Peter Zeihan

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Peter Zeihan

Postby Devlin » Thu Oct 06, 2022 3:20 pm

Has anyone read Peter Zeihan's last book, The End of the World is Just the Beginning, Mapping the Collapse of Globalization?

Does anyone watched his videos or has seen him speak in person?

I recently read the book and started to follow his Youtube page, he has a unique look on the world and its future.

I really don't have anyone I can discuss his stuff with so I figure I will turn to the old BFC.

https://www.amazon.com/End-World-Just-B ... B09C65JNPF


https://www.youtube.com/c/ZeihanonGeopolitics/videos
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Re: Peter Zeihan

Postby Kurt » Thu Oct 06, 2022 3:31 pm

God my reading list....

Tarkan brought him up during an Agriculture chat here a while back.

I swear, the only real reason I would want to live forever is to read.

Thanks for reminding me about this guy. I think I will hit some writings online before I decide what to put in my kindlespace or bookshelf.
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Re: Peter Zeihan

Postby snaark » Fri Oct 07, 2022 3:45 pm

Oh wow, another pseudo intellectual with a "the end is nigh" book. You don't see that every day.
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Re: Peter Zeihan

Postby Kurt » Fri Oct 07, 2022 4:37 pm

snaark wrote:Oh wow, another pseudo intellectual with a "the end is nigh" book. You don't see that every day.


Real intellectuals can have doom and gloom shit that doesn't come true either.

Check out Bertrand Russel's prediction of doom if Great Britain didn't leave NATO to join a confederation of neutral nations with Sweden, Finland, Austria and Switzerland. Basically it was "England Doesn't leave NATO = Ka-Blooey Mushroom clouds everywhere and humanity is wiped out."

Russel was certainly an intellectual. Reading his reflections on how things change when you think they will be permanent (Like the American Democratic processes currently under threat) but like everyone, he was focused on Britain and it's place in the world and thought that Britain was a key to survival of the human race.
He might have been right too, if circumstances were different, but they were as they were and humanity survived without Britain leaving NATO.

From the brief bit of Zeihan I have looked at it is pretty much USA is essential (like Russel thought of Britain) but that the USA is fine as long as we basically keep on track of not doing large infrastructure projects like Europe does (because of rivers, coasts and freight rail) and everyone is screwed because they are not the United States, Canada or Mexico.

Like I said, I just pretty much browsed his ideas so I do not have a grasp of them but I see Doomy Similarities to Bertrand Russell's post WWII ideas and certainly his nation-centric ideas about the world.

I guess the main thing is, lets say 50 years ago, who made predictions that have come true as far as dooming and glooming and what methods did they use? Someone who follows the pattern of past correct predictions would likely be correct themselves in the future.
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Re: Peter Zeihan

Postby Tarkan » Sat Oct 08, 2022 3:09 am

Zeihan is big on geography and demography is destiny. The arguments are not without merit and flaws.

His latest work is based on the following linked premises:
1) globalism is only possible due to a country like the US being a global hegemon that enforces open commerce and keeps the world's waterways largely safe for global commerce.
2) the US is no longer able or willing to be the world's policeman. In effect, there is a bipartisan populist sentiment that the US has been cheated by globalism, so we are taking our ball and going home.
3) no other country is capable of stepping into the void. Not even China.

From there it's basically just logical deductions looking at export / import dependencies, likely trade disruptions from likely regional conflicts and matching that up with demographic inertia.

The reason why North America is sitting pretty is it has the healthiest demography of the developed world in the US and the healthiest demography in the developing world in Mexico, and is a complete trade unit by itself in terms of food and energy. No other continent or region can say that. China is the world's largest oil importer now and it's oil comes mostly from the Middle East where it can be interdicted by almost anyone with a couple of destroyers. Russian oil exploitation is almost completely dependent on US or French technical expertise, and all that is gone, so production will backslide there like it has in Venezuela. Without oil and natural gas, Russia is just a bigger, less defensible North Korea.

Without Russian oil and gas, Europe is fucked with both energy, industry, and agriculture.

Without Russian and Ukrainian food exports, the Middle East is fucked.

Africa and Brazil are also dependent on fertilizers that are downstream from Russian production. This stuff increased outputs by about 5x in the 20th Century, and without it...production will decline to 1/5th of what it used to be, with calamitous effects on populations.

Anyway, that's the basic idea.

The only real flaw that I see is North America can always snatch defeat from the jaws of victory (having a nuclear war over Ukraine would be a great way to do that and the country is so disunited that a majority of people think we are going to have a civil war), and - other countries get a vote. China accounts for around half the world's heavy industrial output. In many ways they are the US in 1938, only without the self sufficiency and secure borders and with a Han fascist dictator running a 1984 style Eastasia style government. But China can throw industry and men at the problem of west Asia domination for a long time to settle out the oil question.
I'd whore myself out just one more time if I knew who to screw to get out of this grind.
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Re: Peter Zeihan

Postby Michael » Sat Oct 08, 2022 4:11 pm

A quick glance and I think his view might be similar to Ian Bremmer's G-Zero concept (which I buy into). Definitely worth seeing what the man has to say.
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