#11 - Applied History with WhatIfAltHist

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Rudyard Lynch runs the popular YouTube channel WhatIfAltHist. We're both into applied history — namely, studying the past to forecast the future — and everything we spoke about fell under that rubric. We cover alchemy vs technology, left vs right, nature vs nurture, China vs America, communism vs wokeness, and (of course) networks vs states.Our overarching goal with the pod is to learn about the world to build new startup societies. If these ideas interest you, we're putting theory into practice at Network School, so do apply at https://ns.com.

OUTLINE

00:00 - Intro to WhatifAltHist and counterfactual history

03:52 - The idea in alchemy: everyone is competing on vibes

07:12 - Nature/nurture = hardware/software

09:37 - Why the left often wins: equality builds scalable militaries

11:30 - The idea from Balaji that most influenced Rudyard: God, State, or Network?

13:25 - What is the most powerful force in the world: God, State, or Network

20:28 - Only 4% of Democrats marry Republicans

22:24 - The purpose of alchemy: how early alchemy lead to modern tech

33:25 - We have entered the age of the phrase

42:33 - The reading list: genetics books you should read

43:07 - Communism was based on economics denial, wokeness is genetics denial

50:49 - The Vitruvian Man: our moral responsibility to accelerate technology

57:42 - We are on the verge of global instability

1:20:43 - Internet community becomes physical community: The Network School (ns.com)

1:23:08 - Both Soviet and American empires were built on false premises

1:28:16 - Bitcoin is the strongest new identity

1:32:55 - The total military dominance of the Chinese drone armada

LINKS

https://youtube.com/@ns

https://ns.com