Balaji's creative mental models are actually incredible. How true they end up being is besides the point, I appreciate his modality of thinking. Makes me want to be more diligent & thoughtful, it's amazing how accessible these conversations are. Grateful for the work this podcast showcases. Have been tuning in since the Marc Andressen interview!
Thank you Balaji for calling us with new stuff! Make sure you're subscribed to Moment of Zen to get notified when we release Part 2. More shownotes in our substack: momentofzen.substack.com/ Timestamps below. (07:50)Cloud Cartography: If you don't control the cognitive territory. you don't control the lands (13:30) Sponsors: Vanta, NetSuite (17:30) Why people don't take the internet seriously? (22:30) The US is not a nation state (23:45) A civilization state (25:17) Why Americans should learn about India's history / India and the US are converging (30:50) Why a civil war doesn't seem realistic to people now (38:55) Where else should a talented person move? (41:35) Asia is the new global center, (47:10) Internet first, not America first (01:01:45) Software vs. Hardware (01:05:45) Elon and the Grey Strategy (01:16:40) Israel is looking away from the US for partners (01:19:00) The Tribal lens integrates both domestic and foreign politics (01:21:00) Will blue always win? (01:23:43) Making sense of the China meltdown story (01:34:55) How to fix San Francisco (01:50:30) Irrationality is an advantage (01:57:00) Building gray turf (02:03:00) Mapping the blues, reds, and grays in San Francisco (02:05:20) Dan and Erik debrief
This was absolutely great. The last half was incredible. Loved the fix SF part. Soo funny but also smart and a plan that could actually work. Has anyone started this in SF?
This action plan Balaji lays out is pretty exciting and I'd love to see it in action. I'd even contribute if I could. Another thing Grey tribe needs though is their own fork of Wikipedia, such as InfoGalactic. It's harder to win the rational evidence based arguments when one of the largest go-to sources of free information is controlled and biased by Blue tribe activists on important subjects.
I have completely made my economic circle, all of my real-life services like birth, healthcare, beauty, education - all of it is in a gray/red alliance. We’re already bifurcating in real time and in real life.
"I done something new for this fight. I done wrestled with an alligator. That's right. I have wrestled with an alligator. I done tussled with a whale. I done handcuffed lightning, thrown thunder in jail. That's bad! Only last week I murdered a rock, injured a stone, hospitalised a brick. I'm so mean I make medicine sick."
1:46:34 Same in Bangalore India but without the sticker lol. My dad's ex company was one of the biggest donours for the Police Department and I have never paid fine until these fines became online and automated
It's great that Balaji is thinking constructively and optimistically about plans for turning around SF. His plan is interesting and innovative but I think the solution is actually very simple. The problem that the city government of SF and it's policies have created is that they have failed to provide for the basic safety and rule of law necessary for a civilized society. They have returned SF to a Hobbesian state of nature, a state of chaos. When the state fails in it's most fundamental function of providing safety to it's citizens, protecting their property, enforcing basic rules of law, productive people leave and criminals and lunatics take over. SF has actually formed policies to reward and attract these elements to the city. Once the city government commits to fulfilling the core value-added function of government, the city will end is downward death-spiral. Michael Shellenberger and others have good plans on how to turn it around.
Balaji is the boy who screamed Bitcoin ..Come up with elaborate theses which all magically end up with bitcoin being the solution.. Pumps it and gets away with it everytime.. Yet people keep coming back to him for more just because he sounds smart 😐
Even his core prediction model puts dollar collapse at a small chance in weeks, a moderate chance in years, and a good chance in a decade. So, yeah the 90 day bet was publicity.. but hey, you heard about it..
Balaji ,Andrew and Vivek......All seem to have similar world views and their combined iq is more than the us Congress combined 😂..worth thinking ,is there a point ..
People in LA cannot believe why people would want to live in Upstate NY. People in Upstate NY cannot believe people would chose to live in LA in its current state. :)
41:22 Australia and UAE have higher migration of millionaires not because top talent have found better alternatives than US. It's because Russian and Chinese millionaires couldn't move overnight to the US. UAE is a huge money laundering hub for Russians.
For sure Balaji is an interesting thinker, however, I don't think he some other well known tech names or your regular normies have enough of an appreciation for intel agencies and other Fed deep state, local corruption or gang/mafia power (e.g. drugs, shipping, human trafficking - think "The Wire) or the elite backing (not just Blues) of some of the Neo-Marxist stuff that's been boiling over in the last 35 years. E.g. CRT was just getting a stronger foothold in the academy in the late 80s to early 90s (prompting some of Thiel's first warnings). I'm not saying "the deep state" controls all, but bankers have funded both sides of wars for a very long time, color revolutions are planned and carried out during Red or Blue admins. Antifa is paid by very rich people. I think Balaji needs to recognize this.
53:24 this is basically what Hegel said about world progress. We lurch from one extreme to the other in order to compensate for previous mistakes. I think it can also be seen with the Strauss Howe theory, in the idea that the next “generation” always seeks to “fix” the problems of the previous ~20 years with the opposite of whatever the forerunning “generation” did. If you look at this on a larger scale we have already “cycled” thru liberalism, neoliberalism etc and this might be telling of the shift into something else. The fact that society writ large is becoming more “progressive” might actually be a macro-example of this Hegelian Dialectic, and that in a hundred or two hundred years we will be “illiberal” for lack of a better term.
Considering the "grays" as their own faction seems myopic to me. The tech space does not have a unifying ideology. There seem to be a lot of libertarian decentralist men in the tech camp but also a lot of transgender marxists and women and gays and rainbow mafia PC tribe members who are also in that space. This podcast seemed to be very focused on a niche silicon valley local gang war. I hope it works out for you guys. But as a tech guy who leans yellow (libertarian) / red and doesn't live in California because I value my freedom this battle barely affects me. Balaji seems to understand the government is simply the biggest gang that manages a monopoly on violence. They shake you down for protection money. Leadership of the gang trades hands between sub-factions. Maybe you're cool with one of the factions or you're able to bring a coalition together to form your own sub-faction but ultimately if you don't like your limited choices of in house gang leaders you must consolidate power and form a big enough tribe to challenge the gang. This is nigh impossible by design. Monopolies use their advantage to disadvantage any potential up and comers. Maybe Balaji's plan will work at the local SF level and maybe that can serve as an example of how it can be done but I remain skeptical. Democracy sucks. Its two wolves and a sheep voting for dinner. Politics has become religion because the state is near omnipotent. The political machine has become God. When ideological opponents have so much power over you and your way of life is it any wonder every election becomes a holy war? The federalist faction led by Hamilton were inherently wrong and we are dealing with the ever growing monster that it created - the cathedral. The state and the apparatuses it de facto controls (big tech, pharma, mainstream media, big oil, banks, academia, military industrial complex). The cathedral only functions to justify its own importance and continual growth. Decades ago American industries were hollowed out because corporations realized they were treated better in other countries. Many citizens especially with remote work are now realizing the same. As birth rates plummet and the societal fabric tears and the US nears closer to insolvency state pressures will only cause citizens and businesses more pain. My ancestors fled their homes for a better life in the US and I will do the same in reverse.
That is the entire point -- why do you think people are being pushed towards influencers and away from main stream media for their information. Each actually creates SILOS and separates people even more --- which is the ENTIRE POINT. Sell something as decentralized and libertarian and the reality is the exact opposite -- DIVIDE AND CONQUEOR -- load them with memes and keep them fighting. They have you defending Biden, who is indefensible , but you do it because you hate Trump -- same exact thing happens on the Trump side. Meanwhile BOTH ARE AWFUL and neither represents you.
Too many abusive, cult, advertiser interruptions. Publish MONOPOLY on so-called sovereign money. Remember that a statement of sovereignty is not secular.
Practicing communism in the family is NOT fine. We shouldn’t be lying and gaslighting children. Incentives for children DO matter. Starvation should NOT happen, even if a child opposes you politically. Kids who obey the rules SHOULD have some property rights*. And sacrificing your kids for the good of the collective is never an option. * Eminent domain applies when necessary.
Baliji is super intelligent and knowledgeable, but I find him confusing too. He claims to care more about India, but seems to speak and write more on US / San Fran. He claims to be building a state, but then speaks about small exclusive elite clubs, catering presumably to the top 0.001% of founders. This would surely be an extremely tiny state, at least in terms of population/workforce. I'm not sure I trust this guy, but he is ridiculously smart and 100% worth listening to; I am mentally taking on board his ideas.
Balaji out here showing the boys that a quality audio and video setup IS possible
yea, but dude buttons the top of his shirt without a tie
@@rickjames4727 that's proper chic balaji setting trends
Balaji's creative mental models are actually incredible. How true they end up being is besides the point, I appreciate his modality of thinking. Makes me want to be more diligent & thoughtful, it's amazing how accessible these conversations are. Grateful for the work this podcast showcases. Have been tuning in since the Marc Andressen interview!
BLUES ARE DISGUSTINg. VOTE TRUMP 2024
Great to have Balaji “Analoji” Srinivasan back!
he's delusional.
Can’t get enough Balaji
It's so rare that I am legitimately impressed by an individual these days. Balaji heads the field of the all too few.
babe wake up, Balaji dropped new content on MoZ
Thank you Balaji for calling us with new stuff! Make sure you're subscribed to Moment of Zen to get notified when we release Part 2. More shownotes in our substack: momentofzen.substack.com/ Timestamps below.
(07:50)Cloud Cartography: If you don't control the cognitive territory. you don't control the lands
(13:30) Sponsors: Vanta, NetSuite
(17:30) Why people don't take the internet seriously?
(22:30) The US is not a nation state
(23:45) A civilization state
(25:17) Why Americans should learn about India's history / India and the US are converging
(30:50) Why a civil war doesn't seem realistic to people now
(38:55) Where else should a talented person move?
(41:35) Asia is the new global center,
(47:10) Internet first, not America first
(01:01:45) Software vs. Hardware
(01:05:45) Elon and the Grey Strategy
(01:16:40) Israel is looking away from the US for partners
(01:19:00) The Tribal lens integrates both domestic and foreign politics
(01:21:00) Will blue always win?
(01:23:43) Making sense of the China meltdown story
(01:34:55) How to fix San Francisco
(01:50:30) Irrationality is an advantage
(01:57:00) Building gray turf
(02:03:00) Mapping the blues, reds, and grays in San Francisco
(02:05:20) Dan and Erik debrief
Cant wait to check out the show notes! :)
Kind of hard to overstate how awesome the buildup is on this episode. Amazing as usual Balaji.
Balaji time is popcorn time
Balaji wasn’t joking around when he said -
India [Indians] will be the next Media kings, for all good reasons. 👑
Great opening
1:48:30 Gray tribe let’s goooooo!!!!
This was absolutely great. The last half was incredible. Loved the fix SF part. Soo funny but also smart and a plan that could actually work. Has anyone started this in SF?
Eager for part 2!
Please make the second part longer , 2 hours with him are no where near enough .
There's a song from Bad Religion called "The Grey Race" which sums up this episode. Great to see Balaji back! 💯
Balaji is awesome!
Yes!!
Every time I listen to Balaji talk, my IQ increases incrementally.
fourth turning vibe with the grays
Does Moment of Zen have a website for show notes?
great podcast and unique understanding of politics by using Red, Blue and Grey tribes.
Erik rocking the Bob Ross look
This action plan Balaji lays out is pretty exciting and I'd love to see it in action. I'd even contribute if I could.
Another thing Grey tribe needs though is their own fork of Wikipedia, such as InfoGalactic. It's harder to win the rational evidence based arguments when one of the largest go-to sources of free information is controlled and biased by Blue tribe activists on important subjects.
Why can't the hosts get better mics?
I have completely made my economic circle, all of my real-life services like birth, healthcare, beauty, education - all of it is in a gray/red alliance. We’re already bifurcating in real time and in real life.
The guy is nuts.
James Damore was the first victim in the Grey vs Blue tribe - change my mind.
Hell yes!
I love Balaji, but if he walked up and started talking to you in a Starbucks you’d ask for the manager.
"I done something new for this fight. I done wrestled with an alligator. That's right. I have wrestled with an alligator. I done tussled with a whale. I done handcuffed lightning, thrown thunder in jail. That's bad! Only last week I murdered a rock, injured a stone, hospitalised a brick. I'm so mean I make medicine sick."
Somebody make a copy of this man's brain and turn it into an LLM
1:46:34 Same in Bangalore India but without the sticker lol. My dad's ex company was one of the biggest donours for the Police Department and I have never paid fine until these fines became online and automated
Love this grey tee shirt idea, but what shade are we doing? heather grey? charcoal ? Maybe since techies love black we make them dark grey
It's great that Balaji is thinking constructively and optimistically about plans for turning around SF. His plan is interesting and innovative but I think the solution is actually very simple. The problem that the city government of SF and it's policies have created is that they have failed to provide for the basic safety and rule of law necessary for a civilized society. They have returned SF to a Hobbesian state of nature, a state of chaos. When the state fails in it's most fundamental function of providing safety to it's citizens, protecting their property, enforcing basic rules of law, productive people leave and criminals and lunatics take over. SF has actually formed policies to reward and attract these elements to the city. Once the city government commits to fulfilling the core value-added function of government, the city will end is downward death-spiral. Michael Shellenberger and others have good plans on how to turn it around.
Balaji is the boy who screamed Bitcoin ..Come up with elaborate theses which all magically end up with bitcoin being the solution.. Pumps it and gets away with it everytime.. Yet people keep coming back to him for more just because he sounds smart 😐
Even his core prediction model puts dollar collapse at a small chance in weeks, a moderate chance in years, and a good chance in a decade. So, yeah the 90 day bet was publicity.. but hey, you heard about it..
@Life_as_Game Everyone heard about it, but could smell the BS from a mile away.. All it did was lose him the little credibility he had.
rising or falling amount of shit on the streets is a good indicator of the direction a country is going ? right ?
Grey tribe unite
Give the Cops free houses in the office buildings that are empty and make them all gray zone. Give them Huge spreads
1$ rent for cops
If you squint just a little, some of Balaji's ideas slign with Andrew Yang's new ideas
Balaji ,Andrew and Vivek......All seem to have similar world views and their combined iq is more than the us Congress combined 😂..worth thinking ,is there a point ..
People in LA cannot believe why people would want to live in Upstate NY. People in Upstate NY cannot believe people would chose to live in LA in its current state. :)
Did they talk about the bitcoin bet at all
B-money needs to get on that ozempic soon 😘
41:22 Australia and UAE have higher migration of millionaires not because top talent have found better alternatives than US. It's because Russian and Chinese millionaires couldn't move overnight to the US. UAE is a huge money laundering hub for Russians.
For sure Balaji is an interesting thinker, however, I don't think he some other well known tech names or your regular normies have enough of an appreciation for intel agencies and other Fed deep state, local corruption or gang/mafia power (e.g. drugs, shipping, human trafficking - think "The Wire) or the elite backing (not just Blues) of some of the Neo-Marxist stuff that's been boiling over in the last 35 years. E.g. CRT was just getting a stronger foothold in the academy in the late 80s to early 90s (prompting some of Thiel's first warnings). I'm not saying "the deep state" controls all, but bankers have funded both sides of wars for a very long time, color revolutions are planned and carried out during Red or Blue admins. Antifa is paid by very rich people. I think Balaji needs to recognize this.
now would be a great time for an Ethereum bet! 😸
53:24 this is basically what Hegel said about world progress. We lurch from one extreme to the other in order to compensate for previous mistakes. I think it can also be seen with the Strauss Howe theory, in the idea that the next “generation” always seeks to “fix” the problems of the previous ~20 years with the opposite of whatever the forerunning “generation” did. If you look at this on a larger scale we have already “cycled” thru liberalism, neoliberalism etc and this might be telling of the shift into something else. The fact that society writ large is becoming more “progressive” might actually be a macro-example of this Hegelian Dialectic, and that in a hundred or two hundred years we will be “illiberal” for lack of a better term.
Considering the "grays" as their own faction seems myopic to me. The tech space does not have a unifying ideology. There seem to be a lot of libertarian decentralist men in the tech camp but also a lot of transgender marxists and women and gays and rainbow mafia PC tribe members who are also in that space. This podcast seemed to be very focused on a niche silicon valley local gang war. I hope it works out for you guys. But as a tech guy who leans yellow (libertarian) / red and doesn't live in California because I value my freedom this battle barely affects me.
Balaji seems to understand the government is simply the biggest gang that manages a monopoly on violence. They shake you down for protection money. Leadership of the gang trades hands between sub-factions. Maybe you're cool with one of the factions or you're able to bring a coalition together to form your own sub-faction but ultimately if you don't like your limited choices of in house gang leaders you must consolidate power and form a big enough tribe to challenge the gang. This is nigh impossible by design. Monopolies use their advantage to disadvantage any potential up and comers. Maybe Balaji's plan will work at the local SF level and maybe that can serve as an example of how it can be done but I remain skeptical.
Democracy sucks. Its two wolves and a sheep voting for dinner. Politics has become religion because the state is near omnipotent. The political machine has become God. When ideological opponents have so much power over you and your way of life is it any wonder every election becomes a holy war? The federalist faction led by Hamilton were inherently wrong and we are dealing with the ever growing monster that it created - the cathedral. The state and the apparatuses it de facto controls (big tech, pharma, mainstream media, big oil, banks, academia, military industrial complex). The cathedral only functions to justify its own importance and continual growth.
Decades ago American industries were hollowed out because corporations realized they were treated better in other countries. Many citizens especially with remote work are now realizing the same. As birth rates plummet and the societal fabric tears and the US nears closer to insolvency state pressures will only cause citizens and businesses more pain. My ancestors fled their homes for a better life in the US and I will do the same in reverse.
Is it right to think that grey is the swing voters?
Nope.
@1:37 Balaji: “Iraq isn’t a country.” I disagree.
This bro is out of his mind. And he will NEVER take over San Francisco. 😂
Why Gray (versus Blue and Red)? Should be Orange
how about brown?
that should be tribal lands NOT tribal lens
“The gray” community
Why he so smart??
Caffeine
I'm not that interested in hearing from this guy every few weeks, especially without Antonio who will at least push back occasionally
hahaaa, gotta be fast to interject when the idea salesman speaks! just noticed Dan clearly hits the breaks here n there
Antonio isn’t committed to the pod
would be cool if erik contributed to the pod in some meaningful way
Don't listen then free thinker
That is the entire point -- why do you think people are being pushed towards influencers and away from main stream media for their information. Each actually creates SILOS and separates people even more --- which is the ENTIRE POINT. Sell something as decentralized and libertarian and the reality is the exact opposite -- DIVIDE AND CONQUEOR -- load them with memes and keep them fighting. They have you defending Biden, who is indefensible , but you do it because you hate Trump -- same exact thing happens on the Trump side. Meanwhile BOTH ARE AWFUL and neither represents you.
Too many abusive, cult, advertiser interruptions.
Publish MONOPOLY on so-called sovereign money. Remember that a statement of sovereignty is not secular.
“Sectarianism will fix San Francisco” 🤦♂️
Peace in the middle East is coming didn't date well...
interesting
Practicing communism in the family is NOT fine.
We shouldn’t be lying and gaslighting children.
Incentives for children DO matter.
Starvation should NOT happen, even if a child opposes you politically.
Kids who obey the rules SHOULD have some property rights*. And sacrificing your kids for the good of the collective is never an option.
* Eminent domain applies when necessary.
😂😂 yeah 😂😂😂😂 no comment
when he started talking about "and this is how we legally discriminate" i think i threw up in my mouth a little bit
Basically he doesn’t know how to fix San Francisco
This hack again. What happened to your Bitcoin bet…
😂😂😂😂 I can’t believe anyone takes this idiot seriously after that
I was thinking about that too
He paid $2mm for promo. Not that big of a deal.
@balaji you don't know anything about the civil war
Balaji just “saved” bitcoin, how it’s time to save SF… who knows? maybe some day he might even save universe by doing non-stop 50hr podcast!
old money vs crypto scams
Very little alpha here today. Disappointing
hell's angels 2.0 lets go grays!
32:40, 57:20, 1:35:40 Probably taken from UR.
I will happily invest in anti communist baby books in schools
Baliji is super intelligent and knowledgeable, but I find him confusing too. He claims to care more about India, but seems to speak and write more on US / San Fran. He claims to be building a state, but then speaks about small exclusive elite clubs, catering presumably to the top 0.001% of founders. This would surely be an extremely tiny state, at least in terms of population/workforce. I'm not sure I trust this guy, but he is ridiculously smart and 100% worth listening to; I am mentally taking on board his ideas.
Herbert Marceuse’s “Repressive Tolerance” essay is the perfect short form explanation of the blues playbook.
1:16:55 Bravo Dan, your analysis of middle east is realistic and accurate.
Although India is one country, religious divisions are increasing and is getting worse year after year not better
Media perception
Disagree. When politics reflects a decisive mandate, it shows society is working in unison. That's the Indian trend for over a decade now.