Predictive History - The Story of "Civilization", "Secret History", "Game Theory" and more - Secret History #15: Capital and the Bronze Age Collapse

Episode Date: February 5, 2026

Secret History #15: Capital and the Bronze Age Collapse

Okay, so let's start class. Today we are doing the Bronze Age collapse. So let's reveal where we are in history, okay? So remember the four early civilizations are Egypt, Mesopotamia, In this valley, and of course, China. And as we discussed, the reason why they are the first four major civilizations is that they have major rivers, that allowed them to develop agriculture as well as trade overseas.

And as we discussed, what will happen is that they will have a major city, and this major city will have colonies along the major river. Okay, so in Egypt, it's the Nile. In Mesopotamia, it is the Euphrates and the Tigris, and the first city is Uruk. China, it's the Yellow River, right? So Innes Valley is the Innes River. And now these different city states will go to war in order to control trade routes.

And this leads to a time of major innovation in human history. At the same time, because of these wars, they need better and better equipment. And so eventually they will develop bronze. bronze. Okay? Bronze. Bronze, as you know, is an alloy of tin and copper. So you need both in order to create bronze, which is the strongest metal.

It's ideal for shields, for armor, and for swords. Whoever has more bronze weaponry will win any war. The problem, though, is that tin, it's actually hard to mine and to do that. mine and to discover and to ask of it and to manufacture. In fact, tin deposits are scattered all around the world, okay? So this is tin over here, over here, over here, over here, over here, they're everywhere basically, but it's not concentrated. Therefore, you must now build more trade routes in order to access tin.

Okay? So what's going to happen now is that more trade routes will develop in order to access tin. in order to access 10. And the major points, the major trade routes, will become cities himself, okay? And now this world is globalized in order to facilitate warfare. Now, what's interesting is the Innis Valley itself, it's not like Egypt, Mesopotamia, and China.

It is not engaged in warfare. We've done archaeology in the Inns Valley. in Martin-day Pakistan, we have not discovered weaponry, okay? We've discovered bronze, but we have not discovered weaponry. In fact, we believe that in this valley, it is a peaceful, egalitarian, and artistic civilization. But it's still brought into this global system. Why? Because bronze changes from weaponry into status,

okay? meaning people use it for pottery, for jewelry. And then eventually what happens is that Brantz itself becomes capital. Now, what we also know is that this world is heavily globalized. There's a lot of trading and this world is complete, meaning it touches every corner of the world. But starting in about the year,

1200 this system collapses in fact the collapse is sudden and devastating so remember if you know Chinese history you will know that this is a Shahn dynasty right guess what guys about the year's 400 it collapses all right and we know this because Egypt is under attack during this time by by the sea peoples and what we believe is that the sea people are actually refugees who are fleeing the destruction of Europe what we believe is that there's a perfect storm engulfing this world at this time okay so this perfect storm includes climate change climate change leads to drought which leads to famine which leads to a migration

crisis what's going to happen is that the sea people are going to come in from the north and they are going to wipe out existing civilizations including Messinian Greece and the Haight Empire okay the Height Empire which is in Anatolia which is in Monterey Turkey why Meisingian Greece and the high tide empire are important is we believe they are the two major antagonists in the Trojan War you may have heard of the Children War well guess where guess what? is here okay so Troy is in the center of global trade and that's why people fight over the location

of the city so the messengers is being destroyed the high tide empire is being destroyed and Egypt is being under attack Egypt will survive the invasions of the sea peoples but after the invasions Egypt will be exhausted and will it will lose its um global power status Okay? In this valley will be itself overwhelmed from because of refugees fleeing in from the steps. Mesopotamia, it's very interesting about Mesopotamia, but it's actually the most resilience of all the four major civilizations. And the reason why is Mesopotamatania, throughout its history, is constantly at war, okay? So Egypt is protected by natural geography, by the desert, the southern desert, and then by the Red Sea.

So Egypt has natural boundaries. China also has natural boundaries. But Mesopotamia does not. It's a flat land. So it's very easy for the mountain people to come invade, and it's very easy for outsiders to come and build new empires. In fact, throughout Mesopotamian history, there have been three major empires.

They're Canadian Empire, the Babylonian Empire, and the Syrian Empire. and it goes back and forth. And these empires are not, they don't really last that long, maybe a couple hundred years at most, because this area is so competitive. But because it's so competitive, it's actually much more resilient

than the other areas, okay? All right. So, again, the big question for us is why would this world collapse like this? All of a sudden. And it's really relevant for us. us to understand because many scholars have compared the Bronze Age world to our world. Because our world is also one that is heavily globalized and it seems like it's on the verge

of collapse. So why is it that this sort of like globalized world in which many countries are getting very wealthy, why do they collapse all of a sudden? And the argument I will make to you today is it has to do with the nature of the capital okay so what I will show you is that this is a proto-capitalistic system and what we know about proto-capitalism is that it allows for rapid growth but then it also allows for rapid collapse okay so let's go over the idea of capital what is capital okay so capital

three major characteristics okay the first is that it is universal universal universal just means that everyone wants it everyone in the world believes it has value okay that's number one number two is that it is a store of value and what that's what this means is that you're able to take wealth and store it inside this commodity okay and third thing about capital that's very important is it's mobility meaning I can take this thing and then transport to somewhere else at little no cost if that's these three characteristics then it is capital okay and throughout

human history there have been different types of capital so let's look over there some examples so one example is grain right just food um is sort of universal because everyone wants to eat but not everyone thinks it's valuable okay and it's hard to store value in grain because it could decompose easily right it's actually hard to transport grain because it's cheap but it's expensive to transport okay and that's why grain never became capital now let's look at cattle cattle like cows and sheep It's a better form of capital because you can store more value and it could be universal,

but it's actually hard to transport. And that's why cattle never became capital. Now if you keep on moving on, you get into slaves, right? Human beings. And so you can have women slaves, sex slaves, you can also have man labor, okay? And this is a better form of capital because it's sort of, you know, You can store value in it, but the value is uncertain or unstable. And it's mobile, okay?

So slaves became an economy, but this is a very basic economy. Then you develop bronze, okay? And bronze now is extremely valuable, okay? Everyone wants it. So it's universal. You can store a lot of value in it because it's hard. it because it's hard to make and now you can move it around okay so in other words bronze became the first real universal currency in the world and this allowed for rapid

globalization in the world so think of the the equivalent of bronze today is of course the u.s dollar right the u.s dollar is universal everyone wants it it's a store value and it's mobile as well And so it's a US dollar which allows for the rapid growth of capitalism around the world. Okay? Now let's discuss how capital works. All right. So what we know is that we humans are actually composed of two natures. We are composed of an altruistic nature and we are composed of a utilitarian nature, okay?

Altruistic just means that you care about human relationships. You want to be nice to people because you want to be their friends, they're part of your family. Unitarian just means that you don't care about others. You just care about the goal, the profit, money, power. And we're composed of both sides. So think about when you go to a restaurant, right? If the meal is good, you pay a lot of money for it and you give the waitress a tip. When you go home to dinner and your mother is happy to see you, your mother cooks your

really nice meal and then you say, thank you, right? You don't want to do the opposite, right? Where you go to a restaurant and you're like, thank you, and then you leave, and you don't want to go to your mother's house and say to your mother, hey, this meal was fantastic, here's a thousand dollars for you, okay? It would screw up. Okay, so we have two different natures and we keep them separate. What capital does, that's very interesting, is that that,

it moves us from the altruistic state into the utitarian state and at first that's good why because when you're altruistic you don't really want to do anything okay because you want you don't offend other people so there are lots of villages in the world and they're static why because for them what matters is not change what matters is harmony and this village is it kind of sucks me an outsider it kind of sucks to stand out in fact there There are some traditions in which if you are outspoken, if you are thoughtful, if you like to explore, if you're curious, they will kill you and make you a sacrifice to the gods because they see you as a threat to their social system. Okay, so an ultra-66 system, it doesn't like change.

So if you don't do anything to it, it just stays the way it is. So when you're in capital, people now are more motivated to work hard. People are more motivated to innovate and to explore. So at first this is good, okay? Now you're expanding the system. But, and then you reach a point of its maximum growth. But then what happens is the scale, sorry, the scale tips over, okay? And people become too utitarian. And when you become too utitarian, you cheat.

You are, you don't care about others. and this causes a lot of problems, okay? You start to exploit other people. And so when you become too utilitarian, the system collapses. It doesn't make sense. Capital comes in the system and it makes it grow really fast. Once it hits a certain point, then it has to collapse. So let's use another example.

Let's just say that you are a leader of a group of people, and it could be a village, you can be anywhere, okay? And if there's no money involved, what do you care about? You care about status, you care about your reputation, you care about how people see and perceive you, right? So you care about the feelings of others. Once capital enters the equation, then the way that the leader sees you is different. The leader sees you as a commodity to be exploited. Okay?

If the leader is not like, how much money can I make money off you? Not only that, but the leader sees you. leader okay the leader will do what the leader will align with other leaders and they will become a cartel okay or an elite and they will together exploit people okay but not only that but they will expand and look for new areas to conquer okay because all they care about now is money how to expand the capital but once you the capital expands too far, then what happens is only a few people have all the capital. And the people down below, they're enslaved, they're exploited, and they want to destroy

the system. They become indifferent. If you force them, they will revolt against you. So the system must collapse. So the argument I'm going to make to you is this is to the way capital works, and there's nothing you can do about it. That's why the Bronze Age grew, but that's also what the Bronze Age collapsed. And that's why our world grew, but this is all the world.

also why our world will collapse as well. That's the argument I'm making you to you today. Any questions before we go to the P.PT? Is this clear to you guys? All right, let's go to the PPP. All right, so this is a map that shows you the world of the Bronze Age. And as we discussed, these are four major civilization

right, China, in this valley, Mesopotamia, and Egypt. Okay. And they now, because they're at war, they have an insatiable need for bronze. And bronze needs tin. Where's tin located? Tin is located where the stars are. And you can see they're scattered over the place. So what they're going to do now is they're going to build trade routes into these tin places

that allow them to extract the tin to create bronze armor, okay? But when they do so, they will also create new civilizations and new. cities until you get a completely globalized world. So this is China and as you can see they're always at war and so they need weapons, okay? This is pottery, bronze pottery from China during the Shang Dynasty during the Bronze Age. All right. So how do we know that it's a completely globalized world? Because over the past 20 years, we've discovered shipwrecks. So we've discovered ships that were transporting goods during the Bronze Age. And so when you dig up these ships and you analyze where the products are from, you're able to

rebuild the trade networks, okay? And that's why we know about the Bronze Age. Okay, so what's going to happen is this. The green is the copper sources, okay? And as you can see, there's a lot of copper sources. The problem is the tin sources are spread out. So in order to create bronze, you need to constantly expand your trade networks outside. Okay? And as you can see, what's happening is that the expansion keeps on going until it encompasses the entire world. So the dark brown is the earliest trade routes. And then the pink are the later trade routes. But as you can see, it's always expanding outwards in order to facilitate more and more trade. And what's really important for us to understand is the entire world is encompassed.

Okay, so this is Britain, this is Ireland, this is Scandinavia. Okay, this is important because if you study history, it's the British Isles, Scandinavia, aren't often discussed during, in the branch dates. But recent research has shown us that it's all interconnected, okay? Okay, so as I mentioned, these are trade networks, okay? And these gray spots are areas that are major nodes in the trade network. They come about because of trade. The red are the major consumption areas. So the gray are areas that are being created in order to better facilitate trade.

And eventually you reach a point when it's completely globalized. every source of copper and tin has been discovered and there's a massive trade network built around each area okay all right but again as as we know even though this area is extremely globalized extremely wealthy only in about 50 years it completely collapses okay and we know because of the Egyptian records okay the Egyptians write about the coming to sea peoples and so if you just watch the eros okay this is the movement of the sea peoples These are refugees fleeing famine. And what do they do?

Well, they team up with pirates. And the pirates and the refugees together overwhelmed is existing civilization, including the Mycinians, presently, Greece, including the Haithet Empire, present-day Turkey, and they keep on attacking, okay? Even from the south, people are attacking the major cities. This is a world in complete collapse. Okay. This is another map showing the invasions, okay?

These again are the sea peoples. These are just economic migrants. These are refugees. Similar to what's happening today where if you're following the news in Europe, you've got all these Middle Eastern refugees coming into Europe, overwhelming their economic systems. So this is a trend that we can expect to continue for a very long time, okay? All right, the sea peoples are just a mix of different people. We've tried to NFI where they kind of come from who they are we really don't know okay so the assumption is they come from everywhere and they are being led by pirates who are expert at waiting other nations okay and this this is a painting from Egypt again we

know because the Egyptians left records of the invasions of sea people there were at least three major invasions of sea people we're talking like 100,000 of people attacking Egypt at the same time and Asia had to expand Germanish resources to tell these invasions, but it ultimately left Egypt bankrupt, okay? This is Eric Klein, he's an anthropologist at the University of Washington. He wrote a book called 1177, okay? And he lists the reasons why the Bronze Age collapse happened.

And he says it was a perfect storm of crises, including climate change, which led to drought, which led to famine. There were also earthquakes. We're able to do analysis and discover that there were major earthquakes during this time. There were revolutions, there were civil wars, there was a migration crisis, okay? So it's a perfect storm of crises. But what I want to show you today is it all has to do with the nature of capital, okay? This is a proto-capitalistic system.

All right, so my argument to you today is, yes, the branch age collapse because of a perfect storm of crisis, that's what we know, but I want to extend this and say, it has to do with the fact that it was a proto-capitalistic system. And so capital drives you to prosperity, but then it can all, but it will also drive you to crisis. Okay, that's the argument I will make you today. All right. And we've seen this before. So this is the world right before World War I. As you can see, it was heavily, heavily globalized, okay?

And people thought that because of trade, because of prosperity, we can't go to war because why would we? And then, you know, a couple years later, World War I, where tens of millions of people died for no reason, okay? Tens of millions of people died for no reason. It was just a slaughter. And what I want to argue to you is that this is a very common thing. And if you look at the branch of the age collapse in World War I, we are in a very similar situation, where the world is heavily globalized, it's heavily interconnected, but because of the nature of capital, we will probably fall off the edge at some. point okay and and people would argue that we're already reaching this point okay so again

during the bronze age okay the high bronze age the late bronze age 1400 to 1200 BCE you can see this entire world is interconnected and what you will also see is that the center of this world is really the Mediterranean and the G and C okay and which city is the most important strategically in this this world it's called the city Troy right Troy which is why we have the Trojan War we will discuss actually the Trojan War next class okay but I point this out to you okay so why is this why is this happening well think about how in a porto-capitalistic system that depends on tin and copper how do you make money okay well there are different ways the first way you can make money is mining

guess what it sucks because it's hard work and you don't make that much money out of it okay it's just labor another way is processing it into ingots ingots are just ways to transport the tin and the copper okay you can also manufacture into jewelry pottery and weapons okay that makes more money transporting it's hard work but you make more money okay another way it's just piracy just steal the stuff but the best way you can make money actually is by controlling trade roots okay That's what Troy is. Troy is a control of a trade route. And so that's how you make real money during globalization, okay?

That's why even today, the Middle East is so important because the Middle East is the center of all global trade. So if it controls Middle East, controls global trade. So remember this idea. We have empires, because empires really are trade routes. Empires are just control of trade routes. Empires back then, is very different from empires today. Empires today would be like nation states.

which controls borders and have their own language. Back then, empires were just a collection of different trading points, okay? That were aligned with each other. And the Trojan War was just a trade war. That's all it was. We'll discuss this next class. Okay? Okay, so you can see why Troy is so important. Because if you're in Anatolia, it's many mountains,

it's good because you can mine for precious metals, for precious metals and it's easy to defend, but it's hard to access to sea. That's why Troy is so important, okay? All right, so again, we know about glorization during the brine trees because of shipwrecks, okay? So this is a very famous shipwreck that we discovered off the coast of Turkey

called Erlo-Burun, okay? And inside it, you can see all this precious pottery. And we can actually date the location of where the pottery came from. Okay, so these are major sources of tin. And what's really important this map tells you is that they're actually in mountains, okay, so they're hard to reach. That means you have to spend a lot of effort

to create trade routes based on tin. Okay, these are ingots, okay? This is how you transport tin and copper, you transform it into ingots. And what's going to happen is that because the tin is located in isolated areas and it's high mountains they have to use every form of transportation and so in Europe they mainly use the river system and that's why all of Europe is brought into this trading network this is Scandinavia and

as you can see there's our trade focus on Scandinavia as well okay and this something that we've not known before we just assumed that Scandinavia didn't actually exist back that it did exist okay and it was a very important part of the trade network. Okay, so let's talk about the Innes Valley civilization. The Innes Valley civilization for the longest time we know was peaceful, egalitarian, and religious. And we know because we're able to dig up the cities. And what we discovered is that it's very much similar to Kaulyak, where the housing is very similar, where irrigation, where hygiene, it's all very advanced. And we have no evidence of

warfare because we can't find any weaponry. Okay, so why is Innes Valley so peaceful as compared to Egypt, Mesopotamia, and China? I think it was because they were able to trade in Mesopotamia, China, and Egypt, and discovered, we don't want the system. We don't want a system where everyone's killing each other, okay? That's my guess, but I don't know. No one knows, okay? This is one of the Indies Valley's major cities that we've dug up.

This is another. As you can see, it's pretty advanced. The houses are pretty equal. It's very similar to Catehoyac, a much bigger version of Catea Hoiak, which we discussed previously. This is an artist's rendition of what Inless Valley City would look like during that time. What's amazing is that it's very advanced, it's very hygienic, it's very peaceful, it's very egalitarian. And religion was a major part of their lives during this time. So the indigenous civilization will also give rise to something called the BMAC culture. This is in actually North Afghanistan. And how this developed was because of trade, right?

Because as I discussed previously, Tinn is found in the mountains, and so you need to create a community around the mountain. So it's a mining town, but it's also for manufacturing, it's also for transportation, it's also for trade. So this is a pretty sophisticated, sophisticated, pretty complex area. But over time, what will happen is that the female culture will bring people from the steps, okay? These are the proto-Indo-Europeans we discussed previously.

And then because of climate change, because of the collapse of bond change, they will come and they will occupy both Martin-day Iran as well as India, giving rise to two religions, the Zoroastrian religion as well as the Hindu religion. We'll discuss this at a later date. Okay, this is pottery from that, uh, in this valley civilization. Okay, uh, let's move on to the Mycenae civilization, okay? The Mycenae civilization is really important because it gives us Greek civilization, okay? We just consider the birthplace of all Western civilization. We'll discuss the Greeks next class and specifically, but I want to, I will choose the Mycenaeans now, okay?

Misenia is in the center. We believe that the Mycenae culture, it is a warrior aristocracy. So the people in charge are warriors as opposed to a priest's aristocracy. So remember in Sumer, it was a priest that were in control. Now it's a warriors who are in control. And we also know that the Mycenae people are descendants of the Proto-Indo-Europeans. So the proto-Indo-Europeans swept in into Europe, and then they went all the way down to Greece.

And as you can see, Misenia is really important because it's the center of all trade. At this time in history, the easiest way to get around the Mediterranean is by sea. Land, it's very costly, it's very slow, and there's lots of bandits. So, C is the best way. So in this system, the best way to make money is actually piracy. So as you can see, there are lots of islands scattered around Greece and so the Greeks in the beginning were mainly pirates okay so the people who invaded Troy during the during the Trojan War were pirates okay the Mycenaeans were famous for being pirates okay so as you can this this is a much clearer map mysinian civilization they had pottery

they had olive oil they had certain great goods for trade but mainly it was really about transportation, logistics, piracy, and controlling trade routes, okay? That's why Meissenia was so important at this time. This is Troy, by the way, okay? As you can see, during the Trojan, what will happen is you have different people or Meissenia go attack Troy because it's such a strategic location, right? If they're able to control Troy, they control the entire GNC. Okay, so this is an artist tradition of what the Mycenian civilization looked like. It is what we call a palace economy, meaning all the center of the economy was a palace.

What happened is that all the farmers had to give the palace their food, and the palace would then take this food and redistributed to the artisans, okay? People who made pottery, people who made clothing and textiles for trade purposes. So it's a control and command economy, center of the palace. This is what the palace looks like. like this is what their economy looks like okay so all the food we go to a palace and the palace we redistribute the food and the food palace went in to take the food to give to the artisans to make textiles for trade okay and this is what they call me it

was a very simple economy but it was very effective it was extremely wealthy place this is a gold mass okay gold is very rare as you know and they turn it into a king some of speculate this is the mass of agamannon who is a major character in the We'll discuss the early at next class. We actually don't know who this is. Okay? This is a sword with gold, with a gold hilt. So it just shows you how extremely wealthy they are, right?

Even though warriors had gold. This is something called the Lions Gate, so the entrance into Meishania. This is a very rough time. Lots of wars, lots of piracy, so there's lots of walls. The other thing about the Mycenae civilization is is their tombs are very, very elaborate. Okay, this is the entrance into one of their tombs.

Over time, we see the tombs become more and more elaborate, so we know that over time they became a much more wealthy civilization. Okay? This is what their tombs look like. They're huge places. Okay? This is what the outside looks like. Where do they...

Myssinians learn this? Well, they learn this from Egypt, right? So at this time in history, the Mycenaeans and the Egyptians were in close conduct with each other, the Egyptians have a habit of bearing themselves with all their treasure. So this is their coffin. This is a mastaba, which is their tomb. As you can see, it's huge.

It's almost as big as a house. So the question then is, what would they do that? We've discussed it previously where for most of human history, we've understood that this is a material realm, and then once we die, we go off the spiritual realm. Guess what, guys? You can't take your money with you. So why are you bearing your money with you?

Right? Okay, this is a Mastaba. As you can see, it's a very elaborate, ornate place. And Egyptians were known for this, but also China, right? The first emperor of China, the Terracotta warriors. Why is he buried with an army

and such wealth? That makes no sense. If you die, you die. So why is this happening? So the argument I want to make to you is that that this is happening because money capital too much of it changes the fundamental chemistry of the brain it makes you crazy okay so let's let's do a thought experiment okay the thought experiment is this let's just say Satan were to come into

this room and said hey I'll give you guys a billion dollars but and I you have to live forever and you have to be my slave forever we'd be like no you want that you know like to have a billion dollars but then be a slave for all of eternity like Satan? No. But, okay, let's assume we are the richest people on earth. We all have a 10 billion dollars, right? Now Satan says to us, you know what, 10 billion dollars is a lot of money. I'm sure you enjoy your life, but you're gonna die. When you die, you can't take that money with you, but hey, I can make you live forever, I will let you keep this money, but you have to be my

slave for all of eternity. Do you agree? We will would agree that's a difference you see what you see what's happened right money makes people crazy all right so bronze okay so remember bronze started off as just a weapon in order to obtain power but then over time as probably people became more stable in their lives they use bronze to make jewelry and party to show their status okay and then over time because rich people wanted it everyone wanted it and so bronze has become a currency wealth and it was as easy to store universally recognized and mobile and this happened over centuries over a hundred of years okay

that's a that's a pattern here all right so um this is a map a table that shows you how capital is form okay so capital needs to have universality the more people want it the more valuable it is it has to be it has to store value okay it has to be permanent okay okay so It doesn't make sense. It has to be mobile. It has to be available. Okay? It has to be rare enough.

So once it has these different elements, then it becomes a currency. So if you just look at history, we've used different sources of currency. So we have seashells, cattle, grain, woman, slaves, drugs, oil, bronze, gold, and U.S. dollar. We've always had money as a concept, okay? But money for most of human industry signified a debt that could not be paid off. So David Grabber, who's an anthropologist, he wrote about this in this book, Debt. Why do we create money as a concept? Because there are certain transactions in which there was so much debt you couldn't pay it off.

So most of human interactions, it's reciprocal, right? So you help me, I help you. But there are three things in which the debt can't be really. the debt can't be really paid off, okay? The first example is, let's just say, I kill your brother. Well, now you come kill me, right? And if you kill me, then my family's gonna go kill you, okay?

And it creates a vicious cycle of vengeance, right? So the way to get rid of this problem is, if I kill your brother, I acknowledge that it's a debt I can't be paid off. So I give you something valuable. It could be gold, it could be jewelry, it could be anything, okay? All right, so that's what money is. That's the first example.

Second example is, if a woman marries into your family, right, then that's also a debt that can be paid off because you've just taken away my daughter. So you give me a gift, maybe some gold, maybe a cow, a horse, it doesn't matter, okay? That's a second example of a debt that can be paid off. The third example, and this is this is really important example is, let's just say that you have a great person in the community. He's a great leader or he's a great priest. or he's just a great person in general, and he's done a lot for you.

But he dies. What do you do then? What you do is you bury him with gifts, with gold, with money, okay? And so it's a monument to his legacy. You know that he can't take the stuff with him to the afterworld, but it doesn't matter. All you're doing is you're acknowledging his contribution to your community. And that's why when we dig up graves in ancient times, you'll see people buried with gold. Because the community is acknowledging this person was great. We will forever remember him. And so the money is a way to acknowledge this fact. Does that make sense?

Right? So for most of the human industry, that's what we use money for, as to symbolize money that can not be paid off. But then over time, as society became more sophisticated, we use other forms of currency, okay? And as you can see, all these different forms of currency, okay? Whether it's sea shells, cattle, grain, women, drugs, oil. It doesn't really work in terms of universal.

universality, sort of value, mobility. But bronze does, okay? And after bronze, gold does. And then after gold, today we have the US dollar. It doesn't make sense. Okay? So once you have a university accepted currency, you can now have globalization.

And so bronze was a major discovery which allowed for globalization. Yeah? Yeah. Go ahead. I think browns and the gold is commodity. and US dollar is like money stuff but why does Browns because it is it because drugs and oil does not count as capital so it is not okay look let's

you're right okay drugs can be occurrences the problem is that it's not universally accepted okay and also the problem with drugs of course is it costs a lot of problems your society so think of opium in China and it's it's hard yeah it creates a lot of problems. So it can't be universally accepted. In fact, most countries would ban drugs. But at the same time, you're right in that it is valuable. It's a store of value. So you guys don't know this, but there are a lot of governments that have secret supplies of drugs. Because if the world falls apart and you need to rebuild society, you need wealth, right? So you need gold,

but guess what? Drugs is also a form of wealth because people want it, okay? People crave it. All right? So is this clear? Right? So once you have a universally accepted currency you have the basis for globalization and globalization happens naturally as a result all right so capital is just a monetation of power that's all it is and you can have any form of capital okay the problem of capital is that it exploits it alienates and it consolidates okay so go back go go go go example where I'm the leader of a village if there's no money involved all I care about is when in the respect

of my people, okay? And so I work hard for them. But once capital is involved, I see each person as a commodity, okay? And therefore I become alienated from my humanity and from others. And now I want to exploit people in order to generate more capital. And over time, what will happen is that the strongest will have all the capital, which leads to massive inequality. So the only result of capitalism is one, massive inequality, corruption, immorality, okay, and alienation, anger, indifference. And this is the world we live in today. It doesn't make sense. It's just the nature of capital. There's no way around it.

Okay, so as we discussed previously, we have two different mindsets. Okay, we're composed of two different individuals. We have the altruistic nature so that we care about relationships, we care about empathy, we care about creativity. And then our utitarian side, which is all about material objectives, logic, and hard work, okay? So in school, you have the uteritarian mindset, okay? Like, how do I get good grades? That's all you care about, all right? At home, you care about relationships, you care about maintaining good relationships with your mother and your father and your siblings and your relatives. Well, we also, you care about, you care about, you care about, you care about, know and it's really important is that people are altruistic, people who work for others,

tend to more creative than other people. But people who are obsessed with money tend to work harder than other people. That's why globalization happens so fast because everyone's in a rush to make as much money as possible. But eventually you reach a point where a few people have all the money and so everyone's like, screw this, I give up because I'm never going to be rich. you lie flat, right? Tongping or quite quitting, you just give up. And this is the world we live in today.

Okay, now, capitalism is a problem because it changed the funnel of nature of your brain. Okay, so this is an article from the Lleptic Monthly, which is a very popular magazine in the United States. There are these neuroscientists who have done brain scandals, brain scans, and they discovered that power caused is brain damage, okay? In fact, if you look at the brain of a psychopath and the brain of a wealthy person, it's pretty similar, okay? Yeah, they did brain scans and it looks as though people

with who has too much money has brain damage. Why? Because a normal person is able to have empathy, is able to understand the feelings of others. Guess what? If you're too powerful, if you're too wealthy you don't have the capacity to have empathy you don't you can't appreciate the feelings of others so think of like Ellen Musk or Mark Zuckerberg I don't they have actually no concept of empathy okay they are completely unable to relate to the feelings of other people this is Brian Johnson okay Brian Johnson is a millionaire he spends about two million dollars a year on health okay he says some crazy things so

For example, he has a father and he has a son. And he believes in blood transfusion. So if you transfuse the blood, your blood, you become younger. So he's trying to figure out how to live forever. So he'll do things like blood transfusion. But he has, he works so hard, man, because he'll get up like 5 o'clock in the morning, exercise. The food he eats is the most nutritious food in the world.

And he'll regulate his sleep. He's always monitoring, he has heartbeat, he's always exercising. life sucks and the question you have to ask yourself is if you have so much money why don't you just enjoy it you know why don't want to just enjoy your life why are you focus on living forever okay and that's a problem with wealthy people they're kind of scoop in the head okay um he looks like a vampire dies okay this is him when he first you know start this project and you can see he looks like a vampire now all right I'm not exaggerating here look at this guy the problem is that there are lots of wealthy

people in the world and they happen to like this idea of living forever okay so let's just say let's go with experiment you're a billionaire okay you have the more you have you have like a hundred million dollars ten million dollars sorry, like $10 billion in the bank, 100 billion dollars on the bank, who knows? You have a problem, which is, how do I keep this, right? Because you're going to die.

And you have all that money, so you can do whatever you want. So what you do is you invest in Brian Johnson, you invest in scientific research to live longer, but you also do what? You also build bunkers, okay? Because you're afraid that the world will end and you want to live forever, so you build bunkers. This is Mark Zuckerer's bunker in Hawaii.

It's kind of stupid because if the world's going to end, is your bunk going to save you? Probably not. But he spent like $26 million or $2060 million on this stupid thing, hoping to live forever. And this is what it looks like on the inside. It's crazy to go through life thinking about how to live forever and how to survive an apocalypse. Why don't just enjoy your life, okay? They also join secret societies. Why? Because secret societies may have the secret to reincarnation,

of the secret to immortality, of the secret to longevity. They don't care. They have so much money that they're willing to invest in everything. So they're willing to try blood transfusion. They're willing to build bunkers. They're also willing to join secret societies. And that's why you see secret society is growing in power and popularity today. They also worship Satan.

Because, again, if you have $10 billion, you're stuck. Right? Because you don't want to die. Like, you don't want, like, it's what we'll call sunk cost fallacy. Right? You're like, I worked so hard for this. And I have the best life, but I'm going to die. And when I die, all this is gone.

I have to start all over again. I don't want to do that, okay? So they're willing to do anything, including worship Satan. In fact, what we will learn is that the religion of Satan became so popular in order to solve this problem, where wealthy people, they want to live forever, and they want the war to stay the same as it is now. But as you learn in this class, it is impossible for the war to stay the way it is. Change is a constant. Things move in cycles. Capitalism gives rise to wealth, but it also destroys wealth.

That's just the nature of life. All right, so that's a branchage collapse. Any questions? Sorry, yeah. Go ahead, Vitt. Go ahead. Why do they worship Satan? Because you said that those millionaires, they want to keep their money forever,

and what does it do with Satan? Okay, that's a really good question, okay? So, it's really desperation, right? Because what religion teaches you is that wealth is bad. And when you go to heaven, you'll be judged by God. And God is going to ask you, hey, why do you have so much money, man? And you'll be like, well, I stole this money and I hurt a lot of people and I cheated, I lied, I steal. Yeah, you know.

And like, do we want to say that to God? Yeah, you're kind of stuck, right? Right? So first of all, you don't want to die. You don't want to give up all this money that you worked hard to get, but you also don't want to face God. and faces judgment. Okay, so what's your alternative here? Your alternative is you believe in something more powerful than God

or at least someone who you can find refuge in from God. Okay? If it means going to hell, you prefer going to hell than facing judgment from God, okay? Because you and your heart know exactly what you did to get that $10 billion dollars, okay? You know what you did. Maybe other people don't know, but you know what you did

and God knows what you did. And you really, really want to face judgment. all right okay so yeah does that make sense okay any more questions guys all right so um that's it for the branch age so we will discuss the iliad next class okay and so what i'm going to do is i'm going to introduce the um iliad today and then we'll continue the iliad on thursday okay all right So the branches collapse is important because it will give rise to Greek civilization, which we believe to be the basis for Western civilization. So the question then is, how does this happen?

So if you look at Misenin in Greece, and then we transition into the Dark Ages. The Dark Ages does not, all it means is that the Greeks lost capacity to write. Okay, and so what will happen is Mustang in Greece will transform from a policy economy into something called the Polis. Polis is a city state, okay? This is where we get the word politics from. Okay, so this is a major political transition

where you went from a centralized economy to now city states competing against each other. That's the first thing. Second thing that's important is the writing system changes. It went from linear B, linear B now becomes, do you guys know? What's a new writing system called?

I'm sure you guys know the name, alphabet. All right. And the third big change is you go from censorship, because remember, in a palace economy, in a centralized system, bureaucrats control, and bureaucrats control what is talked about, okay, or what is expressed.

and they censure and centralize content. They basically create propaganda. So now, while I'm internship, you have a new person emerged named Homer. Okay, and we will discuss Homer next class. And these three things together become the basis for Greek civilization. And this is why the Greeks became the greatest civilization ever in human history. So the main lesson I want to leave you today is, yes, collapse. is bad, but collapse also gives opportunity for a new civilization to arise, for a new humanity

to emerge. And we will discuss this next class, okay? The birth of Greek civilization. All right, great. All right.