Speaker 1: But knowledge to work and grow your business with c
Speaker 1: i T. From transportation to healthcare to manufacturing. C i
Speaker 1: T offers commercial lending, leasing, and treasury management services for
Speaker 1: small and middle market businesses. Learn more at c i
Speaker 1: T dot com put Knowledge to Work. Welcome to another
Speaker 1: edition of the Odd Thoughts Podcast. I'm Tracy Alloway, executive
Speaker 1: editor of Bloomberg Markets, and I'm Joe wisn't All, Managing
Speaker 1: editor at Bloomberg Markets. So, Joe, how do you feel
Speaker 1: about the future of civilization at the moment? Tracy? It's
Speaker 1: just all looks so bleak, So everything is so depressing.
Speaker 1: It seems like all of the things that we took
Speaker 1: for granted in terms of political norms and systems that
Speaker 1: we just assumed we're permanent, all seemed to be going down.
Speaker 1: The drain seems to be all over, doesn't it. That's
Speaker 1: one way of putting it. Was that a little more,
Speaker 1: was that a little was it was actually, you know,
Speaker 1: I'm always trying to cheer you up, So I thought
Speaker 1: today we could talk to an expert on the collapse
Speaker 1: of civilizations. That sounds wonderful. That sounds like the perfect
Speaker 1: pick me up topic. In all seriousness, I think you're
Speaker 1: going to like this particular guest because I know that
Speaker 1: you have an interest in Guatemala in particular, I think
Speaker 1: your mother lives out there, now, that's right, Yeah, that's right.
Speaker 1: My mom is sort of a retired to Guatemala to
Speaker 1: be a painter and live at the side of a lake.
Speaker 1: And I spent a month out there actually, right before
Speaker 1: I joined your team, So I got to see some
Speaker 1: of the old Mayan monuments things like that. And the
Speaker 1: mind civilization is of course famous for its collapse, one
Speaker 1: of many ancient civilizations that have collapsed over the millennia,
Speaker 1: I suppose, and to talk about that today and to
Speaker 1: connect it to what's potentially happening in the rest of
Speaker 1: the world. Right now, we have a guy who has
Speaker 1: at various times been dubbed the real Indiana Jones. Oh
Speaker 1: my god. Yeah. And actually the person who recommended him
Speaker 1: to us was a previous gust on this show. It's
Speaker 1: John Shane, also known as Merle Hazard, and he described
Speaker 1: he described our guest as a man who spends much
Speaker 1: of his time in a tent in various tropics with
Speaker 1: bottles of scotch and philosophy books. But I should give
Speaker 1: him a proper intro. It is Arthur Demorrist. He is
Speaker 1: an anthropologist. He's the author of something like twenty books
Speaker 1: about various societies, and he is also a professor at
Speaker 1: Vanderbilt University. So I think it's going to be really
Speaker 1: really interesting. Well, I think a living intent and drinking
Speaker 1: scotch and reading philosophy books maybe in all of our
Speaker 1: cards at some point. So don't not write that bleak.
Speaker 1: But but I can't wait. Let's get it started. Arthur,
Speaker 1: thank you so much for joining us today. Thank you,
Speaker 1: Thank you. I have some comments on your comments if
Speaker 1: you like, yeah, just jump right in. We don't even
Speaker 1: have to ask you a question. Well, you know, a
Speaker 1: living in the in the jungle, it's like degrees all
Speaker 1: the time and mud and full of snakes and scorpions
Speaker 1: and stuff and mosquitoes. But living in a tent in
Speaker 1: the jungle, once you get used to that, uh, you
Speaker 1: kind of need some scotch in the evening. But I
Speaker 1: mean you can. You can't binge drink it because you
Speaker 1: gotta make it last. Yeah. I was just gonna say,
Speaker 1: you have to bring it in yourself, right, there's probably
Speaker 1: not an easy way to Now it's it's bout and
Speaker 1: forward drive vehicle, and you know you can't get there
Speaker 1: except bye bye riverboat. Ultimately, and I do have the
Speaker 1: best philosophy library and the entire pretend rainforest. I'm reason
Speaker 1: be sure that I haven't actually checked, but I already
Speaker 1: liked this episode. I just want to say I love it.
Speaker 1: I love it there, I really love it there. Let's
Speaker 1: talk about civilization collapsing happier topics. UM, What makes a
Speaker 1: civilization collapse? Almost all civilizations collapse, especially complex ones. Uh.
Speaker 1: And there are many different reasons. But my after studying,
Speaker 1: you know, I teach about eighteen or nineteen collapses, and
Speaker 1: I'm working now with angor collapse. I've also been working
Speaker 1: with business people, UM like Bart Victor at the at
Speaker 1: the Owen School of Business about it. And you see patterns.
Speaker 1: But the broadest pattern is that often, maybe usually, the
Speaker 1: strengths of a civilization, it's basic characteristics over time are
Speaker 1: the same things that bring it down. Um. And the
Speaker 1: other thing you see is a broad characterization. People think collapse,
Speaker 1: you know, decline, things fall apart a little by little.
Speaker 1: The apogees of civilizations, the right fluorescences are often the collapses.
Speaker 1: The collapses going on, and it looks really good from
Speaker 1: the from the monuments and stuff, and uh and and
Speaker 1: then there are a bunch of patterns that you see
Speaker 1: over and over again, many of which apply to us
Speaker 1: and business and so on. So I can't really help
Speaker 1: you with being optimistic. I'm sort of it's kind of
Speaker 1: it's I'm sort of like, you know, a funeral parlor
Speaker 1: director of civilizations. I I emphasize the collapses because from
Speaker 1: the way they collapse, you can go back and see
Speaker 1: what went wrong and how they were structured. So it's
Speaker 1: also just a way to look uh more carefully at
Speaker 1: the basic features of civilizations too. I'm curious. So you
Speaker 1: said that often civilizations collapse for the same due to
Speaker 1: the same characteristics that may have defined their strong periods,
Speaker 1: so the strengths become their weaknesses. Give us a concrete
Speaker 1: example of the civilization where you know, you can point
Speaker 1: to one aspect of the civilization that made it thrive,
Speaker 1: and then that same that same aspect proved to be
Speaker 1: its undoing. Well, it's never one aspect, but a perfect
Speaker 1: example is the Maya civilization. And I've been uh, you know,
Speaker 1: working comparatively with anger in Cambodia. You know, they have
Speaker 1: Anger Watch and that's very similar in both of them,
Speaker 1: and that is that high civilizations really aren't supposed to
Speaker 1: exist in a tropical forest, um, because of the thin soils,
Speaker 1: the fragile environment and all of that. UH. And they really,
Speaker 1: you know, the lost cities in the jungle thing, it's
Speaker 1: you know, it's kind of like what I do. And
Speaker 1: that's one of the reasons why there's so much public interest,
Speaker 1: because you always have those in the movies, but there
Speaker 1: really aren't a lot of places, and so there's they're
Speaker 1: successful secret was to adapt their cities to the tropical
Speaker 1: forest uh, and to make them kind of dispersed, more disperse,
Speaker 1: more green and spread out and to mimic the diversity
Speaker 1: and diversion of there are all different kinds of field systems,
Speaker 1: nothing like Kansas, you know, no monoculture, one crop, but
Speaker 1: a lot of different kinds of field systems sensitive to
Speaker 1: the micro environment. And that means it had to be
Speaker 1: decentralized so the local farmers uh could do things and
Speaker 1: UH and that was great UM. And you know, many
Speaker 1: things can go wrong though, as you start to get
Speaker 1: too successful and uh and build up and population grows
Speaker 1: that begins to put a strain on the environment. But
Speaker 1: the latest stuff that I've been doing, and this is
Speaker 1: this is you know, the work that I'm doing now
Speaker 1: at con Quinn, this Maya city and the whole region.
Speaker 1: My projects cover the whole whole region. Um. It's actually
Speaker 1: a big part of that's owned by Vanderbilt. Um. But anyway, Um,
Speaker 1: they started to switch. The whole world of Mesoamerica began
Speaker 1: and to switch to something much closer to our kind
Speaker 1: of economy, you know, a long distance exchange over there.
Speaker 1: The basic characteristics of our our economy since Mesopotamia, Western
Speaker 1: economies is overproduction of one thing in one area and
Speaker 1: then over production of another thing in another area, and
Speaker 1: exchange through a market. Like you know, you have tons
Speaker 1: of wheat and one area and goats in another, and
Speaker 1: then you have a market exchange sometimes over large distances.
Speaker 1: That had started to spread because you know that's sort
Speaker 1: of um, it's closer to capitalism in a way. Um.
Speaker 1: It's very successful, and it kind of spread through Mesoamerica.
Speaker 1: And once that really took hold, the Maya area was
Speaker 1: not very competitive and eventually their trade routes were um,
Speaker 1: you know, taken over by by various people and moved
Speaker 1: to the coasts. And um also their decentralized system. How
Speaker 1: do you hold together or civilization, it's like that dispersed.
Speaker 1: And the answer you see an Anger watt and with
Speaker 1: the Maya, is this divine kingship system where these huge
Speaker 1: rituals in these beautiful ceremonial centers that kind of hold
Speaker 1: the state together. And the king's power isn't just political,
Speaker 1: it's largely religious. Uh, they're divine kings and that's perfect
Speaker 1: for the forest. But also the king is you know,
Speaker 1: he's a general, he's a ruler. He's also like the
Speaker 1: pope um. He's also a ball player in their games.
Speaker 1: He's also a performer. They sang and danced, and anything
Speaker 1: that goes wrong is his fault because you know, even
Speaker 1: if it's just like you know, bad rains or crops
Speaker 1: or hurricane, whatever it is, he's supposed to be talking
Speaker 1: to the gods and the ancestor, you know. But anyway,
Speaker 1: that's that's an example of of a civilization whose basic
Speaker 1: wonderful adaptation in the rainforest to the rainforest made them vulnerable.
Speaker 1: Anger has the same exact type of collapse. I mean,
Speaker 1: ours will be very very different from that, more like
Speaker 1: the Indus, I think. So, I'm just curious, when these
Speaker 1: societies start nearing collapse, do you see certain patterns of
Speaker 1: behavior by their elites, like their kings and their religious figures.
Speaker 1: Because of course, with the rise of Donald Trump and
Speaker 1: some other populist or nationalist parties in Europe, we've really
Speaker 1: seen um a lot of judgment heaped on the elites
Speaker 1: of those particular political systems. Well, yeah, you do see
Speaker 1: counter movements and counter trends, which are sometimes good and
Speaker 1: sometimes not, but those are usually reactions to an ongoing,
Speaker 1: as you said, and ongoing collapse. What you see most
Speaker 1: and this is this is one of the things that
Speaker 1: you know, you can talk about two C e O
Speaker 1: s and all, and is that the leaders do more
Speaker 1: of what they do. They intensify whatever they do, because
Speaker 1: that's you know, they don't know about doing something else,
Speaker 1: so they just intensify, They double and triple down on
Speaker 1: the existing order. Yeah, and it is almost always counterproductive.
Speaker 1: Um it's it's almost always counterproductive. With the maya and anger,
Speaker 1: you know, things are not going well, so obviously you've
Speaker 1: got to build more temples. They have to be more impressive.
Speaker 1: Bigger rituals make the gods happy but also make the
Speaker 1: people happy. UM. And so you're put you're taking more
Speaker 1: and more energy out of the environment and bringing things down.
Speaker 1: And you see that over and over again, and it's
Speaker 1: you know, I think I think it's going on pretty
Speaker 1: obviously right now. I would say more in business and
Speaker 1: technology than in politics. I think in our case, the
Speaker 1: politics is sort of, uh, you know, a reaction to
Speaker 1: the trend, not leading it, and that is often the case.
Speaker 1: We gotta take a quick break for a word from
Speaker 1: our sponsor and we'll be right back. But Knowledge to
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Speaker 1: Learn more at c i T dot com Put Knowledge
Speaker 1: to Work. And we're back with Professor Arthur Demerist. He's
Speaker 1: a anthropologist who studies the collapse of civilizations. UM. He's
Speaker 1: been called the real life Indiana Jones. We're talking about
Speaker 1: before the break, how when civilizations collapse, you see leaders
Speaker 1: doubling and tripling down on whatever they're doing. Now, you
Speaker 1: mentioned that you see that a lot in business, not
Speaker 1: just in uh civilizations, but you see it in business.
Speaker 1: What are some examples when you talk to business schools
Speaker 1: and business leaders, there are some examples that sort of
Speaker 1: really highlight this behavior. That behavior often also comes from
Speaker 1: short term thinking and leaders trying to hold onto power
Speaker 1: by doing more of what they do. And that's you
Speaker 1: really see that with c e O s now. I
Speaker 1: think the short cycle in which they're judged and this
Speaker 1: is also happening with politicians. It's shorter and shorter cycles
Speaker 1: on which they're judged um leads them to try to
Speaker 1: make fast reactions, fast solutions, and you really can't. Like business,
Speaker 1: a CEO is like a president like has to can't
Speaker 1: go out and say, well, you know, we're gonna slow
Speaker 1: down and have really much slower growth and probably you know,
Speaker 1: lower stock prices for three or four years and we
Speaker 1: can build back up, you know, and then you know,
Speaker 1: all these politicians and you know, the new president actually
Speaker 1: all of them will say, well, we're gonna fix all this,
Speaker 1: and they're only in there for four eight years, and
Speaker 1: you can't fix anything with that, you know, you can
Speaker 1: just lay groundwork, so they they during that period, they
Speaker 1: can't you have time to restructure things. So you just
Speaker 1: intensify and you know, that's a pattern, that's um it's
Speaker 1: very common, and that's one of the reasons why uh
Speaker 1: apogees or fluorescences, you know, the peak of things actually
Speaker 1: we looks really great to us, especially with ancient civilizations,
Speaker 1: but or even historical ones. But that really is some
Speaker 1: of that going on. And I think it's also some
Speaker 1: of that that you know you see in bubbles. The
Speaker 1: bubbles you see uh with um like the you know,
Speaker 1: the the high tech bubble and the e bubble, all
Speaker 1: of that, um that is that the real estate bubble.
Speaker 1: That is a perfect example of intensifying more and more
Speaker 1: something that has been successful and is actually beginning to
Speaker 1: undermine the system and then it leads right into collapse.
Speaker 1: And so when once you start studying that, you look
Speaker 1: back at things like a Renaissance in Italy, which everyone wow,
Speaker 1: what a great The Renaissance was a collapse. It was
Speaker 1: it was a complete collapse and it ended in you know, disaster,
Speaker 1: as did the Golden Age of Greece and so on.
Speaker 1: So when people are looking for you know, the down periods,
Speaker 1: they they don't see that factor. And it is really
Speaker 1: very common and that's because of that leadership problems. You
Speaker 1: run a problems, it just leads you to think in
Speaker 1: sort of desperate solutions, shorter and shorter solutions. Um, it's happening.
Speaker 1: I think also with high tech a lot the hypercoherence
Speaker 1: is just being made worse constantly. Joe and I have
Speaker 1: spent um probably many hours at this point talking about
Speaker 1: market bubbles and what tips bubbles. Uh, you know, from
Speaker 1: euphoria into fear and pain. I suppose is there a
Speaker 1: particular thing, like one thing that you could pinpoint that's
Speaker 1: the tipping point when it comes to civilizations? Uh, not
Speaker 1: one the thing that you know I'm making. I'm making
Speaker 1: these statements and they there they apply. And the thing
Speaker 1: that's great about the study of civilizations, and I'm teaching
Speaker 1: this class right now that is a seminar that's eighteen civilizations.
Speaker 1: They have different lessons and so you draw different aspects
Speaker 1: from different cultures and then you can see that those
Speaker 1: patterns reapplying. So not all of the collapses are that
Speaker 1: kind of apag bubble thing. Um, you do see the
Speaker 1: pattern of that intensification of of what you do. You
Speaker 1: do see the pattern almost always of shorter and shorter
Speaker 1: term thinking. You know, you're getting into trouble, so you're
Speaker 1: trying to fix it faster and faster, and that is
Speaker 1: another counterproductive response. You can also see in you know,
Speaker 1: you also study non collapse. I mean most of the time, Uh,
Speaker 1: there's a near collapse and then uh they change some
Speaker 1: things and they have maybe a kind of a big
Speaker 1: recession and then they go on. Uh. So you also
Speaker 1: get to study, you know, why there was a collapse
Speaker 1: in this case and not in another case. Our civilization,
Speaker 1: I would take from the indus um hyper coherence. What
Speaker 1: does that mean? Hyper coherence? Well, it's it's one of
Speaker 1: those really great strengths. I mean, well, I think one
Speaker 1: of you is in Abu Dhabi. Uh. It's the the
Speaker 1: integration of the society. It's the society gets better and
Speaker 1: better integrated, leading to better decision making, leading to great wealth.
Speaker 1: Uh are A good example is our our situation. We're
Speaker 1: probably the most hyper coherent where the you know, the computer,
Speaker 1: the Internet, satellites were all really all tied together. And
Speaker 1: that's great, and it's getting getting more and more over time,
Speaker 1: and that's creating more and more wealth. And you know,
Speaker 1: with the E network and Amazon and all the rest.
Speaker 1: But um, if there's a problem in one part of
Speaker 1: the system, it radiates through the whole system and at
Speaker 1: a certain point can bring the whole thing down, which
Speaker 1: we see, you know, like there's a slowdown, not even
Speaker 1: a recession in China, and pizza parlors are closing all
Speaker 1: over you know Chili. Um you can see it when well,
Speaker 1: I mean I see it. I tell I tell people
Speaker 1: that the foremost common words in the English language are
Speaker 1: the system is down. Uh, that's you hear that everywhere.
Speaker 1: And there's some glitch in something, uh in Atlanta or
Speaker 1: uh and Delta has to cancel three thousand flights. I
Speaker 1: mean that happens all the time, that kind of thing.
Speaker 1: We are really hypercoherent and uh it's the source of
Speaker 1: our great wealth. But it really is becoming a vulnerability.
Speaker 1: And the response to that, because you have business competition,
Speaker 1: is more and more integration, better and better systems of integration,
Speaker 1: and more in or hyper coherence, and more and more fragility.
Speaker 1: I was just gonna say, it seems like the natural
Speaker 1: conclusion from that point would be to build sort of
Speaker 1: walls into the system, or to build some sort of
Speaker 1: like protection or buffer. But people up until very recently
Speaker 1: didn't really seem to like doing that, Like going against
Speaker 1: the grain of globalization was seen as a bad thing,
Speaker 1: particularly for markets and economics. These are things that business
Speaker 1: people in particular don't like to hear. Well, there's a
Speaker 1: lot of reasons for that. Um one of them, and
Speaker 1: this we've taken from business with my interactions with my colleagues,
Speaker 1: But there's a one popular theory that as society has
Speaker 1: become more complex, investment has diminishing marginal returns. You know,
Speaker 1: at first you make an investment of a hundred dollars
Speaker 1: in Microsoft, and then you know, over time, uh, you
Speaker 1: don't get you know, a thousand present profit. It slows
Speaker 1: down gradually, and eventually as you add more employees and
Speaker 1: so on, it it breaks off or even causes the
Speaker 1: system to slow down and to become less productive. And you're,
Speaker 1: you know, you're you go from diminishing marginal returns to
Speaker 1: diminishing returns, and that happens a lot in complex societies.
Speaker 1: The other problem is status rivalry, which you see with me.
Speaker 1: That's one of the problems in the renaissance. You know,
Speaker 1: you see it here with us. It's companies and countries
Speaker 1: and so when you know that you really should sort
Speaker 1: of slow down and UM, and it costs money to
Speaker 1: do the backup systems and UM may just require UH
Speaker 1: cutting down on the degree of coherent hyper coherence that
Speaker 1: causes profit loss, that causes that diminishing marginal returns. And
Speaker 1: the rulers of the Maya state, it's UH, or the
Speaker 1: rulers of the Renaissance cities, they they can't get away
Speaker 1: with that. They've got a public that wants things more quickly.
Speaker 1: And again that when you have that kind of competition,
Speaker 1: the the desire to beat the other guy or do
Speaker 1: better UH is really that's what the leader depends upon.
Speaker 1: Does that competition sort of engender what you say, these
Speaker 1: apogees of civilization, the building of pyramids, the funding of
Speaker 1: great works of art, is that part of what drives that.
Speaker 1: So you have everyone competing for status and trying to
Speaker 1: establish something great to compensate for the decline. And so
Speaker 1: we get these periods that look amazing, but they're actually
Speaker 1: a phenomenon of decline. That's perfect I think better phrase
Speaker 1: than mine. I'm not accustomed to saying things in less
Speaker 1: than an hour and a half. But that's why it's
Speaker 1: called status rivalry. Status war is a form of status rivalry,
Speaker 1: but also, like the Renaissance is a good example, competitive
Speaker 1: art and building cathedrals better than the other guy and
Speaker 1: so on, and it does generate this this magnificence. And
Speaker 1: Bill Gates had just said, this is something about this
Speaker 1: is the best time and in history or our history
Speaker 1: in terms of you know, the way the world is
Speaker 1: or something, and I said, wow, that's really ominous, because
Speaker 1: that's when you start to say something like that. Maybe
Speaker 1: you're in a crescendo, maybe you're in a bubble, and uh,
Speaker 1: you see that over and over again. It looks really
Speaker 1: really great, like the Maya civilization. Wow, anger incredible stuff
Speaker 1: they're building in the jungle. But everyone admires the Renaissance.
Speaker 1: Look at all of that. It looks great. But that's
Speaker 1: more and more expenditure. And it's also leaders competing with
Speaker 1: other leaders. It's more with C e O s now,
Speaker 1: but also with countries, and that keeps it accelerating, keeps
Speaker 1: it looking better and better, and keeps making it more
Speaker 1: and more fragile. So when Donald Trump says he wants
Speaker 1: to build a great wall and start an infrastructure fund
Speaker 1: and ramp up defense, spending and things like that, Um,
Speaker 1: how working should we be? Well we should again. I
Speaker 1: think these things are more of you know, people are
Speaker 1: worried about about Trump, and yeah, that's you know, a
Speaker 1: symptom more than a cause. It's it's the pressure for
Speaker 1: shorter and shorter term results, which happens as things begin
Speaker 1: to not keep up and people begin to get dissatisfied,
Speaker 1: like all of the workers in Pennsylvania and so on. Uh.
Speaker 1: You then you know, you see counter movements and reactions.
Speaker 1: But the problem with what he wants to do and
Speaker 1: what every president has wanted to do to some degree,
Speaker 1: the promises of renewing our infrastructure and building the wall.
Speaker 1: The problem is that, um, that can't be done quickly.
Speaker 1: And I mean that really ties into a whole another
Speaker 1: group of theories that some people call entanglement theory, which
Speaker 1: is that you you build this infrastructure that is so
Speaker 1: great and so wonderful, but then over time, the government,
Speaker 1: the institutions, the people are sort of entangled in it,
Speaker 1: and as you lose resources, you're dependent on this system
Speaker 1: that you can't maintain, and it's impossible to really scale back.
Speaker 1: I mean, you know, you can't say, well, we can't
Speaker 1: maintain this interstate system. So we're just gonna concentrate on
Speaker 1: some main roads. Or this subway line is really losing money,
Speaker 1: so we're just going to close it. Uh. Mayors can't
Speaker 1: do that, they'll get kicked out. So what you get
Speaker 1: is this, This happened with anger and a lot of them. Uh,
Speaker 1: this dependence on this infrastructure and no way to really
Speaker 1: when it gets to be hard to fund and maintain,
Speaker 1: no way to do that. So you have, you know,
Speaker 1: you intensify efforts and you just don't have the resources,
Speaker 1: and it can bring whole civilization down real quickly. Because
Speaker 1: we're just about out of time just a few seconds. Uh,
Speaker 1: how quickly can it all collapse? Very quickly? Uh? I'm sorry,
Speaker 1: this has been very depressing with Look, with with more time,
Speaker 1: I could make your your listeners weep. Would you like that? No?
Speaker 1: I mean it can happen very very quickly. The Maya
Speaker 1: civilization was most spectacular at around seven eight um seven,
Speaker 1: and by eight ten, Uh, it was just in pieces
Speaker 1: eight hundred a lot of places. So it can happen
Speaker 1: really really quickly. It's often happened slowly in one part
Speaker 1: and then that reaches a critical point and then it
Speaker 1: just runs through the whole system, which is what happened
Speaker 1: also with the Maya. I have one I have one
Speaker 1: more quick question before you go. Uh when when civilization collapses,
Speaker 1: can Joe and I come stay in your tent and
Speaker 1: drink scotch and read philosophy books. Ah, that's the key question.
Speaker 1: Hey man, you know what I am. I am ready.
Speaker 1: I am ready than any survivalist. We have no electricity,
Speaker 1: no running water, but we have a river right there,
Speaker 1: we have a tent. The Maya grow the food all
Speaker 1: around there, the turkeys in the corn. And I don't
Speaker 1: think we're even going to know when the collapse comes
Speaker 1: out there, except it will be hard to get the
Speaker 1: good scotch. And that really makes shout us down. Well,
Speaker 1: Tracy and I will definitely bring some. Uh. Professor Demeris,
Speaker 1: thank you so much. Fascinating, depressing, but still very enlightening
Speaker 1: loss to chew on. Now I'm gonna go read all
Speaker 1: your books. Really appreciate you joining us. Okay, thanks, Thanks
Speaker 1: So Joe, are we all sufficiently depressed? Are are you
Speaker 1: going to be reaching for the scotch tonight? No? You
Speaker 1: know what, I think I'm in a better mood. Uh,
Speaker 1: than I was. You know, at the beginning, I was
Speaker 1: feeling pretty glum, and then obviously that was pretty uh,
Speaker 1: pretty down. But now I'm just sort of excited about
Speaker 1: studying a new thing. And I'm not joking. Now I'm
Speaker 1: gonna go download all his books to my kindle. And
Speaker 1: you know, it's the it's the circle of you know,
Speaker 1: it's it's good to know that patterns repeat. It's sort
Speaker 1: of comforting, Yeah, I know what you mean. Like the
Speaker 1: idea that even if Western civilization collapses, that's kind of
Speaker 1: a normal thing across the millennia. It's unfortunate for us though,
Speaker 1: if we live through that collapse. Um, but yes, it's
Speaker 1: somewhat comforting. I never thought of things like the Pyramids
Speaker 1: or the Renaissance, you know, we I thought that was
Speaker 1: a fascinating idea, that these things that we associate with
Speaker 1: the peak are actually signs of the decline. It sort
Speaker 1: of makes me think of all of history in a
Speaker 1: way a little bit differently. All right, Well that's it
Speaker 1: for another edition of Odd Lots. You can follow me
Speaker 1: on Twitter at Tracy Halloway and I'm Joe Wisenthal. You
Speaker 1: can follow me on Twitter at the Stallart. Thanks for listening.
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