George Friedman, Transcript about War and our so-called "IT" Inventors01.10.25

After him, they (Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, Zuckerberg...) invented to marketing those digital Inventions. In reality, those Digital Inventions are the result from nameless military engineers.

Jul 7, 2017 from a Youtube Transcript
0:13
hi is global war coming of
0:19
course there's never been a century that didn't have a global war in the 20th
0:25
century you know about uh 19th centuries Napoleon
0:31
Wars 18th century was the Seven Years
0:36
War we can go back and back and back and back but if you don't think there's a
0:41
global war coming then you're saying that the 21st century is going to be the first
0:46
century in which there isn't a global war and I will bet against you any
0:52
amount you want in fact global war all war is
0:58
sitting with you right now it's sitting in your pocket I present to you the
1:06
iPhone you've seen this it carries such superb tools on it as YouTube and Tinder
1:15
and all the essentials and you guys are so cool that
1:21
you know that this represents the future and makes you completely different
1:28
because well you're cool let's talk about
1:33
it the foundation of this phone is a
1:38
microchip the microchip was developed to guide us intercontinental
1:46
ballistic missiles uh against Soviet targets it had to have a small computer
1:53
in it it had to be very light it had to be very accurate
2:00
and the microchip was the
2:05
solution and all of the weapons that we use during the Cold War the threatening
2:10
annihilation of humanity was built on the microchip and you now use it
2:18
today because it's cool but that's what it
2:23
is take a look at the other thing you have a camera in your phone the digital camera
2:30
that was developed by the US national reconnaissance office for spy
2:37
satellites problem we had was that if you took regular pictures with
2:43
film how do you get them to Earth so you had to have a way to take
2:51
pictures of targets of various sorts that didn't require you to
2:58
drop a Kodak film pack down to the Earth because that's what they did at the
3:04
beginning and they had to develop some sort of way to take
3:10
pictures that could get back to Earth fast just the way you send selfies to your mother or
3:17
something and that was the digital camera it was driven by something called
3:25
the CCD which I remember the name once but I can't remember what it's about
3:30
and what it did was it took digital pictures that could be beam
3:36
back to Earth to Target people your innocent little
3:43
camera had its birth in spy satellites there's GPS you
3:51
love it you walk around the street looking at it instead of the traffic you get killed it's a cool device
4:02
GPS was invented by the United States Air Force was
4:08
called navstar to guide cruise missiles to their targets and toow army units Precision in
4:18
their land navigation in other words it was invented to let soldiers know where they
4:26
were okay and it's the most dangerous thing you have in your device because if
4:31
you don't get hit by a car you're going to crash yours while you're staring at it so it has a violent nature built
4:42
in now all this is designed to get to the place where all Humanity lives which
4:48
is the internet the Internet was developed by the fense advanced research project
4:54
agency to move classified data from one
4:59
one secret lab to the other so something in oakd Tennessee the
5:06
labs there we moved to Los Alamos and that would be moved to Brook
5:12
Haven National Laboratories what were they doing in these Laboratories doing research on nuclear
5:19
Wars because that was the big story
5:24
then it was developed with only one thing in mind to make research
5:30
more efficient and when you get on the
5:35
internet all the protocols you get and all the cool stuff that get you around
5:41
were developed by American scientists who are deeply involved in
5:47
the Cold War now you then have the cell phone
5:53
which most of you don't use anymore because you irritate me by sending me text messages instead of picking up the
6:00
phone okay the cell phone was first deployed in 1985 by the United States
6:09
Army and was used for the first time in Operation Desert
6:14
War and it was entirely invented to facilitate military
6:22
communication bottom line is there is nothing in this phone or if you're a religious atic in
6:30
the Android there was nothing in this that
6:35
was not created for war so you think about war as a distant
6:42
thing you think about war as something that doesn't really have to do with you
6:48
and then you pick up this phone and every bit of it is drenched in
6:54
war in fear of war and everything else now the American are
7:01
peculiar in the United States government they're not allowed to have
7:08
patents basic rule is if the US government invented it and it's not
7:14
secret it's yours for the taking it's an odd rule but it works for
7:20
us it means that everything we do in preparing for Wars designing aircraft
7:26
everything else ultimately
7:32
comes down to being available so Steve
7:40
Jobs who is so cool invented
7:46
nothing he took other people's inventions from the government put them together and the only thing he invented
7:53
was marketing and that was that was pretty cool
8:02
Bill Gates invented
8:07
nothing MS DOS was a program he bought from someone that had originally been
8:14
developed for the Air Force Zuckerberg invented even
8:24
less your whole generation lives in a fantasy of creativity
8:30
the basic tools that guide your life that permeate you were developed by
8:39
Warriors or scientists of Warriors it got to
8:45
you and a bunch of really smart marketing guys put them
8:51
together and convince you they were Geniuses the real geniuses made $50,000
8:57
a year and retired poor the marketing guys they made the
9:04
money the reason I'm starting with this is to make it clear to you how
9:10
intimately your life is involved with war Leon trosy the famous communist that
9:18
we all dislike used to say you may not be interested in war but war is interested in
9:24
you and what he meant by that was the fantasy that you can decide to avoid
9:32
Wars wars are among the most ubiquitous things in human
9:37
life Wars are constant they're going on now they will go on for a long
9:46
time people don't like Wars it doesn't matter what you
9:53
like and one of the most important things this generation must grasp is
9:59
that history doesn't give a damn what you like or don't like you may be
10:05
Millennial but you bleed from a bullet just the same as anybody
10:11
else your life is built on the things that came out of World War II what came out of World War
10:19
II two things
10:24
multilateralism the belief that we should all belong to the European Union
10:30
or the United Nations or the IMF or the World Bank and second the belief in
10:39
technocracy World War II was won by the biggest technocrat of all Dwight
10:45
isenhower he had never heard a shot fired anger but he knew how to organize 15
10:53
million men to wage war
11:00
and out of that came a culture of experts the belief that experts can
11:08
guide our society and make it effective and
11:14
healthy okay and so we surround ourselves with
11:20
people who know who are experts okay and in 2008 all of these
11:28
experts proved well they're not quite that experts but this also led to the love of
11:37
Technology because World War II was won by
11:42
technology by radar by radios by b29 bombers by nuclear
11:51
weapons and we believed Americans and Europeans alike in the sanctity of Technology
12:00
but not only that we decided to make it a virgin again very hard thing to
12:07
do how do you make it a virgin again all of these Technologies came out of global
12:14
war we will pretend that it's no longer connected to
12:20
it we will pretend that war has nothing to do with us and the point I'm making
12:26
to you is is that you live every
12:31
day with the product of war that every part of your
12:37
life is bound up with this and the only reason you don't think of it is you
12:43
don't know that and you think that if you don't know that it won't be
12:50
true well it is will there be more
12:57
Wars wars occur when some nations rise and some Nations
13:02
fall World War II started with the rise of Germany after 1871 and
13:10
unification the rise of Japan which suddenly became the Great Eastern power and the most important rise the rise of
13:17
the United States in 1865 we finished a civil war 600,000
13:24
de 35 years later the United States produced half the manufactured goods in
13:30
the world in other words Wars don't
13:36
you oddly enough they can enable you and this world had to make a place
13:42
for the United States and there were the British Empire there was the French Empire there
13:50
were all of these European entities that felt that they had an
13:56
inherent right to dominate the world and here came Germany here came Japan
14:03
and above all here came the United States and remade the
14:08
world okay and if IID asked people in 1935 do you want a World War they would
14:16
have said no they would have voted that way it didn't matter what they
14:22
wanted it happened and between World War I and World War II over 100 million people
14:30
died lies are crushed and it wasn't any poll that you could take that
14:38
would count today you have rising and falling
14:44
Powers the United States Remains the dominant power 25% of the world's
14:52
economy is under the control of the United States the United States controls all
14:58
the oceans of of the world it means we get to invade people and they can't invade us which is an American I'm
15:05
definitely in favor of but no power in the history of the world has ever controlled all of the
15:11
oceans so that simultaneously we are engaged in a crisis in
15:17
Korea we're fighting in the Middle East and we're deploying forces in
15:25
Poland Romania and so on we have a very strange
15:33
president and it doesn't matter because presidents come and go and power
15:40
stays however stupid Donald Trump is the United States remains 25% of the world's
15:48
economy the only Power able to project Force anywhere in the world for good
15:54
reasons or bad the United States remains in control
15:59
of the sea dominant in space and we will even survive Donald
16:06
Trump there are powers that are right declining Russia Russia is Saudi
16:15
Arabia speaking Russian they depend on oil exports oil
16:21
export prices cannot be controlled by the Russians at $50 a barrel they can't run
16:27
the country so they will invade Syria for no apparent reason to look good see we
16:34
invaded somebody good now you have Aleppo congratulations what are you going to do
16:40
with it China is a declining country it once grewed 15% it now claims to grow at 6
16:47
and a half% but it is a country that is extraordinarily
16:54
poor the thin strand of China that we think of as wonderful China isn't part
17:00
of China it sells its goods to the United States and Europe and the
17:05
Europeans have screwed up so they're stagnating they can't buy all those
17:11
goods and the Americans will screw up because we always do eventually and then we can stop buying their goods and every
17:18
one of these people depend not on their own genius but on the willingness to people to buy their
17:26
products who are the countries that are emerging in
17:32
Japan it's actually didn't never went away it's the third largest power in the world by far a better Navy than China
17:40
has China PR notwithstanding the only people who want the Chinese Navy great
17:45
is the US Navy because the Chinese Navy is great they get more budget so they
17:50
pretend that it's really very powerful um Japan is the Great East
17:57
Asian power turkey if anybody's going to
18:03
settle the Arab world is the Turks because that's the only people who ever did settle them during the Ottoman
18:10
Empire and they're back and there's chaos in Turkey as they try to reconcile
18:16
secular and religious but there was chaos in the United States during the Civil War chaos sometimes destroys you and
18:25
sometimes makes you a lot stronger and in this
18:31
region Poland which you laugh but when I first
18:36
said Japan people laughed and then I said turkey and they laughed they're not laughing don't laugh about Poland why
18:43
Russia is in Decline Germany exports 50% of its
18:49
GDP half of its economy depends on its customers
18:55
buying and right now its biggest customer is the United States and we have a crazy president who
19:03
doesn't like Merkel and he's capable of anything when you're as big as the
19:10
United States you can make stupid moves and get away with
19:16
it with all this rising and falling you think there won't be War
19:23
well the world is filled with war right now you may disapprove of it there may
19:29
be a poll that says it should stop but it won't Merkel by the way said after being
19:36
insulted by Trump well we've had enough we're going to defend
19:42
ourselves thank God finally why she thought the United
19:47
States would be offended at the thought of not having to defend Germany is not clear but how does Germany exporting 50%
19:54
of its GDP survive 10% % loss in exports is a 5%
20:02
loss in GDP which to put it in technical terms
20:07
means they're screwed so what you have here is a
20:13
declining power Russia a declining power
20:19
Germany and a country in the Middle that's not doing too bad
20:25
Poland and that's how you figure who's going to be there now is Russia going to go quietly into that good
20:32
night I think not is Germany going to say oh well you
20:37
know we'll be unemployed again 30% no that's not Germany
20:43
style is Hungary going to be once more as in all of its
20:49
history caught in a great conflict that it has no control
20:54
over yeah you're only 10 million people and nobody cares about you
21:01
is Hungary going to wind up on the wrong side of the war well we've had a perfect
21:07
record so
21:14
far and this is your lies will you live your life out till the end of the
21:20
century as many of you might without War without death without
21:26
suffering you're living in a fantasy world that's not how the human condition
21:33
works before World War I everybody thought Europe could not have a war
21:40
because of interdependence the Germans and the French traded so much with each other
21:47
man called Norman Angel wrote a book saying the great illusion that there could be a
21:52
war he was a very smart guy he was dead Rong I wish he'd been like 21 in the
22:00
trenches dead dead wrong but he didn't get to go the warning that I have to you is
22:08
that war lurks in your life everywhere the output of the war and you
22:15
can pretend this is an innocent harmless tool but every piece of it was designed
22:22
to kill or to help killing it's just true
22:29
it also means that you're going to have to face the fact that the odds
22:35
are since it's been 70 years since the last systemic
22:41
War that's not going to be another 70 years before the next one could happen
22:48
but again I'll bet you it won't most of
22:53
you you'll excuse me I'm old and cranky and most of you are self-absorbed and
23:00
belief that the life that you lead is up to you your grandparents may have thought the same
23:06
thing it wasn't their lives were shaped by events
23:11
you think you shape your lives you think that when you buy an iPhone you are in control of your
23:19
life this is this Cold War
23:25
weapon combined and you use it every day and you don't know
23:31
it you don't care about it and the problem not of your generation but of my
23:37
generation the Boomers and of every generation is we think we're different no you're not you're just kids
23:45
and you fantasize then you grow up and something
23:51
completely out of control happens to you and reshapes your life it would be better if you were
23:58
prepared pred for it if you were aware of it if you understood the strange statements that are made by leaders
24:05
actually could not just change your life but end it you would be able to confront this
24:12
much better because what will happen is when it starts and it will somehow some way you
24:19
will be stunned you will say it doesn't have anything to do with you you will say I
24:25
didn't want it I'm a millennial I get to choose I'm a
24:31
boomer I didn't get to choose my father grew up in Hungary in the 1920s and 30s and he didn't
24:39
decide on World War II it is important to understand how
24:44
deeply intertwined your life is with war of the past and how War can come and
24:51
visit you regardless of whether you want it the confidence of Youth is dangerous
24:58
it is dangerous because it lives an illusion of powerfulness of making decisions and of
25:05
determining your future most of us all of us are caught
25:11
in webs we never expected to be there and the best you can do is anticipate
25:17
them and the reason you won't is you prefer the illusion of
25:22
power and it's not there I hope I've not upset you too much
25:27
you know what I throw anything to me but it basically means life sucks and then you
25:36
die okay I'm
25:49
done take a seat yeah actually true just
25:56
here so uh your your 10 minut
26:01
who that is possibly the most perfect music for George's presentation uh
26:07
you're you're you're 10 million people nobody cares about you but brabar Budapest cares about you and we want to hear from you so this is your chance to
26:14
ask some questions so George you you have a unique uh vision of the world um
26:22
you have why do you say it's Unique well I I just think it's you guys haven't heard it it was it's interesting you
26:28
know you're asking the question of war huh what is it good for well it seems to be good for iPhone Innovation and to a
26:35
degree is war good for Innovation yeah you got an iPhone on you like
26:42
it our next question George please turn around face the I have to turn around you turn every
26:49
time you're going to be spinning one way from the other I want an automated CH we I we didn't get that far I don't know
26:54
what battle invents maybe in a tank somewhere there's a nice autom CH okay
26:59
yes so thank you for the opportunity and my question is that uh if a global war is coming then how do you see the role
27:07
of uh multinational organizations in it especially NATO um and uh considering uh
27:15
president Donald Trump's stance on it and even your uh editorial about NATO's
27:22
uh obsoleteness what is NATO it is a military organization
27:29
you can't have a military organization without a military this is we studied this very
27:34
carefully military organization has militaries in them the issue here is not whether the
27:41
United States will leave NATO it's whether Europe will join because right now from the American
27:47
point of view the European National strategy is to condemn the Americans for being
27:53
Reckless and demand that they come okay that's fine fine we'll come
27:59
but who are we fighting so we've had a war for 15 years in the Middle East Wise unwise our
28:08
people are dying NATO is nothing to
28:13
that so the [Music] question you can ask him why he pressed
28:19
the button there okay yes I have to ask George are we already at War so we've
28:24
seen we've seen the sort of warfare fought on the battlefield but are we seeing lawfare or perhaps even news fair
28:31
is the manipulation of our news by other countries potentially an act of War Act
28:37
of war is when I put a bullet in your head okay great this is the act of war and you
28:44
have to understand the world is filled with violence just not in Budapest
28:51
yet we have a new question yeah thank you for your insightful thoughts uh if there is a third world war then what
28:58
will be the tools that it will be fought with nuclear weapons or cyber I don't know but they'll be designed to kill
29:05
people sure what about what about cyber War George to her question do you think
29:11
the war will be fought not on the battlefield but on the web what about cyber War I don't know what cyber war is
29:17
my next question now that I was standing right I I actually realized that I I read about
29:23
your books on Wikipedia I just realized I I read about your books on Wikipedia and they seem
29:28
very interesting but what I wanted to ask is who are your favorite philosophers
29:34
Hegel cool why Hegel Hegel designs history
29:42
showing its predictability showing its agonies showing its moral
29:49
Dimension he addresses the reality of human life and he deals with Generations
29:56
rather indifferently is it generation to deal with the millennial
30:01
generation what's the best strategy to survive a global war arm
30:16
yourself with what ah that becomes an interesting discussion we should have a discussion
30:22
of what you want to arm yourself with who's your enemy uh here he's going to ask a question right so you in
30:29
particular were pretty good at uh escaping war and I don't think that you're seriously I mean you're seriously
30:35
concerned but you're probably pretty good at avoiding you know bombs falling on your head and people shooting you yes
30:40
I'm isn't that right my son my daughter isn't that a good enough skill to have
30:46
shouldn't we just you know all learn how to run away from war yes but if you're all running away from war they can find
30:52
you I have not escaped war in my my father did my children my daughter was
30:59
an intelligence officer in Iraq and she fought for several years in Iraq my son
31:05
is an Air Force inventing some of these things he he does that in the United
31:10
States being in the military is not an uncommon thing it is not something that poor people do it's a
31:18
life and my family's life from my father's survival was bound up with it
31:25
but it was not only and he the heart of his he wasn't smart he was
31:31
lucky so if you want to run away from it you can't outrun a bullet some of you will survive some of
31:38
you won't everybody is not wiped out but in terms of my life it begins in
31:45
the wake of World War II passes through
31:51
the struggle against the Soviet Union for my children passes into the
31:56
islamist wars um Europe has had a wonderful
32:04
time having in the first half of the 20th century killed 20% of its
32:09
population it declared well thank God that's over but is
32:14
it thank you and our final question yes final question
32:21
here where do you predict the next major Civil War and if your reply is going to
32:27
be really quick than two Civil Wars majors and is it possible in a major
32:32
Western Country I don't see any possibility in
32:37
an asor Western Country but in 1850 nobody would have predicted the Civil War in the United
32:44
States Civil Wars are very hard to predict because they are driven by
32:49
issues not only of interest but of passion and so on so I mean it is said
32:57
that there's a chance of another civil war in the Balkans and that if such a civil war in
33:03
the Balkans happened it might spread to include other countries in Central Europe I don't know I do know there's a
33:11
massive civil war going on in the Islamic world and I do know the Europeans are dying from it not many so
33:18
I'm sure that in a room like this filled with people no one would think of planting of bam but other than
33:25
that uh the point is small Civil Wars go on
33:30
everywhere large Civil Wars stay a long
33:36
time do you think we'll ever see war from Corporation to Corporation between corporations not between nation states
33:43
corporations are read by leaders who have two goals to stay alive
33:49
and make money it is possible to make money without killing people or more important without being killed
33:56
yourself than thank you uh what if the new global war won't be fot against the country but
34:02
against terrorism and there are no not always clear battlefields uh on terrorism yeah I mean that is always a
34:08
huge problem which is that if you have a subnational group it's a problem so in
34:16
1848 in Europe there was massive uprisings I think you learned of them in school no maybe
34:23
not for sure the 1848 risings were sub National they they were not
34:29
States the best way to deal with one is to kill them all and this is what
34:35
happened in 1848 the Mass Slaughter the United States is trying
34:41
not to kill everyone in the end it may wind up doing it unintentionally this is the United States did you ever see South
34:48
Park Team America yeah remember how accidentally
34:53
we blew up the Eiffel Tower we didn't mean it we were just there that's the United States so how do you deal with
35:00
these wars not well not permanently but with the only thing that war has which
35:06
is violence thank you joking aside in all
35:11
seriousness George that was an incredible presentation and please join me in thanking uh George for his
35:20
[Music] [Applause] [Music]
35:26
insights o [Music]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kwnPgscg0vU

Anonymous

George Friedman, Transcript about War and our so-called "IT" Inventors01.10.25

Information Epoch 1766529043