Welcome to soft core History. What is up? Welcome back to softcore History. I am your host for the week, Rob Fox. I am joined as always by Jake Yeah from Oyster Farm. Ah sick. Get to the subject already, guys, you haven't even been introduced to Dan. Yeah, don't worry about it. Okay, today we're talking about We're not important. Yeah, we don't want to get come here for the history. We don't want to get a review that is trash. Bro was that a review? So it was like, good to it people on YouTube that just accidentally he was a comment. It's a couple of them. There's like, you guys aren't funny enough. That's fair. Yeah, that's why we're we're here. That's why I'm trying to get sexy, get hotter, take your shirt off. Tell a joke, telor Jack, tell a joke. Funny, be funny history never seen an adult man and closer to crying after hearing the words tillid Joe Taylor, joke, funny man. This happened. This was an open mic, I imagine. Yeah, we were in an open mic at the former bar called the Love Goat in Austin. Jake was performing that night. And you crush. I did better than this guy. The Australians didn't heckle him. Yeah, there were these two Australians who are very nice and polite, but there's this one guy that got up. He was like a bad He was like a really bad rip off, like John Maliney type, you know, like he warves. He I'd seen him at many open mics. He wears a suit or wore a suit every time. Yeah, very tweet and I honestly punishable. Yeah, they were just heckling him because I guess his ship wasn't landing with him. They're like, just tell a joke all the all the The only heckle I remember is Tili joke after like five minutes to him doing so. Yeah, no, I picked up on that after you said it about twelve times, Tila joke. And he tried to crowd work him back. Oh, he tried to take control of the situation and it didn't go well. Backfired, and he left. He stormed out. He's about to cry. Yeah, it was just like not I thought it was pretty. I just don't think you can wear a suit until you're opening for a comedian and like des Moine, like you're at least getting paid. Yeah. It was very much the type of thing where even just looking at him, you could tell what he was going for and it's just like, I fucking don't like you. Yeah, I don't like you. Clean comic even Molaney does T shirts and jeans, but it wasn't just clean. It was like clean but wacky a little bit. It's a bit zany. You can tell you had nothing. What are the kids call it? Now? Pick me guy? Was that like a stand? Is that a stand now or a simp? A p no? A pick me is like you are whackying goofy for the sake of being h desirable by the opposite sex. Yeah? Probably, Oh shit, just stand out sort of situation. I don't know anyway, I don't I alway would look at him and be like, how do you make money? Because not through comedy, but I'm like, what do you do during the day? Do you wear that at work? Do you? Cause you seem like you can't do And that is most Sauceton comics, yeah, but in a different way because most Austin comics I look at and I'm like, okay, like you clearly can't be employable anywhere you live in a car, but like you might make money selling reselling drugs or pre selling trucks. Is like, yes, that's very it. Yeah, or like you adopt, you let a homeless girl sleep in your trunk and you prostitute her out. That's what most Austin comics look like. Is that what I look like up there? No, No, that's why I didn't make it. You don't really fit the Austin comic mold, not anymore. No. Now it's just all like the filthiest, dirtiest morally like and uh and uh like physically, I think a pre wreck is doing ketamine. Yeah, Austin used to have a really good comedy scene and that's kind of not the thing anymore. Here. It's very like it's like if New York and La comedy fucked, and it's just like vulgar. Yeah, the vulgar. Yeah, it's kind of like, Okay, I get it, dude. It's it's like your hard guy comics, you know, like and it's just like, yeah, great duty some of them are great. Yeah. Yeah, Like I mean just Nick and sh It's fantastic, Like I love all right, this is this is great podcast. In comments, most podcasts hold on this is most podcasts? Is this conversation? We don't want to be most podcasts anyway, Real quick, before we get into into this episode, say, oh, we have a Patreon where we do two extra episodes a week, a whole fucking back catalog with evergreen shits five dollars a month to get you at this point. It took that guy, like he said, like listening every day, months and months to get through the Patreon back catalog Patreon dot com slash softcore history. You get an additional episode like this each week that drops on Wednesday, and then on Friday we typically drop something different like a game show, maybe a watch along, some listener voice mails, or even a second additional episode. I've done that or not, Like I've done that a couple of times. Yeah, we've done that. Whatever, And uh, also we have a YouTube softcore history on YouTube, and uh, if you really want to be helpful, leave a review five stars on Spotify five stars, and a written review on Apple. And if you really want to be helpful, do that, but also leave comments on every video on YouTube so we get in the algorithm happy comments. We keep getting demonetized initially off the bat and have to request reviews. I guess, I guess we're shadow band boys. We're too funny. Oh yeah, we're too funny. We're shadow band. Oh you're not funny. It's your shadow bad Yeah. God, it's my favorite thing. And no, babe, you just shadow bands such a good one. God damn attack that word. That's a trigger word for me. Shadow a lot. I mean you get a keto IQ and I just go bananas. Yeah, I can't have one of those again. All Right, Today though, we have I think a pretty interesting situation. Instead of talking about something from history, like an event from history, we're going to review someone else's view of history. Oh what so this is an alt history thing or just someone's opinion or are we talking about like Aristotle or like Pluto? Pluto, No, Pluto the dug Okay, Pluto has got some big ideas. There's one there's a kind of a Disney character in this. What cool? We need the poo oh very quickly, Okay, we're talking about China. Oh I know why? No, and their view on how powers, how countries become quote great powers. They wrote they have a whole thing on it that that Chinese scholars wrote. It's called the National it's called National Security and the Rise and Fall of Great Powers. This is specifically from the third chapter of it, which kind of is an overview of how for the last five hundred years, so basically the discovery of America, of the Americas to present day, how powers have risen, why they have fallen, what prerequisites you need, who's an outlier, so on and so forth. This is this is the Chinese. This is a state document how China views is it? Yes? This was published in twenty twenty one. Oh wow, okay, authored by Xi It was authored by Chinese. I don't remember if I have China for sure. Yeah, but it was authored by Chinese like scholars, state people whatever. They outsourced it to India. Yeah, wrote it, I think it was so. Yeah, Bangladesh did this one. Yeah, Wuan Peg maybe Huan Pang might have been been the one that written it or there was. There's nine authors total in the Rise. But it's like a scholarly work, you know what I mean, Like that's a big well, if it's a state document, it's pretty much a religious document at this point too. It's so it's not in there. I was reading like a sort of explainer on it and there's like a upper echelon of that type of shit that I don't know that we have access to except maybe the CIA or whatever. But this is more of a public facing one. But this is what they believe. This is sort of informs how they think, you know how on drinking bros. Dan likes to say, China thinks in fifty year in a d year innimals, not every four years or whatever. That's why they'll beat us, this is, but they can't. Like. The thing with that though, too, is like, yeah, if you're looking six hundred miles ahead of you, like you can trip on a fucking stick, Like you're not looking down either, right, right, right, And I mean if you get that like fifty thousand foot view, you might get vertigo and fall off the air hot air balloon. Yeah, I mean with the perfect examples, like they built that high speed rail throughout the entire country, right, and it's so far ahead of its time when they built it, and it really is great and it could lead to many great things as far as transit and things like that way down the road, but it's a fucking cost wagon. I don't know. We got a pretty sick high speed railway. We threw in for California. Yeah, we paid for one. Are they paid for one? Yeah? Didn't get built because they have to ask every like every like twenty feet, they have to ask like a different Indian if it's okay to build on there, like oh, I'm sure, you know, like there there was like some crazy thing where the amount of like extra bureaucratic like sort of. But it just ends, right, isn't it only like two hundred feet that they built And they're like, you know what, we're done. It's bad. It's a I don't even know though. It's a bad situation. But there I'm being hyper Yeah I think I'm in hyperbolic here, but yeah, like two hundred feet, yeah, yeah, it's it's small. It's so rise and fall instructs in the introduction quote it should become the worldview and the methodology of every cadre and all tasks, and it should also become a required lesson for the people of China, which is on its path from a big nation to a strong nation. So they kind of think like, uh, they want to think of everyone kind of pulling in the same this is how you need to think view the world, Okay, and what itenforms this view specifically, is their view of at minimum the last five hundred years of history. They do kind of go back in a little more and talk like cheer out and we'll get to it, to cherry pick certain parts of like how China was almost at certain times. But then so from the verbiage you said, going from a big nation to a strong nation is mentioned. So it sounds like they in their belief that they haven't even hit their stride yet. It's like, we are about you're not even ready for what I'm about. Like this is like, no, they don't think they've hit the final phase yet. They basically but they they we'll get to what they how they think they can get there. But I also want to see like the kind of nations you don't think of that they're maybe calling for to be the next power, like Poland's gonna just rise up the ranks. So they lay out a foundation of what they think any nation needs to become a powerful a great power. Uh, they don't necessarily name other well, we'll get cowards. We'll get to that. Yeah, not calling their shot. They mostly look backwards in terms of like how these people succeeded, how these people failed, blah blah blah. Obviously the United States comes up. I need predictions, I need hot takes. Shana all right, well I I we'll get to it. One thing that I think is interesting that here, though, in terms of like them, everyone needs to think this way. Jijingping seeks to instill widespread awareness what he calls quote calamity consciousness on the grand historical stakes at play in the otherwise mundane mundane tasks handled by communists bureaucracy. Yeah, so he he wants to be like, you know, no job is small, like everything, every little thing, communism, calamity. What was the third one? Calamity consciousness, calamity consciousness. You know, I don't know if you're catching this or picking it up, but it's very nick Saban. It's very trust the process. Yeah, like he's a process guy. Well that's hanky. Yeah. You don't want to trust, you don't want to be the process. Yeah, the process doesn't work. Coming from the Philadelphia sports fan, the process has now worked. Yeah, that great, But that's that's definitely the the way he's going about it, at least for that's you have to every state sponsored ship like that, right, Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's like, no, every little thing we ask you to do is actually highly important and we need to embed this into your head so you have like an anxiety about it. Yeah, basically, but you also want to have kind of the optimism of we're building towards something and not like, oh, yeah, we you know, this is our peak, grow the grow the bull. This is this is where we kind of like level out. Yeah, no, for sure, you have to. It's part of it. And they are, basically, and I kind of wonder if that's like part of this the way they are, because they really do set it up like we're right there, like we're we're right there, We're just edging amazing right Like we're not, We're not there yet, but we're getting so fucking close. And they basically think there's only one area where they have not matched the United States. Interestingly, they don't really mention the military at all, except kind of slightly as a subset of technological superiority. Sure they don't. The military comes up very little in this blueprint for how to be a great power? Why why highlight your flaws? Why would you draw a big circle around Well, it might be this, but no, yeah, I'm not surprised they don't bring up the thing they are not ahead in. Uh well, I mean they do bring up not being ahead in tech. So tech is the one thing they think the US still fucking crushes them on tech, and I guess they kind of fold it under tech, but like education, because the US is what forty of the top one hundred universities in the world, and China is maybe like two at most. Or's only like that. Yeah, honestly, one of them is probably I don't know off the time I have, but one of them was probably in Hong Kong, which means that they didn't even make it. Yeah, it's British, British founded. Yeah, yeah, but they they don't mention the military. One reason for that though that the uh there was like an introduction to this that with the authors kind of like Western authors kind of explained the whole situation is they kind of think that since China basically China doesn't view itself as having risen to power because of military might, they only view themselves as having risen to being a global power from industry and stuff like that, that they don't put a lot of weight into it, even though they had a huge civil war, at the beginning, at the end of well, before and after World War two, and and obviously you know they used the military to oppress people. Yeah, yeah, yeah, but they really don't. It doesn't. And I think maybe part of the reason for that is they don't. Maybe they don't want to act like they're maybe they want to act more benevolent, and the military is inherently kind of not. Yeah, that could be it. I mean, you don't if you're trying to get people amped and positive, like talking about and we will smash people. It's like, you don't. That's kind of like too scary. You want to be scary, but not too scary. You don't want the fucking Toby Keith boot new room. No, yeah, it's a Chinese way. No it's not. They have drones that fly around and yell at you. Yeah inside, go inside. That's infinitely more terrifying. I hate that's it. That's talk about mundane too. That's a mundane dystopia. Go inside. It's just like, go inside, go inside. Oh, your phone's read now now you can't go anywhere. Yeah, Like that's fucking weird. And we'll get into the kind of that too. So they might be kind of jerking themselves off there too, where it's like, no, we're doing it. We're not only did we get here, but we're doing it like the exact right way of course. So the basic building blocks have a great power for them Historically, this is how they think every country in the last five hundred years has checked as many a lot of these boxes, if not all them. Population advantage, territory, size advantages, uh, natural resources, geographic advantage. So obviously it's better to not, you know, have your country just being fucking Siberia or some shit. Yeah. Uh economic power, military power, uh, soft power, so like cultural influence and shit like that. Population, territory and resources that were the most important by far. I mean that makes sense Hina could do without some of the territory, as it does seem like a lot of their territory is an absolute drag. Yeah. Yeah, I mean most of western China it's useless. Like imagine if the Midwest was a desert. That's I feel like that's a lot. Yeah, I gotta call you out, Jake. People on the patron were kind of annoyed that you thought we could get rid of the Midwest, which is where we produce all our food. Yeah that was out of pure just not liking the vibe. Yeah, you were just it was all vibes. It was vibes. Bro Rob did it because he hates Kansas. Yeah, yeah, no, I mean that's why I said I shifted. If people don't remember, I shifted to Georgia and I said, we keep Atlanta and Savannah. But I'm pretty sure in western China it's only concentration camps. Yeah, it's it's a lot so free labor. I guess that's kind of like a Yeah. They're also on the same time zone across the country. Did you know that they have one time zone for China that shouldn't be Yeah, but they don't care about the West. No, it's like it's tough shit. You have this meeting at eight I don't care if it's fucking four in the morning for you, it's eight year. I feel like China's kind of interesting in that too. Like, so we've talked about before, like they Han are white people in China. Basically they're like kind of Han supremacists on the low and uh, but the Han are like the Eastern yeah Chinese essentially, So imagine like it's like black people just lived in the Western United States, and we were like, we don't give a fuck because they don't. That's where like the Wigers are in West China all that shit, like all the other ethnic groups that they're not really huge fans of, so they just don't give a funk about the West. Yeah, we don't have like regional ethnicity, and we have like Mississippi and Alabama pretty far behind. So yeah, I mean we do have regional ethnicity differences, I guess, but like it's not like we're such a melting pot. It's hard to really say yeah, you know, yeah there, it's it's it's I don't know, very distinct expert on softomore history, but it's it's interesting. So according to China, you can't just swing your dick around. You can't just fucking you can't just fucking flex and which is funny because they do the wolf warriors. I think it's called that diplomacy where they walk in and they're just dicks. Yeah, they like walk into a room and they're like, haaa, your office is small and stupid homosexuals. It's like this water tastes bad. It's very condescending. Our coffee is much better. There's actually a flow chart map of like how different countries do businesses, like business deals and like how me and like looking at China, so you're just like fuck, like I don't want to deal with that. Like there's like a lot of like you know, like Finland. It's like there's a like polite conversation in the middle, and then like it just how these break for five minutes to talk about don't we rent all of our pandas from China? Yes, that's technically so we own zero pandas we shouldn't. If the pandas in your country, you own it, extreme and take it. Yeah, I agree with that. Like San Diego Zoo, I mean, you're gonna have to fucking storm the gates with that panda back. You know. They say, if you owe one panda to China, that's your problem if they want it back. But if you own one hundred pandas, that's China's problem, right, Yeah, get come, come and take them. Uh So the first example they have of why you can't just fucking flex and be a fucking asshole and conquer the world. Basically, Great Britain, they said, basically remain kept all of its power by just letting after World War Two, just letting America be number one. And they're like and they were basically like, hey, buddy, we're best friends. Yeah, will be your number two. And instead of trying to basically wrestle wrest power from America, instead of trying to reuh you know, like wrestle back for the number one spot by King of the Hill, Britain was like, all right, that's a pretty steep fucking hill. Uh, We're just gonna take your sloppy seconds and your scraps and as long as we're friends with you will pretty much be able to do whatever the fuck we want and hold on to a shit ton of power. Yeah. And they admire that about great Britain or they use that as an example of like, you can't even though they do this wolf warrior shit, I guess, which is just funny to be honest, just be a fun way to negotiate, be like your don it tastes like shit, you're just negging people. Yeah, it's it's nagging NonStop. But they say you can't. You can't nag on the on a grand scale. I suppose they at the bar business it's okay, politics not so much. Uh, And what's funny or what's fun about all this? How they consider everything. They actually have a a sort of sabermetric really for how to be a great power. Oh, they're getting into advanced metrics, A wins above replacement. I'm already out. I'm an eye test guy. That's why America keeps winning because we just know we look at it and we're like, yep, that's the move, that's what you should do. There is something to that an American like just a gut feeling. We are a very like reactive, gut feeling kind of people. And we don't know what pornography is. No, it's it's based on It's based on you know when you know right when you see it. That's why there were a bunch of Supreme Court justices in the basement having to watch porn and decide like on different things that happened. Like yeah, it's funny, like they had to get they had to like watch something horrible and then they like get some like soft core stuff and they're like, I mean, compared to that, this is this is fucking fantasia campaign with broad brushes. Yeah, I know when I see it, and if I don't see penetration, Uh, I believe one of the justices was blind and so other one had to like tell them what was going on on the screen as it was happening. It was it was another justice and not like one of their Yeah, yeah, it was just all the justices like watching porn and antonin Scalia didn't have to like tell this justice like he was clerking for whomever, like third good Marshal or something. Right, Yeah, dude, just think about it, like at one point in our history, the Supreme Court justices were just having a normal boys night sleepover in yeah school, watching porn in a basement. I can't say I have one of those nights. You've never watched porn with your boys? No what never once? You never like turn on the Scrambly channel and like, oh titty popped out your friend guys like cranking it. You No, we weren't cranking it. God, one time, like you go to that corner, I'll go to this corner in the middle room. Although there was this one time, oh yeah, the one time you cranked it with the boys. But so we turned on some softcore porno in my buddy John's house because his family had did your frank get hard? You gotta you gotta edit in smooth jazz right now or like swinking jazz. Here and my other buddy, I actually won't name any more names, but my other buddy, he was like talking about how he's like he just like busted last time from watching porn, like by himself his house, watching like a but like softcore, like steamy you know, like steamy Nights type of situation. And this is like softcore porn, and we were watching it and he's like, oh no, and he runs to the bathroom because he's like he's claiming he's gonna ejaculate into I think he's just gonna bust in his pants from watching this just so he gets up and sprints to the bathroom so he doesn't so he can, like I guess, do it in the toilet or in toilet paper not We're like in eighth grade, probably uh, seventh grade. And my other friend the whole night, he's like, I don't believe you did that. I don't believe you know, I don't believe you hands free came from watching porn. There's no way, there's no way. And he's like, I swear I square, and then he gets up and he runs to the bathroom and my other friend runs sprinting after him because he's like, I need the sea. He's like trying to break into the out the door. He's like, I want to see you come, because he didn't because he didn't believe it. Did we do we have any verification? He couldn't get in. The door was locked. He was like trying to break down the door. I as weird, as like, obviously I want you've come. That's funny, but I don't believe it either. I just no way can I just sit there and stand like even the horniest I've ever been, you know, when you're a teenager, Like I've never been able to just be like, look, if anyone could do it, if anyone could do it, it's a thirteen year old boy, for sure. But I just I don't believe it's not just gonna seep out. No, it's not just gonna like happen. You gotta be a professional, Okay, So show of hands, do you think that thirteen year old boy came? Yes or no? No? Verdicts verdicts out three no, no, three notes. No, it didn't happen. I'm abstaining. No, dude, you're part of it. Now you're a abstain vote is still a vote. Nonetheless, Yeah, you participated in this. What do you have to say to yourself? You fucking freak god disgusting. Anyways, China's winds Above replacement is called composite National Strength. Unfortunately I couldn't find any numbers, but suffice it to say they believe the US is still number one. Hell yeah, I love that their document says that. I mean, it doesn't say that specifically, but it's like obvious. They like they say they're not number one. Basically, they're like the US is. They Actually they do kind of say it by quoting they quote a lot of like Western scholars in this from like the seventeenth century, eighteenth century, ninth century, twentieth and twenty fourth century, and they do quote one guy that says that America is the world's first and only true global superpower. It's probably a bullshit magic too, because on Naked and Afraid, they're just like survival rating and they just make it out. Yeah yeah, well it's like recurrent seven to five. It's like recruiting rankings. It's like we're gonna this kid will be a first round draft pick. It's like those kids bust all the time, all the fucking time. Oh my god, it just happens. Like there's no there's no way to fucking quantify things. That's why the gut test is so good. That's why the eye test is good. He has trouble with the curve. They want it movie, they want it more. Yeah, he just wants he's scrapped. I mean, America does check all of their boxes though, in terms of resources populations, I go to be political soft power. It's basically like I mean, you know, just to use a college football reference, we're nick Saban Bama. Right, there's nothing we don't do we have we have access to natural resources in our own backyard, obviously all the industry and shit like that. But like I said, the population. However, there are other countries that had to make up for deficiencies. Yeah, since we have so many resources, do we get too complicit? Uh, we'll get into that. There's a whole thing on that Becoming number one is actually not as hard as maintaining number one. There's a lot more pressure maintaining gains. Yeah, it's hard. Uh. They specifically, and they talk about it a lot. They talk about these two two of these three a lot, the Spanish, the Dutch, and the Portuguese. Interesting, they they taught the Spanish and Portuguese. They talk about a fair amount in this. I don't know why England wouldn't be lumped in there as well, although England did always have more population and a more well functioning government than those and obviously they were a bigger The Spanish and Portuguese once the Industrial Revolution hit were kind of useless compared to Northern Europe. But Spain and Portugal in particular, they're like, they didn't have fucking anything other than maritime. They were exceptional sailors, pretty good military and uh, I forgot what the other one was. We'd say it later anyway. China, there's a couple like small things China drops in here where I'm just like, all right, calm down, call them down, guys. China believes it could have become a global superpower during the Song dynasty because they were the most technologically advanced and economically powerful country in the world, which is true. But those goddamn Mongolians. If it weren't for the fucking Kane or whatever. Yeah, yeah, like that's a big if it only like yeah, that's also a humongous superpower, like right right, yeah, Like it's like if it weren't for it's the Sweeney, it's the Sydney Sweeney ornament. If she didn't have those booves, she wouldn't be so high. It's like, well, yeah, if the Mongolians weren't there, we'd be great. It's like they were so you weren't they have the outlasted the Mongolians. Cool? Uh? They literally this is a quote from the thing Mongolians had powerful cavalry, cavalry forces that neutralize the wealth advantage of the agrarian great power, that being the Song dynasty, obstructing its potential rise as the overlord of a global order under Chinese governance. Sure, jan, Okay, how far back did the Mongolians set us between China fucking Iraq? Yeah, honestly maybe a long time. The more I read this and granted this is it's not propaganda, but it's not not propaganda, it's they don't do this for like just because we felt like it. There's a motive. Yeah yeah, yeah, but like I do get the scent in particular it from this part that exactly what you said that the Mongolians might have seriously set back humanity. Well did they? Or did they? Honestly? Like I I really want to think about it this way, Like how far ahead did they set? Western said? Like how maybe they prevented some like bigger clashes too. Well that's the thing. You can't prove a negative, right, Yeah, So like it's it's kind of tough, Like I mean, say, you know, China and you know the Middle East get really big, and like you have a lot more influence with Islam, and we had a lot of religious wars, you know, like way more than we already did. Like I don't know, it's hard to say we could have greatly benefited long term because of the Mongolian Well that's like could what it could have been a dystopian future? Right? Okay, yeah, maybe science gets here quicker. There's guy on the moon in fucking seventeen twenty, but like, uh, is that Chinese guy on the moon part of a fucking insane like one world communist China? Right? Right? Right? I don't know that they would have been communists necessarily or yeah, sure anything something right yea? Or would it if not, maybe China doesn't win, right, maybe they do become a global superpower. But there's still the caliphates. Yeah, what if the Caliphates win? Right? What if they? And what if it then what if Islam becomes you know number all? Islam was already on the on the slide when the Mongols took down Bags. I kind of thank god for the chads that were the Mongols. Yeah, you gotta stuff the nerds in the locker. That's They've always existed, They always will. You need those people. Burn those books, baby, they they open the door. We're kind of like in some way, the Mongolians are like they they you know, they like upset a team that should have been in the playoff and then we just back our way in. Yeah yeah, and then win it all for sure, definitely, But yeah, I kind of think the Mongolians, uh, like it's it's crazy to not say, like, oh yeah, Genghis Khan changed history, but like, I mean, fuck, no, Mongolians were nineties Nebraska. Oh dude, I love that love. They'll never come back. Yeah they were. They were a force to be reckoned with. You're amazing, they were truly amazing. One thing China's huge on this is there's two there's two big pillars. I think especially, but population is one of them. You can't maintain supremacy without it. That is why Spain and Portugal eventually ate ship. They did not have the population to maintain their power. You gotta cruit, you gotta be got to be fucking uh, they said, quote without exception. Historical empires such as Persia, Rome, Macedonia, the Han, and the Tang had large populations and vast territory. Although so that's true about Macedonia. I was about to say, like the what do you even consider your population? Do they also regret, you know, the one child policy they had for a while, Well this is written after that, right, and and I think do they point out that it was a grave miscalculation on their part. They do later point out that the Great Leap Forward set them back, which I was surprised at. Weird, it was supposed to do the opera, so yeah, yeah, it first stays go forward for it's like Antiphi. It's like, oh, we're anti fascists, so we are what we say we are. We're like Saudi Arabia's Vision twenty thirty. Yeah, or like North Korea they're like, oh, we're a democratic republic. Yeah. The name we're so technologically advanced, we're gonna we're gonna damn the river, the name or the Democratic Republic of Congo, or anytime I see Democratic Republic in front of something, I'm like, it's probably neither of those things. It's neither living, mean or something that's like the more words you need to describe your country, the more fucking like, the less likely it is to be those words. Yeah, I know, more like the divided days of America, my right, boys, Yeah, preach dude and tell it. I think America is not going to exist in nine months. Just remember United we sent divided, we fall. I think in the next three weeks, America is going to not be a thing. Yeah. I think tomorrow I'm gonna wake up and they're not gonna be in America. We've never, like I could just sort of tell vibes, we've never been more divided than now. Hearing that, that's my favorite one because it's like, no, no, no, wait a minute, there was a war, civil fucking war. We've definitely been more divided than us. Yeah. God, it makes me want to throw myself out of window. Uh. They also cite territory a lot, but I think that it's mostly because territory increases the likelihood of natural resources and obviously population, like I said, China blame su Spain and Portugal's population, Uh, lack of population on not being able to maintain their huge colonial power that they had early on. They said, quote in the industrial age, the division of labor and society became increasingly complex with more demands made on the labor force in the market. Uh so countries without bigger populations, they're just less people to basically technologically innovate. Yeah, you need to be the bigger pool of people. You have to technologically innovate with the within the division of labor. Like essentially they're like the more scientists you have, the more inventors you have, the more whatever the fuck. It's the same argument as the land thing, the territory thing. Right, if you have more territory, you have more chance for natural resources, If you have more people, you have more chances for innovation. Like it's it's a numbers game, and uh, there's gonna be negatives with that now. Yeah, absolutely, what massive populations? Yes, yes, that's why they're sure with innovation, but also what about the people that bring down the technology or just like the people you have to make sure don't die. Basically more serial killers, yeahs murders, Yeah, I mean, that's definitely gonna have a rapist. There's more everything, right, but it's the bigger pool. Yeah, I mean, but the they clearly had a problem with the booming of population if they did institute that policy you're talking about, like, because they they clearly knew that there's an issue with how many people they had. They weren't ready to feed those people. Yeah, exactly. Apparently, so they would place little girls on the sides of hills. We hate women. That is another thing that's like hilariously manifesting itself now, just a sausage fest over in China. Oh, chicks got their pick of a litter. I mean, people are getting human trafficked into China to be wives. Yeah, because they don't have enough women that ideal. There's a couple of countries that, uh, we'll pay for you to come over and you know, help grow their population. Who as a man, Japan, I believe France is doing it right now. What are you doing, fucking America? Yeah, what are you doing here? Both? You need to have children, goddamn now to help this country I didn't know for America. No, but you Japan getting set up to go live there and help populate it. Doesn't that sound kind of ideal for you. I've never been. I don't I think you'd like I don't think you'd like Japanese women. You don't think I like Japanese women. I know you say you like Asians, but you like you like not thick, but like kurvy whatever. That's not Japanese babe. G's what Asian baby girls? Yeah? Yeah, Japanese chicks. They're like my tattoos too, right, Like if I go out into normal society in Japan, like Tokyo, whatever, don't they just like I have to cover up the tattoos because it's it's a sign like in the yakuza. The yakuza just a piece of garbage. Yeah, yeah, you're non desirable, Yeah pretty much. Yeah. I mean with that haircut and tattoos, Yeah, you'd beat They would just think I'm a NAUSEI uh, they might think you're a baseball player. Actually, I was just say they'd probably think you were an athlete. Yeah, if you went there right now, they would absolute people would take pictures with you. I think they do that in China anyway, for white people, we just switched the country we're talking about Japan. I know, I get that, but they're probably doing Japan too. My favorite thing I read about Japan recently is they have like, uh, they have like a business position called like the Noisy American or something like that, and it's just like a part of Japanese culture that basically this is all anecdotals. To take it for what it's worth, was just nothing that like essentially like in Japanese culture, it's like not you don't talk back to your boss. You don't tell your boss and he's fucking idiot. You don't say that's a bad idea or whatever, I know, because then he has to puoku you're yeah pretty much. But so like, uh, I think it was like at Nissan or something one time, the boss had some some bosses, some division has some horrible idea and all but all the employees are like, we can't say anything because we're Japanese. So they called up an American who worked in the American side of things for Nissan, and they're like, you need to explain to him why this is bad. In the American was like, oh my god, and like on the phone, it's like, hey, like Yoshi, this is fucking dumb as shit. Yeah, no, we tell them like it is now they do it now that well, we're just assholes. They're too prim and proper, they're too nice. It's like in Showgunna, you know you took the wrong step or you actually said something you shouldn't have, but go now, I'll kill myself and my baby. Sorry, my blood and it's God. So as much as China finds a lot of the great powers interesting, the US is obviously they could come back to us. We're fucking op to them. It's a quote from the thing to a certain extent. If we say the industrialization of Britain, Germany, France, and Japan were each driven by a single motor, the eastern and central and western regions of the United States, with their population and land area, are equivalent to two, three or more motors. Damn. So any other great country on Earth, they're like, yeah, they had one motor, strong, Like, but the fucking United States, which just a fucking eight cylinder engine. You always have been We've always been a hot rod. Yeah, Like yeah, sick, I love it. Uh. What's also interesting? Now, this is where things get really I like, on their on their theory, they believe a rising tide lifts all boats, so to speak, in that a nation this where also where gets a little creepy. A nation can't really advance if it doesn't have advanced neighbors. Interesting, which is why they credit Europe as a thing as being so powerful as compared to their own even themselves for example, because there weren't any necessarily like East Asia was kind of stuck in traditional ways. Well, yeah, competition is creates like better things, right, which is true, And I think that's when people whenever a lot of historians are really like, uh, unlike, ask historians on Reddit and stuff like that, because they're just very overly pc about things, to be honest, because you'll get a lot of questions from people probably are looking for races that's all wrong. But you know it also rises, not just the boats, but the tide itself. Goddamn moon, that's right, the moon. Yes, be a fucking planet, dude, yeah, be a heavenly object. Have your own gravitational pool. Fuck your neighbors, I say, shoot for the stars. Is America successful because we have Canada and Mexico? No, No, we made Canada, and I don't want to take credit for Mexico. I'll take credit for Mexico, I don't want to. They probably have better medical facilities than we do at this point. I can't imagine that's true. It's just easier to get it. Didn't Joe. Joe had a fucking horror story about going to a hospital in Mexico. Joe brooke his leg or his ankle. He was the wedding. Yeah, yeah, in Meco maybe not better. But I think they're very, you know, under hyped up there. If what you're trying to say is you can do experimental ship down there, and that's useful. But I go into a pharmacy at Ahiah. There's no rules. Yeah, there's no rules. It's freer, but that's a two way street. It's freer, you have more freedom. The libertarians dream baby. Yeah, I mean a lot of a lot of libertarians and like an caps and stuff do live in Mexico. They're getting kind of sick of us moving down there. Yeah, because it's a little bit we're not sending our best. Like if we're moving to Mexico City and they're like, get the gring Goes out of here. Same with a Columbia, I feel like, and they are like, get these fucking white dudes out of here. Excuse me. Yeah, I can't imagine. But uh so, essentially they're like Europe, And what I was saying was historians are kind of like, I don't feel like, they don't want to say this, but it's got to be true because people will ask on like ask historians. They'll be like, why was Europe solo buch bitter? Yeah, and they want like it because they were white? Yeah yeah, but really like there, I feel like that is a real answer in terms of like warfare and war technology in particular, like because we're just assholes are fighting each other constantly. Yeah, so many smaller polities, yeah, fucking fighting each other. Whereas in the Middle East, I mean, you've got what I guess soon he's and she has a couple interested like caliphates and whatever. Asia, I don't know, is the very scientific reason for why Africa was so underdeveloped. It got well, I mean if you look at like colonialism, right, so what Rob's talking about, but that we Africa wasn't colonized until really the scramble for Africa, even the Atlantic slave trade. But I'm saying to go deep into but they like developed the wheel later, much later they developed I've read I read it once that essentially, like it's just a very not easy continent to traverse, justife, there's less harsh conditions, they're less like civil So what China is saying here to your point is you need uh useful connectivity between civilizations, between nations or political states, and that is not that was not easy to do in Sub Saharan Africa basics. The road to your neighbor was a lot more strenuous. Yeah, I mean, I think going all the way back to like the people that couldn't make it work in Africa left went up into Europe right and well everywhere, yeah, everywhere, really Middle East, China. So the people that did make it work, they made it work, they were already there, Like why do you need to develop as fast already making it work? Yeah too, Like but also to your point, I know that the colonization was like way later than the development you're talking about, but they still did develop faster because of a lot of those like they had to develop because they moved to a different place, they had to develop faster. Then they're all by each other, so they're boring and shit like that, so they're developing more. I think that is a good argument for it. Yeah, it's fucking competent. I mean, look at I mean, look at the again. Let's just just have the dumbest bro history podcast of all time here. Fucking there's a reason the SEC teams are all fucking insane. It's because it's you have to play each other, you have to be Yeah, it's goddamn fucking awful. Like Florida had like a top seven recruiting class and they're like seventh. Yeah, sorry, no, I would go too far. Yeah, that's Dan just isn't SEC. I just yeah, I can't hang with the big boys. You just ain't SEC. But I do think China kind of thinks their lack of other truly great ancient or medieval nations nearby hindered their advancement. But again though, it's like, okay, like Japan was there, but Japan's kind of closed off. And then I guess they don't count the Mongolians because the Mongolians just wanted to do Mongolian shit. Yeah, they were just horden. Yeah, yeah, so they also from the report, it says the rise of Venice and other Italian city states, Portugal, Spain, and Holland provide economic core and a stable foundation for the collective rise of Europe. So they credit like Italian banking and stuff like that. The British economy rose on a foundation of trade with countries on the coast of the Atlantic. It was part of an Atlantic economy. To a certain extent, the economy of the United States represents an inheritance and continuation of the British economy. I don't think it's a certain extent. I think that's entirely true. That's factual. Yeah, Like Europe provided funding, labor, technology, and a market for the United States. That's true. Europe invested a ton of money in the United States, even as they were maybe being antagonistic. If there's money to being made, maybe that creates the need for more robust for an exchange systems and like even larger global banking systems and structures too. Yeah. So yeah, that those kind of financial devices allow us to develop a lot quicker and so yeah, so if there's two essentially they want it's better when countries are investing in each other. Yes, And because they didn't have any other countries that were willing to invest. Japan was probably the only other one that was even remotely that way, but they were very they're closed off. Yeah, it's like knocking on the door and they look at you through the window. They're like, but we're not home. Yeah. Uh So, China believes there have been three over the last five hundred years, three major power shifts. The rise of Europe, the rise of America and its allies, and now the rise of China and East Asia. East Asia. They actually talk about East Asia rising. It's like Singapore, Singapore, Vietnam, Japan, Vietnam. No, I don't think we give them the credit they are. Vietnam is a rising industrial Malaysia for sure. Malaysia is another one. East Asia, Indonesia. So they actually they actually mentioned East Asia as much, if not more than they mentioned China, which actually makes sense though too, because those are the coastal East Asian has coastline, the ports they have ports that yeah, like, that's that area makes sense more than oh, just all of China as a whole. Singapore essentially was developed overnight. Yes, crazy, Yeah, it's it's it's the banking, dude, They have so much banking in Singapore. It's crazy. Singapore is like it's kind of like the Bahamas, but like you said, like hyper developed, because it's just like, all right, we're our own, tiny little place. Let's just make whatever rules we want, and it's full of money. Yeah, well, just we're gonna make We're gonna make laws that will make everyone want to put their money here. Yeah, except also some insane ones like you can't vape in anything in Singapore from what we you know, have heard that. You know, they're very strict drug laws. But who knows how realistic that is when you are, when you're there, when you're living there. According to our good friend Spencer, it's very real, Okay, very fucking real. But because I asked him, I asked him, I was like, what is it? What do they tell you? Like, what does the US Embassy tell you when you're going to Singapore? Bo like drug and shit. He's like, He's like, they tell you, you know the rules, dude, don't fucking do it. Don't mess around. Yeah that's much cleaner too, because they don't. They have like a no nonsense literan policy. I'm pretty sure though, Kane for spitting out gum, they still came people too, they do. They came an American. Yeah. Wow. Back like in the nineteen nineties, I believe Rob Schneider portrayed either the Kaner or the Cane, probably the Kaner. Why did that become such an international like incident, Like yes, just knum, I know he's not gonna die. Even if it was me, I would be like, all right, dude, I have to sproa out the gum. It's your country, Cane me whatever. It's like, I don't have to stay here, Like, hey, if Kane gets me out of a midnight Express situation, I'm a It's not like the fucking like on a warm bear in or North Korea Korea. Yeah, he like goes to a prison camp and dies. They made him a vegetable. Yeah, and that we were just like, okay, I guess that happened. That happened. We got him back like full potato. Yeah. They we didn't get him back. They were like, oh, we got his body, yeah, let's give him back. Yeah. Honestly would have been smart if North Korea it was just like we never had him what you're talking about, Yeah, we should have just been he disapparity. Also, he tried to escape. We don't know where he is. Warm beer too. It's like if you're in a country, especially a strict regime, like what are you fucking to the sign? Yeah, that's dumb as fuck, Like every dudy we know, he for sure tried to steal the sign. There's video. Yeah, yeah that's okay. I mean I believe he's dumb enough to have done that, Like, no question, dumb enough. You're just in college and you're like drunk, that's dumb, and you think it's cool to bring it back. You're in North Korea, would be under zero influence of any substance, and you're not. You're not Yeah, you're not out in your college town at three in the morning. Think it'd be sweet to steal a street sign for like Dick Avenue. You guys are just Monday morning quarterback and this whole thing. I know, given the right circumstances, you might have been in his same shoes. There's no shoes, there's no circumstance. I'm like, North Korea, sweet. I mean I would go if like they were like, hey, we promise you won't die and you're gonna go and you get to be on the tour. I would go. I'd go check it out. I would go if I just like Navy seals were surrounding me at all times. If you go with me, you're fine. Yeah. One, I'd bring Dan because he's a hero. I probably have a statue in North Grays You look like a Navy seal. Yeah so, but yeah, like North Korey. Though. If I did go, I would certainly be like on my best fucking behavior. That wasn't a compliment. By the way, it's not a compliment and whatever. I took it as a compliment. So didn't you say, the homeless lady called you a Navy seal and you felt flattered. The homeless lady called me a Navy seal, Yes, but you felt flattered by that. She then proceeded to like piss in the drive through at a pee terrors as she did. I saw a regel. Uh yeah, she full out lets stream. Hell, yeah, that's how you pee. She had to be high on acid. I've never seen someone higher maybe actually that astably method acid, not even meth. It was probably she was like hoffing, oh, paint duster, shit like that. I was the highest person I've ever seen duster And she hugged I've never been more scared if someone touched me too. She hugged me, and I was just like, obviously she can't like fuck me up or anything, because she weighs clearly one hundred pounds. But I am very afraid I'm about to get like a needle to the thigh. Just get fucking jabs. Yeah, you want in, you want in all these and that's how Rob got hepatitis pretty much. Yeah. Uh. The next is an actual subhead for the chapter, and it reads like something you'd hear in a Jordan Peterson lecture for in cells. Okay, I can't wait. Craft a high quality friend circle. Yeah yeah, that's what China says about being about being a world power. Historically, you have to craft a high quality friends I mean that's definitely in executive books too, though, like you surround yourself with powerful people, like you surround yourself with the people you want to be. Basically, so this is where things get a little It kind of already has, but a little maybe accidentally racial and creepy, because basically, not only do these countries need to be your neighbors, are adjacent in some way, but they also need to be very culturally similar according to the Chinese. Okay, so we're we're gonna get into some eugenics a little bit, not eugenics, but they're just like I think China it reading this, I got like a subtle vibe that China would like to China would like to be, would like East Asia to dominate the world, and to be the America of East Asia, the way America dominates the world and the America is to the west. What we are, you know what I mean? Yeah, they want to be us in the east in the mirror, Yes they don't. They have no interest in India, no interest in the Muslim world. It seems like they want either because they mentioned East Asia mentioned Saudi Arabia as a power, or they have not mentioned Saudi Arabia at all, because the don't think I meant Abia is not a power. Yeah, they have one resource. They're kind of pivoting. I mean, that's their whole vision. They have to but like they're gonna have a city that's a straight line. I know, they just they just chopped it down from like one hundred miles or something to like three and aut of balls. Fine, but they really I think China, I think it's interesting. But I China seems to want the East to be the new West, and they want to be the the the King of the East. They want all the Eastern like they need they need, they need the other Eastern countries to rise. They don't think they can rise without the other Eastern countries being able to send them money and being then being able to send them good so on, and so it's it's a pivot I think to more region. It's interesting though, too, because like for so long it was like, fuck all of y'all, Like, yeah, you know, you know who Vietnam went to war with after America, China. China invaded Vietnam right after we left. People don't know that. Yeah, gotta get your chunk, yeah yeah. And then Vietnam, as we talked about on my last main episode, invaded Cambodia. Yeah. Man, it's just like Vietnam was at war for like forty years. I don't understand how anyone's alive there. That should just be an empty country. Yeah, That's why I kind of questioned them calling it the next next up and come in power. I think, no, it's just all East Asia. But Vietnam is one of the most populous countries in East Asia. Sure they are, I mean, sure, you know what I'm saying. Yes, but like it that doesn't matter to me because I don't I can't tell you one innovation or like major metropolitan city in Vietnam. That's where Hochiman City. Yea, Jochiman City is huge, Like, okay, what's what's in it? A bunch of people, A lot of people, and the people is the number one resource we're gonna get into that. There there's a lot of industry there, but it's it would take a tremendous amount of effort in investment from China into those places in order to get what they want. They kind of don't think so really. They kind of just think if they get richer, then the others will get richer, and then they just need to trade a lot with them. Okay, I mean, but trading is investment. They also blame with us. They also blame the lack of cultural similarities on why the Muslim world didn't industrialize. Interesting, because they always wear with each other like Sunichia. No, well, it's it because they're different than the from the West. This is from the thing. It was because of large differences between their cultural and political systems that the quote wildfire of European industrialization abruptly died at the asbestos edge of the Muslim sphere. This bestas edge that was taken from another UH work that was describing that, but that they cited it in it. It's an interesting Yeah, but why did why did Japan become so successful even though they're not culturally similar to the West. This is again where it's kind of racily creepy. They were quote I don't know, like I almost want to say, like traders to the East is what they kind of think. They called him, like Uncle Tom's kind of Yeah. So that was like the seventies and eighties. What when Japan really like kind of took off. Yeah. Economically, yeah, so I mean they were, they were doing pretty well for a while, like after World War Two, but then yeah, the eighties and the seventies and nineties Scotland and that kind of came. That's when the classic Japanese businessman trip came about. Yeah, oh for sure, working like nineteen hours a day. Yeah, it's just like drinking, falling asleep outside, going back to throwing themselves off like the thirtieth story. Ye. Yeah, it's because you're doing shit that doesn't matter, like, but you have to do it with the will and intent of a fucking warrior, you know. Like that's just there's a cognitive dissonance you can't get over at a certain point. So one thing China is also super hung up on is manufacturing. Oh but about Japan. Japan has submitted to Western civilization. I mean, so they were just like, Japan's a bitch. They're it's their oldest enemy. So I understand they're gonna take shots. Yeah, yeah, they all will fire them off, but they But the crazy thing is though they they East Asia can't be successful without Japan. Oh, it has to happen that way. So China one thing I kind of gathered in this, you know how we've joked about before. It's like, man, if there was ever a World War three that China started, they would invade Japan and they would do horrible things. But now from this I kind of get the vibe that A, they're not that interested in warfare, and B they need Japan and they mostly want to turn Japan to their side. If anything, it'd be like World War two US in Russia. Yeah, just like a handshake agreement. Yeah, and then once it's over, Yeah, then we'll go at it if need be, for hedgemonic power of the region type of situation. I mean, I think the only thing China's interested in territory wise now new territory is timeline and only out of like prize. But it's the thing is though, if they try to do that, it's gonna just be bad for the fucking clowned. Yeah, it's not good, but they're all China. The one thing that I've talked about populations talk about territory. The one thing they believe now that is more important than anything that you have to keep up no matter what is manufacturing. They don't care much about having a quote post industrial economy. From what I can tell, they want to be able to build things. They essentially believe that you cannot have technological innovation without manufacturing. They're almost thirty percent of the world's manufacturing output. Yeah that makes sense. The US is still second, but we are like sixteen percent. Yeah, No, they make a lot of shit. I mean, if you lumped all of East Asia together for manufacturing too, got to think it's a ridiculous number. Yeah, TikTok's just a market employee for drop shipping pretty much, I mean, dude, kind of or what if TikTok is actually just a way to get more Americans to not want to work in factories. He can be famous on TikTok famous TikTok, but then you can also drop ship, which requires you to do literally nothing. You're a middleman. But all those products are coming from like Ali Baba. Yeah, it's a thousand percent true. Like so many businesses are just drop shipping. Which did they ever find that guy Ali Baba got? I don't know the founder of Ali Baba. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, but he's different. Now, okay, he got a talking to Yeah that's fun. He got caned. He'd be lucky. Is he a different guy? Did they just replace him just like the West won't notice? Yeah? Well not we honestly, yeah no, we wouldn't know. Uh so China breaks him. China also breaks down the way you're supposed to develop manufacturing, and if you don't do it right, you will fuck up your country. They actually go in on the Soviet Union for this, for you're basically supposed to be agrarian. Then you do light industry like textiles and shit, and then that makes money and then then you can go into heavy industry. If you try to skip the light industry part, you're gonna fuck sh up. It's an interesting a line of logic coming from bad communists trying to force the communist revolution to happen and not let it just naturally occur. Well, I mean, here's what they say. I told you they critique the Great Leap Forward. This is from the thing in the nineteen fifties, the process of industrialization was delayed by the arrival of the Great Leap Forward, which destroyed China's agricultural foundation. So you need They're like, you gotta build a pyramid. Yeah, you gotta fucking lay the first base, the fucking second base. China is a multi level marketing scheme. Yes, yeah, I kind of get that vibe to be honest with this document. Yeah yeah. Uh here's my other favorite part. So we know, we know how China obviously steals tech all the time, right, Yeah, Like China, that's like their main thing that America really hates. They I mean, show it in Silicon Valley, the TV show where he just makes new pipe Piper, new Facebook, yeah, new Tikta or whatever. Yeah, just China's version of whatever. Yeah, it's pretty accurate. So China, this is one of the things where I'm like, this might be a little bit a propagame. This is one of the parts I read where I was like, you guys are really justifying some stuff here. Welcome to the party past. Yeah. They essentially say, after you get your factor factory based, going your industrialization, that's when you start building your tech. You cannot build tech without industry because industry leads to innovation, leads you to figuring out more shit to build, its division of labor, money, money leads to education, blah blah blah. Built all this stuff, but you need industrialization. That's gotta be there. So they said specifically, first you copy and assimilate, okay, copy being an interesting word choice, not steel copy. And then they give a couple examples. This is quo. These are both from the document drawing on the capital, expertise and equipment of early developing countries is the main way late developing countries, which China believes it is, can rapidly close the technology gap. 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Get twenty five percent off your subscription, or try the app for free at fitbod dot em slash softcore. That's f I T b oh d dot me slash softcore. I cannot recommend this enough, but essentially what they're saying is America would not have it's it's a hand powered it's for textile development essentially, yeah, textile manufacturing. But like like they say, textile manufacturing is the first industrial thing, then you build up later in industries. I don't think they're wrong on this. Actually, I know what they're saying. They're saying we did it. Yes, yeah, they're saying we did the same thing you did that to them. We have every right to do that to you, And they're they're right, they do have. There is no one saying you can't, like even if it's a law, like there's no international like you can't do that, Like you can get taken to court and shit. But at the end of the day, they're like, yeah, right, like it's a patent court. There is an international patent treaty because they do they do mention the international patent tree several times to kind of get a to first be like America was crushing it patent wise for a long time based on these international patent treaty numbers, and then they they now they boast of their own patent numbers currently based on the International Patent trety or whatever. But but yeah, I mean, but they are still saying, right fucking there, they're laying out if any Chinese person has a moral quandary with stealing other people's IP, it's already been done to them, so they have the right to do it. Well yeah, and other people have done it in the past to get ahead. Oh well they mentioned that too. I'll so read that real quick. But after hold on. After the Second World War, Japan imported technology from Britain in America. They would sometimes go as far as to dismantle Western products in order to reverse end near the designs in the manufacture of some products like automobiles, optical equipment and precision instruments and precision machine tools. Japan's style of imitation led to great success. Same with Korea, like Korea Japan, I mean one, and the same with you know, Nokia. Just the car the cars they make too. The cameras. Cameras is a big one, Hyundai. Yeah, but yeah, it's this kind of thing too. Is also like the thing that I find hilarious about, like people like trying to really needs to limit its emissions. It's like, bro, you're telling a country like or any developing nation if we're categorizing, is that you're gonna tell any developing nation It's like, hey, wait, how did you guys get so powerful? You didn't give a fuck about emissions and you just made shit all the time. That's what we're gonna do. The amount of I think African nations in particular that are like, bitch, you got rich off a coal and now you're telling us we can't burn it. Yeah, that's how how we gotta build ship. People actually have a hard time morally with this because there isn't inequity in the emissions regulations. Like for it's like, oh well, now we're not gonna do that. Anymore because we it's a ladder pulling up basically. Yeah, it don't. Literally it is a literal ladder pole. It's a ladder pole disguised as a I mean, there's definitely merits to being cautious about emissions and things like that. Of course, there's pollution issues. But dude, even if you don't want to say anything about global warming, it's just bad for people's health to fucking pump smoke. Yeah, no, it is. It's there's there's negative consequences. Of course. Go look at pictures of China in like two thousand and eight. Yeah, the fucking smog and shit, Holy fuck. But it is an economic ladder pole, yes, it's it's a way to cement certain people in top position. So honestly, to maintain our power, we need to really pivot to green energy and we should push we should make everything and make everyone else do it. Yeah, it's it's we're kind of setting them up. It's just to like, you know, self preserve and positives and negative everything. They do admit though, that you can't just be a you can't just copy forever. Eventually you have to become the dude. You get to create something. Yeah, you have to become the dude, and then they start jerking off their patent numbers and stuff like that. But just because you become now here is where it gets really interesting, and I think here's where they think America's weaknesses. They say, just because you become the tech leader does not mean you should abandon manufacturing, because you will not have Eventually you will run out of tech innovation if you lose manufacturing, and shifting away from manufacturing, the Chinese believe will fuck your tech innovation. This is what when Ye, a professor at a Chinese university, said, so long as a nation steps out onto the road of industrial revolution and becomes the factory of the world, it has the possibility of becoming the world leader in technological innovation. But if an industrialized nation abandons its manufacturing industry, it'll become likely by degrees lose its tech advantage and capacity for innovation. Chinas like we need our own RUSS belt. I don't necessarily disagree with them on that either, Like I think, like in a common sense way, like we're in our modern economy, we're a service economy. Now we're not, and you know, not that that's bad or anything, but I mean, look at all the jobs of people we know. It's like everyone's in like marketing or they're doing like consulting services or like anything we're getting at a hedge fund, Like what are the what are all the software wealth that there's really nothing behind it? Yeah, but also software innovations, like all the software ship you see like oh this is a new data analytics thing, or it's all about like measuring these services that are being provided, right and quantifying making anything. Yeah, Like it's and a lot of those software companies are not American companies no, and it's just like okay, what what are we Obviously we still are innovating and stuff too, but I see the point of like you need more of it to up the ante and get like your numbers cut basically and now here another fun little factoid, the Chinese came to the conclusion of freedom is a first world luxury you get like you can't really worry about like freedom when you're trying to build a country. Yeah, freedom is not free. It's not cost money, and when you don't got that money, there's no time to be free. This is something they actually lay out like very specifically in terms of why there's no reason for them to be that democratic. Yet they say, yeah, they have a bunch of slaves. Yeah, a bunch of slaves, whether it's still in China or i mean when they're yeah, Africa, they're not just dipping a toe, they're fully diving into that. Yeah. So this is a quote. This is a quote from the from the fucking Report. Since the nineteen eighties, the ideas of neoliberalism and the Washington Consensus have been widely disseminated, and developed countries demanded that developing nations adopt what are termed quote good policies and quote good institutions in the interests of economic development. So essentially, we're not going to trade with you unless you're free, you know, unless you're nice to your population. But in actual practice, these sorts of policies and institutions can only be the result of industrialization. Literally, they're like historically, you can't be free until you're industrialized. It's an interesting thought because, i mean there's a really awkward argument in there of like, oh, now America says we can't have slaves because they can't have slaves, like you know, right, they say for late developing countries in the process of rising as a great power. A stable government and good social order play a larger role in the process of industrialization than Western style democracy. So essentially stable government m hm, Chinese Communist Party one party makes all decisions and creepy as you can be good social order one party one China. Yeah. Yeah, and everybody's everyone needs to have a credit score, a social credit score. Do you think you can just build World Cup stadiums with you know, concrete and steel, No, you need bones lots, It helps it set. Yes, yeah, bone is a good concrete actually, bone and water found ground boat, great aggregate. Yeah. They quote a Indian government official as sort of a way because they always talk about China and India kind of being competitors, because they bought that so many fucking people, the Indian They quote a senior Indian government official that said, we have to do many things that are politically popular but foolish. They depress our long term economic potential, but politicians need votes in the short term. China can take the long view, and while it doesn't do everything right, it makes many decisions that are smart and far sided. So obviously that's a self serving quote, patting themselves on the back. Yeah, yeah, we're pretty good at this. Hey, no, everyone agrees we're doing it. We're doing it, guys. Yeah. They also say that America, in particular, along with manufacturing, our biggest strength has been population, of course, but specifically immigration. Immigration was like, you know, doing PCP before a fight, Like it's Popeye eating spinach. Right, it's fucking a guy who was already formidable getting just an absolute steroid shot. Makes you wonder who's actually pushing for the wall? Then? Is it China? So this is what they put in the report. Could be Russia. Well, Russia is not even in the game. I know they're not. They're a third world country that, like cause plays as a major power. Yeah, we have two different viewpoints of population management. One's immigration, one is make more. I would still go to Russia. It seems like it would be a good time. I disagree. I think Moscow would be fun. I'm out not now. Yeah, now, ten years ago or maybe ten years from now. I'm sure I'll have people following me around since I'm an American. But it's a little surveillance. Yeah, got flex on them. It shows them a person that's clearly important just for being where I'm from Maybe I use that to, like, you know, convince somebody in Russia to just give me, you know, goods and services because I'm an important character. Like maybe I just say I'm famous. Yeah, you can probably pull it off. You probably could. I can't imagine be so you're a pro wrestler. Yeah, yeah, you're fine. That would work. You show highlights of a white guy who looks like you. Honestly, you could just show your Instagram with you with a mic in front of you. Oh yeah, actually that alone would probably Yeah, you'd probably do all. Right. Then I just get I get like five star resorts. Yeah, I'm maybe bottle service at the club, go to crimea more. Oh wait, where were the Olympics? Soshi? Go to Sochi. Maybe go to one of those unfinished buildings. Hunt some yeah yeah, definitely hunt some dogs. Wild dogs for sure. So another thing, so China us all about America's immigration being a huge America's immigration history being a huge part. And they quote this study from some uh I think Western person, but whatever, it says American politics is now beyond cure, mired in factional struggle, and increasingly inefficient. So this comes again not long after that mean like you just freedom stupid, you know, a strong central party. With Trump's victory came the popularity of the slogan America First. This meant vigorous trade protectionism and active restrictions on immigration. The reversal of the open door policy is another step down the road of American America losing its status as a great power. And z actually in the eighteenth Congressional whatever they fucking had was like, we want to keep our country as open as possible. Not nobody wants to immigrate to China, but they just anyone that will come live there as a as an expat professional before going back or whatever they want. They want to do that. And this is interesting to me because your rear reports of Chinese nationals at the border, terrorists at the borders, and stuff like that. So if history is any indicator, according to China, it's in their long term geopolitical interests for the United States to become more isolationists and get fewer immigrants. But that doesn't necessarily mean that having our current state of border security is a bad thing for China, because it almost seems like they might be into they just want chaos. Yeah, because a pendulum super one way pendulum swings super far the other way. So just you know, stuff is full of these immigrants that are maybe bad actors, cause a bunch of chaos in our country. We get more strict and regiment with our own immigration policy, and maybe we decline our property, We isolate ourselves from the rest of the world, and China wins in the long run. Yes, like buy that. Yes, I think they like I think the I think border chaos is something and they there's not. There is nothing that China in particular, the rest of the countries don't really matter. China in particular would like more than a US immigration being as low as down. We get it. Yeah, yeah, not to say that the current situation is great. It's not. But it's because not But there's geopolitically, in the next fifty years, there's nothing China would like more seemingly than two things. One American manufacturing to decrease or continue to decrease whatever, and two for American immigration to be as low as it can possibly be. There gaslight in US, yeah, into immigrants being bad. That is what is in the report. That is in the They they think that the United States losing immigration will be a will will hurt us essentially. I think there's something interesting too of like it's hard for someone to do it the right way, but it's easier for someone to do it the wrong way with her immigration too. Oh yeah, like because it's like we turn away like very qualified people Joel's wife. Yeah, and it's like a woman that's married to an American citizen. Yeah. Yeah, that whole green card marriage thing is a myth, like as a fucking myth. Yeah, she can't get here. It's been a year and a half, she still can't. A blonde haired, blue eyed European woman. Yeah, it's like it it's in as that helps. Yeah, I mean like we could be letting in a lot of really great candidates, but are our strictness on it. They would they would like nothing more than to decrease immigration as much possible. And that is from the report, from their report on how they can become number one. Uh. And then they also jerk off like needing a strong leadership corps and stuff like that. Uh they what that's actually a thing they give flowers to for Spain and Portugal that when they first they for like the twenty minutes, they were powerful. They had strong monarchs yeah, and then they talk about well, I mean Portugal is kind of pivoted all the way back to just a socialist country. Now, I don't I by the way, reading this, I don't get China's not communists. No, like I never got the impression that they gave a shit about Marxism, that they gave it. I mean, China is China, Yeah, China. China talks more about the Song dynasty in here than they talk about Mau. If that gives you any indication they're capitalists with a monopoly. Yeah, like the China's just the monopoly. China is China. Han is Han. They are not Marxists, they are not communists. They're honests the Chinese. Yeah, it's it's it's fascinating for anyone who's like, oh, com I mean not communism is bad. But that's not the vibe I got his. That's not how they Historically Communism very bad, but China's not yet. I would agree they're probably not the you know, picture perfect image of what a communist nation would be. They view themselves as China, Yeah, like they view themselves as an ancient power. I'm just saying, as an example, just you should just throw China out of that, I mean every communist country really though too like well, I mean now like China, I think use itself the way that Putin views Russia like Putin's Czarist. Yes, absolutely more accurate. If it's just to tell yeah, yeah, they're they're just like vanilla totalitarian. It's whatever. It's like fun fascism, yeah yeah, but like they it's it is fascinating to be like because they talk more about like how they were dope as a as a Song dynasty and how the Mongolians fucked up their shot to rule the world like that is mentioned. The only time Mao is mentioned is how the Great Lead Forward was bad, could have made it to the big leagues if I didn't blow out my a cl it would have been a contender, like literally yeah, and they and they mentioned the greatly for being bad. But the one thing they did say nice about Mao was that he was a strong central leader. He kind of just got things, made the mistakes. But they don't care. They never talk about marks or communism. They only talk about how well at least Mao just like centralized things and got us back to being powerful. We don't care. They don't care how they do it. They don't care if they hit home runs. They don't care if they have to bunt dudes. In same thing with the Taiping Rebellion, where it's like the cause wasn't really behind him, it was just against. It was just one party, one movement that could overthrow what they thought was an inefficient government. Yeah, yeah, exactly. And they list a couple other Western leaders who they admire. Queen Elizabeth the first in Britain, so the one that defeated the Spanish Armada, blah blah, Louis the fourteenth of France. They talk about Bismarck in Germany being the Iron Chancellor, Peter the first in Russia making a modernization move back in the day. And then they mentioned several Americans. George Washington of course, Thomas Jefferson, Lincoln, and then FDR was the last one that they mentioned. Weird they would mention Jefferson. I'll read the quote because I forgot what it was. If he was he was big on isolationism, wasn't he here? I'll just read what they say. Thomas Jefferson, the founder of the Democratic part already draft drafted the Declaration of Independence, and through diplomatic and other methods nearly doubled the territory of the United States. So they think the Louisiana purchase, because again they're big on territory, So Louisiana purchase that honestly, Louiana purchase probably one of the five most important things that's happened in US history. Yeah, I mean manifest destiny as a whole. It is like, whether or not you like the words, it's a great policy because it got us where we are. Yeah. Yeah. They also talk about how and this is interesting, well, this historical let me under let me, let let me know if you hear anything that sounds familiar. They give a historical anecdote here. They do not provide modern context to it. But it's a historical antidote that I found eyebrow raising. Okay, so a quote from the thing. Historically, countries without a strong leadership corps often fall into the quote Bismarck trap. After the Franco Prussian War, Bismarck, attempting to isolate and weak in France, advocated France adopt a multi party republican system, believing that an unstable republican system would turn France into an unstable volcano. Between eighteen seventy five and nineteen forty France was ruled by one hundred and two separate administrations, lasting an average of five months, with two lasting a single day. The Soviet Union collapsed for a complex set of reasons, but one of the most important was the loss of authority by the ruling party. So more so on the Franco Prussian side, it sounds like, boy, they would love to see a certain superpower get fractionalized. Yeah, discord, yeah, helps, Yeah, he's buying these tents. It's like someone did the thing where it's like if you google shitty tent on Amazon, it's the first one that pops up. It's the cheapest, like the tents that I know. It's like Harlowe forty is twenty dollars, twenty dollars tent. Yeah, had that on one of the shows. Definitely some money coming from like guitar or I'm down with that. Disruption, chaos, chaos, all they wanted cast when it's like maybe maybe it's a larger nation. Whenever people talk about like like you see a lot from from democrats and liberals where they're like, oh Putin, Putin wants wants Trump to win or the Chinese Trump went, No, they just want chaos and Trump's chaos. Yeah, they don't care about his beliefs. They don't. You know, they thought, I guarantee you, if Trump had lost the primary, they would have been hard in on Bernie Sanders if they thought, they would have thought Berney Sanders was the most what do you what do you think is the best thing for them? A fucking populist candidate? Of course. Yeah, yeah, that's all it is is chaos. They don't care. Dig up Jackson, bring him back. But that is all I've I've got for today on this on China's historical view of the world and how they they literally they take the last five hundred years of history mostly plus a puff piece about themselves being like, oh, we could have been but you know, some bullshit, some bullshit. That was the funniest part to me. Fucking Mongolians, Uh Fuckingle. I mean, if you're gonna publish this to your people, you might might as well, yeah, like, oh we totally could have been. There's fus It's funny too, because like that part made no sense because they were like, dude, it's all about economy and shit like that, and then like, if you have that, you're powerful no matter what. And then they're like, yeah, but the Mongolians had like horses and shit, what you just you don't mention the military once and then the one time you thought you could have been the best horse power, the military is what fucked you. Yeah, it's very important. Another people in military fucked you. Oh actually I didn't put this in here. But the other time they they mentioned it is they were like, yeah, I mean, obviously Portugal has like eight people that live there, but they were so good at naval power in the sixteenth century or whatever whenever they got to China that they were able to just fuck us with their fleet. Oh so they're military. Yeah, yeah, weird, but China. It's interesting to me that they, first off, they almost entirely if you didn't notice, this is almost entirely viewed through the lens of Western power, because the West has been the dominant power for the last five hundred years. It's changed hands a couple of times, but it's the West every time. And they built this whole idea of how you become a great power, and then maybe the power based on what they have observed in history and Western history in general, and I found that absolutely fucking fascinating. How they paint the world. It's very interesting. I mean, they're definitely still in copy mode, like if they're doing this, this is hey. They think they've got everything down except technological superiority, and in a lot of ways they're not wrong. They I don't think they have a national resource advantage over the United States, no, because they don't have an energy advantage. They do have manufacturing advantage, of course, no question. They don't have a military. That's why Taiwan is so important to them. Probably has a lot to do with it. They think got to get those chips. They think they think tech is all that's left. And if you have tech, you have military. So that's why that's one of the reasons. Like I said, they don't mention military. You have tech, you have military, Okay. And they they quote in the thing said United States had they weren't that the United States wasn't just number one, but we had like overwhelming superiority. They they kind of surprisingly it was really interesting how they they would have moments of like honesty and then moments of propaganda. Yeah, bsically, but there is it's almost a weird love Letter to America. I like to think of it's like because it's just done in the you know, super clinical. I also just really love monarchies, apparently central power. They they respect power. That's it. It's power for powersake, right their uncle Ben. Yeah, what do you guys learn today? With great power comes great responsibility. Actually, I think the most salium point is one Dan made where it's like we I test, like China's trying to reverse engine your power right now? Yeah, and their data nerds. Yeah, like there it's like, man, sometimes you gotta make a gut call. And it's like one of those things too, where it's like I don't think you can quantify everything, so like they're looking at this stuff and they're trying to reverse engineer. Well, what made this happen? This and this and this, and we're gonna get to it. And of course studying history can help you with decision making. But at the end of the day, there is a vibes thing, Like, as much as we make fun of that, yeah, sometimes vibes and we vibe well we have had a long time, yeah, to the point where it's like who would most people rather hang out with? Y? True? But the vibes are kind of off right now. Vibes Well, yeah, we're just going through some stuff. But like I wouldn't say we're the most vibe we've ever been, but the vibes have been at an all time low. I think it's a lot of its media coverage. It is. Yeah, I mean we've had protests in this country forever, Like I mean, we taught this all the time on the show. The sixties and seventies are just like littered with literal political assassinations. Yeah, they were like, man, the violence went palters or protests where they the National Guard opened fire. Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah. Man. People tried to play that at State Card a lot during those balancing protests, like no, no one's been shot, maybe hit with a bean bag, like a forty year old was arrested for being on a college campus. Yeah no, I mean it's I was talking to some friends about that. It's like there's the no one's understanding how protests work, in the protests or the working against the protests. It's like, can you believe these protests, Like, well, their protest is working now because you're covering it so much, right, and then the protests is really I can't believe I'm going to jail. It's like, well, you take risks when you protest. That's part of it too. Yeah. Yeah, if you ever want to kill just an agenda or somebody's movement, you ignore it. Yep. I think my favorite quote about that very similar. Not ignoring, but just apathy is what kills everything. I like, it's not quite apathy, but I do like this. I agree with you though, but I do like this method as well. It's I'm gonna paraphrase, but it's a there's nothing the devil hates more than being laughed at. Interesting. Interesting because it's like, yeah, dude, it's frat boys summer. Everybody on college campuses. All the frag kids are going and just laughing in their face. Yeah they're doing they're doing like old TFM ship. Yeah kind of what a week that would have been for content for writing? Yeah, just show up, just hammer out like four stories and be like, all right, that was the easiest, easiest week of your life. Yeah right itself. Would you guys learn today? Do we all do that? Yeah? Okay? And who's today's hitler? China might be the might be the Mongolians. We don't know Mongolians might have. Yeah, we haven't figured that out yet. We haven't flushed that out whether they were positive and that positive. We might need to do a Patrie episode. Remember how we talked about how we were gonna do like trials or debate. Hey, we'll put a Jengus on on trial, like Mongolians good or bad? Yeah, good for history or bad for history. We have to like kind of develop and go there. Yeah, the scenario do we developed nukes way before? Is the planet flattened? Yeah? Did they did? They essentially nuke the planet without nukes and then causes to fight with sticks and stuff. I mean there's a very real like situation where we do, like historical situation where we could develop nukes before we developed the sort of like I guess empathy for human life that we had that we currently have, we even had in the forties and amazing, but like seriously, it's like, look at that the Romans did. I mean, like, if the Romans had nukes, this planet wouldn't exist. It would They would have used the fuck out of them all the time. Like shit, really, it just vaporizes the place. Done? Yeah, send two? Uh, Well that's all I got, Thank you. Guys, so much for listening again, patroon dot com slash softcore history for a bunch of episodes like this, evergring content out to ask it is it is a discount five dollars a month for the amount of content on there is insane And like I said it, what said you won't get a better deal actually signed up for the air and you saved six dollars. Yes, look at that. Uh so yeah for Jake Goldman and Damn Regester mro Fox you just got saw served