Dave: [00:00:00] Japan is one of the biggest book reading cultures out there. I don't know how it compares to China, but China [00:00:05] may be doing more tech. What is it about knowledge and wisdom transfer that happens differently in the East and the [00:00:10] West?
Support: The Japanese are very right brained. What it means for Americans is that we can learn from [00:00:15] the Japanese, I think,
to help balance ourselves better.
This is Richard Conrad, a thinker [00:00:20] and cultural decoder who spent decades immersed in Eastern philosophy and Western systems. In [00:00:25] this episode, he joins Dave Asprey to unpack how our idea of truth isn't [00:00:30] universal, but shaped by culture, tradition, and the invisible code we're born into. He's here to [00:00:35] share his simple line of thinking that can change the world.
Americans,
we tend to reason in a linear [00:00:40] manner, subject to object, step by step. by step. The Japanese or Chinese don't have a native word [00:00:45] for the word logic in East Asia. You can have your God. I can have my God. We can both be [00:00:50] right.
Dave: If Westerners are too linear, does that mean we should become less linear?
[00:00:55] You're listening to the human upgrade with Dave Asprey.[00:01:00]
Let's just get right to it. There's a war breaking out in the Middle East. How [00:01:05] are Westerners going to see this versus how someone from Japan or China would [00:01:10] see it?
Support: Well, so I've lived and worked and studied in Asia for [00:01:15] over 30 years now, and over that time I've developed a framework to help me understand differences in [00:01:20] the way Americans and Chinese and Japanese think.
And one layer of that framework is [00:01:25] Americans and Europeans, Western Europeans, tend to [00:01:30] see the world with an absolute truth framework. Mm hmm. Okay. [00:01:35] Whereas in East Asia, they see it in a relative truth [00:01:40] framework. And fundamentally, if you look at the situation in the Middle East, you've [00:01:45] got groups that, in an absolute truth belief framework, my God is the [00:01:50] only God.
The first commandment is, I am the Lord thy God, thou shalt pray to no other gods before me. [00:01:55] And so, if you're a Christian, you believe the Christian God is the one true God. If you're Jewish, [00:02:00] Yahweh is the one true God. If you're Muslim, it's Allah is the one true God. [00:02:05] Um, a very strange experience for me as an American, when I first moved to [00:02:10] Japan, um, I was in a, in a Buddhist temple, and they had a shrine [00:02:15] in the corner for Shinto gods.
And I thought, how can that be? In the West, [00:02:20] this is, is blasphemy. You would get stoned or burned at the stake for this. But in their [00:02:25] mind, in a relative truth culture, There are many paths [00:02:30] to the mountaintop, and the goal is the mountain path, not the top, but in an absolute [00:02:35] truth thinking society, if I'm right, by definition, anyone else is [00:02:40] wrong, and so you, you, Joseph Campbell always said that, that [00:02:45] Lebanon was the, was the heart of the problem because you had three religions, the Christians, the Jews, and [00:02:50] the Muslims all fighting each other, over the same God of the same biblical God.
[00:02:55] And what's happening in the Middle East is obviously there's a big tension between Israelis [00:03:00] and Iranians have a lot in common, actually. They should be able to get along, but the religion [00:03:05] gets in the way. And my God is right, your God is wrong, and your God is right, my God is [00:03:10] wrong, and it becomes an existential issue for them.
In, in East Asia, [00:03:15] they don't even understand that because it's You can have your God, I can have, my [00:03:20] God, we can both be right. It's a totally different framework. And so on [00:03:25] this level, in the absolute truth level, we see it as who's right and who's wrong, [00:03:30] and where as in the relative truth framework, [00:03:35] they see it more of who has the power to determine who's right or who's wrong.
[00:03:40] Mm-hmm . And where it gets interesting is. If you look at it from, say, the [00:03:45] Chinese point of view I'm sorry to say, they think this is great. Like, the Ukraine war was a big [00:03:50] benefit to China. It weakens Russia. U. [00:03:55] S. weapons are all traveling to the Ukraine instead of going towards Taiwan. This is a [00:04:00] win win win for the Chinese.
They get to watch how drone warfare [00:04:05] develops. China builds more drones in a day than the U. S. builds in a year. Oh, yeah. [00:04:10] Quantity wise? Like 500, 000 a day. A day? Yeah. We, uh, I know [00:04:15] I jump into something here, but when we let China into the WTO, And this [00:04:20] was the Democratic Party that did this. It was a deal where we're going to trade off our middle, [00:04:25] middle class manufacturing jobs in exchange for our finance [00:04:30] industry getting more exposure to China, not exactly representing the people.
Today, U. [00:04:35] S. banks have less market share in China than they had when China entered the WTO. It was a [00:04:40] complete and total failure. Is that because China just went
Dave: back on the deal, or U. S. banks just didn't do a good job?
Support: [00:04:45] China went back on the deal. Shocking. They never had any intention. Relative truth society.
A [00:04:50] contract in China is a starting point. It's a relative truth. Okay, this is what we've agreed on [00:04:55] today, and it's negotiable going forward. To absolute truth believers, a contract is set in [00:05:00] stone. Uh, this is what we've agreed on. We are going to follow this, and we didn't understand that. It was a, a [00:05:05] huge mistake going into that.
Wow, that deal with them. So with China, [00:05:10] they're, they're looking at and so all of our manufacturing, a lot of it is shifted to China. And, [00:05:15] you know, in World War Two, we did really well because we could convert our manufacturing plants to weapon plants. [00:05:20] Well, China has shifted them all. A lot of it to China.
It's called the fallacy of [00:05:25] composition. If one factory goes to China, it's fine. But if a lot of them go, it becomes a huge problem. [00:05:30] So they're looking at this drone warfare development. And, uh, it's, it's helping [00:05:35] them a lot. It's also weakening Russia, which helps China because it puts, uh, [00:05:40] Russia into the little brother position.
And, you know, uh, the [00:05:45] reality is China has eyes on southeastern Russia. A lot of that [00:05:50] land belonged to China in the past. Yes. The Chinese have not forgotten that. And the weaker China [00:05:55] gets the more, likely China is to be able to bargain away that land. [00:06:00] As it goes to the Middle East, um, the U. S. had that disastrous war in [00:06:05] Iraq, just totally pointless, and China loved it, um, because it weakened the U.
S. power [00:06:10] relative to China. The Chinese have a phrase, it's, yǔ [00:06:15] bàng de lì. If the, I think it translates as like, the clam and the gutters, like two [00:06:20] shellfish at the seashore fight each other, the fishermen can walk by and just pick them up. He's the [00:06:25] winner. Ha ha ha. And so if the U. S. gets bogged down in Iran, um, that would [00:06:30] be wonderful for the Chinese because it would relatively weaken the U.
S. [00:06:35] Taiwan is, is, you know, an ally, you know, of, of, of China's, but really they [00:06:40] don't see the relationship you know, they're not gonna, they're not helping Iran right now because Iran proved to be so [00:06:45] weak. Relative to Israel, Israel took out their air defense so, so easily [00:06:50] and from that distance they're still able to, to bomb them at will.
And China only respects strength, [00:06:55] right? So that's why they're not helping Iran directly. But if Iran can, can outlast [00:07:00] Israel, um, you know, Netanyahu right now is the dog that's caught the car. He's [00:07:05] got the car bumper in his mouth and he doesn't know what to do. And if Iran can outlast them, then [00:07:10] the Chinese will.
That's the situation I think from the Chinese point of view [00:07:15] today.
Dave: Got it. So they're not as worried about whatever agreements they've made because they're all [00:07:20] negotiable all the time. Okay. How would someone from Japan view this [00:07:25] differently than someone from China?
Support: Japan's different. Um, the [00:07:30] fundamental, um, Belief in China is a fear of invasion.
[00:07:35] 350 of the last 700 years, they've been controlled [00:07:40] by non Han Chinese, the Mongolians and the Manchurians. And then they have [00:07:45] what they call now the century of humiliation where the foreign powers came in [00:07:50] and, and carved up interest inside of China.
Dave: Yeah, we won't talk about Carlos, [00:07:55] because that's the Nissan guy, because yeah, who, who, [00:08:00] uh, made the fatal mistake of, uh, being an outsider who tried to take over, [00:08:05] uh, car manufacturers in Japan and paid a price for that.
Support: So the Japanese [00:08:10] fear is China is a very inclusive culture. Japan is a very [00:08:15] exclusive culture. It's an island culture. They did not like Carlos going for that. The [00:08:20] Japanese experience was shaped by the atomic bombs in World War Two. They [00:08:25] have a very strong pacifist streak now. And so when they look at the Middle [00:08:30] East, um, they're troubled.
They're worried. Uh, because they know the [00:08:35] truth the common sense truth that wars are easy to start and they're very [00:08:40] difficult to stop and they're troubled. Uh, the media in Japan, [00:08:45] interestingly, I just left there, I lived there for 13 years total, um, [00:08:50] You know, felt that Israel had a disproportionate response in Gaza.
[00:08:55] So it's a different lens than you get in the West. And they're worried about the, the, the conflict now with [00:09:00] Iran because they're worried that it, it could spiral into something worse. They really [00:09:05] are for a, for a Samurai culture that underlies them and that hasn't gone away. It's part of their nature.[00:09:10]
Yeah. But their consciousness now is very pacifist.
Dave: Interesting. Do you think the [00:09:15] Samurai nature would come back? It could. It is there. It lurks in [00:09:20] Japanese
Support: society. Yeah, when Americans see the Japanese and we interact with them, we do see that [00:09:25] pacifist side and it is an aging society, right? You're not going to start a war when your average age [00:09:30] is in the mid to upper 40s, right?
And you have so few kids, you know, the [00:09:35] birth rates are so low there. But the, but the samurai spirit. is [00:09:40] so ingrained in Japanese consciousness that if push came to shove Lee Kuan [00:09:45] Yew once said pushing Japan to remilitarize is like giving chocolate liquors [00:09:50] to a recovering alcoholic. That's a great quote.
It's still there. The [00:09:55] Japanese are a warrior people. They were a migrant people. So they, they had to [00:10:00] fight. It's always been the warrior culture was there. The Chinese are agrarian by [00:10:05] background. The Chinese were not expansive when they were the strongest country in the world. They did not look to [00:10:10] expand their empire.
They actually built a wall, a really big wall, a great wall to keep the [00:10:15] foreigners out. It's a very different mindset.
Dave: I've seen some things online about how all [00:10:20] of the turrets on the wall are pointing into China, not out of China. That [00:10:25] perhaps it was the people on the other side of the wall that built it to keep the Chinese out of the Mongols [00:10:30] out.
Is there any truth to that?
Support: No, it was to keep the Mongols out. The Mongols were a nomadic [00:10:35] people. They were a warlike people. And the, the Chinese really are, I mean, they're, uh, [00:10:40] they're, they're agrarian. They're poets. They were, um, they were, they were not an aggressive [00:10:45] people. Yeah.
Dave: The, where the Mongols were.
It's really interesting [00:10:50] because when you look at meditation styles that come out of these things, [00:10:55] most humans in the last few thousand years, 90 percent plus were. They're [00:11:00] working in agriculture. So a lot of the meditations of the ones that would come out of a Chinese practice. [00:11:05] They're agrarian meditation So if you're gonna be planting rice all day, [00:11:10] right, which is a very common thing in China, right?
Then you need this calm [00:11:15] mind. And if you look at the Japanese meditations, you have things like [00:11:20] Satori Uh, which is actually part of the namesake of the home neurofeedback company. That's part of [00:11:25] 40 Years Zen. It's called Satoriya. And that's a moment of connectedness. [00:11:30] But it's moment to moment because you're a warrior.
Or Zazen, a two minute meditation [00:11:35] for warriors instead of farmers. Because warriors won't do a two hour meditation because they want to [00:11:40] go kill something. Right? So, you see it all the way down into neurological [00:11:45] regulation that seems like it's based on society. So how does this relate to [00:11:50] Americans? Like, what are we doing?
Support: It's, it's interesting. You know, this goes all the way back to [00:11:55] Star Wars for me as a, as a seven year old watching that movie. And what I'm more and more [00:12:00] convinced is that George Lucas was writing about the left brain that was dominating [00:12:05] Western society, the machines. We're taking over and [00:12:10] that Obi Wan was telling Luke to take off, to put on the mask, to [00:12:15] close his eyes, not to trust his rational mind, to trust his intuition.
And he said, turn off [00:12:20] the guidance computer at the end, use the force. You trust your instincts for destroying the Death [00:12:25] Star and maybe the Death Star is AI. And the Japanese people reason very differently. [00:12:30] Americans, we tend to reason in a linear manner, subject, object, step by step. The [00:12:35] Japanese, or Chinese, don't have a native word for the word logic.
Hajime [00:12:40] Nakamura, the great scholar of Japan, said they never even conceived of the concept of [00:12:45] knowledge, of logic, sorry, because there was no need for logic in Japanese society. It's [00:12:50] always contextual. It's always context based, right? It's a very hierarchical society. [00:12:55] It's a very harmony based society consensus based.
And
Dave: interdependence versus [00:13:00] independence, right?
Support: Interdependence. We think of everything as step By step, they think of it [00:13:05] as, uh, systems. Systems thinking. The Chinese, too. And, so, the [00:13:10] Western Mind may have gone a little bit too far in terms of linear logic and [00:13:15] linear thinking and what's interesting about that is when you become too rational, the Japanese call it, [00:13:20] means you're overly rational and it's very much a negative term because you're [00:13:25] not considering context.
The Japanese are very right brained. In this sense, [00:13:30] and what we can learn, what it means for Americans is that we can learn from the Japanese, I [00:13:35] think, to help balance ourselves better. The, the Japanese image of meditation is [00:13:40] to be like a pond at night, and if you can be perfectly still, it [00:13:45] will very accurately reflect the moonlight.
And if you can get your mind to be [00:13:50] perfectly still, and Steve Jobs talked about this a lot, that intuition, [00:13:55] um, he said, trust your heart. It knows what you want to become, um, that he was spent [00:14:00] six, seven months in India and he found that discovered how intuition is more [00:14:05] powerful than, than rational and abstract thought.
And I think that's what we can learn from the Japanese [00:14:10] because when we've got our devices now people doom scrolling all the time. We're very distracted. [00:14:15] We're very cause and effect, um, oriented that if we can learn from the [00:14:20] Japanese. the, the art of mindfulness. The character on my t [00:14:25] shirt is Mu. It means nothing as in complete nothingness.
And when they say [00:14:30] Mushin means it's the Buddhist term of it is without obstructive thoughts. [00:14:35] And if we could practice that discipline, and Steve Jobs says it's a [00:14:40] discipline, you have to work at it. But if you work at it and you calm the mind, eventually [00:14:45] the expanse opens up in the moment. I think that's what we could really learn from.
[00:14:50] From Japanese thinking,
Dave: I could not agree more. When you do Joe [00:14:55] dispenses, uh, meditation work, he talks about, you know, step into nothingness. [00:15:00] Uh, when people reach that state at 40 years is then when they're doing a [00:15:05] neurofeedback I call it the unmanifest, but there, there's this kind of blank thing [00:15:10] where you, you truly stop thinking.
And if you're not thinking, well, there's a signal, [00:15:15] you just weren't paying attention to it and you can direct the signal. But it's hard to put words to all these states, which [00:15:20] is why I use tech. How can someone listening to this apply this understanding [00:15:25] of, you know, if Westerners are too linear, does that mean we should become less linear?
Is there a way we can, [00:15:30] um, for working with someone who is from Japan or from China or from somewhere else, [00:15:35] is it better to see it their way? Do we need to call Chris Voss and, you know, do some negotiating? [00:15:40] Like, how is this applicable to helping me navigate better?
Support: So I think to the first [00:15:45] point. That, that no thought it's, it's a mindfulness [00:15:50] and for linear thinkers, it tends to go towards thinking that it's [00:15:55] mindlessness.
That's different. That's because we have, we believe in linear [00:16:00] time when we think of the concept of eternity to us, it means a long, long, long, long, long time. [00:16:05] But if you're in a circular time framework, eternity actually is time getting [00:16:10] shut out. And for a Westerner. Yes, I think [00:16:15] being less linear and allowing the right brain more [00:16:20] scope to, the left brain is really good at solving problems.
I think Joseph Salk said this, the guy that [00:16:25] discovered the polio vaccine, he said the intuitive mind is great at telling the rational [00:16:30] mind what to think about, and that we as Westerners could use our, [00:16:35] Intuitive minds more are mindfulness forgetting the past, [00:16:40] you know, depress, depressing thoughts come from worrying about the past, anxiety comes from worrying about the future, [00:16:45] and, and focusing on the present.
There's, there was a Zen story, my Aikido teacher [00:16:50] always used to say that there was a, a guy hanging on a [00:16:55] branch, a rickety, a weak branch on the side of a cliff, and there was a tiger at the top of [00:17:00] the cliff that was going to eat him. And, He was going to fall a hundred [00:17:05] meters to his death below, but he noticed a strawberry right next to him growing out of the side of the [00:17:10] cliff.
He ate the strawberry and it was delicious. I love that. [00:17:15] And I couldn't understand it at first, but eventually what he meant [00:17:20] was, You have to forget about the depressing facts about the past and the anxiety of [00:17:25] the future and focus on the moment and enjoy the moment because to the Japanese, life is really [00:17:30] ephemeral and you have to enjoy it here and now and be present in the here and now.
So I think [00:17:35] for Westerners and Americans, that is what's missing in our [00:17:40] society. You know, Tony Robbins always talks about the science of achievement and the [00:17:45] art of fulfillment. Westerners are. And we're the best in the world at the science of achievement. [00:17:50] The advances have been incredible, but the art of fulfillment is where we really [00:17:55] need work.
Dave: When you put it that way, I've taken all the stuff that I learned in Silicon [00:18:00] Valley about the art of achievement and said, well, why don't I just apply that towards [00:18:05] fulfillment? What are the pros and cons of that strategy? [00:18:10] You
Support: have to live in this world. Um, and. [00:18:15] If you go to ancient Indian philosophy, the ideal was you wore the outside [00:18:20] robes of a member of society, a contributing member of society, but you had the inside [00:18:25] robes of someone that was meditative, that understood the [00:18:30] ephemeral nature of life.
And in their belief system, the circular [00:18:35] time, this world, there are infinite worlds that come in and out of being. And when you [00:18:40] accept that, you let go of all the attachments of life. And [00:18:45] that's how you get, you know, Satori you were talking about. That's actually the first name of the inventor of [00:18:50] Bitcoin, interestingly.
Ah, Satoshi, yeah. Yeah, Satoshi, yeah. It's the same [00:18:55] derivation. Nakamoto means the source. Interesting there. And so you, we can get. I [00:19:00] guess Satoru means to wake up in the sense of enlightenment, waking up, and you have [00:19:05] to balance both out those outside robes of being a contributing member of society, but also [00:19:10] your own inner salvation.[00:19:15]
You know, I want to say, uh, last time we met was six years ago at 40 [00:19:20] years of Zen. And six years later, you look younger. And you did in [00:19:25] 2019. So whatever you're doing everyone listening, we should all be listening and learning from Dave.
Dave: Well, [00:19:30] thank you. I do have to confess part of it is, uh, I had a facial circumcision.[00:19:35]
I had so much extra [00:19:40] skin from being obese. I had 28 square inches of skin just on my face. I had a picture of me like grabbing [00:19:45] a handful on each side. More than you would get from aging and I just said, you know, I cut [00:19:50] my toenails when they get too long. Like, I'm going to do something about this. I did a bunch of stem cells and I like [00:19:55] put it all up on Instagram.
I tell people what I do, but my skin is way better than it was. That's all the nutritional and [00:20:00] all the other things. And the rest of us, I have very young tissues, but what do you do with, you know, [00:20:05] half a bath towel worth of extra skin? I haven't figured that one out yet. So maybe the Japanese. Yeah.
Support: Well, [00:20:10] seeing you today made me think of something.
Yeah. If people listening to your show are [00:20:15] following these protocols, and they're living to 120, [00:20:20] 150, 180 years old, then we need to rethink finance. [00:20:25]
Dave: I've been saying this to, uh, Very ultra wealthy people. In fact, the way I funded [00:20:30] Bulletproof, I don't know if we ever talked about this, an investment bank in, uh, in [00:20:35] Asia hired me to fly around the world and teach hedge fund managers how to increase their IQs.
[00:20:40] So I, I was basically the bait to get their salespeople into the room with the money traders. [00:20:45] And that was my seed capital for Bulletproof. So I got to [00:20:50] know what's happening at the very high level of finance [00:20:55] with with biohacking. And part of my pitch was, you know, about compound interest, [00:21:00] right? Well, what happens if you extend life even by 20 years, like your own life?
[00:21:05] So you should put 5 percent of your annual income, even if you're a billionaire with a lot of [00:21:10] capital gains, put that into longevity because it's the highest [00:21:15] ROI, even if you just get a few years, just looking at the interest returns. So not to mention [00:21:20] quality of life and all the other good stuff that people are after.
You said something earlier really important [00:21:25] about the population crash in Japan. It's happening in the U. S. and Italy and most of the [00:21:30] developed nations. So, either society collapses, [00:21:35] which I'm serious about, in our lifetime, or we make our old people young [00:21:40] again. That's the only choice. And we should probably pay our young kids to have a lot of kids, but I don't think most [00:21:45] societies are going to do that for whatever reason.
Support: So it's really interesting. My background is East [00:21:50] Asia, and Confucian societies, when they're poor, have more kids than anyone else. [00:21:55] Almost everywhere on the planet does that, right? Africa is that way. Well, that's how we ended up with 1. [00:22:00] 4 billion Chinese. Fair point. But the opposite end of the spectrum is when they become [00:22:05] wealthy.
Everyone has fewer kids when they become wealthy, but Confucian societies have even [00:22:10] fewer. Oh, wow. So if you look at China today, the total fertility rate's down to [00:22:15] one, one child. Wow. Japan's a little better, about 1. 2. Korea is the [00:22:20] outlier Korean is going away. They've stopped [00:22:25] having babies in Korea, and there are a number of reasons for it.
[00:22:30] Absolutely, there are, I'm kidding, that's a contributor. Yeah, Wi Fi, um, the [00:22:35] pollutants, um, in China especially, the pollution is so bad, it's a factor there. The [00:22:40] sperm counts in China, I was investing in a company that looked into this, and [00:22:45] they stopped releasing the data, but when I first met them, they would tell you how the sperm counts.
counts had, you know, I [00:22:50] think in the U. S. for my kids, it's one quarter the level of my grandfather, [00:22:55] but in China, it was something like one eighth.
Dave: And testosterone also, and sperm counts, so we're just, [00:23:00] just losing our fertility.
Support: But there, there are also other factors where, as you [00:23:05] become rich, You want your kids to have good educations, and [00:23:10] in China, it's so time and money intensive to raise a child, um, [00:23:15] that people are just choosing to have one child because you, the goal is to get [00:23:20] them into Harvard.
So they're, they're really just focusing on that [00:23:25] one kid instead of having three or four. And you would ask them, well, why don't you just have three kids [00:23:30] and send them to, like, the University of Texas? Great schools. And, uh, that, in their [00:23:35] face driven society, that's not the, uh, that's not an option.
Dave: And I guess [00:23:40] they forgot about Genghis Khan.
You know, I've got a few kids in Asia. [00:23:45]
Support: Yeah, that's another interesting point of view. I mean, that's, uh, that would be a little more controversial. But when I, [00:23:50] when I studied the Chinese population issue, um, in the old days, China had the [00:23:55] concept of multiple wives, right? You've heard of the second wife, third wife, fourth wife.
They weren't actually wives. [00:24:00] They were concubines. But you would, but you would have kids with them. And, and the [00:24:05] communists put an end to that, which was a good thing. But Why was it a good thing? Why was Well, as a [00:24:10] Western, you know, I'm a Catholic, so as a
Dave: Catholic, it was a good thing for
Support: monogamy.
Dave: Okay, right.
[00:24:15] As a Chinese, like, you know, you want the country like if they're having less babies, as it [00:24:20] maybe it wasn't a good thing for that society.
Support: Yeah, well, they had the overpopulation problem. So they went with the [00:24:25] one child policy, but they kept it for far too long. And then when they removed [00:24:30] it, The birth rate actually collapsed from that level.
It had a short term bump [00:24:35] as the people pulled forward. Oh, I'm allowed to have another baby. But once they had their babies, [00:24:40] it's really collapsed since then. And Chinese women, it's become a [00:24:45] very materialistic society because they don't have religion.
Music: Mhm.
Support: Pretty much. [00:24:50] And the women's talk, talk about the five C's.
A man has to have a, a condo, a [00:24:55] car, a career, a club, you know, belong to a social club. I think carrot [00:25:00] for diamond. There's probably a 60 I'm forgetting. And if men don't fit these criteria, [00:25:05] they don't want to marry them. And in Chinese society, women do not like to [00:25:10] marry a man with lower Uh, education
Music: level.
Support: It's really a [00:25:15] face issue. I'm sure it's a human characteristic, but it tends more strongly in China. [00:25:20] And so there's been this big crash in marriages also. Um, and, [00:25:25] and in China, they don't have many babies out of wedlock. So it's led to this big decline in babies. And [00:25:30] also because China's non linear they tend to sometimes miss cause and effect.[00:25:35]
So in order to reduce the number of divorces, They've created laws [00:25:40] that make it much more difficult to get divorced, but they didn't think of the effect of that, which is [00:25:45] women Unmarried women today are saying, well, if I don't have the option of getting divorced, I don't want to get married. [00:25:50] So new marriages fell even, even further.
So these societies are ahead of [00:25:55] us in, in the West in terms of the population crash. Japan started first, [00:26:00] but Korea is, is declining at a faster rate. In their belief system, [00:26:05] I feel they, Are okay with it in Japan and Korea. They [00:26:10] want to maintain the homogenous society. There's no immigration, virtually none, and they're going to [00:26:15] replace the labor with robots.
So they're going to have smaller societies [00:26:20] with robot labor. And if robots and I really do take the jobs away, then it's not. [00:26:25] They're not going to have an unemployed. Working class because they're not going to [00:26:30] have that population group.
Dave: They're going to have to have a lot of robot army people [00:26:35] too to protect their empty cities.
Support: Yeah, economically, it's going to be very, very [00:26:40] difficult. China, everyone's extrapolating this big growth for China, the Chinese century. But it's, [00:26:45] it's not good. There'll be a strong economy in the 21st century, but it's not going to be dominated by [00:26:50] China. They, they're on trajectory for a long, long time. A long [00:26:55] slowdown.
No crash in China. That's and the people always get it wrong. They're [00:27:00] either super China bulls and they extrapolate the growth. That's wrong. Where they see a China crash coming. That's [00:27:05] wrong. It's going to be a long landing. There's no hard landing. There's no long, [00:27:10] uh, sustained growth either.
Dave: So what India is that that what's [00:27:15] going to happen and they're going to have They're not having the same population crash [00:27:20] so, just by virtue of having more people, would that be dominant?
Support: So, India's [00:27:25] tricky. They're coming from a very low base, and their economy's growing very fast, and Prime [00:27:30] Minister Modi has put in some very good growth policies. They've got a fantastic [00:27:35] population pyramid compared to Asia. Indians are abstract, intuitive [00:27:40] thinkers. They're very good at software and, As we go into an AI world, I [00:27:45] think India is very well positioned for an AI world.
Japan is very, they're [00:27:50] literal intuitive thinkers. They're very good at the hardware. Japan's probably going to provide a [00:27:55] lot of the hardware for the AI world. India is not good at hardware. They're not good at [00:28:00] infrastructure. It's true. And they simply didn't follow China's growth. Model. [00:28:05] So they're not going to have that type of fast growth and they may end up with an excessive [00:28:10] population in this AI robot, um, [00:28:15] autonomous production automation world.
Dave: Are you arguing that the [00:28:20] reason that India hasn't been as good at hardware and infrastructure is it's a cultural lens [00:28:25] on the world?
Support: Yes, absolutely.
Dave: That's interesting.
Support: They, I remember [00:28:30] talking to a government official in India and he was, I was You know, this was [00:28:35] 2005. I was saying you should follow the Chinese economic model.
It's working. You guys can [00:28:40] adopt it to free trade zones If you invest in infrastructure when your country has [00:28:45] very little infrastructure, the multiplier is very high building those first bridges those first [00:28:50] highways It's great. And he said no the Chinese [00:28:55] Bridges are to nowhere. They're very little utilization, very few cars on them [00:29:00] in India.
When we have a bridge, they're full of people on them. And I thought we're [00:29:05] talking about completely different realities. I've traveled around China, traveled around India, India is [00:29:10] crying out for better and more infrastructure, but they couldn't see it. And I think it's because [00:29:15] of their, their. Abstract thinking and their focus.
Dave: And it's interesting [00:29:20] as a Westerner, I'd say, well, show me the data. Right. Let's get a spreadsheet. Like, like there [00:29:25] is a, an objective reality here and that said, I know I have a [00:29:30] bunch of cognitive biases that I have no visibility into because they're built into my [00:29:35] reality. Is there a strategy you've found because you've, you've moved between these [00:29:40] different cultures and said so much a way that we can become more aware of our cognitive biases?
Support: [00:29:45] So like you, I had an epiphany in Tibet. I was in Tibet in the 90s, [00:29:50] and it's such a completely different culture than America. [00:29:55] It couldn't be more different. And as you're there, and you're watching people walking around with their [00:30:00] prayer wheels, and they're chanting, um, they have different chants, but the, um, na, me, be, [00:30:05] me, hung.
And they would say this over and over and over. And I'm, [00:30:10] I'm not an expert here. I think it means the jewel is in the eye of the Buddha or some, someone could correct me on that, but [00:30:15] it's a, it's a meta, it's a mantra they say over and over, um, all day long. And [00:30:20] you see people that are prostrating themselves on this very dirty ground on pilgrimages that [00:30:25] could go for hundreds of miles, one body length at a time.
It didn't make any [00:30:30] sense to my rational mind.
Dave: Like their, their knees and their forearms are just callous. Like they've [00:30:35] been doing this for, you know, impossible levels of things, right?
Support: And what is the mythology [00:30:40] that supports this culture, this society? I, I was, and so [00:30:45] you, I did have the yak butter tea when I was there because that's what you ate.
[00:30:50] That's so cool. And I didn't realize to go back and put butter in my coffee. [00:30:55] But what came to me was I was watching this woman and we had a connection. I [00:31:00] couldn't speak her language, she couldn't speak mine, but we were just sitting there observing each other and she was [00:31:05] spinning a prayer wheel. And I was watching her spin it and it was very hypnotic and I [00:31:10] realized that the belief system, um, In that part of the world [00:31:15] is that time is always circular, and we believe in circular [00:31:20] time seconds, you know, it's Monday again, it's 8 p.
m. again, [00:31:25] it's spring, it's summer, it's June again, but in terms of years, we [00:31:30] believe in linear time, you can't say it's 1989 again, as much as I wish that would happen, [00:31:35] it just can't be, we think time goes forward, Uh, there was the Big Bang 13. 8 billion [00:31:40] years ago, science told us, and that was the beginning, and time goes forward [00:31:45] from there.
Or religion tells us, um, God created heaven and earth, God said, let there be light, [00:31:50] and that was the beginning of the world to Westerners, to Easterners. From India [00:31:55] eastward, it's, it's, um, infinite. Universes come in and out of [00:32:00] being every time Brahman opens and closes his eyes. It's, uh, and that has [00:32:05] profound implications because, one, it means that there are no set reference points for them.[00:32:10]
Everything is relative. Whereas for us, we do have fixed points. And because of linear time, we develop [00:32:15] linear logic. Whereas for them, everything's relative, and [00:32:20] then also, because your infinite world's coming in and out of being, that means we've existed infinite times [00:32:25] before, we're going to exist infinite times again.
The diminution of the ego is [00:32:30] something in the West that we don't get, because in a linear world, we're [00:32:35] unique, one of a kind, one time only snowflakes. You know, in the West, we have [00:32:40] resurrection. When Lazarus woke up, he's still Lazarus. Right. But in the east they [00:32:45] have reincarnation and you could be reincarnated as a butterfly or a king or a [00:32:50] banana.
It could go in depending on your karma. I would choose [00:32:55] eggplant. Eggplant? It's a totally different conception. Just [00:33:00] to jump in, I think this is interesting, on the economic point of view. If you go to 1800, [00:33:05] China and India were 50, over 50 percent of global GDP at the time.
Dave: Wow.
Support: But the linear [00:33:10] thinking Westerners developed the scientific method.
It's not that these societies never [00:33:15] noticed gravity, but you know, there's no word which in Chinese or Japanese, [00:33:20] which, which, you know, the apple fell to the earth, which was drawn by gravity, [00:33:25] which was caused by a larger mass attracting a smaller mass.
Dave: They can't connect the thoughts [00:33:30] linearly. They
Support: couldn't connect them linearly.
And so we did with the scientific method. And then [00:33:35] from 1820 on, there was this massive development of the West. And if you go to 1970, [00:33:40] China and India were Sub 10 percent of global GDP, closer to [00:33:45] 5%. China was so bad, their GDP per capita was below India in 1975. [00:33:50] And that's why out of the West we've developed everything, you know, so much science [00:33:55] here, cars, electricity, computers, the internet, lightbulb, [00:34:00] capitalism, market economics, it all came out of the West.
But they were able [00:34:05] to imitate The scientific method, and that's why China and Japan were able to catch [00:34:10] up so fast. They haven't been able to readapt their economy for the next phase of growth. [00:34:15] That's a separate issue. But it's that linear thinking that helped us develop so fast in the West. [00:34:20] And we've been in a Newtonian science world.
But as we develop, as we, you know, Move forward into a [00:34:25] quantum mechanics world, you know, with entanglement and something is and isn't at the same [00:34:30] time. Linear logic no longer works. In fact, it's provable that
Dave: cause and effect are [00:34:35] not real. They're just a really useful model for navigating reality. That [00:34:40] always throws me for a loop.
It took me a long time to, to get to that. Because if you study the deep [00:34:45] quantum physics, reincarnation, or at least lack of dying, [00:34:50] or dying, being a change of state. It appears to be what's actually happening. We just are unable to [00:34:55] see it with our eyes and our senses. Doesn't mean it's not real though. And [00:35:00] so I've looked really deeply into that when I was writing heavily meditated and just the, all [00:35:05] the spiritual work I've done before that and got to the point where I believe the most [00:35:10] rational thing that you can, you can choose around this afterlife thing is just belief in [00:35:15] reincarnation.
Aside from my own direct experiences with it and things I don't think are deniable, [00:35:20] it doesn't matter. It's rational. So if you're a westerner who's very logical left [00:35:25] brain, you want to believe in reincarnation because if you're wrong, you won't know. And if you're [00:35:30] right, great, you'll have benefits. But in the meantime Having less fear of death [00:35:35] means that you have a more fulfilled life.
So it is just provably in every system of logic I'm [00:35:40] aware of, the belief system that leads to the best life, regardless of whether it's actually [00:35:45] real. Problems with that?
Support: No, I have no problem with that. I, Joseph Campbell [00:35:50] always said stick with the software you grew up with. That's, that's what's going [00:35:55] to serve you best.
And I think there are people out there like you and [00:36:00] me that like to test other softwares and see what works for us. Virtual machines [00:36:05] everywhere. And I encourage anyone to do that. But in general, the [00:36:10] software you grew up with is what's going to work best for you.
Dave: It's funny when you talk about linear time.
[00:36:15] Um, I think maybe Ken Wilber, who was on the show with his spiral dynamics [00:36:20] has a good picture of that and time being non straight or non [00:36:25] linear, it's more of a spiral, uh, when you really get into the deep [00:36:30] teachings in the East, right? So it's circular, but it's not the same circle. It's a, it's [00:36:35] spiraling up and maybe spiraling out.
But if you're on a road, [00:36:40] That's that spiral is going to look like a straight flat road, just like flat earthers saying, [00:36:45] well, I looked around. It looks flat here. It must be flat. I think in the West when it comes to [00:36:50] time. So I looked around time sure looks like it's linear, but we're missing the spiral.[00:36:55]
It's the same problem.
Support: It's fascinating for you to say that for me, you know, Einstein said [00:37:00] time is, to a physicist, just a stubbornly persistent illusion. Yes. [00:37:05] The Chinese view of the world, you know, we thought, oh, they'll come into the WTO, as they get [00:37:10] wealthy, they'll become democratic, because we think it's this linear process.
But, so [00:37:15] I studied When I finished college, I went to Japan. I was there for two years, learned Japanese, and I thought, Oh, [00:37:20] I want to learn Chinese, you know, before I get married and have a mortgage and kids. So I went to China to learn Chinese. [00:37:25] And I thought, who learns English the best in America? The kids that study at U.
S. [00:37:30] universities. So I thought, I'm going to study at a Chinese university.
Music: I
Support: tested into one as a local [00:37:35] student. Took me a long time. And I studied there as a local student. Wow. And I, I, I [00:37:40] learned to see the world through their point of view. And their model of the world is [00:37:45] A what you were describing a circular spiral going up [00:37:50] and their view is that originally, you know pre [00:37:55] agriculture, we were primitive communist societies.
And then as agriculture developed, we [00:38:00] became slave societies. Right. And then that developed into feudalistic societies. And [00:38:05] feudalistic societies develop, and it's all technological changes, develop into [00:38:10] capitalist societies. And they believe Um, that technology, AI, big [00:38:15] data, you can hear this in Xi Jinping's speeches, um, are going to push us into a socialist [00:38:20] economy because if AI and automation end up doing all the jobs, how are you going to manage society?[00:38:25]
And that socialism eventually develops in back into communism. And if you're looking [00:38:30] at the spiral from above, it just looks like a circle. feudalism, [00:38:35] capitalism, socialism, communism. But if you look at it from the side, it's actually a rising [00:38:40] spiral. That's their view because they have a non. linear view of the world.
[00:38:45] And Deng Xiaoping had the great problem of China was very feudalistic, and Mao [00:38:50] tried to bring them straight to communism. That was a disaster with the Great Leap Forward and, [00:38:55] um, you know, the madness of the Cultural Revolution. And how do you go from [00:39:00] feudalism To socialism, capitalism's the middle step, but they were [00:39:05] communist, but they're also relative truth believers.
So, Deng said, we're going to call [00:39:10] this market economics with Chinese characteristics. And China became more capitalistic [00:39:15] in many ways than the U. S. And the growth was fantastic. They pulled hundreds of millions of people out [00:39:20] of poverty. Deng was a huge success with this. Because of relative truth, he was able to [00:39:25] change the name of it.
And now they, what they call it [00:39:30] is. Early socialism now, I think is what they're calling capitalism, and then Xi Jinping wants to take [00:39:35] them into like develop advanced socialism, which is really the real socialism phase before we [00:39:40] get to to the communist phase, but it's that spiral you were talking about.
Dave: Wow, [00:39:45] one of the things that frustrates me about the West, and I'm, you know, a dual [00:39:50] citizen of Canada and the U. S. So, um, that makes me definitely a Westerner. [00:39:55] And I can speak a little bit of Spanish, uh, when I want to, but not that much. So [00:40:00] definitely a Westerner, um, but I've traveled the world and seen all these things.
The problem I [00:40:05] have is that in the West, we've fetishized democracy. [00:40:10] And if you look at all the different types of government that there are, the role of [00:40:15] government is to extract as much from the population as possible, but ultimately [00:40:20] that's what they do. Well, it turns out. Democracy results in the [00:40:25] highest amount of income for the government from the people, more so than communism or [00:40:30] socialism or even just a king or a dictator, especially a benevolent one.
[00:40:35] So, When the West is like, we will force democracy down your throats. [00:40:40] I'm not sure that's what we want. And people say, well, it's so good Dave, you're lowering the cost of biohacking. [00:40:45] You're democratizing. I'm like, no, I don't want people to vote for whether I can do biohacking. I [00:40:50] just want to make it affordable for everyone.
So democratizing has a pretty dark side [00:40:55] to it. It, it means mob rule, unless you have rules behind it. And those rules, [00:41:00] even if it's a Republic, they're moving it away from democracy more towards. [00:41:05] Socialism, right? So maybe I'm becoming a relative truther. [00:41:10] That's kind of scary.
Support: So what's interesting about Americans for me, going over and spending [00:41:15] 30 years in Asia, I've, I've developed a new lens to understand America.
[00:41:20] And the challenge with Americans is, with our belief in absolute truth, is it [00:41:25] crowds out common sense. And so You get the ideas such [00:41:30] as, fat is bad for you. It's an absolute statement. And if you were to [00:41:35] say to a Japanese person or Chinese person, good fat is good for you, bad fat is bad for you, they would [00:41:40] say, why, why, that's common sense, right?
But if you tell an American that, they would get confused. They'd say, [00:41:45] oh, I thought fat was bad for you. Ah, that's more nuanced. And so the more, [00:41:50] you know, the more people try and take fat out of their diet in America, the fatter they get. [00:41:55] And it happens with our government, too. We think democracy is an absolute good, [00:42:00] but it depends upon context.
The prerequisite for a democracy is an educated [00:42:05] populace. And if you're going to go to a country like Iraq, with a [00:42:10] completely different historical background, Completely different educational system, a completely different [00:42:15] religious system that believes there's no separation between the state Uh, [00:42:20] and religion, the church and state is not separate in Iraq, in their belief system, it's the same, [00:42:25] and you're going to try and force democracy into that system, it's going, it has to be a total [00:42:30] failure.
So this It's kind of like installing Windows on
Dave: your Mac.
Support: Yeah. [00:42:35] It's You might really want it to work, but it's not. It's the wrong [00:42:40] software for the hardware. And Americans, with their absolute truth belief, that if it's [00:42:45] right for us, if this is the correct path to the mount, top of mountain It's the right [00:42:50] path for everybody.
And our goal should be the mountain peak, not the path.
Dave: Very [00:42:55] well said. I I've just learned. I definitely was that exact mindset. Very, [00:43:00] very scientific rational, but I'm like, enjoy your path to the top. And if you fall off [00:43:05] the side of it, it's not like I didn't tell you, but you still have a right to fall off the side of it.
And I'm not going [00:43:10] to suffer because you chose to do something stupid, but. You know, you're not allowed to make me suffer [00:43:15] because you chose to do something stupid. And it's funny, because that becomes almost libertarian, but it [00:43:20] allows for freedom of religion and freedom of governance and everything else like that.
So maybe it's the, the don't [00:43:25] tread on me, uh, old, you know, 17, 1800 American thing. [00:43:30] Where's the role for individualism in all these, these discussions we're having around the different [00:43:35] cultures?
Support: It's ironic in the West, We definitely [00:43:40] develop the culture of individualism, and this predates Judeo Christian impact [00:43:45] on the West.
It actually comes out of, um, our hunting societies. [00:43:50] Oh, interesting. That when you're chasing woolly mammoths around, uh, the person that's [00:43:55] really good with the spear to kill them is, is, uh, super important. The role of the [00:44:00] individual is, um, paramount. Whereas, if you're in a Rice farming [00:44:05] community where it's everyone working as a group, uh, the, the [00:44:10] harmony of contributing to the group and not standing out and, you know, the Japanese say, uh, [00:44:15] the nail that sticks out gets hammered back in.
It's a [00:44:20] totally different mindset. And we in the West believe. One [00:44:25] person, one vote. All people are created equal. This, to hierarchical relative truth societies, that [00:44:30] doesn't make any sense. Um, so they have a totally different philosophy on it. The [00:44:35] irony of it is Their education system can [00:44:40] become very, especially in Japan, very individualistic, very, because [00:44:45] to our left brain minds, you're teaching one thing, the teacher gets in front of the [00:44:50] class and teaches it, and everyone learns the same thing, and either the smart kids are bored because you're teaching at this [00:44:55] level, or the kids that are not as good at it because you're teaching at that level in [00:45:00] Japan, they don't believe knowledge can be transferred person to person.
As Mr. [00:45:05] Miyagi said to Daniel san in Karate Kid, learn karate from a book. You [00:45:10] have to learn it experientially. And so in math class, all the kids are [00:45:15] working on different things. Problems because they're working at their own level and the [00:45:20] teacher's not there to teach them to do the math It's just to make sure they're working at their own level and [00:45:25] improving incrementally and the results on math scores, [00:45:30] um, You know speak for themselves how much better they do and that it's actually teaching at an individual [00:45:35] level and american math you know, we don't want kids practicing.
We don't want them getting [00:45:40] good at math. Oh, yeah, totally bizarre We have this Belief, this is the one part, you know, [00:45:45] the greatest thing about American culture is this can do attitude. We're optimists. [00:45:50] You know, the people that got on the boats that came to America were optimists, otherwise they wouldn't get on the boat.
We [00:45:55] believe, I can find a way. You know, in Japan and China, they say, [00:46:00] there's nothing can be done about it. We believe something can be done, except for [00:46:05] math. Oh, he's good at math. Oh, she's bad at math. And [00:46:10] that's that. Whereas in Asia, in China, Japan, they're like, she's bad at math. Well, then have her practice [00:46:15] more.
She'll get good at math. It's the one area they believe you can improve.[00:46:20]
Dave: You're [00:46:25] reminding me of, um, a YouTube video I saw a while back and someone had made like a fake book jacket [00:46:30] and it said math for non Asians. And they're sitting on the subway, reading this book and just [00:46:35] recording all the people laughing at them. Mostly Asians going, right. He's right. He's [00:46:40] right. And.
You're explaining that it's the way that they're learning it, [00:46:45] but there, there are some things that I, I wanted to ask you about. One is, [00:46:50] so I wrote The Bulletproof Diet, and this book really changed the way we talk about fat and, um, [00:46:55] and health. It sold 600, 000 copies in Japan without any marketing. It has a lot [00:47:00] of copies of books.
So I flew over there. And because I know something about [00:47:05] Japanese culture, I've, I've always just, uh, respected Japan deeply. I know about the Hokkaido [00:47:10] region, where the good grass fed butter in Japan is, and I said, well, this is the kind of butter to use. But I go to [00:47:15] do a book signing. I don't speak Japanese, not even a little bit.
And the first book, you know, [00:47:20] this couple, this young couple comes and they set the book down to sign and then they lift up their shirts. [00:47:25] You don't lift up your shirt in Japan ever. And I'm sort of stunned. Like, this is a polite culture. I'm wearing a [00:47:30] sport coat here. Like, I'm being respectful. And they said, abs.
And I'm like, what did they say? And I was like, oh, [00:47:35] abs. They were showing me the abs they grew. Because they're willing to try something new and Japan [00:47:40] is one of the biggest book reading cultures out there I don't know how it compares to China, but [00:47:45] China may be doing more tech What is it about knowledge and wisdom transfer that happens [00:47:50] differently in the east than the west?
Support: So, what's funny about the story is Japan's [00:47:55] original religion is Shintoism. That's a nature religion. Ah. So, in the [00:48:00] West, we had the fall in the garden. Nature's corrupted. In Japan, there was no fall in the [00:48:05] garden. Anything natural is By definition, good, so they don't have the [00:48:10] taboos that we have, for example, around sex or nudity.
Well, they don't have any [00:48:15] sex in Japan, I thought. Ah, they don't have many babies. Okay, I'm kidding. But, [00:48:20] but yeah, there's been a big decline in sex. And there's all the weird kinky
Dave: stuff in Japan beyond [00:48:25] belief.
Support: Oh, yeah, because they call it weird in the West. But I think they have no [00:48:30] And so, if you're in a bathroom in Japan, there'll be a woman there cleaning the [00:48:35] toilets right next to you, and that always was weird to me.
In China, that would not happen. But in Japan, with the nature religion, [00:48:40] you go to the bathhouses. There are still some mixed bathhouses. [00:48:45] Um, but, you know, everyone gets naked in the onsen because it's natural. It's natural. There's nothing so the [00:48:50] person lifting up their shirt to show you their stomach. It's natural.
There's nothing wrong. That makes so much sense. [00:48:55] Okay. Thank you for
Dave: explaining
Support: that sharing their belly, their abs that they're proud of with you. They don't have the hang ups [00:49:00] on that. The problem with the nature of religion is that, you know, like in World War Two, they went a [00:49:05] little crazy. They don't have any rules of warfare because how do you have rules for [00:49:10] nature?
Um, it's unrestrained. Yeah.
Dave: Big lions don't have rules about hunting.
Support: Yeah. It's unrestricted. So [00:49:15] that's another, a different angle on the difference between us and them. Your question was [00:49:20] the transfer of knowledge in Asia and wisdom. So we [00:49:25] believe, and it worked great for us, that You have a theory, you prove it, and you [00:49:30] show step by step how it works, and the brilliance of this, and why the West, um, you know, [00:49:35] grew to dominate the world economically was because if you do that [00:49:40] step by step, other people can see it and learn from it, whereas in [00:49:45] the East, knowledge is transferred indirectly and it [00:49:50] must be Individually learned, learned through experience, [00:49:55] it's so, for example, if you're building a nuclear reactor and you want a nuclear [00:50:00] reactor vessel, this multi ton steel sphere in the middle of it, only one company in the [00:50:05] world, a Japanese company, can make it as a single piece.
Oh, wow. The Russians can make it, but it's two halves [00:50:10] welded together. But the safest is this individual piece. And it comes from a company that [00:50:15] 300 years ago was making samurai swords. Of course it does. And when you, they're [00:50:20] alchemists, they're alchemists. And, uh, what temperature do you dip the, [00:50:25] dip the sword into the water?
What temperature is the water? How long do you leave it there? [00:50:30] It was never recorded. It was taught to, you know, master the disciples. And it [00:50:35] was sense. It was intuition. It was, felt sense. And over, Many, [00:50:40] many, many generations, that technology is what they use to build these giant, turn a giant, an ingot [00:50:45] into a giant, uh, reactor vessel.
Um, it's as much art [00:50:50] As it is science, and so their transfer of knowledge, and so the Japanese, if you take a [00:50:55] Japanese machine tool, so a six axis machine tool, cutting machine, and you're cutting [00:51:00] precise parts, their precision is going to be three to four microns [00:51:05] per axis. If it's a Korean or Taiwanese machine tool, it's going to be seven or eight or [00:51:10] nine microns.
The Chinese one's about 15, and they haven't been able to improve on that. Wow. And [00:51:15] it's because of the art as much of science aspect, the craftsmanship [00:51:20] aspect of how Japanese knowledge, wisdom gets passed down generation to [00:51:25] generation.
Dave: That is so cool. And it's something that you would never see if you're just looking at it, but [00:51:30] you can, you can measure it and it, it makes a lot of sense.
If we go [00:51:35] downstairs after recording this, I have a, a handful of, um, Carefully [00:51:40] crafted folded steel knives, because I always appreciate the workmanship that it took to fold the knives. [00:51:45] Um, good thing I'm not in Britain, where apparently having a steak knife is illegal these days. That's [00:51:50] so weird. All right, I want to talk about personal finance with you, because In addition to studying all these [00:51:55] different views on reality, um, you've spent 30 years in finance and you're [00:52:00] focusing on helping people with personal finance.
So walk me through the big [00:52:05] overview, especially in the West. What do we get wrong about personal finance?
Support: Uh, let me start by saying, sorry, [00:52:10] I'm very Eastern now. I like to provide context. My philosophy on life is, [00:52:15] uh, learn, earn, return. From zero to 30, you want to focus on to learn. [00:52:20] 30 to 60, it's time to earn.
And 60 to 90, to return. [00:52:25] And after, it's a 25 year career in finance. Um, I want to shift to [00:52:30] the return phase. And so my goal now is to help teach Americans [00:52:35] how to be better at personal finance and personal finances. It's. [00:52:40] It's not easy, it's difficult, but it's very simple. You need to earn money, you need to save [00:52:45] money, and you need to invest money.
And, biggest [00:52:50] problem Americans make, there are two problems, one is on the earning phase. Kids get degrees in college, [00:52:55] and they get racked up with, uh, student loans. It's disgusting. And Slavery. These are non [00:53:00] recourse loans, they're stuck with them for their life, and they're getting degrees that aren't going to provide [00:53:05] income to help them pay off those loans.
And they become debt slaves, really, the rest of their life [00:53:10] paying that off. Um, and then they end up with debt and other parts of their lives, credit card, auto loans. It's [00:53:15] brutal. Brutal. Um, so that's a huge mistake kids make. So, number one, don't get student [00:53:20] loans. Well, So, so the, the, the master, the [00:53:25] guru on this that we want to learn from is Warren Buffett, and he summed it up perfectly.
He [00:53:30] said, do not borrow money unless the return on that money is higher than the cost of [00:53:35] borrowing that money. If you're getting a student loan to get a a master's degree or [00:53:40] undergraduate degree in nuclear engineering, you know, the U. S. is going to build a lot of nuclear plants over the next 30 [00:53:45] years.
Can be huge demand for nuclear engineers. If you're getting a STEM degree. [00:53:50] Uh, or perhaps a business degree or accounting or something where you have a line of sight on a [00:53:55] strong income after graduation. You should get student loans. If you're getting an English [00:54:00] literature degree, uh, you really, really, really need to rethink that or think very [00:54:05] carefully about how much money you're borrowing.
And in the invest phase of life also, [00:54:10] if you're buying a car. The return on that money is negative. Your car depreciates in [00:54:15] value as soon as you drive it off the lot and every year that you own it. You do not want to borrow [00:54:20] money, you know, at 8 percent or 10 percent to buy a car that's going to be losing value.
I've never bought [00:54:25] a new car. Yeah, and you don't want to, probably never borrowed to buy a car either. When I was younger I did,
Dave: [00:54:30] but now I, I, there's no reason to do that. It's just, it's bad because you can't earn that much money [00:54:35] that you're paying on the loan. So I, I wouldn't do that.
Support: And the part that people really miss is so.[00:54:40]
I'm paying 8 or 10 percent for the auto loan. I've got a car that's a [00:54:45] depreciating asset. But the worst part of it is, that money that you spent on this [00:54:50] car when you could have bought a much cheaper option, is money you could have invested. And [00:54:55] for the last 70 years, the U. S. equity market's risen 8 percent on [00:55:00] average.
Of course, some years up. More some years down more, but on average, 8 percent [00:55:05] plus two or 3 percent dividends, which if you reinvest them, you're getting compound 11, 10, [00:55:10] 11 percent a year, meaning your money's doubling every seven years. So this money [00:55:15] that you're spending in your youth that you could be investing is going could have [00:55:20] compounded and created wealth for you in your lifetime and then generational wealth for your
Dave: [00:55:25] family.
Do you think the markets are still fair? I'm there. We're not trading on fundamentals and stock [00:55:30] anymore. They're, they're just moving like weird economic [00:55:35] instant real time traded things like the decisions around whether a stock goes [00:55:40] up or down are quite often not based on the stuff Warren Buffett looked at in 1950.
Support: I'm [00:55:45] maybe going to get the quote wrong here. In the short term, the stock market is, uh, [00:55:50] I can't remember. In the long term, it's a weighing machine. Eventually. [00:55:55] Equities do return to their fundamental values. It's just, it can be very irrational in the short [00:56:00] term. Okay. And when you look at the market today, I think, um, [00:56:05] Blackrock came out and said valuations look high.
Um, I think that could be a consensus. [00:56:10] Um, when you're thinking about investing and you're thinking about personal finance, [00:56:15] Inflation has averaged 4 percent per year for the last 70 years. So every year your money is [00:56:20] losing 4 percent of its value. So that means every 18 years your money is losing half its [00:56:25] value.
And then you get periods like the last 4 years where the government just printed money like crazy and created [00:56:30] inflation. And inflation is a terribly regressive tax. It's very bad for poor [00:56:35] people.
Dave: And they didn't cut any of our other taxes when they taxed us with inflation. It doesn't seem fair.
Support: [00:56:40] No, it was very bad economic policy and they had budget [00:56:45] deficits up 7 percent of GDP.
This is, uh, you want that during wartime, [00:56:50] not during, uh, peacetime. And so the U. S. debt is so big now, [00:56:55] um, that you realize the only way out of it is, is pretty much, they're, they're going to be printing a [00:57:00] lot of money in the future.
Dave: So should we opt? Invest elsewhere, or get out of U. S. dollars [00:57:05] now, or get into gold, or Bitcoin.
Support: So, the U. S. dollar loses half its value every 18 years, [00:57:10] so in my lifetime, it's lost It's, you know, 87. 5 percent of its [00:57:15] value. It's pretty terrifying, yeah. But when you look at other countries, their currencies have lost [00:57:20] value relative to the dollar. Like the, the Indian rupee has lost 90 percent of its value since I was [00:57:25] born, relative to a dollar that's losing value.
So you've lost 99 percent of your [00:57:30] value there. You know, no wonder Indian people like to own gold. But if you, everyone owns [00:57:35] gold, there's no Multiplier for the banking system to lend that money out. That's another reason India [00:57:40] hasn't developed well. So you do want to hold dollars relative to other currencies.
But, of course, [00:57:45] diversification is good investment for anybody. And owning some gold is [00:57:50] maybe a good idea. Or owning, uh, Some real estate, maybe some Bitcoin, [00:57:55] probably when, you know, we're talking about don't borrow money unless the return on the [00:58:00] investment is higher than the cost of the investment and you were talking about investing in your [00:58:05] health, that's a good place for people to invest your money if you're investing in your [00:58:10] health.
Investing in yourself is a good idea. You just have to have to do it rationally. [00:58:15] And if we're going to be living 150 years or 180 years, the general [00:58:20] rule in finance, well, personal finance was the amount of investment you want to put in [00:58:25] equities is 100 minus your age. So if I'm 20 years old, 100 minus 20 is [00:58:30] 80.
I want to be 80 percent equities because I have a lot of time to withstand the volatility. If I'm 80 [00:58:35] years old, 100 minus 80 is 20. I only want to hold 20 percent equities because I don't, I don't, [00:58:40] I want more predictable returns because I don't know how much longer I have and I need to rely on this money.[00:58:45]
But if people are going to live much, much longer, that formula has to adapt and you [00:58:50] need to probably hold a higher, this is not financial advice. This is just an idea to [00:58:55] consider. But consider holding more equities for longer because equities [00:59:00] are protection against inflation because these companies do have pricing power.
Dave: [00:59:05] Here's another tweak to it. You mentioned that first 10 years is learning and [00:59:10] then you move into earning. And I, I would say keep that, although it does appear that people [00:59:15] are maturing a little bit later, I think it's because it's just, we have less hormones. Like there's less testosterone, there's [00:59:20] less, like everything is not working right.
So maybe it's. You know, 22 to 32 instead of 20 to [00:59:25] 30 or something, but it's around there. It's just creeping up. But not only are [00:59:30] you learning where should you invest then, I don't think it's probably equities [00:59:35] because you didn't, you don't make very much, but if you take that and you invest it in your health.[00:59:40]
You get the highest ROI on health investments that you make as a teenager and as a young [00:59:45] adult because you're spending 5 on slightly better food that is [00:59:50] gonna save you 50, 000 40 years from now or 30 years now. It's a really high ROI. [00:59:55] So I'm like stop spending money on alcohol [01:00:00] And shift it into food quality And an air filter, right?
Get good curtains that block out [01:00:05] light, like the basic biohacking stuff is not very expensive and the return is [01:00:10] lifelong, right? So do you like that? Maybe, like, allocate a percentage to health of [01:00:15] it's higher when you're young to avoid having to do it when you're later?
Support: So I was a lost kid and [01:00:20] boys tend to mature later than girls.
Yeah. A lot later. Apparently,
Dave: I'm still working on it. Uh, [01:00:25] yeah, that's right.
Support: Uh, something I learned from, I got those [01:00:30] personal power tapes from Tony Robbins when I was 18 years old, and something he said really helped. [01:00:35] He said, uh, you look at behaviors that are bad for you and bad for society, [01:00:40] or you don't like them.
It doesn't feel good, and it's bad for society, or [01:00:45] you do like it, but it's bad for society. You don't like it. It's good for society, good for you, good for society, and it [01:00:50] feels good. Good for you, good for society. And the one that stood out for me is it was bad for [01:00:55] me and bad for, and I didn't like it, bad for society, was binge drinking.
Dave: And
Support: I thought, [01:01:00] I should stop that.
Dave: Yeah.
Support: And after I heard him, he gave me the idea, and so I [01:01:05] stopped drinking. I'm 30 years sober. It was, uh, the best decision I ever made. The, uh, [01:01:10] The the ROI on that is incredible because your brain is clear. You have more [01:01:15] free time. Absolutely. People should be investing in themselves [01:01:20] at that age and the and the investment you make when you're younger helps you so much.
More in [01:01:25] the future, like the things we grew up with, like we didn't have seatbelts in the [01:01:30] car and my mom would buy Twinkies and we had just horrible health habits as kids. [01:01:35] And I'm sorry that I couldn't go back in time and fix that. But young [01:01:40] people today, there's so much knowledge there that they do have access to.
And I think you do want to think [01:01:45] about what are those behaviors I have that are not good for me that I should stop. [01:01:50] And that could free up money to put into areas where, oh, [01:01:55] Okay, so for me, I didn't like it, but it was good for me. Good for society was eating a better [01:02:00] diet, exercising regularly, and maybe knowing what a better diet is and knowing [01:02:05] what a better diet is.
Investing in, um, like your books, people should buy your books and read [01:02:10] these books because that's an investment of your time and money. That's kind of a huge payoff [01:02:15] that compounds over their lifetime. And if you can find out, I like to do it. It's good for [01:02:20] me. It's good for society. And you can. Bring together the Venn diagram of, I'm good at [01:02:25] this I like doing it, and society needs this.
That is where you could really find [01:02:30] your career. Um, and I think for young people, that's something that they, they should, uh, try. [01:02:35] Contemplate
Dave: have you seen the book? The basic laws of human stupidity. No, [01:02:40] you said something that brought it up This is a book from an economics [01:02:45] professor at berkeley in the 1920s And it's actually a math [01:02:50] based book.
It takes 52 minutes to listen to audiobook and it's fantastic And [01:02:55] the basic gist of it is that a lot of the problems in society come from stupid people [01:03:00] And the definition of stupid is you will do something that provides [01:03:05] no good for you And no good or even negative good for other people. [01:03:10] And the rules in the book are number one, people are not stupid, always [01:03:15] underestimate the number of stupid people and they cannot see stupid people.
[01:03:20] And there's no defense against them because, you know, if you're Napoleon trying to, you [01:03:25] assume that they'll be rational, but no one's going to assume that someone does something that's counter to your interest and their interest [01:03:30] because you can't predict it. And he has all equations for all this stuff.
And this [01:03:35] is like, this is one of the reasons that society has a problem and it has nothing to do with education. [01:03:40] gender, race class systems, nothing. It's just evenly distributed across people and you can't spot [01:03:45] them. And that for me filled in a, a big hole because I [01:03:50] understand narcissism and sociopathy.
And I write about those in heavily meditated. [01:03:55] So there's people, they're not necessarily dumb. They're just self interested and willing to throw you over a cliff so they can have your [01:04:00] cheese. Okay, fine. They got the cheese. So they're not stupid. They're just evil. [01:04:05] Understanding that's a factor here really made me reconsider everything.
And you mentioned something about binge drinking. [01:04:10] That would be one of the stupid behaviors. No benefit to you. Maybe short term pleasure, but you don't [01:04:15] remember that and long term everything, including your bank account, taking a hit. So I'm with you on that. [01:04:20] So don't be one of the stupid, uh, my rule there [01:04:25] in terms of personal finance, I only drink things older than I am, [01:04:30] which pretty much means I don't drink, you know?
And so I've, I've, let's see, I've been [01:04:35] dating. Christina for two and a half years or something. We've had I think two drinks together. [01:04:40] So I think it's just not a part of life. And interestingly in Austin, most of [01:04:45] the parties I go to, there's no alcohol. And there might be other substances that aren't as bad for your brain and [01:04:50] are arguably more fun, but alcohol is just not a thing.
And so I'm I'm hopeful [01:04:55] that that advice you're sharing with people is don't do it. The other one is about real estate though. I wanted to ask [01:05:00] him. So when I first got going in Silicon Valley, rents were insane. So I looked and I said, I [01:05:05] can buy a condo for half the price that I would pay for rent. So I bought the condo, right.
And [01:05:10] then it increased in value by 50, 000 in two years. Like that was amazing because especially it [01:05:15] was 110, 000 condo. That was a nice return, but. When I look around [01:05:20] now, like the house where the studio is, it would cost me four times what I'm paying for this [01:05:25] house to buy it. I can't find a reason to do it, except it'd be nice to get some tax benefits and, [01:05:30] you know, appreciation and all that stuff.
But it feels like for most of the U. S., unless you've had, [01:05:35] you know, rich parents or, Some sort of big windfall, buying a house is [01:05:40] really not likely to happen, at least not now. So real estate, home ownership, [01:05:45] good thing, bad thing today?
Support: We'll give you the Chinese answer. It depends. [01:05:50] But, um, when you look at the circumstances of what U.
S. policy has [01:05:55] been and inflation, and inflation really is This is an evil and a little bit at 2 percent [01:06:00] inflation is good. You need it. But when inflation got up much higher, it's very bad. And the reason is we [01:06:05] focus on consumer price inflation and that's really bad because poor people spend a much [01:06:10] higher portion of their income on safe food.
And whereas rich people, it's a very small portion, they, [01:06:15] they notice it, but it doesn't impact them. Right. But the real evil is that inflation [01:06:20] pushes up asset prices also. 89 percent of stocks are owned by the top 10 percent in [01:06:25] America. And so, when there's inflation, the rich really benefit. And, and [01:06:30] not to pick sides here, it doesn't change.
Under each party, every four years, [01:06:35] um, You know, asset prices go up and the wealth cap gets bigger. It doesn't [01:06:40] matter who's in charge.
Dave: You're not allowed to tell people that the appearance of having a choice [01:06:45] doesn't do anything.
Music: Yeah,
Dave: sheeple of America, wake up.
Support: The majority [01:06:50] does win elections. Yeah,
Dave: but when they do, amazingly, not a lot
Support: changes.
Yeah, [01:06:55] because, well, this gets into a different topic, but the, the, the poor in America have been divided and divided. [01:07:00] Into two separate groups that believes the other side's always wrong. And then the poor on this side [01:07:05] vote in the poor on this side vote and they cancel each other out. And then they lose all their agency.
Oh,
Dave: so then [01:07:10] just the rich vote is all that's counted. Interesting. I never thought of. Yeah.
Support: If the poor got together and voted together, they could [01:07:15] put people in office that would actually make policies that would benefit.
Dave: Assuming that the voting system was intact. [01:07:20] But as a computer hacker.
Support: Well, I think it would work.
It's just that they're prevented from [01:07:25] coming together. Of course. So what happened with this? [01:07:30] Massive inflation over the over the last 44 years and then Trump's come [01:07:35] in and his budget deficits 6%. It's falling to 5%. It's still a very high level [01:07:40] and our debt level so high that the interest payments on the debt are now becoming, you know, [01:07:45] compounding, causing the debt.
I think it's going up a trillion dollars every 100 days now or something. So that means
Dave: [01:07:50] inflation has to go up and taxes have to go up. Like, what, what are Americans to do with our money?
Support: Yeah, [01:07:55] so inflation does have to go up to offset that debt. So you need to invest in hard [01:08:00] assets to That's more like gold or businesses or It could be gold, it could be, as your question here is real estate, [01:08:05] businesses, absolutely.
The stock market is just an indirect way of investing in businesses. [01:08:10] Um, again, Bitcoin should, could, could be part of a [01:08:15] portfolio. Um, something for people to consider, to study on their own and learn about. Because the [01:08:20] supply is limited. It's actually fixed. You know, gold goes up to 2 or 3 percent a [01:08:25] year.
Dollars go up. Supply grows faster than that. Other currencies grow even faster, um, than [01:08:30] that, um, but that has a fixed supply. So because of that inflation, real estate prices [01:08:35] went up a lot. And so what you're talking about is affordability is not nearly as good as it used to be. [01:08:40] And we, we really do fix the supply of housing in the U.
S. We don't build as much as we could. [01:08:45] Um, and so that leads to these high prices. And so it is a, you know, A difficult decision [01:08:50] today relative to the past on whether real estate's a good investment. Always location, location, [01:08:55] location. If you think the return on this home you're buying is going to be higher than the cost of your mortgage, and [01:09:00] mortgages are now high 6%, it's much more difficult decision than when mortgages were [01:09:05] 3%.
Right. And home prices were much lower and a much smaller portion of income. So, so [01:09:10] yes, and then, you know, owning a home does have costs you have to, uh, to think about.
Dave: That [01:09:15] leaky roof is a problem. Right. Okay, so would you recommend that someone [01:09:20] young, maybe towards the end of their learning years, um, stretches to get into a home because they're going to [01:09:25] ladder up?
It depends.
Support: If this is a home that you want to be in for a long period of [01:09:30] time and paying that mortgage, because when you pay a mortgage, the, the, the interest goes to the bank, but the principal's [01:09:35] paying yourself, you're paying down the equity, the principal, the equity grows, you're, you're getting that ownership.[01:09:40]
If that's more than you would be paying in rent, um, then that's a good idea. And in the [01:09:45] U. S. you can get. 30 year fixed mortgage, um, you know, in an inflationary [01:09:50] environment, that fixed mortgage is a really nice option. And U. S. homes are, [01:09:55] are, are non recourse. You can walk away in, in, in, you know, in a bad, if you made a big mistake [01:10:00] there.
So, People should still be open minded about investing in [01:10:05] that home, but if you're going to be moving then you have to consider, will I be able to rent this house? Right. [01:10:10] And if it's a house in a growing uh, city, [01:10:15] and you can get a good rent, and those rents are going to grow over time, but your mortgage is fixed, that could be a [01:10:20] good idea.
That could be something to consider. If it's not going to be a good place to rent, and you're not going to be, [01:10:25] you know, wedded to that, you know, Place, uh, you really probably want to keep the [01:10:30] optionality of renting ask your financial advisor
Dave: Well richard [01:10:35] your book is culture hacks and it's been really fun to explore how people see the [01:10:40] world Differently than you or I do admittedly.
We both have weird brains because we've been around the world a [01:10:45] bunch But it was enlightening. So Thanks See you next time [01:10:50] on the human upgrade [01:10:55] podcast