WEBVTT - Elon Musk and The Martian Revolution feat. Mike Duncan 0:00:01.720 --> 0:00:04.920 Al Zone Media. 0:00:05.120 --> 0:00:09.000 Welcome back to It Could Happen Here, a podcast about 0:00:09.080 --> 0:00:12.360 it happening here, which is, you know, these days normally 0:00:12.400 --> 0:00:16.480 about the fact that it's happening here, But today we're 0:00:16.520 --> 0:00:20.079 here to talk about a show where it happens somewhere else, 0:00:20.160 --> 0:00:22.599 a place that people aren't yet but may one day 0:00:22.600 --> 0:00:25.840 be in the future. We're talking about the Martian Revolution, 0:00:26.160 --> 0:00:29.760 with the great Mike Duncan of the Revolutions podcast Mia 0:00:29.840 --> 0:00:33.480 Wong joining me on this interview. Welcome to the show. 0:00:33.280 --> 0:00:35.080 Mike, Thank you very much for having me. 0:00:35.520 --> 0:00:37.760 So let's talk about this because you know, I've kept 0:00:37.840 --> 0:00:40.320 up and been listening to Revolutions for years, and I 0:00:40.360 --> 0:00:44.120 started seeing messages earlier this year that, like, Mike Duncan 0:00:44.200 --> 0:00:47.760 is doing this fictional revolution podcast on the Martian Revolution, 0:00:48.159 --> 0:00:51.080 and it seems to map really really closely with a 0:00:51.080 --> 0:00:54.400 lot of stuff that's happening right now in the United States. 0:00:54.840 --> 0:00:57.320 And I'm wondering, kind of to what extent did you 0:00:57.360 --> 0:01:01.000 anticipate that being an initial reaction to this when you 0:01:01.040 --> 0:01:04.640 started really finally laying down like the text for these episodes. 0:01:05.120 --> 0:01:08.680 I did not expect that at all, not at all. 0:01:10.920 --> 0:01:14.319 What has been happening to me, has been one of 0:01:14.319 --> 0:01:17.760 the most surreal six months of my life in terms 0:01:17.760 --> 0:01:20.920 of what I am writing and dropping out into the world. 0:01:20.959 --> 0:01:23.080 And then I turn on the news three weeks later, 0:01:23.160 --> 0:01:26.160 four weeks later, and I'm just watching exactly what I 0:01:26.200 --> 0:01:29.680 wrote down in the show come to life. It is 0:01:29.840 --> 0:01:31.200 horrifying and I hate it. 0:01:33.600 --> 0:01:34.720 Yeah, welcome to the club. 0:01:35.880 --> 0:01:37.600 Yeah yeah, I mean, you guys have to change the 0:01:37.680 --> 0:01:40.200 name of your show because there's no good about it. 0:01:40.200 --> 0:01:42.120 Man, We're just here. It's just going. 0:01:42.280 --> 0:01:42.600 Yeah. 0:01:43.240 --> 0:01:45.160 You know, I've had the notion to do this Martian 0:01:45.200 --> 0:01:49.120 Revolution series for years, Like I think I first came 0:01:49.160 --> 0:01:51.800 up with it back during like the French Revolution days, 0:01:51.880 --> 0:01:52.920 is when I was like, you know, what would be 0:01:53.000 --> 0:01:54.800 a really cool thing to do. It's like, once I've 0:01:54.800 --> 0:01:57.480 got all these under my belt, just like make up 0:01:57.520 --> 0:01:59.840 a fictional revolution that kind of follows along like many 0:02:00.080 --> 0:02:03.480 the plot points of previous revolutions. And so this has 0:02:03.520 --> 0:02:06.160 been kind of like years in the making and a 0:02:06.240 --> 0:02:08.480 lot of the sort of like plot points and ideas 0:02:08.480 --> 0:02:09.920 that I wanted to do. You know, I wanted it 0:02:09.919 --> 0:02:12.520 to be like a monopoly corporation because I also wanted 0:02:12.560 --> 0:02:15.440 to do some like social commentary and like what are 0:02:15.440 --> 0:02:17.360 the issues that we're kind of dealing with right now? 0:02:17.400 --> 0:02:20.360 And you know, and then I'm like, Okay, then there's 0:02:20.400 --> 0:02:22.359 this thing called the New Protocols that is going to 0:02:22.560 --> 0:02:24.800 you know, help jump start the revolution. And this is 0:02:24.840 --> 0:02:28.400 somebody coming in and just you know, implementing whole new 0:02:28.440 --> 0:02:31.760 software programs and hardware programs without any care for like 0:02:31.840 --> 0:02:34.640 what it does to people. Then there's mass layoffs that 0:02:34.680 --> 0:02:38.360 are a part of this. And then deportations are you know, 0:02:38.919 --> 0:02:41.480 like all a part of the story of how the 0:02:41.520 --> 0:02:44.480 Martian Revolution gets going. And you know, this stuff was 0:02:44.520 --> 0:02:46.720 plotted out in October. And I got to tell you, 0:02:46.720 --> 0:02:48.600 you know, maybe I was naive, maybe I had my 0:02:48.600 --> 0:02:51.239 head in the sand. I thought she was going to win. Yeah, man, 0:02:51.480 --> 0:02:54.200 like I thought Harris was going to win the election. 0:02:54.480 --> 0:02:56.560 That's where I That's where my head was at in 0:02:56.600 --> 0:02:59.040 September and October, going into November. I was like, it'll 0:02:59.080 --> 0:03:01.760 be close. Of course, well it's a toss up, but 0:03:01.919 --> 0:03:03.239 I think she'll pull it out in the end. It 0:03:03.320 --> 0:03:05.520 sure feels like it because they were running a terrible 0:03:05.560 --> 0:03:08.800 campaign and like they didn't have any field operations and 0:03:08.840 --> 0:03:10.560 like the whole thing just kind of seemed like she 0:03:10.680 --> 0:03:13.520 was going to win, so for Trump to win and 0:03:13.560 --> 0:03:15.960 then start doing all of these things that were just 0:03:16.000 --> 0:03:20.240 supposed to be fictional plot points. Oh they were references. Yeah, 0:03:20.400 --> 0:03:24.240 Like now I'm just like Jesus Christ. This is terrible. 0:03:24.720 --> 0:03:27.520 Well, that's what's so so interesting is because yeah, so 0:03:27.600 --> 0:03:30.560 much of so much of the initial like as you 0:03:30.600 --> 0:03:35.200 imagine it, the opening stages of like the Martian Revolution 0:03:35.520 --> 0:03:39.400 in your series are based on like a guy who 0:03:39.480 --> 0:03:43.040 is a quote unquote like partly like an auto dite act, right, 0:03:43.120 --> 0:03:46.520 like a dude who is raised believing that his ideas 0:03:46.600 --> 0:03:49.600 are good because they're his ideas, and yet he can 0:03:49.680 --> 0:03:52.680 kind of jump into any field of human endeavor and 0:03:53.160 --> 0:03:55.880 make things work better than the people who have been 0:03:56.360 --> 0:03:58.920 studying and working in that field for their entire lives. 0:03:58.960 --> 0:04:02.240 And he just starts changed everything based on his whims. Now, 0:04:02.280 --> 0:04:04.480 you don't have him staying up until four in the 0:04:04.480 --> 0:04:07.040 morning on ketamine bendors and then tweeting out his ideas 0:04:07.080 --> 0:04:10.520 for how to change the government. But I guess I'd say, 0:04:10.560 --> 0:04:13.600 like that's the one the one thing that doesn't map 0:04:13.640 --> 0:04:16.120 onto right now. And I think this is this almost 0:04:16.360 --> 0:04:19.560 just goes inherently with the active crafting fiction. Even your 0:04:19.560 --> 0:04:24.560 bad guys are a lot more sympathetic than our current ones. Yeah, 0:04:24.600 --> 0:04:27.159 which I think is to your credit. But like I've 0:04:27.240 --> 0:04:30.239 enjoyed the degree to which the decisions that are being 0:04:30.320 --> 0:04:33.680 made that are kind of making this Martian revolution inevitable 0:04:34.000 --> 0:04:36.920 are the kind of decisions that you make when you've 0:04:36.960 --> 0:04:39.600 been raised in these sorts of bubbles where you are 0:04:39.640 --> 0:04:43.000 expected to just sort of be able to run things, 0:04:43.080 --> 0:04:45.960 because like that's the strata that you come from, and 0:04:46.000 --> 0:04:48.400 it maps directly to like what we're seeing right now 0:04:48.440 --> 0:04:51.279 with these Silicon Valley guys who have spent the last 0:04:51.279 --> 0:04:54.640 few decades getting impossible amounts of money and having that 0:04:54.680 --> 0:04:56.880 convinced them that they know how to do everything. But 0:04:56.960 --> 0:05:00.440 it also maps back to like Versailles. I find that compelling. 0:05:00.800 --> 0:05:03.840 Yeah, and you know, the Timothy Werner character, he's like 0:05:03.960 --> 0:05:07.039 sort of the figure against whom the revolution is going 0:05:07.080 --> 0:05:09.480 to start, Yeah, after he comes in and starts doing 0:05:09.520 --> 0:05:11.600 all this stuff, like the number one. Of course, as 0:05:12.040 --> 0:05:14.039 I'm releasing this, people are just like this is just 0:05:14.080 --> 0:05:18.120 a cardboard cutout of Elon Musk, right, and which I 0:05:18.160 --> 0:05:20.599 would point out the first thing is like, actually no, 0:05:20.800 --> 0:05:22.719 because I very specifically wrote it, so he was a 0:05:22.720 --> 0:05:26.839 good husband and father. Yes, Oh, it's it's obviously not. 0:05:26.920 --> 0:05:29.560 It's obviously not Elan Musk because he loves his kids. 0:05:29.640 --> 0:05:31.680 He's allowed to be in the same room as all 0:05:31.720 --> 0:05:32.039 of them. 0:05:32.720 --> 0:05:35.440 Yeah, yeah, they like they get along great and everything. Yeah, 0:05:35.440 --> 0:05:37.680 so obviously it's not. But honest to God, like it 0:05:37.760 --> 0:05:39.960 wasn't meant to be just Musk, but it was meant 0:05:40.000 --> 0:05:42.240 to be those tech guys, right, Like this is meant 0:05:42.279 --> 0:05:44.839 to be thinking about the guys who come in and 0:05:44.839 --> 0:05:47.640 they're like, we're gonna we're gonna move fast and break things, right, 0:05:48.000 --> 0:05:50.120 and then what they break is like one hundred and 0:05:50.120 --> 0:05:53.279 twenty years of like labor law, and that's the only 0:05:53.360 --> 0:05:55.279 thing that is actually being broken here, Like this is 0:05:55.320 --> 0:05:57.680 what you know, what what uber is and all of 0:05:57.720 --> 0:06:00.000 those kinds of like all that stuff that came out 0:06:00.000 --> 0:06:03.200 Adison the last like ten or fifteen years. And they 0:06:03.240 --> 0:06:06.320 think that yes, because they can code well, or because 0:06:06.320 --> 0:06:09.159 they have this one ability to like, you know, market 0:06:09.240 --> 0:06:12.000 something in an effective way, that that means that they 0:06:12.160 --> 0:06:15.640 are brilliant and can do everything and everywhere for everybody, 0:06:15.680 --> 0:06:17.039 and like we're going to reinvent this and we're going 0:06:17.120 --> 0:06:19.600 to reinvent that, but they have no idea what they're 0:06:19.600 --> 0:06:21.560 doing or what they're talking about. And you run into 0:06:21.560 --> 0:06:24.120 these people on Twitter all the time. This phenomenon of 0:06:24.560 --> 0:06:28.159 people being good in one area, yes, and then becoming 0:06:28.240 --> 0:06:31.279 sort of all purpose general knowledge experts when it's like, 0:06:31.279 --> 0:06:34.120 you don't have any idea what you're talking about. And 0:06:34.200 --> 0:06:36.560 so the line, there's a line that's in there where 0:06:36.560 --> 0:06:41.159 it's like Werner, the way that he thought is I'm smart. 0:06:41.279 --> 0:06:44.360 Therefore the ideas I have must be smart. Yes, And 0:06:44.600 --> 0:06:47.120 that is something that's not about Musk. That's about like 0:06:47.240 --> 0:06:49.120 just people I run into on Twitter all the time. 0:06:50.440 --> 0:06:53.159 That's a phenomena that's a generalizable phenomenon. 0:06:53.480 --> 0:06:55.760 No, I mean yeah, we talk about that constantly on 0:06:56.680 --> 0:06:58.600 the show, Like we just did that four parter are 0:06:58.600 --> 0:07:01.840 on the Zizians. That out of like the rationalist Bay 0:07:01.880 --> 0:07:04.719 Area tech industry cult, which is both influential that a 0:07:04.720 --> 0:07:07.120 lot of the people who wound up working at DOGE 0:07:07.279 --> 0:07:09.600 and just to the general tech mindset, and it is 0:07:10.000 --> 0:07:13.080 it's the human embodiment of that idea that like, well, 0:07:13.320 --> 0:07:16.520 I know it a code coding's difficult. That means I'm smart. 0:07:17.040 --> 0:07:20.040 This must mean I know how to run the schools. Right, 0:07:20.400 --> 0:07:23.560 this must mean I know how to replace medicare, right, yep. 0:07:24.400 --> 0:07:27.080 And it's this kind of like reasoning from first principles 0:07:27.120 --> 0:07:31.080 without ever actually like having to sit face to face 0:07:31.120 --> 0:07:33.280 with the consequences of your decisions. And I think you 0:07:33.320 --> 0:07:36.840 do a great job of showing how that cascades into 0:07:36.880 --> 0:07:39.600 a calamity and in a way that feels very realistic, 0:07:39.640 --> 0:07:41.680 even though we're talking about Mars. And there's also like 0:07:41.760 --> 0:07:43.680 gravity generators in the light. 0:07:44.680 --> 0:07:48.280 Yeah, yeah, I mean it's and what you know, what 0:07:48.480 --> 0:07:53.680 Werner does here is so much of what Doze basically 0:07:53.720 --> 0:07:57.200 started doing. When they start going into these systems, they 0:07:57.200 --> 0:08:00.800 start changing codes, they have no idea what are the 0:08:00.960 --> 0:08:04.720 key things that are actually underpinning our society. The most 0:08:04.720 --> 0:08:06.520 recent thing I saw that made me think of this 0:08:06.640 --> 0:08:09.200 is like they're shutting down all the regional offices of 0:08:09.240 --> 0:08:12.000 the Social Security Administration and like all communications are now 0:08:12.040 --> 0:08:14.400 going to be run through Twitter. Right. And one of 0:08:14.440 --> 0:08:18.679 Timothy Werner's things is the centralization of all decision making 0:08:18.960 --> 0:08:22.760 and the centralization of really everything. And in his mind, 0:08:22.800 --> 0:08:24.840 it would be more efficient if the company just had 0:08:24.880 --> 0:08:27.600 one brain and that was his brain, and every decision 0:08:27.680 --> 0:08:29.400 is made by the one brain, and so he's got 0:08:29.440 --> 0:08:31.560 all this stuff and he's got to make all these decisions. 0:08:31.840 --> 0:08:35.000 Except that is that's crazy. That is not actually how 0:08:35.000 --> 0:08:37.160 you can run anything, and it just creates all of 0:08:37.200 --> 0:08:39.560 this like basically everybody, I forget if I wrote this 0:08:39.640 --> 0:08:42.640 in no, I definitely did that. Like the dreaded like 0:08:42.760 --> 0:08:46.120 request pending screen that people started getting. They would submit, 0:08:46.160 --> 0:08:48.439 they would submit stuff like a fuel requisition order and 0:08:48.440 --> 0:08:51.000 it would just say request pending, and like request pending 0:08:51.000 --> 0:08:53.520 would never go away, it would just that's what it 0:08:53.520 --> 0:08:55.920 would say. And then you look at what they're doing 0:08:56.000 --> 0:08:59.600 now and that they are trying to centralize everything that 0:08:59.640 --> 0:09:03.560 it's it's a generalized authoritarian power grab, but you know 0:09:03.679 --> 0:09:07.679 they are, they are doing these things. Yeah. 0:09:08.000 --> 0:09:09.959 One of the things that it reminds me the most of, 0:09:10.240 --> 0:09:12.920 like from the other revolutions, is I immediately went, wait, 0:09:12.920 --> 0:09:15.640 this is ur Nicholas, where you know you have less 0:09:15.640 --> 0:09:17.480 of the reform package. Well, like, yeah, like the way 0:09:17.559 --> 0:09:20.320 that all of the power gets concentrated and centralized and 0:09:20.320 --> 0:09:23.000 there's one guy who's a micromanager and then can't do 0:09:23.120 --> 0:09:26.720 it because like no human could possibly have done it. 0:09:27.360 --> 0:09:30.480 But they're not they're you know, because of just there 0:09:30.559 --> 0:09:32.520 they're sort of affective power and the way that they 0:09:32.520 --> 0:09:36.000 think about micromagic anything they're incapable of, like letting their 0:09:36.040 --> 0:09:37.319 subordinates do things. 0:09:37.520 --> 0:09:37.920 Yeah yeah. 0:09:37.960 --> 0:09:39.880 It also scans with the loves his kids part. 0:09:41.480 --> 0:09:44.719 Yeah, well, I mean that's the thing is like everything 0:09:44.760 --> 0:09:48.240 that's in the show also is like basically something that 0:09:48.280 --> 0:09:50.800 comes from history, right, like, and I am trying to 0:09:50.840 --> 0:09:53.320 do that, and it is it is something that you know, 0:09:53.320 --> 0:09:57.320 like Charles the First, Louis, sixteenth Zar Nicholas, these guys 0:09:57.320 --> 0:09:59.280 are all great family men. Their kids love them and 0:09:59.320 --> 0:10:01.120 they love their ki right. Like one of the reasons 0:10:01.160 --> 0:10:04.640 the French Revolution happened is because Louis's son died, like 0:10:04.640 --> 0:10:06.360 on the eve of the Estates General, and he was 0:10:06.440 --> 0:10:09.240 just not there because his son had just died. That's 0:10:09.280 --> 0:10:11.560 a real thing that happened. And the other stuff is 0:10:11.640 --> 0:10:15.760 like that sort of centralization of power is a lot 0:10:16.000 --> 0:10:17.640 like what I was trying to get at. There was 0:10:17.679 --> 0:10:20.920 actually like the reforms that went in for the European 0:10:20.960 --> 0:10:24.480 colonial powers after the Seven Years War in the Anglo 0:10:24.559 --> 0:10:27.000 colonies and the Spanish colonies and the French colonies, all 0:10:27.000 --> 0:10:30.280 of those governments sort of undertook a reorganization of their 0:10:30.320 --> 0:10:33.160 colonial structures after the Seven Years War. It kind of 0:10:33.160 --> 0:10:36.280 like reshuffled who had what territory, and all of those 0:10:36.360 --> 0:10:39.800 moves were about sort of an increasing presence of the 0:10:39.840 --> 0:10:43.840 metropol in colonial life. And this is what triggers, you know, 0:10:44.040 --> 0:10:46.040 the American Revolution, because there was going to be like 0:10:46.080 --> 0:10:48.760 two more customs officials in Boston Harbor and so like 0:10:48.800 --> 0:10:51.680 we went into refolt about this. Yeah, but this is 0:10:51.720 --> 0:10:55.520 also true of like the Bourbon Reforms in Spanish America. 0:10:55.600 --> 0:10:59.079 Is that kind of like centralization of a community of 0:10:59.400 --> 0:11:02.640 colonies that had grown very used to managing their own affairs, 0:11:03.120 --> 0:11:05.160 and so they're coming in and saying, well, yeah, this 0:11:05.280 --> 0:11:07.400 is ours, and we here on Earth should be making 0:11:07.480 --> 0:11:10.040 these decisions for you Martians. And the Martians were like, well, 0:11:10.040 --> 0:11:13.199 we've been making these decisions for ourselves for like seventy 0:11:13.280 --> 0:11:15.960 years now. That's where that stuff is coming from. And 0:11:16.000 --> 0:11:18.640 then history is always the place that I can point 0:11:18.679 --> 0:11:20.680 to and then I have to watch it also on 0:11:20.720 --> 0:11:21.080 the TV. 0:11:21.640 --> 0:11:27.160 Yeah. Yeah, I've had that same experience of like I'm 0:11:27.200 --> 0:11:29.680 writing out kind of like this possible, you know, this 0:11:29.760 --> 0:11:32.720 story about what a future conflict is civil conflict in 0:11:32.720 --> 0:11:35.040 the US might look like, and I'm I'm just taking 0:11:35.040 --> 0:11:37.319 from stuff that happened in the last like ten years 0:11:37.320 --> 0:11:39.960 in a lot of cases that I saw in different countries, 0:11:40.000 --> 0:11:43.440 And people are like, how you know, how did you 0:11:43.520 --> 0:11:47.000 like anticipate this, And my answer is like, I didn't. 0:11:47.200 --> 0:11:49.400 This is just stuff that happens all the time, right, 0:11:49.440 --> 0:11:52.120 because people don't learn the mastery as a rule, Like 0:11:52.160 --> 0:11:54.720 no one's ever learned a lesson from history. Is the 0:11:54.760 --> 0:11:57.120 thing I've kept repeating to people over the last few 0:11:57.200 --> 0:12:00.079 years as I continue to fail to learn lessons from history. 0:12:01.000 --> 0:12:03.839 Yeah, we all do and no. But like one of 0:12:03.840 --> 0:12:07.280 the things that's getting kicked around the other day was like, 0:12:07.480 --> 0:12:09.520 had I came to this point where Werner is going 0:12:09.559 --> 0:12:11.720 to start firing people? He's going to start firing people 0:12:11.760 --> 0:12:14.520 because he's changed the metrics for how your employment status 0:12:14.559 --> 0:12:18.280 is being rated, and he's firing just people essentially randomly, 0:12:18.320 --> 0:12:21.520 like you are firing the head of this department and 0:12:21.520 --> 0:12:23.720 now that department can't run anymore. But he's like, it'll 0:12:23.720 --> 0:12:27.480 be more efficient. And when I was writing it, it 0:12:27.520 --> 0:12:29.840 was originally supposed to be like a kind of a 0:12:29.880 --> 0:12:33.880 more dramatic ten percent across the board layoff, and as 0:12:33.880 --> 0:12:36.080 I got closer to actually trying to type that up 0:12:36.160 --> 0:12:38.560 and write it down, I was like, this doesn't actually 0:12:38.559 --> 0:12:41.400 feel believable to me, Like people are going to really 0:12:41.440 --> 0:12:44.400 push back, and I mean this sincerely, like people are 0:12:44.400 --> 0:12:46.400 going to push back that nobody would be so stupid 0:12:46.400 --> 0:12:48.280 as to just across the board to a ten percent 0:12:48.600 --> 0:12:52.680 layoff of something so critical, as you know, Mars is 0:12:52.720 --> 0:12:55.560 to Earth, because in the story, Mars is absolutely critical 0:12:55.600 --> 0:12:58.160 to how Earth is able to function with the resource 0:12:58.200 --> 0:13:00.840 that they're able to get from there. So I changed 0:13:00.880 --> 0:13:04.160 it around and actually look to like the sullen prescriptions 0:13:04.280 --> 0:13:06.240 from from Roman history to kind of give it a 0:13:06.240 --> 0:13:08.040 different take, where really it was like you woke up 0:13:08.040 --> 0:13:10.000 every day and there was like fifteen more names on 0:13:10.040 --> 0:13:11.559 the list, one hundred more names on the list, and 0:13:11.600 --> 0:13:14.679 there was something equally sort of dramatic and cool about 0:13:14.679 --> 0:13:18.679 that without this like unbelievable, you know, ten percent across 0:13:18.679 --> 0:13:21.280 the board cut. And I wrote a paragraph in there 0:13:21.280 --> 0:13:22.760 being like I know that people are going to think 0:13:22.760 --> 0:13:24.640 that this is like unrealistic, but you just have to 0:13:24.720 --> 0:13:27.520 understand that, like throughout history we have seen these things, 0:13:27.559 --> 0:13:31.400 like people do stupid stuff and they stubbornly cling to 0:13:31.440 --> 0:13:34.439 it all the time. Yea, because that is something that happens, 0:13:34.840 --> 0:13:38.600 and life as we know it is actually less. Like 0:13:38.640 --> 0:13:41.320 if I wrote up what was happening right now, Like 0:13:41.559 --> 0:13:43.400 if I was just got like a window into an 0:13:43.440 --> 0:13:45.960 alternate world and we're living in a different world where 0:13:45.960 --> 0:13:47.720 Trump lost and I brought all this stuff back, they'd 0:13:47.800 --> 0:13:49.880 be like this is implausible, Like this is crazy. They 0:13:49.880 --> 0:13:51.560 would never be allowed to get away with that. They 0:13:51.600 --> 0:13:53.640 would never be not allowed to do that. They would 0:13:53.720 --> 0:13:56.400 never be so stupid as to blow up the global 0:13:56.440 --> 0:13:58.720 economy with a bunch of tariffs that make no sense 0:13:58.760 --> 0:13:59.200 to anybody. 0:13:59.200 --> 0:14:02.080 Wouldn't want their reserve currency. Yeah. 0:14:02.679 --> 0:14:06.200 Yeah, none of nothing that is happening right now is 0:14:06.280 --> 0:14:11.560 plausible in the in a storytelling in a fictional storytelling setting, Yeah, yeah, 0:14:11.640 --> 0:14:12.120 you know this. 0:14:12.120 --> 0:14:13.680 This this is also gets something that I've been saying 0:14:13.880 --> 0:14:15.240 on this show that I want I want to get 0:14:15.280 --> 0:14:17.280 your take on, which is, like, you know, one of 0:14:17.280 --> 0:14:19.120 the things that you you wrote about in your sort 0:14:19.160 --> 0:14:22.200 of like I guess like recap series of your experience 0:14:22.240 --> 0:14:25.040 going through the Revolutions was about like how how much 0:14:25.080 --> 0:14:27.000 of the stuff is driven by like the Great idiots 0:14:27.000 --> 0:14:31.760 of history and my god, Elon Muskins Trump look to 0:14:31.800 --> 0:14:34.000 me like two of the gretty dacy history and that 0:14:34.000 --> 0:14:36.520 doesn't like guarantee that it'll happen, but like. 0:14:38.040 --> 0:14:43.160 Yeah, they're there. The great idiot theory of revolutions is 0:14:43.280 --> 0:14:47.080 a very simple thing, which is just saying that it's 0:14:47.680 --> 0:14:51.640 revolutions don't happen because some tyrant is in power and 0:14:51.680 --> 0:14:56.160 they are intolerably oppressing their people, like people have been 0:14:56.160 --> 0:14:59.120 intolerably oppressed for a long time. And like Trotsky's got 0:14:59.120 --> 0:15:03.160 this quote is if peasant discontentment was the cause of revolution, 0:15:03.280 --> 0:15:05.480 then there would be a revolution happening every single day, 0:15:05.520 --> 0:15:09.440 because the peasants are always discontented, right, So what it 0:15:09.480 --> 0:15:12.040 takes to really have a revolution is for somebody in 0:15:12.120 --> 0:15:14.680 power to be kind of incompetent and to start doing 0:15:14.760 --> 0:15:18.320 stupid things that allow the situation to get out of hand, 0:15:18.400 --> 0:15:20.440 and on top of that, really piss off the other 0:15:20.480 --> 0:15:24.000 elites around them, because it's the mismanagement of the state 0:15:24.160 --> 0:15:28.200 that allows the elites that that are kind of necessary 0:15:28.240 --> 0:15:30.880 for a full blown revolution, Like you need their resources, 0:15:31.120 --> 0:15:33.160 and you need their money, and you need them being 0:15:33.200 --> 0:15:34.920 close to a position of power to be able to 0:15:34.960 --> 0:15:37.880 pop whoever's in there at the time, and you've got 0:15:37.920 --> 0:15:42.480 to be pretty incompetent to like wreck an elite consensus, right, 0:15:43.080 --> 0:15:46.680 Like that is in and of itself catastrophically stupid if 0:15:46.720 --> 0:15:49.240 you're trying to stay in power. Yeah, and so yes, 0:15:49.280 --> 0:15:52.520 the great idiot theory is getting quite a workout lately. 0:15:53.880 --> 0:15:55.920 That's actually something else that I wanted to ask you 0:15:55.960 --> 0:15:58.280 about in terms of, like you see this in terms 0:15:58.280 --> 0:16:00.200 of Mabel Door right where Mabel Door is this kind 0:16:00.200 --> 0:16:02.320 of example of like the sort of local I guess 0:16:02.320 --> 0:16:05.200 said local colonial elite to some extent. 0:16:05.000 --> 0:16:08.000 Yeah, I almost saw her as like, yeah, a lot 0:16:08.040 --> 0:16:10.720 of these kind of American revolutionary figures right where you 0:16:10.760 --> 0:16:13.960 have this person who holds a fairly high position in 0:16:14.160 --> 0:16:16.840 the colonial state as a result of you know, their 0:16:17.200 --> 0:16:20.480 birth and the family they come into, but also is 0:16:20.840 --> 0:16:23.680 identifies more as a member of that state, of the 0:16:23.680 --> 0:16:25.960 colony than of the colonizing state. 0:16:26.280 --> 0:16:26.520 Yep. 0:16:26.840 --> 0:16:29.280 Yeah, And I think this is something this is a 0:16:29.520 --> 0:16:32.000 part of the revolutionary process that I think is really 0:16:32.080 --> 0:16:35.120 really badly understood on the left in terms of, in 0:16:35.160 --> 0:16:36.760 a lot of ways, the necessity of parts of this 0:16:36.800 --> 0:16:39.560 elite flipping and like the other The example I think 0:16:39.760 --> 0:16:44.000 most people kind of are more familiar with is fleepygality, 0:16:44.200 --> 0:16:46.560 like the Duke de orlone like funding a bunch of 0:16:46.600 --> 0:16:48.800 these sort of revolutionary groups that eventually kind of like 0:16:49.640 --> 0:16:51.200 get out of his control. But can you talk a 0:16:51.240 --> 0:16:53.920 bit more about sort of the role of these sort 0:16:53.960 --> 0:16:57.160 of like elite defections and how they end up sort 0:16:57.160 --> 0:16:59.840 of funding and enabling these revolutionary movements. 0:17:00.200 --> 0:17:01.920 Yeah, I mean it's a it's a mix of things, 0:17:01.920 --> 0:17:03.440 and I mean you got it. Like Mabel door is 0:17:03.480 --> 0:17:05.880 meant to be sort of the colonial elite, and she's 0:17:05.960 --> 0:17:09.000 also meant to be sort of the liberal nobility in 0:17:09.160 --> 0:17:12.280 lots of different revolutionary settings, and she is doing that 0:17:12.440 --> 0:17:14.480 like and when she is, like when I talk about 0:17:14.480 --> 0:17:17.560 her like funding the Society of Martians and like funding 0:17:17.640 --> 0:17:21.280 all these like philanthropic you know, enterprises to help Martians, 0:17:21.359 --> 0:17:23.760 Like that's a lot of philipicality, like straight up like 0:17:23.800 --> 0:17:26.600 that that's what the Duke Doorleon was doing in you know, 0:17:26.640 --> 0:17:29.560 seventeen eighty six, eighty seven, and eighty nine. And so 0:17:29.640 --> 0:17:33.680 that's the role that she's playing. But you know, if 0:17:33.720 --> 0:17:38.119 the elites are unified, it is very difficult for any 0:17:38.280 --> 0:17:42.160 kind of like peasant or worker uprising to actually get 0:17:42.200 --> 0:17:46.920 traction and succeed in overthrowing the state. Like peasant insurrections 0:17:46.960 --> 0:17:50.119 have happened throughout history without any sort of elite support, 0:17:50.200 --> 0:17:54.080 they have often accomplished great things. But when you think 0:17:54.080 --> 0:17:58.080 about the great revolutions in history, there really have always 0:17:58.119 --> 0:18:02.040 been people in the inner corridors of power who are 0:18:02.080 --> 0:18:05.199 ready to get rid of whoever the sovereign is in 0:18:05.240 --> 0:18:07.560 that moment. And you know, you can advance all the 0:18:07.560 --> 0:18:10.560 way to the Russian Revolution, and this is you know, 0:18:10.600 --> 0:18:13.840 this is the prototypical like the workers have risen up 0:18:13.880 --> 0:18:16.480 and the army is mutinying, and it is the people 0:18:16.520 --> 0:18:21.359 who overthrow this are And what that story misses is 0:18:21.520 --> 0:18:24.840 all of the people, even inside the Romanov family itself, 0:18:25.280 --> 0:18:27.720 who are like so fed up with what Nicholas and 0:18:27.760 --> 0:18:29.600 Alexander are doing that they're just like, we don't know 0:18:29.600 --> 0:18:32.440 what to do anymore. But like he's, yeah, I guess 0:18:32.440 --> 0:18:35.000 he's got to go, you know, Like we can't get 0:18:35.080 --> 0:18:37.359 him to see reason, we can't get him to change course, 0:18:37.440 --> 0:18:40.040 we can't get him to do anything. Like the situation 0:18:40.160 --> 0:18:44.399 is completely out of hand. And without those people leaning 0:18:44.440 --> 0:18:47.960 on Nicholas to force his abdication, and also to say, like, 0:18:48.040 --> 0:18:50.720 we're not going to back you up. If you try 0:18:50.760 --> 0:18:52.680 to bring the hammer down on all these people, then 0:18:52.720 --> 0:18:55.919 that's when sovereigns are actually overthrown. 0:18:56.560 --> 0:18:59.399 Yes, And I love that you bring that up because 0:18:59.400 --> 0:19:02.520 it gets to the failure to see that. And this 0:19:02.600 --> 0:19:04.680 is especially common with people who kind of idolized the 0:19:04.760 --> 0:19:07.520 nineteen seventeen revolution, but it's certainly not limited to that. 0:19:07.600 --> 0:19:10.120 I mean, in every revolution, you have people who are 0:19:10.240 --> 0:19:12.399 fans of that revolution or who see it as a 0:19:12.440 --> 0:19:15.240 model for what they want to do, and also ignore 0:19:15.320 --> 0:19:18.120 the realities on the ground that like made it possible. 0:19:18.160 --> 0:19:20.359 I think one of my favorite examples is the quote that, like, 0:19:20.400 --> 0:19:23.719 you can't dismantle the master's house with the master's tools. 0:19:23.720 --> 0:19:24.479 Well, I don't know. 0:19:24.600 --> 0:19:27.120