WEBVTT - What Businesses Can Learn From the Collapse of Civilizations 0:00:13.039 --> 0:00:17.520 Hello, and welcome to another episode of the Odd Lots podcast. 0:00:17.640 --> 0:00:21.520 I'm Joe Wisenthal and I'm Tracy Allaway. Tracy, do you 0:00:21.560 --> 0:00:25.240 remember the episode that we did was not long after 0:00:25.360 --> 0:00:29.880 the election at the time and maybe still is one 0:00:29.880 --> 0:00:33.560 of our biggest most popular Odd Lots ever. Oh, it's 0:00:33.600 --> 0:00:36.879 definitely one of my personal favorites. And it was one 0:00:36.920 --> 0:00:39.640 of the earliest odd Lots episodes as well. Right, I 0:00:39.640 --> 0:00:41.720 guess maybe at the time being the biggest at the 0:00:41.760 --> 0:00:44.960 time is not saying as much, but nonetheless it was. 0:00:45.200 --> 0:00:48.880 It was very popular. We talked to an archaeologist about 0:00:49.600 --> 0:00:54.200 civilizational collapse, right, not just any archaeologists, though, one who 0:00:54.280 --> 0:00:59.040 has been called at various times the real life Indiana Jones. Right. So, 0:00:59.160 --> 0:01:01.920 I was like right after the election, and of course, 0:01:02.160 --> 0:01:04.679 like half the country was really freak out. You know, 0:01:04.720 --> 0:01:07.520 half the country is probably thrilled. They half the country 0:01:07.560 --> 0:01:11.080 that was really freaking out was very interested in this idea, like, 0:01:11.120 --> 0:01:14.240 oh God, what does the end of civilization looks like? 0:01:14.400 --> 0:01:17.119 Look like? Because maybe that's what we're seeing now, right, 0:01:17.160 --> 0:01:19.959 And so we brought on an expert, a literal expert 0:01:20.000 --> 0:01:23.680 in the end or collapses of civilizations, right, And so 0:01:24.080 --> 0:01:26.600 very all the ominous signs we walked through it. He's 0:01:26.600 --> 0:01:30.920 an expert on the collapse of the minds. And you 0:01:30.959 --> 0:01:34.760 know what parallels, if any, there are between then and 0:01:34.800 --> 0:01:38.600 what we're seeing in modern society in the US, Well, 0:01:38.600 --> 0:01:42.240 we have them back. That is very exciting. Exactly. So 0:01:42.520 --> 0:01:47.560 we were once again talking about collapse and ancient civilizations, 0:01:47.600 --> 0:01:50.320 but our guests this time. He has been doing more 0:01:50.360 --> 0:01:54.960 work lately, specifically on like parallels to kind of the 0:01:55.040 --> 0:01:59.520 business world and sort of taking theories from management and 0:01:59.680 --> 0:02:03.400 ekenn mix and applying them to see what parallels there 0:02:03.400 --> 0:02:07.560 are between that and again the what causes an organization 0:02:07.600 --> 0:02:10.560 to collapse? So I find this really interesting because at 0:02:10.560 --> 0:02:13.519 the moment, in particular, you have a lot of handwringing 0:02:13.680 --> 0:02:16.160 over what's going on with the big tech firms, and 0:02:16.200 --> 0:02:20.680 of course, for technology, culture is such an embedded aspect 0:02:20.880 --> 0:02:23.600 of a tech firm, and so people are talking about 0:02:23.600 --> 0:02:26.799 whether or not those tech firms are maybe not going 0:02:26.840 --> 0:02:29.600 to collapse, although I guess you know there's a question 0:02:29.639 --> 0:02:32.680 mark over things like we work, but whether or not 0:02:32.720 --> 0:02:35.360 they're heading for hard times and how that culture is 0:02:35.520 --> 0:02:38.320 feeding into that and even if you don't get outright 0:02:38.400 --> 0:02:43.240 collapse Like this idea of sort of endemic cultural problems 0:02:43.280 --> 0:02:45.480 that lead to rot, I think is a really important 0:02:45.600 --> 0:02:48.920 phenomenon across all kinds of businesses beyond tech. Like just 0:02:48.919 --> 0:02:51.200 think about banks and or think about a bank like 0:02:51.240 --> 0:02:55.519 Wells Fargo that has had numerous fines and scandals over 0:02:55.520 --> 0:02:58.720 the years. Despite the best efforts of management to root 0:02:58.760 --> 0:03:02.320 out all that stuff. It should extraordinarily difficult, it seems 0:03:02.760 --> 0:03:06.520 to undo the rot that can form and set a 0:03:06.520 --> 0:03:10.000 complex organization. Right, So, how does that culture, how does 0:03:10.000 --> 0:03:15.200 that organizational structure within a company actually impact its business, 0:03:15.240 --> 0:03:17.960 and how does it change over time? And what can 0:03:18.000 --> 0:03:22.240 we learn from the mayans to preserve the robustness of companies? 0:03:22.240 --> 0:03:24.519 All right, So, without further ado, we want to bring 0:03:24.600 --> 0:03:29.440 back for a repeat performance on odd LODs. Arthur Demrist. 0:03:29.720 --> 0:03:33.600 He's the Ingram Professor of Anthropology and director at Vanderbilt's 0:03:33.639 --> 0:03:37.720 Institute of Mesoamerican Archaeology. Arthur, thank you very much for 0:03:37.760 --> 0:03:40.839 joining us. Hi. Yeah, I'm happy to be on here. 0:03:41.000 --> 0:03:44.080 You know, this is an audience that I think matters. 0:03:44.480 --> 0:03:46.640 Thank you, It's it's good to be on here. I 0:03:46.880 --> 0:03:51.880 make one quick correction that that collapsed got little to 0:03:51.960 --> 0:03:54.680 do with Trump. I've been doing this since eighty nine 0:03:54.800 --> 0:03:58.520 and it's been building slowly, and then in the last 0:03:58.560 --> 0:04:02.000 ten years, all of a sudden, I'm in great demand 0:04:02.040 --> 0:04:05.600 everywhere to give talk. So I didn't mean that you 0:04:05.720 --> 0:04:08.480 just started jumping on the collapsed bandwagon. I do think 0:04:08.480 --> 0:04:13.240 that helped explain the interest. At least you know that there. 0:04:13.400 --> 0:04:15.800 I think it's the stuff that I worry about is 0:04:15.960 --> 0:04:22.359 more serious, as as the information technology people and business people, 0:04:22.520 --> 0:04:26.200 and of course it's the global warming issue and uh, 0:04:26.400 --> 0:04:29.400 but there's really I was surprised, that's one reason why 0:04:29.440 --> 0:04:33.480 I'm doing this, that the interest was coming from beyond 0:04:33.520 --> 0:04:37.840 academics and for people who can actually make a difference. 0:04:37.960 --> 0:04:42.479 And so I sort of shifted over to communicating on 0:04:42.720 --> 0:04:46.360 these kind of venues. And then I learned that business 0:04:46.400 --> 0:04:51.040 strategic management theory, partnership theory, these things work really well 0:04:51.839 --> 0:04:56.960 on looking at ancient civilizations. And so you know, me 0:04:57.000 --> 0:05:00.320 and my collaborators, who one of them isn't expert in 0:05:00.360 --> 0:05:04.239 strategic management. It became a feedback cycle, you know, where 0:05:04.760 --> 0:05:08.880 we're providing information, we're trying to we have articles submitted 0:05:08.920 --> 0:05:12.480 to business journals and on the other hand, um, we're 0:05:12.600 --> 0:05:17.160 using that for my archaeology journals to try to explain collapse, 0:05:17.160 --> 0:05:20.120 although I'm getting, you know, some plaque on that because 0:05:21.360 --> 0:05:26.880 business is bad, it's evil capitalists like you guys. So thanks, 0:05:26.640 --> 0:05:29.040 uh so, Arthur, maybe just to begin with, can you 0:05:29.080 --> 0:05:33.080 walk us through the parallels between a society like the 0:05:33.200 --> 0:05:38.520 Mayan civilization and what we see in business today? Wow? 0:05:39.040 --> 0:05:42.440 Well I will, that's my that's a book. But um, 0:05:42.480 --> 0:05:45.440 a civilizations people don't think if they sort of think 0:05:45.520 --> 0:05:47.880 like a bunch of people who kind of do the 0:05:47.960 --> 0:05:54.080 same things. Civilizations that their core networks they're primarily political 0:05:54.320 --> 0:05:58.320 and economic networks because the ideas and the religion, the idiot, 0:05:58.400 --> 0:06:01.680 that's tradition that continues even after collapse and so on. 0:06:02.040 --> 0:06:05.960 But their networks and the political and economic networks are, 0:06:06.000 --> 0:06:11.200 you know, as today are always almost inseparable. So you 0:06:11.279 --> 0:06:16.279 start to look at why whole networks can collapse, and 0:06:16.320 --> 0:06:21.000 then how how responses are because most collapses don't happen 0:06:21.520 --> 0:06:26.680 the government's corporations whatever, they're problem solving institutions. So there 0:06:26.680 --> 0:06:31.440 are responses and you can see which ones succeed or fail. 0:06:32.120 --> 0:06:35.760 And of course that leads right into the kind of 0:06:35.839 --> 0:06:41.000 theory that everyone is doing in management, strategic management, investment. 0:06:41.040 --> 0:06:43.280 I mean, you guys are in the you know, your 0:06:43.320 --> 0:06:47.400 channels in the prediction business, which is what I'm kind 0:06:47.400 --> 0:06:49.840 of into. So a lot of that applies a lot 0:06:49.880 --> 0:06:52.640 of the same thing partnership networks. We were using it 0:06:52.720 --> 0:06:59.680 to explain the relationships between cities economically, in trade and politics, 0:07:00.160 --> 0:07:04.520 and then ways in which those go bad and you have, uh, 0:07:04.640 --> 0:07:08.839 basically the equivalent of bankruptcies. Before we get into like 0:07:08.920 --> 0:07:11.120 I want to like really sort of pull on some 0:07:11.200 --> 0:07:13.920 of these reads here and the similarities and how you 0:07:13.960 --> 0:07:17.440 can use management theory to understand archaeology and vice versa. 0:07:17.800 --> 0:07:21.560 But before we dive down into that, Tracy mentioned in 0:07:21.600 --> 0:07:24.920 the intro that people call you the real life Indiana Jones, 0:07:24.960 --> 0:07:27.600 and so just to set the scene a little bit more, 0:07:27.920 --> 0:07:30.480 like you're a real archaeologist in terms of what people 0:07:30.560 --> 0:07:32.840 have in their heads, or you go to some remote 0:07:32.880 --> 0:07:36.680 location and you squat down a lot and you dig 0:07:36.720 --> 0:07:39.560 up dirt and you look at stuff, probably mostly pottery 0:07:39.600 --> 0:07:42.080 and things like that. I'm guessing, just sort of talk 0:07:42.120 --> 0:07:44.240 to us about what you've been up to a little 0:07:44.280 --> 0:07:46.480 bit in terms of your day to day life since 0:07:46.520 --> 0:07:49.640 the last time you appeared on the show. Well, you 0:07:49.640 --> 0:07:51.920 know what, I I the Indiana Jones thing. I don't 0:07:51.960 --> 0:07:55.000 mind it. I used to not like it that, you know, 0:07:55.040 --> 0:07:57.920 I was told that once by Harrison Ford, and that 0:07:58.280 --> 0:08:01.240 I discovered that it's good for business. You guys know 0:08:01.280 --> 0:08:04.160 about that. I would be so flattered if Harrison Ford 0:08:04.160 --> 0:08:07.080 call me Indiana Jones. Yeah, I'm sorry. It helps to 0:08:07.160 --> 0:08:12.200 get the port. But I do exploratory archaeology. I accidentally 0:08:12.280 --> 0:08:16.240 started working during the Civil War in El Salvador as 0:08:16.280 --> 0:08:20.760 a graduate student, and because very few people are crazy, 0:08:21.080 --> 0:08:24.440 I ended up being one of two archaeologists and then 0:08:24.480 --> 0:08:27.000 finally just one of one, and I had a whole 0:08:27.120 --> 0:08:30.800 kind of country to myself that was not much explored, 0:08:30.920 --> 0:08:32.760 and I discovered it. Well, I mean that led to 0:08:33.400 --> 0:08:37.319 a very accelerated career and so ever since then, I 0:08:37.440 --> 0:08:41.640 actually go to those areas where nothing has been done before, 0:08:41.800 --> 0:08:45.920 very little, and I do explore exploration and then we 0:08:46.000 --> 0:08:50.120 do large scale, multi disciplinary projects. And that's the part 0:08:50.200 --> 0:08:52.720 that's not like the Indiana Jones thing. I mean, you 0:08:52.760 --> 0:08:54.959 don't like, you know, read the glyphs and kissed the 0:08:54.960 --> 0:08:56.320 girl and shoot the guns and all that. I mean, 0:08:56.559 --> 0:09:00.240 it's always and one ninety, but I'd say sixty. Extent 0:09:00.320 --> 0:09:04.160 of it is lab work. But we study ancient cities 0:09:04.240 --> 0:09:08.480 and right now, my entire project for the last twenty 0:09:08.600 --> 0:09:14.000 years is studying an ancient economic network that holds together. 0:09:14.040 --> 0:09:16.760 And we're following I mean, we're literally the research design 0:09:16.880 --> 0:09:21.679 is we do neutron activation other analyzes. We discovered that pottery, 0:09:22.160 --> 0:09:25.600 jade or city in the volcanic glass is coming from 0:09:25.600 --> 0:09:28.520 another place, so we go and dig that place, and 0:09:28.559 --> 0:09:30.520 then we dig what we see about that and week 0:09:30.559 --> 0:09:32.800 so we've we've actually covered I don't know, a thousand 0:09:32.840 --> 0:09:36.360 square kilometers. But it isn't just the usual regional We 0:09:36.400 --> 0:09:40.439 are following an economic, an economic network. So there's I mean, 0:09:40.440 --> 0:09:42.560 we do have we do dig lost cities in the jungle, 0:09:42.600 --> 0:09:44.400 and we do have shootouts with the bad guys and 0:09:44.720 --> 0:09:47.480 open tombs and all that, but that's just, you know, 0:09:47.600 --> 0:09:49.720 that's just what you have to do to get started. 0:09:49.760 --> 0:09:54.760 Then it becomes essentially the study of economy, politics, and 0:09:54.880 --> 0:10:00.120 sociology of of cities and regions and networks. Uh. And 0:10:00.120 --> 0:10:02.400 as as that work's gotten bigger, it's gotten more and 0:10:02.440 --> 0:10:06.840 more parallel to contemporary economic networks. And I don't know 0:10:06.920 --> 0:10:12.160 multinational corporations. So talk to us about what you've discovered then, 0:10:12.200 --> 0:10:14.800 because you know, I remember a little bit from the 0:10:14.880 --> 0:10:19.440 previous episode, but the mind civilization was quite unique in 0:10:19.520 --> 0:10:21.720 many ways, and I remember you were talking about how 0:10:21.800 --> 0:10:25.480 they developed a big trade network where goods were distributed 0:10:25.559 --> 0:10:28.800 all over the jungle. What does that have to do 0:10:28.920 --> 0:10:33.839 with modern corporations or the modern economy? Well, um, and 0:10:34.160 --> 0:10:38.520 again academic there's I've learned that there's a great range 0:10:38.640 --> 0:10:43.040 of business theory and academic strategic management theory and so 0:10:43.080 --> 0:10:47.560 on is probably a little different. But their break their 0:10:47.600 --> 0:10:52.439 studies than lead to uh, you know, the CFOs reading 0:10:52.480 --> 0:10:54.440 about it and lead to something else. But one of 0:10:54.440 --> 0:10:56.320 the things that they've been talking about for a long 0:10:56.360 --> 0:11:00.600 time is just just an example, community networks, which would 0:11:00.600 --> 0:11:03.600 be like the EU or or even the Western economy, 0:11:03.600 --> 0:11:07.880 where you have partnerships that are based on multiple partners. 0:11:07.920 --> 0:11:12.959 They have an ideology that they develop and business practices 0:11:13.040 --> 0:11:15.439 have to be within a range of legitimation and all 0:11:15.440 --> 0:11:19.319 of that, and those kinds of community networks. A very 0:11:19.320 --> 0:11:23.319 tight one is what was developing in the jungle between 0:11:23.320 --> 0:11:26.319 all these different cities and then it's stabilized and there 0:11:26.360 --> 0:11:29.880 was great wealth. But just as today when you when 0:11:29.920 --> 0:11:34.400 you read these journals about UH innovation network, those are 0:11:34.559 --> 0:11:38.320 very profitable, but that kind of slows and they have 0:11:38.400 --> 0:11:42.080 a tendency to fall behind. So then you have uh 0:11:42.280 --> 0:11:47.200 some firms or in this case city states that make 0:11:47.480 --> 0:11:52.040 breakaway networks which are very high risk. Uh. It's it's 0:11:52.120 --> 0:11:55.360 very much like the initial trading with China, you know, 0:11:55.440 --> 0:11:59.880 which is a very high risk but very profitable. There's 0:12:00.040 --> 0:12:02.640 high there's high gains, but there's high risk. We're seeing 0:12:02.720 --> 0:12:08.560 right now in dealing with culture societies, economic systems that 0:12:08.760 --> 0:12:12.480 have a different ethic, that have a different economic culture, 0:12:13.120 --> 0:12:16.440 and reading about that, that is exactly what happened with 0:12:16.559 --> 0:12:21.240 this great city state Conquent. They they were the big 0:12:21.280 --> 0:12:23.520 center for trade and of city and all sorts of 0:12:23.520 --> 0:12:28.000 things coming from the highlands. The Maya economic network that 0:12:28.120 --> 0:12:33.320 was so successful, this community network, all interacting with each 0:12:33.360 --> 0:12:36.559 other very stable, started to have a lot of problems 0:12:37.280 --> 0:12:40.640 and the rulers and the nobles of this city part 0:12:40.640 --> 0:12:44.440 of the South made a decision to kind of turn away. 0:12:44.600 --> 0:12:47.160 And it was very surprising. I mean, in the terms 0:12:47.240 --> 0:12:50.440 of today it would be like China and given transport 0:12:50.480 --> 0:12:53.320 more and they started trading with long distance partners in 0:12:53.400 --> 0:12:58.040 other areas, forming you know, initially it's like dietic relationships 0:12:58.080 --> 0:13:00.439 that they say. It's just like you know, on city 0:13:00.480 --> 0:13:03.680 with another city. It doesn't have the stability of a 0:13:03.760 --> 0:13:07.480 multi partner network. They were they in forty years. They 0:13:07.559 --> 0:13:12.600 just boomed into this incredibly wealthy center and there was 0:13:12.640 --> 0:13:17.280 this giant it's like Venice, this giant purely commercial, non 0:13:17.480 --> 0:13:23.080 non territorial kingdom, and uh it ben crashed and the 0:13:23.120 --> 0:13:25.959 whole story is just just just like stuff out of 0:13:26.000 --> 0:13:30.120 your journal. So, Arthur, how did how did Conquin manage 0:13:30.200 --> 0:13:33.480 to sort of um differentiate itself from the rest of 0:13:33.480 --> 0:13:36.720 the mind civilization Because often when people think about big companies, 0:13:36.760 --> 0:13:40.280 big multinationals, there's a lot of conformity there, and there's 0:13:40.280 --> 0:13:45.640 a sort of organ organizational structure that encourages, I guess, cohesiveness. 0:13:45.720 --> 0:13:49.320 You're not necessarily rewarded for taking a risk and going 0:13:49.360 --> 0:13:53.319 off and doing something completely different. Conformity tends to be rewarded. 0:13:53.480 --> 0:13:57.959 So how did this particular city managed to break away? Well, again, 0:13:58.040 --> 0:14:00.840 this is where this is where the theories coming from 0:14:00.920 --> 0:14:05.120 management schools really help. You know, this institutional entrepreneurship where 0:14:05.120 --> 0:14:09.040 you have entrepreneurship. But it changes. It's like it changes 0:14:09.080 --> 0:14:11.360 the game. It's playing a different game. And that's one 0:14:11.360 --> 0:14:14.640 thing people don't realize. It is very high risk. And 0:14:15.040 --> 0:14:18.240 these rulers were not stupid. You know, they would make 0:14:18.280 --> 0:14:22.520 these innovations. And the scary part about responding to collapse 0:14:23.240 --> 0:14:25.120 is that they would do the right thing, but it 0:14:25.160 --> 0:14:30.800 would usually fail because of this legitimacy because both you know, 0:14:30.880 --> 0:14:36.560 the consumers and the other firms, let's say, would would 0:14:36.600 --> 0:14:39.720 not buy into it. Give me, what's an example. Okay, 0:14:39.760 --> 0:14:42.480 so when you say they did the right thing when 0:14:42.600 --> 0:14:44.960 confronted with the risk of collapse, but it but it 0:14:45.000 --> 0:14:49.040 didn't work. It failed what specifically given? Give an example 0:14:49.160 --> 0:14:52.400 of Okay, here's give an example. If you're talking about again, 0:14:52.640 --> 0:14:56.600 well again, you know there's I am just written something 0:14:56.640 --> 0:15:00.640 on four different and using a straw tgic Man with 0:15:00.720 --> 0:15:04.920 my colleague, I collaborate with UH Endowed Share and Strategic 0:15:04.960 --> 0:15:08.320 Management and and khon Quent for example. I can tell 0:15:08.360 --> 0:15:10.960 you about four four other states we just wrote on this, 0:15:11.320 --> 0:15:16.400 but in khon quin the decision was too first shift 0:15:16.440 --> 0:15:20.440 away in terms of their trading partners and what happens 0:15:20.520 --> 0:15:25.320 when you have throughout history. When you have new trading partners, Uh, 0:15:25.360 --> 0:15:28.480 there's these risks and stuff, but new ideas come in, 0:15:28.800 --> 0:15:34.360 not just products, but new ideas about structuring, uh, your 0:15:34.400 --> 0:15:39.000 own economic system. And when the Maya of kahn Quin 0:15:39.160 --> 0:15:44.360 started trading with Mexican states that were far away and 0:15:44.440 --> 0:15:48.760 had more market oriented economy. Every time they added a 0:15:48.760 --> 0:15:53.080 new trading partner, the structure and economic system at khon 0:15:53.160 --> 0:15:57.760 Quin changed. And one of the things is this vertical integration. 0:15:58.120 --> 0:16:01.480 They were shipping stuff out, you know, in and out, 0:16:01.520 --> 0:16:06.080 they were import exports. Then they started instead processing it, 0:16:06.800 --> 0:16:10.640 first stage processing it, which of course increases the value, 0:16:11.200 --> 0:16:14.560 and then they were shipping it out semi processed. And 0:16:14.600 --> 0:16:19.440 then later they started whole new industries in like the 0:16:19.480 --> 0:16:25.360 production of jade, and again preliminary state, not the final product, 0:16:25.440 --> 0:16:28.600 but sort of reforms and uh, and they did it. 0:16:28.680 --> 0:16:32.080 They started doing mass production, I mean just uge. It's 0:16:32.120 --> 0:16:35.720 the largest jade workshop ever found in the Americas. And 0:16:35.800 --> 0:16:41.040 so you see these business ideas coming in and again 0:16:41.560 --> 0:16:45.160 studies of business architecture, you see it in everything. You 0:16:45.360 --> 0:16:50.720 see the palace changing from a great royal residence over 0:16:50.800 --> 0:16:55.200 forty years as eight reconstructions to a giant almost like 0:16:55.280 --> 0:16:59.560 an office building. It's just like like Venice, the nobles 0:16:59.600 --> 0:17:03.000 are rising in power. They are they are almost they 0:17:03.040 --> 0:17:07.280 the merchants involved. The king uh and his family eventually 0:17:07.320 --> 0:17:09.800 get sort of pushed literally to the side of the 0:17:09.880 --> 0:17:13.560 palace and the rest of it is like offices. And 0:17:13.720 --> 0:17:17.320 this is very nice. But you know he is now 0:17:17.640 --> 0:17:20.760 kind of legitimate or in chief. He's like head of marketing, 0:17:21.080 --> 0:17:23.240 and it seems that he doesn't really have that much 0:17:23.359 --> 0:17:26.080 power and it's divided up so and you see it 0:17:26.119 --> 0:17:30.840 in the architecture. In order to win over these foreign 0:17:31.119 --> 0:17:36.120 partners and to uh, you know, legitimate these new relationships, 0:17:36.560 --> 0:17:40.840 they build architectural things within their center that are of 0:17:40.960 --> 0:17:46.000 the religious system of their new partners. So you know, 0:17:46.080 --> 0:17:49.640 like there's this giant ball court. The Maya ball game 0:17:49.760 --> 0:17:52.440 was so important that you know that the game that 0:17:52.600 --> 0:17:55.040 was a sacred and it was also entertainment. It was 0:17:55.320 --> 0:17:57.679 it was it was worse than Brazil. Is that the 0:17:57.680 --> 0:18:00.800 one where they killed the losers? Now? Oh that that 0:18:00.800 --> 0:18:03.719 that's the killing or the not of the losers? Is 0:18:03.920 --> 0:18:06.400 there's so many I mean, all that stuff comes from 0:18:06.400 --> 0:18:09.120 a thousand years later in another region. You know, it's 0:18:09.280 --> 0:18:11.600 uh the Maya ball game is kind of like wish 0:18:11.600 --> 0:18:15.040 you would say that. You know, with baseball cricket, you 0:18:15.080 --> 0:18:18.919 know that it varied and transformed into different things. But 0:18:19.040 --> 0:18:21.800 this kind of ball court is not like that. It's 0:18:21.840 --> 0:18:25.080 not sort of a sacred religious thing. It's a big, giant, 0:18:25.200 --> 0:18:29.879 open ball court with eating vessels and broken you know, 0:18:30.000 --> 0:18:34.360 probably corn beer vessels all around it, like some modern stadium. 0:18:34.640 --> 0:18:38.000 And you don't find that anywhere in the Maya, you know, 0:18:38.119 --> 0:18:42.520 lowland civilization. And so where does it come from? It? 0:18:42.600 --> 0:18:44.760 Where do you find it in the area up in 0:18:44.800 --> 0:18:48.000 the highlands where the jade comes from, where the jade 0:18:48.080 --> 0:18:52.200 sources is. So they're you know, they're cultivating these relationships 0:18:52.240 --> 0:19:19.040 by creating religious similarities. It's it's actually marketing. So, if 0:19:19.040 --> 0:19:23.440 I understand it correctly, in moving away from the mind 0:19:23.560 --> 0:19:27.640 civilization or in trying to build new relationships with new 0:19:27.680 --> 0:19:33.439 trading partners, this particular city starts introducing new elements of 0:19:33.600 --> 0:19:40.080 different societies, and eventually that starts undermining its own previous 0:19:40.720 --> 0:19:45.720 rituals and legitimacy of its authorities. Is that, right, there's 0:19:45.720 --> 0:19:49.240 just a gigantic boom and then there is a bust, 0:19:49.440 --> 0:19:53.240 I mean a one day destruction, and the analysis of 0:19:53.280 --> 0:19:56.640 the spearheads and so on from that show that it 0:19:56.760 --> 0:20:00.239 was their trading partners they went too far. And this 0:20:00.280 --> 0:20:03.320 is a real This is something that when we're responding 0:20:03.400 --> 0:20:08.040 to all the crises today, I hear a lot of 0:20:08.080 --> 0:20:10.600 you know, people saying the right things we should do, 0:20:11.160 --> 0:20:14.520 except they're not going to succeed because you you really, 0:20:14.600 --> 0:20:17.760 you know, you have to change economic cultures and so 0:20:18.280 --> 0:20:22.120 all this construction of these different ideological systems, and it 0:20:22.200 --> 0:20:26.000 was too much, it was too fast, and it led 0:20:26.040 --> 0:20:28.680 to this boom. But you know, in the end, there's 0:20:28.680 --> 0:20:32.199 a kind of lack of sincerity perhaps in this the 0:20:32.400 --> 0:20:37.040 local regional, subregional population may not have been happy with 0:20:37.080 --> 0:20:41.280 all of these other practices, and it was it just 0:20:41.720 --> 0:20:44.080 really was a sudden It was like a bankruptcy, but 0:20:44.200 --> 0:20:47.919 with the ritual sacrifice. They sacrifice the king and the 0:20:48.000 --> 0:20:50.560 queen and all of the nobles. Though some bankruptcies can 0:20:50.600 --> 0:20:55.000 be like that. Yes, so if you know, businesses want 0:20:55.040 --> 0:20:58.000 to hear from you, and uh, you know, I know 0:20:58.080 --> 0:21:00.720 you're skeptical of all of them, and you know they're 0:21:00.760 --> 0:21:03.400 all going to fail. Nonetheless, they want to I don't 0:21:03.440 --> 0:21:05.800 think that you know, people think that. I mean, it's 0:21:05.840 --> 0:21:09.280 just I'm like a coroner. I mean, this is my job, 0:21:09.400 --> 0:21:12.040 you know what I mean. But along the way they 0:21:12.080 --> 0:21:15.480 are positive. Okay, well what is it? What is the 0:21:15.560 --> 0:21:20.399 lesson in terms of balancing risk and reward. The city 0:21:20.440 --> 0:21:23.440 is changing its economic model, it's opening up to new 0:21:23.480 --> 0:21:26.440 trading partners, but it didn't work. So what kind of 0:21:27.000 --> 0:21:31.119 management or within an organization take away from that to 0:21:31.280 --> 0:21:35.880 make a better informed decisions about new strategic ventures. Well, 0:21:35.920 --> 0:21:38.560 I should defend con Quinn by saying that they did 0:21:38.640 --> 0:21:41.280 really well, and the others also they you know, they 0:21:41.280 --> 0:21:45.320 went down more slowly, so but yeah, what you were. 0:21:45.359 --> 0:21:48.200 The first thing that I've discovered is people don't really 0:21:48.200 --> 0:21:50.520 believe in collapse. So that's the first thing you have 0:21:50.640 --> 0:21:53.520 to get that. And then the other is what I 0:21:53.560 --> 0:21:56.120 just said, that the right thing to do is not 0:21:56.280 --> 0:22:00.959 necessarily going to be successful. But what is positive is 0:22:01.000 --> 0:22:04.280 that some of these collapses didn't happen, and that is 0:22:04.320 --> 0:22:09.320 as problems were developing. Uh, they anticipated it, as con 0:22:09.400 --> 0:22:13.040 quin tried to do, and they did some other things. 0:22:13.800 --> 0:22:17.440 Those are high risk, but it's just like in business investment. 0:22:17.960 --> 0:22:22.000 If you got that right, the other things it led 0:22:22.040 --> 0:22:24.720 to success, and they didn't do it. This is the 0:22:24.800 --> 0:22:27.000 problem to They didn't do it because oh they want 0:22:27.000 --> 0:22:28.639 to save the world and they want to save the 0:22:28.680 --> 0:22:33.520 civilization or whatever. They did it for their own success. 0:22:34.040 --> 0:22:36.480 And yet it can be the right thing to do. 0:22:37.119 --> 0:22:40.920 And so that kind of thing which worked short term 0:22:41.359 --> 0:22:44.760 in the case of conquent we see examples. I mean, 0:22:45.320 --> 0:22:49.480 it's not as exciting to talk about non collapses, but 0:22:49.800 --> 0:22:51.760 you know, we study. When I say we, there's a 0:22:52.520 --> 0:22:56.520 there's maybe twenty people who have gradually joined collapse studies. 0:22:56.560 --> 0:22:58.480 I've been doing it, I think longer than anybody. But 0:22:58.520 --> 0:23:02.000 it's not a field. If you anticipate those things, you 0:23:02.040 --> 0:23:06.720 can make changes that lead to success. And that's sort 0:23:06.720 --> 0:23:10.359 of what we're working on now. Because again I'm I really, 0:23:10.920 --> 0:23:13.320 I've done this all my life. I want to see 0:23:13.359 --> 0:23:16.440 I don't want to give talks on campus or publishing 0:23:16.440 --> 0:23:19.320 a journal nobody reads. The people that can make a 0:23:19.400 --> 0:23:24.119 difference are people in business and government who first and 0:23:24.160 --> 0:23:28.040 foremost are interested in their own success. So let's stipulate 0:23:28.280 --> 0:23:33.200 that most entities will ultimately probably fail. Nonetheless, it sounds 0:23:33.240 --> 0:23:35.840 like a key thing is this idea of taking the 0:23:35.920 --> 0:23:39.360 risk of collapse seriously, and you hear a lot from 0:23:39.359 --> 0:23:43.000 business leaders like, oh, we're always paranoid, and there's like 0:23:43.040 --> 0:23:47.200 the sort of pride in being paranoid. Only the paranoid survive. 0:23:47.359 --> 0:23:51.760 I think that's a famous book from a founder of Intel. Uh. Nonetheless, 0:23:51.920 --> 0:23:54.399 it sounds like what you're saying is that maybe people 0:23:54.480 --> 0:23:56.760 give lip service to the risk of collapse, but they 0:23:56.760 --> 0:24:00.359 don't really internalize it. So I mean, I would starved 0:24:00.400 --> 0:24:05.480 by asking what are the signs of internal organizational collapse 0:24:05.520 --> 0:24:08.480 that if you're a business leader, you're like, actually, we 0:24:08.520 --> 0:24:11.720 should really take the fear of collapse seriously, so that 0:24:11.800 --> 0:24:18.000 it goes beyond just being a motivational mantra, so to speak, Well, 0:24:18.040 --> 0:24:19.800 I should say that the like, there's a lot more 0:24:19.800 --> 0:24:22.520 positive lessons. I was about to talk about non collapses, 0:24:22.560 --> 0:24:25.840 but I mean a lot of it's very obvious right now. 0:24:26.119 --> 0:24:27.840 I think I may have talked to about this in 0:24:27.880 --> 0:24:32.919 the lectional, but hypercoherence is our biggest problem, bigger than 0:24:32.960 --> 0:24:37.800 global warming um because it inhibits responses and that like 0:24:37.880 --> 0:24:41.040 a lot of these you know, eventual causes of collapse 0:24:41.600 --> 0:24:45.280 is a great thing. It's it's just it leads to success, 0:24:45.320 --> 0:24:49.440 but eventually it can go too far and lead to crises. 0:24:49.520 --> 0:24:55.399 And right now, the degree of integration of corporate systems, 0:24:55.440 --> 0:25:01.560 of overall economic systems, of medical systems, is military systems 0:25:01.800 --> 0:25:05.399 worldwide is fantastic. It leads to greater profits, that helps this, 0:25:05.520 --> 0:25:09.400 that and the other. But it is also dangerous because 0:25:10.040 --> 0:25:14.840 something that happens in one place radiates through the system. 0:25:14.880 --> 0:25:18.000 And you see this every day. You just saw it. 0:25:18.080 --> 0:25:21.119 I mean that you know, hey, fifty years ago, who 0:25:21.119 --> 0:25:24.000 would give a damn if some plant and Staudi Arabia 0:25:24.040 --> 0:25:28.480 blew up or drones hit it. Now everything radiates through 0:25:28.480 --> 0:25:31.880 this system and that makes it very difficult to respond. 0:25:32.400 --> 0:25:35.480 And we see it every day. Every I fly a lot. 0:25:35.520 --> 0:25:39.879 Every time I fly, the system is down. Um. Once 0:25:39.920 --> 0:25:43.199