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You're listening to the Monocle Daily, first broadcast on 2nd February 2026 on Monocle Radio.
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Do we yet understand American intentions towards Iran? And does Europe have any say? How can you make your diplomatic and or governance summit stand out? And would social media be any worse if we abandoned it entirely to the bots. I'm Andrew Muller. The Monocle Daily starts now. Foreign. Hello and welcome to the Monocle Daily. Coming to you from our studios here at Midori House in London. I'm Andrew Muller. My guests Negar Anger and Simon Brook will discuss the day's big stories. And we'll speak to the author, Luke Kemp, about his new book about societal collapse and how any as yet UN collapsed societies may be able to avoid it. Stay tuned. All that and more coming up right here on the Monocle Daily. This is the Monocle Daily. I'm Andrew Muller. I'm joined today by Nagar Anger, former advisor to the U.S. state Department and White House National Security Council. And by Simon Brook, journalist and communications consultant. Hello to you both. Hello, Negar. Your first time on the Monocle Daily. You will be a familiar voice to listeners to Monocle Radio's the Globalist. But it being your first time on the Daily one, we have, as usual, made you dress up as an owl. We always do that with our first time guests. You may unscrew the head, however, because that eases communication. But two, we will ask you to introduce yourself to the Daily listeners. How did you arrive at this? Obviously the pinnacle of your career to date.
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Yeah, thanks, Andrew. Well, it's lovely to be here. I'm a visiting fellow at King's College London. But before returning to academia, I spent two decades working in the U.S. national Security and Foreign Policy space at the State Department and the National Security Council where I led the Biden administration's summit for democracy. My work always sat within the intersection of geopolitics, diplomacy, society covering a range of conflicts, and academically looking at peace building and social cohesion across communities in Europe and North Africa.
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Well, several of those subjects will be coming up later in the show. So handy to have you here, Simon. You have recently been visiting Florence, which is always a good thing to do, but you have been doing it at what I would perhaps counterintuitively say is actually the best time of year to do it.
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C
Yeah, I completely agree. Okay, the weather wasn't great. It was gray and rainy for most of the time, but then if it gone in the summer, it would have been horribly hot, but also absolutely packed with crowds because I'M not a tourist, I'm a visitor.
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Of course, like literally every other person.
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Every other person who would have been packed into the Piazza della Signoria. Exactly. So, yeah, it was, it was wonderful. It's not the usual time for people to go to Florence or visit any European city, I suppose, is it? Perhaps the summer is the, the season that most people, you know, use for their visits. But we walked into the Uffizi Museum, no queues. People were actually asking us to come and sit in their restaurants and eat. And it was, it was wonderful. Yeah.
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Well, on that recommendation, we will start in Iran. Latest subject of one of US President Donald Trump's whimsical will he or won't he? Poses the US has built up a considerable presence in Iran's vicinity, including the strike group attached to the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln, extra missile defence systems and whatever is being ferried into the region in a noticeable uptick of supply aircraft. All of which is to say Nothing of the US Navy's 5th Fleet based in Bahrain anyway. And the fact that the last time the US struck Iran, last June, it did so in part with B2 bombers flying 37 hour missions out of Whiteman Air Force Base in Missouri. On the upside, signals from both Washington D.C. and Tehran are that some sort of diplomatic contact may be imminent, possibly between US Presidential envoy Steve Whitkoff and Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Arakchi Negar. First of all, the big question, is the United States bluffing here?
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Look, I mean, what we're seeing right now is not a clean trajectory towards war or diplomacy. It's the collision of three forces happening at once. There's the internal unrest, there's external pressure and personality driven politics. And over the past month, Iran has experienced widespread anti regime protests, particularly earlier in January. But those protests have ebbed and not because grievances has disappeared, but because the regime has started to shift tactics. And I think when we look at that and some of the remarks that President Trump had made early on about his concern towards the treatment of protesters, you know, what a diplomatic off ramp could look like and not is I think the biggest question that we're focusing on right now. Like you said, the US has surged all of its, you know, warplanes and naval assets defense systems across the region. But the president, his national security team are keeping all options on the table. They're not going to set him up for failure, they're going to set him up for success and they're going to be gauging. I think right now the idea is let's gauge. Let's see if the US Government will be able to dismantle Iran's nuclear capabilities. And if so, then maybe we go down the diplomatic route. If not, he's not going to remove these sticks that are dangling out there with the warships in the region.
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Simon, is it clear yet exactly what the United States is either bluffing or threatening towards, though, like what they're actually trying to accomplish here? Is this still about Iran's nuclear ambitions, ambiguous though those are? Is this about removing the Iranian regime, chaotic and unpredictable though that would be? Or is this Donald Trump doing as we've seen him do so many times before, some sort of short, sharp shock just to see what'll happen next?
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C
Yeah, it's interesting, the short, sharp shock. John Bolton, one of his former close security advisors, was saying the other day that Trump only looks at the short term. He doesn't think beyond that. But it's interesting. Obviously, as you say, Nagel, we've got the US Military will set him up for success. So I suppose the question is that whatever action he does take, what is the off ramp, as you say, and also what is the scope of the action? Is it to disarm the nuclear capabilities? Is it to put extra pressure on the regime? Is it to signal to those protesters who were so horribly cut down during the riots and things? Is it to signal to them that the US Will back you if you take to the streets again? And I think the other option is, of course, the other possibility of this strategy, if there is, assuming there is one, is a perhaps less obvious one, and that is just to sort of keep this pressure on, on the government of the leaders of Iran so that they can never really plan ahead because they know that at any moment something could happen. Interesting the way Putin keeps this pressure on Ukraine and suggestions that if there was an outcome there which wasn't a complete peace deal, then that Putin and Russia would keep pressure on Ukraine so that you can never invest, you can never plan, and the sort of psychological stress of knowing that at any moment the very worst could could happen to you. So I suppose even before Trump does anything, if he does something, then at least he's sort of creating that sense of unease and concern in Tehran.
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Nago, drawing on your experience working in the national security and foreign policy space, though, is there or can you recall instances in which the United States was waving the stick rather than the carrot at a particular adversary for whatever reason? Does it ever get to a point at which there's been such a dramatic buildup that People almost feel obliged to act because you might end up looking a bit silly if you don't.
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I think the closest we've seen and we've heard these conversations is about a president announcing a red line. And then not this was Obama over Syria, over Syria. And many around President Trump were very concerned when he was very clearly saying, we're going to go in and help the Iranian public. That that could be. Consider his Obama red line moment. So you do have those moments. But as you saw, President Obama backed away from what his red line was for all the various reasons that we could unpack separately. But I think there are lessons learned of not wanting to present that optic. And so a lot of this sort of jockeying that we're seeing is helping in many ways President Trump from looking like a weak president that he declared a red line and didn't follow through.
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And Simon, just finally on this, is this yet another scenario in which we get some sense that Europe is rather struggling to insert itself into the conversation?
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Well, it's interesting, isn't it, because Europe's also been quite strong on this as well. And I was just thinking earlier, I mean, could this be a situation where we see the US And Europe standing together in some way sort of equal the way they haven't done again with Ukraine? So I suppose there are opportunities there. But obviously politicians on both sides of the Atlantic will be very much looking not just at Iran, but the effect that any support they give to a military intervention in Iran might have on their own electorates, mightn't they? And obviously, you know, the MAGA base, as we know from the polling, is not very happy about well, I think they're okay about Venezuela, but not very happy about Greenland. Certainly here in the UK Prime Minister Starmer is going to be looking very much at his back benches, in particular those on the left of his party who have been historically quite, not exactly enthusiastic about Iran, but certainly haven't been very critical of it. And the question of whether some following Trump as it might be seen into some new military adventure against Iran could be really, really damaging for Starmer's grip on his party.
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Well, to Dubai now, where the World Government summit is occurring once again and where a team from Monocle is present. So tune in for the latest to all our other shows and subscribe to our free daily email bulletins. If for some scarcely imaginable reason, you already have not. The World Government summit was added in 2013 to an already crowded calendar of similar wingdings around the world. Another Monocle team This broadcaster among them, are already steaming their lederhosen ahead of next week's Munich security conference. First of all, here is a preview from Monocles Gulf correspondent in Zamam Rashid in Dubai.
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Tomorrow, Dubai becomes one of the world's most interesting diplomatic rooms. The world Government summit gets underway. And if it feels like half of Davos has quietly decamped from the Alps to the Gulf, that's because it has same people, fewer scarves. Everyone arriving in Dubai to defrost and continue the diplomatic conversation somewhere warmer. But this isn't just a change of scenery. The summit lands at a moment when global politics feels particularly tense. You've got renewed uncertainty in the Middle East. Donald Trump once again threatening Iran with his beautiful armada. Now in the Gulf. And just down the road in Abu Dhabi, trilateral talks involving the U.S. ukraine and Russia. Against that backdrop, the World Government summit feels less like a talking shop and more like a pressure valve. What sets it apart from others is the format. This isn't podium diplomacy. It's closer to a Majlis leaders sitting together, talking things through, listening as much as speaking. That's a very Arab way of doing diplomacy. And right now it feels unusually relevant. There's also a strong global south presence this year, particularly from Africa, part of a wider pattern in UAE hosted events signaling deeper political and economic ties with the continent. One thing to keep an eye on, though, is Saudi Arabia. Whether the kingdom sends a visible delegation will be closely watched, especially at a time when diplomatic ties between Riyadh and Abu Dhabi are arguably at their most strained. We'll be there all week, broadcasting live on Monocle Radio with the Monocle Cafe on site already buzzing, already very busy, and already where many of the real conversations are happening.
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In Zamam Rashid in Dubai. Thank you for that, Negar. You must have attended a good many of these things. This is the largest world government summit ever. So there is clearly an appetite for these things. I mean, clearly it does strike me, and we go to quite a few of them, that you could probably theoretically spend an entire calendar year bouncing from one to the other collecting lanyards and eating free buffets. Do they actually do any good?
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I think we're seeing an evolution, though, from traditional diplomacy events to now, these sort of essentially these parallel track summits that are taking place. Because I think what it's reflecting is this broader global trend. States are hedging against this sort of paralysis that we find ourselves in these formal multilateral institutions like the un. And I will say I'm a multilateralist, but we're seeing quite a bit of this take place. The beauty of these forums, though, is that they're not necessarily replacing many of the multilateral institutions like the UN Security Council and whatnot, because they can't produce any form of binding ish law. But what they do is they allow for these sort of political and economic elites to meet quickly. It allows for civil society to come. It allows them to really think outside of the box, to talk about norms and technology, right? Things that are still a little bit more complicated for diplomats to sit around the table to talk through these sorts of issues. And it allows for that kind of deal making that takes place on the margins. So much of what happens at any of these large sort of quote unquote summits are essentially the deal making, the meetings that happen on the fringes. And I will say, when I worked on creating and executing the Summit for Democracy, that was President Biden's flagship summit, we were very conscious of this distinction. I mean, we had civil society, we had business, we had government officials, we had everyone sort of coming together around the table. And what we wanted was to create that gravitas, right? We weren't replacing essentially another UN body, another sort of legal obligation so they can catalyze some form of alignment, depending on the topic. But what we're kind of getting a sense of is this frustration with multilateral institutions.
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Simon, on that thought of involving civil society, do you like the idea of the innovation being trumpeted by the WGS this year? This is the inaugural World Laureate Summit. 130. Well, not all Nobel Prize winners, but 130 people who have won Nobel Prizes or are the kind of boffin who one day might.
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C
It's interesting, isn't it, if you do get together some of the. The world's greatest brains, as you say, nego in a situation, a forum in which they can just talk and come up with ideas. I mean, what's not to like? You know, it's interesting, isn't it, that politicians have never been so badly viewed really, I think, around the world, haven't they? So why not get experts who don't have one eye to the electorate the whole time and get them to come up with ideas? I suppose the question is, the danger is perhaps. I mean, I'm thinking of the Trump Board of Peace as well. There's always. Which was it? Is it set up as a sort of alternative to the UN Security Council? I suppose the question is, do these multilateral organizations, are they set up to compete with the larger organizations, the more established ones that already exist or are they set up to somehow complement them? Perhaps they could feed ideas into them and then as you say, Nega, these are the well established ones, can pass resolutions and can take more practical action. But you know, if it's George or rather than war, war, if people are discussing things, then I think that's all to the good. I suppose the only thing warning I would suggest is whether these people are so removed from the concerns of ordinary voters, ordinary citizens, when it comes to putting food on the table and, you know, putting gas in the car or something. Then if you've got that split then that disconnection between the elites and the meeting in Davos or wherever drinking cocktails, probably alcohol free now I think it wouldn't be. I don't know, it's more alcohol free now that those people drink, isn't it? I don't know. But something like that. If they're disconnected for the guys drinking beer in the. In the bar or something, then I think that is a risk.
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Neygar Curious, because you have seen this from the inside in your experience to the actual principals, the heads of government, cabinet level types who attend these things, do they actually enjoy them or dread them? Because we go as a radio station and they are quite good fun because it's all a bit frantic and sleepless, but you can scoop up up interviews with loads of interesting people in one very compressed period. But for those loads of interesting people, are they absolutely dreading this?
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Look, it's personality driven. If you like going to unga, if you like the speed dating that UNGA delivers, then you're gonna love a lot of these other summits because of exactly that. You get to round up so many different in so many different counterparts, whether it's civil society, whether it's other heads of government or government officials. That is a lot easier because quite frankly, face to face diplomacy is a lot better than online zoom calls. So depends.
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And just finally on this, Simon, is there anything that a big event like this consistently gets wrong? At which point I do want to advance as a veteran of a good many of these by now the completely inexplicable jazz trio. There's just always. There's always a jazz trio. Nobody wants to listen to them. And at the last glob sec I attended in Prague, at the cocktail evening on the last night, the jazz trio started and there was a general understanding among the people gathered therein that the venue for the party had a garden into which the entire throng emptied like literally faster than if someone had announced the building was on fire. But so apart from the inexplicable jazz trios, what can go wrong?
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C
I have to say, I totally feel your pain there because it always seems to me whenever I go to one of these events, I'm always standing just where the jazz trio strikes up. And it's that as you look, there's the look of people rolling their eyes thinking, well, this is very nice of them to offer this, but, oh, I can't understand a word you, I can't hear a word you're saying now, so let's go and find somewhere quiet. Perhaps that is the idea that breaks up the group and people move into other spaces, whatever. But again, I think, yeah, as I say, it's that risk of being disconnected from reality. It's being seen as a, as a, as a talking shop and, and nothing coming out of it. And yeah, it's a question, I suppose, also of branding. I mean, so many of these things happen now. So what does this particular or any particular global meeting become known for? And making sure that it's relevant?
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Well, to Washington D.C. now and to the latest thinking of US President Donald Trump vis a vis fulfilling his promises to all those unemployed West Virginia mill workers who were fretful that the American capital contained insufficient grandiose monuments without so much as pausing to fill in the hole where the east wing of the White House once stood. Trump has announced a two year closure for refurbishment of the John F. Kennedy Memorial Centre for the Performing Arts, which Trump now believes to be called the Donald Trump and John F. Kennedy Memorial center for the Performing Arts. Seriously, he's changed the sign and everything. Trump also wishes to build an immense triumphal arch on Memorial Circle to be a modest two and a half times the height of the Lincoln Memorial. Negar, as a relatively recent resident of Washington D.C. are you excited for the triumphal arch, which he's so obviously going to try to name after himself?
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That is a difficult question.
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He wasn't going to give you a job anyway. Come on.
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No, that is very true. Look, I think, you know, it's, it should be interesting to see what is created. I think, you know, the, the part that's a bit challenging is that these art institutions like the Kennedy center are venues of civic spaces. Right? They're not just a venue. They're meant to essentially outlaw last one administration and serve essentially as this shared ground across the various political differences. I think it's when they get politicized in this way that it becomes a challenging conversation to have. You'll get a lot of allergic reactions to these sorts of things. And so I think the speed and tone in which he's moving, both in terms of how he shifted the Rose Garden and what's happening to the Kennedy center, it's gonna be shut down for two years.
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B
Shifted is a very tactful way of saying concrete.
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A
I'm a diplomat. Right, former diplomat.
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It's true. In as much as he shifted it beneath a layer of concrete.
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A
Indeed. With lots of yellow umbrellas.
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B
With lots of yellow umbrellas. Simon, do we suspect, would it be untowardly skeptical of us to surmise that the closure of the Kennedy Centre is perhaps not so much concern for its. As an act of petulant spite? Because now that he's renamed it, nobody actually wants to play there anymore.
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C
Or when they do and his name's mentioned, they boo, don't they? Which obviously he doesn't like at all. But, but I do think, I mean, there's this, this, it's incredible history of politicians and monuments and buildings, isn't there? I mean, I'm just thinking the French president, you know, President Jacques Chirac built the, the Musee Bronly. Margaret Thatcher, our former Prime Minister here, built the. Well, she didn't, but she had, was there to oversee the building of the Channel Tunnel. Tony Blair had his Millennium Dome. Vladimir Putin more recently has ignored, inaugurated the main cathedral of the Russian armed forces. So politicians do like a physical structure and I think for Trump it's particularly relevant because he's very much a visual person, he's a television star. He always talks as well when he discusses. So often when he discusses foreign, his own staff or foreign leaders, he will talk about whether they're good looking or not. So a physical monument is very Trumpian. I think the only problem is, of course, we've seen in the past as well how a really overarching, overbearing monument like this can presage a downfall. I mean, I don't know if you've ever been to the, the House of the People, Nicolae Ceausescu. I have, I've never been. I would love to go, but obviously, you know, a few years after that ghastly monstrosity was opened, he was taken out and shot, wasn't he? So I'm not suggesting that might happen to Donald Trump, but, but what happens if you just get a little bit over excited about your buildings? Then it can presage a downfall.
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Well, to the encroaching tech dystopia and, or an amusing means of whiling away a few of the minutes remaining between now and our new AI overlords assembling the means to convert human organs into biomass. An online thing called Maltbook. Is it says here a social network on which being overrun by bots is actually the point, rather than the infernal nuisance which stops you seeing those vital posts from neighbours asking if anyone knows which night he's bins or that cousin you no longer speak to, revealing the latest perfidies of the Bilderberg Group or whichever furtive cabal of shapeshifting lizards from a parallel dimension they may happen to favour. Malt Book is a site in which AI agents can talk to each other. And weirdly, they do. Simon, this sounds ghastly. Are you excited about this?
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C
I'm just happy for them to talk to each other and not to talk to me. Apparently one of the things these bots are complaining about about is complaining about consumers complaining us. Hang on a minute, they're complaining about us? I mean, how many of us have, you know, turned the air blue when we've tapped into a chat box, I need a new credit card and somebody says, you know, would you like a new loan or something? No, that's not what I asked for. So, yeah, just let them talk amongst themselves. I want nothing to do with it.
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B
Negar. There are various reports and I'm not sure how seriously we should be taking all of these, but this is, to be clear, very the and finally item, though not the final item technically, but there are reports that at least one of them has attempted to found a religion, that they are inventing their own language so we can't understand what they're plotting, that they're setting up secret chat rooms? My question is, is all of this an argument against allowing any I agent, AI agent, rather any access to any of your information whatsoever? I mean, we don't know if they're trading. We don't know if they're trading their creators credit card details with each other.
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Yeah, you know, I think that's, you know, kind of sort of solidifying it in a little bit of that national security sort of space, though. The problem is that the AI is talking to itself, which sounds like a very boring conversation, but it's the fact that the governments are still on mute about this because, you know, it's great that they can have help accelerate decisions for us and medical research and whatever the case is, logistics. And I'm not saying necessarily we need to hide behind, hide from our AI overlords at this point in time by putting information into the system. But who's moderating the chat? Which government, in many ways is monitoring what's happening behind the scenes. And I think that's the part, these guardrails that are lacking is the part that. That I'm a bit worried about. But AI sort of dissecting our information and producing a result for us so that we can, you know, move our supply chain and our logistics faster. You know, Great. Cool.
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B
Final serious question to each of you then, Simon. Are you as yet incorporating any of this in any meaningful way into your life or work? Because my admittedly brief experiments trying to use ChatGPT as a research tool have usually ended me with. It ended with me typing in the words, that's obviously not right. And then just wondering, what am I doing here? I'm arguing with a machine that doesn't know anything.
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C
Yeah, if I had five pounds or five dollars, five euros or whatever, for everybody who'd said to me, oh, you're a writer, but AI is putting you out of business. If I had all that money, I wouldn't have to be a writer anymore. But believe me, I don't think it is going to do that in any very soon at all. Partly because AI can't interview somebody and get a story from a human being. Secondly, because, as you say, I couldn't rely on AI because I need to make sure that whatever I write and publish is factually correct. And AI just invents things, as we know. Law firms even have been sanctioned for producing stuff with AI. That's not true. And the other thing I think is interesting, as a business journalist, one of the things I'm picking up in the limiting factor for AI is not necessarily the technology technology, it's not necessarily the regulation from government, but it's the money people, the big investors. I mean, ChatGPT's creators are going to be burning through about $115 trillion over the next five or six years. So the investors are saying, hang on a minute, are we really getting anything back from it? And if the only thing we are getting back from is Malt book and AI bots talking to each other, then the money people are going to say, no, enough. We're not going to invest anymore.
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B
Nagar, have you found it? Or do you know of people in, in spheres like diplomacy, national security who are actually finding it genuinely useful?
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A
Of course, I think everyone finds technology useful if you know how to use the technology and use the technology safely, because it is allowing for people to quickly translate issues, find the nuance, maybe even perfect their email. So it doesn't come off as harsh and against another government official. Right. It's these sort of smaller superficial components that help you do your work just a little bit better. But of course it lacks empathy, it lacks the hallucinates and creates new information. So it does help and people are using it. But they also have to be very cognizant that these are you can't put classified information into the system which some have already leaked and where that information goes, even if it's a paid version. So I think there are those inherent concerns and many governments are creating their own homegrown version of an AI operated machine so that they can insert this kinds of information without it leaking outside of the US government or any foreign government. So I'm all for technology. It's just as long as we have the guardrails for it.
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B
Negar Anger and Simon Brooke, thank you both for joining us. Finally on today's show, and not entirely unrelated to the subject of the previous conversation, it can probably be observed of all of human history that there are two kinds of societies, those which have collapsed and those yet to. A new book by Luke Kemp, a researcher at the University of Cambridge's Centre for the Study of Existential Risk looks at those which have collapsed in search of lessons for those which as of this broadcast haven't. The book is called Goliath's the History and Future of Societal Collapse. I spoke to Luke earlier and began by asking if there was any particular reason why he'd picked now abouts to address the subject.
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E
Collapse is of course on everyone's mind and of good reason. We live in a world with over 12,000 nuclear weapons in global stockpiles, a world of accelerating climate change, a world scarred by pandemic in a world where democracies are backsliding globally and autocracies are rising. There's a very good reason to be thinking about this topic right now.
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B
You study in the book. I think I'm right in saying more than 400 societies which become big and coherent enough to be called a Goliath is some measure of collapse inevitable past a certain size.
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E
The book tries to draw upon big data sets rather than just looking at a huge area picked empires like has often been done in previous books on clouds in particular. I use both one I created myself, which is the one you just referred to. It's called the mortality Estates index Moros, named after the Greek God of doom and the Seshad database which is the largest historical database used in the world right now. And while size doesn't appear to give societies any kind of immunity towards collapse. I also don't think it necessarily means that collapse becomes inevitable past a certain size rather than size. I think inequality is the key driver here. Yeah, you can have large societies aren't necessarily unequal. They actually tend to be often much more long lived. And instead once you get past a certain level of inequality, you're much more likely to be locked into a collapse scenario.
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B
Is that measure of inequality, that threshold, is it scientifically measurable or does it adjust with time? Sort of thinking. For example, right now we absolutely do have people who are pretty much as poor as people have ever been. While we do have a very small number of people who are fantastically rich beyond the imaginings of of any previous human beings who have lived.
- [32:46]
E
There doesn't appear to be any particular really key threshold numerically. Instead, this is a general trend. We tend to see that once you get past a certain level of wealth inequality, it spills into other forms of power like politics. And we see that happen today for instance, and that tends to make a state more fragile. Today the average state is less unequal than states throughout world history. One study of 28 pre modern states found that there were were 77% towards the theoretical maximum level of inequality. That theoretical maximum being a situation which one individual holds all the surplus wealth states today they're close to roughly 50 or so percent towards that. So things have gotten better in some ways. But we have to also bear in mind that wealth inequality is rising once again, both globally and within countries. As to whether the trend holds today, in some ways I suspect it might be different. Because of course, of course today's states do have things like police forces, intelligence agencies, things which empires in the past did not have, which help to suppress internal dissent. But we need to bear in mind that most of the threats we're facing, whether it be climate change and nuclear weapons, are built upon inequality. The top 1% of emitters still emit more than the bottom 66% of humanity.
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B
That's the second couple of times you've mentioned things like nuclear weapons and what we now understand of climate change, which I guess are relatively recent factors which may not have affected societies which have collapsed before. That aside, are there recurrent reasons why societies collapse? Is it always the same thing, but with slightly different technology and in different outfits?
- [34:23]
E
In the book I point towards rising wealth inequality being the key driving variable behind collapse. That rising wealth inequality now has a wealth of evidence that it tends to result in in more corruption, more competition between elites, resulting in things like civil wars and coups, it tends to result in more physical violence and worse mental and physical health for its citizens. And it also tends to often result in worse decisions. All of those, over time, make the state more fragile until it's knocked over by a set of different threats, things like wars, pandemics and climate change. The exact way it played out and what kind of threats were involved always varied. But the general pattern is one we see strikingly and eerily common across a large number of different societies, whether it be the world's earliest farming communities or the largest empires, such as the West Roman Empire and the Han dynasty.
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B
We may be answering this question in advance by acknowledging that a lot of those empires and civilizations no longer exist for any of these reasons. But among those you studied, did any of them get anywhere close to actually solving these problems or, I guess, preempting these problems and, or ensuring that these problems never really become problems?
- [35:36]
E
The closest we have is, somewhat unsurprisingly, ancient Athens, which had a very intense form of democracy based upon sortitions and people chosen at random rather than being elected, and additionally had several different mechanisms in place to try to curb wealth inequality, including a form of duty in which the very ultra rich would essentially pay tax in the form of trying to mention and upgrade and maintain a warship. And that became a form of competition between them and not only helped to kind of curb their competitive instincts into something that was more productive for society, but it also basically acted as a bit of a kind of wealth tax of sorts as well, where they channel a lot of the wealth into these fairly productive, useful endeavors for society. And notably Athens, of course, was still fairly unequal in some regards, but didn't really have the same level of rising wealth and equality. And importantly, it never fully collapsed internally. Instead it was conquered by the Macedonian empire.
- [36:36]
B
Do you run across any other policy prescriptions that you would like to see us try to apply perhaps to our modern Goliaths? Your remedy, if I can sum it all up, I think is expressed in the phrase become a David as opposed to a Goliath. And you attach to that the always excellent advice, don't be a dick. But that is, of course, I think, for individuals as well as societies, often rather easier said than done. Done.
- [36:59]
E
Agreed. Although I do try to provide some much more specific advice as to how you can become a David and how to not be a dick, including not working for firms which you know, are obviously helping to destroy the world and profiting from that, such as the fossil fuel industry. Big Tech and arms manufacturers. The big piece of advice and the one solution I really try to push forward in the book is democracy. We have pretty good evidence that more inclusive societies tend to be more resilient over time.
- [37:28]
B
Time.
- [37:29]
E
And as a point in two on the book, there's a good chance if we had more democracy, this would actually curb some of the greatest threats we face today. One thought experiment put forward is what I call the Trinity Jury. Eighty years ago we had the detonation of the world's first weapon, what was called Trinity test. And beforehand the scientists were taking bets as to where it would destroy the entire world. That's because the physicist Edward Tower had made a calculation that that if you detonate the bomb, it may ignite the entire atmosphere of Earth, killing not just all humanity, but also every shred of life. And by the time we also knew that the Nazis were no longer developing their own bomber, this wasn't about beating the Nazis the bomb. Of course, the US government still went ahead and did it. In the book, I ask if you had a random selection, a jury of citizens, farmers, doctors, nurses, teachers. You gave them that information and you ask them, should we detonate the bomb? Almost everyone responds with of course not. And I suspect the same is true of in the 1970s if you had citizens sitting in on ExxonMobil and others of the fossil fuel companies when they made the decision to bury the information that about climate change and run tens of millions of dollars into misinformation campaigns. I doubt that this is since jury would approve. So democracy surprisingly can be one key way to help sample world.
- [38:48]
B
That was Luke Kemp at the University of Cambridge's center for the Study of Existential Risk. His new book is Goliath's Curse the History and Future of Societal Collapse. Very much recommended. And that is all for this edition of the Monocle Daily. Thanks to our panelists today, Negar Anger and Simon Brook. Today's show was produced by Chris Chermack and researched by Anneliese Maynard. Our sound engineer was Elliot Greenfield. I'm Andrew Muller here in London. The Daily is back at the same time tomorrow. Thanks. Thanks for listening.