Nassim Nicholas Taleb: "Localism and its Application to Lebanon"

there are two dangerous things to do one of them is introducing Nassim Taleb so I will tell you what the second one is is later Nasim refuses that I recite his his bio what he is most proud of is his uber rating it's 4.9 very nice but it also depends but I mean 4.9 is good because he takes a lot of it it doesn't depend on the actual number it depends on how many how many not how many trips no no beyond it becomes a lot of large numbers yes exactly it's a yes yeah we did that we had a whole week before the discussion of that No he attended my seminar on the law of large numbers he's also been he's also he's written several books one of them is called NASA tight velocity could see and the other one is now blast near risk Zico heck yeah these are these are some of the tress the the leftover translations Sona seems books which you all know about have this is called adverse selection yes oh gosh I brought that works the English one disappeared have been translated in Spanish into 41 languages one leg right more no the problem is worse left over as languages never seen any introduction 41 languages one language more than Gibran Khalil Gibran and he brought the he had a course here where I think most of the languages were represented because people came from all over the world from Europe from Africa from Bangladesh from Brazil from Peru and they all took their books and these are the two only languages that nobody came from to take during during the the work the workshop so we're specifically you never know know what's the second most dangerous thing to do the bravest and second most dangerous thing to do is to talk about Lebanon in times of revolution so mission so I think you're you're very brave and you're sticking your neck out so and and we also loot you for this and please join me in welcoming maybe we'll figure out what so gonna talk about we have about what we're starting late so we have about an hour of slides or maybe if you get bored we stopped and you know you guys can ask questions yes no I cannot this time I'm because I'm not mentally prepared for that is for fraud you see okay so so let me let next time or I can translate it I can I can redo it and do it it's localism you're obligated to do it in your own language also I can't concentrate if someone takes my picture so do it surreptitiously or don't do it Thanks so the year so the insert' o is what I've been working on that has a lot of lot of stuff 2,300 pages so far and at some point I decided to write something that is little dancers I mean circle and limited to 30 pages so I wrote something called Principia política and I did a Talmudic style we had the principal and then I have comments around it I don't show that I'll move here in Hebrew because this is for Lebanon and I don't want the people to be to be arrested okay so the lau people to be arrested so so this Talmudic style which is effectively not necessary Talmudic it was used by scholastic scholars where you have commentary around princess so I it's been sitting on online now for about six months nine months Principia política linked to the stock and for Bazaar region the reason my most influential work because Donald Trump for example lifted a paragraph I mean from it in his budget okay on how to put skin in the game in universities that's in Principia Iran the Russian government decided to start the university was an expiration date because I have one of my principle is that no institution should ever be started with an expiration date so it's just my motion for plus other stuff plus it as the term pedo frosty that was that's in it it's the thirty patients late not even sorry patient now it's 20 pages pedo frosty is circulating now as a description of using children to win an argument pictures of children so and so this is from Principia política I'm not going to talk about the really central like I'm going to talk about something that is more general more structural and that can be used for that could be used for further thing so the so let me let me start ok localism what is localism I know that you always invariably have young communists but I don't see many of them so communism is a way to maximize the best of materialism and communism in a way because localism continue to kibbutz for example or moshav they work better than kibbutz or can lead you to any form of anarchism so so the idea of localism is that and we're going to see that the overriding principles later is that nobody should control your life but yourself or if the friends you have an agreement with if you want to control your life whether or not you make it reciprocal let's a principle we're going to see something interesting how is that I have a heuristic that tells me sort of sort of the way the the with a picture I gave it away here whistlin that have a very simple heuristic that tells me if a country is well functioning and that heuristic is how boring the front page of the newspaper is so a Geneva okay they're interested by I don't know by by the most boring stuff traffic new traffic lights in Geneva then and then you have people fighting over that so this is if you take the front patient of the Tribune de genève the most read articles absolutely nothing to do anything and the most boring thing unless you have a vested interest in Geneva my comparison when I look at the political discourse in Lebanon you arrangers start seeing putting meeting with the sky and that guy geo political discourse all these words the region and as they define the regions it's fun eleven lots part of a region and decide that the region okay and and of course it's not by bottom-up top-down and for example to give you an idea there's a fellow here from blood who's writing that Noah did a good job invoking that he's defending the arabism of Lebanon and he is pursuing a holy muqaddas holy thing against Israel alright so that's so we define yourself by geopolitical aims when people in Geneva are defining themselves or are interested in I don't know and and and how many vacuum cleaners are they going to use you know for the sidewalk all right or for the next official that that's what I deal with so this is how I figure out of something well functioning and in fact to understand localism good day was explaining that on a day that the he was surprised on a day when the Rome Holy Roman Empire was ended you know after long years that people in his in who were more more interested in the fight between the a coachman and innkeeper okay that was the remains their main focus not on the end of the Roman the holy Empire but when you read history books and that's something I addressed in the Black Swan when you read history books you don't get a representation of what people were interested in at a time or what happened at a time it's exactly like reading the history of New York written by a nurse at New York Presbyterian ok in the emergency room so they have the feeling that New York of nothing but car accidents and heart attacks and stuff like that that won't be the idea so when you read history journalists are not interested in conveying to you what happened at any point in time as a statistical description they're interested in what can grab your attention ok and not so you have a bad representation of the world and even locals start having a distorted idea of house as they're operating so the general principle the first general principle is nobody should coerce you into a political and economic system against your will so if you want if you're communist there's absolutely no reason why you should not live in a communist community or within limits ok and if you want to live in a tax-free state there's no reason why anybody should stop you provided you can find enough people to agree with you on that ok or it convinced the local people to change system that's the the general system it has constraints and also the second point and so that's quite relevant but top-down States nobody should curse you with the cultural religious or historical identity against your will ok so in other words if you decide that the Lebanese are from Mars unless your cultural identity i'm you know from mars and decide you self-identify as someone from mars it's your right no state should ever but it's gonna be you're gonna have hard time of course convincing others that you from Mars but but it's your right ok you don't have to take anybody's cultural definition from the top so the problem of Christianity and here I have it and of course the original language which is reeked of the levant Luke was 631 which tells you do to others okay what you'd like them to do to you and that messed up Christianity and has best up the modern world with interventionism that's a golden rule people think it's an advancement in fact no it brings busybodies because I prefer the via negativa don't do to me what I don't like to do to you rather than come in and try for my life because that's what we like it for example at the force people because I love squid ink to force people to eat squid ink every Monday and Thursday and of course on Sunday for lunch because that's what I like I'd like to others like him to do to me okay that's not how things should operate and and the problem that we have had for a long time is that the execution of interventionist people who think that they want to do what's best for you right typically their laws the state because the state knows better and it's a both state loving and they have these NGOs how to improve Africa and stuff like that so they think that their representative because they've taken a class on justice that they want to impose it on others okay so the the other longer cuz there's a principle of course a no rent-seeking rest doesn't mean collecting rent you know in Harlem for your you know the thing where you have one-third of the building in Harlem and collecting rent on no that's not right seeking rent seeking is someone who uses a position of privilege can you hear me from the back or it's long enough yeah okay uses privilege to get an income that does not contribute to economic activity in other words that it creates the zero-sum gained so to me when I see the reason I don't accept the wars it's partly my ego because you know accepting an award means you're limiting yourself to that award but I don't hide it the other one is much more serious is that awards a zero-sum game any sin 0 some is unethical for me okay you don't accepting an award you've taken sometimes to someone else but by making a million dollars doing something oK you've added to the system so you have to kind people you don't have the rich and non rich you have the those who earn money and the bad people are the Predators cronies rent seekers okay someone who wants a commission because he's in government know someone patronage someone has a friend that's a rat seeker a former president who lobbies for you know since now that is not seeking okay I won't go at former US presidents but you know what I'm talking about okay so rent-seeking is the enemy and someone shall not need to put you and rent-seeking and we're gonna see how it lists needs to localism because it's very hard to have this large centralized state without rent seekers okay they say they grow like mushrooms in a centralized state finally yet Roshan its primum non nocere or no carry in latin means you should not no policy should have side effects okay you're responsible side effects first rule is the Hippocratic rule first do no harm so that's it I mean that's a strong principle visibly very strong principles first do no harm because it would apply to everything and in the insert though you can see that it appeared then the Black Swan and the state every other page there's a mention of something related to yet regenexx the harm from the policy like for example Thomas Friedman think it was good to invade Iraq they've been harm from the invasion of Iraq he's not paying the price and we have known about yet organic sense that's a picture and the lure for some weird reason Hammurabi's rule okay Hammurabi's law code is in the loop I can't figure out why and when I went there I mean no Frenchman I was in the building giving a lecture about Hammurabi's law and you know to someone who's an empty suit what I call empty suit Bernanke Bernanke was there I mean was lecture I said this guy is an empty school he's not responsible for the harmony he can do invoke Hammurabi's rule which was in the building and nobody had heard of Hammurabi in France I mean the French know stuff that you'd never know all right and and but they didn't know about Hammurabi and it was in a building it was like a hundred meters away so I want to take a picture and of course Hammurabi's law thirty-eight hundred years ago says that if you know the building like this one and the building falls and kills the owner of the house the architect shall be put to death it's not like they don't like architects but you should not create risk and walk away from it plus other you know things and effectively the i4i comes from a Barabbas law so you cannot have control you can't have a good control yet regenexx and they're effective and figure out who has because you know when you when you recharge people on intentions in the modern world not on what what are effectively on on the results so people's good intentions you know they want to do good okay so and and you know the record country there's a lot of damage and continue continue do it normally under Hammurabi's law should be maybe Thomas fear we can't put two deaths a person would give two hundred thousand people killed for them to that's two hundred thousand times I have arrived his role so this is and then the other thing is in my last book so the instructor is in character is modified books the last one was skin in the game and the last one was developed and obsessive disorder was universalism Universal in other words that between you and the state according to the modernity there's nothing there are individuals or states you don't have intermediate layers you don't have intermediate things okay so and of course it's not consistent and we're gonna see how but you want to eliminate basically everything between you and a state between you and they want to eliminate for examination ilysm is a form of content that's false I call false and that citizens okay and then was with empty things like liberty which they don't have and other things like that so the birthday so that's your content versal ISM that came from the Enlightenment and it's very dangerous because they're different layers it's a different relationships all that is are about and anta understands okay so and another principle is Greek versus Roman you know I created this artificial distinction just to piss off some people but but it's not really Greek versus Roman it's rather it's a metaphor based on something I picked up in polybius but the main difference is not between is between people who believe that things that work in theory are okay and others who are Roman the Romans the knowledge series and actually then like the Greek philosophers so whether you like ideas or you like practice or like you as Yogi Berra said in series there's no difference between theory and practice and practice there is so you never judge anything by the intentions that's my main this thing I had to put it on paper now so this is and I'm putting the principles now you know so and I'm glad filming us and people in Lebanon will be able to see this hi so that's so putting the principles now don't explain what I was doing what am I doing here my specialty is complexity complex system and the statistical properties of complex system so you have to understand complex system now what are complex system in 1996 I think when I started getting involved with this there was a paper saying that it found 200 181 different definitions of complex systems so visibly the it's complex right but in fact complex systems are very much simpler and and and then the this can explain what is a complex system and how it works see this flock of birds okay so complex systems they've focus on interactions between agents so we have agents as they interact together you and and things are the so because they interact together a group of people would behave differently from some of individuals okay like a bee colony doesn't behave like a lot of bees behaves as a unit and this in fact is very very easy to figure out and we're gonna see how you can apply it to things that people don't think about if I know every single person psychology the psychological makeup here assuming there's possible I still will not be able to predict the crowd okay because there is a scale transformation something new happens when it came together and the crowd is different from individuals so that's pretty much the idea of an ensemble different from parts how interaction we're gonna see what I mean by interaction is how it gives something else and that the other thing is it's built bottom-up complex systems are not built top-down and the way I explained it in anti fragile is it's the main difference between a cat if you have a cat you have a cat okay and then you have a washing machine no the two different items okay so on the main difference between a cat and a washing machine and the washing machine is engineered that has some properties it doesn't communicate the environment towards your cat is a member of a larger environment and usually communicate with the environment if you're a complex system via stressors like you're operating via stressors my buddy communicate from the environment if I lift weight and get stronger your washing machine doesn't get stronger if you if you you know put weights on it okay and my bones gets better get better when I put weight on them and so they and they need to be volatile and communicate to the environment without stress or they die that's pretty much how complex systems operate and they produce a lot of noise locally that washes out by scale transformation or a look at the assault like Switzerland has a huge political problems locally and they wane when when you look at them in the aggregate ok the exact opposite of engineered stuff were usually the exact opposite so what we see what we mean by scale transformation and self-organization is a complex system nature is a complex system last last time I checked there was no blueprint it was not definitely made by someone God or whoever you decided made it but it was not there's no blueprint okay when you observe things you know there's no instruction no government no nature of function and did function without us and actually does a lot better without us so this flock of birds do they have a leader where's the leader how do they behave is there a guide blueprint okay so and I'll try to Sara I'm the leader of the revolution so people were very surprised to not get the point that we're used to things centralized networks like your washing machine okay not decentralized Network like your body your body doesn't have a decision-making center it has a lot of things okay and this is a distributed network which is what we're having now with a revolution or what you want to call it let's discuss the Lebanese process we then reach a level of revolution yet and the decentralized network this is vastly more robust is what you have in the internet you can have connection between nodes this is simplified and typically networks start like this and they evolve to go there okay so now the revolution is still here and you see some notes for me it was a decentralized network and that's very interesting part of those things changed all the time in the rewiring and rewriting of a decentralized network whereas the centralized network doesn't rewire what happens to it collapses okay it does collapse which is what we're witnessing now typically it just collapses right no so it'd be very hard for Italy to collapse okay it's very easy for Saudi Arabia to collapse right on the left and so they will collapse eventually and that's what it is Syria collapsed same reason it was in the Black Swan actually I was that it was published 2007 so you can expect more of that to have to happen just picks on a network like this on the left and you can guarantee its collapse network by this I mean decision-making Center okay decision-making a decision-making center not necessarily a political party you can have a lot of political parties but you have one decision make one administration and one decision making sucks so the one thing you probably don't know that there's no blueprint in your DNA people have the solution that the DNA is a blueprint like like you have a blueprint to do anything there's no blueprint with your DNA how does it work local all local networks who work together locally and my miracle we get the scale transformation which is you there's no blueprint you think that the na is the one could generalize code to produce it know things by reacting to one another produce something with a general local guideline from the DNA so next what do you guys think my main profession or or self declared profession is okay know whether there's on the web what do people follow me on Twitter that's sorry my house sorry voila there we go who said that okay BS detector so BS detector is we're going to figure out whether it be s is all right the s defection is what's a call it furball ISM verbal ISM is use of terms that are very central to this course but guess what they change and meaning if you change the environment a little bit okay so that's okay so that's what I do for a living and you try to grab things that are it's not rigorous enough to try to put some regret and you figure out some defect in someone's reasoning as we saw with the fellowship blood because of stuff a socialist but sometimes is a chieftain and he's telling people now look how good we are because we are good that were following hoho people are blaming him from not having electricity and that he's saying we're very good with revolutionary fights which is not fighting right but so that's a BS detection scheme and then other of course BS producers around so that's my hobby okay now let's take the first BS someone develop progressive versus conservative okay that's verbal ISM it's ill-defined what does progressive mean everybody wants progress okay it's just a rate of progress for some people may diverge from that of others so that's what what people don't get so you can have some people want nobody wants slavery so the service that I'm gonna make some people may want slavery because they're not conservatives I'm not those who want to go back to what we were two thousand years ago five thousand years ago hundred years ago or even yesterday if you know minds just to rate the progress so this is and at Berkeley and conservative it's someone who is progressive but very cautious as it's slightly cautious some people want to be more cautious than others so this is what when you say globalism progressive conservative it's meaningless to me okay so we have I have to ground it into something so and then these words sectarian progressive socialists expectation and racist Arab nation social justice all these are meaningless okay you have to put them in context see and and and once you you know you try to figure out there's a verbal ISM or they correspond to something real okay and typically the verbal isms typically verbal typical verbal istic Westerner comes in called us a region they went to Tufts or war or they read post-colonial studies and they've read from Beirut to Jerusalem and he has absolute no clue what goes on he actually wrote a book on complexity Thomas Friedman without knowing what complexity means okay so you recommend the book to students if they want to figure out whispers the misperception misunderstanding of complexity he wrote a book on complexity and all he talks about the top-down relationship between heads of state I don't gotta see that's not how it works so left-wing for example let me give you a verbal ISM Christian's ever knees are deemed to be right-wing why hey they want to use Phoenician languages and they want to use and they want the isolationists they want to be but so Palestinians or attacking Christian Lebanese for bit you want it to be isolationists okay want it to be you know the separate from the others use their own name but whatever it is not use the Arabic language to write but local language so the right wing on the other hand and the same time they were supporting the Irish revolutionaries okay so we're doing exactly the same thing the Irish want to use their own language nobody speaks it but it's still you know the field goes about you know claiming that it exists and actually some people speak it but really not okay and and of course they're separatists the same idea so these are left-wing others are right-wing so maybe because left-wing is sexy and those would be like our left wing and then you can classify someone either a right wing okay so I'm left wing so there that is simply a verbal ISM because it's inconsistent the same person is using the same thing inconsistent across people around okay so both are localist by the way and then you take I mean this that was Germany incidentally the rise what people don't get is the rise of Germany and France throughout the ages didn't come from the state the state and France only managed to centralize the country when she Scott was a power and you know what happened since okay see what at the same time I was going to see France was employs both imposing a central state on others Syria when they occupied Switzerland okay so the success of France came in spite of the state because the state was always a weak and represented five percent of GDP maximum its height conveyor 78 percent of GDP okay so this is what people don't get about countries the strong state that the state came later like China China grew the most civilized most developed country of its day and sure enough the state destroyed it same with the ancient Egyptians so things develop and then the state comes to kill it so so thick and they take credit for centralized state after the fact so this would be clear I want to talk about the scale what's the difference between an elephant and a mouse the most mammals I know one is bigger what's the main difference between them sorry sighs what else okay fragility if you I mean if you this mouse if it's from out of the window I don't know I mean in Lebanon maybe nobody would complain but here people make it may file something there so animal that's right in New York so we can't do the experiment in New York but definitely you can do it in Lebanon so try it in Lebanon so Mouse out of the window and it would laugh at you whereas an elephant same height would would be done that's it okay no more I mean it would be the brick breaks a leg is gone which explain why you have many many many more mice than elephants okay and if you'll come back next life for those of you who can have tricks to do it you want to come back for next life come back as a mouse not the elephant okay so the so there are benefits to being an elephant namely you live longer but you don't have a lot of elephants okay so I mean we're we're the the large animals don't make it okay because a fragile they seem to be more efficient which is like what north cooperation don't survive they seem to be more efficient but and our papers they are more efficient an elephant vastly more efficient than a mouse the cells are more efficient as a plumbing is more efficient they live longer but the species that will survive so and now here we come principal Noah one never describe compare or assess the effectiveness of political system without reference to scale okay number one you cannot omit Sui you can be libertarian at the federal level in America a Republican at the state level you can be Democrat at a county level and communist at the town level okay and effectively many people are you see so you have to refer to scale what's the main what's the difference between the regime between China and Singapore I hope they none okay it's a matter of scale okay so you say Singapore it's six million all right so scale matters now this I mean that so let me give you a piece I've got talked a lot about Swiss Binoche whistle on but the Swiss never will never presented to another system maybe because they're Swiss first of all it's boring country as mentioned but it's the best functioning one that they had on civil war religious civil war is 1747 in nineteen eighteen forty seven right before us you know to guide us but we didn't follow that model and we're gonna see how there's still time to follow the model but the Swiss have the highest level of social services in Northern Europe better than their so-called scandinavian model okay at the same time they have the lowest tax rate in Western Europe okay so nobody had thinks of trying to emulate the Swiss we wasn't and Bernie Sanders talks about Scandinavia and they give up on us I mean there's a 70 percent tax rate went back down now it's lower the taxes are lower than those of residents in New York okay but the they never want to emulate suppose some people talk about balkanization not about how that is a okay all right so but this is a very well functioning country we don't see why because of founding localist okay and politics is not skates scale-free by accident that they figure it out they don't want to share because a selfish maybe but one thing I don't understand is it last time Assad had a meeting somewhere what did the Heather meeting did they go to Somalia no where did they have their meeting so so on where did Lenin what was Lenin located before the Civil War sorry before they took over before the October Revolution where was he located suppose someone so it didn't hit him that that system the reason he was a Swizzle where there was no accidents non-random and of course what was Nabokov located when when you know Switzerland okay so the both sides the Reds and the whites and never hit you that hey if your this place it's not random I know that people are boring but you're there so maybe there's something about the political system that causes you to be there okay so so localism is not a political system it's a structure and and okay we'll see how now something more there are about now I was talking about presented complexity I gave the introduction presidential complexity went to scale now there are few things about scale that are quite bizarre that we can explain that are people don't get that you remember when I said that if I know the psychological makeup each one of you it doesn't okay now the morality of a group has pretty much very little to do with the morality of the individuals composing the group this Adam Smith's he picked it up from Mandeville man it will actually said is very very society composed of vicious people okay will be virtuous and I just picked it up by saying it's not the benevolence of the whatever so there's scale transformation and that is a system the when they call capitalistic system which factors are catalystic you mean a free-market system the free enterprise system that system manages to use your greed in order to reduce poverty right now I mean so that's a system that has good scale transformation under good laws and rules you know between the members okay so but there's something even more interesting here when we talk about racism and stuff like that we can easily show how a neighborhood that is composed of people who are not racist will end up being segregated like let's take the one pointer let's take this neighborhood neighborhood here it looks like a segregated neighborhood you have three colors the blue the orange and the white the white means nobody lives there okay it looks like a gated no if you start with a random allocation of people and if people want to live in a neighborhood under the condition they don't mind be in the minority they love others but that no more than 40% of the people are of their ethnic group no more than 40% I mean no that's fine satisfied it's 40% but no no less than 40% okay I'm comfortable to have 40% of the people they're not from immune all right but I want 40% people to be from what happens because of the interactions you end up having a racist neighborhood without a single member being racist okay they say so this is a little strange about the development of the aggregate behaves very differently so we have to understand the structure not the individuals not the intention of the individuals another morality so here you end up having racist neighborhoods well written that racially completely separate neighborhoods was not a single person being gracious okay so every step you move and then when you move someone else will move because if a fine move I have the immune and non-immune these two categories in life I move and the non-immune also want to have 40% non-immune okay so you make a move or her move and that's how you end up with a chain reaction and overtime neighborhoods end up being being you know being racist so this is quite interesting but there's something actually even worse okay when I look at what I called homo Philly home affiliate means like people like you I like people who are like me and scale when people say racist I don't understand what it means because I'm gonna explain to you is it racist for the French government to give the French passport to a child born of French parents in the Mongolian hospital while denying the French passport to children in the same hospital born of Mongolian parents is it racist no sorry I mean the French okay so you think that it's not racist for a government to grant as children of a citizens the passport and denied to others although they were born in Mongolia okay so there are inconsistencies the way we define racism without without the scale you see is it the one people tell you that earlier racist what does racist mean in their definition is you like you give privilege to people of your genetic background okay now when you go to school you take your children to school in the morning and an evening it's the racist to pick up your children not some other child may be less privileged because the only link you have to other children is genes it's not unfair to the private other children okay likewise when you have your Thanksgiving at the table you should not invite your family members because what links you to them is genetics you should invite random people okay and that will this abstract Universal if you take the thing to a logical conclusion that's what at least you - but what is the solution scale and let me explain the herbs figure it out is very simple you show there's a hospitality particularly in the desert is everyone knows about it it's very extremely ok they're extremely generous if a someone and you know drops by and they are going to treat you like King the prize themselves if they don't have enough food the food to feed for you now one person shows up treated like a king two people same thing three people and then five parsley massacres oh no so that lets a clinician that's what okay so that's a historical tradition five so they are they love one okay and five and above they they they kill you all right so this is where it so you could be perfectly racist towards groups but not towards individuals and that makes it okay that's the that does not it cannot be accommodated by copying universalism according to computer inconsistent okay you had scaled with that scale nothing works so it's okay to pick up your child from school because it's not you're not eating was a group but he eating was one individual okay so this is the the idea so homo Fillion scale if you like people so the groups and is official very often in here people explain and I think that Universalist are typically University they love groups when they hit individuals because for example a lot of these snotty Oxford left-wing people I'm sure they they said have never invited you know after no bar either the Pakistani uber driver you know for tea okay if they don't do it okay but yet they talk and the abstract they love that he's and the higher the laws of the group that were abstract the relationship is you see so and and that was explained to me I discovered it when we talk to Israeli Palestinian they can get along when two Israelis shows up in a West Bank village you know there's the hospitality they they get along but when what you want it when troops arrive is a complete different story don't want a bus of people from Brooklyn shows up but they're not excited so there's maybe the number five this five is a limit order gotta be little so this is where that's something not picked up by the systems another thing about localism that what we didn't know about animals is that in fact there's a lot more peace in natural environment than we think again for the same reason that those who talk about predators stuff like that attract your attention more than those who talk about peace just like just my story of New York hospital there is someone who is old fresh Batarian someone at new york-presbyterian writing or biography you know or daily life you know would give you a different account from someone in you know and say oh I don't like fishing in Central Park okay get different story it's the same thing we didn't know that wolf they're very smart they know how to have neighborhoods these are wolves in Yellowstone last summer and the experiment shocked people how this is how they they move this is one pack one look at they don't overlap they know how to manage the territories and they hardly overlap they try to figure out where there's enough space for for them so they have a good very nice political saying they don't even have a central government for that okay also I'm sure someone may try to claim credit so so another thing now is minority rule and we're gonna put things together when I discuss when I linked it to Lebanon what's the minority rule and how before the North Carroll is anybody here allergic to peanuts okay so if we had one person allergic to peanuts here and I'm assuming would had there's no party because it's last minute but there is a party there's no party and you had a party you had to eliminate the peanuts and actually if you get on American Airline if one single person lerczak to peanuts no other passenger can have peanuts okay that's a scale transformation and let me explain it one day it says chapter I think that people have read the most and screaming game post one posted one day I was at a party and a bunch of people from Jerusalem showed up and I said oh you know these people are kosher so do they have kosher food Farrah look at me say of course it's kosher what yeah that lemon is kosher what do you mean lemon is kosher how many people our culture in America 0.3% a hundred percent of lemonade's are kosher except that and here we have that that's a dis you here is an indication of this kosher conformation let's say because they don't even bother looking why that's minority rule because it's not a producer of lemonade okay it's much cheaper for me to make everything kosher higher rabbi once in a while then have you know merchandize like you know have a kosher truck non kosher truck kosher this non kosher of this get sued if I mix the merchandise and then you go to supermarket then you have a kosher aisle it's very simple make or sell lemonade's make a more kosher okay so someone from Mars okay observing the food habits doing a marketing survey by looking at how people drink lemonade would think that 100 percent of people are most ghosts in America are kosher based on their drinking that's the minority rule okay the scale transformation is the neighborhood now is kosher and drink when 0.3% of the members are not course that's the intolerant minority okay so and that's an asymmetry and that asymmetry is very dangerous because it may cause some neighborhoods do you know how do you protect yourself from it by breaking up the area and independent neighborhoods well you don't have that that's similar but for political reasons you have that the cemetery can be severe I mean in one way and give it gave us ethics because all you need is one person to be ethical for everybody else to behave ethically but can lead to religious fundamentalism you have one Salafi with a hundred people the harlot will be here salaphi all right I've seen it okay so this is why the minority rules are very dangerous particularly when you have socials that we have minority rules and then now we have the opposite of minority rule majority rules okay well let's say that you have country like Canada okay that's country like Canada and a friend of mine in Quebec said it's simple whenever people claim to be bilingual and already been used both languages people speak English and whenever people say French only guess what they speak both languages okay so it means that if you merge Canada as if Canada were a single country the québécois would now be speaking with all be speaking English you'd lose that diversity if you had to break it up in smaller countries and force and use of French language exclusively in these places so this is why Louisiana would have been french-speaking if it were smaller and things were done better you see so that's a problem with majority rule and that's what dr. diehl said that the American Constitution was the most adapted to allow for to protect people from the majority rule if they didn't think of the minority rule which is different and minority rule really says that the most empowering in food and beliefs or anything is gonna run the place okay so all you need is small percentage of tolerant people to run the place on the other hand the majority rule tell you that just like the so I remember one day I had a I'm usually I tried to be you know and usually I try to be nice to normal people and I try to be an with politicians so I ran into one day there was a conference that holds everything every single big fart was there and there was a fellow called amre Moussa okay and I was talking to all about Egypt you know and and I actually give a lecture spoke long inaugural and majority rule and explained Egypt look at Iraq the ezg so the head of the own state that still be existing and he said your sectarian okay me using assert areum's a nice verbal ISM so one up and explain how the fellow isn't incoherent because his sectarianism means does not submit to a certain majority rule that block to a certain religious group and the expense of other minorities all right he was a so upset but that's fun okay I was a little agitated not the website but the so the idea of majority rule is why we have America we have a federation it works it worked better if it were closer to Switzerland also at a time America was small now an interesting thing about France of course I want to show you that France tried to mess with up with Switzerland say they invaded it for a while and the first thing they did is eliminate the control system supposedly this is built at twenty some cotton some of them have twenty sometimes of people all right and it's bottom-up and that concept of localism the Swiss localism sort of like the one we had here it's called subsidiarity it means nothing is ever done higher up if it can be done locally if it cannot be done locally say a train system then you go up the army you go up but if you can do it locally you don't locally decision gotta be made locally so in other words she or he what drinks your water okay should be managing your life okay and nobody else that's a concept of Panama so now that we're talking about systems and majority rule and minority rule and how to protect them how scales works let me tell you the failure also tension people there's that illusion that you can transform things by putting people together and make them sing Kumbaya you know you can sing Kumbaya by fireplace we all love one another and let's all be one country it doesn't work every time you do it a large majority didn't make the minority okay this which is why Syria makes no sense to me okay you should have separate states in Syria because if you know they made it a normal country then is that the ella whites would be you know what completely swamped by the majority and and the christians as well so it turned like they'd be like the the Shiites in Saudi Arabia okay they don't have they have that's a majority rule that's what it does to you whereas if Shiites a separate state or separate jurisdiction then they would be better off so that's the kumbaya problem you're never gonna get kumbaya because of asymmetries in the population it's not gonna work so the idea that figured out that I don't know if you've had a roommate okay and you know I've had I think the only tile is very close to assassination or a communication when the school will have roommate and okay so but people get along a lot better as neighbors on the same floor than as roommates No okay why should it work for States well guess what it does work for states so our friend Ian here is a is a interesting fellow but he's obsessed now with Trump so he's have to wait for him to recover okay so the he studied Yugoslavia the obvious places Yugoslavia and sewers away I said what's the difference to countries and if he comes out if people had political boundaries there okay let's think of Switzerland Switzerland is worse than us la vía Yugoslavia had at least one language I mean several Croatian is practically within like is the difference between Serbian and Croatian is smaller than between immune and the next Maronite village up the mountain okay the difference okay but yes guess what I mean messes are small differences they made the language big Switzerland has four languages and two religions okay and they solve the problem after the civil war that they had before it became fashionable to have religious civil wars and the Mediterranean okay so that's it good fences make good neighbors so he figured out that where were the political boundaries or physical boundaries coincided with religious boundaries or ethnic or linguistic boundaries you had peace and those people got along very well if that was the boundaries okay so incidentally one person criticized my heart for localism about Lebanon by saying yeah there's a lot of corruption in Russia palaces everybody knows it says a hope that's the whole point guess what is that corruption is much more visible in municipalities and that's why you know about it okay because you should see it so the so this is sort of like the idea okay first and then now we're gonna go next to Lebanon I'm gonna give you my little local sculptural spender okay outside the politics so my idea anyway is in Lebanon how do you create a confederation in Lebanon very simple Lebanon the thing is why didn't think of it before because every single person in Lebanon wants to be president and the only way I've seen a Maronite also be president every single Shiite wants to be whatever so everybody wants to be good so so it is like like there's a so every everyone and of course the Greek or side we have nothing so we have we're forced to work you know for having a real job but everyone else they want to be president of this I want to be Prime Minister every Sunni wants to be Prime Minister so how do you solve the problem well you give many many of them the transferee Prime Minister just take the existing kadhai you don't do it along religious lines okay you don't always like you let people figure out what they want you just create we already have some kind of differences so you do it you take these areas however you define a kadhai unless people decide to split and half or merge or whatever they want okay let's call them headcount and that's it now you have a confederation with minority rule and majority rules okay like the United States like Swiss alone and and then you let people use you the state had decided some time to put Lebanon so when I was a kid Lebanon was in the Mediterranean okay and then suddenly moved to to to the Lebanon suddenly moved to the Middle East which is fine so it's fine you self-defined you think your geography means that Dubai's three hours how far is the wife and babes three and a half hours away okay so if you think Dubai is closer to Beirut and Cyprus was that 18 minutes flight that's fine this year right to you close to the bye that's your neighbor that's your region all right but don't impose your region on me I self define us someone who's close the thing is Anatolia that's how I define myself okay that's it so you you you you and that's pretty much the history of Lebanon to go back to these idiots will come from American universities and they call it the region and then they want and then they learn Arabic and in the textbook thinking they're going to speak it locally it doesn't work okay so and people don't realize effectively and he this is a genetic map but there's lots of your genetics actually we're gonna see says no that's not how it works more to do with was food no where is my no sorry this is yeah this is a map okay this is a map of genetics of Lebanon okay the blue okay the dominant so who are we closest to look at it the Palestinians and and their cousins can discuss those Cyprus ok Anatolia Azerbaijan Georgia Georgia is actually split between you know a bunch of saying Armenia I mean are closer to us and northern Iranians especially okay northern Iranians okay Azerbaijan northern Iranians and the Greeks and of course southern Italians should be blue here but they they took the color for country okay there's political rather than Geographic so if you're self defined among these people okay and and then I prefer to forget about genetics go by this those who eat like you are the people you should identify with that's how identify someone I wants to identify with those who eat with their hands rice bad rice so that's fine that's it sir each each person should be free to identify culture is the way she or he wants to do so okay and I was pretty ticked off when when again the Phoenicians created the Mediterranean they created Western civilization that transmitted Babylonian and and they transmitted Babylonian and an Egyptian technology a civilization to the west okay the Phoenicians our Mediterranean okay okay with that the Phoenicians the world would be different Europe would be different or what we call Europe actually is very interesting invention because it was Europe until when the Ottomans were here was Europe was was not Orthodox okay and then was Protestant or Catholic that was called Europe and then suddenly when the heavy you now Europe became so Europe doesn't have real Mallory it's a self to define category the much more robust is Mediterranean or where you see commonality in food or the Red Sea the same people here or North Atlantic same food or the Gulf with whether you're on the Indian or or Iranian side the same food so-so but the interesting thing is I went to the met and you have all these universities I call it a monoculture the talking about Lebanon Road Middle East and stuff like that and I look at it Lebanon is Mediterranean Transco Near East what the hell do we have to do with Middle East okay I mean what is just Middle East it's a definition colonial definition by people east of somewhere so they bundled everything in the same category it's like non elephant animals you put look together and then non elephant animals from there on are gonna be in at least that was that was that's that's the idea you're using other people to define yourself in relation to the West like someone in London your east of them and you're defining yourself by the east of someone in London it's actually worse even with the term chamois Shamy because then you're defining yourself to the north of someone else you don't define yourself according to someone else's definition alright so and live off even this term the way they used to call ourselves canal okay not even finish and Quran or the Lebanese or that Levantine Konami Konami or from there anyway so to continue with Lebanon now pretty much done I don't know if I'm around time okay to continue is Lebanon this is okay but by the way this you find it Anatolian it's not green it's Anatolian and if you see it in Greece what's the reason sorry no so sorry the Optima is also our Anatolians is because what people don't quite understand is that we come from anatolia via from Caucasus Anatolia alright and brought a lot of stuff with us including wine from Georgia ok we've brought a lot of stuff and then we came Mediterranean of course that's the Phoenicians that's a current Lebanese population and that's from Salewa discovered of course he was his big Wireless Venetian energy and Greece genetically very close what stopped because we they mixed what's the reason it becomes a come from same place they say we came from the same place ok different route these guys went this way and we went south and Cypriots are half way between us so that's our that's our origin you see and what happened that people have this illusion there have been a lot of mixing in Lebanon and then people population and I'm doing genetics it all started with a war paper I was studying war and discovered that the incidence of past Wars was way overblown same story of my New York hospital nurse writing her daily memoirs right so you think that the past was violent so when you look at the troops went to Spain you know that the Arab troops that went to Spain the only left jeans and guess where Tunisia there's no Arab jeans in Morocco an openness of jeans in Morocco so wonder how you need a lot of troops ok at a time is it was not rich enough to have a lot of troops so there's a lot of peasants and a few soldiers and and these sources then transmit lot of genes and very few massacres much less than people claimed so the population of Lebanon has been very stable over the past four thousand years three thousand years I would say we have Bronze Age we have rosacea DNA not too different from local population and the Greek DNA not too different from local population especially in the agent and in the Peloponnese and and both of them very close to Anatolians okay so we haven't had a lot of people invading and incidentally Turkey all right they think that they came from Turkey from whatever from from Mongolia from that part what are the Turks the locals okay ninety percent well here they're Armenian here they're Kurdish and here the Greek the Turks and they don't know it you do that DNA relay but don't they look like us so okay so why is it we don't look we didn't like we come from China so visibly it's it's the cultural history wants them to believe one thing but only the language traveled because there's identity language the language is a minority rule because we're a table and everybody speaks foreign languages and one person speaks English everybody will speak English which is how you know Indian speak English and I don't think they have a lot of ancestry from that araignee Island and the same thing that the Turks don't know it but they speak Turkic with 92% of the DNA local hasn't changed so anyway so this is at the end I was talking about identity and position and I should be free because I'm localist to identify as someone as part of the Mediterranean or other my region is what I call Mina which is basically mean as the non elephant animals for post colonialists and using colonial terms okay anyway so so that now that means let's go to Lebanon and then I guess we're gonna start a conversation and it's very simple why did they think about it why isn't Lebanon exclusive art that's mystery that was the obvious solution everybody has to gain from it if you're a Sunni fundamentalist it's perfect Tripoli you make it you do that no alcohol in Tripoli that's your right and then they will come and drink and immune okay and I mean you're not allowed to have water we don't allow water add up only after six o'clock your honor no water is allowed you're free that's your your take so everybody's happy in this transaction great thank you very much thanks for listening to me and [Applause] then we just found a best slide on the elephant this is I have think four elephants so that mean yeah yep no no this this this one's good as well your map is wrong exactly is much bigger I know you can in Beirut should be five five cotton if you make it alright if you make Compton's in Lebanon we will be five tourists so we don't have the Protestants of West Beirut and you're voting this rate that's so thank you very much yes it's it's a seriously it's a real privilege for us to have you give this lecture here and to record it for people in Lebanon to listen to because we didn't life life stream it live streaming means that they will have to listen to it at at 1:00 1:00 a.m. so one message to people who are watching it on YouTube later is that you can ask questions to Professor Talib on Twitter or on so on social media or by email yeah hashtag localist 11 I think we started a hashtag localism Lebanon and then we can discuss again my specialty is not politics my specialty is complex systems okay and the statistical properties of complex systems but I'm not so I'm not yeah but you've raised a lot of a lot of issues yes which have a lot of implications for the debates in Lebanon now for example with the electoral system they are there is a demand on the street in Lebanon which of course is not a demand of the street it's just a loudest that there's no there's no common demand as you have shown no no but you've seen common demands they want electricity yeah okay exactly can deliver electricity 24/7 you know okay whereas the central state actually was bothering the municipality of immuned when the respective immune was trying to do something with the weather local system and they were because of course you have all that patronage going on so yeah when they're asking for a single constituency in Lebanon for Lebanon to be the whole of the country to be a single constituency with a secular vote doesn't work is this is this the exact opposite of us exact up my idea is you make local people are allowed to move that's that's the whole point is that you have laws you have central laws you're allowed to move so if you are let's say a gay you don't want to live in Tripoli the neighborhood that is dominated by Salafi you're allowed to move all right okay and if your if on the other hand you are you know from immune and you like olive oils to be consumed at every meal and you go to Beirut where they use other items you're free you know you get the idea people should be free to make their own laws and but you should not make it along sectarian lines make it along geographical lines based on population and you'll see you have automatically allocations that's an i that's my second question yeah because I'll only ask I lost too because there's so many people who won't ask question my second question is why does it why does the boundary have to be physical okay so that let me tell you why tell you why be I'll tell you why I'm quite asking this because the origin of the Lebanese system Michelle she has spoke about protecting boundaries but they were virtual boundaries they were not physical you know I don't know they were not Canton ization they were they were virtual boundaries between communities so that communities would feel secure and they don't have to be in a in a an enclosed geographic space they can be mixed that's my worst nightmare and that is my worst nightmare okay so let me explain what is my worst nightmare the problem is that if you puts us back in a sectarian system where you start voting for people based on your sectarian whatever identity rather than on geography on water okay and let me explain that's a millet system we inherited from the Turks which actually worked sort of a Federation where people lived in communities in the red you know the Orthodox of the Orthodox Sony the Sunnis ever ever I think worth fine maybe it might work that's what he had in mind the problem in Lebanon is that you need to do way with sectarianism because a lot of people do not identify with this alien system I want to opt-out the sectarian system so if Beirut for example you can have areas of okay you can have areas dominated by certain religion and you have others dominated by communists it's fine so long as your tax payments that the rule should be that your tax payments in the Compton will go first to the contour okay and then the tax expenditure is local and and what am I saying this about Lebanon because the sectarian system is easy very easy to exploit for the sectarian system is geopolitical okay because then you start connecting because you're you want to connect to Iran Saudi Arabia and stuff like that automatically if you're the communities are non-sectarian look at how people vote for municipalities in Lebanon they vote for one party for general elections for the because they know that anyway the Parliament doesn't count okay and they vote for on abilities or on on whatever they much moralistically for the municipality and they started doing that I mean of course it would take time to do that so the idea is you eliminate confessions of Lebanon you keep geography with the right to move okay and the right to work you cannot ban anyone so it's the same rule that Switzerland they have the head of civil war and then now they have a federal system so why is it so we have no choice because you think that down magically we had a very bad government okay basically the worst thing that they do better without that government okay then was a government no and you do better without the agencies of the state these are not the agencies are the worst actually that government and let me explain someone who spends twenty thirty years inside of an administration it's like Kafka's castle they they they own it it's not the ministers come and go but the deep corruption that patronage are entrenched in these large administrative units same in America same in UK the end you don't see it and in Lebanon and people start to see it but it but it took a long time they keep blaming the minister not the administration where the corruptions taking place deeply entrenched and this is this would by breaking up the whole idea isn't justice you break up these administration and you devolve as much as possible to the municipalities might be a cackle of the Frog Lebanese expression that complete are translatable I try not to translate it okay so so you have a source of things or that electricity or whatever maybe electricity is not efficient for one town Stella well okay so in my experience everyone who says they have to questions always have three so my third one is what happens to the state and foreign policy and international relations let me give you one constant in history when you look at countries that are Federation's okay versus countries that are you know nation states okay the first thing is a model the model is not foreign to us Lebanon or Lebanon the Phoenicians or people known as the Phoenicians were nation-states people they didn't have in our state why the minute you have a large state a central state then people think of foreign relations and war there's pretty much a dominates it and actually I am really convinced that the nation-state was invented for war because non nation-states city-states were never interested in war okay the defense sometimes not even in defense they were not even interested in defense for one simple reason I am in byblos okay never could knows or shows up okay we make tons of money how do you make those alright from Commerce okay and building ships you have know-how never could know that shows up do you think he's gonna kill everybody okay you give him ten percent like a Mafia Don protection money it's cheaper than an army or five percent whatever it is you give him something so this is why nobody's gonna kill those who can feed him so you tell them listen never could no sir you want 100 percent of nothing or six seven percent of something and then you come may come back with 12 percent and negotiate it down and that's what they did they did that Swat history okay except for the of course tire they fought Alexander's foolishly because they thought as an island that the guy would never get there okay and they didn't know the guy was it was like not but but aside from tire you know it's a front tire you know you're the story of tire so the whole thing is how the the soaps that weren't used to that model okay and and and Switzerland they're neutral okay is it by accident that the the only country in Europe that was neutral or was a country that was decentralized and the Congress of Vienna okay they were mean America was right to Warsaw developed a store very late with the Congress of Vienna other two countries there were democracies and the two were Federation's it's not an accident so it looks like democracy comes out of federalism rather than reverse okay thank you now I'll take questions except from people from immune are not allowed but also also many love from immunities are said and please say your name and you look your local identification okay and one thing and let me mention one thing that the definition of the question is is a sentence or maybe two sentences with a question mark just from because my it's from experience both with Lebanese yes okay hello both of you how are you I'm Ravi Ted Aram and I have a question about how do you relate what you're saying right now to this incredibly important development in Lebanon what do you want to say to the people who are doing a very interesting revolution a very strong revolution if you were to advise them how to direct it and where to go from here I thought my rule is very simple the simplest things the better just shoot to have decentralization yeah let me finish the question because it's a little bit more complicated as you well know there are there are powers that are very powerful in Lebanon and and then they are very prohibitive and whether they are in in in in government or in control because of allegiance to some other countries and you know what I'm talking about how do you get there it's just a simile it's simple to say go to studio to do this but how do you get there from what I get some of these powers or some of these people may also like this authorization all right they actually they do the ones we requested at first so I think yeah the more the more sectarian you are the more you like the centralization in fact okay so the ones who didn't like the centralization were these Michelle Affleck style an idealist want to merge everything and you know these people want to start bond learn the bad things from the French the French always teach you what does what doesn't work they're not what works oppress I'm not satisfied I wish you would try it again because if I give a lecture on this okay I'm not gonna you know I say but thank you I start I'm not in that business I think your cervix who to talk to for what this is my principles and and that's it so someone else can apply you know figure out the tricks okay next so with this rule of my name is Xena change from amitin yes okay see ya so with this rule of everybody is allowed to move wherever they want yes how can we not reach the state where like we had in the last figure of the slide you showed us where we just have people belonging to the same doesn't because in Switzerland people cease to identify as Catholic and Protestant and now they identify largely as French speakers or Rome our speaker and then the lesser among speakers it's a 60/40 or a 60/40 German versus Italian French and Roma I mean remotest tiny so so the idea this is to identify along with slides yes they have like three or four languages but in Lebanon we have like we mostly identify by our sect because some don't identify with a lot of people the young people may not identify according to their sect and it's a it's a right you say so neighborhood can identify and this context should be able to identify the way it wants to identify okay I'm David from Dallas I was wondering if is there a way to anticipate whether something will be subject to an intransitive intransigent minority Mike yeah okay so I've got to give two answers one quickly and then one I'm gonna answer another question you can figure out for example the religious fanaticism developing and actually typically some under some condition if for example the kosher drinks were to obviously culture there wouldn't be our quotient breaks because you would have a reaction by others they say so if halal meat for example becomes too obviously halal okay some people will be repelled because then it becomes a becomes different matter so the the that's the first one in the north here oh there's a ok let me take another question and as there's another point I wanna make yes this is Roy Roy from Washington DC hi so how do you see the role of technology as a layer of like digital communication working with decentralized system thinking that you could do commerce from anywhere in the world with that just if enhance it or actually make it a different perspective I think I think technology is okay one thing I wrote them pretty appear the technology makes the state vastly more intrusive than it was so you think technology allows people like in Lebanon to have riots because the state isn't competent but in places like the States for example here technology had made estate vastly more intrusive over individuals okay now let me make a comment about why I'm positive about the future based on what I see you know what happened to Churchill after the war sorry exactly they kicked them out what happened to do goal after the war the same when did they come back Algeria alright so and then of course the the okay so you realize what that then of course you know do your thing and then you leave us okay Cincinnatus so the idea that what people don't fail to understand about popularity is that those who are popular when people feel that there's war are vastly unpopular at tides of peace okay so another comment that George Bush the the who had the one mandate George he had everything right he won the war but guess what he wars over thanks bye we're done all right so this is what happens what's happening today is that if you don't have in the presence of war then people rally along sectarian whatever you want in the absence of war and danger a particular danger that suddenly seems when you say okay I'm more interested in governance electricity stuff like that so why you gotta let things run their course and from what I've seen on on the web is a very encouraging thing that they say no we don't we don't hate you but we love you but you know what your varied in that war okay and and I prefer at times of peace to us and we'll give you a call if there's war we'll definitely give you a call and this is leave us your phone number so this is pretty much this is what pretty much is happening now and you can feel it people are that's what people want how is he at four Isley unlike olives people have actually possessions businesses etc in place how easy do you think it is for them to move around like if you're exactly anyone moved to Tripoli if you typically want to move to cider how long do you think that process is and what is its cost on the population to do the shift you're talking about I mean you have us be routed by the way and from respite you have a lot of mobility in Lebanon oh I don't know I mean yeah mobility in Lebanon particularly we had a lot of people moving out of areas okay when when when the fundamentalists took over Tripoli practically every single person who likes beer or bad Iraq because they have better our country Polly left okay so if people move around people find ways to move around okay so don't have to worry about people that will people find ways to either move around or to have even within the neighborhood it's not having separation and this you can observe the United States pick someone from immune because I guess we need to be represented I'm a national story I don't know you know he's always surprised are you from immune so you said small is beautiful but what is the right size like for instance New York City is large but has probably too large work it's not a competition you have poor governments so in terms of size I think yeah the problem with the u.s. system that the states got bigger okay and that more population so I think we're overdue for a New York State is a problem California is a problem you need to break at California in at least four states to make things work and New York City is larger than that what the Norway's and Ireland and the Lebanon a lot of places New York City is unmanageable as you know completely immeasurable we're here because you know we stopped well we're not here because it like the the government of New York City so in that context Beirut probably should be five different Canton's Beirut will be broken into captains simply to have the diversity so people can be religious non-religious look what's happening in Israel Israel you start having complete separation Jerusalem from Tel Aviv okay you can eat pork in Tel Aviv and not that have been you know but the but there's no there's no and there's no and the other one is you know mega religious you can drive on stuff like so so when you read the things a lot of people wrote to me to give these as examples of countries suddenly breaking into neighborhoods that are you know the people love you know from your kind okay and and progressively wanting to have a different jurisdiction except that their government is again a nation-state not a federation hi my name is Marwan Tabak not from immune but you mentioned the examples of the goal in Churchill very interesting they're good I mean now we know that our leaders have been good at war what is the prospect what are the chances that they could invent war or you know bring that fear to people so that they stain I think it'd be too obvious now so if you had another war was a sir neighbor today first of all listen people don't mind war when you feel threatened by a neighbor is their threat now okay so the third is let's talk about if there's a threat all right people people detect September 1st Wars ok thank you I mean see the street in Lebanon what is happening 11 ounce monstrous it shows it's a revolution that's completely leaderless that's working perfectly with people cleaning the streets you have a social order taking place spontaneous orders it's like textbook that the resemble resembles what happened in New York in 2003 in August when they had no power for two three days and then people took care of the traffickers suddenly newly emerging people skills and directing traffic and all kind of thing that restaurants were giving away food it's very similar so I have a feeling that this is very positive and it's creating bonds between Lebanese and of course now you have political programs you know I'm very afraid of the left in Lebanon they must be more than sectarian I mean people you guys are afraid of sectarian people I'm not okay because I think people can you know know how to disappear the left they're trying to exploit this by saying there are inequalities of Lebanon the problem is the kleptocracy it's not even we're not even there to discuss inequality first you had a cleaner thing because it's a topic and it and those you think are the ones stealing the money are the idiots because someone who knows how to make money would not show it so it was in deep with an administration that you have that stuff I think the harbor the rioters only caught up now on the customs in Lebanon the Customs Service yeah Bayreuth Harbor is it's a it's horrible this is where a lot of bosses one is going okay Thank You Alexander from New York question about refugees any ideas over the years how refugees in wars right they handle differently in the past words as opposed to now I love it all all over the world I mean when you create refugees the problem with refugees is again the same problem of migrations for the European Union is composed of people who don't understand scale transformation how does it find typically what I call a pseudo actually can I call mother name an empty suit okay like Angela Merkel and all these people what does characterize all of them number one they don't understand scale and to second-order effects is that if you brought a Syrian okay and Syrian refugee to a German town that's fine nobody who the people will be welcoming and you have integration and be very nice but if you bring two thousand of them okay you have a problem okay she didn't get that they say and I know that they don't and then she got it late to when it's too late see when when the damage was done so if you're want to bring migrants you have to understand that the local population may not like to have a change of scenery just like when you have the Arab tribes send if you want to send the message that want to go on a tour of the desert make sure you you're fewer than five okay [Music] that's one reason one thing what would you do whether they have you some relatives okay so there's this question of the Switzerland of course has a army standing army no no no standing armies they have the inter citizen army and they have a concept they called armed neutrality okay an armed neutrality it means all right it's so long hard enough for people to invade you okay but you don't divide it to just walk in you get the idea so the but this okay the the arm this thing is classical they solve I don't think that we have to worry too much about being invaded by Turkey okay but what you the Syrian refugee situation I have I'm clueless as to how to integrate them because you're not gonna let him stay on one hand but on the other hand are they problem sorry I know they won't stay but but the the job of the central government's do exactly what today's central government does for law okay for law enforcement and for military purpose this is the difference between what I'm proposing and Lebanon it has to be minimal to be applicable as well as cannot be applicable so the only difference I'm is to transfer even without calling it cut all power to the cauda and if you let them handle their electricity contract directly ok this and you start with that and and you figure out some will do a great job exactly and some will do a horrible job okay and people will see sir mayor is incompetent we'll realize because people are more interested in electricity than in geopolitics and everybody in Lebanon including those who are massively sectarian thank you I think we're going to if you have salt we started late we're going to okay we'll have one more one more did he ever hi my name is kevin from la Jara Mexico I was wondering what you think about the role of the central bank in the finals or in relation to okay so let me put it on a record because there's practically nothing I say in public in private that cannot be public because for ethical reasons so let me say it's on a record you do you would have done a lot better without a central bank bank there was a central bank because pretty much the ROM said I call him obsessed twelve surimi well he facilitated a Ponzi scheme it's not just that the Lebanese pan was too strong but you had heat you drain resources by allowing the government to do government or that clique of people in power to do their game he destroyed he over 30 years destroyed all all the industry we had Lebanon that was competitive okay simply with one interest rates are 13% becomes a Ponzi scheme you're draining resources someone the example I give is some someone inherits two hundred and twelve thousand dollars from an aunt okay who died you know the will for you - okay so you inherit the money you have two choices you go put your money in Lebanese banks or the government earning very high interest rates in dollars thinking that it's safe or you open whatever a workshop or whatever at least sauna whatever you want to do okay well the other thing that the the it's obvious that it's phase to give your money to the banks to lend it to the particular policy so it drained practically every old investment from Lebanon it killed the business that killed the country and our pond was to the idea of fixing the pound I have a last slide for that so I have one slide to the finish with and that's my directly my work as expressed in anti fragile and elsewhere which is the following no free lunch as Argentina will tell you if the process as you have on top is managed if you minimize if you remove volatility from a system by minimizing variations on a day to day what happens the system collapses okay we the only currency pegs that have survived now or what Saudi Arabia because they have the reverse problem you can peg a currency to not be too strong you cannot beg the currency to not be too weak all right so essentially you think collapses there was a simple rule that I learned my first year in training from an old trader who said nobody's bigger than the market so the peg the peg was a drain on Lebanese resources and that's the problem so salami is he in Compton certainly right but the problem is keeping someone for 29 years of 26 years that role was read and then a lot of people love them because everybody's making money from from for the financial thing so you turn Lebanon into financial Ponzi scheme investment wise and kill the local industry I mean the only things that are getting is funds from Lebanese like us who go to visit or buy buy a you know I hope Islands there by apartment that was it a haircut necessary in proportion to how some people have tripled their money since 1994 1992 a haircut and proportion to what money was made and has to be fair not too big a haircut I don't think the recovery of the funds supposedly stolen is gonna matter much because I don't think it's as big as people think right but I mean a lot of money was stolen people love so sees a few important people particularly arrogant ones behind bars that would be very nice but the but the next step is to float the lira pay the price help the industry make the place competitive make investment stop begging from the Saudis every time to patch things it stop begging stop the begging for God's sake okay and and and and and I think within in no time and recover it's much easier than Greece because we don't have a fundamental government deficit it's all the palsy thing which is why salami is important now Rob says twelve I call it that's a thirteen I think yes I take it very personally because my name is shadi so killing people but I I want to ask you one last question and this will be the final one let's go from the very local to the global yeah because we're not just seeing a revolt a in the streets in in Lebanon we're seeing it in Chile in Ecuador in Algeria in France de Letran in Iraq now yeah it's Hong Kong Russia there's there's a global phenomenon happening so is there a link between what's happening at a very local level and and a global phenomenon well I mean they are phenomenon known as contagion thing the same thing happened in Europe in 1848 but at a time the space could repress people and people were weaker than they are today and you didn't have the same rights so I don't know if you read what happened 1848 it was repressed but practically 90 percent of the things we have today in and social progress came from that 1848 generalized you know it was all of Europe so I think it's contagious and and I'm quite certain that I'm just afraid that the left may nonetheless these communists may take advantage of it thank you Earth you've given us a lot more to think of than the question and answer period so I like to thank you [Applause]

Channel: Lebanese American University

Views: 30,574

Rating: 4.8983665 out of 5

Keywords: Nassim Nicholas Taleb, Lebanese American University, Lebanon, Lebanese Economy, Localism, decentralization, Lebanese Protests

Id: un9i-5pwOUA

Length: 99min 52sec (5992 seconds)

Published: Tue Nov 12 2019

Reddit Comments

[u/angry_joe_the_eighth]

Localism is not equivalent to "direct democracy" or "anarchism".

For that matter, "direct democracy" and "anarchism" have only a loose relationship. For example, I'm pretty sure that if the US were managed by directly democratic votes, the US would have an official religion - Christianity.