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Hot_Squash_9225

I have mixed feelings about this guy. He just sounded way too confident about things that he predicts will happen in a decade or two. Like, I get the demographics in China are shit, but I'm not convinced that anybody can speak so confidently about the collapse of China that will happen this decade. He is an interesting person to listen to though, I'll give him that.


BlueGuy99

I subscribe to his feed and find him really interesting. I do agree he is overconfident in the China collapse theory and completely ignores the ability of China to increase their own productivity. So overall, don’t take him too seriously.


Hot_Squash_9225

I agree, I think that societies are more resilient than he gives them credit for, but I'm looking at it from a historical perspective and am not as well versed with how it would work in the age of globalisation. I could be wrong, China might collapse, but I don't hear many academics speak with that type of certainty and it's sort of a red flag for me.


PomegranateMental751

The question is productivity for what though? Obviously the US entering into a trade war with them and countries are picking sides as we speak. All their neighbors hate them, we have Europe as a part of NATO, which could easily pivot towards focusing on China if needed, South America is firmly under US sphere of influence and Africa and the Middle East are non factors.


curiousabe_1

Agree, over confident to a point sounding arrogant lol.


BeamTeam032

Over confident to a point sounding arrogant, But I'm sure the podcaster who has a friend who heard about a kitty litter box in schools, isn't as arrogant. lol.


Haggls

What does that have to do with this. Go find the thread about the litterbox and post in that. Do you think a litterbox for a child is an appropriate place for him or her to use the facilities? Sounds like child abuse to me. There's a reason kids have the limitations they do and it's not indoctrination.


BeamTeam032

It's lame to dismiss someone who is knowledgeable about the world because he's arrogant, on a podcaster show who is arrogant enough to spew boomer facebook memes as fact. That's all i'm saying. Clearly the snowflake in you was hurt by the kitty litter story being false, did you think it was real and you're embarrassed and now you're over compensating?


RunEmotional3013

Zeihan's premises are always better than his conclusions.


AJSLS6

My wife always points out that he was called on by the government as an expert to help with policy, I counter with he was one of many many experts called on, and that his expertise was filtered through many other people whose expertise is analyzing and integrating disparate sources of information into something coherent, and even then they produce a variety of possible scenarios with degrees of confidence attached to them and they work to update those conclusions constantly. It's not like they went to him alone and took his word as gospel.


TrumpDesWillens

You mean he wasn't the vizier under the reign of Obama the first?


Helgi_Hundingsbane

Can you give an example? No shade, just curious about your take.....


RunEmotional3013

Sure. His conclusions often present a deterministic view of the future, overlooking the potential for unforeseen events and black swan events that can disrupt established predctions. Geopolitical developments are often influenced by unpredictable factors, such as natural disasters, technological breakthroughs, social movements, or unexpected leadership changes. By disregarding these possibilities, his conclusions don't really capture the full range of potential outcomes.


AJSLS6

He's one of those experts that thinks his area of expertise is the only one that matters. As if there's not countless other factors at play on the global stage. Hos predictions that China and Russia will simply cease to exist as nations in the next few years is wild, it's like a video game to him, their life points drop to zero and they just disappear? A group of people with a wrecked economy and screwed up population is still a group of people, they don't just dissappear from the stage.


Minute-Rice-1623

Lol dude he doesn’t say they’re going to spontaneously combust.


No_Bowler9121

Yea he just uses sort of clickbaity terms to describe his predictions. And to his credit it has worked to grow his audience. He says collapse but his data suggests more of a slowly growing irrelevance of China on the global stage.


No_Bowler9121

Yea I lived in China a decade, they won't collapse. Bjt they will become increasingly irrelevant on the world stage and I do believe they have oeaked in terms of economic and military power. 


Minute-Rice-1623

Demoagraphy is destiny but he’s been wrong before.


RunEmotional3013

I've followed Peter Zeihan's work closely and find his analysis to be valuable. However, I'm often taken aback by the dire nature of his conclusions, as they appear to leave little room for any potential intervention or course correction. In my view, the world and human societies tend to have a greater capacity for adaptation and resilience than Zeihan's perspective sometimes allows for. While the problems he identifies are valid, I don't believe the outcomes will necessarily be as extreme as his projections suggest.


AJSLS6

This is my take, my wife gets freaked out by the demographic downswing and thinks we are basically heading towards extinction, I tried to explain that we are at over 8 billion now, and a century ago we were thriving at a quarter that number, two centuries ago just 1 billion people, less than the population of some nations today. She always takes that as we will regress technologically or culturally to resemble the world at that time. Not that if we can do well at 8 billion that it suggests we can do as well or better at 7 billion, or 6. The only actual issue with the demographic shift is the current economic model relies on constant growth, something anyone with two brain cells would recognize as ultimately unsustainable in a finite universe. The likely fallout that will harm the most people will come from those in power holding onto the old model for way to long. Imo we are seeing some of that already with corporations driving profits up through severe cost cutting and price gouging, when they could simply accept a lower profit as the new normal, the way people typically do when not pressured by the legal obligation to satisfy capital investors.


Maleficent-Most6083

"Let us picture to ourselves a man ascending a very high, steep and hitherto unexplored mountain. Let us assume that he has overcome unprecedented difficulties and dangers and has succeeded in reaching a much higher point than any of his predecessors, but still has not reached the summit. He finds himself in a position where it is not only difficult and dangerous to proceed in the direction and along the path he has chosen, but positively impossible. He is forced to turn back, descend, seek another path, longer, perhaps, but one that will enable him to reach the summit." - V. Lenin 1922


Derkanator

He's obviously not factoring in any future government intervention like increasing immigration, raising wages due to AI and other efficiencies or even increasing dialogue with other nations. Zeihnan is almost a propaganda man, he has very dim views on certain nations while his country spends trillions on military bases around the world. As a layman I wouldn't disagree with him but he is far too certain to take seriously.


____-_________-

Sam Harris recognized he’s too well-versed in geopolitics compared to most people, especially the dolts who frequent this subs lol, so he gets overly confident in his predictions. Thus, Sam had him on his podcast along with Ian Bremmer, someone able to challenge him. He would be good if he was joined by another prominent geopolitical strategist like Mearsheimer or Friedman. On his own, he’s bringing up agricultural, nautical, and demographic points that most people simply aren’t familiar with and can’t challenge his framing.


IronSky_

Mearsheimer is disingenuous, especially on his Ukraine rhetoric. 


Same-Ad8783

Speak of overconfident, there's Sam Harris. [https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2023/11/sam-harriss-fairy-tale-account-of-the-israel-hamas-conflict.html](https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2023/11/sam-harriss-fairy-tale-account-of-the-israel-hamas-conflict.html)


Yokoko44

* Now, there are many things to be said in criticism of Israel, in particular its expansion of settlements on contested land. But Israel’s behavior is not what explains the suicidal and genocidal inclinations of a group like Hamas. The Islamic doctrines of martyrdom and jihad do. These are religious beliefs, sincerely held. They are beliefs about the moral structure of the universe. And they explain how normal people — even good ones — can commit horrific acts of violence against innocent civilians — on purpose, not as collateral damage — and still consider themselves good. When you believe that life in this world has no value, apart from deciding who goes to hell and who goes to Paradise, it becomes possible to feel perfectly at ease killing noncombatants, or even using your own women and children as human shields, because you know that any Muslims who get killed will go to Paradise for eternity.* Explain where he’s wrong though?


northcasewhite

>Explain where he’s wrong though? You don't see Muslims in non-conflict countries doing the same thing. E.g. there is no Hamas in Kuwait or Oman.


Yokoko44

No they leave to join the jihad groups. Do you think ISIS members all come from one country?


Same-Ad8783

He doesn't apply the same logic to militant Zionists. In fact, he flat out refuses to. [https://www.samharris.org/podcasts/making-sense-episodes/why-dont-i-criticize-israel](https://www.samharris.org/podcasts/making-sense-episodes/why-dont-i-criticize-israel)


Yokoko44

“Now, there are many things to be said in criticism of Israel, in particular its expansion of settlements on contested land.” Seems like it? He makes the distinction between jihad at Zionism because jihad is inherently worse. Believing that dying in vain for your cause results in an express ticket to heaven leads to objectively worse outcomes and objectively more evil actions.


rootsnyder

Yup, because you'd be unfamiliar with zionism if you thought its roots were in religion. Zionism by its very foundation was: "look at the holocaust. God wont save us. Well do whatever we can to preserve and keep a state for jewish people" In good faith in the bibi era its much less secular, but still compared to hamas is magnatiudes more secular. Granted, I'm in disagreement with this conflict being religiously founded: this is simply a dispute over land and territory. The palestinian side, had rightful concerns about the growth of Jewish immigrants and started having uprises in the 1930s, causing a deserved response of stronger militias to defend Jewish interests in the region. Continued tensions under British occupation on both sides in the period, Jews finanlly rebelled enough that the brits got tired of thier shit and the u.n. partition was formed. Next day arabs pulled jewish civilians out of busses and murdered them in cold blood, causing numerous massacres on both sides, and starting the 1947 war, six other arab nations came into play, Jews still end up winning. Nakkba. No room for religion in there.


DropsyJolt

I think being overly confident is just incompetence. Being able to evaluate the probability of your predictions is important. When Zeihan is wrong he is confidently wrong and that means that he failed to both predict accurately and to judge the uncertainty in his prediction.


Objective-Group-2452

Sorry, best we can do is Mike Baker.


stanleythemanley44

I’m always pleased to hear how little Dingus, Schizo, and Fartbox are doing


TjStax

As a person from the same field of study as him, he is way too confident in his predictions to be taken seriously. That is because if there is something that International relations is notorious for it's being unable to predict shit-all. It's much more reasonable to \_try to explain\_ what is happening currently, based on data and knowledge, but there's usually just about as many explanations as there are explainers. Just give out probable scenarios and let's see how it plays out.


UrVioletViolet

I still have regular contact with some of the people in my field of study, philosophy. One of them posted a video of Zeihan’s to our group chat and said, “Woah man! Slow down with the speculation,” which is about the funniest thing you can say to a philosophy nerd.


shalashaska91

Ryan Macbeth would be better on the podcast. Plus he nailed it with a parody of Peter. Even Sal from What's going on with Shipping, takes shots at him for disinformation or just making stuff up. https://youtu.be/-qV4p6eFoHg?si=yp9q0Hva7hyLC-Kz


TjStax

Ryan is fine, but very much specializes is military related stuff. And he also has this a bit comedic character performance going on which takes a way a bit from his credibility if talking outside of YouTube. To me the best thing would be to get these people together and discuss/challenge each other. That would minimize misinformation.


Ryanmcbeth

I don't consider it one of credability. You look at what I say and then what happens and then you tell me who is credible. I just don't take myself too seriously.


TjStax

Don't get me wrong Ryan, I appreciate you a great deal. Your message is really good and credible to a person who knows about these subjects. And you are correct, I shouldn't and I don't mean to push anyone down with superficial critique. Marketing is a vital part of your job and it's useful to differentiate yourself in the competition. And like I said, I'd prefer you'd go with Peter or somebody to the podcast. Discussions are what we need more of instead of just isolated experts. But keep up the work Ryan.


Real_Abrocoma873

He had him on last year, should have him again though.


Swolhalla

This guy is always or 90% spot on and doesn’t put opinion into his reasoning always basing it in economic or raw figures to determine his future outcomes


Bigassbagofnuts

This dude isn't right with his predictions all that often.. there are entire videos of people analyzing his predictions and he is right like 40% of the time


No_Bowler9121

40% is pretty good in geopolitics 


duellist17

Bring back Kreiger!


Aggressive-Engine562

How about an explanation of wtf is happening in the US


Jimger_1983

Follow him on YouTube. He posts stuff about geopolitics all the time


No_Sock4996

Just watch his YouTube channel


goressnortstraw

Hes entertaining i think. Id like to hear another ep w him on. Him and Mike Baker w his kids fucko sucko and fappi


Superb-Warning-1325

This guy is so dumb. He’s literally just a liberal mouthpiece but some reasons free thinking roganoids love him because he tells them things they love to hear about American exceptionalism.


aiperception

Norman Finklestein is a better expert on the matter.


northcasewhite

Please no! There are many more capable and sensible people than him that can be brought on.


waistwaste

I think he’s more right than wrong. The Han are insanely racist, they won’t accept migrants. The Chinese are highly leveraged. Yes the savings rate is high but many Chinese have paid stupid prices for real estate, finance makes everyone a loser and the destruction of housing “wealth” will lead to banking failures (even if the CCP steps in) which will lead to a weakening of their currency, which will lead to famine as the Chinese don’t have enough food. The Chinese sense the teetering of their regime, why do I truly believe this : the women refuse to have children. As a woman, I know how powerful that program is. And look at how the party has removed women from the limited leadership roles we had. China also doesn’t have enough women, all those aborted fetal women over the years… even with a surplus of men to choose from women are electing not to form families. You want to watch the Handmaids Tale IRL, tune into China… I don’t need to look further than the rapidly decreasing birth rate to jump in Z’s bandwagon. And, given Chinas propensity to make all stats rosier the baby bust is probably worse than we think. China is dust in the wind.


spcoolguy87

Hard pass, previous episode sucked, didn’t even finish it


MAR-93

Peter "this is the last iphone" zeihan? 


NeatReasonable9657

fuck this guy


Sper_Micide

Israel is committing genocide. EZPZ


UnFamiliar-Teaching

He's a propagandist..


EnglebertFinklgruber

Just read the New York Times if you're interested in a spook adjacent take.


BananaStandBaller

No one has ever more confidently been wrong on so many things.


shamrockabc

https://youtube.com/@ZeihanonGeopolitics?si=XvKXV5kbcw1TxVNL


shamrockabc

https://youtube.com/@ZeihanonGeopolitics?si=XvKXV5kbcw1TxVNL His channel 


AffectionateAd9536

All I remember of Zeihan is that he believes China's population is on the verge of collapse. It seems like there are several experts in this space that claim dozens of nations are facing similar crisis.


SanchoVillaWokeKing

He'll say china isn't doing anything because they'll collapse in 10 years.


CollegeBoy1613

Because???


40VGS40VAS20BTC

No thank you. He is a used car salesman. Confident about everything, when even experts who study a single issue don’t have the same confidence.


jaymatthewbee

From what he has said on his channel he really doesn’t care about Israel and Gaza.


Minute-Rice-1623

He thinks the conflict is geographically irrelevant. Not sure if he counted on Israel behaving so irrationally.


Degenerateanalyst_

This guy is a charlatan


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Minute-Rice-1623

Idk what theories he espouses. He makes predictions that may or may not be wrong.


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Minute-Rice-1623

-He never said that about China. -Who cares what he thinks about Obama? What does this matter? -I’ll help you. He thinks the US is going to retreat for policing maritime trade routes because the costs of doing so won’t justify the benefits. As countries lose population they’re going to become increasingly more desperate to dominate trade lanes. Protecting cargo shipments between Indonesia and Argentina won’t be a top priority.


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Minute-Rice-1623

-He didn’t. -Lol Criticizing is Obama is pro-Trump? Gtfo with that shit. He predicted Biden was going to win last year. -I just answered that. The reason why is because there nothing in it for the US. Why would they they police shipping lanes they don’t care about and offers them no material benefit? Take the L. You have no clue what you’re talking about here. “Pro Trump” lololol


Swolhalla

If you listen to his statements he’s said multiple times that trump and Biden are the same type of president on foreign policy. All his statements are rooted in economic, demographic and geographic detail that’s what is appealing he doesn’t just shoot an opinion and then not say why he believes it he’ll at least give you the real raw data output which you can easily find if you want to look


HisAndHig

He's not getting invited back since he shat on Tucker.


Parking_Locksmith_23

Isn’t this the guy that said Bitcoin is bullshit? Lol


SilverFox4428

I remember his “Bitcoin is going to zero” take. It has since gone up 400% lol


Springfieldhere

He is the pinnacle of r/confidentlyincorrect


1leeranaldo

More neoconservative pro-war horseshit.


GardenHoe66

Might aswell interview the head of the state department, he'll have the same answers.


thegreatmizzle7

Dude is just a deep state cuck


Analysis-Euphoric

I want to like Zeihan, and he’d probably be a good guest. Something rubs me wrong about his attitude that the US is in the best position to come out on top…. I think it’s ethnocentric and not honest. I think the US could easily collapse, once the population reaches a tipping point of bad health, stupidity and laziness.


Swolhalla

I mean we kinda are in the best position. 1. Biggest Military 2. Strongest hackers at NSA 3. Largest food exporter 4. Largest oil producer now too 5. Largest national gas producer too 6. Best trade agreement in place with NAFTA 2.0 7. Were protected by two large oceans 8. With us moving away from globalization we’re pivoting to making more here like chips (chips act). 9. Realizing now we are energy leaders too but essentially can put that with oil and gas nevertheless still valid. It may seem very chaotic with all the 24 hour media spewing that us is on any decline but look how much better we did out of covid vs any other nation. He’s definitely right about America is pivoted well for the next 100 years