Game Theory #10: The Law of Asymmetry — Transcript

We continue our discussion of the US Iran war that is happening right now. So, um, as you know, I made the prediction that the United States will lose this war. And last class, we did an overview of the military and strategic position. And today, we're going to provide some theoretical framework for how to understand how this war will progress and why ultimately, I believe the United States will lose this war. Today, I present to you a very important idea in game theory. And once you understand this idea, then you understand why things will turn out the way they do. Okay, it's called a law of asymmetry.

Okay, law of asymmetry.

And all this is saying is that the United States and Iran are not peers, they're not equals. The United States is far stronger than Iran. And we should expect the United States to overwhelm and destroy Iran really easily.

But the law of asymmetry states that that's usually not the case. It's usually the underdog that has the advantage.

And we see this from history all the time. Okay, so when the Persians in about 490 BC invaded mainland Greece against Athens and Sparta, Persia at this time was the first world empire. They had infinite resources, infinite manpower, infinite wealth, and it lost to the Greeks not once but twice.

And then the Macedonians under Alexander the Great, and they were like a tribal army, not a very large army, they were able to go into Persia, and Persia at that time was basically most of Eurasia and conquered it in about 10 years time.

The Romans started off as a tribal people, which then built the Mediterranean Empire. Then you had the Aztecs, you have, so the Vikings, so this happens a lot in human history. A people in the borderlands, a tribe, a small ethnicity are able to conquer a great empire.

And the law of asymmetry tells us why. Okay? So I'm going to go over uh very slowly in detail how this law of asymmetry works.

All right.

So, um, let's look at an empire.

And there are three major advantages to an empire.

All right, the first is mass. This just means that they have a lot of people. Okay, they also have an infinite amount of people.

The United States has a population of about 350 million people. But remember, the United States can also draw on the populations of its allies, which includes the Five Eyes, the Anglosphere, but it also includes Europe, and it also includes uh East Asia, South Korea, Japan. Basically, wherever the Americans have a military base. All right, so most of the world are either allies of the United States or vassals of the United States. So the United States can basically draw on in billions and billions of people for its wars, okay? So it's mass.

Second is the idea of organization.

Organization just means a hierarchy, a bureaucracy, an elite that allows you to organize your resources and your people in order to generate wealth, which is basically science and technology, okay?

Science and technology, which leads to the most advanced weaponry, okay? So think about the United States, how they fight this war. They have these satellites that provide for precision targeting. They have these um airplanes, these B2 bombers, F15s, that are the most advanced um weaponry ever in human history. Okay? So organization.

Now, the last great strength of the empire is the idea of depth.

Depth is the idea that because your people are infinite, because your organization is so strong, because your resources are so vast, you can afford to lose many, many wars, okay? It's not a big deal if the United States loses this war in Iran. If they want to go back, they can go back with even more soldiers, even more um weaponry, because their wealth is infinite. Okay? So these are the three major advantages of an empire. And in theory, because of these advantages, an empire should be invincible and eternal. But we know for a fact that all empires fall, and they fall very, very hard. And quite honestly, they don't last a very long time. Maybe 20 years, maybe 30 years for most empires. That's not a very long time. So we need to better understand what's going on, okay? Why is it that an empire with these vast resources, they all fall in 20 years, 30 years, okay? All right.

So, um, what we need to understand is that all these advantages ultimately disadvantages in the long term.

All right? So let me let me explain what I mean.

Mass, you have a lot of people, okay? When you have a lot of people, you create a lot of inequality.

Why? Because there's competition for resources. There's too many people. Okay? And this often leads to debt and slavery.

And as a result, your people become complacent, lazy, indifferent. They're competing against each other. They really don't like the government, okay? So they're not really that motivated to do anything, to work or to fight wars, but especially to fight wars.

So this mass looks like it looks like an advantage in the beginning, but over time it becomes a disadvantage.

All right? Organization. Um, means an elite.

The problem with this is that over time, the elite become parasites. Why? Because the way the way they make their money is through rent-seeking. Rent-seeking just means that you have power and you seek to monetize your power by exploiting the mass.

All right? So basically landlords are a classic type of rent-seeking elite. And so they don't really work, but they make a lot of money because they own the land, because they control all the resources, because they control all the capital, and that forces the mass to go into slavery, to go into debt, which is what's happening in America today.

The problem with this is that everyone everyone wants to be part of the elite, and there are too many elite over time. Okay? So even though you have the elite have many, many kids, the uh power is a zero-sum game, it's a hierarchy. And so this leads to the idea of elite overproduction. And this is a term um coined by the historian Peter Turchin. Okay? And his theory is that you have turmoil, you have wars, for example, the French Revolution, for example, uh the fall of the Roman Republic, because there's too many elite, and they start wars to gain power for themselves. Okay? So, another saying this is that an empire over time becomes insular. They don't care about what happens outside the world, all they care about is what happens in Washington D.C. and as a result, um they make a lot of stupid mistakes, okay?