Decoding the Gurus - Professor Jiang, Part 1: Geopolitical Pantomime

Episode Date: June 30, 2026

On Decoding the Gurus, we regularly get to hear a lot of truly “high-level” ideas, but the much-requested subject of this episode’s decoding is up there with the best of them. We are talking, of course, about “Professor” Jiang, the internet’s favourite new overly confident online guru, now that Jordan Peterson is indisposed. Jiang Xueqin is a secondary school teacher who has found an online audience thirsty for his particular style of confident bullshit, and he is more than ready to roll out his “predictive history” analyses on command.Be prepared for some serious professorial cosplay as Stephen Bartlett, from Diary of a CEO, spares no expense in his endless quest to indulge every modern online crank, offering a grab bag of props as well as his usual thoughtful pauses and awe-inspiring requests for definitions. Thrill as the honorary professor performs as a grand seer and geopolitical strategist, complete with a tabletop world map, wargame prop pieces, whiteboard flowcharts, coloured chess sets, and a dramatic metal briefcase full of sealed predictions.So get ready to experience his hit-parade of forecasts (Trump's 3rd term, endless war with Iran, eventual U.S. “loss”) along with his trademark conspiratorial mélange of real-ish facts, misstatements, and domino-chain inevitabilities. The end of Part 1 is a sign of things to come, featuring Jiang's post-apocalyptic advice on how the good people can rebuild society with the help of prophets and visionaries (AKA gurus) and soothe yourself with the knowledge that we are all ultimately just a God-derived fractal consciousness anyway.<And if you can't wait, Part 2 is already available on the Patreon!>SourcesDiary of a CEO: Professor Jiang: World War 3 Is About To Begin, Let Me Explain!Mehdi Hasan vs. ‘Professor’ JiangProfessor Jiang talking about the Nephilim and Other Such Stuff: The World Is a Prison– The Secret Meaning of God And Creation | Prof. Jiang XueqinProfessor Jiang promoting creationism and denying evolutionThe National Security Strategy of the United States Document

Hello again and welcome to Decoding the Gurus, the podcast where the two of us, me and Chris, listen to the greatest minds the world has to offer. We try to understand what they're talking about. And Chris, you are so well qualified to decode the current person. You know, you with your notable geopolitical understanding, the grand strategy, it's second nature to you, isn't it? Thank you. You've advised people on policy. You're an institutional fellow of think tanks. If you can place it on a map, you know about it.

That's how it works, isn't it? Yep, yep. You know, I'm one of the movers and cheekers. Don't be surprised if you see me in the 30 under 30 lists, right? That's the kind of thing that we're talking about here, noted for my geopolitical insights. Yeah. It's a shame you couldn't accept that invitation to Davos, but maybe next year. Maybe next year.

Wow, I'm just impressed that you pronounced it as, Davos. Congratulations. So yeah. That's very simple to how we say David, Australia. Devo. Just adding this at the end.

Devo. Yeah. And nachos, right? If we feel like that. Let it be. Professor Brian, how is your geopolitical knowledge these days? Because, you know, I feel like it's going to be

tested on this episode. I know you're a history man, right? You like your World War. War II history and your Russian revolutions and whatnot. But what about contemporary modern history, geopolitics? Are you up to there? Well, I thought I knew a lot, Chris, but then I've been listening to Professor Zhang. And, oh my God, I heard so many things that I didn't know about,

so many things I didn't understand. So maybe I don't know as much as I thought I did. Well, yeah, I guess it'll be interesting for people to find out what they do and don't know. And you've mentioned it, Matt, the man of the R. So who is it that we're looking at this week? It's been a fairly frequent requested figure to cover where we're arriving a little bit later than people usually prefer. But, you know, we don't go where the discourse pushes us. We cover El Ron Hubbard. That's what we do. God damn, we'll cover someone that's dead before we'll cover whatever the discourse demands. But yeah, here we are, Professor

Zhang. Sorry, I've give it away, but yeah, who's this, Matt? Who are we doing? Who is Professor Chang? Well, I don't really know. I mean, I listen to this episode because you told me to. I know the name. I know he's been getting about. I didn't do the research on his backstory. I did read secondhand that he maybe was a teacher at a couple of high schools that were affiliated with universities in China. And then he sort of, he sort of forgets to mention. mentioned the high school bit, but he does put the names of the universities on his CV, and hence you have Professor Yang, although not actually a professor, as far as I know. Yes, you're completely correct. He is a secondary school teacher, although since his profile

has been growing, I wouldn't be that surprised if he ended up in, you know, Jordan Peterson territory that he's primarily an online pundit or that kind of thing. But yes, so he, he, like Jordan Peterson, he was putting lectures online, and they got attention in part because of some predictions he made about

war with Iran, right, and America ended up having conflict with Iran, so that was taking it. And also, his YouTube channel is called predictive history. You know what that's from? Predictive history?

No, I don't. Science fiction reference. Oh, not Not you know, the thing. Predictive history? That's not what it's called. That's not from that science fiction.

Yeah, well, psycho history, right? Psycho history, that's right. Yeah, but it's predictive history in the description for the channel. It says, in his foundation series, Isaac Asimov proposed that the science of psycho history will help humanity on. understand its past, predict its future, and control its present, this channel is dedicated to

explain if psycho-history is indeed possible. This channel will seek to answer the following three questions. What models, theories, and paradigms help us best understand world history? What does history teach us about our current predicament? How much of the future can be predicted? So, Professor Zhang is very directly linking what he does to psycho-history. Gotcha, gotcha. Okay, yeah, well that makes sense. So that's basically his deal, as we'll hear, presents himself as a great forecaster. He has an amazing ability to understand all the chess pieces on the board, and he demonstrates it with some, in this interview, quite a few times. How everything's connected together, why people will do the things they do, why countries will do the things they do, and that enables him to make very confident predictions. I bet what's going to happen next. Yeah, that's right. And the source material that we're looking at is his recent appearance with Stephen Bartlett of the diary of a CEO fame.

He has appeared multiple times interviewing multiple people that we've covered. And in this case, the title of the episode was called Professor Zhang, World War III is about to begin. let me explain. That's the evocative title. And if you haven't come across the diary of a CEO guy before, let me paint you a picture with words. He sits in a room with like a well-lit table with the guests. In other episodes, sometimes it's dark.

And, you know, there's like a kind of spotlight on them. But in this occasion, he's at a table. And it's very high-definition cameras. he is a handsome guy and is looking at at Zhang, you know, very seriously presenting these questions with pregnant pauses and looking as if he's, he's thinking about the information he's receiving and moving to the next question and so on. And one of the things to note here is, you know, in this particular case, they've pushed the boat out because you have a table with like a war game set up, like a, you know, a global map and little people.

pieces on it that Jan can push around to illustrate, like he's a general planning things out. They also have like an interactive whiteboard at one point where he's drawing on the board. And this is often what he does in his lectures online as well. It's like he'll say, oh, that causes three things, right? And draw three things on the board and then draw a line connecting them. And this does seem to create the impression. It's like, you know, I think it is just the university lecturer aesthetic. that he's confidently laying things out.

He's got a, like, a model that he's explaining here. It's not just him waffling. And the other thing is that, we'll come to this later, this kind of dramatic thing, that they bring in his new predictions in a metal case sealed in envelopes, which he opens, you know, dramatically and reads out and discusses, as if these are very important, precious things. It's so ridiculous.

It's also staged. It's a pantomime of geopolitical analysis for, I guess, idiots. I think that's probably the only way you could describe it. Like, if you listen to real geopolitical analysts talk about things, someone like Michael Kaufman on Ukraine, they don't do this kind of thing, obviously, because they're serious people. But, yeah, this is, I guess, geopolitical theater for a particular audience. Yeah.

Absolutely so. And if you look at the comments underneath it, you know, on YouTube. It's so dispiriting. I did, Chris, and I got really depressed because I don't know what you read, but everything I read was just thank you so much. He breaks it all down and explains it so well. Thank you, Professor Jang, for everything. Exactly. This is what an interview with Professor Zhang should be. Quality presentation, long enough for explanations and moderated with solid questions. Geopolitics 101. He It breaks it down so perfectly. Even a toddler could understand. Remarkable teacher. I can't believe I can see this for free. I'm one here, which I do have to mention this before we

report. There's one that says, I like the fact that Stephen is not afraid to ask dumb questions that many of us silently wonder about. Now, I do understand this is part of his appeal, right? So it's like a thoughtful interchange between an intellectual titan, Professor Zhang, and Stephen Bartlett, this engaged, open-minded truth-seeker who's out there to get the wisdom from Zhang. And that's the way it is with pretty much all of his guests. He welcomes them, starts asking them the big questions, and then looks at them very like an expression. thoughtful expression. Yeah. Yeah.

Thoughtful expression. Yeah. It's like a younger, better looking Joe Rogan, but with less personality and perhaps even less critical thinking skills. That's how I think of him. Yeah. The comparison to Joe Rogan is good because his show is about, you know,

it's basically a talk show for man in large part. That's what it is. And it's getting on. Big fingers, people like Huberman and Dr. K and so on, all the people we cover, they are the fodder for Stephen Bartlett. And one thing that's been noted in discourse around him is that he basically has no permanent memory. He seems to sit there and absorb what the person is telling them and look very concerned. But it doesn't really matter if his guest one week completely contradicts the message of the guest from the following week. There's no consistent memory applied

or there's no attempt to make things into a coherent approach. It's just big insights from this conversation that you need to hear. And then next week on to whoever. And he will try to get basically anybody that will juice his downloads. He has very, very little quality control. So, you know, conspiracy theorists of the moment he will have them all, but he does like to pretend that it's a, you know, like it's a high level show for

getting the big ideas, but it's it's not. It's similar to Joe Rogan or Chris Williamson or any of them. But Chris Williamson, I will say, Matt, has better editorial standards in the sense that he has not had Professor Zhang on. So this is

to his credit. He's not yet appeared on Chris Williamson's channel. Yeah, I do think Diary of the CEO, Stephen Bartlett, it is, like, it's very well produced. It's very slickly done. But that kind of disguises the fact that it is like really bottom of the barrel stuff. That's his usual programming. And yeah, that thing about how, like nothing matters, like the things that are said in one instant, it's all, you know, it's very thoughtful and it's like, wow, that's amazing.

But it's just kind of gone the next instant. So I think even contradictions within this episode, they would never penetrate Stevens' head. Because I don't think he's really absorbing anything. He's just playing the role. But I think it is, it's illustrative of what the public discourse is at the moment, which is this is basically long-form clickbait. But anyway, we're probably setting the scene a little bit too much. We should get stuck into it, Chris.

Let people make up their own minds. Okay, okay. Well, too much, Matt. This is only a 11-minute introduction, but that's relatively efficient by our usual metrics. But I agree. Let's start with the clip. So the first one, this appeal happens at the start of every Daria for CEO episode, and I can never stop being triggered by it. So listen to this first. This is not specific to Zhang, but this is, you know, indicative of all those themes that we were just talking about. Guys, I've got a favour to ask before this episode begins. It's the algorithm, if you follow a show, will deliver you the best episodes from that show

very prominently in your feed. So when we have our best episodes on this show, the most shared episodes, the most rated episodes, I would love you to know. And the simple way for you to know that is to hit that follow button. But also, it's the simple, easy, free thing that you can do to help us make this show better. And I would be hugely grateful if you could take a minute on the app you're listening to this on right now and hit that follow. button. Thank you so, so, so much.

Now, Chris, actually, on the episode I've watched, I don't know, maybe it was a different episode, God, I hope it wasn't, but he actually said, look, there's something going on, I just want you to check, you know, I'm being told by my producers that a lot of the people that watch the show are not actually subscribed, and a lot of people might have been unsubscribe without them knowing it. So can you just go down there and check and check to see whether Oh, yes. Anyway, similar kind of... That was from the YouTube one.

I took this from his audio one, but that was the start of the YouTube had that. And it's a similar sort of appeal. And like I hate it, Mike, because I hate the full intimacy of like, I'm talking to you specifically here, and I don't want you to miss these really important conversations that we're doing.

And does he do the thing on the YouTube one where he makes the deal? You know, I'll make a deal with you. Oh, yes. Subscribe. And I'll provide. you the best content that I'm capable of. We'll keep working to deliver you the absolute best stuff.

Do we have a deal? Yeah. Anyway, this is the world we live in, Chris. He's not the only one that does this. I know. This is LinkedIn manifested in a human form. So yeah, well, so anyway, that's Stephen Bartler. We'll have more to say about him as we go on.

But here's Zhang being introduced and like why he has been hosted, why he's a big deal these days. Professor Dienne, there's so much going on in the world at the moment that it's quite confusing for an ordinary person like me. And you've blown up across the internet because you've been able to demystify all of this craziness, but also because in 2024, you made three predictions that have come perfectly true.

Some might say, unfortunately. Unfortunately, yes. What were those three predictions? My first prediction was that Trump would win in November 24. Second prediction is that he would start a war against Iran. And the third prediction is that the United States would lose this war. And in losing this war, this would radically reshape the geopolitical landscape. So you've got his three predictions.

And he's been called the Nostradamus of China. With those three predictions, Matt, I mean, how can you not? To recap them, one Trump will win the election. Again, incredible. I mean, there's two possible candidates in the election in America, and he got it right. So that's incredible. And then America would go to war with Iran, conflict with Iran in Trump's second term. Again, astounding that you could even perceive that as a possibility.

And now his third one, admittedly, this is less of a common prediction, which is that America will lose the war with Iran. So that has not come to the past yet, but there you go. Yeah. And as we'll see, the way he frames it, it seems like America is both losing and winning that war. But we'll get to that. Yeah, so Chris, I think many of these predictions could be like 50-50 type things.

And I wonder if these are the only predictions he's ever made. or whether he might have made other ones, and whether or not, they might be selectively picking the ones that he got right. Yes, well, he makes a series of predictions in this episode alone, which will be possible. Well, theoretically, they're possible to falsify if you take them at face value, but as with psychics, a lot of it comes in how you classify things as hits or not, and we'll see that he gives himself wiggle room to move around them,

But the first kind of thing that they start off talking about is the war with Iran, right, the conflict there. And how did Zhang have the incredible insight that he had about that? How did you know that Trump would start a war with Iran? The simple answer is this. The United States have invaded Iran because it has no choice in the matter. If it were not to invade Iran, it would lose its empire. Its empire is based purely on the U.S. dollar, the petrol dollar, which is a policy scheme. If it did not invade Iran, then people would choose not to trade with it anymore.

People would choose to not buy U.S. treasuries. Why? For the longest time, this system worked fine. But then in February 22, Russia invaded Ukraine. That was not the issue. The issue was the American response. Yeah, so this is, I guess, theory number one.

Iran and the petrodola compulsion. So, according to Zhang, I don't know if you've got more clips where he spells out his theory a bit more, or shall I spell it out for people, Chris. Okay, well, I've got one more that I think speaks directly to this. So let's let him flash this side. then you can fill in any remaining gaps. The American response was to sanction Russia

and remove Russia from the swift global payment system. It also ordered the Europeans to freeze over $200 billion in Russian assets. And there's a problem. This is the very basis for having the U.S. dollar as the global reserve currency is that it would remain politically, neutral. The Americans guaranteed seamless, politically neutral international exchange. So if this trend continues, right?

If you don't do anything about Russia, Russia would take over Ukraine. And Russia then would build an alliance with China and Iran. If you look at these three countries on a map, Russia, China and Iran, this is the entire Asian continent. And then what they can do is this. They can say, okay, the United States is a bully. They force us to play by their rules. They get very angry if we don't play by the rules. So let's not play with the United States anymore. Let's just trade amongst ourselves. And then what they can do is they can build a Eurasian railway system connecting Russia, Iran, and China. together. And then what this would do is negate American sea power because it's American ships

that patrol and protect the oceans. And then what happened is the world, Europe, Middle East, Africa, India, East Asia would look at the trading block and think to themselves, wow, these guys, the Russians, Iranians, and Chinese, they use gold. as their medium of exchange. Gold is valuable. The Americans, on the other hand, use US dollars as the medium of exchange, which is not valuable. So am I better off with the American system, with this new brick system? Yeah.

So a lot of moving parts in there. I think you'd agree, Chris. So just to recap that a little bit, because people might have gotten lost. because remember where this started was this is why the United States had to go to war with Iran and that's because

the US Empire is based on the Petrodollah. The Petrodollah is a Ponzi scheme and a failure to attack Iran would cause the world to stop buying treasury bonds

and also of course Russia and China are involved as well. They're going to develop an entirely new system of trade that will be based on gold and presumably railways that will connect them. And the US doesn't want that because it would threaten their sea-based control of world trade. So, Chris, there's a lot of things wrong with that. We probably don't have time for me to do. They mention the wall, but we could mention a couple of them. Yeah, obviously we can't go through.

We're not going to go through for every single thing where he does this, all the claims, because it's that thing where there's, it's easier to spite a whole bunch of conspiracies, and it will take time to explain why they are incorrect or hyperbolic or so on. But for this first example, maybe it's good to just illustrate the general approach. And I would say, from my perspective, the general approach is take, kernels of correct facts, which are true, accurately, you know, described and so on, and then use those as leaping off points into these bigger conspiratorial or very speculative

theories and frameworks about what's going to happen. That and that's the main interest. So it's like kind of the credibility is gained from doing the references to actual organizations or events. or facts about the world. But all of the attention and interest is in the speculative conspiratorial stuff which comes after it and which is wrong. So maybe it's good on this first case to go through and highlight examples

of what he's doing. Yeah, so that's right. So we're not going to debunk all the things he says because honestly, this episode is a couple of hours of just a scattergun unsupported claims. But you'll see the general pattern. And this first example is a good, is a good one, which is that the rationale for his lurid claim basically involves a whole bunch

of dominoes, you know, X causes Y, Y causes Z and so on, where there's like a single cause and that's the only reason that happens and that is going to cause this thing to inevitably happen. And there's so many dominoes. So with this particular example, let's just think about the claims. So he starts off basically saying that the US Empire is fundamentally the dollar, Petrodollah system. Right? Now, actually, I'm not going to debug them. I'm just going to take you through them.

The petrodollah is effectively a Ponzi scheme, whatever that means. Russia's sanctions and the frozen assets break the dollar's political neutrality. Other countries are then going to stop trading with the United States and buying treasuries. Russia, China

and Iran can and will form a coherent Eurasian alternative. It can bypass U.S.C. power through rail and land routes. It'll substitute gold or bricks trade for the dollar system. And Iran is the decisive node in this alternative system. So if America does not invade Iran, the dollar-based American empire collapses. So America had to invade Iran. So the way I spelled that out there, you can see there's like 10 dominoes involved there. And a whole bunch of claims, most of the

of which there's a couple of grains of truth in there. The vast majority of them are highly dubious. The fact that the American dollar rests on petrodollars is, is just not true? For instance, that was never really true. Petra dollar was kind of an artifact to begin with. The Bricks countries aren't interested in having a international trade system based on gold. And there is just no real connection for the rest of those things. Yes, there are kernels of truth, like for instance, actually sanctions on Russia and freezing assets. Any time you do that kind of stuff, yes, it does make the dollar-based international trade system like less neutral, and it can make countries like China, for instance,

or countries are not particularly friendly to the United States, less enthusiastic about the dollar-based international trade system. But the rest of it is, yeah, like it's just, purely speculative. And like there is no way in which America was forced to invade Iran or even go to war with Iran based on protecting the dollar and international trade. And in fact, the opposite is true, of course, right? Like the America's wars are one of the things that cause it to have massive deficits, which actually threatens the stability of the dollar. So he's kind of got it completely backwards, right? It's the fiscal blowouts of these open-ended wars,

not the failure to start them. That is a threat to the dollar. So, yeah. Yeah, I mean, you can just consider counterfactuals where, like, for example, Kamala Harris won, would America have invaded around, would they have took Maduro? Because he does mention with Doro in another part that's like part of it. So in that case, if Zhang is right and it hinges on specific administrations and the choices that they make, and in particular, it's the Trump administration, right, which is noted to behave erratically and not completely unpredictably in terms of like the villains of the Trump ecosystem are sort of already well established and the countries that he might attack or is like.

to support and so on are clear in advance. But in Zhang's framework there, it's much bigger than the Trump administration, right? This is just the Trump administration is just a node in all of these bigger, long-term frames. Now, in his model, that possibly doesn't matter because he frames it in this kind of psycho-history way where it all has to happen like this, right? Because he's predicted it all out. So, like, Kamala Harris couldn't have won because of, you know, all of the things that he saw. So the fact that it was actually, you know, a relatively close election, as many of the recent American ones have, you know, that's neither here nor there.

And it wouldn't be surprising if Zhang endorsed various things about, like, election conspiracies. Elsewhere, he talks about it and he doesn't directly endorse them outright. But his worldview is very conspiratorial. So it's kind of like he'll endorse a conspiracy if it fits with his brother, free market. And if it doesn't, you know, he can just discard it. Yeah, yeah. But yeah, listen, we're not going to debunk all the rest of these things.

But just for the first one, we have to give ourselves permission. There are just so many inaccuracies and untruths in that. So the claim that if America didn't invade Iran, it would cause the world to stop buying. treasury bombs, right? It's nonsense. Yes, the reserve banks across the world, the share of American dollars in them has been declining over the last 20 years. This is a bigger structural thing, but the dollar still is pretty safe as the reserve currency status across the world, because there aren't any credible alternatives, least of all gold. And it's not based on

petra dollars. Like the dollar's status as the reserve currency doesn't rest on oil revenues. It rests on market depth and liquidity and other things, right, legal and institutional infrastructure. It's all very boring and technical, but there are reasons why, for instance, German Buns are not a credible alternative to the US dollar as a reserve currency. So the point there is that he confidently lays out those dominoes, these very confident claims, and all of the subsequent links in the chain of his causal argument, in scare quotes, rests on every one of those things being absolutely true and being the single cause of the domino in front of it.

And we'll see this pattern happen many times. We're not going to devonk all of them, but I thought it might be worthwhile, lightly debunking that one. Well, the street of Hormuz has been discussed in regards to conflict in Iran and the consequences of the MAGA interventions in Iran. So Professor Zhang has some thoughts on that topic. The Iranians can control something called the Shredoomuz. And as you can see on this map,

they ship Shadoumuz. It's a very, very narrow piece of land. It's only about 33 kilometers across. You can actually swim across the Strait of Hamos. And what is important is that GCC export 20% of the world's energy. The Gulf Cooperative Council. So the Gulf Corporate Council are certain nations in the Middle East that align politically. So they include Qatar, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Oman, Iran, Kuwait.

if they've been exporting energy, but not just energy, but also a lot of byproducts of energy production, including fertilizer, to the world, primarily East Asia and India. When we turn, they've been getting food back. So most people don't appreciate this, but the GCC actually imports 89% of its food needs. And the reason why is that they become so rich these past few decades that the populations have blown up. And as a result, they have to feed the population, but they don't have agricultural resources. They also don't have water resources. And so they have two major vulnerabilities, which is food and water. And they have a lot of desalination plants around the area.

and so... It's a desalination plant. Okay. So a desalination plant takes salt water from the seas and then through an electrical chemical process

turns it into portable water that people can use for drinking purposes and for agricultural purposes. Okay. What is a desalination plant, Chris? Really? What is the GPC, Matt?

What is photography? Well, anyway, What's he talking about here? He's obviously pointing out something that we all know about. The Strait of him loses a real chug point. Iran certainly got disruptive leverage and has exerted it, certainly. So in Jang's version, therefore, Iran can make the global economy submit, and therefore America will have no choice but to invade Iran.

And in general, as he outlines, these kind of things. He constantly has the opportunity to adopt a pressorial. Okay, let me explain, right? These countries are here, right? This is a region like this. This is what desalination means, right? This is that. And, you know, he is saying things which are not entirely incorrect, as you mentioned, like he gets most of the countries, right, in the GCC. And he is also correct about them importing most of their food, right? Yep. And he's, and, And it's true that, you know, oil products are important for creating fertilizers and stuff. It's liberally sprinkled with genuine facts.

He knows a lot of things. He knows what a desalination plant is. And he knows a lot of money. Stephen Bartlett does not. That's quite clear. But, you know, so while this connects Matt to these are all things you might expect, like, geopolitical experts to know in general. But Professor Zhang wants to point out that actually. There's other sources of information where you could learn more and understand the strategy better.

You think they'd consider this before they started bombing Iran, that Iran would have some leverage in shutting down such a critical piece of water for, you know, shipping fertilizer, energy, etc. You'd think that they would have known this? Right. So that's a lot of people say that Trump's stupid, that Trump is hot-headed, that it was misled by the Israelis. And there's good evidence to support this. But I want to show you something. It's called the National Defense Strategy. And so this is a document that was published by the Department of War. And in it, it explains what the American strategy to maintain global dominance is.

And in the introduction, what it says is that for too long, America has been bullied by the world. America is a nation that protects the world. Yet Europe, East Asia, takes advantage of American generosity. The Europeans don't pay for their defense, and so they put all this money into welfare, into their pension system. the Chinese have been giving America a bad trade deal. The Chinese steal American technology and then use it to make products that they sell back to the Americans. So the Americans have been getting a really bad deal for decades. And President Donald Trump, he's going to change that by doing four things.

The National Defense strategy calls for a four-horn. program to put America first. The first thing that America's going to do is going to secure the Western Hemisphere. Why? Because it's the Western Hemisphere belongs to the United States. When you say the Western Hemisphere, what do you mean? What region is that? There you go.

There's the context for that question. Okay. So the National Defense Strategy, a document that is available for any. anyone to read. And actually, you might not like it. Okay, you might not agree with those points, but it's outlining a coherent strategic worldview, which he is saying is encapsulated in this document. And people haven't appreciated it. And if you do, you understand, in part, why the MAG administration is pursuing this war. So what do you say to that? Yeah, well, Well, Jang says that the NDS explains what the American strategy is to maintain global dominance

and says it's a clear roadmap for maintaining imperial hegemony. Right? Now, what the NDS actually is about with those four things that he mentioned, one is defend the U.S. homeland, right? It's not quite owning the Western Hemisphere, as he said. I mean, they certainly does have a more regional, because I suppose, but what is it, deter China in the Indo-Pacific, increased burden sharing with allies and partners, and supercharged the US defense industrial base. Is that right? Are my notes correct?

But the way Jiang frames it is that, you know, it's involving things like imperial tribute, deliberately creating global chaos, treating our, like pawns, tolls on the Straits of Malacca, a whole bunch of other things. So he's taking a real document. I'm making no judgment about the document. It's very much like something you'd expect from the Trump administration, but he's taking it a lot further than what is actually written in it. So could you argue on his behalf, Matt, that he is simply analyzing what the document says and like kind of reading between the lines, ticking into account the output from the the various administration, Twitter accounts and stuff. And therefore, you can say, okay, so it talks about getting allies to pay more.

And Zhang might be putting a spin on that, which is, you know, sacrificing allies in order to prolong conflicts or whatever. But it's not beyond the Trump administration to threaten allies or use them like pawns, right? So can you extend credit to him in that regard that he's, like, sure, he's not representing it exactly accurately, but he's, you know, he's giving a spin on it. Yeah, but it's quite a spin, isn't it? Like, it's a big spin. You know, any defense document like that is going to have words around, you know, maintaining US interests or deterrence and, you know, they've been talking about increasing burden sharing with allies and stuff and getting other allies to sort of do more, pay more, that kind of stuff

for decades. But turning that into like a plan to control the world, extorting tributes and things like that. You know, I mean, some of that may well happen because, you know, who knows what Trump's going to do. But the fact still remains is that Zhang is representing a whole bunch of things

that are not in that document. Like, like, he frames it as you'll either pay a tribute to the United States or you'll be attacked. The entire Western Hemisphere that is everything belongs to the United States. Now, you know, Trump might certainly have those ambitions.

Yeah, I'm just saying it's not written in the NDS, which he's pointing to as like his source for all of these claims. Oh, well, to make clear that is what he's saying, listen to this. So we're the situation where, okay, look, if read the news, if you talk to a lot of people, Trump's an idiot. And this war in Iran makes no sense at all. But then if you just read the national defense strategy, that is on the Department of War website.

And I don't can go there and download it for free and read themselves. It's a very clear roadmap of what America needs to do in order to maintain imperial hegemony. And so let's just summarize the major points. The first major point is to maintain control over the Western Hemisphere and create a fortress America. Which is why he invaded Venezuela and he says he's going to invade Cuba. Exactly. And also Greenland. Look at all the countries that he's named over the past year. Greenland, Canada, Mexico, Venezuela, Cuba, Colombia, Nicaragua, Honduras. It's all the Western Hemisphere. And they're all together. Second point is to create divided in war all around the world. So imagine a situation where in Europe, NATO fights Russia in Ukraine. In East Asia, China,

fights South Korea and Japan. In the Middle East, Iran fights the GCC allied with Israel. What does America do? America can now sell everyone weapons and resources and finance it. This will be back to World War II. But it makes them weaker as well, generally. That's the point. Yeah.

So, I just read to you before those four lines of effort that are outlined in the NDS. Number two was deter China in the Indo-Fif Pacific through strength, not confrontation. Jiang's one was divide and rule. Use your allies as pawns and get and incite wars between China, South Korea and Japan, which of course America will be involved in, like if that were to happen, except to playing weapons to both sides. Yeah, and it says part of the grand strategies, to create chaos throughout the entire world so the US can sell everyone weapons and resources.

That's not in the NTS. It's not in the NDAs, I'm just saying. Well, and he's mentioning NATO fighting Russia in Ukraine, but he leaves out there like Ukraine, like Ukraine fighting Russia. That's the being force that's active there. And actually... Primarily Ukrainians, you might even say. Yeah, yeah.

So as you say, he does launch off from a document which exists. It's kind of like the same thing as the Great Reset, right? There was a kind of program that was talking about the opportunity in the wake of the COVID pandemic for establishing new transnational systems and different patterns of capitalism and all this kind of thing. But that doesn't mean the whole, you're going to be forced to eat bugs by the UN. It's like, it's correct, right? Just because they have some documents about diversifying food sources or whatever, it's like everyone's going to be in cubicles, forced fed bugs,

and you can look up, see this at provision online. So, yeah, I do think Zhang is doing an element of that here. Yeah, yeah. It's just incredible. Like, he's misrepresenting it completely. You know, he started that off by saying, look, you know, the NDS documents there on to the government website. You can go and read it and confirm for yourself.

Now, clearly, he's probably safe in a, assuming that no one in this audience is actually going to go to the trouble of checking any of these things. But, you know, so it does say, you know, stuff around burden sharing with allies and partners, which is completely normal for an American strategy document that's saying this for decades. And he turns that from burden sharing, taking more responsibility for mutual defense into deliberately generating wars. So chaos throughout the world inside a whole bunch of regional wars. so the US can sit back and sell everyone weapons and resources. So, yeah, so it is incredibly deceptive.

Well, to connect us into the Iran stuff specifically, Matt, so, you know, he's asked about how the Iran war is going for America, and he's pretty clear about what he says here. Right. So you can say, look, Trump's an idiot, but if you actually look at a map and how America wants this map, this world map to play out, it makes perfect sense. So the war is going well for Trump?

The war's going very well for Trump. Really? Yes. But you said in your prediction that he would lose the war. What's your definition of lose the war? Lose the war means that America would send ground troops. Iran would survive this ground invasion. And this would be so politically damaging.

that chaos breaks out in the United States and the U.S. ground invasion is forced to retreat and the United States is forced to retreat from the Middle East. And you still think that's going to happen? I still think that's going to happen. So you think the United States are going to put ground troops in, Iran are going to resist, and then chaos is going to break out in the United States? Yes.

So let me explain to you why ground trips has to be sent. Can't wait. Can't wait to find out. So it's a bit confusing because, The war's going very well for Trump, but he's still predicting that America is inevitably going to lose. Yes. He says that the US has no choice but to invade Iran or it will lose its empire. But on the other hand, he says that America lacks the political will, it lacks the manufacturing capacity and the risk tolerance to actually fight Iran.

So there's a lot of mixed messages here. Not short term and long term, short term and long term. Well, I mean, in this case, he does predict that this is going to happen within five to ten years, right? So he's given himself at least a window. He's given himself a lot of ways to be right, I suppose. I guess is the way to frame it, right? Because if the US strikes Iran successfully, then that proves he's right and saying that like it's not, you know, Trump isn't just being impulsive and stuff like that.

It is part of this grand strategy. If Iran resists successfully, then that proves that America and dares to make Iran and his other points are correct. If the war drags on for a long time, then that'll be consistent with his claim about it being a forever war. But if they sort of seek a deal, then I guess he could frame it as a way for America to manage the imperial decline and ultimate failure that he's also predicting. So, yeah.

Well, yes, and the news at the time of recording, Matt, that there's a, about to be agreement, right, between the US and Iran to end the war. I believe they've already made some joint statements about that. I presume that's okay because you can anticipate that things will happen again. This is not the end of the conflict between the US and Iran. So people might be looking at that, say, well, it doesn't seem like they're going to be sending ground troops anytime soon, but Zhang can easily say, well, yeah, but like, you know, these kind of things happen. And Trump administration is not that predictable, right?

I'd like to get into this prediction game. My prediction in the Israel-Middle-Ease conflict is that there will be some moves towards peace, some overtures and agreements made, but also I foresee long-term conflict and a lack of resolution. Do you see different countries advancing different interests? I do. Sometimes coming to the negotiation table, sometimes working. I see things unfolding over different time frames, Chris. That's right. That's right. Well, just one more example of this, about like the role of Stephen Bartlett here. So like in all of this, you've heard Zhang, you know, in this professorial role. And this is just another example where he gets to show that he understands the structures in Iran in some detail.

Exactly. Iran has a very unusual political system in a. that it's a theocracy. It's a religious government. It's run by clerics called the Mulas, in theory. And then there's a parallel system, a state apparatus, that actually takes care of day-to-day bureaucracy, and that's secular. The Molas control the morality of the country.

They also control foreign affairs. So basically, this is important because Iran has two parallel military structures. You have the military, but you also have the IRGC. The IRGC are only loyal to the Molas. Which is the religious part. Exactly. So you have this divide in the country where the IRGC see this as a religious war, as a crusade to kill the great Satan. And the great Satan is...

The great Satan is the American Empire. Okay. Bartlett there, you know, providing the engaged student, and you can hear Zhang writing down, right? The IRGC, right, Mullahs are this. And like as a professor or associate professor, let's be technical and clear in this. I'm very familiar with this kind of elicitation

and tone of voice, right, where you are providing the information and Bartlett is the eager student here. That's the religious part, right? That's right. You got it. Okay. And on the next thing.

So he knows the IRGC map. That is the kind of knowledge that you don't see outside of, you know, informed geopolitical analysis. You know, he's going to ask the questions to get the experts to explain it to people. And one of the things he does ask for, you actually already heard it, is for definitions of words that Zhang references, words or concepts. And this happens a lot throughout this episode. And as you can see, people appreciate him doing that.

But I just want to give examples of him asking for definitions. And how Professor Zhang responds to those requests. So here's one map. All right. So this is a map of the, Middle East. And the first thing to notice about this map is the topography. What does that mean? How many mountains you have. So this is what's really interesting is that the topography between Iraq and Iran are completely different. And this is important because in 2003, the Americans invaded

you're out and they won the war in about two weeks. And the reason why they won the war is Americans practice something called Stock and All. Yeah, it's about the topography, Chris. Did you get that? Yes, so it's the it's a topography. What is topography, Matt? Inquiring minds want to know. This is how many mountains and environmental features. The place has a lot of answers. Yes. Yeah. And this is important. So good topography, maybe something that you haven't come across before. What about this?

Iran can choose to fight a war of attrition. What's a war of attrition? A war of attrition is a game of uncle. What's that? Right. A game of uncle is where we don't have enough power to destroy each other. So what we're trying to do is we try to create pain points, leverage points, to force you to submit to cry uncle, right?

So that was a double one, two for one. Yeah, two for one. What's a war of attrition? Well, there you go. A lot of people were wondering, I guess, what is a war of attrition? It's when you force someone to cry uncle. Cry uncle.

What is that? Well, you know, so those might be terms that people haven't come across before. Matt, this one took me surprise. by surprise. It left me flat-footed when I heard this definition requested. But here we go again. It's going to secure the Western Hemisphere. Why? Because the Western Hemisphere belongs to the United States. When you say the Western Hemisphere, what do you mean? What region is that? Is that Canada as well? So if you look at the map, we can divide the map into the Eastern Hemisphere and the Western Hemisphere. Okay, so everything over here.

Everything, including Greenland, including Canada, including Mexico, every part of this area belongs to the United States. Therefore, you cannot trade with any of these countries without American permission, by paying a tribute to the Americans. So, I was surprised that somebody would ask for clarification about... What is the Western Hemisphere? Yeah, I was surprised. too like an adult. It wasn't a word definitional problem that he had Steve Bartlett,

but at one point Zhang says he's referring to the American Navy parking itself in the Straits of Malacca or something like that to prevent Chinese trade. And Stephen's question was, but what would that do? How would that interview with them if they just were parked there? And it was clear that what confused him is that he was thinking that they were just literally parking the aircraft carriers, as in as in as in strategically deployed.

And yeah, I just was surprised that that confused him. So if you look at a map of China, most of its trade goes through something called the Shirt of Malacca. And the Shroom of Malacca is the most important maritime choke point in the world.

All America has to do is park naval carriers inside the show Malacca and China will lose 90% of its energy exports. But if they parks them there, China would still go through, no? No, because you have to go for the street to Meraka. So America has something called the first island chain. Okay? The first island chain prevents China from reaching the Pacific Ocean.

The first island chain includes South Korea, Japan, Taiwan, the Philippines, and Malaysia. That blocks China from reaching out into the Pacific. Yeah, and it's not about not knowing all the technical terms, right? Like, a good interviewer will attempt to get experts to dumb down and explain advanced terms that they're using or technical jargon or whatever. But Western Hemisphere, I just, and it seems that genuinely Bartlett doesn't know. Like, he just doesn't know. He's had so many conversations with various people talking about geopolitics and various other things, but nothing seems to have stuck.

But there's also an adult, right? And I don't, I just think most, I don't want to be the Smami, smart-ass-type person, but I think most people know what topography means, right? I think that's not a technical term. Like, I'm pretty sure if asked my son what topography meant, he'd give me a good definition. Yeah, yeah. Am I wrong? You know.

Anyway. I agree. But, you know, as you see in the comments, some people admire him for this feature. And to me, it does speak to, like, the general ignorance that he has. Because, like, just, you know, you can take it as an interview technique. There are times where it appears, hopefully, he actually does know, because he's hard people to find these concepts multiple times. Either he has retention problems or he is doing it as a tool to help the audience.

But the thing for Zhang is that this serves to set him up more as the expert, right? Because he very much is willing to run with, okay, yes, of course, let me define that. All right. Well, that is connected to this concept, which is, you know, like this. So he's always in the professor mode. The role of mentor, the professor role. Yeah. And they have like a symbiotic relationship in this regard, like, you know, open-minded,

interviewer listening deeply to what's being explained and the kind professor with a wealth of knowledge who's just here to help people learn. Yeah, yeah, that is the pantomime that is being played and I guess, yeah, I guess there's a large market for it. I mean, it just goes to my thesis, I guess, which is that this material can't be appealing or satisfying to anyone who knows anything about how the world works. So I hate to be, yeah, a bit of a dick about this, but it does seem to be targeted at ignorant people. And like that's the target audience where Professor Yang can play this role of the wise professor walking you through it, explaining how it all works, and you're receiving this special insight that's pitched to the level that you can understand. Yeah, see,

this is the issue and this is what people hear about. And it's, The unfortunate thing is just like it's true, right? So if you tell people that Professor Zhang and Stephen Bartlett are like pandering to people who are ignorant on topics and they're giving the impression that they're providing like deep insights and so on from their performance, it inevitably insults the audience. It's upsetting. Yeah, because you're saying you're too ignorant to notice that you're being fed a bunch of shit. And unsurprisingly, people don't like hearing that.

But the reality is, it's true, right? It's true. So these guys signed like, you know, Professor Zhang in particular, sounds extremely confident about what he's saying. But he speaks absolute bullshit in the same tone of voice as he does facts, right? And he does provide facts in this. He talks about things which are correct, like the structure of the Iranian Guard and this kind of thing. Iran does have a lot of mountains. That is true.

Yeah, but it's all at that level. So actually, people who knew nothing about geopolitics might come away knowing things that they didn't before, right? They might learn what Brick says or they might learn about, you know, treat embargoes and so on that they didn't know. So it's false to say you can't extract any information from this, but it's contaminated knowledge because it's mixed in with this. moratorium and you'd actually be better off not listening if Zhang is your only source because you're going to end up with a very skewed worldview. Before we get off this, Matt, I'm just going to play it a couple more times because it happened so many times throughout the interview. And I just want to highlight this is like part of the DNA of this show and what it does.

Trump understands that the competition does not work. Then using game theory, what's game theory? Game theory is the belief that all the world, it's governed by rules and incentives. And what you understand, the rules and incentives, you can predict how people behave. These people will always behave according to their best interests. Another master of game theory. Yeah. The definition of game theory is broadening all the time, isn't it? Yeah.

Yeah. I mean, there are many cases. of that. For instance, he makes some mistakes with respect to bricks in terms of the details. He seems to think that Iran is a member of the Gulf Cooperation Council. Oh, is he comfortably stated? Did he? He included Iran in that list. You know, he may have misspoke. He may have misspoken. But he does that sort of thing a fair bit. Most important is that you should see export 20% of

the world's energy. The Gulf Cooperative Council. So the Gulf Corporate Council are certain nations in the Middle East that align politically. So they include Qatar, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Oman, Iran, Kuwait. Like he says that China gets like 50 or 60 percent of its energy needs from the Middle East, and that's absolutely not true. It's something like 10 percent. Like most of energy in China is coal comes from places like Australia.

China receives anywhere between 50 to 6% of its energy needs from the Middle East, not just Iran, but also Qatar and Saudi Arabia. A lot of people say that China today, it's reliant on renewables, solar, wind, and that's true to a certain extent. But remember that China, it is an industrial powerhouse. So it needs energy from everywhere and everyone. So the fact that China is losing all this energy from the Middle East presents China with a long-term strategic vulnerability.

So, yeah, like he certainly knows a lot more than Stephen Bartler. But as well as the absolutely spurious theorizing and speculative claims it is making, he's not perfectly reliable on the basic facts either. Oh, no, no, yeah, I didn't mean disarranted. he was. But, you know, part of this definitional game as well, and it ties into what we were talking about,

like degrees of freedom when it comes to predictions, right? Is that Bartlett, one of the things he does, which I think gives the mystician impression that he's following up and drilling down on things, is that one, you'll ask for definitions, you know, what is Western Hemisphere, what is topography,

what is a war of attrition, so on. But the other thing is, he does sometimes follow up to say, well, but what does that mean? But didn't you say a second go, something like that? But that's it. That's the level of pushback that you'll get or like follow up. The war is going well for Trump. The war's going very well for Trump.

Really? Yes. But you said in your prediction that he would lose the war. What's your definition of lose the war? losing the war means that America would send ground troops, Iran would survive this ground invasion. So one thing here, Matt, is this I do think connects to the definition thing about, well, what do you mean by losing the war? How would you define it? That is a reasonable question to push. And the interesting thing for me with Zhang is he makes very clear predictions here.

Like, this is a quite dramatic, direct claim that there will be a ground invasion of Iran by American forces that will be repelled, and this will instigate a civil war in America because he can exit later to say there will be the draft employed, and this will be opposed, and then this will lead to, like, the collapse of America into a civil war, right? Yeah. Yeah, except he also presents that as something that America wants. Right, that actually America doesn't want to win the war against Iran, and in fact it wants to have a forever war against Iran. Iran is another forever war and the United States will institute a national draft.

Iran is another forever war and the United States will institute a national draft. So you think Iran is going to, Iran as a war is going to tumble on for decades and that the U.S. are going to draft people, which means you're obliged to go and fight. Exactly. Okay. So the logic is this. America doesn't really care if Iran is a feater or not. That's not really part of the American grand strategy. Iran right now, it's a perfect pretext for America to expand outwards and establish maritime choke points around the world and to force the world to buy American energy. So this war in Iran benefits America tremendous America tremendous. honestly. So I don't have it go on for a long, long time. In order to make sure this war goes on for a long time, you need ground troops. And you need a lot of ground troops. And that's why you need a national draft. So what would a national draft look like in the United States? Everyone between the age of 18 and 25 has to sign up to the army. Right. So most people don't appreciate this, but America has always had a draft. But for the longest time, it didn't really care whether or not

you actually sign up for the draft. And starting in December, participation in the draft will be automatic, meaning that if you are between 18 to 24 in America and your mail, you'll be automatically put into the draft system. From when? I mean, from December.

This year? Yes, that is correct, yes. I mean, this is another chain of dominoes I went to the trouble of mapping out. So he claims that there's going to be a draft that, you know, young men in America are all going to be drafted into the army, and this is why.

So let's go through the dominoes. Right. So firstly, America doesn't actually care whether or not Iran's defeated. Why? Because going to war with Iran actually gives America a pretext to expand outward and do bunch of things around the world. And that lets America establish these maritime choke points around the world. And this is going to allow America to force all the other countries in the world to buy American

energy. So basically it's all a plot to actually starve the rest of the world of energy. And Iran is like a pawn and they don't actually want to win. They want to keep fighting this war. So they want this war to go on forever because that justifies them being able to set up this maritime control over the world's energy supply. But it's still going to require a lot of ground troops and therefore America's on the international draft and therefore you're going to have to, yeah, all the young men in America are going to be drafted. So that theory, which is obviously stupid, seems to be contradictory to his claim, or rather it obfuscates his kind, because you see America kind of wins the war with the run by losing it, or it doesn't care if it wins it

at least. You see what I mean? Yeah, and I do remember now that this is also tied into how Trump gets a third term in his thing, right? I predict that there will be a use of a war in Trump will get a third term. Because this is true. Yeah, we'll get through his other predictions, you know, the new ones that he's met. But I've got a clip, Matt, that shows these things connecting in. Trump getting a third term is not illegal.

So let me explain the loophole. What Trump could do is this. Okay, there are two possibilities. The first possibility is in 2008, he has his son. Don Jr. run as a president, and he runs as the vice president. And then when Don Jr. wins, if he wins, then Don Jr. could advocate, and Trump would be the president. And in the Constitution, if you read the Constitution very carefully, it doesn't actually prohibit people from doing that. It's not been done in the past. And like, no same person with any morality would do this.

But that doesn't stop Trump from doing this, okay? That's one possibility. Another possibility is that by 2008, America is at war with everyone. There's a national draft. The president now has emergency war powers. And so he can actually suspend the Constitution and delay the election,

which is what Zelensky did in Ukraine. So these are two different possibilities. So in his remark, right, this chaos caused by the national draft is going to allow Trump to instigate war powers, which will allow him to change the way, like, allow him to run for a terminal. Another possibility that he floats is that Trump can run as the vice president of his son, who then immediately abdicates, right, and allows him to assume leadership. So he's got different models that apply.

But my point here is, These are very near-term, clear predictions about what will occur in the Atlantic, right? The predictions that there'll be a boots on the ground in vision of Iran, that there will be a national draft, that there will be a third term. So it would seem like Zhang has set himself up for like a falsification in the immediate future. So does that mean he has confidence in his predictions? Matt, how do you read that? know, he is very concretely saying, here is four things that will happen in the next, like, two years.

Yeah, well, I don't know how he's handled all of his claims in the past. I mean, I assume he makes a bunch of claims. I mean, he made just so many just in this one interview. And I kind of assume he's going to rely on people not remembering them all. And he is going to do what these people usually do and psychics like to do, which is you just make a scattergun. bunch of claims and you do a victory lap when two or three of them turn out to be true. But are you allowed to do that when you've brought on a metal box and taken the predictions out of envelopes and number of them? Like I feel like this is unusually he's put his chips on the table quite clearly here. Now, I know you're right that it's not like when this all doesn't turn out to be correct that he's going to be like, well, you know, I guess my

prediction model doesn't work and I really should reassess how confidently I see it things. Like that's not a possibility. But I am like, but people will notice, right? Like it two years time, it will be clear. We'll like Chris. I think you're, I mean, you'll notice, but I just don't think, I don't, I think people forget the content of these episodes within a couple of hours of having watched them. Like they remember the vibe, which is basically general paranoia.

This is why I don't feel bad about calling these people idiots because they're scoundrels, right? It's very unhealthy to not only make a whole bunch of speculative claims based on half-truths and non-truths. But also the whole point is to tap into people's emotions, tap into the conspiratorial, paranoid kind of thing. You know, talking about the world's surveillance state is coming and they're going to draft you and there's going to be world. World War III and like it's all stuff designed to you know make you afraid and instill basically unhealthy things in people and it's all done for clicks and eyeballs and ultimately money so yeah like but I don't think people are going to remember or care about the details I don't think many people like especially in the audience here I don't think

anyone is coming back to fact check now two years ago you claimed this and that hasn't stood up. So now I'm going to stop watching Diary of the CEO because he's got on unreliable guests. That's just not how it works. Yeah, you're right. That is definitely not going to happen. And part of the thing is, like, you know,

if you predict things like global conflict or ongoing tensions between China and the US, for example, right, these are not predictions that are likely to be, disproven because they're very obvious, right? It's the same thing as like even predicting that Trump has a third term. Now, it's unlikely, Matt. It's unlikely. But it's not like Trump is beyond attempting to find some way to run for a third term. He's already directly said that he has, you know, interest, you know, me and hats and stuff that suggests that. So it's not like it's a completely

impossible thing that Trump, somebody that clearly loves power and doesn't really care about the rules, may try to find a way to bend the rules so that he can stay in power. That's not a lot outlandish

prediction, but in Zhang's case, that's definitely going to occur and here's the mechanism where it's most likely to occur and so on. So he gets credit for the obvious thing, which is Trump likes power. He'll try to stay in power. or get his chosen successor in power.

He'll get credit for that, even though that's the most obvious thing in the world. Yeah, that's right. Like, he puts a bunch of possibilities, speculations. Like maybe Don Jr. will run for president with Trump as vice president, then Don Jr. will advocate, or alternatively Trump could cheat, or alternatively the Supreme Court could permit a third.

Yeah, so he just throws a bunch of options out there. They may well all turn out to be, totally untrue. But what's almost certain going to happen is Trump is going to do something, at least say something. There'll be talk at least around him doing a third term. And if it doesn't have to be true, I think he'll be fine. I don't think anyone who's a fan would have a problem with that. He'll have a very complicated explanation why he was still directionally correct. So, yeah. A little bit more on the strategies. Oh, also in this step, you'll hear him preempt the request for definition.

I like that as a group, so he kind of realized which words it's likely to come up to. He knows which words. If it's got three syllables or more, it's going to trip Stephen up. Yeah, so just listen, see if you can see which word he gets. When the ceasefire was called and there was still some missiles flying, he was basically saying that's just because it takes a long time to tell the 31 different armies to stop. The reality is that given the Moosex strategy, There's actually no way to coordinate these 31 different military operations.

Because the Mojerk strategy was meant to fight to the birth of air. You do not stop until you completely control the Middle East, and the Americans have been forced out of the Middle East, and Israel has been humbled. Okay. So let's go into the specifics of what the Mozart strategy is. The idea is that they have an eschatology. So an eschatology is an understanding of how the world should be

and how we move towards this world. And for the Iranians, their eschatology is that Iran, in order to reach its true potential, needs to be master of the Muslim world. It needs to displace Saudi Arabia. because Saudi Arabia, it's too aligned with the United States, which is the Great Satan. Mecca and Medina are under the influence of the Great Satan. Because why are their U.S. military bases in Saudi Arabia? So this war, from their perspective, it's a great opportunity to overthrow the corrupt leadership of Saudi Arabia.

But not only Saudi Arabia, but the entire GCC. Yeah, now he's kind of framing the GCC. is not including Iran, which is correct. Yeah, so like he's taking some real things, isn't he? But the pattern always is to present them in a very simplistic kind of way and then exaggerate it and make it much more lurid. Like Iran doesn't have 31 different armies, right, that are completely different military organizations

that have no way of coordinating or cooperating. Those are provinces. You know, and there is decentralized command and control. but it doesn't mean that it's absolutely impossible for Iran to negotiate, although there can't be any kind of coordinated ceasefires or political decisions or negotiations or anything like that. But he frames that as, oh, look, there's decentralization. So therefore their strategy, the entire time was to fight to the bitter end,

which none of that follows because it's just not true, right? It's not based on a factual representation of what's going on. No, though he does spend some time talking about it as a response to the very real possibility that America can tick out. A decapitation type attack. Yeah, and that part's very true, right? The Iranian foreign policy is, you know, they're not stupid. They observe.

As I illustrated, they have a whole bunch of leaders that can step into positions. But there's a well-known strategy when it comes to, you know, like terrorist organizations as well, that a lot of it is organized by sales in order to avoid the whole thing being destroyed if you remove the component of it. I'm sure even the United States and Russia have similar kinds of policies for the nuclear war type scenarios, right? So they can keep doing things. Well, yeah, and even the different branches of the military have, you know, related but somewhat distinct command structures.

and all that kind of thing. So it's not that remarkable, right? But Jiang's version is that because Iran has got clerics, because it's got the IRGC and a decentralized command, then peace is absolutely impossible, and world war has to follow. Oh, yes, yes. Well, so to tie up the whole Iran part,

here's how things end in Iran. This is where it's going. And the Americans have a free-quang strategy. to strangle Iran. The first is to use ground forces to establish a fort operating basis to incite ethnic violence in the country. The second is to block officers who moves

and cut off Iranian financing. The third is to strangle Iran and cause the people to rise up against the government. So if things stay as they are now, America wins easily. But if Russia were to enter the war on behalf of Iranians, the first thing that Russia would do is provide Tehran with reinforcement from the Qasthan Sea, right? Because the Americans want to knock out Tehran's capacity to provide food, water, electricity to its people. But for the Qaeda and C, the Russians can support the Iranians. But not only that, and this is much more important,

If the Russians were to come in, they could also bring the Chinese into the war on behalf of the Iranians. And the Chinese could use the Belt and Rolling Initiative, basically the railway system, to reinforce Tehran from the east. So now you can not have never strangled Tehran because the Russians are the Chinese are reinforcing Tehran. Then what the Russians could do is provide financing to the Iranians. Basically, the Iranian, sorry, the Chinese and the Chinese and the Iranians. the Russians can say to the aliens, don't worry about financing. We will give you enough financing for you to continue this work for as long as you want. And we'll use our resources as collateral for this financing.

Wow. It's pretty nice of them. So once again, just an exercise in pure speculation. Right. Like just to like even from the very beginning, Chris, like he gets into a whole bunch of even stupid of things. But before I forget, the beginning, what was these three? free-pronged strategy. One that America will incite ethnic violence by establishing forward operating bases.

Second, it will block off the street of Hormuz to cut off Iranian financing. And third, it will further strangle around and cause the people to rise up. They sound actually quite interlinked things. But, okay, very separate things. Yeah, setting up forward bases, inciting tension and uprising. and blocking the street of homoos. Yeah, so it's totally speculative wargaming presented as if he knows that this is the US strategy, right?

Well, they seem to be flip-lopping on their strategy given that they've just come up of an agreement to ally Iran. Not ally Iran, sorry, because Iran were the ones that closed off the street. Exactly. So that's one of the many contradictions here. So earlier he said that Iran has closed humus, and now he's saying that Iran is financing the war by charging ships $2 million tolls to cross it. So which is it?

Well, before you give more analysis, there's one more thing that's like going to happen here because you know Russia and China, they're coming in to keep the forever war going. They're going to finance it. This makes sense. But there's another thing that will occur. And the third thing, and this is actually the most important is that Russia could put Iran under its nuclear umbrella. And this would negate the use of tactical nuclear weapons.

The Israelis and the Americans, if they really fell under pressure, if they really put in a corner, they could always choose to use tactical nuclear weapons. The Russians were involved that negates that option. So if the Russians get involved in this war, they bring in the Chinese, they provide the resources and the financing to continue this war for as long as it takes. right? And now the Americans need to expand this war or in the world to try now to topple the government in Russia because the Russians are the main backers of the Iranians. And you're predicting that Russia will get involved here.

According to the grand strategy of Russia, the Russians have no choice but to get involved because what will happen is that if you look at this map, if Iran were to be conquered by the Americans or the Israelis, the entire sovereign flank of the Russians are now exposed to possible attack. And that's something that the Russians would never allow to happen. It all falls into alignment. It all makes sense. It all makes sense.

This is geopolitics as like a game of risk. So let's get this straight. But before I forget, before I forget, because we will forget, because there's so many nonsensical claims here, many of them contradict each other. So later on, he says that China will not meaningfully join the World War III that he predicts because it's going to be triangulating between Russia and America. So this is inconsistent with his theory at the moment,

which is that China is a core pillar of the Iran, Russia, China block. So I guess you just forgot about that. predictive history is not exactly precise sense. There are many possible lines. But yeah, this is an exercise in like Harry Seldon predictive, you know, stuff where you can feed in facts into your big brain and you can see the future. So he's seen the future. The future is this, right? Russia and China, they cannot allow Iran to fall. If Iran falls, then Russia's southern flank is exposed and the Eurasian corridor will break. So Russia has no choice but to save Iran, put Iran under its nuclear umbrella. America has no

choice but to go all in because it has to win against Iran. Otherwise, it will lose its global empire. And then China is also involved. It's in the mix because the Belt and Road initiative and Eurasian trade or something depends on Iran. And then we'll be. once Russia and China are supporting Iran, America has to globalize the war. So there you go. This is why we're definitely having World War III. I mean, that was admirably summarized, right? But don't worry. So this whole discussion was done on like a colorful topographical mark of the Middle East and Iran, right? Now, this next section, it's going to get, I mean, we've already got pretty big here, but we've got to go even bigger. And that requires a new

board, right? Now we're moving on to the world map. It was already there on the desk earlier, but it's going to have a new prop introduced to help, you know, visualize and understand what's at play here. So just imagine there's a black and white world map. And now something new is being added to this to like help us understand the complex geopolitical situations that Zhang is outlining. So they're not going to quit Iran. This, war once it starts can only lead to World War III. That's a strong statement to make. As a probability, what probability would you assign to that claim?

I would put it pretty high, and we're between 80 to 90 percent. So that's certainty? Basically certainly, yes. Explain to me how that happens. Okay. So we need to step back and appreciate that there's a global dynamic going on. And we need to appreciate the grand strategy of the different players involved. All right.

So what I'm going to do is this. I'm going to explain to you how each nation sees itself in the world. Okay. And to do that, I'm going to use a chess set. Okay. All right. This is the key. This is the political system of the United States, which is democracy.

And there are certain strengths and weaknesses to a democracy. Democracy is vibrant. It's creative. It's flexible. But its ultimate weakness is polarization. Where today, there are different political factions refused to get along, and this may bring up in the Civil War, okay? Okay, so you have a red king piece from a chess set now being weaved around.

So what are you following so far, Matt? I mean, World War III, 90% certain. also good to know. And to understand this, you have to understand the pieces on the board and their their buff points and what makes them strong all week. So America's a democracy, democracy's good because they're vibrant. That's America's king, okay? Its king is that it's a hit democracy.

Let's hear a little bit more about its relative chess pieces. So the way you defeat the United States is not to conquer it. You can never cover the United States. The way to defeat the United States is to force it into a civil war, which then kills the king. So get its people to rise up against the leadership? No, you want the Democrats and Republicans to form different factions and fight a civil war. You want to create so much political polarization, the different elite factions take up arms against each other. Okay.

So this is the political system, okay? But democracy. Now let's look at the queen. What's the queen? the queen is what I refer to as the grand strategy of the United States, how the United States can maintain its control over the entire world. And the grand strategy, it's already outlined in a national defense strategy, right? Let's create Fortress America and then create chaos for the entire world

so that we can sell everyone weapons and resources. That's a grand strategy, right? All right. Now, once you have a grand strategy, you need to be a grand strategy. you need to implement this grand strategy. So you need attack vectors. All right. The attack vectors are the rook, the bishop, and the knight.

All right. So let's go over the three major attack vectors of the United States. They are, first of all, America's technological supremacy. All right, it's getting a little bit high level here, Matt. So I'm just going to summarize it for you, that the queen is the grand strategy. Okay, the king was the democratic system. The queen is the grand strategy.

Again, lucky they've made that document because that outlines it very nicely. And then to implement the grand strategy, you need attack vectors, right? So the queen, as anybody who's played chess knows, the most powerful piece on the board,

right? But you have knights, right? You have bishops and so on. So what are they? Well, he mentions then that you have America's technological supremacy, that's one, air supremacy, planes and stuff, that's a dollar one. The US dollar, this is another one. That's actually the second attack factor, he says.

And the third attack factor is propaganda. That is the media. So we've lost a little bit the chess metaphor to some extent here because they're just getting thrown in as vectors. But you can imagine him setting little pieces on the board, right? And the pawns, by the way, Matt, they're the weapons that you can use to sacrifice to achieve the grand strategy. Oh, yes, that would be the rest of us, Japan, South Korea, Australia, Europe. Yeah, in the case of the United States, he does say the pawns are the allies, that's right. Yes, he does say that.

And the NDS, of course, does spell out in black and white that the grand plan is to create fortress America and then create chaos throughout the entire world so that they could sell everyone weapons and resources. That is spelt out of black and white in the NDS. No, it isn't. Well, no, Matt, okay, hold on. But you know, chess, Matt, it's not a one-player game, okay? You have to have another team. So we've got the US as one. That's understandable, the world hegemon. Who are their opponents in this grand game? And in the case in the United States, the pawn or the allies. Meaning, I'd say this, but the UK, Europe, South Korea, and Japan,

and also the entire Western Hemisphere. This is the Americans, okay? The people who are most opposed to this grandchild, strategy of Americans are the Russians. So let's go over the Russian system. In the Russian system, the king, the provostate system, it's an autocracy. And an autocracy, it's good because it allows for coronation. It allows for decisiveness. It allows for resolve. Long-term thinking. Exactly. Right. That's Putin. What's bad is, if this guy dies, there's a succession crisis. crisis. So basically once you topple the autocrat, then the system itself breaks down. So that's the

Russian system. Right. For the Russia, the great strategy is something called the third Rome strategy. The third Rome strategy. Yes. Okay. So the people in Russia believe that they are the true successors to the Roman Empire. And previously, there were two realms. It was the first Rome. Then it moved to Consentad of Paul, and Moscow is destined to be the third role. And what makes Moscow interesting is that it wants to unite the entire Christian world under its leadership. The main philosopher for the third Rome strategy is Isaac Dugan, when 1997, what a book called Foundation of Geopolitics.

I just mentioned before I forget here, that that's a hell of a pawn. One of the pawns that America has is the entire Western. Yes, which is confusing because before he said that is Fortress America. America owns the Western Hemisphere. That's all America is now. But now it's a porn. Well, they'll sacrifice it. Yes.

Presumably not the American bits of it, the other bits of it in the Western Hemisphere. That's it. That was just interesting. And so here, Russia, you've got autocracy. is the king and the queen is the third Rome strategy. Yeah. Have you, you're familiar with the Thurham Road, Rome strategy, Chris, the third row concept? I was not familiar with the title, but I am familiar of Dugan's general philosophy and,

you know, the restoration of the Russian empire and spears of influence and all that. Yeah. So again, this is the pattern with Jang, right? Like he references, like the Dark Enlightenment guy, Curtis Yavin. He references a bunch of real things, but treats them in a cartoonish way, you know, as if, and here's a good example, right? Because, yes, there's this idea of, you know, Moscow is the leader of a Christian West, like a new Rome. Russia is absolutely full of grandiosity and delusion, right? And people like Dugan push this kind of thing.

mythology and it's rhetoric. If you've seen clips from Russian media, you'll see this kind of thing. But where he goes is, well, no, no, that's their geopolitical strategy. That random propaganda, you know, philosophical shit that you'll see spouted from the likes of Dugan.

No, no, that's an actual strategy that is the secret key that's going to help you understand why Russia will definitely do X, Y, and Z into the future. He also talks about, like, you know, Russians as the center of Christendom and the orthodox religion as the like gallering force for.

But, Matt, I mean, maybe this is just my knowledge of religion, right? But yes, there are overlaps. But, you know, generally global Catholics and Protestants are not orientating themselves towards the orthodox church as the leading light of Christend. There's quite key differences there. And, you know, Africa has a whole lot of Christians. in it. So I guess Africa is going to ally with Russia, given the Christian thing, and given that America is one of the largest Christian countries. Like, does that not, no, no, that I guess that doesn't

matter in this thing. So, yeah, and, you know, okay, in this case, by the way, Matt, the rooks and bishops and so on that you get, you get things like the size of Russia's terrain and the orthodox religion and Russian artillery and drones. So, you know, what can be a pawn? There's no mention of pawns. By the way, they just don't get. But, you know, he's just mentioning things and then putting chess pieces down and in a dramatic fashion on a board. It's all, all of this is just metaphorical, right? Like, that's all it is. It's just like a visual metaphor for him to present it as if he has, you know, this very well-thought-out worldview.

And it's really just like somebody's speaking very confidently with props. Yeah, that's what it is. It's so performative. And his ideas about the future of geopolitics are so, like, childish and simplistic. You know, here he's talking about Russia. as having this third Rome strategy, you know, successes to Rome and Constantinople and uniting the entire Christian world. And that's going to, that is their primary thing, which will drive them towards fighting this great civilizational World War III. But, I mean, just come back

down to Earth for a moment. And look at what Russia's revealed behavior actually is, right? Incredibly careful to avoid direct confrontation with the U.S. even throughout the Ukraine war. with NATO heavily supporting Kyiv, like directly supporting them in many different ways. Russia has almost entirely avoided direct kinetic conflict with NATO. If you actually look at all of, if you don't pay, yes, you can hear them spout all kinds of nonsense in ideological terms. But if you look at what they do, they act exactly as what they are, which is a relatively weakened regional power that is trying to obtain.

of grandeur. Some delusions of grandeur, I'll grant you. But actually acting relatively conservatively in terms of avoiding exactly the kind of things that Jiang is so confidently predicting. I think you've fallen into the trap, you know, when you think about chess, you think about two people playing each other.

That's one of the defining characteristics of chess. But if you've seen Star Trek, you will know that one, you can move into three dimensions, but what's the top? you're adding a third chess player. So, okay, we've got Russia and America, you know, classics of geopolitics and spheres of interest, understandable.

There's a new challenger has emerged. Another colored chess set appears. Now we go to this release. Jerusalem, the capital. It's a mixed system, meaning it's both democracy as well as a theocracy. And it's good in that. the Israelis are very creative, but the fundamental one of the weakness is the division of society where Tel Aviv and Jerusalem don't get along. So that is the political system of Israel.

The grand strategy of Israel is called the Greater Israel Project. So the Israelis believe that the entire Middle East belongs to them from the Nile to the Euphrates, because that's what it says in the Bible. This is what God, Yahweh, promised Abraham. So their intention is to conquer the entire Middle East, including Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Lebanon, even parts of Turkey. Now, let's look at the attack vectors for the Israelis. The first attack vector is Mossad. Mossad is the most powerful intelligence.

agency in the world, in that it is able to infiltrate and undermine different political systems. And Mossad, for a human that doesn't know, is their secret service? Basically, yes. Their spy system. Second attack vector for the Israelis is the George diaspora, because Jews do business everywhere around the world. And Jewish businessmen work very closely with Mossad. and as such they have influence in a lot of places that they shouldn't have.

And the third attack vector is the Bible. Why? Because you're a Christian, and there are many Christians who believe this, you believe that the Jews are God's chosen people. A bit of a surprise. Carpola at the third attack vector. So Israel, okay, surprise Israel comes in as the, the third great power that we need to consider here.

Their goal, or their kind of king, sorry, is a mixed system, feocry and democracy. Now, of course, people have this wrong map because most of the world would classify Israel as a parliamentary democracy, even though there are religious extremists in the government and whatnot. But never mind that. No, it's in between, right? And it's presented as primarily being.

guided by, you know, religious convictions and all that kind of stuff. So you've got that. They want to take over all the Middle East, including Turkey. They're going to get that. Why not? Why not take a bit? Why not? Why not? Egypt too? I mean, why are at it? May I may as well thank Egypt. I mean, that's their goal, Matt. That's a goal. And how will they achieve this? Well, they have different skills, right? They leverage Mossad, which, you know, is the secretive

force as different part. it helps to explain there. And, you know, they are, as we've seen, quite effective as a secret intelligence agency goes, but apparently much more powerful that you might imagine because they're essentially going to be able to conquer the entire Middle East using that system. Oh, I should have forget that they can apply the Bible. Like in a uno reversal, they can get Christians to endorse them. because Christians believe that Jews are God's chosen people, of course.

And did you spot any slight red flags there? I might just read a couple of the quotes to remind you, Chris. So the second to attack vector for the Israelis is the Jewish diaspora. Oh, yes. Sorry, I forgot about them. Yeah, because Jews do business everywhere around the world. They get about. They got their fingers and a lot of pies.

Jewish businessmen work very good. closely with Mossad. There's another thing that's going on. And therefore, they have influence in a lot of places that they shouldn't have. Does it sound like totally normal geopolitics to you, Chris? Or maybe something else. Well, I don't know, what are you picking? What are you picking up there?

It sounds like just, you know, it's just a political chess set. You play the things that you have, you know? Yeah, I'm just asking questions. Just asking questions, Chris. Yeah, but in any case, The other issue is that, okay, so Israel's got a population of about 10 million, just under 8 million Jewish people there, you know, putting them on the same board with China. Hey.

Ireland only has like 6 million people. And you're a pretty big deal. I don't think Jack's putting you on any chess boards, Chris. Sorry. Yeah, where are we? Oh, by the way, you might be wondering, who are the Jewish pawns? Okay. Always a good question to hear somebody ask, right? But who are the Jewish pawns?

And Zhang does have an answer. And the pawns for the Israelis are basically everyone else. Okay? So a lot of the hardware underpinning the global IT infrastructure is being controlled by the Israelis. Ah, well, yeah, speaking of red flags. Let me get this straight. There's this international network of Jewish businessmen

who are treating the rest of us as pawns. That's fine. Nothing to see. Nothing to see there. But, you know, it was an unorthodox move to add in another chess set to his metaphor, metaphorical chess set table, global game that he'd added.

But he goes for a lot. He's got another chess. set. There's one more. I wonder can you predict it? Because it's been a while, you know, since you listen. Do you remember what the fourth chess set is? No, I don't. I remember they're all different colors. There's a bright red one, blue one. Who would you, if it was you, Matt, if you were added in, you know, like, you've got the table set, America, Russia, and Israel. Who would be like the obvious fourth player to add into that? Well, Ireland, naturally.

I mean, come on. I don't go to the board. Okay. Well, that's very funny. But do you have a non-sarcastic answer? Like, just a bit smart, geopolitical board. And I'm sure to play those. Oh, gee.

I might maybe choose China. I might be much. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Aliccernian answers. What the one. There we go.

That's not who Zhang chooses, though. So China don't feature in this. global chess forward. In part, Matt, because as we've discussed, aren't they anyway, like ultimately not taking part in this? Well, wow. We get mixed signals, make signals. On one hand, they're going to be forming the Iran, Russia, China triumvirate with the land corridor. On the other hand, maybe not. So it's hard to say. Yeah, well, here you go, Ma. And it's obvious if you think by that. So now we go to the fourth player in this great game, and that's Iran. So Iran, it is a theocracy. People are not afraid to die for what they believe in Iran. But the weakness

is that it can alienate the majority of the population. Because only a minority are religious zealots in Iran. Most people just want to live a decent life. So they feel that these molas, the IRC, are a threat. to their peace and prosperity, then they might rise up against the Molas. Which is what we've seen over the years, right? Exactly. So this is a political system of the Iranians.

Their grand strategy is to unite the Muslim world under leadership. They have three attack vectors. The first attack vector are their proxies. Hezbollah, Hamas, and the Hufis. Another attack vector is their asymmetrical warfare. meaning using drones and missiles to create as much economic damage as possible. And the third attack vector is their geography or the topography. They are a fortress.

So it's almost impossible to invade them. So that's their Shia militiamen, these religious zealots who are not afraid to die. Essentially, many of them could be suicide bombers. And so for them, this is a religious war. Okay. So now we're seeing how this entire battlefield unfolds across the world. There go, Matt. The table is set. The game is afoot in earnest. So Iran, America, Russia, and Israel. The four chess sets that he has in his little visualization here. And to be fair, he did say, you know, he's just going to outline them using this. Maybe he could do it with all of

countries, I'm sure as well. But it's just that thing of just listening. It's kind of like envisioning the world like civilization. You know, the Iranians have a plus two to suicide bomb attacks because of religious devotion buff and stuff. And like, it's not that the things he's saying are wrong. Like Hezbollah, Hamas and the hoofies are proxy attack vectors for Iran for its, you know, geopolitical interests and stuff. But it's, it's a grand narrative that he weaves from these facts which nobody disputes, right? These are the geopolitical units that he is operating from give him the legitimacy. But those are the actual things that aren't particularly noteworthy. It's his grander theories from there that gets them all the attention.

Yeah. Yeah. It's kind of like the pattern seems to be to take a bunch of like facts. And, you know, a lot of them are facts. Like Iran does have an interesting topography. I'm sure there is a diversity in terms of, you know, highly religious committed Iranians and other people that are more secular and just want to get on with their lives, just like in most countries. So all these all these things are true. But then he sort of flattens it and simplifies it. So the believers are like suicide. bombers, right? So one of their special attack factors is that they're not afraid to die and all of that stuff. And I guess the goal is to turn it into like a tinketoy, simplistic kind of thing that feels very, it feels like a complex thing, which is geopolitics, very murky, very complicated, all of that stuff, to turn it into a nice, simple, little satisfying game where you can line up the dominoes and it's all very clear. And he, can see the future. So I guess it's an effective sales strategy. Yeah, yeah. So, well, after he outlines that, right, he goes, okay, we've set up, you know, we've explained this and he says, okay,

at the minute Russia's are occupied with Ukraine and he's moving things around, right? He brings up the shadow fleet and the Israelis are a mercenary army, a lander of the American Empire, doing the bidding of the American Empire. So it sort of reverses at times, like, who's following whose instructions. But in any case, the grand plan from this. Let's take his outline for the grand plan for America, given everything that we've just discussed. America doesn't really care about this war in Iraq.

because what America wants to do is force entire world to become dependent on American weapons and resources. And you do that in two ways. The first is you control the strategic choke points of the world.

And they include the Shcherri of Hummus. But you also want to control the Shepa of Malacca or over here. Because that blocks off East Asia. You also want to control the Panama Canal. You also want to control Greenland. You also want to control the sort of Gibraltar. You can see the American Navy expanding outwards and occupying all these maritime choke points. At the same time, you want to use

your technological supremacy, your aerial supremacy, your drones, to destroy the world's critical energy infrastructure. Already we're seeing all refrafinaries being destroyed throughout the world. All refineries. Or refineries, yes. So you, as America, you're trying to deplete the world's energy inventory so they're forced to beg you to supply energy, right? And once this market is created, then you can build infrastructure for Venezuela. You can take over Canada.

You can control Mexico. You can take over Greenland, okay? It really is like, let's treat the world as a game of risk. It's like, it's so, oh, so absurd. This is an interesting grand plan. You've got to give a bit. I don't think any of this is in the NDS, Chris. I don't remember reading this in the NDS.

But so before he's saying America has to inevitably put ground troops into Iran, it has to. It's all. It's all-hinges on Iran. Yeah, it's got to be all in. But now it's no, America doesn't really care that what's happening in Iran. The Iran thing is just kind of a ruse. So reading between the lines a little bit, I think this is what he's saying, that America has instigated this thing in Iran, and not to win it, but just to sow chaos

and to provide a cover screen, a pretext, to expand outwards, seize all of these maritime chug points, and then hopefully, you know, get a whole bunch of energy infrastructure destroyed in the Middle East on purpose. That's what America wants. And see, you know, according to American doctrine and all of U.S. policy for the last hundred years, that would seem to be not what they want, but actually, actually that's what they do want. They want to destroy all that energy infrastructure, and they want the world to buy American energy. So, you know, forget what you've heard about the American voters being very sensitive to oil prices and them hating it when the oil price goes up and that being a significant leader.

No, no, no, that's what the US wants because they want the rest of the world to be forced to buy American energy. this is the grand plan. Yeah, yeah. And, you know, he just, he lays out all these things that are going to happen. You know, they're going to build infrastructure to extract oil reserves and so on in Venezuela, take over Canada, take Mexico, jacring land as well. Why not? Yeah, yeah.

Then America has all these, because you might say, well, America doesn't have the natural resources to supply global demand for gas and oil. But no, if they take over all these other countries that you can access, they can. But he's just saying, anyway, Matt, he's saying that's what their plan is. He's not saying it's going to work, right? That's the important thing here. And he points out from this, but Russia has shadow fleets, Matt, you know, moving oil around and transporting it between locations that might have prohibitions or avoiding paying tariffs or whatever the case might be transporting things around and getting past blockades

and so on. But they're not signed up with Russia and America has made some aggressive things about like stopping various ships and then Russia has complained and so on and so forth. And this has been rising tensions. But Zhang has something to say like, yes, yes. Of course they are doing that because this is all part of the strategy, right? They have to choke off like the other providers of resources. And then this is what will happen, ma. So I personally believe that this would be a drawn-out process that, and there's no real concrete flashpoint. Because not only are Russian shadow flankers, shadow fleet tankers being seized, but remember, Russian or away findings are being destroyed by Ukrainian drones. And the Russians believe that it is NATO that is

responsible for the sabotage. So what do you take the catalyst moment is when this kicks off. I think we're already in the catalyst moment. I think we're already in World War III because this conflict, it's going to expand outwards into a global conflict. And there's nothing anyone can do to stop this, right? Because again, you have these different competing visions of how the world should work. And the Russians and Americans are already at conflict with each other. So the next step will be the Russians come into this war on the side of the Iranians. You think that's going to happen? I think that's happen. Because according to Russian grand strategy, you have no choice but to save the Iranians because you're trying to promote this view that the world is split between the spiritual and

the material. The Americans are the Antichrist. The Americans support individual hedonism. Whereas we Russians, we believe in humanity. We believe in goodness. We believe in community. Right. So if you believe, if that is your argument, if that's your grand strategy, they have a more obligation, a more imperative to help the Iranians in their time of need. And in fact, Prime Minister Arachi of Iran has recently visited Putin in Moscow. Putin personally received him and said to Rachi, we, the Russian people, admire your determination, your resolve against the Americans. And I think that is a sign that Putin has entered the chat in that the Russian. will start to help the Iranians as this war progresses.

You get a move on. Yeah, it's going to have to be quick. Yeah, trying to mobilize the vast military resources that is not currently wrecked in Ukraine. I'm sure it's there. They're ready to move. So, I mean, oh, my God. I mean, he reads so much into this thing.

Like, of course, all else being equal, Russia would would be like, would like to support Iran and would like to confound the Americans because that's the default position, right? Yeah. And of course, there's going to be visits and they're going to say polite things. Like we admire your people, your determination, et cetera. If Zhang is reading into that, that that is presaging some sort of significant intervention, then, you know, then he's reading far too much into it.

And so the American fleet there is interesting. It's got a lot of work to do, Chris. So on one hand, it's going to be all over the world, you know, fighting, fighting countries like Iran, controlling all the military choke points, containing China, ensuring that all of the energy flows, except those that are controlled by the United States are stopped. Russia's got this shadow fleet of tankers, which are evading sanctions. And he says that Russia has got going to have no choice but to arm. this shadow fleet, producing confrontations between Russian tankers and US destroyers.

Well, also, remember that he also predicted that Russia will bring Iran under its nuclear umbrella protection. So that's also going to happen at some point. Yeah. So it's an interesting view of the American Navy, which is so almost omnipotent to be able to do all of these things. But it could also be contested. buy some oil tankers with some missile struck to the deck? I said that's not good. Well, he does elsewhere mention that the American naval force is not very substantial. Like he kind of says it's not impressive.

So it's doing a rather impressive job. Maybe that's why it doesn't win World War Free, right? Because his prediction is long term that this will lead to the collapse of the American Empire. right? So there's that element of it as well, because he's already predicted World War Free has started, right? This is, we're in World War Free now. We just don't realize because we can't look back in time and see that this is where all countries, you know, eventually ended up getting dragged into this conflict. So, yeah, and just to note as well, you do understand that, like, Russia is they have to do it because they're morally obligated because they recognize the spiritual nature. the Iranian regime. That's a big factor.

You've got to take that into account when you're making it to your political predictions. But so Chris, but the general pattern with Jang, right, is that he notices things. And the things are real, right? He's like a little magpie picking up real facts, right?

And one of the facts, to take one example, is that, yeah, sure, Russia's got incentives to protect sanctions evading routes, right? Yes. It's got a general... For many gerter reasons.

It's got, you know, genuine interest in that. And it would like all things being equal to undermine American control over those sorts of roots, right? Obviously. But he turns that kind of thing into like a compulsion, right? So a legitimate incentive or an incentive for, you know, to Iran, for instance. Yes, Iran would like to expand its influence in the Middle East. It would like to be a leading civilizational kind of cultural and economic player in the Middle East. But somebody turns that into like compulsion. It has to take over the entire thing, just like Russia is

going to be compelled to strap some missiles onto its oil takers and send them against the 7th Fleet. But it does not follow, Chris. It doesn't follow. Well, so one thing is and I kind of do appreciate, you know, as we're highlighting, he makes

a whole bunch of conflicting predictions, but he does at times go like balls to the wall in terms of what he's claiming is going to happen. Admittedly, it's in the next like five years. But these things, by and large, aren't going to happen, right, except for the generic ones. And Stephen Bartlett does ask him about the specifics of World War Free. And what, you know, Trump's administration is halfway done, Matt. So how is it going to get all this done before it ends? So when do you think this is

going to happen? If you were to give me a timeline, events you think are going to occur. What timeline do you think you're operating under? I guess one of the factors here is that Trump only has what three years left in power. So, you know, he's presumably going to leave power at some point soon. So if you're Iran, you might just want to play it out and hope that there's a different leadership in place by 20, what would be 2030? The political leadership in Iran believe that they can wait Trump out. So they're waiting for the midterms because they believe that in November, the Democrats will win the midterms, and then they will impeach Trump and basically constrain his capacity to fight wars. And worst case scenario, Trump will be gone in 2020,

as you point out. There are certain problems with this. The first major problem is the national defense strategy, which we looked at previously. The national defense strategy, it is a long-term strategic framework for how America can control the world. And so one possibility is that Trump is just creating enough chaos for America to transition. When the Democrats come to power, if they come to power, they will institutionalize the strategy. And we know this as a possibility because in Trump's first term, he changed America's strategy around the world. And then when Biden came into power, he then institutionalized the strategy, via the China, right?

So it was Trump who launched this terror of war against China and then finally comes in power and institutionalizes it. So I think World War III, it's a much more long-term war of attrition. And I don't think that this war will end anytime soon. Yeah, so earlier he described his prediction about Trump staying in power, right? These various techniques he's going to use using Donald Jr. or VP or something like that. And he says that's kind of caused by Trump's personal psychology's desire for attention and grievance and stuff. But now the US policy is more structural

because now there's a white paper. There's a policy document there, Chris. It's been written down. And so now it doesn't depend on the whims of Trump's personality. It's now a thing that the Democrats too will have to abide by. It transcends Trump completely. Yeah. So you might regard that National Defense Strategy document as like an encapsulation of MAGA foreign policy type positioning. But no, it's not written down.

And much like the feminist glaciology paper, it explains a lot more than you might care to imagine. It's actually going to be the guiding framework moving forward for America, even if the Democrats get into power. And of course, not the real document, which we've checked, but Jiang's version of it, which is that it says to incite chaos all over the world and control choke points and force everyone to buy American oil. That's what he sees in it. It's not that interesting. Yeah, and he points to the fact that, you know, Biden didn't revoke all of the tariffs that were introduced in the first Trump administration, which is true that did occur and was something that people noted.

But from there, you know, extrapolating that, oh, they'll just keep all of the crazy tariff and like geopolitical schemes that Trump has implied. I'm not so sure. I'm not so sure that the Democratic administration. will be just following Trump's geopolitical practices. We'll see. You know, a common denominator with these silly geopolitical theories. We've seen it from a whole bunch of other people, too.

You know, contrarians who have their own views about how to understand the Ukraine, Russia war, for instance. You know the kind of thing. And what they tend to do is they're very selective as to where they assign agency. Everyone else is kind of little pawns and bit players who just, are being controlled by events, and they distill the agency down to just a few players. So, Zhang does this continually. So when he's great chess piece model of the world, you've got Israel, you've got Iran,

you've got Russia and the United States, and that's it. And it's not even the United States, as we hear now. It's just Trump and whatever, his maggotrocroneys. The Democrats, if they win power, if they win both houses and the presidency, no, no, they won't be making any decisions or guiding things at all. Oh, yeah, they're just following along. So it's destiny. And, you know, also this kind of vast thing, it does have some quite strong claims made about what's going to happen. Like, here's one. Which empire do you think is collapsing in the United States Empire? The United States Empire is collapsing, yes. And who is taking its place? No one can take the place of the American Empire. So we live in a unipolar moment. In the closest historical analogy,

Today is something called the Bronze Age collapse. The Bronze Age. The Bronze Age collapse. This happened about over 3,000 years ago. And what happened during the Bronze Age collapse is that you have these established kingdoms throughout the Middle East and Europe. You have Nicenei in Greece. You had the Haight Empire in Anatolia, which is present-day Turkey. you had the Mesopotampeatian Empire, you had the Egyptians.

And one by one, they collapsed. The reason why was that a perfect storm of calamities came at the same time. There were earthquakes. There were famines. There was a climate crisis. There were wars. There were civil wars. There were revolutions.

And so you had this massive surge of refugees called the Sea Peoples, flowing from North and West Europe and sweeping the entire, shipping food to the entire Middle East. And the reason why is they were hungry. They didn't have any food to eat. So they organized into

these large pirate armies and they overwhelmed entire civilizations. And so we'll see a very similar dynamic play out in the world where in the future our concern won't be wars. Our concern will be

these millions of refugees who want to flood into our societies because they're hungry. And they're going to come from Africa, and they're going to come from the Middle East, and they'll probably come from South America as well. I sometimes think Zhang has watched a lot of YouTube videos.

There's a lot of YouTube videos about the Bronset collapse, a lot of lectures and things. I think that's where he just gets his ideas from watching a lot of... It wouldn't be surprising at all. It would not be surprising because he's picked up a holography. grab bag of online things around like the Jews.

Yes, it's all permeated together inside his brain. So obviously there was a very simplistic representation of that. And it was a long time ago. And it's, you know, it's complicated. It's not exactly what he said. And, you know, it's ancient, ancient history, right? So we don't, maybe even prehistory. I forget where the boundary is.

1,200 BC. Yeah. So maybe that's, yeah. So, like, kind of what we know about is, like, from archaeology and stuff. So he takes that. He goes, okay, well, that exactly that same thing is going to happen today. It's the same thing. And, like, why?

Why? Well, he's laid out the reasons why. Do you need them to get their chair sets? It was going to happen that, you know, the collapse of the American empire. Many people have discussed, you know, America's, like, kind of feeling hegemony power. In part because of Trump. But in this case, so there, there's a prediction. The world's going to end up in, you know, World War III and chaos.

It's coming right now. Well, how close are we to it specifically? Yeah, so they say empires last around 200 years. And so we are now in the twilight of the American Empire. And what we know is that when empire is declined, it's always for the same reasons. and it's always because of too much debt, too much corruption, too much inequality. And we're seeing that in America today. And the other thing that we know is you can't actually stop the decline of empires.

So also Spangler, who is a German theoretician, he argues that we are human beings and we have natural life cycles because we're organisms. Well, societies are the same way. where empires, they will be born, they'll rise, and they'll die. And it's a good thing because that's what allows for constant human innovation. Do you think that will happen in my lifetime? I'm 30 years old, 33 years old. It may happen in everyone's lifetime.

It may happen in next five to ten years. We are seeing... Do you think that's going to happen in the next five or ten years? I think there's a very strong possibility that the American Empire will collapse in next five to ten years because it is overstretched, It's in too much debt, and it is really angling the entire world. It's basically unifying the entire world against it right now. Empires always last for 200 years, and they always fail for the same reasons.

Is that done true to you, Chris? The Roman Empire, even just the Western part of it, lasts it a lot longer than 200 years. The Byzantine Empire, the Eastern part, about 1,000 years after the Western collapse. The Ottoman Empire, 600 years. Imperial China? Well, my, Matt. But come on. Imperial China.

But let's talk about the dynasties. And, you know, within those, the Western Roman or whatever you said, I'm sure there were ways you can slice that up into 200 blocks of people. What about the British Empire? Your favorite empire? How long was it around? It seems like it was eternal. Yeah, that's right.

There was longer than 200. 300 or 400 years. Anyway, so it's just an example of just how glib and superficial. Well, no, but hold on, Matt. Oswald Spengler, a German theoretician said this. Like, did you not consider that? Some German theoretician suggested it. So, you know, don't be so quick to assume because, you know, what if empires are just like a human, They just live in extra 100 years. Sometimes that lasts a lot less than 200 years. I don't know.

The third rack didn't last that long. No, that's it. I'll just say it. Some humans die in adolescence as well, okay? Yeah, yeah, yeah. The metaphor holds up. But you're right. It is a very glib way to approach these topics.

That's the point. Yeah, that's right. And, you know, like I can see what he's going for here. He is going for Harry Seldon's foundation concept. You know, America is like the empire in the books and it's beset by multiple shocks at

once and, you know, it can't manage them. It's kind of doubling down and overreaching and all of that. It's a grand narrative and it was a popular set of books and a popular TV series for a reason. Right? So, why not?

Just take that and put that onto world affairs because it makes you a great story. Yeah, and it does say, you know, this may happen. Do you think it's going to happen? I think it's a strong possibility that it may happen. I like that. But the one thing here, Matt, is that this gives a roller negative presentation, right? Because the world is doomed, right?

We're already in World War III. You're at the mercy of these great powers. And so what do you do in that context as just a little person? You know, like a normal person listening to this. What are they going to do in this like post-apocalyptic Mad Max type environment? Let's find out. So what does all of this stuff mean for the average person? You know, people listening right now, they're just normal people.

A lot of them, not all of them, but a lot of them are just normal people getting on with their lives and they care about their families, their jobs, their futures. What does, what message have you got for them? In this new world, we will need leaders. We will need average people who are able to bring hope, to people around them, who are able to tell their neighbors, their friends, we have to come together as a community

and become a family if we were to survive. that's what the world needs in the future. It will need entrepreneurial leaders. It will need visionaries. It will need profits. Those who most thrive are those who make an effort to reach out, knock on the door of your neighbors and say, listen, there's a blackout.

And there's probably no water. But don't fear. Because if we come together, community, if we go and knock on everyone's doors, then everyone is an apartment building, and there will be a hundred of us. We just sit down and have a meeting and just discuss what's happening. One of us will come over a solution. And one of us will help everyone else figure out how to find water or how to build a better

society. And we know this because historically, this has always been true. When I first collapse, infrastructure collapses. There you go. So this is totally normal. This is how you can tell it's a really serious geopolitical analysis because it segues to, so what should we do when the apocalypse comes?

How will we survive in this hellscape? Yeah, totally normal stuff. And look, it's all good advice, right? You know, ban together with your neighbors, deal with the fact that utilities have failed, probably, you know, build up defenses against zombies and stuff. You know, like,

the world will need profits, Chris. The world will need laughter and love also. It sounds like the world will need Professor Zhang, if he will like him. Like he does, because Stephen Bartlett asked him, what are we just ordinary people?

And his answer is, the world needs profits and leaders and visionaries, right? And then he kind of sign tracks on to, but like if you just get everyone, one together, collective wisdom, one person will have the solution and we can all find it. So it's like it's at once a great man of history version where the, you know, the right people will rise to the occasion and one which is like the kind of crunchy, organic return to communities and we can

live off the land together. And it's like I see how it gives something for everyone for the audience, one, he flatters the audience here. Yeah. That, like, you guys listening, you are the kind of people that will be the leaders and the kind of visionaries in the new society because you're the kind of people that care about others around, right? And by the way, Matt, that explanation, I mean, sure, imagine being in a nuclear hellscape where all the infrastructure is gone.

There's no access to clean water. You're surrounded by radiation, all that kind of thing. But if you just get everyone together and say, Well, now we've got a hundred people who need water, right? We have one. Who's got a good idea of how to deal with the apocalypse? Hands up. That's good one.

That's the blend. Don't be shy. And you, you, Greg, what you think? What do you just buys a system of pulleys and maybe draw some water from a well? That's great, great. Good thinking, Greg. Greg's a visionary. He's the kind of person we need in the new.

So, I mean, we're going to see where this goes a little bit farther than this. This is already pretty, like, silly, right? It's into, like you said, Matt, that's a very zombie apocalypse. Like, Chang has been watching maybe all kinds of YouTube videos, because this is very much, you know, the Walking Dead style scenario. And it's too obvious, perhaps, to restate, but I have to, which is that if you're listening to a genuine, analysis of geopolitical events.

If you're hearing someone like Michael Kaufman, for instance, talking about the situation in Ukraine and making some measured predictions or expectations about what's going to happen in winter or something like that, you will generally not have the interview then segue into how should we bind together, look to our neighbours and bring hope to one another

when the apocalypse comes. This is pure drivel, sense making dribble. I was going to leave this to the end that I will return to it, but I do think this is perhaps a good point to drop this. And, you know, people might be saying,

oh, well, come on, you know, that's just, he's just being asked to speculate at the future, but I'm just going to point out, this is where we end up at the end of this conversation, right? There's a little flag for you

to see where things eventually go. Right? So the idea is, as above so below, as below so above, meaning that we are each and everyone else fractals of God. So if you choose me a good person, this makes the world a better place. If we choose to be a bad person,

it also makes the world a worse place. So it's not really about how can I stop these wars from happening, but you cannot. It's not really about where can I put my money to generate more income because that's not going to happen. It's really about how do I, live my life to the fullest. How do I become a much more creative individual

that brings goodness to the people around me? If you do that, you're changing the world every day for the better. That's a nice message. That's a very nice message. And I agree. And it's really interesting. I've spoken to a couple of physicists now who say similar things regarding about consciousness,

and it really has stuck with me. A lot of things people say, Sometimes because I learned so much doing this that I forget them, but this idea that we're all part of the same consciousness and that I think someone said to me, a physicist said to me, that it's almost like consciousness divided into lots of little pieces. That's right, fractals. Fractors, so that it could experience the world or view the world.

Exactly. And I found that to be a really compelling idea. Oh, there you go. There you go. So, yeah, you know, World War III, nuclear war, Armageddon, it's all disturbing geopolitically. But on the other hand, fractal consciousness, Chris. Fractals of God. It's a great consolation.

Great consolation. As above, so below. So, yes, yes. And Matt, you know Stephen Bartlett as well, you might not have heard this because you listen to the YouTube version. But, you know, we were talking about the aunts that come in. I do think this speaks to the audience flattery point. This is a thing that cut in during the conversation.

Listen to this. Make sure you keep what I'm about to say to yourself. I'm inviting 10,000 of you to come even deeper into the dire of a CEO. Welcome to my inner circle. This is a brand new private community that I'm launching to the world. We have so many incredible things that happen that you are never shown. We have the briefs that are on my iPad when I'm recording the conversation. We have clips we've never released.

We have behind the scenes conversations with the guest and also the episodes that we've never ever released. and so much more. In The Circle, you'll have direct access to me. You can tell us what you want this show to be, who you want us to interview, and the types of conversations you would love us to have. But remember, for now, we're only inviting the first 10,000 people

that join before it closes. So if you want to join our private closed community, head to the link in the description below, or go to DOACC circle.com. I will speak to you then. Wow, it's really the hard sell, isn't it? And so fucking, I mean, I know this is just, this is the modern internet, right? That's just the sales fetch. You know, Mike, you want to join and get deeper into the community. But this whole thing of calling it the inner circle and saying it's a private community with a select group of only 10,000. Only 10,000. For now, for now, initially, it's only 10,000. Do you think if they fell up those 10,000 places, there's going to be more, of course,

No, no, it's select. It's like, you know, you'll get access to Stephen. You can see his no pads. You can see clips he hasn't even released. You can even make suggestions as to who they cover next, who they invite on. That's right. You'll be writing shotgun with Stephen Violet on producing his show. And it's just, it's all, you know, I know this is an ad cutting in, but I'm just pointing out that it's the thing which all these shows share,

that they're constantly trying to instill in their audience, that you are like a very special person to listen to these conversations, which are very important conversations, and that they care about you personally. They want you to do well. They know you're a good person. And of course, they fucking don't, right? There's millions of people downloading and listening.

They know nothing except for broad demographics and download numbers. That's it, right? And maybe they do some community events or whatever the case is. But it's presented like, look, I'm just telling you. Even now it says, you know, keep what I'm saying to yourself. How does not even make sense in this context of like a public, you know, advertisement? But it's all designed to make you feel special and part of a club.

And it shouldn't work on it. It shouldn't work on people. Yeah. Like what's appropriate and what gets our eye out? It's not that, like, there are degrees here. So if you take something like the Foreign Affairs interview, which is a geopolitics podcast, geopolitics decanted, another one that I listen to occasionally, just like many channels, content creators like us, there'll be an invitation to subscribe, right,

to sign up, there'll be some bonus material, whatever. That's one thing. But it's the way that he does it here, stupid bar. but does that it goes beyond, I think, propriety. It's a thing that a lot of people seem to struggle with. What's the boundary and the gray zone between just normal kind of monetization and extractive profiteering? And, yeah, I think this is a good example of something that's over that line.

Well, Matt, we've been through chess sets. We've been through, you know, geopolitical world maps, all of these different things. We've had eight predictions, right, removed from a metal box. We've seen such wonders. I think we have to finish off by just showing how deep the rabbit hole goals, right? Because you've got all this material, this melange, and we've seen, you know, the sober geopolitics, the more speculative stuff. we've seen the appeals to, you know, U.S. special people. But at the end, it takes a really notable turn into grandiose conspiracies.

And I think that's where we should head here to finish things off. Well, Matt, that is an interesting point that we were about to move on to there. But however, I think, you know, there's only so many high-level ideas that people can take in one sitting. So this might be a good point to give people a little rest, rest their minds. They can percolate on the ideas that they've received from Chang. Exactly. Too many high-level ideas to fit in just one episode. It's bursting at the seams. We'll take a discrete break and take a breath and return to Jane.

That's right. We'll be back before too long and get ready for those high-level ideas. I can't wait to see where this is going. And if you can't wait at all, then the second part is available on the Patreon now. So there you go. You can go get the second part now or just wait a couple of days and it'll come out in the main feed. This is how, what a canny marketer you are. This is it.

The insider sense of frustration. Of course, the weak part of your strategy is that you're relying on people filling a pressing desire to hear more of Jang, like right now. I think that could be the weak link in your chain there. I feel like you're undercutting my marketing strategy, but nonetheless, still available, still available for anybody that wants it. It's already there. It's already there.

So, you know, yeah, choose your poison. Or don't and just wait, you know, however long it seems. It's hard to come out. It's unspecified, right? It could be one day. It could be a week. Who knows? But it won't be that long.

It could be years. It can be years. You probably better subscribe. just to be on the same side. Yeah, that's all right. That's all right.