#11 - Applied History with WhatIfAltHist
Episode description
Rudyard Lynch runs the popular YouTube channel WhatIfAltHist. We're both into applied history — namely, studying the past to forecast the future — and everything we spoke about fell under that rubric. We cover alchemy vs technology, left vs right, nature vs nurture, China vs America, communism vs wokeness, and (of course) networks vs states.Our overarching goal with the pod is to learn about the world to build new startup societies. If these ideas interest you, we're putting theory into practice at Network School, so do apply at https://ns.com.
OUTLINE
00:00 - Intro to WhatifAltHist and counterfactual history
03:52 - The idea in alchemy: everyone is competing on vibes
07:12 - Nature/nurture = hardware/software
09:37 - Why the left often wins: equality builds scalable militaries
11:30 - The idea from Balaji that most influenced Rudyard: God, State, or Network?
13:25 - What is the most powerful force in the world: God, State, or Network
20:28 - Only 4% of Democrats marry Republicans
22:24 - The purpose of alchemy: how early alchemy lead to modern tech
33:25 - We have entered the age of the phrase
42:33 - The reading list: genetics books you should read
43:07 - Communism was based on economics denial, wokeness is genetics denial
50:49 - The Vitruvian Man: our moral responsibility to accelerate technology
57:42 - We are on the verge of global instability
1:20:43 - Internet community becomes physical community: The Network School (ns.com)
1:23:08 - Both Soviet and American empires were built on false premises
1:28:16 - Bitcoin is the strongest new identity
1:32:55 - The total military dominance of the Chinese drone armada
LINKS