This was really good. Better than what I was expecting. He is spot on about the 'Universal Values'. I Live in the UAE and I made friends with many individuals that come from non-western countries and they do not share those values. In fact it really pisses them off 😄
Marvin brings up the tired theory that "China is down so CCP has an incentive to start a big war as a distraction". The thing is that the CCP does not think like that at all. The CCP views itself as a rising power and not a declining one and hence believes time is on its side.
Hmm.. I interpreted Marvin's comments the other way. I thought he was agreeing with you on the 1st part and saying that China's military capabilities are much higher than we realise and they are confident enough to act now and be successful , or that Taiwan might even give up without fighting. And on the second part I thought he was saying that China also recognises the US is patching up some strategic vulnerabilities around domestic manufacturing that it (the US) didn't realise it had until the outbreak of the Ukraine War and the lessons everyone is learning from that. So possibly time is not as much on China's side as we think. Possibly, China is at peak relative advantage for the next 5 years and that is why this could be a risky period. That's how I understood what Marvin was saying.
I'm intrigued where you got that idea since that isn't my thesis at all. Indeed, I explicitly repeated on Erik's podcast my long-held view that China has been in an active state of (non-kinetic) war with the US for three decades an intends to win without kinetic action through a long-game strategy of overwhelming dominance. That said, they are prepared for kinetic war and one cannot rule out that they advance their time table while the US is distracted, or as a distraction to their own population if US trade and economic policies create domestic employment problems. Seizing tactical opportunities when they present themselves en route to a strategic goal is not an abandonment of strategy, it's just smart, nimble opportunism. Perhaps I am wrong to credit Chinese policymakers with such savvy and acumen but that's quite different from your misstatement of my views.
I am very sorry. The mistake was 100% mine. What I did was to ask Gemini to extract the transcript from the webpage for me and it turned out to have hallucinated the whole transcript!!! (you can see the chatlog containing the hallucination here: https://g.co/gemini/share/94deda7919e4)
I based my earlier comment on the HALLUCINATED transcript which contained this: "And the incentives are growing because China is facing a lot of internal challenges right now. You have a slowing economy, you have a property market that's in crisis, you have a youth unemployment rate that's very high. And so the Chinese Communist Party needs a way to distract the population from these internal problems. And one of the ways to do that is to create an external crisis."
Now I am looking at the correct transcript and you said nothing close to that.
Wow!! This is such a fantastic experience. And thank you for flagging what happened. We are all getting into the habit of using AI summaries of transcripts, and don't have time to check the exact nuances of what was said. It's a tricky one. I'm thinking a lot about how we use AI in investment research so I love these examples. Thank you!
Wow. This was amazing Erik, so interesting.. and worrying
I know... I'm long lots of HK stocks.
Thank you Erik! Great interview
I know.. but a bit concerning.
Indeed
This was really good. Better than what I was expecting. He is spot on about the 'Universal Values'. I Live in the UAE and I made friends with many individuals that come from non-western countries and they do not share those values. In fact it really pisses them off 😄
You were right. Marvin is a real find.
Thank you @Wissam1! “Global entropy: Enter the dragons” is one of my free articles at Thematic Markets:
https://open.substack.com/pub/thematicmarkets/p/global-entropy-enter-the-dragons?r=1emog1&utm_medium=ios
super enlightening discussion, thanks for this!
Thank you, and thanks to Erik for hosting me.
So much counter intuitive information to process and ponder over. Great 👍
Thank you and thanks to Erik for pulling on those threads!
Could you enable transcript on this please? Thanks!
It’s enabled. If you view the post on your desktop the button to see the transcript should be there. I don’t see it on the mobile app though.
Marvin brings up the tired theory that "China is down so CCP has an incentive to start a big war as a distraction". The thing is that the CCP does not think like that at all. The CCP views itself as a rising power and not a declining one and hence believes time is on its side.
Hmm.. I interpreted Marvin's comments the other way. I thought he was agreeing with you on the 1st part and saying that China's military capabilities are much higher than we realise and they are confident enough to act now and be successful , or that Taiwan might even give up without fighting. And on the second part I thought he was saying that China also recognises the US is patching up some strategic vulnerabilities around domestic manufacturing that it (the US) didn't realise it had until the outbreak of the Ukraine War and the lessons everyone is learning from that. So possibly time is not as much on China's side as we think. Possibly, China is at peak relative advantage for the next 5 years and that is why this could be a risky period. That's how I understood what Marvin was saying.
Spot on. It's easy to see why you have a successful podcast with clarity like that.
I'm intrigued where you got that idea since that isn't my thesis at all. Indeed, I explicitly repeated on Erik's podcast my long-held view that China has been in an active state of (non-kinetic) war with the US for three decades an intends to win without kinetic action through a long-game strategy of overwhelming dominance. That said, they are prepared for kinetic war and one cannot rule out that they advance their time table while the US is distracted, or as a distraction to their own population if US trade and economic policies create domestic employment problems. Seizing tactical opportunities when they present themselves en route to a strategic goal is not an abandonment of strategy, it's just smart, nimble opportunism. Perhaps I am wrong to credit Chinese policymakers with such savvy and acumen but that's quite different from your misstatement of my views.
I am very sorry. The mistake was 100% mine. What I did was to ask Gemini to extract the transcript from the webpage for me and it turned out to have hallucinated the whole transcript!!! (you can see the chatlog containing the hallucination here: https://g.co/gemini/share/94deda7919e4)
I based my earlier comment on the HALLUCINATED transcript which contained this: "And the incentives are growing because China is facing a lot of internal challenges right now. You have a slowing economy, you have a property market that's in crisis, you have a youth unemployment rate that's very high. And so the Chinese Communist Party needs a way to distract the population from these internal problems. And one of the ways to do that is to create an external crisis."
Now I am looking at the correct transcript and you said nothing close to that.
Wow!! This is such a fantastic experience. And thank you for flagging what happened. We are all getting into the habit of using AI summaries of transcripts, and don't have time to check the exact nuances of what was said. It's a tricky one. I'm thinking a lot about how we use AI in investment research so I love these examples. Thank you!
Yes, the dangers of GPTs! Did it use M-dashes in its answers?😂
I have literally had ChatGPT tell me the opposite of what I know happened in an historical event that I directly participated in at the US Treasury!
Kudos to you for being so transparent and sharing your experience.
Thanks for understanding 🙏 it’s a lesson for me as well ><