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Last night there was a major escalation
in this war. So, the Israelis have
bombed the Iranian
uh oil fields.
And in response, the Iranians now are
attacking the um energy infrastructure
of the GCC. Okay, so let's have a look
at what this attack looks like.
This is Qatar.
Okay, so Qatar provides
20% of the world's LNG.
Um and this is a major escalation.
And again,
um as I pointed out last class, the
first strategy of Iran is to destroy the
global economy, okay? And this is how it
will do so. It also attacked Tel Aviv
in response for the assassination of
their de facto leader, Ali Ali Larijani,
okay? So, this is what the attack looks
like.
Um as you can see from this picture,
this is a cluster warhead, and it is
impossible for air defense to stop this.
So, Tel Aviv is getting pummeled. We
don't have footage because it's being
censored right now.
And you would think that
um Israelis
would want this war to end as soon as
possible because Tel Aviv and other
cities are getting just destroyed in
this war. And again, there's really no
way for the Israelis to defend
themselves against um Iranian ballistic
missiles.
But unfortunately,
there are many Israelis who are very
happy about all this destruction.
All right?
And so this is one of the
uh more influential rabbis
in
Jerusalem.
He's talking in Hebrew, but what he's
saying is that this war of destruction
it will bring about the return of the
Sorry, not the return, the coming of the
Messiah.
And it will happen on Thursday, which is
today.
Okay? So they are not at all saddened by
what is happening. In fact, they are
quite animated. They're very excited
about what's happening. So again, you
cannot look at this war from a
geopolitical lens. You have to look at
it from an eschatological perspective.
All right? So um let us look at
where we are in the
war so far. And as you can see, it is a
regional war, and both sides are seeking
maximalist objectives. And what this
means is the United States and Israel
wants to destroy Israel, especially its
capacity to be a nation-state. And so
right now,
um the Americans and Israelis are
attacking their leadership, decapitating
their leadership, as well as targeting
their economy.
And later on, um as this war progresses
and escalates, they will start to target
in civilian critical infrastructure,
including water.
Okay? And it's already happening.
Um they also want to have a divide and
rule uh strategy where they want to
provoke ethnic conflict in Iran and
divide uh Iran up into ethnic enclaves.
And this is what we call Balkanization.
The Iranians on the other hand want to
destroy the entire global economy. You
do that by attacking the
energy infrastructure of the GCC.
Because again, the entire basis of the
global global economy is cheap energy.
Okay? So, as this war progresses, you
will notice certain things. All right?
So, eventually, the Americans will have
no choice but to launch a ground
invasion.
>> [snorts]
>> And
one possible
attack vector is here, which is Kharg
Island.
This is where Iran stores about 9% of
its oil for export. And so, the idea is
that if you take Kharg Island, you will
destroy
the Iranian economy and thus its
capacity to sustain this war. The
problem with Kharg Island is that it's
easy to take, but it's hard to defend
because of the coastline, right? Which
case, you have to also take the
coastline.
But then, you deal with the Zagros
Mountains. And so, you have to expand
outwards. Okay? So, this is what we call
mission creep.
Where you cannot justify the war.
So, what you do is you put in some
soldiers and then
the mission creep becomes just just
justification for the war. Okay? So,
that's one thing to
spot as you read the news. Kharg Island
will be a flash point. Another
flash point will be Saudi Arabia.
Because right now, the Iranians are
attacking Saudi Arabia. Now, what Saudi
Arabia can do is declare war on Iran.
This is important because Saudi Arabia
has a mutual defense pact with Pakistan.
So, that if any are attacked, the other
is obligated to come to each other's
defense, okay? This is important because
as you can see, Pakistan opens up the
eastern front, okay? So it's possible
the Americans can attack from the east.
The other thing The other thing that's
important is that Pakistan has nuclear
weapons.
And um
um it is possible nuclear weapons are
used. I again, I strongly believe
tactical nuclear weapons will not be
used, okay? But once Pakistan is in the
war,
nuclear warheads are now at play.
Okay? Another thing to watch is how this
war expands elsewhere, okay? Because
when the time is appropriate, what will
happen is
that um
the Iranians will activate their
proxies, uh the Houthis, and they will
close off another critical choke point,
okay? So now, what hap- what's going to
happen is that there will be two
critical maritime choke points that are
closed off, thus isolating the GCC and
thus cutting off the world's access to
cheap energy. And when they do that, we
we can expect global retaliation and
other forces what to come in to secure
cheap energy.
Okay? It's possible the South Koreans,
the Japanese are forced into this war
because they are so dependent on GCC
energy.
All right?
All right.
So these are things that we will um
uh look for in the next few weeks.
Something else that is um
um creating attention on online is
people are speculating that Benjamin
Netanyahu is dead. And the reason why is
that he's he's not been seen in a public
setting for many days. There have been
cabinet meetings and Netanyahu usually
chairs them and he's not there, okay?
The other thing is that there are fake
AI videos of him giving speeches.
And it's pretty blatant these are fake.
So, people are speculating that he is
dead and they're trying to cover it up.
Uh this is a picture of him visiting a
cafe in uh Jerusalem to prove he's not
dead. The problem is that this cafe is
in a mountain and it will take him about
like 50 minutes to drive there. So, why
does he go there? Why doesn't he just
have a cabinet meeting or get on the
phone with Donald Trump to prove he's
still alive? All right? So, but I
personally don't believe he is dead. He
could be hiding somewhere
um or he could be injured. What we do
know is that the Iranians are killing a
lot of senior Israeli officials,
including the head of Mossad, their spy
agency. And Netanyahu's residence was
also targeted in Tel Aviv. So, that's
that's a really interesting question.
How are the Iranians able to target so
many so so many of the top leadership of
the Israelis, okay? But not only that,
but
uh this is Ali Larijani and he is the
head, the de facto head of the Iran war
effort.
>> [snorts]
>> And he was assassinated
um yesterday or 2 days ago and the
Iranians have confirmed this, okay? So,
he's confirmed to be dead. And
um people, analysts, are extremely
worried about this because he is a very
pragmatic person and so you can
negotiate with him, right? So, once this
uh war reaches a certain point where
both sides are exhausted, then it is
possible to approach him and say, "You
know what? Let's just negotiate a
ceasefire." And he'd be willing to
because he's very experienced. He's also
very influential, so he's able to bring
together the different factions of the
Iranian government and negotiate a
ceasefire. With him dead,
it is now almost impossible
to foresee a ceasefire.
Okay? So, let's discuss why
um you really don't want to do this sort
of stuff. You don't really want to kill
um other nations' leaders, okay? And so
you let's just use a analogy.
Let's imagine in the streets there are
two gangs at war with with each other,
okay? Gang A and Gang B. Okay? Gang A,
Gang B.
>> [snorts]
>> And if you look at gangs, they are
structured as hierarchies, okay?
But there's a lot of autonomy among the
different sections, okay?
And what holds uh the gangs together, of
course, is the leader.
So, when these two gangs go to war, what
they try to avoid is killing each
others' leader.
Why? Because um a war is often used to
achieve certain political objectives,
right? And so the point isn't to kill
everyone, the point is to negotiate um
a treaty that is most beneficial to you.
And you do that by negotiating with each
others' leaders, okay? Because they have
the authority to implement the treaty.
That's the first reason. The second
reason is
if you kill
the leader, then more people
there'll be a competition to replace the
leader, right? And during a gang war,
the person who is most violent, the most
extreme, will often become the new
leader, okay? So, by killing this
leader, not only do you cause
uh conflict among the gang, but you also
cause a massive escalation in the
conflict um between these two gangs, and
there's really no way out. That That is
why historically you do not target other
nations' leaders because then there's no
off-ramp.
Okay?
So, by targeting um Larijani, Israelis
and Americans have ensured that there
will be no off-ramp now. This war will
be fought to the bitter end. And
unfortunately, as we discussed
previously, that is the objective here.
Israelis and Americans are interested in
maximalist aims to destroy Iran
permanently.
Okay? And the Iranians are also
maximalist in that they want to destroy
the global economy permanently
in order to restructure reality itself.
All right. Okay.
So, this leaves us with three major
questions that I want to look at today,
okay?
The first big question is
how
are these leaders dying?
>> [snorts]
>> It's not that easy to kill a leader,
right? Because he's protected by
security.
And usually we There are two ways to
figure out where the leader is, okay?
There's human intelligence,
called HUMINT, and there's signal
intelligence, called SIGINT.
Okay? Human intelligence, signal
intelligence. Signal intelligence just
means electronic eavesdropping, where I
listen in on your telephone calls, where
I track your IP address, okay? And
Israelis and Americans are obviously
very sophisticated in that. And the
Americans and Israelis are saying that
we are using electronic surveillance in
order to track these people down.
I don't think that's convincing. I think
the most um
import
the most important source, the most
reliable source of information is human
intelligence. Having spies embedded in
local networks to spot for you where
they are, okay?
That's the most
um that's the best way to figure out
where they are.
So then this raise the question,
how are these Israeli citizens getting
this human intelligence, okay? All
right, that's the first question we want
to look at. How are these leaders dying?
Second question is like, why are they
dying?
Like, what's the point of killing them?
Right? Because once they die, they can
just be replaced. And they're often
replaced by a more
extreme
um individual, okay? So that's the
second question we we want to look at.
And the third question we want to look
at is
what
does
this mean
for the war
and the world?
Okay?
What do these decapitation strikes
ultimately mean for how this war will
progress and how this will affect the
world the world in general, okay? All
right, so those those are the three big
questions
I want to look at. So to answer these
three questions, I want to introduce a
new idea to you, okay? It's called a law
of proximity.
The law of proximity,
the idea is this.
>> [clears throat]
>> Whenever you play a game, you're not
just playing one game. You're playing
many, many different games.
And the game that you choose to play is
the one that is most proximate to you,
the one that is close most close to you.
And that impacts your decision-making
the most. Okay? So that's the law of
proximity. So let me explain to you what
this
uh means using a analogy, okay?
Let's just use your life. You are
probably actually multiple games every
single day. All right, so let's let's
let's let's examine this. The first game
you play, of course, is the family game,
right? So, you might have
parents
and you have siblings, okay?
And the game you're playing, of course,
is to win attention from your parents.
And to do so, depending on who your
siblings are, you might use different
strategies including doing well in
school or being a pain in the ass.
Unfortunately, my kids choose to be a
pain in the ass, okay?
Um yes. The parents are playing another
game, which is
>> [clears throat]
>> um social
um
um prestige, right? So, they're
competing against other parents to have
the best family possible, all right? So,
and then not only do you play game at at
um home, but you also play games at
school, right?
All right, so when you go to school,
you're competing against your classmates
for attention and popularity, but you're
also playing
um a game in the school to get the best
grades so that you can you you can get
into a good college, right?
Then you go to work
where you're competing in order to win
the favor of your boss and to be popular
among your colleagues.
Then you play a city game where you live
in Beijing and you want Beijing to be
better than maybe Shanghai or Shenzhen,
okay? And then you play a game of maybe
nation where you want China to be
stronger than Japan, okay? So, as you
can see, every single day you're playing
multiple games even though even though
you may not recognize it. And again,
what's important is the game that is
most important to you is the game which
you are most close to, right? The one
that you can see in front of you.
Okay, does that Does that make sense?
Okay. But, this is also true for nations
as well, where we think
that the game is
uh
um between nations.
But, really the game is within nations.
And the conflict
within nations is the one
conflict that determines how nations
behave against each other.
All right. So, we So, today what what we
will do is we will look at three
examples of of this, okay? We will look
at the civil conflicts in America, in
Israel, and in Iran to figure out why
they behave the way they do, and then
figure out how this war will progress.
Okay. So, clearly, there is a civil
conflict right now in America.
Okay, you have the Democrats
>> [clears throat]
>> and you have Republicans.
Now, what's odd is that even though
these two different political parties
are war with each other, they both
support the war because their calculus
is different. Okay? So, why do the
Democrats support this war?
Well, it's because they believe
that this war will be extremely
unpopular in America, which will allow
the Democrats to dominate in the
midterms in November, and then win the
presidential presidential election in 20
uh 28.
And they believe that this war will be
so unpopular, it will destroy Donald
Trump
and um allow the Democrats to rule
forever. It will basically destroy the
Republican Party.
All right? And so, that is your
strategy. And if you think about it,
actually makes a lot of sense.
The Republicans have a different
strategy, which is
this war may be unpopular,
and this war
>> [snorts]
>> may
um
um make America lose,
but
it's okay.
Why? Because in a time of war, the
president has something called the
Emergency Powers Act, okay? Emergency
Powers.
Emergency Powers allows the president to
essentially suspend the Constitution and
to suspend or delay elections.
Also, um the Republicans want to pass
pass something called Safe America Act.
>> [clears throat]
>> Okay? The Safe America Act.
Um which means that if you are a voter,
you must present ID in order to vote.
And you think that this is
um well, reasonable, but historically,
the idea of checking ID is a way to
discriminate against minorities, right?
To have police officers there to scare
uh minorities.
And that's traditionally how
um
racism was enforced in in America. Okay?
So, in other words, the Republicans have
many different strategies of either
cheating
or manipulating the elections. They can
also, I have to say this, but if the war
is going really badly, what they will do
is call up a national draft and cancel
the elections, okay?
All right? So, these are two different
strategies going on. But as you can see,
this is not really about America
defeating
Iran. This is really about the Democrats
or Republicans trying to
obtain power and keep it, okay?
All right.
But, what's important for us to
understand is that it's not just about
the Democrats and Republicans at war
with each other. There's actually a much
deeper divide in America, okay? And this
divide is a conflict between the
um elite
and the counter-elite.
>> [clears throat]
>> Remember how we introduced the idea of
elite overproduction, right?
Uh this is a
Peter Turchin idea.
And he argues that what leads to civil
war is that you have too much too many
elite who want to be the ones in power.
Power is a zero-sum game, and therefore
when you have elite overproduction, they
have to go to war against each other in
order to
um have the power, okay?
And so,
what's going on? Who are the elite and
who's the counter-elite? Well, I mean,
to put it very simply, the Democrats
represent the elite, and the Republicans
represent the counter-elite, okay?
So,
um the Basically, the elite is the
empire.
And counter-elite is um MAGA, which is
America first. And so, they have two
different um
um ideals
for America. The empire is to maintain
the current global order,
right? And MAGA is to retreat back into
Western Hemisphere and focus on
um Americans' core national interests.
All right. They're also divided into
finance
and um AI,
okay?
So, in other words, Wall Street are the
main backers of the current elite.
And then Silicon Valley are the main
backers of the counter elite.
Okay? So, this these people are
interested in maintaining the status
quo.
They are interested in a revolution.
All right? And so, this is the main
divide in America that will eventually
lead to a civil war, like like an actual
civil war. Okay? But, right now,
um they're fighting over foreign policy.
So, I will discuss this more in
um the future. Okay? But, um I want I
present to you now. So, let me give you
a con- concrete example of why they're
fighting. Why are people in finance
fighting uh with people in AI?
And there's a very good reason.
Because if you're able to control
Washington D.C., if you're able to
control the levers of government, you're
able to make a lot of money for
yourself. Okay? So, let's look at this
concretely.
>> [clears throat]
>> Okay. What people don't really
understand is that both finance and AI
are bubbles that will burst. They're
parasites. Okay? So, finance um is a
parasite because there's something
called a private credit bubble.
All right?
Private credit bubble it I mean, the
idea of private credit is very simple.
Rather than banks issuing loans to
companies, companies privately issue
loans to other companies.
And you would think that these companies
would be very careful
with
who they lend to and how much they lend
to, right?
That's not true, though. Okay? Why?
Because in 2008, these banks destroyed
the global economy
and the American government bailed them
out.
Right? They suffered no consequences.
This This idea of moral hazard. If you
do not suffer consequences for your
stupidity,
well, you're just going to be more
stupid in the future, okay? So, these
companies believe that we control
Washington D.C. Therefore, we can be as
risky and stupid as we want. So, they're
giving out lots and lots of silly loans
to companies because they collect a fee
for these loans, right?
And then, when these loans don't
actually work out, meaning the companies
go bankrupt, what they do is they say,
"Oh, we'll we'll lend you some more
money to keep afloat, okay?" So, now
this problem has reached about $2
trillion.
And so, they think that, "Okay, well,
worst-case scenario, the government will
bail us out if we all go bankrupt
because we're too big to fail and all
our friends are in government."
Okay? That's their mentality.
And in 2008, that worked.
But there's a problem
today, which is there's also another
group that's doing the same crap, okay?
And it's called the AI bubble.
All right. So, if you look at AI bubble,
you have you got companies like
Microsoft, um OpenAI,
uh Oracle, Nvidia,
uh okay, lots lots lots and lots of
different companies.
And the way they operate is they just
lend money to each other, okay? It's
like, I give you a billion dollars, then
you give me a billion dollars, and now
we have two billion dollars.
Okay? It's a circle jerk.
And and it's getting a lot of money from
the GCC
and other investors. The problem, of
course, is what's happening in the war,
right? So, if the GCC can no longer put
more money into this bubble, then
eventually this bubble will have to
burst.
But they're like, "That's
Why? Because we control Trump. We
control the White House. We are the
stock market. Therefore, Washington D.C.
will bail us out, okay? So, that's the
war going on where you have two
parasitic forces,
the finance sector and the and the tech
sector, and they are all looking for
government bailout when their bubble
burst.
But they the government doesn't have
infinite money. It can only bail one
side, right?
So, they're going to fight over with the
government they're going to fight over
who bails who out, okay? If the
Democrats can win the House and the
presidency in the 2028, then the private
credit people will get bailed out.
But if Trump and his people stay in
power in 2028, then the AI people will
get bailed out, okay?
So, that's the civil war going on in
America
uh right now. We'll discuss this more
later in the future, but I just present
it to you
uh right now, okay?
And then of course you have the um
Israelis, Israel. People don't really
appreciate
how divided
Israel is. This is about 2020 when you
have like a million people in Tel Aviv
calling for the resignation, the
impeachment,
uh the jailing of Prime Minister
Netanyahu.
Because Netanyahu, like most Israeli
politicians, is very corrupt. Okay? Um
and to avoid going to jail, Netanyahu
proposed changing the judiciary,
changing changing the laws. And so,
there's these massive protests against
Netanyahu. And at this point in Israel,
um it seemed as though Netanyahu was
going to fall from power and go to jail
for the rest of his life. But then of
course, October 7th happened.
Okay? October 7th happened, and then
we or Israel is now in permanent war.
That gives him emergency powers, okay?
All right.
To give you a sense of how divided
Israel is, let's look at the Knesset,
which is a parliament. Guys, this is a
lot of political parties. As you can
see, none of them are dominant, okay?
The biggest Likud, which is Netanyahu's
party party, it has about 30 members.
But,
it cannot rule by itself. Therefore, it
has to join with other political
parties, okay? It has to be a coalition.
But, look you look at its enemies. Well,
its enemies also have a lot. So, it
seems as though Israel is a extremely
divided society, and it is, okay? People
don't really appreciate this.
You know, a lot of people talk about a
Jewish global conspiracy. What people
don't really understand is the Jewish
people have never ever gotten along. So,
you go back to the to the time of Jesus,
and there were like three major factions
in Jerusalem. There were the Sadducees,
there were the Pharisees, and the
Essenes. They all hated each other.
In in the year 70,
the Romans sent a huge army to destroy
Jerusalem. Okay, and you would think at
this time the people in Jerusalem would
get together and unite and defend
Jerusalem because otherwise they'd all
be killed.
Well,
they didn't get together, okay? And the
Romans destroyed Jerusalem and burned
down the second temple and massacred a
lot of Jews. So, the Jews have always
had this problem where they're extremely
creative and intellectual, but that just
leads to massive infighting, okay?
>> [clears throat]
>> All right.
So, these are the leaders of uh the
different political parties of Israel.
And again, I hate to say this, but like
they really hate each other. It's not,
you know, uh
like a show. They genuinely hate each
other. And that's why um Israel has been
politically been so dysfunctional these
past few decades, okay? All right. So,
now I want to discuss
where the major conflict in
Israel is. Okay, so I would say there
like the two major conflict is
represented by
Tel Aviv
and Jerusalem.
These are two cities in Israel and they
are the two major cities of Israel and
they represent two different centers of
gravity, two different visions for
Israel.
Uh, Tel Aviv is democratic.
>> [clears throat]
>> Jerusalem is a theocracy.
Meaning it's it's religious, okay? Uh,
Tel Aviv is um, open.
Meaning it actually has a lot of
homosexuals, right? And you can imagine
people in Jerusalem aren't happy about
this. So, they're very conservative.
>> [clears throat]
>> Okay.
>> [snorts]
>> Okay, cosmopolitan.
>> [clears throat]
>> Uh, tradition.
All right. So, these are two vastly
different um,
visions of for Israel where Tel Aviv is
this is open, democratic, modern,
progressive city. Lots of homosexuals,
lots of open ideas, very secular, very
outward looking, very western.
Jerusalem is the complete opposite,
okay? Very religious, very conservative.
And they again, they hate each other.
And the fact that Tel Aviv is getting
destroyed right now in this war, people
in Jerusalem are actually okay with
this, okay? They're not like, "Oh my
god, they're killing Israelis." No, no,
no. Tel Aviv is the
great Satan. Let's just destroy it so
that we can um,
build a theocracy, okay? All right. So,
let's look closely at where they where
they disagree, okay?
So, Israel is kingdom David.
>> [clears throat]
>> Right? But,
Tel Aviv and Jerusalem perceive David
differently. Okay? So, for people in Tel
Aviv, David was the king when Israel was
at the height of its glory, when it was
an open, cosmopolitan,
>> [snorts]
>> creative, innovative empire. And that's
what they want Israel to be.
The people in Jerusalem see this see
David as a different person.
They see David as primarily a
um
uh poet prophet.
And they see David as the exemplar.
As the favorite of God because he
redeemed himself and repented himself in
the eyes of God, okay? So, redemption
and repentance.
All right.
And what they focus on is the story of
David where David is king and one day he
wakes up and finds he's in love with
Bathsheba.
And so, he basically has sex with
Bathsheba. Bathsheba gets pregnant and
that's a problem because Bathsheba is
married to someone else, Uriah the
Hittite. So, what does David do? David
has him killed, okay?
And David can do this because he's king.
But, God finds out and sends the prophet
Nathan to tell David, "You've sinned."
And at first David refuses to admit that
he's in the wrong. But then, there's
his child with Bathsheba dies. And David
falls into tremendous grief. And every
day he's praying to God for forgiveness.
He's asking for redemption. He is
repenting. And God forgives him. And in
this process, not only does David become
a better person,
but he becomes
united with God. Because now they're
best friends. Now they talk every day.
And that's what the vision for that
people in Judaism have for Israel. A
nation that engages in redemption and
repentance. They don't care about this
war. Don't care about Iran. Don't care
about the United States. Don't care
about the greater Israel project. They
care about the Jews finding God again
and being loyal to God. And that is what
will bring peace to the world, okay?
That is how they see the world.
This is how how they perceive things.
They They believe that in every person
there's a divine soul, okay? That comes
from God. But it is a It is trapped in
the animal soul.
Okay?
So Tel Aviv is the animal soul.
>> [clears throat]
>> And
this is the divine soul.
All right?
So what the animal soul is, you seek
material comfort. You want to have sex.
You want to get drunk. You want to
party. You want to drive a drive a
Ferrari, okay? This is all animal.
But inside of you is the divine soul
that only seeks to be with God.
Okay?
And so we are constantly in a struggle
between the animal soul and the divine
soul.
And so from their perspective, Tel Aviv
represents the animal soul of Israel.
Jerusalem represents the divine soul of
Israel. So it's okay if Iran is
destroying Tel Aviv. Good. Also, they
recognize that war is good because if
people really want to find God again,
they need to suffer. They need They need
to lose everything before they recognize
the glory of God, okay? So think of um
the book of Job.
When Job was Job is a character in the
Bible who's very wealthy.
And and so God decides, you know what?
Maybe he's only faithful to me because
he's very wealthy. So, Job loses
everything and this heightens his faith
in God, okay? So, that's the vision that
these crazy religious zealots have in
Jerusalem, which is like let's destroy
Israel so that we can refine,
rediscover
our love for God, okay? The destruction
of Israel will lead to the redemption
and repentance of the Israeli people and
therefore peace in this world.
The Messiah will finally come. That's
why
the rabbi was constantly talking about
um
on Thursday the Messiah will come
because he feels it's so close. There's
so much destruction. There's so much
war. So, the Messiah must come because
now the Jews recognize that only God can
save them. Therefore, when you will it,
when you pray for the Messiah, when you
want in your heart, that's when the
Messiah will come.
Okay, but you need to create the
conditions when people really want the
Messiah.
Okay? So, that's the civil conflict
going on in
um
Israel. And again,
these people in Jerusalem, these
fanatics, they don't really care if the
world if the world is destroyed because
this world is fake anyway. Who cares?
What matters is the divine soul, okay?
All right.
Yeah. Um you have you have a question,
um Vincent?
Like you said the Messiah is coming
today, which is Thursday, and like
>> No, I didn't say that. Uh? I didn't say
that.
The rabbi said that.
>> Uh, the the rabbi said that like the
Messiah is coming today, but like will
the coming of Messiah really affect
China and those countries or is uh
all their personal beliefs?
Okay, listen. I I know this is hard for
you guys to understand.
But, China doesn't matter, okay? Only
Israel matters. United States, China,
Russia, does that matter? Look at that.
Matters is Israel.
Okay? Only matters is the people in
Israel, the Jews.
Their spiritual state will determine the
fate of the world. Once the Jews
um unified with God, then peace and
prosperity will come for the rest of the
world, okay?
All right?
>> [clears throat]
>> Okay. So, um now I want to talk about
Iran.
Okay? This is the political government
structure of Iran. Now, one thing I
notice is that it's very complicated,
okay? It's divided into the religious
aspects, okay? Some of the
experts, and the secular aspect, which
is
um the um
uh
government, okay?
So, it's a government, but
the Islamic clerics are at the very top.
And this is the dual identity
of Iran, okay? And
this is the uh their last presidential
election. As you can see, it's a pretty
divided country, where people in the
middle voted for Jalali,
but people in the outskirts voted for
uh uh
Peseschkian, okay?
So, there's a lot of conflict in
Iran. Not just political, religious, but
also ethnic as well. All right. So So
let me explain very quickly what I see
is the major divide
in Iraq, okay? So of course, you have
um the Islamic theocracy
and they're in conflict with
um
secular nationalists.
And then of course, there's ethnic
groups as well.
I don't really think the ethnic groups
matter that much, okay? What really
matters is the conflict between the
secular nationalists and the Islamic
theocracy.
All right. So basically, the rural-urban
divide.
Uh people who are educated and want to
see Iran as a secular state that
promotes democracy and progress and
science versus these um religious
individuals, okay?
Now, what happens is that in a war,
um
you become more extreme.
So what happened is that is the Islamic
theocracy will transition into Shia
eschatology
or martyrdom, okay? Where they think
that this war is about return having a
12th Imam,
Mahdi, who is the basically the Messiah,
return to lead them to war against the
Great Satan, which is Israel and the
United States, okay?
So over time,
uh the Islamists will become much more
radical.
This will force the secular nationalists
to also become much more radical as
well. So they will become Persian
exceptionalists, okay?
What What this just means is that
Persian exceptionalism which just means
that Persia
is the greatest civilization in human
history and therefore is worth dying
for. It's worth fighting for.
The survival of the Persian civilization
is much more important than the survival
of the Iranian state.
Okay? So, the great question for the
Iranians is are they able to reconcile
the differences between these two
strands of the culture or will this lead
to civil war in Iran, okay?
Um
we are seeing civil war in Israel, we're
seeing civil war in America.
>> [music]
>> Iran cannot afford to fight a civil war
at this time because they're being
bombarded by two very public nations,
the Israel and America, okay? But
unfortunately, the law of proximity
teaches us that people are much more
interested
in their own internal conflict than the
outside
global conflict, okay?
And so,
this understanding
now gives us
um helps us answer the three big
questions of today, right?
How are these leaders getting killed?
Why are they getting killed? And what
will this mean for the rest of the
world, okay? And so, the first two
questions, how they getting killed, why
they getting killed, they're getting
killed because of all these civil
conflicts within these nations, okay?
These different factions are providing
intelligence to their enemies in order
to limit their internal enemies.
Right? That's Again, I don't have
evidence, but I think according to game
theory, that's the best explanation for
how these leaders are getting killed
because again, it's not that easy as a
foreign nation to identify
the location precisely of that leader,
okay? And what we're seeing in this war
is both the Iranians and Israelis are
doing a very excellent job of killing
each other's leaders. And that's not
actually common.
All right? So, I think this a civil
conflict within these nations offers the
best guide, the best understanding of
why this of why this is happening, okay?
This third question is where's the
where's the
uh world going?
As you can see from these conflicts,
um it seems as though the world can only
become much more theocratic in the end,
okay? So, what's happening is, at the
end of the day, this war in Iran uh in
the Middle East, it's really a war
between two different competing visions
of the world, okay? You You have the
global
secular
financial order.
Okay? And this is
the world that we live in today. And
they're fighting, again, a nationalist
theocracy.
Theocratic
order.
All right?
So, this is what we can expect over the
next 5 to 10 years, where Iran becomes
much more theocratic and extremely
nationalistic.
Israel, a balanced democracy, then
braces theocracy. America will also
abandon democracy and embrace theocracy.
Because that is a general trend of the
world.
Okay?
All right?
Okay. So, um what I want to do in next
class is discuss how the world will
change in the next 5 to 10 years. All
right?
Okay, any questions?
Okay.
Uh you mentioned that Israel have um
two divided parts and one represents the
animal soul and the other represents the
divine soul. Like I I can substitute
this logic to a a single person like
like people are always struggled with
like identify or not like separating the
divine soul and pursue the a divine
soul, but they cannot get rid of the
animal soul. Is there a way or we can
only struggle at us in our lives?
Okay, so first of all, it's important to
understand that that this is how
religious people in Israel frame
the um
conflict in Israel, okay? What the a
conflict between the animal soul and the
divine soul.
Um the people in Tel Aviv would frame
the debate as one between progress and
tradition, right? Going forward or
staying backward. All right? So so um
that is uh so people in Tel Aviv and
Jerusalem would would see this in a in a
different way.
Um
but as you point out, there's some
validity to this idea that we're all
struggle
uh between the animal soul and the
divine soul. And I would say that for
the past 20 years,
we only have been indulging in the
animal soul, okay? We've abandoned
divine soul. And that's why I think
people are so desperate for uh change.
And And this is what's leading to so
much conflict around the world, where
the human soul is is off balance.
Okay? Where we are too materialistic and
not spiritual enough. And what we know
from history is that if you if a a
society goes too far in one extreme,
they swing back to the extreme. Okay?
And that's what we're seeing where
one good outcome, I [music] think, of
all this conflict around the world is
people start to recognize limitations of
money, [music]
of materialism,
of individualism. They start to embrace
more spirituality, community, family.
Because quite honestly, you don't have a
choice in the matter, okay? If you if
you're like, you know, I want to buy
myself a Gulfstream jet and I want to
have like, you know,
a huge company, you're you're you're
you're going to be disappointed, okay?
Um
as I will show you next class,
the world is heading towards an economic
depression.
Okay? Basically, a a splintering, a
rupture in the world.
And so, you're not going to be able to
to afford to fly to Maldives for
vacation. There won't be avocados in the
supermarket.
Okay? But that's this this But all this
means is now you have a chance to focus
more on introspection, on reflection,
on family,
on asking yourself, what makes me happy?
What gives me meaning and purpose in
life? And the answer, of course, is each
other.
Okay? And maybe this is a good thing.
Maybe this is the intention of the
universe. Maybe, as the people in
Jerusalem would say, this is really the
plan of God.
Okay? And
I I don't It's unfortunate that all this
war and suffering is happening, but
again, what a lot of people who are
religious will tell you is
we can only find redemption through
suffering and through pain and through
tragedy.
All right?
Okay?
Any more questions, guys?
Okay. All right. I'll see you next
class.
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