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Jayant Bhandari 西方已忘记自由需要秩序

(2026-05-12 16:13:21) 下一个
There's something called political correctness and all my friends are afraid of speaking up because they know
that if they say anything wrong uh their job they might lose their job and they
might start losing their friends and families. So there has been this uh fear
in the society for a very long time. And this is what I tell my American and Canadian friends today that while they
might claim that they have the freedom of his speech, they probably have less freedom of his speech today than people
in East Asia have. What happened to Charlie Kirk is not the kind of things that happen. Before we dive in, a quick whisper about
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Because around here we scope things, build things, and fund things. In that order, Ghostfounder, the quiet engine
behind loud breakthroughs. Today, we're sitting down again with Jian Pandari,
one of the most thought-provoking voices we've had on our show. Um, in our last conversation, Jian challenged us to
rethink freedom, truth, and the role of culture in shaping society. And since
then, we've had the chance to join him in Vancouver at his capitalism and morality conference um just last month
um where voices like Rick Rule, Maxim Bernier, Stefan Canella, and Amy Wax and
others push the boundaries of our debate. And today we're diving deeper into East
and West, freedom and fences, and how truth seeeking plays out in real life.
Jay, welcome back. Thank you so much for taking the time again. Uh Lovis and Jason, thanks uh very much again for
having me. Yeah, we're really excited. So cool. Now we get to speak to you twice. So um
yeah, Giant, just to kick us off, right? It's been about a year since we spoke last, I think. So I just wanted to ask,
you know, time flies, but in this period, you know, how how have you been? And what are some things that have been
on your radar since we last spoke? Anything new that has left an impression
on how you view the world? Um Well, uh I mean the world is moving fast towards uh instability. Um and in a
way I'm happy that Trump is the president of the US. Uh I have been uh a
big bit of a fan of Trump. Not that he's a saint or not that uh he's the perfect
guy to be the president, but compared to the other alternatives, I'm I'm really pleased that he's the president. But
moreover, uh the the thing that matters to me most is that he has a mind of his
own. Uh he thinks for himself and he speaks out what he thinks rather than so
many robotic people who have no views of their own who basically regurgitate the
same stuff that uh the peers they have say. Okay. So when you say that you glad
Trump is at the helm, it's from a you want the west to do well, right? like you want the west to to to weather this
period of instability in a good way and it's good for everyone if they can do that. I'm I'm assuming
absolutely I I want the west to delay its degradation to as much as possible.
Now the fact that the west will continue to degrade is baked in the cake. uh there will be a civil war, there will be
massive social conflicts but because of the right policies some of the right policies that Trump has uh I think the
degradation will get slowed down or and get delayed but again uh after 2 years
or 3 years things will revert back to the Biden era and
gates of uh the country will open again and um demog
will kickstart uh again as well. Well, so when you say civil war, do you mean in the US or do you mean in the
west in general like maybe Europe and America splitting up? What do you mean when you say that?
Uh I I I think a civil war is inevitable in the whole of the western society.
And the reason uh Jason is that only homogeneous societies manage to stay
stable. U they homogeneous societies are only the only societies that have a hope
of having high trust. Um the US is now close to uh 50% people of European
ethnicity. Uh which means that there are now uh so many people from all over the
world uh living in the United States. And when things are good, all is good. But when things start uh getting a bit
shaky um social conflicts will emerge very rapidly. When the tide goes out you
will see the rough surface of the society and there will be a civil war uh
primarily because uh Jason uh European ethnic Europeans are not tribybally
minded. These are the people who uh who believe who have risen over centuries
above a tribal and mindset the mindset of kinship and groups. Uh they think
more in terms of seeking the truth rather than catering to the to what is
good for their groups. Whereas people of the third world simply don't get it.
They are not interested in truth. They are interested in catering to demagoguery and catering to what they
think would please their groups. Loves, this is so interesting, right? Because just last night I sent you that
um tweet. I don't know. Do you guys know this uh is she a congresswoman? This she
just put out a tweet yesterday, I think in response to the assassination of Charlie Kirk. And not only that, but
also the response of other people in the United States that are celebrating this
guy getting killed. And she wrote something that cuz from my knowledge, not having lived in America, I think
she's pretty uh popular, right? And I've got this tweet here. I'll just read it
to you. Um she said, "There's nothing left to talk about with the left. They
hate us. They assassinated our nice guy who actually talked to them peacefully, debating ideas. Then millions on the
left celebrated and made clear they want all of us dead. To be honest, I want a n
a peaceful national divorce. Our country is too far gone and too far divided and
it's no longer safe for any of us. Then she goes on it's a pretty long tweet but
I guess what she means here when she says I want a peaceful national divorce giant is that what you are
referring to here? Well, I don't think a divorce is possible uh because u people
are all intermingled with each other uh in in terms of a space and urban areas
are now predominantly uh people of Europe non-European ethnicity. So you
can pretty much look for any random uh city in North America or actually
anywhere in the western world and I cannot think of any city which is not uh
which does not have a majority of people of non-European ethnicity.
Without city without control over cities you can't really run the modern economy.
So u I I think what the west is headed towards is a civil war and that is
inevitable. Um the only hope uh would be for um for the western society to
completely close its gates for immigration uh and also encourage a
massive number of people to leave uh the west. uh and this is why I think people
who are in support of re reigration is is it re-immigration or remigration
whatever they call it is actually the most valid and most peaceful path to uh
avoiding a conflict. But when you have close to half of your population made up
of people who will uh be on one side of the civil conflicts uh you can't really
expect all those people to leave the US within the next few years. I think what
will actually happen is that they will vote to bring back a person like Biden in three or four years time. Sorry,
three years time now. Um and and also demographically the US will have shifted by then. uh you have um uh millions of
new voters from the uh of the kind who vote for the leftist parties joining the
voting list. So the majorities of European people is falling very rapidly
in the US and elsewhere in the west. So in a way I mean thinking about cause and
effect on all this right I always think that incentives um
have many uh un unforeseen like the law of unforeseen consequences basically right so when I try to just look through
what you're saying a bit um and then so echoing kind of what said in one of his
books if you dismantle the um welfare state a lot of the incentive for
immigration be it legal or otherwise, right? May may go away. Omega by the wayside. So, and
when I think about that, then I think about, you know, Doge, like Elon and and Trump trying to cut
uh deeply into government budgets, but it seemed like that they got I mean, they had some successes, but overall, it
doesn't sound to me like it was the breakthrough success that they were hoping for.
Yeah, absolutely, Loves. it isn't going to work because more than 50% of Americans vote for the welfare system.
Uh because they vote for the welfare system, how can you reduce the welfare system uh without with they those people
voting into the system? Um now clearly Trump would have I think wanted to
reduce uh the welfare payments but as you can see with Dodge all they could try to do was to cut down some of the
costs. There's no way they can cut down on welfare payments, money that is going
to people individually. If you try to, if Trump wants tries to cut down those
payments, you can be absolutely sure there will be protests on the streets in
in the US tomorrow morning. Yeah. And I mean, yeah, I mean, we're seeing protests already for all kinds of
things. I mean, there's uh what the National Guards deployed to different cities. Um, it's a bit unclear to me
whether that is truly because of safety or if there's something else uh some other agenda behind it that might be
more changes in financial policy or whatnot. But I mean it's super hard to
know with this stuff, right? You can only speculate. But I guess one thing we can say from
all these things is the instability in the system is growing, right? Nobody would deploy the National Guard to to
cities if things were super peaceful. Yeah. Yeah. And this I mean in this before um this assassination, right? And
then the crazy thing is so I I'm almost completely off social media in my normal
day today. So I didn't see it at all. Uh Jason actually told me about it. He's like, "Oh, did you see?" And I was like,
"But no, I hadn't seen." So then um You mean what? About the assassination?
Yeah, about the assassination. Mhm. But then within a few days, right? So now stuff is on my feed and it it's so
difficult to tell. Um there's a lot of celebration and hate. There's a lot of
grief, but then there's also a lot of like, oh, this was all fake, right? This was all staged. Uh they killed the role.
They didn't kill the man, etc. And then there is some pretty it's to the point
where it's not distinguishable for me whether or not it's AI generated, CGI or
or whatnot, right? So all this to contribute I mean who like at the end
when I think about it I'm like well who cares who what's truth the point is this is working to divide us right in either
case so if it was all fake by somebody then their goal would clearly be division if it was real then it was also
the goal was division right so it's um it's at a point where it almost doesn't matter [laughter]
which is pretty giant thing about multicultural ism, right? It's also the way the a culture
reacts to a situation uniquely because of its culture. And when you have in a
system where there's a lot of extra buffer, you can then get different cultures to live together and it's okay.
But once you start getting squeezed, then people start to revert and or
giant, am I on the right track here? Uh yeah also also I think uh Jason um the
because of this diversity you because you have a diversity as a given um the
political and social process is such that political correctness becomes very important in the US uh schooling systems
become uh propaganda machines because now you have more than 50% and actually in this case more than 50% people in on
average in schools from um non-European backgrounds. Um so it creates all kinds
of conflicts and lack of trust within the society and it also creates lack of
trust within people of every uh uh se
kind. So even within people of European ethnicity it will create low trust
because that is the mechanism that is the cultural mechanism that happens when the over overweening culture is of low
trust it permeates the psyche of people and that's how they conduct with each
other even if otherwise they would have conducted themselves in a high trust fashion. So u I I think that is what's
happening u in the US and uh I again I don't see how uh Trump can do achieve
anything else than delay the complete breakdown of the social system in the
US. And when you say US, I I would say the trends are pretty similar in most western countries, right? Not only the
US, if you talk about Canada, you talk about even Australia and most of Europe,
Western Europe, right? Absolutely, Jason. And also the US is the spine of the Western world. Whether
you accept it or not, US is the spine. And if the US goes, everything else will
fall apart. European countries don't really have capabilities to defend themselves. So is probably the case with
Canada and Australia. So uh these people are dependent on the US u and if the US
goes everything in the west will go. Uh you know clearly in my view western people people of European ethnicity or
uh the the fountain head of civilization. Giant you just got cut off for a moment just now. So you were saying they are
the fountain head of civilization and then you got cut off. Yeah. So um so the civil war in my view
will happen at some point of time and a lot of people of uh non European
ethnicity will uh either leave or they will suffer in the civil conflicts. This
this will not be a uh a fun moment for most people including for people of
European ethnicity. Do you think that a little bit of this is just the
the cycles right where you know there's this there's this meme with um what is it soft men bring hard times hard times
make hard men hard men bring good times and it kind you know that's an oversimplification but there's something
to this historic cycle when that where the west has had it very good for very
long um pretty peaceful period pretty prosperous period and this is just kind
of inevitably what comes Next. Uh well, Lois, everything gets old with
time. Japan has become a bit oldish. Uh Korea has become a bit oldish. Uh
Singapore uh uh and Hong Kong have become oldish with time. Uh but what the
west has done is that they have done irreparable damage to to themselves by
destroying their homogeneity. So their core society is no longer the society
that they had in the past. So Japan, Singapore, Korea even if they have
become oldish in terms of cultural values in fact in in in in the sense that people might have got habituated to
prosperity uh and might have become intellectually lazy with time. The fact
is that these people when they wake up they'll they'll hit the road the right way. They will they will restart the
process. uh whereas the problem with the western society is that they actually
have people in their societies who don't fit in who don't want to fit in and who
actually have a psychology which goes against the western ethos and this is
actually a product of what Jason was talking about which is that there are a
lot of people who are celebrating the murder of Charlie Kirk. I mean that's
absolutely outrageous. Um I mean I don't I I don't want anyone to be murdered
whether that person is a woke or a leftist or or or a conservative. Um I
think what we what the western ethos tell you is that you should be able to come out in the open and discuss uh
verbally uh what you believe in rather than assassinate other people. Uh
killing other people is the ethos of the woke people. These are the people who
are immoral, who don't believe in anything and they don't really have an argument on their side. So the only way
out for them is to assassinate other people. I wonder right giant Loves whether we're at some sort of a pivotal
moment in history because this you know when Trump nearly got assassinated
not so many people commented to me about the topic but this time I have friends
in um Australia friends in Singapore they're messaging me saying that it's
really impacting them very hard like uh they don't they they it's like uh
They're trying to understand why this has happened. Um they feel like, hey,
you know, they don't identify with somebody like a Trump, but they could identify with somebody that was around
their age just trying to have discussions on difficult topics, right? So I think uh giant what you said about
America being a spine and the whole idea of America is I think built around this
thing called free speech and the the ability to share ideas and to discuss
them and when something like that gets ended so violently I think it's a real
shock to everybody's psychology of what is the society we're
living in it. Yeah. And that Jason that so that fear has been in the US and Canadian society
for a very long time. Uh there's something called political correctness and which all my friends are afraid of
speaking up because they know that if they say anything wrong uh their job
they might lose their job and they might start losing their friends and families. So uh there has been this uh fear in the
society for a very long time and this is what I tell my American and Canadian friends today that while they might
claim that they have the freedom of his speech uh they probably have less
freedom of his speech today than people in East Asia have where um
what happened to Charlie Kirk is not the kind of things that happen. Yeah. Yeah. I think that's a nice uh
segue, Jump, before we go uh into East Asia for some more uh uplifting
thoughts. [laughter] I wanted to uh uh talk you with you a
little bit about um your most recent installment of your seminar, Capitalism
and Morality. Um and so, you know, given the chance that that you're the host of
it all, what surprised you the most in this uh in this installment? Was there
uh any particular idea that you walked away with that really stuck out? Yes. And that has nothing to do with the
seminar, Loves. My seminar got started more than half an hour late because the
uh IT guy wasn't there. Uh the IT guy arrived 35 minutes late. There was no
coffee available in the morning. Uh and this is the kind of dysfunctionality you
should expect. And I tell you Canada is becoming increasingly dysfunctional uh because of the kind of people you bring
into the society. Um now you can't trace that dysfunctionality to an individual
here because what happens uh why dysfunctionality happens is because uh
thousands of people or hundreds or tens of people make micro compromises. Small
small compromises start making happening is small cracks h exist throughout the
system and the system keeps breaking down all the time and you can't really
pinpoint where that u the the the the critical area where that breakdown of
the system happened. So usually what you have in the western society what I
assume in a expect in a good organization is uh redundancies which is that people take people at the
operational level take initiative to figure out what they should be doing how they should be doing even if they are
not properly told. So that creates redundancies or there would be other people who are
very uh motivated to do do their job and they would ensure that these things
don't happen even if it is not their responsibility to do the these kind of
things. So unfortunately dysfunctionality is increasingly become
a part of the Canadian um business fabric and uh and uh things
will fall apart is keep falling apart things will keep going wrong planes will
fall off the sky and you won't be able to know why they fell off the sky. So
unfortunately that is in a very interesting manner the most interesting
part of uh this seminar and my prediction is lost that your electricity
and internet will become unstable with time. uh and the reason is that there
are thousands literally thousands of people involved in the pro process of
producing electricity in fact producing coal or uranium or whatever to that
electricity getting to you any uh any weak link in this process will create
problems for you and those problems already exist. the the system for now is
so good and so full of redundancies that those um those problems don't happen. Uh
but eventually they will come to surface as well. I I I wouldn't be surprised if they start happening within the next 2
three four years. Yeah, I mean we we've seen some system level events already, right? Uh not not
long ago all of Portugal and twothirds of Spain went black, right?
Um and it's actually it's interesting because so living in Germany I have no recollection of blackouts or brownouts.
Um but there's many reasons for that right and in then when I moved to the US
to study in 2008 9 time frame um in the summer it's actually quite common
because you know it's so hot everybody's running their AC 24/7 and so the load in the system is so high and when you go
out in the street the infrastructure many places it looks like you're in Thailand right it's just telephone pole
like wooden poles and wires strung everywhere and I always thought to myself, I was like, "Wow, it's so much
neater in Germany, you know." So, Germany's making a whole other uh size of mistakes. I'm not saying one one or
the other. I'm just saying it it it has actually been like like blackouts have been part of uh the American experience
for a long time. And it's interest I think this must be very rare in a first world country to have such a tolerance
for for systematic failure like that. Yeah. And Lois, you know, Germans and Swiss are very perfectionist people.
They really do a good job. And that is why the watches that are made in
Switzerland or some of the high technology stuff, mechanical stuff that gets made in northern part of Europe
cannot be copied elsewhere. I remember my dad used to have a Swedish uh
printing machine and we I got my dad to buy an exact copy of that made in India
um for 1/5ifth of the price um and um it was exactly the same copy uh however uh
you know a small cog would break down one day and then a a chain will break
the other day or electrical wire would would burn out someday and eventually
the machine wasn't working and we had to throw away the machine. We had to sell it for junk. Um and that is what happens
and this is why uh Sweden the whole of north north Europe and Switzerland are
so good because these people are perfect perfectionists and they do such a good
job. I worked for a uh Swiss company for for a couple for two three years and the
if the if a cable was loose somewhere the CEO would come down and make sure it
was uh at the right place and I used to uh I you know that wasn't some I found
it a bit hilarious but now I understand that when you operate in a complex system you have to take care of every
small things because then if you have a million of things uh that can go wrong
even if there's a very low risk you don't want those things to go wrong. Yeah. Yeah. So you know um with what you
asked me in the in the beginning right so actually so speaking of risk right so
many people assess risks wrong and I think Nim TB writes about this quite a bit with the black swan events and so
I've had a really firsthand experience recently right on my way home from your conference I assumed that being denied
entry in the US uh was a very very low probability event
um which it which it is, right? It's a super low probability event for me in my situation with my passport, etc. But
that doesn't mean that the outcome is not catastrophic for my life, right? So,
you know, I'm I'm okay. I'm just saying I I made a misjudgment because I I kind
of equal well, the probability is so low. So, in my mind, it was a low risk,
right? But it but it's not it's a ma it's a huge risk, very impactful event.
the risk of occurrence is small but that's not that's not the same thing and it's it's very easy to mistake the two
right and so I think this is how this then happens that you get these system level failures people like ah the chance
of this happening is a fraction of a percent and it's like yeah but if it does happen you're screwed [laughter] so
so you need to have these perfectionists uh looking into that right that there's no other way
and western society is so complex that you can't really have people in your
chair chain of command or at operational level who make micro compromises. Uh
because these micro compromises comp compound and will make your society
extraordinarily dysfunctional eventually. As you rightly said, US very likely already is in certain ways
dysfunctional. uh and uh Europe will get there because uh so far at the operational levels
there were probably not enough people from the third world but their culture will hit the operations eventually.
Yeah. I mean you can see it in several places I think. Gian so you've been uh working traveling
extensively in East Asia as well. So when you say you know uh people from the north of Europe can do something and cop
you often say copying is hard right? Uh so in India you buy this printing
machine for a fifth of the cost but then it ends up wasting you money because you can't get it to work properly. How is
your experience like for say Japan or China or Korea when you compare that to
to to India because they are also 50 60 years ago were very far behind the curve
but then they've caught up so massively and in some areas some people would even argue that they are at the forefront
now. So what what's your view on these things? Well, Japanese are actually in many ways
very similar to uh Germans and Swiss in terms of their commitment to work. Uh
they are devoted to their work and you don't really from what I see and I have
spent a lot of time in Japan and Korea and China. What I see is that these
people uh have a pride associated with their work. uh they are not constantly
thinking about whether their bosses are looking overlooking them or not. They still want to do a good job and uh and I
think in that is why uh Japan, Korea, Singapore, Hong Kong, China, Taiwan have
become so prosperous. They are among the most stable, most uh prosperous
countries in the world today. Of course, China is still emerging, but it will eventually become a very prosperous
country for the simple fact um Jason that uh people at a very low level of
operations in these in China uh look motivated. Now they might not be think
feeling the same thing inside but they look motivated enough that they when
when I ask them for something they have a smile on their face and they want to do their job and that's what matters at
the end of the day you know as Lovis can probably confirm and I I spend a lot of
time in Germany and Switzerland a lot of workers in Switzerland and Germany are
under a huge amount of pressure uh but at the end of the day the pride in their work makes them do the right thing. So
they will accept the pressure. They might hate their bosses. They might hate their companies. But in the
[clears throat] end when they are doing some work, they know that it is almost like a religious exercise for them that
it what they are doing should be done right and that is what I think is happening in China today. The reason why
uh some of the very high technology equipment are now being made in China um
you know a lot of electronics that we now use comes from China. A lot of mechanical things will are are starting
to come from China. So China is emerging because though their big organizations,
their mega organizations work and they work because the individual there is
fired up to do what is right irrespective of whether he's bossed around or not. And some of their bosses
are not really the nicest people. They don't treat their workers the best way. But is still because the culture
inculcates pride in their work. the fact that they should look at their work as a
as a service to god in a way that they do a good job irrespective of uh who is
overlooking them. Yeah. My feeling um visiting China there with Jason was that they absolutely they
have the self-respect in a sense because in a way if you if you have pride in your own work also has to do with that
you're I think has to a lot to do with self-respect in a sense because it's like yeah I may not this may not be my
perfect situation but I want to make the best of it right and I'm want to produce
a a valuable outcome here and it and so this I think is one thing and the other thing is my my my feeling was the the
emotion is that they really care about who's in front of them. So
maybe all kinds of things are happening and and um I think you mentioned this as well in Vancouver. They may not express
it so much like um some westerners do with this like almost over politeness,
but they show you their appreciation by just doing a good job, right? It's like, "Hey, you need help?
You need help? I'll help you." Right? There's no It's not Yeah. Yeah. Loves I I remember once I was uh
in Zurich at a coffee shop, a very very busy place. This was a coffee shop at
the Hayat Hotel which was very busy. A lot of people were there and I asked for
a latte. She made a the barista made me a latte and there was a drop of coffee
on the uh on the plate of the cough uh coffee uh cup. Um so she came running
after me after she had given me because she spotted that drop of coffee uh on my
plate and she came after me saying uh sir let me change this because there's
that drop of coffee on the plate and I said I don't really care about it uh but
I can't stop admiring that issue because here is this person a young girl working
at a relatively uh difficult job because there are so many there's so much
pressure from other people. Uh I immediately thought that if I were in
her position I would not have done what she did. Uh but I respect her because in
her position she did the right thing and strangely the second time that happened
the same thing happened to me was in Singapore. Um I was once visiting Singapore and I experienced exactly the
same thing and I realized that you can inculcate pride in your work among
people who then independently do the right thing whether they believe in the company or the bosses or not
and they do it when nobody else is watching. Right? I think that's the beautiful thing is they're doing it not from a position of fear from an external
source but actually with a relationship with themselves because they go I am not
me as identity barista am not going to serve somebody with a drop of coffee on
the saucer right yeah absolutely and um you know it's exactly the same among Europeans as well
you um I I have experienced an enormous amount of general generosity and u uh
good uh work from Europeans. Um so where we started this conversation was on
about the dysfunctionality that is emerging because western people have brought in a lot of third world people
who do not believe in uh looking at their work as a religious as as if they
are serving God. They want to be done with their work and go home. Make their
money and go home. They have no interest in whether that product works for you or
not because that's not a part of their cultural millio and that is why where
they come from a third world countries and they participate in converting the west into the third world because they
can't give up on this cultural factor which is that they don't care. So many
uh so many ripple effects from these facts, right? It just ripples through all of
society. Um Giant, so at your conference, you
gave the a speech that I would say was very very captivating. Um I was supposed
to be looking around for people with questions, but I ended up just being too distracted by you giving uh that that
that great talk. So could you give our audience a summary of what that talk was
about? Um what was the crux of the speech and uh why did you find it
important to to to give it at your own conference this year? Um so uh Jason a long time back um I
decided uh have having spent a fair bit of my time in the western society that I
wanted to speak the truth. I wanted to believe in the truth and I wanted to speak the truth and I would be searching
for truth for the rest of my life. Um now the society that I grew up in um did
does not have the same definition of truth. For them um truth is about
whatever um gets you ahead of the crowd. Uh so you lie uh and you say that you're
speaking the truth. So truth has different meaning in the society I grew up in. uh but I started to learn the
meaning of truth in the west. Uh and I wanted to speak the truth about what I have seen uh experienced in China over
my uh vis many many many visits to China over the last 16 years. Um what I have
seen is a is a society which is rapidly changing culturally and economically. Um
economically it's growing of course uh which everyone has to accept because it
has grown uh from a few hundred per capita GDP to now $13,000 per capita
GDP. So this is a country that is growing very rapidly. But what I have
seen is that culturally that country is changing very rapidly as well. Which for
me is the higher order factor which defines the future of a society. Because if you are culturally becoming better
people then those higher order factors will show up at surface in the long
term. They those surf those things might take decades. But it also tells me that
Chinese growth and Chinese stability is there for the for the medium term uh and
China will continue to grow. So this is what I wanted to pass on to my audience fully recognizing that western people
have been heavily propagandized against China. Now China is not a perfect
country. I'm absolutely sure a lot of bad things happen in China as they happen elsewhere in the world. However,
in many many ways, China is a lot better country than what it is perceived to be
by very educated and open-minded people in the West. Now, these people would not
look negatively at China by themselves. They are very open-minded and generous people. But the problem is that they
have been so heavily propagandized by their bureaucrats uh in Washington and
the international media that they carry this negative image which is now hardwired in their minds. So as you saw
Jason there was one person who started uh he who couldn't hold himself back from um I would say disturbing my
speech. uh he wanted to raise the con the something about one child policy or
whatever else. Now I I wasn't talking about what was happening in China 40 50
60 years back. I was talking about what has been happening in China for the last two or three decades and the fact that
that country has actually continued to improve. Um and um when it comes to u
Chinese fearing the government, I I now consistently see that uh people in China
are not afraid of uh the policeman. They look into the eyes of the policeman and talk with him uh because they are not so
afraid. They have not experienced heavy-handedness by the government. Now,
of course, there is, you know, there's a fear of Beijing. I'm not denying that.
But then u all I wanted to talk about was that China was a far far far better
society than what a lot of those people thought think it is. Yeah. So um just kind of echoing some of
these points that you made. What I find interesting is when talking
to Chinese via either because they speak English or via Jason um when we were
there the uh uh I I really pushed to ask them some tough questions, right? or
what I thought would be tough questions. So I would ask them like kind of the podcast questions like well what does freedom mean to you and do you feel free
and you know what I kind of try to tease out where these boundaries are and
uh it it really looks to me that they enjoy more freedom for the the daily
things that one would care about than uh I feel I do. And that's quite
interesting, right? So they're like, "Yeah, of course I can't go demonstrate in Chinese about Xi Jinping, but when is
that ever really important, right? You Yeah, but also but also Lois, should you
be allowed to go in public and protest anyway?" I I am uh I I think it's
violence against other people in public when you go and protest there because you disturb their livelihood, their
their movement in public. So, I'm against I think it's as a libertarian, I'm against uh uh public protests. Uh
you know, you could stand on the sidewalk and maybe hold a banner or something, but when you talk about
getting into big groups to uh obstruct traffic and uh create a ruckus, that is
violence. It's interesting that you say that, Giant, because a lot of people in the west would would beat their chest and
say, "Hey, look how good we have it in our society. We are allowed to do that. Well Jason, if three of us went to a to
a street and started protesting, I guarantee you police will come and take us away. Even in the western society,
they don't take take people away when there are 500 of them. So it is not as
as simple as a lot of as what a lot of people make it out to be.
No. And in Germany, for example, you have to register your demonstration, you have to get a permit for it, etc. Right.
So that's that's already a gate and if there is a security cost associated with
it then you might be asked to cover these costs for example. So that's it's all it's it's that's what I'm that's
what I mean. It's very relative, right? And I'm not I'm not I'm not a demo go,
right? I've I've never been. So it's never been important to me. I care about a lot of other things. And it seems like
these things, you know, like freedom to go do business and and upholding contractual law and stuff like that,
that seems to work extremely well in China, right? Yes. and and and and the thing is that
now again going back to my seminar the the the university no longer uh believes
that the police will protect the audience of the conference. So they want
me to explain uh the security issues to do with the seminar so that they can
bring in enough security guards. So unfortunately uh here protesters clearly
it seems have an upper hand that the police cannot be trusted to come on time or even come to help you out and
protesters have sort of a free hand to create disturbances. Mhm.
I mean, specifically in Vancouver, they're probably busy with the goings on on Hastings Street, which
I I have to tell you, Jan, I've never seen that. And and Jason took me down that street just kind of just just let
me see it firsthand. And I it's hard for me still to fathom. I don't understand
how the how the local uh authorities but also the people that
live there I do not understand how they tolerated it and they just walk around it as if it's nothing right and the just
to draw paint a picture for people who haven't been hundreds and hundreds and hundreds maybe in I mean it's a very
long street it used to be a very prosperous street beautiful houses lining the street on both sides going
down to the ocean front and maybe along the whole street who knows maybe 10,000 people that are homeless that but that's
not even the main issue. The main issue is that they are drugged out of their minds but to the point where they can't
talk, they can't walk, they soil themselves, they're just they're just there. They're not violent because they're so high that they don't even
know what what's going on. And I thought it was I mean it really left an impression on me. I thought it was I
felt really bad for these poor souls. But at the same time, I'm like which policy creates this? Which incentive is
at play here to to create this? This is this is not good. Yeah. And and LOI, you can get a free
shot on that street of some of the drugs if you wanted to get and and then they
turn around and ch Why is it free? Well, I I don't really, you know, I'm not into maybe it's legitimate. Maybe
that helps, but the government actually provides you a free shot if you needed a free shot of whatever. I I you know, I'm
not into drugs. I I hardly drink. Jason, so I I don't really understand these uh
these things. Uh but then they turn around and blame including Trump. Now I'm here
criticizing Trump that then they turn around and blame China for supplying fentinile. Uh hey, I can get fentinile
wherever I want to in North America. Why can't you control it rather? And why are
you blaming China for everything? Yeah. there. Yeah, I just thought to ask when I said it's free, I just wanted to
ask you that because I think if we were to tell this to our audience that are let's say not from the west, it's hard
for them to believe. Like for example, my friends in Singapore, you know, it's a capital punishment in Singapore to to
bring in drugs and here you have a government in a western world where up till even up till today people rel find
Canada to be a respectable country. So if when when I came back to Germany and told people here and told friends in
Singapore that this was how it was, they just flat out don't believe me. They say, "No, there's no how can a
government do that? No way." Right. Yeah. And Jason, it's the same with me when I tell them Koreans or Japanese or
Chinese about these things and I tell them about the pride parades or the sexualization of children that happens
in the western society today in schools. Uh they can't they they can't believe
it. They they don't think that can actually happen. It's just so so alien to them.
Yeah. I mean, so I told a to a friend in Germany who's a nurse and she's like,
"Oh, yeah, there these are all uh patients in a drug replacement therapy program." And I'm like, "Right, that's
what's happening." He's like, "Oh, we do that in Germany, too." I was like, "Oh, please don't tell me that. That's [laughter]
that's horrible." But um I didn't see that. I mean the doctor must have not been in because I mean yeah anyway
the the amount of uh you know mental gymnastics the brain goes to I guess to
to to to deal with this right because it because it is traumatic when you see it you're like what is happening here and
then the the mental gymnastics kicks in and people somehow explain it away um is is is nuts. Um, another thing that I
wanted to touch on the um, another way that I thought
people were quite free in China is I asked him about COVID, right? Uh, which
was an event that really, you know, everybody was impacted by either the
either the virus or the policies or both uh, in different proportions. And um I
asked him I was like well how come China seemed to do so well in the beginning but then towards the end it became kind
of the poster child in the west they would say oh look at the least we're not as strict as China because China had these very very uh it's like in places
like Shanghai not everywhere but some places had very draconian punishment for
people breaking you know curfew or whatever and they say yeah was a
mistake. Uh Beijing was wrong they they made a bad call. um maybe because
they're all old old dudes, right? They were scared and so they made bad policy and then as soon as they realized it
though, they completely rolled it back. And I think this is so different than what I would hear from somebody in the
West where they still to this day insist that the response was correct, right?
Which in my opinion wasn't. In my opinion, everybody was wrong basically uh outside of Sweden. Um, and um,
I I there doesn't seem to be a reckoning with that, right? It's like, no, the government decided it they did the best
they could. They did a good job. I'm like, in my opinion, they absolutely did not, right? So,
I think that that's gives you a glimpse of how much they can actually criticize the
leadership and how reflected they also are on some of the stuff that does go sideways.
Yeah. And this is also I talked with in my seminar and I I quoted this that I asked some a Chinese successful
businessman and I said does Chinese government supply enable supply of
fentinile to to the US and his response right away was uh he wouldn't be
surprised if uh they the government actually enables that. So they are
fairly self-critical. He doesn't know of course whether it is happening or not but uh I I find enough self-critical
thoughts among Chinese and this is again the another higher order order factor
which makes me think that the China is going to continue to do well in the future. Jiant, since you're on that
point, uh I just wanted to give you a couple of anecdotes. You know, recently they've had that victory day celebrations in China, right? And there
was this uh picture going around the internet with uh Modi and Putin and
Ceinping together, you know, like doing a three-way handshake. And
um tons of people actually came to tell me that, oh, it's it looks like it's
it's good. you know these three countries can work together and China will help India and India will be the
next China and uh you know China will help India with building the train
stations and the airports and the telecommunications. So in your in your talk you you talked a
lot about China and I think you titled it demystifying China if I remember correctly.
Uh can you help our audience that probably are not super familiar with
your work yet? Like is it true that India will just follow two steps behind and one day be where China is today and
if so if not why are they wrong? They they are completely wrong in thinking that India will catch up with
China or even that India can continue to follow China two steps behind it. China
is progressing. China is a country that is improving. Whereas India is um is
regressing to its pre-colonial past. India is falling apart. It's uh nothing
works in that country. It is a country that is getting worse by the day. Uh and
every u every thing that happens in that country tells me that India will get far
worse than I can imagine. So these these two countries cannot be compared and
anyone and you have been Jason to both the countries to China and India. I know that anyone who has been to the two
countries knows that you should not be using China and India in the same sentence. They are different planets.
They are different universes. There's no comparison. China will
continue to grow and a large reason is the cultural issue. the cultural issues
take millennia to form into to to a rational and moral system. Um Europe
took um three or four millennia to form its cultural backbone. Uh India has not even started
that process. Uh China also started that a long time back and it it it is still
had to suffer a lot before it got somewhere. But India is uh in my view
for millennia behind Europe in starting to form a cultural backbone. So uh India
will continue to get worse. It will fall apart. It will fall into tribal pieces
and then these people will be eating brains of each other. Uh so that's the future of India.
Yeah. there. So, so the bullet trains, Chinese bullet trains bringing people
from Delhi to Mumbai in 4 hours is not something that you have on your radar or
well um so Jason about 15 years back Indian government and Japanese government is started working on a
bullet train project actually from uh Ahmedabad to Mumbai.
Uh and that project was supposed to be completed in five years.
uh then after five years they were still saying it would take another five years and today they are still saying it would
take another five years. uh China would have completed that project of about 400
kilometers in about in a few months time certainly in less than a year. So in
India it will still be another 5 years and I guarantee you it will never get
completed and if it does get completed you can be absolutely sure that those
bullet trains will fly off the rails u because you can't bring in Japanese to
monitor every aspect of that uh train system. uh Indians will make micro
compromises uh which means that the train will start flying off the rails on
day one. So no it won't work. Uh right now they actually the metro systems in
India create problems. is they just recently instituted a metro system in Mumbai which uh which just stops in the
air and you and then people have to be rescued by the fire brigade which of course takes another few hours to arrive
and they are dysfunctional by themselves. So uh no bullet train will never take off in India. Uh they claim
that they have a high-speed train that runs at 150 kilometers an hour. Uh but
that's not true. uh it doesn't necessarily work very well uh and it's not a vast improvement on on what India
had 20 years back. Uh lo sorry let me just ask one more
question I know I'm hogging giant a lot but uh giant one other thing I wanted to
ask right um I've been to India quite a few times for work and I feel like
there's a big uh cultural difference amongst the people
from different different regions and also with the language that they they
speak their own local language not just uh Hindi right is it so when You say
culture and homogenity is important. Does India have homogenity or are they
would you consider them to be an inhomogeneous country? Oh, they are not that they're not homogeneous at all.
It's a very multithnic society. It's probably the most multithnic society in the world. Now being a multithnic
society is not a problem as long as those people have risen above their
tribal affiliations. Uh this is what I have seen Jason. Uh Japanese in America
are among the mo best assimilated people in the in the American society because
they manage to rise above their tribal affiliations. They are people who start
looking for truth when given given a chance and when your focus is on truth
not and when you are not anchored to your uh uh your your race or tribal
group then being multi-thnic is not a problem. Uh Europe itself is a
multi-thnic society but these days it manages to work all right. it doesn't really matter where they are from
because they have risen away over their tribal affiliations. Uh unfortunately
when you have lower IQ people who are stuck in their tribal affiliation then
you have that problem because of multi-ethnicity and India is a multi-thnic society and it's a very low
IQ society. So Jant, [clears throat] yeah, for
um for China, right? We're we're talking about it still growing. The thing that I'm wondering about is when when what
will be the signs of kind of achieving or seeing peak peak China? So, I've talked to Jason about this and
the best we can come up with is that because of China's uh millennia of history of culture,
the current rise that we're seeing is more like a reversion to the mean than a
new height in a way. [snorts] What do you think about that? I I I sort of agree with that. I think
uh China is lacking in one thing and which is uh that they have not
underpinned their society and institutions by uh philosophy and the
concept of ideas. Uh the the the the kind of liberty that exists in the
mainstream classical western society and I think China has to work towards
underpinning their society with those elements eventually. uh they are a very
smart people. So they have um starting with Japan um Far East Asia copied the
best of the western society. This is what happened in the mid of the 19th century when Japanese started copying
German and British society and that has continued. China has been a big
beneficiary of copying uh what what was the the the situation in Japan, Taiwan,
Singapore. Um in fact from what I know uh Den Xiaoing was a good friend of Lie
Kuan Yu of uh Singapore because then Xiaoing wanted consulting work done by
Lie Kuan Yu. So in many ways uh Chinese cities actually look like Singapore to
me. So u copy China copied a lot and uh copying is not easy. It is it's a it's a
uh it takes a lot of intelligence to copy. If you could copy then Africa and
India and Latin America would be as good as China is. So copying is not easy.
Never look down at copying. Copying we you know everything we know is copy. Most of the things we know is copied
anyway. Our languages are copied. We learn from people around us. We copy uh
how we live, how what we eat. So most of what we consume and use in our lives is copied. Anyway, do not look down at
copying. Uh Chinese have done a very good job. But my uh issue is whether
Chinese will be able to underpin their society with this 0ero to one which is
philosophy ideas the western concept of liberty eventually because they might
not be capable of creating original ideas right now. So they have created
probably better fighter planes today. They might have created a a a very high level artificial
intelligence system deepseek but the original idea was still a western idea.
Can they create their own ideas? Uh but I wouldn't worry about it about that if
I were Chinese because that is still uh maybe 10 or 20 years uh before that
starts limiting their progress. China clearly in my view is headed to where
Japan is or probably ahead of Japan. China in my view is probably more
creative than even Singapore is today. Um and I know that come might come as a shock to a lot of people but uh dealing
with people in Shanghai and Shenzhen and Singapore tells me that because of
whatever is happening in China, Chinese young people are probably more innovative, more open-minded and more
creative. So China will continue to grow, continue to improve for the next 10, 20, 25 years before it hits that
glass ceiling. My guess is Loves that China will have underpinned its society
by the concept of ideas and philosophy by then. Um the the the truth is that I
as you rightly mentioned I feel very free in China. I don't feel as if I'm uh
h my movements are hindered. I have been to small villages in China. I don't see
anyone hindering my movements in those places. So Chinese society looks I feel
very free in China. So I would not be surprised if also a lot of very smart
people from the western society start moving to China. China has started something called visa K. Jason correct
me if I'm wrong there but that visa enables uh smart young people to move to
China without a job which is a unique kind of visa of its own kind in the world. So, China probably understands
that it needs that uh uh that those that bunch of creative people and it's enabling uh migration of such people to
China. Giant uh you have concerns about the west allowing all these uh different
foreign cultures coming in because it can impact the the the culture that is
there. So while I don't have that fear for China, what are your thoughts with
them sort of opening their borders like that and allowing people to come in? So So Jason, I you know I I I I have
spent a lot of time in Japan. Um I we my clients and I invest in Japanese
companies. Uh and I was talking with a Japanese CEO and uh he told me that for
the first time they are having to take theft insurance uh because Japan has
brought in a lot of foreigners uh recently to help them with certain jobs
and thefts have uh taken off in Japan. Now uh those people who don't know Japan
in Japan you don't lock your bikes your your kids of three four or five years
age uh walk on the cross the street uh by themselves. So uh Japan is a very
safe and uh good society but now because of migrants Japanese culture Japan
is starting to feel some problems. Here is the good thing about the western society. They do not give out their p
sorry far east Asian societies, they do not give out their passports. Uh if
you're born in Japan or China and if you have lived there for three generations,
I don't think you are still eligible to get their passports. And that is a mistake that the western society did
which is that they started giving out their passports too easily. And so that's that's what the response to your
question is Jason. Uh when uh Far East Asian society wakes up to the problem
that the third world people bring uh they will uh they can deal with that right away because they will not have
given out their citizenship documents to these people. But moreover the fear that they don't have the citizenship
documents keep keeps them within uh certain boundaries. Yeah. Interesting. I think you're right.
I mean uh my you know my wife isn't Singaporean and even after having two
kids in Singapore um it was still difficult for her to get a permanent residency you know it's not
even a passport permanent residence in it's time based in Singapore right
right that's true yeah yeah and that's the way it should be Jason that's the way it should be now of
course I I I immigrated to Canada and I I immigrated because I wanted to get their passport uh and that was easy So I
immigrated to Canada. I moved to Canada for my convenience, not for the good of Canada. And I think all I can say is
that Western countries should not be giving out their passports as easily as Canada or Australia or New Zealand give
out. So hey Jan, let me just round back again to the Chinese and philosophy. So Loves
might know this guy. We call him the I brought him to a bar in Suto where I
frequent and he's a friend of mine. Um and Loves calls him the philosopher.
Right. So this guy uh he he says to me, you
know, there's no point in um working super hard at a 9 toive job. I might as
well work super hard at something I like. So he spends his time creating this insane cocktails, insane recipes,
right? He travels to different parts of China to collect honey from Singang and he collects herbs from Yinan and he does
all these amazing things, concoctions, and then he makes these uh cocktails,
you know, and every two months he goes on a a three-day hike into the mountains
by himself with only a book on uh Buddhism, Taoism, and Confucianism.
Right? So, I'm not bringing this guy up to to refute what you're saying because
I I know exactly what you mean when you say that the underpinnings are different, but I just wanted to share
with you that I'm starting to notice from my peers in China and especially
those that are maybe 10 years younger than myself, they have this so let's say in the late
20s to mid30s, they have this uh phenomenon now called uh tonging which
means like to lie flat and a lot of young people bring this up to say it's
not that they are going to go on the street to beg for money but it's what they're saying is hey I'm not going to
take part in this uh corporate rat race and and the the question is always you
know when I when I just push back a bit and say hey but how why you know like everybody in your country they're
working so hard they're trying to get ahead in life why are you stepping off to the side and then they
ask me back uh why why should I like what's in it for me? what you know and
for me this is something new because I grew up in a very traditional Chinese
family while I had a Australian dad right so the Chinese side doesn't ask
why they just do it they have to do it because everybody else does it and they got told to do it so they do it so for
me to now be in China and see a lot of younger people saying no first I need to
know why before I do it I think that might be the beginnings of this change,
you know, it's not that they don't want to work hard, but they want to know why before they do it. Uh so I don't know
with your time there, have you noticed something like that as well? Yeah. And and Jason, that's what I said
that China must underpin that thing uh that creativity within its uh found
within its structure over the next couple of decades. And I already see signs that people are interested in
philosophy, interested in ideas, interested in um in the spiritual
abstract world rather than just the material world. Chinese are great at operating in the material world. They
probably do a better job at operating in the material world than the western people do because they are solely
focused on the material world. Um but I think a spiritual uh uh psychological
awakening is happening and this is what I see among the young people. So I completely agree with you Jason. Um u
but only time will prove whether they they will actually fully generate that or not because even today the the the
fountain head of the spiritual values the psychological values the the
philosophy is the western society. Um so
I want to see that emergence happening in China before I'm reasonably sure that
that can happen. Um, I'm trying to think where to take things
next. [laughter] Um, it's been such a such an interesting
discussion between you two. I'm quite happy to disc well loves in in many ways
when I'm in China because I'm of course dealing with the material world when I'm in China. I'm not really
there to discuss philosophy with new people. Although I have now several
contact contacts with who I can discuss things the way I can discuss with people
in the US or in Canada. So yes, I completely agree with you on ju on that J Jason. Uh but sometimes I even forget
that I'm not in the US when I'm in China. U because the highways are pretty
much copies of US highways. the tunnels are copies of the US and they are much
they are newer versions of that so they are nicer and without port potholes and
I've been to backward places and the roads are pothole free um one thing that
I have seen a major difference on in China is that the corruption level has
almost disappeared in China and again this points me to the fact that China
will continue improving for the next few decades [snorts] most people uh in the western world get
stuck between whether a society is socialist or capitalist. Uh now that's in my view limiting
yourself about understanding people because even socialism and communism is
an our ideologies but most of the world has no ideology.
The third world does has no ideology except to uh accept might is right is
the only ideology they have. And that is where corruption is a big problem in the third world because it has social
acceptance. China had a lot of corruption uh 15 years back when I started going there.
Today uh people who are critical of Gigi Ping I ask them what about corruption
and they accept that corruption has almost disappeared from the Chinese society and that gives me very strong
confidence that China will continue to do better for the next couple of decades
more before it has to start thinking about changing its political system or
bringing in the spring of philosophy. to underpin its society.
Yeah, I saw this u longer article about that topic of corruption that um within
Chinese companies there is a lot of incentives now to uh get rid of
corruption because they understand now that that can only give you short-term wins but it doesn't build a sustainable
corporation and so they're trying really hard to to eliminate it. So in the corporate sector and in the in the
government sector of course they have uh very draconian punishments at this point if you are found to be corrupt right.
Yeah. And and public sector people are no longer allowed to drink when they are on uh public sector business. Um and I'm
told that corporations are now following the same policy. They don't let their people drink when they go out for for
business. Um and um um uh and so so
there is clearly a massive change happening. I was in in a social function
uh not very far back uh and there was a very senior u bureaucrat in that social
function and I was keeping an eye on him. I was wanting wanted to see if he was going to drink or not. Um and he did
not drink uh because he was driving his own car that day. He controls the city so he could have easily got away with
that but uh he did not drink and that's that's what impresses me about uh about
China. Yeah. I mean on so much simpler level right when I was there in 2017 um one
thing that my wife and I noticed is that people were spitting on the street a lot for all kinds of reasons. And going back
now nobody's doing that anymore. Nowhere. It's well I I saw I I yeah Loves I saw it
about two months back and I it was shocking to me because I I had seen it after many many years and I was in a
very small area this time but I completely agree people line up people don't spit anymore and people are you
know I'm I'm I'm very much a foreigner to to a lot of Chinese u they don't
stare at me anymore they are very polite they I'm absolutely sure they stare at
me when I'm not looking at them, but [snorts] they um they are polite enough not to stare into my eyes.
Yeah. But I I'm really uh at a loss to even think how you can get that level of
societal change in behavior because it it takes a lot, right? It takes a lot of discipline and understanding to do that.
Well, loves remember the IQ of Chinese is 105. It's the they they have the
basic ingredients to copy things very quickly. And if you look at Chinese,
Chinese are very eager to learn the western ways. If you look at Chinese in the western society, they are eager to
learn the western ways which includes learning hip hop as well because they don't at one point of time you don't
really know what is class high quality
western behavior and what is lowass western behavior. So people copy all
kinds of things but so Chinese copy all kinds of things but they are very focused on trying to learn good things
particularly things like don't make noise in public don't create a ruckus don't create dirt around you and they
they are they they I think they are among the better uh assimilated people today.
So I'll give you guys some you guys both don't read Chinese right? [gasps] I don't
uh Okay. So give you some funny anecdote. So when when I was on business trips in China, we would always be on
these long drives and you'd have to go to these highway stops, you know, like in Germany the auto holes, right? And so
they've got these massive public toilets because there's just so many people. So you have urinals, maybe four rows of
urinal. Each one is maybe 30 30 long, right? And it's all open air because
it's so cold. Uh uh you you need the ventilation. So even when it's freezing, there's no heating. Okay? So anyway,
every time you step up to relieve yourself at the Urano, there's actually a sign there and I think it's like a,
you know, a play on the Armstrong quote when he landed on the moon like one step, one small step for men, one large
step for mankind and that's they're they write it in Chinese, one small step forward, one big step to
become more cultured, right? So I think in my Chinese correct
the Chinese they use Wming, right? to be to be more cultured. And I noticed that
in a lot of public signage, so when you ask why they can change so quickly, they
have this um gravity, right, where they they use this as a high point to to
motivate people to reach towards being more quote unquote cultured. And this is
very different from when I'm u in other countries and they say, "Please
uh please step forward, you know, please don't make a mess, whatever." They don't tell you it's to become more cultured.
They say please don't do it because it's going to cause other people trouble. Right? So I find that quite interesting
because they're not being explicit about asking you to do something. They're
trying to motivate you to do it out of your own will to become quote unquote more cultured. And I think it's the same
with spitting. You know, I think during COVID they they said, "Hey, we have this pandemic going around. Let's not do that
because it's bad for society. you spread germs etc etc and people sort of
selfcorrected their behavior because they wanted to be part of this more
cultured society so I just found that pretty interesting whenever I read all this signage right yeah it's very
interesting and by contrast in the west it you get actually more of an attitude
of um no if everybody's behavior is welcome and we just have to kind of be okay with
it because we're not allowed to criticize anybody Well, Lois, when I started living in the
UK in the early '90s, the culture was different. If you did not behave properly, you were told about it. Uh, I
have memories of Swiss old women coming over to uh people who were playing uh
loud music on their radio or something, telling them that they she did not want
to listen to them and it was none of the business. it wasn't right for these people to play radio loudly in public.
So um those were the days when political correctness wasn't uh so big in the
western society. Uh but somehow uh I think western society has become uh um I
might you know the euphemism is tolerance. It's not tolerant. They they are just become in a way apathetic. They
don't want to fight for their society anymore. uh and I think they they need to register that if they don't fight for
their society they will le lose their civilization which is what's happening. So Jand I have a almost like a final
question maybe for you and so you've mentioned a lot that you are a seeker of truth but I really find it more and more
difficult to discern what is truth these days right so how so what do you have a
heristic of or a test that you apply like how do you how do you know when something's true and how do you find
truth well I mean u I'm just a seeker which does not mean I will have figured out
the truth eventually. Did Charlie Kirk exist? No, I don't know for sure, but I'm reasonably sure it happened. Did
America land on on moon? Yes, I'm reasonably sure it did. Is um is the
planet a shape of a ball? I'm reasonably sure
that's true. uh I I think I don't want to be a contrarian for the sake of being a contrarian and say that hey uh earth
is flat and man never landed on on moon. Um so um but I I think you can reach a
reasonable level of truth through uh a statistical way and probability way
based way of thinking that if I have heard about Charlie Charlie Kirk from so
many sources then I'm reasonably sure that this guy existed and he was murdered. Um Jant then my last question for you.
Okay. Uh thanks for giving us so much of your time. Um, so you seek truth. Uh,
but to seek truth, I think it's important to have the freedom to seek
the truth. So the the space and the time because if you're rushing and you don't
have enough sleep and you're trying to juggle three jobs and you're trying to put food on the table, you don't have
much uh time to maybe see through all these noise to find the true signal or
what you would say is authentic signal, right? The truth. So for people that are
wanting to be truth seekers and live an authentic life,
we with this podcast and with all the guests that we've brought on, we've we it's a common thread to say first you
need this sort of a financial stability, financial security before you have the means to
even consider what freedom and truth and philosophy means. So, do you have any
words of advice for people that are listening in that maybe have not reached that point yet, but they're interested
in things that we talk about? They're interested in investing and you're a professional investor. I don't know when
was the last time you drew a salary, but you know, so how what are some words of advice for these uh people that want to
be where you're at to? Well, Jason Jason, having financial
background is very important. uh I don't have to worry about losing my job or
worrying about financial matters. So it's it's a great thing not to have to worry about it because a lot of people
worry about uh these things when they compromise on truth. Uh but Jason
interestingly the most the best one and a half year of my life was the early '9s
when I went to live in the UK. I had of course lied to the British im uh embassy
about that I had enough financial resources. I did not have the financial
resources. I was broke. I was often hungry. I used to buy uh um u
potatoes that had gone bad because they were the cheapest and I used to clean them and boil them and eat them. So
unfortunately um that was a very poor time for me. Uh but honestly that was
the most euphoric time for me because I was uh I was experiencing a society that
was truthful that was fair that was honest a society that was a civilization
and and uh that was the time when I started um uh follow learning about
truth. So I think even in your poor days you can actually uh do extremely well in
terms of um uh learning about it. Uh but the really the test of character happens
when you don't have clothes on you don't have food on your plate and you still do the right thing. So you're you know my
my my character can no longer be tested because I'm I don't have worries about food on the table.
Okay John, thank you. Thank you for sharing that. I think it will be very inspiring for a lot of people that are
maybe in that same spot and they're working hard to get out of it. Yeah. Thanks. Thanks very much for the
opportunity. Thank you very much, Shan. Super enjoyed it again. So, thank you.
Thank you for giving us so much of your time. And that wraps up our main conversation.
But we're not done yet. We're going into overtime where Jason and I unpack some insights, reflect on what just happened
and connect a few dots and go. This is a amazing throwback, right? Jay was the
first well-known person to join us on the podcast.
Um, as you said, pretty much exactly a year ago, I think.
Um, safe to say we've come a long way and we've had a lot of these very
interesting conversations. Um and now the world has
spun, moved forward a lot. A lot has happened and um it's very interesting to
see how Gian's view of the world has also ad adapted and changed and but also how ours has. Right.
Yeah. But I think while we see different scenery, I think the compass that we
hold and the direction that we go is still this generally in the same direction.
Right. We might say that, oh my gosh, there are storm clouds brewing now that that
weren't there a year ago, and maybe we need to sail the ship around something, you
know? But I think it's cool to to put these world views into different
contexts and still see where they are pointing
towards. maybe similar to him saying, "Hey, his character getting tested without food, without clothes,
you know." Yeah. Yeah. I talked to him about this um test
of character, too, when we were walking around in Vancouver, and he described it as one of the
most inspiring and motivational periods of his life to to have nothing but
opportunity and kind of road ahead of himself, you know. Um,
and there was a very similar sentiment that was echoed in one of the books I just read from the founder of Kingos. He
also said, "Hey, if you ever if you ever hit a point in your life where you have no more vision, no more ideas, go and be
hungry and cold for a couple days.
It will light a fire in your belly again to to get to get out of it, you know. So
I think is uh is a bit of what's this is kind of you know what I was alluding to
with the um uh maybe everything moves in cycles
thing that I said earlier. I I do. So I mean the way Gant explains it makes
complete sense to me and I don't disagree but I think the uh um
there is a need in society to have well there's a need in humans in humans
to struggle to some degree the the question is what do you struggle with
right and so if you and I maybe then that's what culture means is that it
helps you find the more ideal uh struggles that actually bring you f
further in life, right? You they might give you a hell of a time, but by conquering them, then you are also a
stronger, better, smarter person. Whereas if you of course go and struggle with some
uh bad things, the wrong things, you know, I don't know, addiction of some
kind, for example, then yeah, might be a massive struggle, but overcoming it only brings you back to baseline. it doesn't
actually bring you to the the mountaintop, you know.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Uh I even my in in my
own life when I look back and if you were to say, hey, you know, subconsciously,
you know, feel out what are the are the pivotal moments that let's say forged
your identity or forged your character, right? there usually periods of time
where you've overcome adversity. So I think the the for you're right the
culture should or the if you live in a society or a
culture where there's a path ahead of you and uh there are these challenges
that one must face to to let's say find yourself or be a man or be a woman or to
grow up or to be mature. I guess it's good, you know, it's better than getting you lost in um let's say unsolvable
riddles where you then feel totally entangled and trapped and unhappy and
and angry, right? It's it's a bit funny like I I I live in
the west um but I grew up in the east. I was listening to this guy called
Awakening Richard on YouTube. I think he's a very good YouTube follow. Um, and
he gives the West views into Chinese society and Chinese politics and how
they think. And he commented on the Charlie Kirk thing. And he said before
Charlie Kirk happened, he had not heard of who this guy was. And he felt very bad about that considering it's causing
such a stir. So he spent three hours listening to Charlie Kirk's um inter uh
uh uh interviews, right? and and and his videos. And he said, "Hey, what's
interesting for him is that 90% of what Charlie Kirk's talking about the Chinese
wouldn't care, but yet it's such a big topic in the west and maybe that speaks to what
you're saying about culture and what are the dragons we need to slay to move forwards, right?" He said, "I just spent
few hours listening to this guy debate what's supposed to be the smartest people in college campuses across the
country talk about what is a woman." It's like if we are trying to solve the
world's problems, there are many, many problems a foot, right, with food, energy,
security, wars, and if we're still here getting tripped up on what a woman is,
maybe it's okay to say we don't know what a woman is, but can we move on to solving not getting men, women, and
children killed, human beings killed, you know? Yeah. So, I think you're right. um what's the
right of the message right what's the thing that you choose to struggle with right so
the um and that's not to say that that's not to say that I think that as a
society we have to also reject somebody who has that struggle within them about
their gender I don't think that we need to I think we should be compassionate and supportive towards them what I don't
like is that as a society on a societal level we have to grapple with that uh
that question and we have to somehow make it palpable for the for the
minority and and that's the part that where things really does start falling apart right or can at least has a
potential to right and so uh I think everybody can do whatever they please within their uh freedom
where they don't you know go and hurt and and put violence on other people but that doesn't mean that I enjoy enjoy
that type of discourse that I don't want my politicians to get paid out of my tax money to talk about this stuff for for
years, right? Wasting time, wasting resources, like you said, as if there's
no other more existential problems to be solved. Yeah, there are plenty, right?
And sad to say for the West, right, just cuz you're not busy solving it doesn't mean other people are not solving it. So
when China goes and builds del plants or water treatment plants or Korea does it
or Japan does it or Russia does it then guess what these countries become
more stitched into the fabric of other societies and then they become more influential because they're actually
making a difference rather than just talking about things that other people maybe don't even care about.
Yeah. Um but one other really I I I I didn't want to bring oh I couldn't find
a time to bring it up during the the call but um this Chinese guy Richard he
also talked about migration and he said that's something that Charlie Kirk talks about and uh let me give you some
history on how China dealt with it right and it's so interesting because you tell
me about Hopper and uh how Hopper says if you take away the welfare state a lot of this solves
itself, right? So that's what I believe as well, right? But uh
China according to this guy, I mean I knew a little bit about the history, but
this guy went into much more detail. He said uh there are these uh in in China
when you're born in a certain region, you have to stay there. if you don't stay there, you know, you you you
basically your kids can't just move to Shanghai and and your kids get a place in a public school, you need it's almost
like there's a migration within that country. So, you need the government to say, "Yeah, you do have, you know, say
you're in the US and you move from California to to Texas. You can't just
go buy a house and then just or you can't rent a house and then straight away say, "Hey, now my kid wants to go to school there, right?" because they
would have too much of a population influx into the coastal cities and then
it would cause chaos, right? So you see it's a resource issue and it's not
racism because they're all the same race, right? So they were not allowed to to travel and to work in another state
unless you were given the green light by the government. So you needed a internal
visa, so to speak. And this was back in before they they they liberalized, right? So what happened was a lot of
people started doing it illegally and uh because they said, "Hey, me
working as an illegal in a factory in Shunen or in Shanghai gives me more
income than me working on a farm somewhere outside Wuhan." And Wuhan was
a very very for example a very very rich country rel uh city relative to the
other cities in China before the liberalization. But once the government started to open the coastal cities,
Wuhan fell down a few pegs, right? So people started to leave wanting to make a better life for themselves. So then
the Chinese government saw that and they said, "Hey, how can we say we're for the people if we are forcing them to stay in
in areas that are poor while we invest in these coastal cities?" It's also not
fair, right? And then we get these other societal problems where we get people moving out and having no rights because
they can't complain about their boss abusing them because then they would be deported back.
Right? So what the Chinese did was they said the government did was they said, "Okay, you're allowed to move, but no welfare.
So you can move, but you can't just suddenly go to a hospital in Shanghai.
If you want to, you need to pay out of pocket. You can't get it for free like the Shanghai because the system's not
built to to suddenly get these gyrating numbers
of people that are coming in for economic reasons, right? So, they basically used the most organic way and
said, "Okay, if you can pay for it yourself, do it. If you end up on the street destitute, we're going to send
you back home to where your hometown is." And that was sort of this deal that was made that
everyone was happy with, right? people could assess for themselves. Do I want to take that risk? Do I want to go three
days on a train to go to a coastal city to then try and find a way to work at this place and if I fail I get sent home
and I don't have that expectation that this very far away city or population has to
carry my weight. Yeah. But in the when we talk about migration today,
it's very different, right? These people come in, it doesn't matter what their race is. It's just the number of human
beings coming into a system that was designed to carry a lesser number of
human beings, you know. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, and you and you see it also, right? There was so I was not aware of
this, but somebody told me that there was a massive influx of uh North Americans, you know, Canadians and
Americans into Mexico, for example, um for for different reasons. and they go
to the to the main urban hubs and completely overwhelm them. And then
they're the local guys are like, "Hey, this we can't handle this. Like prices are too high now. You guys are all in
the laptop class. You know, you guys all work remote making so much money, but you're driving the prices up to the
point where the locals can't afford anything. Please leave." Right? It's not that they um that they're against them.
in many ways they benefit from them coming and spending money but it just the system is not set up for it. So it's
not racism or anything like that. It's just you have to be there's so many factors to consider. Um yeah I thought
that's a that's an interesting anecdote. The one thing with giant that I also
wanted to comment on that I didn't get a chance to is you know this this idea of copying I um it's so funny because it's
only I mean it's it's called copying in a techn technological sphere when you
talk about China and I think it's called execution in in other places so
iteration yeah or iteration and so because like what I do for a living uh
Um, it's the rare rarest of times that we have that we are confronted with a
true invention of something new. Most of the time these are just blends of ideas
that have already existed. And then really it comes down to who executes the fastest, right? And so I
I've I've long thought that the value of the idea is actually far less than people give it credit to. I mean, of
course, it's a chicken and egg thing, right? But from my perspective, so many
ideas get generated and so many are out in the world and a fraction of a percent ever see the light of day in terms of
execution or iteration. And if you of course can specialize on that and you become good at running with ideas, even
if your society generates relatively fewer, I don't think it'll matter
because more of them will get picked up. So I I yeah I mean I'm not saying that
it's not a weakness of China. I don't know enough to say it. Um, but I think that learning how to execute these ideas
quickly and if something works, keep it. If it doesn't, discard it. I think you can you can you can bridge that gap very
very quickly. Yeah. You hear all these Peter Theos or I don't know if you'll see him but you
know all these startup gurus right from 101 15 years ago when they're on uh on
Ferris they keep talking about failing fast failing fast and it seemed to be this hyper newy newagy
progressive industrial talk right fail fast fail fast
um but China just does it all the time they just create a lot of crap and some
will turn out to be not crap and then they just iterate. Right. Yeah.
Yeah. So, exactly. They just do it on a more industrial scale. They don't have these fancy
Yeah. dissertations on what it means to fail fast. They just go out and do it. And it looks ugly. It It sounds ugly,
but does it work? Okay. If it works, we'll make it a bit prettier and sound a bit nicer next time, you know.
Jason, thank you. Another interesting conversation
and um looking forward to the next ones as always. Same same. Thanks, Lis. I had
a lot of fun as usual.
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