cultural limitations and only hiding behind some libertarian lunacy.
@@almusquotch9872 That's like saying China didn't have time to re-industrialise from the 50s. It's never too late to do something for a country, and putting it off only makes things worse. And staying competitive isn't about containing other countries but about improving yourself, it's not like China got to its position today by "containing other countries".
@@worldsnake6531 What I mean is that if the US wants to maintain its military dominance over the medium to long term it needs a stronger industrial base than China, and China is now too far ahead for the US to have a chance of catching up unless it can somehow outpace Chinese growth rates. China didn't have a hegemony it needed to maintain in the 50s and also had the strong fundamentals needed to overtake the US.
"it's not like China got to its position today by "containing other countries"" No, but the US did contain the USSR, Germany and the British Empire to reach it's current position.
If we wanna make it into the Future, we better take Samo with us.
Please hire an audio-engineer.
Burja is correct that Europe has previously had mass migrations. They were almost always intra-European phenomena. Even the barbarian invasions that ended the Roman Empire were mainly Europeans and often, as we now know from paleo-genetics, light on the "mass" part. Has there been a mass migration into Europe from another continent since the First Farmers arrived from the Near East? The current masses arriving in Europe are mostly from even farther afield, which means more distant genetically and culturally. The Italians who have migrated to France in the last few centuries constitute a very different and much less disruptive alteration of French genetics and culture than the appearance of Algerians, Senegalese, Vietnamese. The numbers in the present case are also much, much larger relative to the time of the migration period. In short, I think his analogy is very misguided.
His idea to develop a special economic zone in the US is counter-intuitive and shrewd. It could be the industrial equivalent of Silicon Valley (which used to be much more industrial itself). Texas is the place for it. This much is obvious. In the Midwest, the unions would cause it to be stillborn. Besides, Elon is already in Texas.
One reason for some optimism on Europe is that there are strong signs of a nuclear renaissance in America. I predict much of Europe will follow when the new reactor designs are proven safe and affordable. And those who don't follow--will buy energy cross-border from those who do.
In the next few years China will fall further behind in chip quality since it will take at least that long (probably longer) to build the equivalent of the latest ASML machines. Also: ASML is developing the next generation, which may be 10-15 years out. Is the West any better at protecting its highest value IP than it was in the Cold War? I doubt it, though I don't think China can rely upon the type of ideologically motivated spies that contributed especially to the early decades of Soviet espionage.
What a strange world we live in. While people in the U.S. talk about culture, parties, events, and dancing, elsewhere in the world, conflicts rage on. In the Middle East and Ukraine, lives are being lost in wars. Most conflicts around the world will end immediately the moment the U.S. withdraws its diplomatic, financial, covert, and military support.
The "fueled by" rethoric is so stale and nonsensical. This is not the cold war were the US fights proxies like in Vietnam.
The entire world including the US would be better of, richer, and in a safer position if e.g. Russia was not at war, stayed stronger and did not thereby become China's vasal; same for the middle East. Neither the US, nor anyone else in the OECD gains from these conflicts.
What’s up with the audio on this one? Great conversation otherwise though!
Consultants types, and especially the very good ones, become so articulate, concise and structured, that a lot of the cognitive effort that you would normally have to use to understand their incoherent babling is now not being required. This lack of friction counter intuitively makes it harder to focus on the conversation.
Yes, but Silicon Valley people are usually illiterate when it comes to history, geopolitics, etc. I've found this to be the case in most "transhumanist" communities of various sorts, which SV is aligned with imo
What's an EA, thanks.
Effective Altruism.
@@torrasque0151 Thank you! I will be eternally appreciative. EA!
Next up: Bag of Sand interviews Matt Stone
epic glazing by steve... I'm 30 minutes in and the entire podcast has been an advertisement for this guy's consulting company
it gets way better after first 30 min
Skip past that, also the research from the company is really good. This is why he talked about it for so long
Intellectual vigor of this episode is truly lacking. i had to constantly skip forward.
I like to hear from people that are smarter than me, where I have constantly rewind the conversation.
The first section of the episode was mostly discussing Bismarck. To be fair Bismarck does remarkable research. The conversion is good past that. U.S. having great controlling Europes foreign policy, China outcompeting or catching South Korea in many sectors with just one or 2 provinces, death of countrysides, cities as IQ & populations sinks, industrial society being unsustainable, European superstate & over education. It was wide ranging. Samo normally goes much more in depth on specific topics tho