The Coming Cold War II, Geopolitics, Fatherhood, Fear, and More - Niall Ferguson, Historian
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- Опубліковано 19 чер 2024
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Resources from this episode: tim.blog/2022/11/15/niall-fer...
Niall Ferguson (@nfergus), MA, DPhil, FRSE, is the Milbank Family Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University, and a senior faculty fellow of the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at Harvard. He is the author of 16 books, including The Pity of War, The House of Rothschild, Empire, Civilization, and Kissinger, 1923-1968: The Idealist, which won the Council on Foreign Relations Arthur Ross Prize.
He is an award-winning filmmaker, too, having won an International Emmy for his PBS series The Ascent of Money. His 2018 book, The Square and the Tower, was a New York Times bestseller and also adapted for television by PBS as Niall Ferguson’s Networld. In 2020 he joined Bloomberg Opinion as a columnist.
In addition, he is the founder and managing director of Greenmantle LLC, a New York-based advisory firm; a co-founder of Ualá, a Latin American financial technology company; and a trustee of the New York Historical Society, the London-based Centre for Policy Studies, and the newly founded University of Austin.
His latest book, Doom: The Politics of Catastrophe, was published last year by Penguin and was shortlisted for the Lionel Gelber Prize.
Please enjoy!
00:00 Start
01:50 How Niall’s multi-faceted career has gone according to plan.
04:16 The license to be outrageous in academia ain’t what it used to be.
11:30 High table, dregs of Château Lafite, and hyperbolic references.
17:28 A.J.P. Taylor and the philosophy of history.
22:18 How does a historian find an “ear” for historical resonance?
27:34 What Niall would ask A.J.P. if they were Château Lafite drinking buddies.
32:24 An appetite for tweed.
33:12 Historical contingency.
40:37 A.J.P. Taylor reading for beginners and counterfactual history.
43:46 Dan Carlin, Elon Musk, and Gavrilo Princip.
45:37 What Niall gets out of digging deep into historical correspondence.
51:36 Cold War II - what can we do?
1:09:09 Keeping Cold War II from heating up into World War III.
1:15:48 Economic interdependence does not preclude conflict.
1:19:15 Ways Niall is using his grasp of history to change the world for the better.
1:25:41 How Niall’s toolkit for enacting change has evolved over the years.
1:28:34 Thoughts on fatherhood.
1:36:31 Why someone raised as an atheist takes his kids to church.
1:41:28 Has marriage to ex-Muslim Ayaan Hirsi Ali changed Niall’s view of Western philosophy?
1:47:05 Life under fatwa.
1:52:24 Parting thoughts.
About Tim Ferriss:
Tim Ferriss is one of Fast Company’s “Most Innovative Business People” and an early-stage tech investor/advisor in Uber, Facebook, Twitter, Shopify, Duolingo, Alibaba, and 50+ other companies. He is also the author of five #1 New York Times and Wall Street Journal bestsellers: The 4-Hour Workweek, The 4-Hour Body, The 4-Hour Chef, Tools of Titans and Tribe of Mentors. The Observer and other media have named him “the Oprah of audio” due to the influence of his podcast, The Tim Ferriss Show, which has exceeded 800 million downloads and been selected for “Best of Apple Podcasts” three years running.
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39 minutes in and Neil is just spewing disproven ukranian propaganda. He never actually said " I don't need a ride I need ammo" zelensky has repeatedly turned down peace settlements and he definitely had a contingency plan for when Russia invaded its ludicrous to say "he didn't know what he was going to do". Several international ambassadors have gone on record saying the Zelenksy isn't even in Kyiv except for photo ops. I guess I learned that historians lie lol
“I don’t think you become good spontaneously as a result of Darwinian natural selection”.. as good an argument in support of Christianity as I’ve ever heard.
Thank you Mr Ferguson. Happy Father’s Day, when it comes.
Thank you for this! I’m a huge fan of Niall and Ayaan.
Niall is one of my favourite intellectuals - please continue to be on more podcasts to share your enlightened learnings nice one Tim!
What? Not Martin Luther Adulterer?
@@asaunders1406 Stupid comment.
Correction: you meant to say 'entertainer'.
Excellent interview. Ferguson is just a wealth of wisdom and perspective on how the present fits within the past. I learned a lot.
👍
Thank you Mr Ferguson
Wonderful interview. Many thanks and much appreciation for what you do, Mr Ferguson, and for the excellent interview by Mr Ferris.
I quite like Nial. I started following him on Good Fellows, though I'd heard his name countless times throughout my life. Nial is a man I admire and take quite well to his perspective on history, counter culture, and fearlessness, 'Irish impulse to walk towards gun fire'. I appreciate this interview. I didn't need anymore convincing but now I'm quite certain, I quite admire this guy
Agreed, but he’s a Scotsman .
What I like about those Goodfellas is they will never walk away from a fight. In fact, they are more than willing to start one with anyone that looks sideways at the United States!
One of the sharpest thinkers we have.
being broadly approachable does not an intellectual make.
Outstanding interview, Credit to you Tim for bringing out the reflective and considered side to one of our centuries great historians and thinkers.
“Words read to words written ratio” logo to be on the front cover of every book, genius!
8⁷77
@timferriss pls interview Natan sheransky
Niall has been a soulmate of mine (history graduate here) and I've been a student of his for over a decade without him suspecting. It was great learning more of his personal story in his student days. I wish I could meet him in person some day :)
You poor, unfortunate fellow. Condolences.
Another poor unfortunate fellow here..
This is an excellent interview with Niall. One of the most in-depth I have seen. I personally learnt a great deal and I think he was enjoying himself.
I hope so too. It was a great interview.
Love Niall's books. Heavy reading, but well worth the effort!
Great questions, Tim. Awesome that you could extract such incredible answers from Niall. I’m a big fan of his books, specially the Rothschild
Talks about not judging figures from history. And then, positively talks about Henry Kissinger, the literal cold-war proxy war monster of the 20th century. What in the actual fuck?
There’s a difference between judging people and _not praising the architect of a genocide._
did you miss the bit where he's written a book about him and that era from original sources that seems to contradict the common narrative. i.e. the one you are espousing.
he has a different opinion based on actual knowledge of the events including the white house discussions that nixon taped.
The word psychedelic was used seriously in this conversation. Amazing.
Thankyou Tim Ferris for your very enlightening interview with Niall Ferguson from Australia, somewhat in the Southern Hemisphere, out of the way of argy-bargy in the Northern H and glad to be here ! With our own good wine !
What would the outcome be if the United States endeavored a trade war with China prior to the renewed outbreak in Ukraine?
I understand that Professor Ferguson is looking at the issue through a historical lens, and analyzing similarities, and dissimilarities between the past, and the present, but the past is not the present, and the present is not the past. He didn't mention either of the two main issues that China has going against it without any intervention whatsoever:
1) the demographic problem: the one-child policy is set to wreak havoc in China. Their size of their population is in decline. What does this do to their labour force? What happens to the economy when there aren't enough bodies to fill the job vacancies? What about the size of their military? etc. China's population is, at present, the largest in world; however, it is set to shrink well below one billion.
2) China's relations within Asia: Aside from Russia, does China have any friends in surrounding it? All the nations around China see it as a major threat. If China were to attempt to invading Taiwan with a large force, and start suffering losses, wouldn't that tempt surrounding countries to involve themselves in the conflict to possibly grab Chinese territory? China would have a multiple front battle should that happen, and the Chinese haven't exactly endeared themselves to the countries in their neighbourhood (they haven't exactly endeared themselves to the minorities within their nation either - the Tibetans, and Uighurs come to mind).
I could listen to both all day on this one. I learned quite a bit. Thanks Tim and Nial!
Very interesting and fun because Niall does have a sense of humor that rhymes a bit with my own. Plus he is chock full of good content from other historians...he is not afraid to cite other smart people.
And I still watch UA-cam and accept Funakoshi in my life because.....??
This is a really good interview. TIm interjected just enough on behalf of the viewer who is not an expert to clarify things but mainly let Niall run.
Where can I find an edition of the Rothschild brothers' correspondence, please?
Thank you in advance!
I would kill to have him as prifessor...
👏👏👏
Fantastic
Is "Greenmantle" based on the John Buchan novel of that name?
A prof I had at McMaster U in Canada was an acolyte of Sir John Plumb in the early 60s - in later years used to go to England to visit him
This guy sets the internal red flags off for me 😅
How so?
"ladies and germs" ?
Please explain.
Very engaging discussion, always a delight to listen to Prof. Ferguson who has great insights into the importance of history for understanding the complex contemporary world.
Niall has such a command of English - he reminds me of Christopher Hitchens.
You will never know how deeply you wounded me with this comment.
China's B&R investments will eventually face the same fate as British and French overseas investments in the first half of the 20th century. Take Brazilian and Argentinian waterworks, railways and power stations. Built out by British and French capital in two countries who had no history of colonial engagement in either country, all their assets were nationalised. The same will happen to all China's overseas infrastructure investments.
US strategy of technological containment of China mirrors the pre WW2 oil embargo on Japan in the 1930's and may provoke a similar reaction.
Superb conversation, close up with Mr Ferguson, relaxed, thoughtful and wide-ranging, easier on the mind and ear to panel discussions on stage, here with excellent probing skills by Tim. Thank you both!!
I must admit I am seriously sceptical of anyone that wins an award from the CFR
We got Yakov Smirnoff and the Scorpions' best song from the last one. Maybe we'll have similar fortune this time around. Cheers!
From China? That wilderness of culture. Not likely. The only good 'Chinese' music came from Hong Kong, the band Beyond, and that was well in the time of British colonialism.
Loved this!
That was wonderful.
I love when Tim has guests who are at least mildly unintuitive as natural guests for the show!
Lying should not be named cognitive dissonance
Very good interview. Niall Ferguson is really really insightful
Chileans have a name for the dregs: “bigoteado”, although is used for the collected dregs of many glasses. Not for Château Lafitte grand vine du Bordeaux
Terrific Tim. A very enjoyable listen.
Niall Ferguson is great. Good to see Tim starting to interview more politically heterodox figures.
1:54:16
Loved this. Fan of Ferguson's erudition and eloquence
Someone with your pretentious pseudonym would be. Fool!
He’s very perceptive in his comments on China and Russia, but it goes even deeper than he recognizes….
1. Obama’s “pivot to Asia” was aimed squarely at China. (Remember the US Marine base built in northern Australia?). This prompted China to respond with more ardent nationalism.
2. Yes, Biden has escalated the conflict, but it’s important to recognize how much the State Department is also devoted to escalation. They turned that first Alaska meeting into an acrimonious public confrontation (which no one seems the recognize, the US initiated). The State Department also withdrew opposition to Taiwanese independence from its website for a month or two (if acted upon, this would have meant war). The Pentagon has been the only moderating force (they tried to stop Pelosi’s trip), which should tell us something. When the diplomats are flirting with war, it becomes almost inevitable.
3. Most surprisingly, the center-left has become as belligerent as the neocons on China (Pelosi was the first speaker to visit Taiwan since Newt Gingrich). These same people used to be cheerleaders for economic integration with China. So why did they make a 180? This goes to their motive. They publicly stated that they expected economic integration to be good for international peace and prosperity, plus the opening of China. But they also hoped that China would come under the sway of the US, through multinational corporations, as well as growing political and cultural affinity. In short, they wanted to strengthen China, but only if the US ultimately controlled them. If we know anything about the modern Chinese, it’s that resisting western domination is the ONE thing that unites them most.
4. If the US can’t control China, then China’s rise threatens the US status as the sole world superpower. Our fall-back plan is war, over Taiwan and possibly the South China Sea. We’ll also support escalating Uyghur and Hong Kong insurgencies. It’s important to understand that China WILL go to war over Taiwan, so by picking this scab we are making war inevitable. The same was true of Ukraine. (No serious analyst thought Russia would just sit back and watch Ukraine shell and kill Russian-speaking Ukrainian civilians indefinitely.)
5. China and Russia are creating a BRICS block, with a currency to challenge the dollar. This is only in the opening stages, but has already progressed far more rapidly than expected (with India and even Saudi Arabia beginning to move away from the dollar). The US does not seem to have any strategic response to this, other than war. Needless to say, this greatly increases the risk of a devastating world war.
Conclusion: The US needs a response to China’s rise that does not depend on war. This is a potential turning point for humanity. Americans and our friends need to speak out, or disaster will be inevitable.
I imagine that you struggle with the monotony of what most people that I've known struggle to establish as routine. I don't think you're a knuckle dragger. I find you refreshing
You could go back to university for the social experimentation 😏
If you place strategic lies to get someone to like you, when they "comply" I imagine that you feel nothing (or cynicism).
Listening to interviews is not a good sample but I really enjoyed this episode😊
Invite Eric Li
A privilege to hear. At the end of the podcast Niall talks about books that are a "must read" for kids but are not common these day. Any help?
Always love to hear book recommendations from the older, more educated generation
@@Lascts25 "The God Delusion" by Richard Dawkins and "God Is not Great" by the late Christopher Hitchens !
"The God Delusion" by Richard Dawkins and "God Is not Great" by the late Christopher Hitchens !
A very thought provoking conversation. Thanks ..
Listened to the Prisoner’s Chorus from Fidelio straight after this. Great interview!
Good for you! The interview and Fidelio were both flops. Change your pseudonym to "clown1"
@@asaunders1406 What an intellectually stimulating argument. What was the purpose of your comment?
Always learn a lot from Niall Ferguson.
Great interview. Niall is always interesting to listen to. You can see he thinks about his answers.
57:59. We have a Middle Eastern crisis right now, as per Niall, I worry about what comes next...
My favorite historian I would just gently correct him: those Rothchild letters that were 'written in Hebrew characters, mostly German but with occasional words in Hebrew' were in fact written in Yiddish.. Of course, he may have been trying to avoid a simplistic question of 'what is Yiddish...'
Wonderful conversation. I like the strategy of going to church anyway, even if you don’t believe. I did this in my atheist phase, because somehow I wanted to. The atheist phase didn’t last.
Well mine did. I still think it(religion) is irrational and based on fear, ultimately, and custom/ Which god you pumping for, Baal, Ra, Jesu, Mohammed, Jehovah, Zoroaster? They can't all be right; just an invention of man to assuage the fear of terminal decline !
Big Surprise
@@linmal2242 Start with the one your ancestors worshipped. I promise you they weren't atheists, and I doubt it's because you're more clever than they were.
Those leftover drinks were called wounded soldiers where I am from
⭐
Brilliance
We are in one, now!
"Be not afraid " until conscription
This was quite interesting and enjoyable.... truly.
However! :} I find it to be a contradictory statement that humans need the Bible, or the frameworks at least, to be a decent person. That humans cannot "spontaneously" become good, is certainly a contradiction, especially if you are an atheist. If you don't believe that God exists, that implies that humans wrote the Bible. And if humans wrote the Bible, I guess that means the concepts of Christianity are derived from the thoughts, feelings, and experiences of man....
Maybe I missed the point regarding this idea, but would like to hear his thoughts about this someday.
World War II (2)?
Disregard… COLD War II. I misread it.
😭 aku jadi gak bisa baca banyak Tim........ Jadi aku berencana mau cek fakta sekaligus minta dihilangkan tandaku sekaligus bertanya apakah ada kemungkinan radang tenggorokan bisa sembuh
Tim could you make another Tools of Titans, I loved that book!
You could learn more by reading Winnie the Pooh.
Will watch after rest in glasgow scotland meister tim ferriss, as a turk from istanbul biomedical engineer and neuropsychopharmacologist from university of glasgow. Alright lets go, as always ;)
Hold on Niall, you are forgetting that Glasgow hosts a university founded in 1451, the 4th oldest in the anglo speaking world. My time at that august establishment won't have been too different from yours at Oxford.
Read the book CHUMS - it is most revealing about Oxford.
1:07:04 impersonation of Trump just gold.
Ferguson is always first class. Even when I disagree with him. Great interview Tim.
One of, if not the best interview I have ever heard.
If that is what you thought, you should get out more.
@@asaunders1406 Nothing like rudeness to underline a comment! I thought trolls only inhabited Twitter.
Top🌹
Any relation to Turd Ferguson, of celebrity Jeopardy fame?
I’d rather have a cold war than a World War III
The coming? We are already in the cold war 2
1:27:42 surely this is unfairly laid at the doorstep of china due to western corporate greed?
Btw, I am not apologizing on behalf of the CCP, or Poo.
Thank you for uploading and sharing.
As a mathematician, I strongly disagree with Niall Ferguson and admire his intellect. I read all of his books and learned a lot from them. The more I listen to him, the more enriched I feel. Life is worth living while there are inspiring intellectuals like Niall.
As a mathematician what exactly do you disagree with.
@@bighands69 his belief in the constructiveness of empires and order. The world is too complicated - well beyond our ability to comprehend it, to predict the consequences of our actions, to plan and control. A much better option is feedback-based approach which is a very different paradigm. imho, this civilization is more likely to crash than (or before) to reinvent itself.
I used to think I was working class until I went to Glasgow, now I think I'm middle-class!
(Ronnie Barker- Porridge)
Geopolitics? I think you might want to stick to bio hacking.
And you are?
Recommended history: Sir Richard Evans on World War Two.
It’s ironic that at 1:22:27 he says he hopes “he never engages in the kind of punditry that is just designed to get retweets and social media followers” by, say, predicting “the end of the world,” yet at 58:00 he says he thinks “iran will blow up again.” A few months after this conversation, Saudi Arabia and Iran restored ties, not to mention with Chinese intermediation. His examples of accurate predictions his company made (Covid, inflation, Russian invasion) seem hardly impressive to be honest. He’s an interesting historian, but he has somewhat forced himself outside the academy as he said he always sought to do, at 3:26. A helplessly ostentatious man, he seems, betraying several contradictions and, dare I say, a neoconservative bloke trying to stay relevant in a fast changing world. I’ve followed the Good Fellows podcast that he’s a part of and it’s all quite predictable. An echo chamber, the Hoover institution seems to be.
It's all brilliant but the historical contingency part especially so.
Better Cold War II than World War III
We so need a multi polar world, and it’s coming soon 😀
Children: intelligent apprentices in training ! Now, the training can be good or destructive, to both the individual and society.
May be learn from history how to avoid war, surrender to aggressors could be one extreme way, but could allow aggressor wipe out some races/class or nations etc.
This illuminates how subjective history is. Thank you
I suppose cold wars are defined by their *lack of violence.
Ha Ha! Very funny title. Cold War II started a long time ago (2014 perhaps?), it's just that Putin wasn't kind enough to tell us. That's the problem with historians, they are always slow on the uptake.
If we have a cold war with China, it's not because of it's dictator, or if it's Taiwan, or cheap goods at Walmart. In the British tv series The Prisoner, the atangonist changed each episode, but was always called Number 2.
The Soviet Union was the second largest economy and was an enemy. Any nation, even a free one cannot be allowed to have a GDP approaching much less exceeding the United States. China or any nation would be at best a competitor, an enemy at worst.
It could be China or someday India, or a renewed European Union, but any #2 GDP nation automatically triggers a cold war. America believes it's primacy is eternal. Geopolitically there is enough fossil fuel energy and resources to support one superpower on earth, not two.
Uhhh in case you haven't heard , the West and the US are going woke and sustainable, who needs fossil fuels ....the Empire of Lies is going green yo ! Muaaaaaaaaahahahahahahahaaaaa.....Smell of Empire rot is everywhere and the Anglo-Saxons having a meltdown, can't deal with it. More humble pie to come as the world has changed overnight
theres enough resources to support tens of billions of people easily
@@wasdwasdedsf year to year, BTUs of energy produced along with raw material production puts a hard ceiling on physical wealth and value added goods that can be produced. Only enough fuel for approximately 1billion, actually somewhat less to have an "American" suburban middle class lifestyle.
Geoeconomics is becoming a bit zero sum because of those ceilings. Cold war with China will unofficially not be because of autocracy. Rapid emergence of middle class way pass the sub 1billion level supported by conventional fossil fuels, would lead to constant energy crisises shortages and international tensions...like today.
@@michaelcooney9368 yea none of the globalists narrative is true in any way shape or form.
nuclear power alone is enough for a long time
"would lead to constant energy crisises shortages and international tensions...like today."
uhhh.... you have to be joking? why are you peddling the insane propaganda of people who have explicitly made this happen?
the western world has consistently underinvested in fossil fuel exploration for a long time
they have consistently dismantled power plants, even somtehing so insane and nonsensical as nuclear power platns, which are PERFECT for their narrative about a gas thats healthy actually being evil and will destroy the planet.
they have created sanctions that have, fore example for EU made them go from having something like 25% of global gdp to 18... while making russias exports profit margins better and making the ruble the strongest perfomrning currency in 2022... so literaly the oposit of what they said they wanted
It's the reserve currency that counts, lose that and you lose it all.
Cold war? Lol confused.
Dear Niall: to understand the role of contingencies in the philosophy of history, take a look at Judea Perle of UCLA. He understands counter-factual logic.
Professor Ferguson, why the gratuitous comment that Biden is "incompetent?" It sounds like name calling. State the facts that support your opinion, please.
Wait... aren't we in a hot war in Ukraine since 2022? Did somebody miss something? ;-)
The one point few are talking about that will change all these calculations.... China (and wider Far East's) demographics. China will be losing 20 million people per year by 2030 or so. That is a collapse. Internal issues will take a lot more priority and China even in 20 years (could be less) will be declining (and even collapsing). India is rising, and whilst they will be very annoying at times, they are not a threat in the bigger sense. After China goes, the West looks much more secure for what looks like centuries to come. All the brain drain heads for the Anglosphere, not other parts of the world. Our issue will be to integrate foreign peoples, which currently we are failing miserably at. We demand nothing of those that arrive. This is a recipe for civil unrest, and this will be the West's biggest challenge (that from within).
Hi Richard. I think your views on the future of the rosy future of the West and the decline of the East are wishful thinking to say the least. The West is unstable culturally, socially and economically much more than it’s elites care to admit. Many of the countries in the West are actually poor countries pretending to be rich. For years they’ve borrowed money on the markets to disguise how precarious their position is. They now can no longer do so and face ever falling living standards and cultural malaise.
@@johnmccaffrey5942 The cultural point is true. However, when it comes to debt and insecure models - China trumps the pack with 350% debt to GDP with a declining population and no safety net nor capital to support such a Western idea. Japan - already suffering and in terminal decline. Then you have South Korea. Philippines (you always thought they would grow) now has a birth rate of just the replacement of 2.1. They will not reach developed status before declining too (like China). Wherever you look it is happening. The Anglosphere and Western Europe are in trouble, but they have the tools to recover. That said, I doubt discount absolute decline due to cultural malaise.
somehow graded like a hitchcock film.... must be the british accent
Well,,,, i want to go to that doctor strange today. I will give my hand to him and see him (with his wife of course). I need a little surgery. I love you Tim. Don't give up. and never come to me.
Great, thoughtful analyis, and then we heard "..as comptletely incompetent as Joe Biden..", and the naked partizanship of such totally unnessary statement, in this context, reminds us of the prejudices and frealties of the soul, even when it resides in incedibly intelligent and succesful people. Maybe, it this true, ego-feeding, success that is the culprit..
Charming, well articulated propaganda straight from the mouth of the Hoover institute!
Do you take your kids to a Presbyterian church?