Macrodosing: Arian Foster and PFT Commenter - NANODOSE: The Art Of War - Chapter 1

Episode Date: October 7, 2021

On today's episode of Nanodosing, the crew reads Chapter 1 of The Art Of War (our new bookclub book) and review it in a plethora of different ways. You don't want to miss it.You can find every episode of this show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or YouTube. Prime Members can listen ad-free on Amazon Music. For more, visit barstool.link/macrodosing

Hey, macrodosing listeners, you can find us every Tuesday and Thursday on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or YouTube. Prime members can listen ad-free on Amazon Music. Welcome back to nanodosing, aka microdosing, aka mini-dosing. It's Thursday. Thank you guys for listening. We're doing a very, very interesting thing today, something new for the people out there that are dedicated macrodosions. We have purchased the art of war, that's right, by Sun Su. and we have read the first chapter.

I highly recommend that you read the first chapter if you're listening to this show. You don't have to, but I recommend that you do it. It's three pages long. So not really asking for that much. It took me about one and a half minutes, two minutes to read it the first time. Then I went back, annotated a little bit.

But it's easy reading. Big font, a lot of spaces in there. So you guys can all get through it. I believe in you, but we've all read it. We've got the whole squad here. we're going to discuss it. Before we get into the meet of chapter one of the art of war by Sun Su, I think we should probably contextualize a little bit and talk about Sun Su and what this book was.

So I don't know, is anybody here familiar with Sun Su at all? Yeah, he wrote the Art of War. Correct. Correct, Aaron. He wrote The Art of War. He was a Chinese general. He was a military strategist. He was a philosopher.

and he wrote the art of war however yeah billy i just got one thing to say uh-huh you know when you look at history right yeah like who do you think are great warriors great generals we got like gangis con we got like napoleon we got like bellichick bill belchick we have alexander the great we have uh you know leonitis what the fuck did sun zu do so sunzu uh The art of war. Yeah, but he didn't conquer shit. I don't know what he did. He's just good at writing a manual?

He's good at writing a manual. It's a big time... Well, you know, this actually correlates to some football writers out there. You think Peter King ever played in the NFL? No, but he's documented... He's documented professional football. Did Sun Tzu beat Kangas Khan? He did not, but he learned from Genghis Khan.

He did. Do you actually fight him? No, no. And I'm saying, like, he learned from what Genghis Khan did, allegedly. and then he incorporated that into the art of war. It says that he was born in 544 BC, died in 496 BC. There are some controversies by his life, though. Some people think that he might not have been everything that he's led to believe.

So either he was kind of a fraud or maybe some people believe that he didn't actually exist. And it was just a collection of wisdom that was written by the Chinese. and just cataloged and something that they could use to train some of their generals. But I think he probably existed. I give it about 90% Sun Suu is real. But he did write the art of war.

There are some people that say that he did fight in battle, that he had a successful military career, and that he fought at the Battle of Bojou. But there's some more accounts of the Battle of Bojou that don't mention Sun Su at all. So it's kind of up in the air. But regardless of whether or not Sun Su existed and whether or not he was actually some of that put what he had into practice or not, the art of war is a book that I think a shitload of dumb people read and think that they're smart because they read the art of war.

It's like one of those books that it's very easy of a read. It's an extremely easy read and there's a lot of stuff in here that's just like the most basic shit ever. And it's like, yeah, I don't know why, why is this guy a genius that said, when your enemy is expecting you to attack them, don't attack them. I think he was just the first person to write it down. He might have been, yeah. Like, just the basics. I feel that, I feel that like, in general, we kind of hero size here. What is the word for that?

Lion eyes. No, we make people like heroes because they were the first to do something. and like in retrospect they really weren't even that good at it hip hop is like that and it's a hot take but early hip hop is fucking horrible

but it's like it was just the first so it's like we show it and you should show it respect but it's like it was okay the first dude to say hey my name is blank and I'm here to say I'm the rockinist rapper in the USA

that guy when he said it everyone was like holy shit and now in retrospect it's like is that is that really worth celebrating are the first guy that realized that Bacardi rhymed with party that guy was a genius at the moment yeah yeah and then it gets watered down a little bit uh after a while but uh so we'll get into chapter one of the art of war i think he's just chapter one chapter one i think it was just the the way we're saying he just wrote wrote everything down first i think it's just chapter one this one is called

laying plans the art of war chapter one laying plans and there's a bunch of pages that come before chapter one i don't read any of that if you give me a prolog if you give me uh notes that i should read beforehand no fuck that give it to me the way the author wrote it i'm starting a chapter one do you guys feel the same yeah i flip through the book chapter one starts on page 40 unless the only time i don't do that is if the preface is written by somebody who i'm also a fan of like so like say corno west write somebody's preface or like, you know, like somebody that I'm already a fan of, I want to see what they had to say about that person.

Other than that, it's annoying. It's very annoying because it's like, why are we here? I'm here for the book. I'm not here for anything else. So Sun Tzu said, the art of war is a vital importance to the state. It's a matter of life and death, a road to either safety or to ruin. So he starts out the chapter by saying why it's important to study war, why war is important. and why states need to have people who are schooled in the art of war

to ensure safety of their people, essentially. And right off the jump, I'm bothered, right off the jump, right off the jump, right? I'm bothered because his premise is war is vital to the importance of the state. That bothers me. I don't think he's necessarily wrong, right? But I feel like his mentality is, it's not defensive, right? It's offensive, in my opinion.

Am I reading that wrong, but I just feel like it's very aggressive. Yeah, I'm not reading it as, because I get where you're saying, I'm not reading it as like we have to be at war to secure the state. It's just like we have to understand war so that it's not as offensive. It's not as defensive either. It's just preparedness. But also consider the source, which is he's a general and like a military philosopher and a military strategist.

So if you ask a farmer from Iowa, what's the most important thing to secure the United States? He's like, corn, corn. You can use corn to make sugar. You can pop it for a nice salty treat at the movies. You can make it into gas and run your car. If we don't have corn, we're all fucked. Corn's number one in terms of the list of things that you need to know.

So his life is studying the military and teaching people about the military. So he's like, yeah, every one war is the most important thing that we have to know about. And I thought about the same thing you did there. And where it's like it did strike me as a little, yes, he's saying it sounds a little bit more offensive than defensive. But then I thought what are the most powerful societies that ever existed without war? Or that exists right now without war. Yeah, there is. So like Canada?

Canada. Canada had a pretty, they dropped some boys on D-Data did some damage. They did, yeah, with the Juno Beach, but then they didn't really have to roll. We were just like, hey, Canada is just like down to ride if one of their buddies is getting into a fight. Yeah. Canada's pretty warlike. There's a bunch of the mountains. The mountains, yeah.

Securing the borders technically, warlike. Yeah, does anybody know, is there any society that exists that has existed without war? There is one, right? I forget. They got conquered. Avatar. Yeah, it was on Pandora. Wait, those dudes were warlike.

They had warriors. Oh, yeah? Yeah, I still haven't seen it. Yeah, 100% they were for sure. But so, so I think, I think, uh, Coley, Coley, you said the best. It's like, if you read it as not necessarily staying war ready, but more so, like, we got to understand a shit because it's inevitable. understanding human nature

then that I agree I agree to that and that that does make sense but I think maybe that's it's just the human nature aspect of it is bothersome to me because it's like but go ahead go ahead and go ahead well I was just going to say everything that comes after this too is very much the whole chapter is you got to see both sides

that's always saying in very different ways it's very much like like yes sometimes you get to play it this way sometimes you're going to play it the other way It's very, I mean, I think it seems more obvious 2,500 years after he wrote it. But at the time, yeah, I'm sure a lot of people did not think about both sides. There wasn't enough time to be thinking about both sides of every scenario. So he said the art of war is governed by five constant factors.

And the five things that you have to think about with the art of war, he calls them the moral law, heaven, earth, the commander, and then method and discipline then he goes on to break all five of those things down and so what i i kind of broke it down if we're to take those five things translate them into what they mean today by moral law he means just the culture of whatever society is at that war or that that is uh undertaking in that war so depending on what country you live in right now you have different values you have different things that you identify as a country certain countries definitely have you know they place more value on certain assets, whether it be education, sometimes it can just be on having strong warriors, whatever your society represents. That is the first thing. That's the

moral law that governs your country. Number two is heaven. And when he talks about heaven, that really means just straight up the weather and just the environment that's around you. Heaven means if it's hot outside, if it's cold, what season it is, what time of day it is. So the number three, he's got the earth. The earth is just everything that's around you, pretty self-explanatory. Then the commander is number four. The commander, I don't, I didn't interpret the commander to mean like a general. I thought that what he meant by the commander was just your mentals, just your headspace.

like each person has their own commander so wisdom sincerity benevolence courage and strictness are the are the different facets that he lists right there but it's just yeah I kind of interpreted as the essence of why you're going to war in the first place yeah know your why as as RG3 would put it and then the last one would be method and discipline and that's the actual structure of the army that's conducting the war I think how laid out if you got generals privates lieutenants all that stuff but he says that those are the five components of the art of war of how to how to go to battle does anybody have any problems with that or any comments regarding no i think i think when i was reading this because like i'm like

i said when even when buddy um called in on last week or on tuesday show was talking about who would i fight i'm not necessarily a uh violent person right Like, I can be, but I just, this is not in my nature. So, like, when I, when I'm reading this kind of stuff, I kind of interpret it as, like, at war with something else, right? And so, like, one of the biggest things that kills people, not literally, but, like, kills people's dreams, kills people, is the lack of, like, discipline.

And that's, like, when he said this, it really resonated with me because it's one of those things that I knew was absolutely imperative to any kind of success in my industry or, or anything. anything I've ever tried to do to be successful at is like is the discipline of it it's doing something day after day with or without results knowing maybe one day that you may be successful at it and and I think that also speaks to the preparedness of when your number is called you have been putting in that work to be prepared yep exactly he goes on to kind of say that he can predict who's going to win any war like how to evaluate which general is better at war

by saying which of the two leaders is in harmony with his subjects. That shares the moral law that he talked about as facet number one. The moral law, if your leader has the same values as the people that they're trying to lead. So they're saying that that, it's just getting everybody on the same page, really. I think a lot of this stuff in here we all take for granted because it's become so ingrained over, thousands of years is fact that we're looking at this and being like oh like of course whichever side prepares more is going to win like that's we've always knew that but maybe like back he's pointing this pat on paper because that was in common stance maybe gangis con thought he could just

roll in somewhere with no plan and knock off the other army but you know just of sheer will but maybe this means that we're so used to all the teachings he's taught that we think of this is basic. Yeah, it's saying, it's saying, uh, which, which of the two leaders has the same moral law that's in, that's in harmony with the subjects. So it's saying like, if your leader shares the culture as the people that he or she is trying to lead, that's a good thing. And this is where it kind of gets into, yeah, no, that right there is, is, is an interesting aspect. And so what that's basically saying is like, do you have the will of the people? And the fuck up part about that is right like this to me is written like um war like if it was necessary and there

was no way out of it like they're trying to get come for us and like in order to do we have to fight for our survival like that's what this strikes man but a lot of these same tactics are used but in a deceptive way right so uh it's literally we talked about like with the iraq or like the propaganda right or just any any propaganda involved like you you can you can get the will of the people, but you can also persuade the will of the people. And that is where it gets real disgusting to me. It's like you can change people's minds into getting to believe the thing that you're doing is actually admirable when it's when it's not. And that's what's scary about generals in general. Which of the two generals has the most ability? I feel like that sentence is

doing a lot of work right there. Like which general is better than the part of the general that's better will have the advantage. thank you thank you sue and then with whom lie the advantages from heaven and earth that's saying again that's basically saying don't invade Russia in the wintertime yeah this if if hitler or napoleon had read the art of war the world might be a very very different place because that's like that's chapter that's page two of the art of war guys it's literally saying stay the fuck out of Moscow. Don't write.

Say East of the rules. No, he hasn't. Yeah, exactly. And then this is maybe my favorite part of chapter one

when he's sharing the story of a general Sao-Sau who lived between AD 155 and AD 220. This is actually not Sun Su, I guess.

It's just an annotation because Sun-Su was dead before that. But Sao-Sou was general, that at one point in accordance with his own severe regulations against injury to standing crops, he condemned himself to death for having allowed his horse to go into a field of corn. So he just said, hand up. I fucked up. I screwed up. I violated our moral law. So I've announced that I will be put to death. That seems like a little bit of a try hard move. And it

kind of it kind of worked because uh everyone was like no no no please don't please don't condemn yourself to death how about instead of having your head cut off we'll just give you a haircut instead he was like fine fine you persuaded me i feel like he did actually that was that was an empty threat where he said i'm going to have you guys all kill me because he knew they'd be like no we love you so much so he they were definitely like deliberating his punishment and he was like you know what i'm just going to kill myself and then they're like well hey don't do that like and that actually got him lesser than what he would have he was just trying to get out of it

yeah yeah it's like when a tony soprano's girlfriend's being like no tommy don't leave i'll kill myself he's like uh all right i'll stick around for one more fuck and it also gave him favor with the people right because i was like this dude's really got to die for this car so i got to be i got to roll with it too because he was going to die for i mean it was a risky it really like i know where he's good with his guys like if they were like fuck it finally dude you didn't forget i was gone yeah

yeah no he rolled the dice like that could have backfired on him very easily in in football every head coach on the first kickoff should go out there on kickoff or kick return and i'll never ask you to do something i wouldn't do

just running like like third like third from the edge just running L4 L4 yeah L4L5 they break the they break the they break the wed I just, I'm down with that. There's just so much stuff in this book already

that I just immediately relate to football coaches. Like football coaches, this is their Bible. I mean, it does kind of read, like, General Nealant's Maxim's. You remember the Maxim's Aryan? Oh, God, yes, bro. That's just this whole book. I can recite the whole fucking shit, unfortunately. It's like they are Father prayer.

Like, I've said it before every game. Yeah, that's all. So I know it. But, yeah. So, yo, 95% of coaches I've been around have, have had the art of war or have been around or mentioned the art of war i'm convinced that only like 20% of them have actually read the shit but it's just so he so he uh ended up just having his own hair cut off what if it was what if he knew that somebody else had taken his horse and run it through

the field and he was just trying to smoke him out and being like yeah it was me i'll take the fall for it and then waited for the guy that he knew that actually did it to speak up there's like go you're just going to let me die for what you did that's a that's a good way to read the character of one of one of your troops another way that you can tell which army is going to win is by point number five which army is stronger brilliant shit brilliant and then number six on which side are officers and men more highly trained this is just him trying to sell more books he's feeling he had a he had a word count that he was struggling to hit he's The word counter, he was just trying to be like, well, have they read the art of war?

Because if they have, then I'm going to give the nod to them. This is what they call the fundamentals. Like, you've got to learn to bounce past before you put it behind your back, I think. It's still pages two guys. Yeah, that's true. I mean, I feel like if I wrote down all the rules to beer pong and strategy for the first time, I mean, it would be all well known to everybody. but I might be the Sun Zoo of Beer Pong.

That's true. Has it been documented? I don't think anyone's done it. I think there are principles of the art. Definitely a poster. But not the intricacies. You know? Perhaps not. It's definitely been written in magic marker on dry race boards right above beer pong tables.

Has anyone ever like committed it to an actual book? Whoever wants the next game must put their student ID on the table. Bitches blow So he's saying that he can He can forecast victory or defeat Based on all those things Which is yeah Pretty easy

Then it starts to get into the The real deep shit Number 18 All warfare is based on deception That one threw me I was Did you get mad when you I don't know

Does anybody get mad at this shit That it's based on deception You get mad at that? okay so it's like I didn't take it as you have to deceive your opponent like right it's everything involved about war everything about war is

deception there's no gain there's no like it's it's all deception and I'm unsure he was that deep with it but that's how I read it like the manipulation of the individuals involved in order to get them to do what you want them to do

yes because it's rare that generals on the front line that's why they're general right And so they deceive everybody around, similar to how he said you got to win your, you know, constituency, right? You got to win your credit. You got to convince your soldiers that they're fighting for a worthy cause. And 99% of the time, you're not fighting for a worthy cause. You're fighting for egotistical maniacs and the land that they want to own. And so I think, I think reading this shit, the reason why I really get mad is because, like, we talk about war and like, and we deal with numbers and shit.

Like those are real human beings that lost their lives Crazy like dumb shit Like real human beings that loved and cried and cared And it's like they were deceived He also says When able to attack we must seem unable So always just like be putting on Just look like a pussy all the time

That's best way Pump fake Pump fake him Hold out baits to entice the enemy Fane disorder And crush him I saw that this week with Andy Reid in that goal line offense that he ran

where he had Travis Kelsey pretend that he didn't know what was going on during the play and he put his hands up in the air like I don't understand and then the ball was snapped and Kelsey went immediately into his route and he says if his enemy is taking his ease give him no rest

again this is all day one stuff it's chapter one for a reason if his foot on his neck if his forces are united separate them yeah and then he says these military devices leading to victory must not be divulged beforehand

then why the fuck did you write a book? Meaning please buy art of war do not do not let these get out you need to buy the book to find out what he's going to say yeah but he's he wrote a book teaching all he's divulging this entire yeah he's saying don't divulge it other than

buying my book you have to buy the book to find out got it okay don't talk about fight club correct got it this is yeah this is fight club no other think about it um mad dog avery you guys got anything um so i've never read this book and i did not really know what to expect and like you said pf t the one where it says war is um what it based on deception or all warfare is based on deception um that one is kind of what arian said like the one that kind of shook me most of the stuff i'm not comprehending if i'm going to be

completely real with everyone in this room right now I also don't really understand why there's so many, like, I feel like he's breaking the fourth wall in a lot of this. Like, it'll be like he'll say a point, or I don't know if this is like someone else that's saying it, but he'll like do it and then there's going to be like this whole, like, okay, 23. If he is taking his ease, give him no rest. What does that mean, first of all?

Second of all, then right below it, it says. That's George Washington. So when he attacked on Christmas Eve. Okay. Or was it Christmas Day? I forget. They were taking a break Okay, so that's when you get them

Yeah Okay, so then it says right below it This is probably the meaning though Yeah, it says this is probably the meaning though May Yao Chen That's the annotations So who's giving me the annotations? Not Sun Tzu

That's the person that compiled this That's it's probably listed In one of 40 pages listed Lionel Gills Okay Yeah that's I don't know, Lido Ritchie So is this

this is just me being dumped but like is this a is did sunzu make all of this up or is this a compilation of the lionel guy so so he wrote 20 so sunzu wrote 23 and then the lionel guy wrote the under under yeah you know like in shakes when you're like shakespeare they translate it kind of but shakespeare's like poetry so actually this dude it was translated by a monk in 1772 after being written in 1080 so it's 700 years after it got translated so this this book is like a thousand years old yeah so when he says if he is taking his ease give him no rest that's the translation okay that was translated from sun sue's original writing into english words right here but then the person that compiled this book said that that translation might not be entirely accurate and this person thinks that instead of if he is taking his ease give him no rest sun sue actually meant to say, while we are taking our ease, wait for the enemy

to tire himself out. So how accurate is this book actually? Wait, what? No, that, this probably mean that while we are taking our ease, wait for the enemy to tire himself out? No, I thought it was like, if the enemy is taking ease, the George Washington things, don't give him any

rest. And then, I don't, I don't agree with Lionel's fucking Lionel Richie's house. Lionel Richie is throwing me off. He's saying, he's saying if it's, if it's Sunday morning. Get him. Take it easy.

And this dude is probably dead because it was, he was the assistant in the Department of Oriental printed books in MSS and the British Museum 1910. He comes up with like seven different ways to say, attack him where he is unprepared, appear where you're not expected. Yeah, like it all just seems like the same sentence in said different ways. Yeah, it kind of is. Chapter one is a lot of that. What he does is he lays the groundwork and he's like, here's,

what you need to evaluate when it comes to establishing an army and here are some of the things that go into building a good army and then he just basically goes on to say like don't get all your people killed by meeting a big army. I'm looking forward to chapter two because it gets

into a little more specifics like this is a lot more general of statements like he gets into numbers and metrics in the next one. Also who are all of these other Chinese philosophers or warmen that he mentions like Wang Zhu and to you and Chang Yu

who are these people there are other people I don't know I don't have a good answer for that again those are probably general show is in the book like the chicken

yeah isn't that a cool cameo he's a very cool cameo he's based on a real guy what's why is the chicken named after him his the real guy is Joe Zhou Zhou Tang

who is a respected Chinese statesman a military leader of the late Qing dynasty which ruled the country from 1644 until 1912 So Matt Dogg, to answer your question If you go to page 25, it's got the commentators of it So it would say like there's two you, there's Tumu There's Chin Hao, Chilin So it has a bunch of those people

So I just needed to read the like the preface of the book Yeah, I think what you can take mostly from the first chapter here is just he's setting a baseline for what the rest of the book is going to be read off of and it really does sound like a football coach establishing culture it kind of reminds you of the Bible of like

Genesis is kind of laying the groundwork like on the first day God created you know the sun and whatever and it's just kind of like a bunch of lessons stacked on top of each other and sometimes you don't know who all the characters are it's kind of crazy how

language has devolved devolved oh you think yeah you said devolved yeah like we're just please go on

throwing around all these you know according as circumstances are favorable one should modify one's plans and like I could text speech

right like if all is good maybe we should step in maybe we should chill yeah it actually is interesting though how simple the first chapter is and it makes you think like yeah wars there's obviously intricacies that come along with with war but war is just in general

kind of a simple thing it's like take take that guy's shit and don't let him not take his shit you know like if he's trying to not allow you to take his shit you should find a different way to take his shit that's that's that's Chapter 1, summarize right there. Attack where you are not expected. So, yeah, Big T, what do you got from Chapter 1? What was your big takeaway? I hope the rest of the chapters are a lot more interesting than Chapter 1.

Chapter 1 is one of the worst things I've ever read. One of the worst things you've ever read. I mean, it's as we've sat here discussing it, it's remarkably dumb. It is kind of dumb. Here's what we do next time. Everyone have your favorite passage from the Art of War. chapter two ready to go so everyone's going to have one to discuss

sweet and what it means to you in chapter two uh but yeah that's just a baseline so we're going to continue this we're going to read the whole book who did sonsu beat yeah what are his stats yeah he hasn't played me buddy that's yeah that's what i've been saying the SEC like did he beat gangis con like what makes him

such an expert did anyone beat jenghis con like wasn't that his whole thing he didn't get beat the only thing that beat uh gangis con was someone died back to the Capitol and he had to go back. That's all I remember. And Sun Tzu may not have existed. So maybe he actually didn't beat like it's literally Sun Tzu ain't played nobody, Paul. That's what I'm thinking.

Who the hell is Sun Tzu played? Pack 12. Hey, yeah, after dark. He's playing against Bishop Sycamore. Yeah, the first person who's made a Bishop Sycamore joke and at least. three weeks. I know. Lock me up.

Lock me up. Basic FFT is still here. Definitely. I should have brought out some, some Bishop Sycamore tweets last night. Facebook is apparently

back. Oh, thank God. Oh, man. Let's check. People are listening to this on Thursday. I know. I want to see if it says

it's back for some people. I want to see if you're like able, if we go back and it's like a war zone in Facebook, like something happened. It's like an apocalypse. Yeah.

Avery, you got anything well first i do want to say i just remembered it now for the people who wanted tyler baron on this week you can blame instagram being down because i was not able to communicate with him uh but he will be on next week for sure and the way i based my book judgment now in life the only time i ever read is on like a long flight where there's no TVs so when i picked up the book and started reading it i said to myself like if i were to pick this up in like a like a newsstand at the at the airport, I'd close it right. Like, I wouldn't listen to it.

I wouldn't read it. But listening to you guys talk about it and give different perspectives on it, I actually enjoyed it a little bit more just now, listening through the podcast. Like, you comparing it to football, like, that kind of gets my wheels turning a little bit. Yeah, I think that's the way to approach this is to just analogy the fuck out of it, compare it to things that we know about, which are basically football and also the space-time continuum, area. All right. That does it for nanodosing, The Art of War, Chapter 1. We'll be back next week. Next week will be a little bit meatier, I think. So Chapter 2 next week, I love you guys.