"The Real Risk is Totalitarian World Government" - Peter Thiel

We've been in a relatively stagnant period for something like 40 or 50 years there is a tremendous amount that's happened in the world of bits around computers but uh many other things that would have been called technology have really stagnated and the sort of world of adoms has seen dramatically less progress are we going to get you know this dangerous AI that disrupts our society and maybe you know it becomes This dangerous weapon or are we are we likely to get uh the One World Nanny state that uh stops it from being built since people

are worried about the former and not the latter that tells you you should worry about the latter not the former Peter teal thank you so much for uh giving us your time hosting us here in your office uh it's great to be with you uh the first thing I want to ask you is actually two questions that are very Tied in together you're one of the most Visionary people I think that we could possibly talk to where are we today the Western world and are we going to be 10 15 20 years from now do

you think well it's uh those are it's it's it's hard to tell um questions about the future are really hard for people to answer um uh the you know my my my thesis um that I've articulated in various forms over the last 15 20 years is that uh is that um as regards questions of technology And science uh we've been in a relatively stagnant period for something like 40 or 50 years since since maybe the 1970s that uh that um that uh you know there is there is a tremendous amount that's happened in the world

of bits around computers internet mobile internet maybe crypto maybe now um AI um but but uh many other things that would have been called technology and say let's say 1967 the year I was born like uh Rockets supersonic Aviation Underwater cities the Green Revolution agriculture new medicines have uh have have really stagnated and the sort of world of adops has seen um has seen dramatically less progress and this is sort of a thesis that I've articulated about and it's about the present and maybe the you know the last 50 50 years or so um of

our of our past um it's it gets debated a lot people don't you know agree with it it's very hard to figure out because um it is prob perhaps also Of a feature of late modernity that uh things are extremely specialized and so uh you know who who are you to say that there's no progress in string theory it takes half a lifetime of study to even you know get a handle on on it or what's going on in quantum computers or cancer research and so it's it's extremely hard uh to to get a handle

on these things but uh my sense is that in many areas The Sciences uh of of many of these stem Fields have been been quite corrupted Politicized bureaucratized um you know drisk where people aren't willing to have bold ideas uh take risks and we have this sort of incrementalism U and snails paace uh type of a progress and it it shows up uh it shows up in a lot of different ways but uh economically it shows up in in these sort of stagnant living standards in you know governments that uh have ever Rising debt because

you know it's okay to have debt and borrow from The future if you have a lot of growth and if you don't have growth it's it's very very dangerous and uh it um it and and it it shows up in sort of a variety of different ways and that's that's what I think uh has been has been the story for some time and and probably uh probably if one were to extrapolate my mid median case is that that's what continues we continue to have you know a certain um powerful progress in the world world of

uh bits uh and uh Continued regulation stagnation sclerosis whatever you want to call it in in the world of atams which is in my judgment the more important part because we're you know we're physically embodied beings and uh you know we don't want we don't just want an app that tells you that you're going to get dementia we want we want actually cures for that too you it's not just on the level of of data and information and you said in the speech around 10 years ago now that in The modern West courage is in

shorter Supply than genius a what did you mean exactly and B why does that matter well um well there sort of are a lot of a lot of different different applications of it but uh it's you know it's it's you know I often I often have said that uh you know our greatest political problem in a sense is the problem of political correctness of uh of the sort of uh inform formity of Thought and uh and then you know if if we're and the question is always in order to get fresh new ideas and uh

you know a larger surface area of discussion and debate do we need do we need great genius um because you know it's it's EXT maybe it's extremely hard to have new ideas or um or is it just like some sort of Courage of going against certain kinds of social norms and things like that and and you know my intuition is the problem of political correctness you Know is is is very great the pressures for Conformity you know in some sense are you people don't get sent to the goog but they they they somehow the felt

sense is is that these pressures are extremely high and that's why you know even a you know a little bit more courage would probably do a lot of good Peter isn't genius a combination of the two because you need to have the brilliant idea but you also need to vocalize the idea and then you also need To implement ment it and if you think about the Geniuses and we can mention right the way through history practically every one of those ideas was controversial and in some time and at some points even it could have ended

the life of the person who vocalized it uh yeah that that um that surely is is correct I think I was using genius you know in a more narrow sense of someone who has just a very high IQ okay which would would probably be you know the the Sort of IQ Mania Silicon Valley perspective where you know people talk you know Google tries to give people quasi IQ test and these algorithm tests when they hire people and um and uh and then and so I do think you you in some sense get people who are

uh very intelligent in in in some sort of definition but uh but um end up being not very creative not very impactful in in all these other ways and it's quite strange you know the Academia version of It would be uh you know there was there was a type that was already going extinct when I was in college in the 1980s which I would describe sort of the the um maybe the brilliant but eccentric The Eccentric Professor type who had you know was somewhat of a polymath had ideas about a lot of different different subjects

and uh and that type has uh has has basically gone extinct whereas you you probably still have a lot of people in Academia still who uh would score Reasonably highly on an IQ test but that's a very interesting point can you blame people for not having courage when they're incentivized to conform because you know we talk about Google Google don't want people challenging Google don't want people who are you know so creative that they're difficult to control they want people to come in to do the job and then leave well uh you can you can

um you know it's a great deal this is surely Done at the Mark and so uh you know yeah I'm not encouraging people to be fool Hardy or to be martyrs or to be suicidal insane or anything like like that but uh you know at the margin I think it would do a lot of good if people had just a little bit more courage in all of these cases there there are probably ways you can you can blame people for um putting themselves into these contexts so if uh you know if Someone goes into Academia

and thinks that they will uh they'll have this sort of creative intellectual career um you know at some point uh they should figure out that the pressures are enormous and uh militate against that in very powerful ways and you know they they should try to figure out a way to do something creative outside of Academia because they will not be able to do inside so so yes I think I think there's a way in Which if you look at it locally it's always not your fault you know you're going to Google that day and you

you know you don't want to create a hostile work environment or something by by articulating some heterodox view on gender relations or something like that but then uh if you if you widen the aperture I think uh you can blame people a little bit more for you know having made the decisions to put themselves in these situations not thinking about the Social context enough and uh you know having having had the blinders on in some sense do you think that's one of the reasons why there's so many autistic people who go on and found big

companies in these huge level um entrepreneurs because they see the world in a different way and they're not as connected to wanting to be part of a group as much as neurotypical people are yeah it's it's probably probably if someone's fully Autistic there probably are ways that that's that's pretty not helpful in in all sorts of ways but uh but yes certainly there are probably people who are very mildly on the Spectrum where where uh it's it's strangely uh been been helpful and there probably are a number of people in Tech where where something like

that is is true um but then I I think this is this is not a pro Asbergers this is this is a this is more a commentary on uh wow our society is Really insane and deranged well in a in a in a you know in in a healthy Society someone who who had Aspergers would would be a less functional person that would be able to get less done and uh we must be just an incredible social pressure cooker Society where you know an average person with a pretty good social EQ just picks up on

all these pressures and uh um you know uh knows to censor and get rid of every heterodox idea they ever had well Very much on the point of society being deranged I want to come back to the idea of the future and I I I understand perfectly well what you say making predictions especially about the future is a bad ideas they say however in your career the thing that many people will know you for is making Investments or making moves that were Visionary that's why that I introduced you the way I did I wasn't sucking

up to you it's just an observation of your trajectory through Life so I would be curious if you don't mind just finding out what you see coming down the pipe and and we're not going to say you know Peter teal in 2024 predicted this and now he's an idiot because it didn't happen I guess we're just curious of what you might see as the things that are likely to occur well I'm always I'm always extremely hesitant with um the categories the buzzword and uh so you know if we you know there in Silicon Valley tends

to you know traffic In you know mobile internet or cloud computing or Big Data machine learning you know the the current one is AI which you know people have been overusing for a long time and has gone completely into into overdrive and you know as a as a venture capitalist or investor you know I I want to invest in successful businesses and uh you know I think I think the the really successful businesses um have to do something that's unique you know it's U you know Uh they have a moat or dare dare we say

even a monopoly um you know around around the business they're they're doing something that um isn't just this commodified uh competition and so you know that there there are and I always think of a restaurant as the uh as the sort of paradigmatic example of a bad business if you want um you know if you want you know um nature Beed red and tooth and Claw uh bloody competition you should Open a restaurant and uh I always you know my one heterodox idea I have is that competition and capitalism are opposites in a compet I

world you compete away the profits and you do not accumulate uh Capital competition is for losers you want to find you want to find uh something where you're doing something that's unique you have a significant Head Start you're you're you're ahead of people and so so I don't know on on a technology side I would I I Would say that I think the AI breakthroughs are important they're going to they're going to have an enormous impact on our our society and in in uh in very different ways uh but um as Investments they're very very

treacherous at this point and I I think it's roughly I mean the the rough analogy is that AI in 2024 is like the internet in 1999 it's clearly going to be important big transformative have all kinds of interesting social you know Political effects maybe even effects about how humans think about themselves uh but on a business level it's very very treacherous because you know there were a lot of different internet businesses that failed and even the ones that succeeded it was you know quite a roller coaster you know Amazon was the leading e-commerce site in

1999 it was $113 a share on a pre on a pre-split adjusted basis on terms of at the price of the time in December of 1999 by October of 2001 it was5 half dollars you know you had to wait till the end of 2009 to get back to the 99 level and then it went up you know it went up 25x from there so if You' held it from December 99 to today you would have made 25 times your money but you would have First lost 95% and then if you bought it in October 2001

you would have made 500 500 times your money or so and um and so so in some sense Amazon was was the obvious internet company to invest in And even that was you know quite quite a roller coaster and my my suspicion is that's that that's roughly where we are in AI it's uh it's correct as a technology but then uh you know extremely uh bubbly and crazed as a you know as a company building thing or as a as a sector to invest a lot of people are very concerned about AI from the perspective

of the things that you mentioned which is the impact it's going to make on human beings the way we Relate to each other whether we have jobs to go to which have been the source of not just money but meaning and purpose to a lot of people over time the source of social connections where you meet you might meet your spouse I mean the the the things that people think might happen as a result of AI could potentially transform Humanity in a way that will be extraordinarily significant do you see that happening well um you

know I I suppose There are uh there are a range of dangers and risks um there is yeah there are questions how it affects the labor market whether is it fundamentally a complement to human labor that makes humans more productive or or is it a substitute for human labor where uh human workers will get paid paid less at the end of the day U you know most you know the history of the Industrial Revolution was that uh you know most of the time the Lites have Been wrong machines you know didn't really replace people altogether

they freed people up to do more productive things and um in some sense increased the GDP per per human being and uh and my intuition is that that see that seems like the far more likely outcome with these AI technologies that is which is you know also what computers did and you know in some sense what you know what has been happening since the Industrial Revolution um I think there are you know they complicated distributional questions will will a lot of the gains be captured by a few big tech companies will it be more um

more evenly distributed in our society I don't think people have particularly good models on that and of course you have you know and then of course you have also uh all these scarier existential risks where you know maybe I mean you know I don't I don't really believe the science fiction Version where the AI becomes you know um you know a superhuman Godlike being and just stdes to destroy the world why not uh I I think I think well before you get to that point um it can be weaponized by humans in a military use

which is probably also just as scary and so um you um the sort of so there all sorts of yeah there all sorts of intermediate scenarios that are dangerous but I I look I I would concede that it is a you know it's a fairly uh there are there Are some great dangers in the technology and I understand why people are nervous or scared about it um I however the the place where I do strongly come down on the opposite side of the precautionary principle and the effective altruists and the East Bay rationalists and the

you know elaser Bostrom cabal of of of people is that uh you know if we if we talk about different you know different kinds of existential risk in the world you know and there nuclear war there's The uh the AI that kills everybody maybe dangerous biotech maybe uh you know um maybe climate change or various types of um environmental factors and parenthetically it's always interesting that the people who talk about these things uh always just focused on their own one so you can you know always think there's a critique of someone like Greta that she's

insufficiently apocalyptic in her thinking because she's not worried about Ai and she's not worried about Nuclear weapons and then the AI people aren't worried enough about climate change and maybe we should get them all in a room and let have them fight it out first but uh the existential risk that I always want to also put into the hopper if if we if we were to have a comprehensive discussion of these risks is um is the risk of a totalitarian One World Government and I think uh and I think that the answer the implicit answer

to so many of these existential Risks is a totalitarian One World Government and so you know Greta thinks climate change is the biggest problem everybody should ride a bicycle I would submit that uh the way you'd actually do this would be uh would be um you know going from the frying pan Into the Fire of of this and in a similar way if we um if we were to really regulate and and stop um AI from a precautionary principle you would need something like Global compute governance or or Something like this um which uh would

have to be pretty heavy-handed because you know anyone can program a computer and it can done on this very local level so it has to be you know much more heavy-handed than you know the international regulatory bodies that regulate let's say nuclear weapons proliferation where you know it's it's hard to build a nuclear nuclear weapon and so you don't need necessarily a super um heavy-handed One World Government to stop it you would for AI and so uh a lot of it uh has the you know has the character I think that that risk is is

much greater than um you know the risk people want to talk about and then if I if I had to do sort of the I don't know not sure the contrarian take or the you if if you held a gun to my head and said which do I think we're going to get are we going to get you know this dangerous AI that disrupts our society and maybe you know Becomes this dangerous weapon or are we are we likely to get uh the One World Nanny state that uh stops it from being built um since

people are worried about the former and not the latter that tells you you should worry about the latter and not the former it's interesting you say that because you all know Harari who's a very interesting thinker who identifies many of the uh Global threats the ones that you describe he's open in terms of calling for Global coordination In order to deal with them is your concern about that based on the fact that no one else is concerned about it or are you saying you see steps being taken towards that outcome the global government outcome uh

you've just heard Peter teal discussed the dystopian idea of a totalitarian One World Government and how such a regime would use propaganda disinformation and censorship to alter The Public's perception of truth and reality if you're paying attention you know we're already seeing these dangers in our world today with mainstream media narratives and biased reporting shaping public opinion and influencing elections this is precisely why we're so proud to partner with ground news a platform we use every day at trigonometry ground news gives us a data we need to break free from algorithm fueled Echo Chambers and

filter bubbles helping us uncover The truth for ourselves and making informed decisions ground news does this by providing a comprehensive overview of news stories from over 50,000 outlets around the world you can see for yourself at ground. news/ trigonometry our favorite ground news feature is the blind spot feed which shows you stories that are disproportionately covered by either the left or the right so you can see what topics both sides of the political Spectrum focus on most and What they're not covering sticking with one of Peter Teal's subjects let's explore a story from the blind

spot feied about the US government's Communications regulator considering rules for AI generated political ads at the top of the page we can quickly see that more than 70 new sources are reporting on this story 72% of the sources are in the political Center 21% are on the left and 7% are on the right looking at the headlines PBS NewsHour a Left leaning US public broadcast that emphasizes that the rules proposed would only affect TV and radio but could not touch streaming platforms Fox Business a right leaning media Outlet Dove deeper into the disagreement between FCC

Commissioners highlighting that one called The Proposal misguided with an intense election already on the way now is the time to cut through the noise and stay fully informed if you go to ground. news/ Trigonometry you'll get 40% of their unlimited access Vantage plan this is the same plan we use and unlocks all the features you see here and more by becoming a subscriber you're directly supporting their mission to bring facts transparency and trust back to the news I my my intuitions are that a a true Global government would be uh would be quite bad it

would be it it uh it would have a totalitarian character it would have a character that there could Be no escape from it um you know my classical liberal intuition would be that the marginal tax rates would um be somewhere between 95 and 100% set out the UK then you know yeah if you could actually stop people from leaving the UK with the you know what uh I don't know what um what Corbin would set the tax rates in the UK if uh if you could actually prevent people from leaving but what I'm asking Germany

if you built a wall to stop People from leaving but what I'm asking is Peter do you see things that are currently happening that are taking us in that direction do you see people you know coordinating in the shadow so to speak to make that world government a reality well I think I think that is I think in a way that is the the implicit answer to all these all these existential risk do you think that's why they're being talked about so much um I you know I I think there are there Are good there

look there always are True Believers they're useful idiots there are uh people who are in part of a racket and so you know is is environmentalism are there people who genuinely believe it's a problem yes are there people who are useful idiots and uh just tools for others agendas yes and are there people who are part of a corrupt racket yes it's and it's always these things always have elements of all three if it was if we could just Collapse to one of them they uh they wouldn't be as as as as powerful as as

they are but I think um but yes I my my my my sense for it is that uh you know a number of these things the the implicit answers uh require this sort of uh supranational coordination in a in a very deep way and and then my sort of political philosophy uh senses that that kind of coordination um you know would it would it would be very non-democratic you'd have you know you'd be deferring Even more to experts even more um even more to um you know extremely large centralized uh structur so it would be

very non-democratic very bureaucratic uh probably fairly High tax it's you know in some ways the the kind of transformation that you've had in the you know as um as Europe has turned into the EU you know in some ways the the common market was envisioned in you know in 1979 by by Thatcher when she when she Was proe in 1979 because it would be you know you'd have this Level Playing Field and you have you'd have this this market and it would be a way to to weaken the unions and all these things it would

sort of be push things in a more capitalist Direction but then as um you know as the as the common market got created it came with you know this bureaucracy in Brussels that regulated the size of bananas and everything else you could think of and uh that's not in The econ one textbooks that you have free trade the trade always comes with um a supernational bureaucracy that regulates it and standardizes and things like this and and yeah my my judgment is that uh that trade-off uh would be uh you know maybe it's still okay on

the level of Europe because you know one can still leave one can still leave Europe um but uh on the level of the world uh it would be quite another matter are you optimistic Peter about the future of the United States or are you one of those people who looks at it now and sees that we're in a period of steady decline I am I always I always dislike the uh you know frames of extreme optimism or extreme pessimism uh because you know in some ways you know my question about the future you know maybe

the place where I would dis should disagree with the whole premise of your question is it's not like the future is um you know written out there somewhere And it is uh that all we have to do is you know sit back and eat some popcorn and watch the movie of the future unfold um you know my my bias it always comes down to individuals or small teams of people and that the question of agency is extremely important and you know and we get to decide in part what kind of a future we want to

build and um and and if you if you're extremely optimistic or extremely pessimistic I think um they they both uh end up uh both of those Attitudes lead to um lead to a kind of um you know lead to a kind of uh passivity extreme pessimism there's nothing that can be done extreme optimism there's nothing that needs to be done and so I think of both of them as sort of uh code words or euphemisms for sloth and laziness in practice um and so you know probably a healthier attitude is moderate optimism you know moderate

pessimism where you know at the margins um you know a lot can be done so With that you know big qual qualifier uh yes you know there are all sorts of places where one can have very serious concerns about the United States uh you know the deficits are out of control there's sort of all sorts of um things that seem to be on a deeply unsustainable trajectory uh the the thing that I think is very paradoxical about it is uh that you know maybe we have absolute stagnation or even maybe even decline um but on

a Relative sense there's just this felt outperformance and I I've started to wonder whether the you know the absolute crisis and the relative outperformance are somehow very deeply linked because um if someone uh who you know is somewhat pessimistic list all these places where the US has very deep problems the rebuttal from people like you coming from the UK um will always be something well would you want to move to the UK or where would you want to go and Um and then that's very hard to answer and somehow maybe maybe maybe it's a yeah

it's a there are these problems in the US and it's it's coupled with the sense that there are um there are really uh no other places that are doing better at all or that these that uh the problems are maybe even more acute and you know the demographic crisis is more acute in Europe or the um the sort of tech stagnation is even more felt we at least have still have the tech piece you Know the it computer piece is still working in the United States so Peter what are the things that you would change

about this country in order to make it more effective work better and I think one of the things that we can all agree on is tackling that deficit because I'm no Economist and I'm not a numbers guy but I look at the numbers and I'm like I'm pretty worried well it's always you know um yeah in theory that if you could May Wave a magic wand there are all kinds of things uh you would one would try to do my um you know probably my my policy intuitions are are still broadly quite libertarian in terms

of what one should do and so um I think I still think there is a lot that uh one could do by deregulating having you know less severely regulated economy everything from you know the zoning laws here in Los Angeles you know if you look out you look out the window we have all these Skyscrapers you do not you don't you don't see a single Construction crane and that you know that tells you that tells you something about um you know an an incredibly you know bad uh regulatory regime where um it's very very hard

very expensive to build uh to build new buildings um and and there's um and and so yeah my intuition would still be that there's a lot that one can do on the regulatory side um you know I think I think the the answer that the left has Is that you have to raise taxes like crazy I I don't think that's the one we we should try to do um it's you know the the Republicans probably don't have a great answer to this right now and and I think their their implicit answer is we're just going

to keep borrowing money um in indefinitely and um I I worry that that's not going to be adequate at the end of the day and we will eventually get sort of a uh you know a um a very big move to the left if we if we don't Figure out some way to get back to growth can I can I just ask on on this point I've been wondering lately pet and feel obviously feel free to disagree with me entirely but it seems to me people often talk about political polarization and it's tangible of course

in both our countries but the one thing that I'm wondering is is the inability to deal with the deficit a reflection of that polarization in other words if you were running a small company and you had 40 employees let's say and you hit tough times and you said to all your employees guys look in order for us to survive as a business and for all of us to keep our jobs we all got to take a 10% pay cut you're going to get less money I'm going to get less money you're going to have less

money to spend on your family you're going to have less money for social benefits you're going to have less money for healthare but that's how we're going to make it as we're a Team that works if you feel that you're one team but if you've got a society in which half the country suspicious and hateful you might argue of the other that seems to me to be the position where you might struggle to tackle something like effectively the what we're doing is spending more money than we have right yes do you think that these things

are connect they are somehow connected but probably the causation is very different from the way You're articulating the way I would articulated is that um maybe um a sort of representative democracy sort of a constitutional Republican government of the sort the US has um it always works you know you have a lot of checks and balances the decision-making process isn't fast it's it you know it requires a lot of complicated compromises to to make decisions and um and perhaps it works best when You have um a lot of growth going on in the background and

so if you have an Ever growing pie then you know there's always some question how do you divide up this this growing pie um and if you're like a very difficult obnoxious uh political actor um uh you don't get a bigger piece of the pie for yourself and that that sort of a person doesn't do well um but then if the pie is is not growing and it becomes this very uh brutal zero some thing where there's a Winner for every loser or something like that you know I I I would expect um the politics

to have you know a much nastier sort of edge so so I again my sort of man with the hammer sees a nail everywhere but I I would say that the the sort of relative stagnation that we've had um you know I I think of the polarized and nasty Politics as as Downstream from that and then you know and then probably you know the the kind of bad comp You always end up with in that is well we just keep borrowing money because that way you know we can sort of pretend that we have growth

and the future will will take care of it even though it obviously won't if if you if the growth doesn't arrive because it all comes down to a weakness of leadership in my opinion Peter in that we are a society that seeks comfort and everything has been tailored to our own comfort so why are our Politicians going to make us feel discomfort and that discomfort that we feel is just going to make is going to be even more shocking because we've done our we've spent our whole lives avoiding it yeah there surely there are there

are elements of all the these things that are correct uh but it's you know it is it is it is sort of unclear what kind of leadership one is likely to get in a you know in a deeply stagnant Zero Sum world And it's you know it's it's it's likely to be um you know very polarized and not very charismatic and and not very unifying so Peter um that being the case effectively feels like every Rock we lift with you stagnation is under it is there a way for for our almost doesn't feel like you're

just talking about the wayte you're talking about the entire world really at this point right is that fair it's you know there's there's a way that the crisis Takes different forms um but yeah it's say in the um the developed countries I always think um the progress requires us to do new things and and so it um if the younger generation will do better than their parents uh we have to have some kind of innovation you know there there may be other ways to do it but but uh but technology I think is uh is

this incredibly technological progress scientific progress are these incredibly Vectors for the developed world you know for the developing World um there probably some kind of globalization story where you know China maybe does not need to invent anything new if they just copy or steel or whatever all the intellectual property from the West maybe they can just catch up to our to our living standards and uh and then we can get into questions you know whether whether um globalization without technology can work or how well that's Going to work but there there is there seems to

be there's some kind of globalization convergence story that one can tell for um you know um the the less developed countries but I always think uh yeah if we divide the world you know in and again if we went back to the 50s and 60s you would have divide the world into the first world and the third world the first world was a part that was technologically advancing the third world was just sort of messed up and Stuck so it was a Protek uh story but a non- globalizing thing there were just these separate worlds

and now we divided into the uh developed and developing worlds which is um a prog globalization story because a story of convergence the developing countries will become developed but then it's also implicitly a story of stagnation where the developed world is that which is done finished there's nothing more to do we are developed and So yes the kind of I if you wanted I don't know a slogan or something would be something like you know how how do we um um re start developing again how do we have progress in the so-called developed world how

do we move beyond the de so-called veloped World always you know it sounds good but it's actually this very pessimistic description of of where we are well we don't know what a woman is and we're told that's progress but in terms of Actual progress isn't isn't AI the answer here boosts our productivity minimum as you say if not just takes over and makes everything free of charge effectively isn't that how we get out of this is that possible it's um well I I I certainly think it it can help and it's something that should be

that should be pushed but this is again where I I I would come back to the um the um the internet Circa 1999 which um you know it Led to a lot of great companies um it uh it probably did increase the GDP you know some it did increase productivity some but um you know the in in the sense when that this was the only new thing that really happened in the last quarter Century um it it probably was not enough to you know transform the living standards we had we had this Manifesto we wrote

uh for my Venture fund back in 2011 where we had the tag line you know they they promised us flying cars and All we got was 140 characters and uh and it was not meant you know it was you know in some ways there's all these ways you can make fun of Twitter or I guess now now X and uh you know where uh but but it it worked on the level of a business right it was you had a few thousand people they had very cushy jobs um could work from 10: a.m. to 3:00

p.m. and smoke marijuana at the office or whatever they were doing and so it it it worked on the level of the business but It wasn't necessarily enough to you know increase living standards across the board for our society and then that's you know that I I my sort of placeholder would be that AI is something like the internet it will you know yeah there all sorts of places where you can you know ring efficiencies out of the system um but uh but I I don't know if it will be as um as economically transformative

and you men as we need you mentioned social Media um I think a lot of people well I'm certainly one of them rather than saying a lot of people I'll say I am concerned about the impact social media is having on our brains uh not only young people but the way we relate to each other and increasingly um I see with younger Generations we've had numerous people on the show where from younger Generations it's clear we all know because we grew up without the internet that most of the Way the conversations are had online is

but younger Generations don't um are you worried about what social media is doing to us you know I I always think it's too easy to turn social media or various other Silicon Valley Tech companies into into the scapegoats for all of our problems and uh surely the the bigger problem you know maybe you know surely the bigger problems are things like um the failure of of the schools the wokeness of you Know K through 12 schools the uh derangements of the universities there something that's gone really Haywire on the educational thing um and then there

probably are there are ways in which um you I I think a lot of younger people don't know what they should be doing with their lives uh and this this again would be you more more the stagnation than that you're um spending too much time on on Tik Tok or or something like this um and you know Uh there are things I I I don't like I don't like all these things that push us towards Conformity I think you know the critique of social media that I would the political critique I would have would not

be that it's polarizing our society but actually that it's homogenizing our society um there's there's less heterodox thinking but uh but again if if you think of it as a compliment or alternative to the mainstream media um we probably have Still have a wider range of ideas that you can explore on the internet than you could before so uh so yeah there's probably I know there's something probably wrong with radio and television and and all these forms of media also you know in some ways made people dumb in some ways uh you know people shouldn't

be working all the time you know you have some downtime some entertainment and uh if you if you if you think of it as a you know is it is It really is it really worse than television was for people it's an interesting point I mean so people would actually argue that social media is the pipeline I mean if you think that wokeness let's compare it to a virus I mean that's the standard uh metaphor it's really the the the it's how it's How it transmitted really into everybody's brain it started at the University and

then it went into leak yeah it leaked out the lab into Twitter Into Facebook into Instagram and that's when it started to proliferate yeah but I I um I I I I still think that was not again we can it's very hard to know these these cultural arguments but I don't know I'd be open to sort of a religious interpretation that it's um it is you know it is uh chist Christianity the you know the main religion of the western world uh you know it it always takes the side of the victim and uh and

There's something where um it is like some kind of deformation or intensification and maybe you should think of wokeness as Ultra Christianity or hyper Christianity it's uh it's just like a extreme intensification and U and you know it's maybe there's no forgiveness and so it's sort of uh it's uh it's it's you still have original sin and you have all these bad things that happened in the past the past is terrible and you can never overcome it But uh but there's there surely religious interpretation that this is sort of you know what what what happened

is um as let's say the church lost a certain amount of authority but people didn't become you know rationalist atheist people they uh they uh they they went into the sort of uh woke uh religion which you know has to be inter which I would interpret as as you know a certain you know extreme form of Christianity yeah because you know There's a religious interpretation there's there's an economic one that you know it's uh there's a um there is a uh there is a uh there's an educational one and then you know there's obviously some

technology piece but uh but that was you know I know it was probably channeled by you I think I think the liberal the the bad liberal ideas has been channeled by Hollywood for decades and because it's it's an interesting point about the you know you Were saying about bad Hollywood ideas cuz it it seems to me that we were sold a lie with with the whole new atheism movement where it was kind of said we don't need religion anymore because we have rationality we have science we have facts science rationality and facts I mean great

but they're not going to fill that particular part of you that needs filling that religion does so beautifully well it you know it's it's you know I I always I always think one Should try to steal man so that all these things I disagree with the the new disagreed disagreed with the new atheists on but if I had to steal man new atheism Circa 2005 um you know I think it was a very politically correct way to be anti-muslim he sort of grouped all these religions together Judaism Christianity Islam a bunch of others and then

they're violent and intolerant and they just randomly kill people and um and it was a Problem with Islam or maybe fundamentalist Islam or or or something like this it was sort of a politically correct way um to be Ant uh to be opposed to that and that there was surely some some need for that maybe there still is today if you look at you know um you know the um the sort of uh I don't know um murderous Insanity of the Hamas uh people in Gaza and things like that um and then um and then

the um the sort of geopolitical way in which it Lost its way is at some point um you know the crisis the the the danger to the West is surely more uh from communist China than it is from um you know um medieval Islam or something like this and uh and I think the new atheists did not have anything to say about communist China which is it's it's it's a it's a consensus theory of truth it's a you know it's a social theory of truth it's the wisdom of crowds or the wisdom of the Communist

party which somehow Distills the the collective it is uh it claims to be scientific you know it's probably not but of course the word science always gets misused it's almost always whenever people use the word science almost always to tell that it's not science so it's we don't call it physical science or chemical science um but it's social science political science climate science it's you know so I'm in favor I'm in favor of science but I'm not in favor of of people using the Word science most of the time yeah and uh and so it's

Scientific Socialism and uh the new atheist were were were um you know they they were they were good at um you know um explaining why Bin Laden was a bad person they were a lot weaker when it came to Xi Jinping thought because what the new atheist did is they took away the idea of religion the flaw with the new atheist is they didn't really know how to replace it and what you created was a vacuum and something is Going to fill a vacuum uh yeah I mean there's sort of a lot of different levels

I I I I sort of I I I don't really like going as much as you're going into the sort of uh spiritual moral meaning of life life Direction uh uh I I think it's if you say it's a a critique of things that uh yeah it's a critique of societies that are organized in a certain way um and I I think it was important to have a Critique of a medieval Islamic society that that was that that that that there were a lot of things were not desirable about that um I think it is

perhaps equally important to have a critique of a totalitarian communist Society um and I think that in my judgment that is a greater threat and um and that's that's one where um there's something about the methodology and the approaches you know they they weren't able to say yeah and so yes you know may maybe religion Sometimes brings very bad things out of people and we should find a way to criticize religion when it does does that uh but the the notion that only religion brings bad things out of people you know maybe you could have

defended this in 1780 before the French Revolution but sure surely that's been that's been out of dat since 1789 right well it's interesting that you mentioned um how you see comparatively the threat of communist China and the threat of Islam because uh as I'm sure you're well aware uh certainly in Europe particularly on the right the concern about the demog graphic dimension of that the concern about the fact that European societies are failing to integrate their Muslim populations well certainly less well than the United States is now giving rise to very strong sentiments about immigration

generally but about Muslim immigration in particular and a lot of people in Europe Would say actually you know Muslim terrorists are way more likely to have a a im material impact on my life or a grooming gang in England or or whatever versus communist China Way far off in the distance that's not really affecting me personally how do you see those two threats and why do you say you're more concerned about China yeah well they look they they um there probably are are ways that one has to be able to talk about more than One

thing at a time uh but uh and I I yeah there probably are all sorts of things that uh where people were you know too Cavalier about these things uh you know the the the the number the number the demographic number that i' I've seen um is and if you look at Continental Europe so not the UK and not U not Russia Soviet Union but um in 1930 um had something like 10 million Jewish people and something like 5 Million Muslims most like in the Balkans and uh today something like maybe less than two million

Jewish people uh so there's a holocaust and a lot of Jews left uh and something like 50 million Muslims and so the ratio of Jews to Muslims went from twice as many Jews to 25 times as many Muslims you know less than 100 years later and if you have a 50 to1 demographic change surely that's that's something you know one um one one one should have Thought about and what that what that meant and then people were you know too Cavalier about it doesn't matter because the education institutions work great and PE all these people

become you know um modern liberals and productive members of our society and so it was yeah there were there were demographic questions people didn't want to talk about there were educational things people didn't want to talk about and they were they were they were all linked The uh the you know the the the way I see the China One is um sort of qualitatively quite different is that it is you know it is in some it is in some zero you know it is it is determined to beat the West to catch up to the

West in these you know questions of Science and Technology and then uh you know in some ways uh to you know exert some some leverage through that where where it can you know it can Dominate the planet and uh why do you say that Peter what your evidence for that you you're someone in in the public space who seems to be uniquely vocal about this why are you so focused on that issue I you know I think I think that that's uh well I don't know I think there's there's different different levels one could one

could uh look at it but uh it is Um I I think that's the way the the China's leadership season let's so it's it's it's always know you have these sort of questions about the theid Trap the the rising power meets the the great existing power and does this often lead to conflict and and I think in the Western World you know we've uh people have generally looked at this you know rather optimistically I don't I don't really think that's the way people in in China think of it they They they think of themselves as

you know on a on an Ever greater Collision Course with with the west and then you know that on some level maybe it leads to armed conflict over Taiwan maybe maybe it leads to some sort of um really violent decoupling in in in in different ways um and uh and then that's something you know that I think you know we we have to think about very hard Pete there are people sorry there are people who go look the threat of China has been Wild Ly you blown out of all proportion and they'll point out to

the fact of you know the demographic problem that China has with the old people which is due to the one child policy they'll look at the fact that the economy is not doing particularly well in fact some people are predicting it to go into recession in the next couple of years so we're overstating the threat of China where would you push back on in those points well I I certainly think we understated It for a very long time and so uh and there was probably I don't know there's sort of always I think a prehistory

where uh in uh in 19 uh 1989 you would have you know I I was thinking we had you had ten men in June of ' 89 the burlin Wall comes down in uh November of ' 89 if it had been reversed and T happened in June of 1990 so summer of ' 89 Bren scor the Bush 41 National Security advisor flies to Beijing reassures them we don't care about all These people are killed in t men because you're anti-soviet you're blocking from the Soviet Union 6 months um and if it happened the other way

around maybe we would have uh we would have rethought the China thing back in 1990 or or something like this and and there were yeah there were surely um a lot of you know very dubious decisions there was the decision to admit China at the WTO there um and and sort of to you know to hollow out you know a great deal of the Of of of of of the economies of of the western world and um you maybe it doesn't matter if we're if we're only concerned about you know how much it costs a

consumer to you know to buy you know to buy a to buy an electric car but if if these things have a military Dimension um and uh you know you no longer have a ship building industry in the UK uh and then you will not have a navy and you will not the UK will not have a role to play in protecting Taiwan And uh and so so you there were sort of these these uh these um these uh these questions that one should have thought about and so I think there was there was a

great power version of this and then uh I think there was also an ideological version of this where uh where maybe you know maybe there was a way to to um manage the rise of China if it had been uh if it had been transformed into a liberal Western democracy you might have still had rivalry might have still had It was you know it was it was non-trivial to have the handoff from you know the British Empire to this American Centric world but there was a way there was a way that could work uh and

then uh and then there was some sense in which China was just not becoming a liberal democracy and this is sort of where the you know fukuyama and of History thing was uh has been has proven to be comically wrong and people should have figured that out much earlier you know And I think they would have figured it out in June of 1990 if ten men had happened one year later and but for the because that oneyear delay it was something like you know maybe the maybe it took until the Trump presiden that this even

this even started to to to register uh to register as an issue um and yes I I I don't know I I I you know I'm not I I don't think we should go to war with China um I don't think um but I think I I think we should be very Realistic about how How Deeply misaligned we are uh how um you know how the uh sort of totalitarian ideology uh is deeply incompatible with our values and and all these ways where uh where um you know in some sense China wants to become America

and and uh that's you know it wants to become the leading power and that's that's a you know that's a setup for for a very very difficult thing to manage Peter it's beenin let me ask actually a couple more We've got a little bit of time uh on geopolitics Peter you mentioned totalitarian ideology we have Iran we have China we have Russia all making moves to put it mildly around the world how do you see the geopolitical situation well they are there's there's some way where they are they're all entangled you know they're all they're

all unentangled with each other they're all these things one has To you know one has to think of of separately um it's I don't know's a lot of things one could say about about each of them you know probably um there probably are it's it's probably there there is probably a way that uh um the middle middle eastern policy of of of the US of the Western World should be focused extremely squarely on an and the Iran problem and I think there are Critiques one can have of the neoconservatives of Obama all all these different

people the last 20 years where the focus was on Iraq or on um on all these all these different things and and ended up being a distraction from Iran and the reason I would say Iran is the most important one is uh you know if if they if they achieve a nuclear weapon um I think that has the effect of radically destabilizing the Middle East I don't think they would use the nuclear weapon But it it would mean that they could um they could support Hezbollah Hamas other things with far more impunity and you'd you'd

get sort of a violent Regional War you know the Korean war starts in 1950 one year after the Soviet Union gets the bomb Vietnam war starts 1965 one year after China gets the bomb and um because the bomb means we can't really um we can't really hit back at the the people who are supporting the north Kore an or the North Vietnamese and so you get a Very nasty Regional war and that's that's that's why uh I think you want you want to do a lot to prevent the Iranian uh the Iran from getting to

the bomb and that's that that's you know that's the Middle East focused that you know there's there's a there's a great deal that one you know that one can say about uh about about Russia um I think I was probably in 2016 I you know I gave two two speeches uh uh for Trump at the one at the Convention and one at the Washington Press Club I was not pro- Russia but I was I was sort of anti- anti-russia in both that this was not the battle we have you know we have a bigger crisis

with China and it's it's a distraction from that um and uh you know the place where I'm a little bit more confused on that at this point is that uh I you know I think in some sense uh I think of Russia as as a the Ukraine Russia WS almost already a proxy for the conflict Over Taiwan and in some ways um Russia is a is a Chinese client state of sorts it's like North Korea or or something like that very different but um but uh and then uh and then and then the real challenge

is is China which uh in some ways um you know uh um maybe the broader Chinese Playbook is to sort of uh you know uh or organiz the developing countries against the developed world and this is sort of you know Iran is you know this poor country In the Middle East versus the wealthier Saudi Arabia or something like this and and then Russia is the you know the former Eastern block country against Western Europe and then there's a version of that of that playbook in in many other parts of the world that China wants to

play that's yeah that's that's where the the problem of of of these is is is the way that they're all entangled with each other you know I was I was going to actually Ask because we've touched on it but we haven't spoken about it which is Taiwan I mean how do you see that situation evolving it's um man it's it's it's it's it's a it's a it is a it's quite a big black box I I don't I don't know if we're capable of Defending Taiwan and so I think we have to somehow be realistic

about what our actual U military capabilities are and um um but I I think if you know if the If the CH Taiwan crisis comes to head I I don't know if we end up with a with a uh you know a full-scale war with China I think you end up with you know with extreme economic decoupling so uh you know I I still don't think Tik Tock will be banned until 24 hours after China invades Taiwan and uh and you know you had the you know the northstream pipeline between uh Russia and Germany and

we have the equivalent of a 100 pipelines between China and the west and The pipelines they will all blow up the day of the of the Taiwan Invasion and then um and then I think um we would be well advised to uh think about the decoupling to prepare for the decoupling in advance and uh not have this fake notion that the coupling somehow creates stability in the case of the northstream pipeline the coupling of Germany and Russia led to instability because it made Putin think you could invade Ukraine and Germany would not go along And

then the Germans didn't understand anything about energy and so they they they were actually tough on Ukraine but it almost blew up the whole economy and uh you know I think the China Taiwan thing you have to think of the 100 pipelines between the West and um and China will blow up and uh surely it's better if that happens on our timetable than theirs well hey at least there won't be a global government right not for the time being not for the Time being Peter it's been an absolute pleasure talking with you we're going to

go to locals to ask our supporters questions before we do the final question of the interview is always the same which is what's the one thing we're not talking about you talked earlier about political correctness preventing people from saying what they should what should we be talking about man it's it's just it is it is just always this this crisis of the West how We get back to the future that we've been going through and then that that's that's surely uh you know how do you know how do how do we create a a better

world for the Young Generation in in in these Western societies well give us some ideas on that it's uh it's you know I think so much the I I would always say the par doxic answers you know maybe maybe I'll disagree with the premise of the question you know undercut this interview too much It's it's always the the the UK bias is too much on the level of speech too much on the level of you know sort of some Oxbridge uh rhetoric debating Society uh and the UK having to go with me man yeah exactly

what have I done I just did a great speech very well you are you are fantastic at at that that sort of a thing and then um but you know uh the sophists what they have in common with the biblical God is they believe in the omnipotence of speech and uh and it's Also we just you know we need to act and we need to do things and uh and uh you know I I I I you know I think talking about it is is perhaps necessary uh but it surely is not sufficient and uh

we need to actually act on things and uh and build the future as a great philosopher once said A Little Less Conversation a little bit more action please there we go we end the interview of me getting criticized by Peter teal head on over to local way I'm sure he'll Do a lot more of that Peter you're given the option of following the teaching and example of just one philosopher in all human history who would it be and why [Music]