WEBVTT - Putin, Xi & Bots. Ian Bremmer Talks to A&G 0:00:00.120 --> 0:00:02.160 Let's give you something to worry about. It's Armstrong and 0:00:02.160 --> 0:00:08.119 Getty extra large, because four hours, simply enough, this is 0:00:08.320 --> 0:00:12.840 Armstrong and Getty extra large. I don't know how many 0:00:12.920 --> 0:00:14.920 years in a row we've been checking in with Ian 0:00:14.920 --> 0:00:17.600 Bremer to see what the biggest risks to the planet are, 0:00:17.640 --> 0:00:19.560 but we've been doing it for quite a while. I 0:00:19.600 --> 0:00:22.200 really only look forward to three things every year. Number one, 0:00:22.239 --> 0:00:24.960 two weeks off at Christmas. Number two, the Master's golf tournament. 0:00:25.040 --> 0:00:28.200 Number three talking to Ian Bremer, the president of your 0:00:28.200 --> 0:00:34.040 Asia Group, about the Global Um Global Risks List, the 0:00:34.080 --> 0:00:38.080 top risks of three, for instance, and Mr Bremer joins us. Now, Ian, 0:00:38.120 --> 0:00:40.760 how are you happy? Now? You're gonna talk to you guys? 0:00:40.920 --> 0:00:42.839 Now this is a podcast, So if you have to 0:00:42.920 --> 0:00:45.400 use your salty language, you can. When we had you 0:00:45.400 --> 0:00:48.240 on the radio show once you did drop an s bomb. 0:00:48.400 --> 0:00:52.040 You're like a really filthy sailor who got a pH 0:00:52.200 --> 0:00:55.840 d in polly Cy, but kind of like a merchant 0:00:55.880 --> 0:01:00.200 marine exactly. We both spent six months in fc SEE 0:01:00.280 --> 0:01:04.760 prison and thanks. Meanwhile, I was in the Stychelles, so 0:01:04.880 --> 0:01:10.759 I mean, you know, so you can't do much better 0:01:10.800 --> 0:01:13.200 than your number one risk and that is a rogue Russia. 0:01:13.240 --> 0:01:15.480 Explain that to us. Yeah, Well, I mean, the funny 0:01:15.520 --> 0:01:18.440 thing is, the Risk report has a whole bunch of 0:01:18.520 --> 0:01:21.800 things that are connected. It's a bunch of individual leaders 0:01:21.959 --> 0:01:25.160 with a lot of power, surrounded by yes men, no 0:01:25.319 --> 0:01:28.320 checks and balances, and they can make really bad decisions. 0:01:28.800 --> 0:01:32.399 It's the Iranian leadership, it's the Chinese leader, it's the 0:01:32.480 --> 0:01:36.280 Russian president, and it's a bunch of technic founders that 0:01:36.440 --> 0:01:39.920 have the same sort of challenges, even if occations are 0:01:39.959 --> 0:01:43.319 not as momentous on the nuclear front. Putin's number one. 0:01:43.400 --> 0:01:46.200 It's pretty clear, and it's the worst decision that's been 0:01:46.240 --> 0:01:49.760 made by any leader on the global stage since the 0:01:49.800 --> 0:01:52.880 wall came down. And and you know, it's basically he's 0:01:52.880 --> 0:01:55.560 got a chess player, he's a poker player. He made 0:01:55.560 --> 0:01:58.840 a big all in that on a bad hand, and 0:01:58.880 --> 0:02:01.639 he's gotten called and now he's in very serious trouble 0:02:01.880 --> 0:02:03.840 and he's not going anywhere. He's not gonna be forced 0:02:03.840 --> 0:02:06.240 out of power. So the question is, as this war 0:02:06.320 --> 0:02:09.480 doesn't end, but as they can't win, what will Russia 0:02:09.520 --> 0:02:13.200 do as the most powerful rogue state globally? And that's 0:02:13.200 --> 0:02:16.680 a danger to all of NATO while they are they 0:02:16.720 --> 0:02:19.320 are the biggest nuclear power on the planet, so the 0:02:19.360 --> 0:02:23.320 idea of them being you know, beholden to nobody is 0:02:23.360 --> 0:02:26.080 pretty troubling. Yeah, And you know, the funny thing is, 0:02:26.120 --> 0:02:30.280 for me, the nuclear weapons strike is the least of 0:02:30.320 --> 0:02:33.040 my worries because they you know, the leader is not 0:02:33.080 --> 0:02:35.960 looking for armageddon, but it's all the things he can 0:02:35.960 --> 0:02:38.760 do because he has his nuclear weapons, so you know, 0:02:39.080 --> 0:02:45.240 fiber strikes, pipeline strikes, cyber attacks, espionage, disinformation. It's hard 0:02:45.280 --> 0:02:49.640 to imagine that Putin facing an expanded NATO, a much 0:02:49.680 --> 0:02:53.079 stronger Ukraine, and and feeling like he's losing the war 0:02:53.120 --> 0:02:55.880 because he's fighting NATO. Not he's not just fighting Ukraine, 0:02:55.919 --> 0:02:58.639 he's fighting all of that support is gonna lash out 0:02:58.760 --> 0:03:02.520 against at least for line NATO countries. And it's not 0:03:02.639 --> 0:03:05.160 like he's gonna engage. He's not gonna do ballistic missile strikes. 0:03:05.160 --> 0:03:07.440 But when he hits them with cyber and fiber and 0:03:07.480 --> 0:03:11.120 the rest, and their massive economic consequences of that and 0:03:11.240 --> 0:03:14.000 political disruption, what are they going to do to Putin 0:03:14.000 --> 0:03:15.600 and the answers They don't have much more they can 0:03:15.639 --> 0:03:18.079 do to p Well and what worries me is that 0:03:18.400 --> 0:03:21.359 the old dodge of dictators and frankly democracies from time 0:03:21.360 --> 0:03:24.840 to time too, is that if you've lost your legitimacy domestically, 0:03:25.280 --> 0:03:30.000 you will invent or exacerbate some foreign issue so that 0:03:30.040 --> 0:03:33.200 the folks can rally around you. And Putin, as as 0:03:33.240 --> 0:03:37.800 you've indicated, has made such a horrific decision that ought 0:03:37.840 --> 0:03:41.440 to so diminish his legitimacy as a leader. I mean, 0:03:41.480 --> 0:03:43.760 he's going to have to take some extraordinary steps to 0:03:43.800 --> 0:03:46.000 get the people to rally around him. In other words, 0:03:46.000 --> 0:03:49.120 he's gonna have to cook up some pretty serious foreign conflicts, 0:03:49.400 --> 0:03:53.000 and he's done some incredibly unpopular things. I mean, his 0:03:53.160 --> 0:03:57.480 decision to call up an additional three hundred thousand reservists 0:03:57.480 --> 0:04:00.640 from the population and throw them into the eat grinder 0:04:00.680 --> 0:04:02.920 of the front line. We know there's been a hundred 0:04:02.920 --> 0:04:06.240 thousand Russian casualties in this war so far. It hasn't 0:04:06.240 --> 0:04:09.120 even hit the one year date, and and not going 0:04:09.200 --> 0:04:13.240 to end anytime soon. You know, these parents are not 0:04:13.280 --> 0:04:15.880 going to be happy on the ground in Russia, the 0:04:15.920 --> 0:04:19.479 community is not going to be happy so long term. Increasingly, 0:04:19.520 --> 0:04:22.440 people around Putin feel like dead enders. They're folks that 0:04:22.520 --> 0:04:25.000 know that, you know, whatever they do, whether this peace 0:04:25.080 --> 0:04:27.520 or whether there's war, they end up in the Hague. 0:04:27.720 --> 0:04:30.760 And and that leads to bad decision making. Hey, speaking 0:04:30.760 --> 0:04:34.279 of the folks around Putin, Uh, we have come across 0:04:34.360 --> 0:04:36.680 quite a few accounts of the number of oligarchs and 0:04:36.760 --> 0:04:41.039 insiders who have slipped on apparently the very very slippery 0:04:41.120 --> 0:04:44.719 floors in Russia and fallen out of windows, for instance, 0:04:44.760 --> 0:04:48.039 are committed suicide by shooting themselves ten times. Um, did 0:04:48.040 --> 0:04:50.719 you buy those reports? Is that stuff legit? You know 0:04:50.960 --> 0:04:55.360 it's about twenty mid tier aliars have have jumped out 0:04:55.360 --> 0:04:59.919 of windows, probably already dead. Um. And uh, you know 0:05:00.040 --> 0:05:02.520 the funny that you kind of have to ask yourself, 0:05:02.960 --> 0:05:05.640 why doesn't Putin just execute them? I mean, you know, 0:05:05.680 --> 0:05:09.720 everybody knows who's responsible for their death. I think, you know, 0:05:09.839 --> 0:05:15.440 maybe a taller dictator might feel more confident. Wow, now 0:05:15.440 --> 0:05:20.480 that's analysis. Yeah, exactly how much backing does Putin have 0:05:20.720 --> 0:05:24.279 from China at this point or early on? You know 0:05:24.320 --> 0:05:26.719 they were kinda together on this, but are they still 0:05:27.640 --> 0:05:30.720 early on? Meaning before the war? Remember that that big 0:05:30.720 --> 0:05:32.960 statement everyone talks about when he went to the Olympics. 0:05:33.000 --> 0:05:37.359 That was February four, twenty days before they started attacking. Um. 0:05:37.440 --> 0:05:40.760 China is not providing any military support to Russia, and 0:05:40.839 --> 0:05:43.600 lord knows the Russians wanted. They're also not breaking any 0:05:43.600 --> 0:05:46.120 American sanctions because they don't want secondary sanctions that hit 0:05:46.200 --> 0:05:50.640 Chinese companies. China's growth is not exactly staggering right now. UM, 0:05:50.680 --> 0:05:54.120 So the Russians are left with almost no friends. Keep 0:05:54.120 --> 0:05:56.080 in mind, when we were fighting the Soviets in the 0:05:56.120 --> 0:05:59.440 Cold War, the world was kind of divided into Europe 0:05:59.520 --> 0:06:02.160 was divided it into. Today, the Russians have made in 0:06:02.279 --> 0:06:06.240 Ukraine and everyone is either with the West or on 0:06:06.279 --> 0:06:09.480 the sidelines. There's really the only people that are actively 0:06:09.480 --> 0:06:13.440 supporting Russia is Belarus, which isn't really a country at 0:06:13.440 --> 0:06:16.800 this point. There United Nations mission actually is literally co 0:06:17.000 --> 0:06:20.359 located inside the Russian mission. It's kind of pathetic. Um, 0:06:20.680 --> 0:06:24.520 the North Koreans who are providing ammunition for the Russians, 0:06:24.560 --> 0:06:26.520 and when the North Koreans or the military support that 0:06:26.560 --> 0:06:29.240 you have face, you're not doing that well. And then Iran, 0:06:29.880 --> 0:06:33.560 which is a rogue state uh in harmony with the 0:06:33.640 --> 0:06:37.200 Russians providing a lot of drones and probably ballistic missiles 0:06:37.520 --> 0:06:40.560 and that is a danger. But that's about it. That's 0:06:40.600 --> 0:06:44.160 all the Russians have at this point, so they're really isolated. 0:06:44.200 --> 0:06:46.599 You'll remember in Bali about a month and a half 0:06:46.600 --> 0:06:48.720 ago we had the G twenty. The Russians didn't even 0:06:48.720 --> 0:06:51.039 show because they knew they were going to be isolated, 0:06:51.320 --> 0:06:53.719 didn't want to be embarrassed. Yeah, no, this is the 0:06:53.720 --> 0:06:56.920 global risks fore and not for the next fifteen years. 0:06:56.960 --> 0:07:00.800 But um, the question of succession in Russia fascinates me 0:07:01.279 --> 0:07:03.760 because anytime he got an oligarch like Putin is so 0:07:04.320 --> 0:07:07.000 you know, gathered the power to himself personally, What the 0:07:07.000 --> 0:07:09.240 hell is the future gonna look like when this guy 0:07:09.240 --> 0:07:13.480 finally croaks. Well, it's not going to be someone like 0:07:13.520 --> 0:07:18.600 Alexey Navalny who's languishing in a heavy labor camp right now. 0:07:18.640 --> 0:07:21.000 It's not you know, Boris Nemsoft type who was like 0:07:21.080 --> 0:07:24.960 a real opposition democrat and was assassinated walking outside the 0:07:25.040 --> 0:07:29.120 Kremlin a few years ago. It's probably a person or 0:07:29.200 --> 0:07:33.400 people from around the military complex in Russia. It could 0:07:33.440 --> 0:07:36.640 be someone like Progoshon, who is the founder and owner 0:07:37.240 --> 0:07:41.040 of the Wagner Group, which is this paramilitary organization that 0:07:41.080 --> 0:07:43.880 has tens of thousands of well trained troops that are 0:07:43.920 --> 0:07:47.160 doing some of the damage right now, both on the 0:07:47.200 --> 0:07:49.920 ground in Ukraine but also in Libya and Mali in 0:07:49.960 --> 0:07:53.840 other countries. It could be someone like the Minister of Defense. 0:07:54.520 --> 0:07:57.640 It's not. In other words, this is a Putinus successor, 0:07:58.000 --> 0:07:59.920 is not someone who is suddenly going to say, wow, 0:08:00.440 --> 0:08:03.040 we need to really open up to the Americans. We 0:08:03.120 --> 0:08:05.080 just got it all wrong. And if we could only 0:08:05.160 --> 0:08:07.320 find a way to engage with those good guys in 0:08:07.360 --> 0:08:09.720 the West, and that's that, that's not the way they feel. 0:08:09.760 --> 0:08:13.320 They feel like the West has humiliated them intentionally for decades. 0:08:14.160 --> 0:08:16.800 So I remember when they had the voulte in there 0:08:16.800 --> 0:08:19.200 in China with the weird thing where they came over 0:08:19.240 --> 0:08:22.960 and hustled that one old dude out of there. You 0:08:24.200 --> 0:08:27.160 tweeted out that she was now the most powerful person 0:08:27.200 --> 0:08:29.560 in the world. Explained that, yeah, well, I mean, China's 0:08:29.560 --> 0:08:32.800 the second most powerful country in the world's second largest economy, 0:08:33.080 --> 0:08:36.360 technologically not quite a parody with the US, but close 0:08:37.120 --> 0:08:43.199 um and Juan Ping has surrounded himself only with loyalists, 0:08:43.240 --> 0:08:46.520 and that wasn't true when he became president ten years ago. 0:08:47.400 --> 0:08:50.920 Back then, there was a need for consensus building on policy. 0:08:50.960 --> 0:08:54.800 You had hardliners, you had technocrats, you had economic pragmatists, 0:08:54.800 --> 0:08:57.760 you had Shanghai faction, you had those that you know 0:08:57.840 --> 0:09:00.360 came up through the Beijing Communist Party. App right, it's 0:09:00.400 --> 0:09:04.000 not true anymore. Now. It's basically you're supporting jan thing. 0:09:04.000 --> 0:09:06.120 And the problem with that is he doesn't get the 0:09:06.160 --> 0:09:09.240 same level of information, doesn't benefit from the same level 0:09:09.320 --> 0:09:12.600 of internal part up policy debate. And that's that's how 0:09:12.679 --> 0:09:16.320 you can move from zero COVID to everybody gets COVID 0:09:16.640 --> 0:09:19.199 in a week and the and the Chinese aren't aren't 0:09:19.200 --> 0:09:23.520 ready for it. It's because they're not having these thoughtful, 0:09:24.040 --> 0:09:28.160 coordinate debates. I mean, you know, China's always been authoritarian um, 0:09:28.280 --> 0:09:32.160 but but it hasn't been a closed decision system in 0:09:32.280 --> 0:09:35.040 terms of policy leaders. Now is, and that of course 0:09:35.080 --> 0:09:37.160 makes it a much greater risk on the global stage, 0:09:37.600 --> 0:09:39.840 you know, speaking of the zero COVID thing, it's it's 0:09:39.880 --> 0:09:41.880 so easy for those of us who are lovers of 0:09:41.960 --> 0:09:45.280 liberty to see the least tremor in China and say, 0:09:45.320 --> 0:09:48.840 look at that resistance to the communists. How much trouble 0:09:48.920 --> 0:09:52.680 are they in over the zero COVID shutdown, which costs 0:09:52.679 --> 0:09:56.439 them tremendous amounts of revenue both going out and in. 0:09:56.600 --> 0:09:59.080 People don't tend to talk about that, but also caused 0:09:59.080 --> 0:10:00.840 a hell of a lot of resent going forward, they 0:10:00.880 --> 0:10:03.120 might see millions die. How big a problem is this 0:10:03.200 --> 0:10:06.600 for the communists? Well, they won't see millions die because 0:10:06.600 --> 0:10:09.120 they won't admit to it. So far, As of this morning, 0:10:09.160 --> 0:10:11.640 the Chinese government said that thirty seven people have died 0:10:11.679 --> 0:10:15.240 from COVID in the last month, um, which is uh. 0:10:15.280 --> 0:10:17.400 I mean, maybe who knows, maybe they're shooting them after 0:10:17.400 --> 0:10:21.240 they die from COVID. There's not It's ridiculous, it's ludicrous. 0:10:21.280 --> 0:10:24.520 It's not believable at any level. I mean literally, you know, 0:10:24.640 --> 0:10:27.960 you've got some provinces where you've got nine of the 0:10:28.000 --> 0:10:30.880 population that's gotten COVID in the past weeks that they're 0:10:30.920 --> 0:10:33.600 probably experiencing hundreds of thousands of death that might be 0:10:33.640 --> 0:10:36.160 a million or more, and they're just not going to 0:10:36.200 --> 0:10:38.319 talk about it. And you know, the dead don't protest, 0:10:39.120 --> 0:10:42.080 so that's not going to be much of an issue. 0:10:42.120 --> 0:10:44.800 And all those people that did protests when they were 0:10:44.840 --> 0:10:49.559 angry and really fed up with with zero COVID lockdowns, 0:10:50.200 --> 0:10:53.760 they weren't arrested, but they all got visits from local police. 0:10:54.240 --> 0:10:56.640 They were made to sign pledges that said that they 0:10:56.720 --> 0:10:58.800 understood that what they did was illegal and if they 0:10:58.840 --> 0:11:01.880 did it again, there would be very serious consequences. That 0:11:02.000 --> 0:11:05.200 lose their jobs, that probably lose their liberties. And you know, 0:11:05.360 --> 0:11:08.520 these were not professional activists, they weren't anarchists. They were 0:11:08.559 --> 0:11:11.000 just regular people that had enough and they were pretty scared. 0:11:11.840 --> 0:11:14.280 I mean, we've spoken with some of them. They were 0:11:14.360 --> 0:11:17.199 surprised that the Chinese government was able to find them 0:11:17.200 --> 0:11:19.600 and track them down. They shouldn't be, it's a surveillance state, 0:11:20.000 --> 0:11:23.240 but they were. And so I personally don't think that 0:11:23.280 --> 0:11:27.600 there's any meaningful threat to shijin Ping or to Communist 0:11:27.600 --> 0:11:30.640 Party rule as a consequence of all these challenges they've 0:11:30.640 --> 0:11:34.120 had with zero COVID going forward. Kind of a general 0:11:34.200 --> 0:11:37.360 question before we go back into the particular risks, how 0:11:37.400 --> 0:11:40.720 do you grade the the scariness of the world right now. 0:11:40.800 --> 0:11:42.480 I don't want to be guilty of present is um 0:11:42.480 --> 0:11:44.200 and you know, ignore the fact that the world has 0:11:44.200 --> 0:11:46.800 always been kind of a scary place, but it seems 0:11:46.840 --> 0:11:52.160 particularly unsettled right now. UM. I think there are three 0:11:52.160 --> 0:11:57.200 different things to think about. The first is that democracies 0:11:57.480 --> 0:12:01.199 like the United States and Brazil and like in Europe 0:12:01.559 --> 0:12:04.319 are stronger and more resilient than people think. And everyone 0:12:04.360 --> 0:12:06.160 wants to panic and say, oh my god, we could 0:12:06.160 --> 0:12:08.800 be an authoritarian state. It could be fascism that had 0:12:08.840 --> 0:12:11.040 their brains destroyed by four years of Trump this kind 0:12:11.080 --> 0:12:13.440 of thing, or social media are watching too much cable 0:12:13.840 --> 0:12:17.160 um that that's overstated by a long margin, and that 0:12:17.160 --> 0:12:20.360 should make us feel much more comfortable about where we are, 0:12:20.520 --> 0:12:23.800 how we live, what the future boats um compared to 0:12:23.840 --> 0:12:26.240 a lot of what we hear in the headlines um. 0:12:26.360 --> 0:12:28.280 On the other hand, we have all these issues I've 0:12:28.320 --> 0:12:31.320 just been talking about where things, especially from a guy 0:12:31.360 --> 0:12:33.600 like Putin with six thousand nuclear warheads. I mean, there's 0:12:33.640 --> 0:12:36.920 a meaningful chance. It's not a high chance that we 0:12:37.000 --> 0:12:39.599 could see a nuclear war between Russia and Ukraine. I 0:12:39.600 --> 0:12:41.480 could launch anook and then we could be fighting the 0:12:41.520 --> 0:12:44.800 Russians directly. I'm not saying it's a fifty percent chance, 0:12:44.800 --> 0:12:48.199 but it's at least a five percent chance. That's higher 0:12:48.200 --> 0:12:50.079 than at any point since the Cuban missile crisis. So 0:12:50.120 --> 0:12:52.800 that's a that's a horrible thing to think about and 0:12:52.840 --> 0:12:57.320 then more broadly, um, you have the fact that fifty 0:12:57.400 --> 0:13:00.240 years of globalization, where the world was getting wealthy and 0:13:00.280 --> 0:13:02.600 where a global middle class was getting bigger, we now 0:13:02.640 --> 0:13:05.160 get eight billion people on the planet. We just hit 0:13:05.200 --> 0:13:07.960 that mark a couple of weeks ago, more than ever before, 0:13:08.440 --> 0:13:10.600 and yet a majority of the people on the planet 0:13:10.600 --> 0:13:14.240 are getting poorer. We're having more people slipping into poverty, 0:13:14.640 --> 0:13:17.960 more women slipping into the informal economy, more kids leaving 0:13:18.000 --> 0:13:21.800 school because of the pandemic, because of the high inflation, 0:13:22.160 --> 0:13:24.280 because of the Russia War, because of the supply chain 0:13:24.360 --> 0:13:28.640 challengesn't because of climate change, and long term, we've got 0:13:28.640 --> 0:13:30.880 to do something to turn that around. That that is 0:13:30.880 --> 0:13:33.839 not sustainable. That's not a one year issue, but that's 0:13:33.840 --> 0:13:36.719 like a generational issue. We can't end up in this 0:13:36.920 --> 0:13:42.000 fundamental fragmentation between the West and the South. And that's 0:13:42.080 --> 0:13:45.400 right now where we're heading. Well, you know, that actually 0:13:45.440 --> 0:13:47.520 reminded me of something I'm meant to ask about China, 0:13:47.679 --> 0:13:49.839 and that is um And again, this is more long 0:13:49.960 --> 0:13:54.680 term than immediate. But China's demographic situation, the aging of 0:13:54.720 --> 0:13:57.959 their population is astounding. The more you look into tell 0:13:58.000 --> 0:14:02.040 us about that, Well, it's the worst defographic trend of 0:14:02.240 --> 0:14:07.280 any major country ever in peace time. At one point 0:14:07.320 --> 0:14:11.040 four billion people right now. The population maxed last year 0:14:11.760 --> 0:14:16.000 and assume me two years ago, and uh, they are 0:14:16.120 --> 0:14:22.560 heading towards the range of projections are between nine million 0:14:22.600 --> 0:14:27.400 to five hundred million. By so I mean, in other words, 0:14:27.440 --> 0:14:29.760 that population is going to go down by either a 0:14:29.880 --> 0:14:33.200 third to two thirds in the course of in the 0:14:33.200 --> 0:14:36.600 course of a few generations. That is uh. You know, 0:14:36.640 --> 0:14:38.280 you know, for so many years we talked about the 0:14:38.280 --> 0:14:42.560 coming China century. Right there's no China century in that 0:14:42.680 --> 0:14:45.920 environment there. You might have a China decade, you might 0:14:46.000 --> 0:14:49.000 have a China decade. It's not even clear that China 0:14:49.080 --> 0:14:52.240 is going to become the largest economy. It's possible they won't. 0:14:52.560 --> 0:14:54.720 But if they do, they're not going to maintain a 0:14:54.800 --> 0:14:58.120 dominant position at all for long. They can't because the 0:14:58.200 --> 0:15:00.960 population just won't wow it, it it won't be there. They 0:15:01.000 --> 0:15:04.080 won't be able to grow the way they will need. 0:15:05.800 --> 0:15:08.120 So in the United States we deal with a low 0:15:08.160 --> 0:15:11.360 birth rates by importing plucky young Venezuelans and folks from 0:15:11.400 --> 0:15:14.600 a Central American all over the world. Does China have kids? 0:15:14.680 --> 0:15:18.800 We have some kids. You know occasionally, but not not barely. 0:15:18.800 --> 0:15:22.440 Two point one per woman, a lot, a lot more 0:15:22.520 --> 0:15:24.880 than in China, is the point. Well, China would have 0:15:24.920 --> 0:15:27.560 to change fundamentally though to have any sort of significant 0:15:27.600 --> 0:15:31.320 immigration right. Well, first of all, when Jumping took power 0:15:31.320 --> 0:15:33.160 ten years ago, the first thing he did as a 0:15:33.160 --> 0:15:35.320 major policy was he got rid of the one policy, 0:15:35.400 --> 0:15:37.120 had no impact. Then he got rid of the two 0:15:37.200 --> 0:15:40.240 child policy, had no impact. So that ain't working. So 0:15:40.280 --> 0:15:43.480 you're not you're not getting Chinese women to have more kids. 0:15:43.480 --> 0:15:48.160 They refuse um and you know, especially as they get wealthier. Um, 0:15:48.200 --> 0:15:50.920 you wouldn't expect that trying to change without massive economic 0:15:50.960 --> 0:15:53.760 intervention that China is not planning on doing. And it's 0:15:53.880 --> 0:15:58.000 it's almost inconceivable that they would open up immigration in 0:15:58.080 --> 0:16:01.200 a way that would have a meaningful packed on that. 0:16:01.240 --> 0:16:05.880 The population is so culturally homogeneous. It's just it's almost inconceivable. 0:16:06.520 --> 0:16:09.360 That's fascinating. Okay, one more thing before we get to 0:16:09.760 --> 0:16:11.880 number three on the risk list, which I just blew 0:16:11.920 --> 0:16:15.440 my mind. But back to the theme of loadsome regimes 0:16:15.440 --> 0:16:19.120 and how how rock solid they are. The protests in 0:16:19.200 --> 0:16:28.280 Iran again dramatic, moving morally powerful, how significant, um bigger 0:16:28.320 --> 0:16:34.400 than two thousand nine all over the country, but leaderless, 0:16:34.520 --> 0:16:37.920 very hard to shut down as a consequence, but not 0:16:38.000 --> 0:16:40.560 really much of a threat to creating a new regime. 0:16:41.280 --> 0:16:46.200 And so far the i r C, the Revolutionary Guard 0:16:46.240 --> 0:16:51.920 cores UM has not been using UM anywhere near the 0:16:52.000 --> 0:16:54.920 level of violence that is available to them. UM. Some 0:16:55.040 --> 0:16:57.920 have died, certainly, but I mean we're not talking about 0:16:57.960 --> 0:17:00.680 like going in and just clearing out with with guns 0:17:00.720 --> 0:17:04.199 and heavy weapons, except in the Kurdish region where they 0:17:04.240 --> 0:17:06.919 have done some of that, but not not as much 0:17:06.960 --> 0:17:09.159 of a problem for the regime as a whole. Uh, 0:17:09.240 --> 0:17:13.560 there's been no willingness to UH to to in any 0:17:13.560 --> 0:17:18.720 way compromise on the way that head scarves are mandated 0:17:18.840 --> 0:17:21.840 or the way that the religious police can impose their 0:17:21.880 --> 0:17:26.160 will in unilateral and arbitrary fashion. So what you have 0:17:26.480 --> 0:17:28.600 is a regime that is run by an eighty three 0:17:28.680 --> 0:17:32.000 year old who is not very good health, supported by 0:17:32.040 --> 0:17:34.880 the military that's been kind of kicking the can and 0:17:35.000 --> 0:17:37.639 hoping that this is going to eventually stop. But there's 0:17:38.480 --> 0:17:41.399 willing to deal with this level of instability at the 0:17:41.400 --> 0:17:44.320 same time that providing all the support to Russia and 0:17:44.480 --> 0:17:47.119 they are getting closer to a nuclear weapon, and what 0:17:47.240 --> 0:17:50.200 that means is Iran is not likely to implode. Rather, 0:17:50.480 --> 0:17:55.960 we're getting closer to confrontation between Iran, Israel, the Saudiast, 0:17:56.000 --> 0:17:59.040 the United States UM in trying to prevent them from 0:17:59.080 --> 0:18:03.520 becoming a nuclear weapons state. Lovely to look forward to. 0:18:03.720 --> 0:18:05.920 I've seen a bunch of different interviews with you on 0:18:05.960 --> 0:18:08.560 this this list, so I know this one one of 0:18:08.560 --> 0:18:11.520 the one of the headlines was written for the first 0:18:11.560 --> 0:18:13.520 time by a robot or a bot or whatever. What's 0:18:13.600 --> 0:18:17.760 up with that? Yeah, my my risk was written by 0:18:17.760 --> 0:18:21.560 a bot of was called weapons of mass disruption. We 0:18:21.640 --> 0:18:23.480 input at the risk and we said what would you 0:18:23.520 --> 0:18:24.960 call this? And that's sort of came up with thought 0:18:24.960 --> 0:18:26.320 that was pretty good, Like I can fire a bunch 0:18:26.320 --> 0:18:30.280 of my people and that's pretty cool. So, you know, 0:18:30.359 --> 0:18:32.240 certainly the headline writers for the New York Post, we're 0:18:32.240 --> 0:18:34.679 not going to need those guys going forward. What the 0:18:34.760 --> 0:18:37.879 risk is about is that the United States, you know, 0:18:38.040 --> 0:18:43.000 is creating these tools that actually really disrupt democracy and 0:18:43.440 --> 0:18:46.080 we saw that. We saw that in Brazil this weekend. 0:18:46.320 --> 0:18:49.280 You know, I mean the same social media that allowed 0:18:49.320 --> 0:18:54.600 Trump to build his popularity and build you know conspiracy 0:18:54.640 --> 0:18:58.679 theories that made people really believe that the stolen and 0:18:58.720 --> 0:19:00.639 if their patriots they should come out and support him 0:19:00.680 --> 0:19:04.080 and occupy the capital. That's exactly the playbook that Bolson 0:19:04.160 --> 0:19:05.760 Arrow has been playing for the last year, that the 0:19:05.800 --> 0:19:08.120 only way he can lose the fitz Reagan's using these 0:19:08.160 --> 0:19:12.600 algorithms on social media UM to challenge democracy and the 0:19:12.720 --> 0:19:16.639 problem in the coming year UM is that increasingly the 0:19:16.760 --> 0:19:20.280 power of these AI tools both to be used to 0:19:20.359 --> 0:19:24.199 create malware that will help cyber tax and also to 0:19:24.760 --> 0:19:28.320 create bots that you and I can't tell aren't human beings. 0:19:28.880 --> 0:19:31.560 And the danger of that in terms of the ability 0:19:31.600 --> 0:19:38.360 to promote disinformation for elections around political movements and extremism UM, 0:19:38.400 --> 0:19:41.439 as well as the next time we have a game stopped, 0:19:41.760 --> 0:19:45.680 meme stock episode and disrupting markets. We just never dealt 0:19:45.720 --> 0:19:48.640 with anything like this in democracies and we're not ready 0:19:48.680 --> 0:19:51.119 for it. So it's a it's a pretty meaningful danger, 0:19:51.240 --> 0:19:54.040 and it's one that you know the companies are aware of, 0:19:54.359 --> 0:19:59.920 but their business models are aligned to maximizing engagement and data, 0:20:00.200 --> 0:20:02.840 which means that they really don't want to fix the problem. 0:20:03.080 --> 0:20:05.600 For ways to fix the problem, you just verify everybody online, 0:20:05.600 --> 0:20:08.840 but they won't do that because it would destroy their 0:20:08.880 --> 0:20:11.679 market cap. Yeah, I've got to admit that all of 0:20:11.720 --> 0:20:14.439 this stuff is so interesting, and we we bow in 0:20:14.480 --> 0:20:16.520 appreciation to your expertise and the rest of it. But 0:20:16.560 --> 0:20:19.439 this section in particular just blew my mind the idea 0:20:19.560 --> 0:20:24.240 that AI, through its sheer, you know, productivity, it can 0:20:24.359 --> 0:20:28.480 churn out so much content that the bulk of the 0:20:28.560 --> 0:20:30.439 content is going to make it harder and harder to 0:20:30.440 --> 0:20:32.399 find the truth. And then you combine that with the 0:20:32.440 --> 0:20:35.479 algorithms for its distribution and tweaking people the way they 0:20:35.480 --> 0:20:39.040 want to be tweaked. I mean, truth seeking is going 0:20:39.119 --> 0:20:42.919 to become It seems it's already hard. Oh yeah, it 0:20:42.960 --> 0:20:46.119 seems like it's gonna get damn near impossible. And even 0:20:46.160 --> 0:20:49.240 even worse than that, I think empathy seeking is going 0:20:49.280 --> 0:20:52.040 to become impossible because we treat you, we still treat 0:20:52.119 --> 0:20:56.560 human beings in a different way because we feel like, 0:20:56.960 --> 0:21:01.200 you know, we are they and they deserve a level 0:21:01.440 --> 0:21:05.680 of engagement and solicitousness and trust and all the rest. 0:21:05.760 --> 0:21:09.280 And suddenly, when we can no longer determine who is 0:21:09.280 --> 0:21:11.479 a human being and who is a bot, it's not 0:21:11.560 --> 0:21:14.359 just we get fooled by bots and treat them like humans. 0:21:14.600 --> 0:21:17.280 It's also that we stopped treating human beings like humans, 0:21:17.320 --> 0:21:20.080 we start treating them like bosts. Never you ever been 0:21:20.080 --> 0:21:24.240 on Twitter? Yeah, yeah, exactly. But you know, if you 0:21:24.280 --> 0:21:28.080 think that's bad, that's nothing. That's nothing. Can we get 0:21:28.080 --> 0:21:29.800 the bots to argue with each other and then just 0:21:29.880 --> 0:21:31.359 lock them in a room and leave them alone or 0:21:32.480 --> 0:21:34.679 all the way down? I think that's a brilliant idea. 0:21:35.160 --> 0:21:38.080 The problem is that they can those bots can fucking multitask. 0:21:38.200 --> 0:21:41.040 That's the problem. Yeah. Yeah, Well I was gonna say 0:21:41.040 --> 0:21:44.840 I don't give a crap about empathy, but no, so 0:21:44.960 --> 0:21:48.440 I so you Uh yeah, I heard you say that 0:21:48.560 --> 0:21:50.879 you could. I don't argue with people on Twitter. I 0:21:50.880 --> 0:21:52.840 think that's a real waste of your time. But um, 0:21:52.840 --> 0:21:54.560 you could end up in an argument with someone and 0:21:54.600 --> 0:21:56.760 it is a computer and you don't know it. And 0:21:56.800 --> 0:22:00.920 that's coming this year, and that's coming this year. Ye yeah, 0:22:01.040 --> 0:22:03.840 I think that. I think that the advances. The people 0:22:03.880 --> 0:22:06.320