Yeah.

So in, in 133 BC, you have these, uh, you have a, a man named Tiberius Gracchus, and Tiberius Gracchus is coming home from the Punic Wars, and he's observing that these men have been off fighting for a while, and either they've lost their farms or their farms have been sold, and they're coming home and they have nothing to come home to.

And what he wants to do is redistribute land to veterans that are basically coming back from the Punic Wars, and part of the problem had been there was a law from about 100 years before that, that- There was public land called ager publicus, and only a certain amount of that was allowed to be farmed by the rich individuals.

But what had happened was they were just scooping it up 'cause nobody was stopping them, and they were also scooping up a lot of these small farms that these soldiers had owned when they're going off to war.

So all he wants to do initially, this is...

It's gonna get a little bit more complex as, as things go on, but initially all he wants to do is have that law from about 100 years before enforced so that these men aren't losing their land and the rich aren't taking the public land and farming it.

And he's going to use the office of Tribune of the Plebs to do this.

Savings compared to renewal price, void in Florida.

What was happening socially in parallel to the debasement of the currency? What were the justifications for it, and how, how did it happen initially?

Well, I think just the one thing important to understand before we get into that is the idea of, like, what was Rome? 'Cause I think a lot of people get confused.

They hear, you know, Roman Empire, Julius Caesar being the first emperor, which he wasn't.

You know, Rome is, uh... it's a kingdom first in 753 BC.

It becomes a republic in 509 BC, and then an empire somewhere between, it's debated, but somewhere between 31 and 27 BC, and in the West that goes till 476.

So very often when we're talking about monetary debasement, we're actually talking about the empire.

So we're talking about kind of that, uh, second century is a, is a really good period of time to put it.

What did he do to fix the currency? What was the, um, what was the benefit of that?

It wasn't

really a thing, and I think that's important to understand.

For them, personal power was more important than anything, and you might have factions that would arise to solve a certain thing.

Let's say this one guy getting the consulship is really important for all three of us.

Well, we're going to band together to make sure that happens.

But do you even look at...

Have you heard of the phrase triumvirate? No.

Do you think Our founding fathers in this country would be happy with the direction this country is going?

Timelines.

I don't know how to say this in a highly articulate way.

Um, I'm not on the spectrum, but I kind of come off like I am.

I don't know how to say it.

People started asking me about Rome, and I'm like, okay, so I'm actually obsessed with ancient Greece.

That's how I got into Rome.

Alexander the Great, to me, is one of the most interesting historical characters.

that.

Jackman.

It was one of the worst movies I've ever seen because it takes the character of Robin Hood that we've come to admire as this person that steals from the rich, gives to the poor, tries to improve conditions of a tyrannical ruler, and it makes him into somebody that highly regrets all the things he's done.

He feels bad for every person he's injured, and he commits assisted suicide at the end of the movie.

And I look at kind of this theme that we're in, and the thing that comes to mind for me is if you look at even late Rome and the situations that they were dealing with, um in 408 there's a man named flavius stilicho and flavius silico is one of the best generals in rome at this point in time he's actually responsible for keeping the western empire together and he's serving for an emperor named honorius and honorius is concerned that silico might get his power that there might be some issues he's more concerned about raising his chickens So he has Stilicho killed.

And two years later in 410, Rome is sacked.

So I look at these advancements and these things that are changing society.

And I also look at the backdrop of what is competence and how is competence looked at? And we really are in a moment where competence is seen as a dangerous thing.

I think the

Where should we start when looking at the parallels of the fall of the Roman Empire?

Well, I think often, you know, Edward Gibbon, who wrote Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, it's like the most famous book written on it.

And he cites around 200 different sources of why the Roman Empire fell.

But I think if you want to break it down, there's really just two.

And those two could be seen as inflation and out of control immigration.

And if you want to look at kind of.

When that starts to happen, it starts to happen right after the son of Marcus Aurelius, who's Commodus.

Tell us a little bit about that.

Like we are kind of, vanguard of this globalist revolution that's collapsing too so when you when you look at all this do you look at the west like do you include the the west and the west like so let's say like europe and the uk and canada and the states is like one kind of conglomeration that's in collapse or would you separate it out a little bit

Well, I'll say first off, you guys have made, which terrifies the hell out of me, in Canada.

So I guess you're advancing in ways that we don't really want to advance.

But when I look at it, I've kind of evolved my thinking in a lot of ways.

And I've started looking a lot more at incentive structures.

And I think if you look at that globally, that's kind of the more interesting portion of it.

People that are in power for longer extended periods of time.

What's sort of some of the examples throughout history of these empires that got it right for at least as long as possible before they fucked it up?

So when you, when you look at all this, do you look at the West? Like, do you include the West and the West? Like, so let's say like Europe and the UK and Canada and the States is like one kind of conglomeration that's in collapse or would you separate it out a little bit?

Well, I'll say first off, you guys have made which terrifies the hell out of me in Canada.

So it's, you know, I guess you're advancing in ways that we don't really want to advance.

But when I look at it, I've kind of evolved my thinking in a lot of ways.

And I've started looking a lot more at incentive structures.

And I think if you look at that globally, that's kind of the more interesting portion of it.

You know, like people that are in power for longer extended periods of time, the same tools being used everywhere.

Graham's a two-spirit.

I mean, was the Roman Empire towards the end in the same kind of debt situation as the United States is currently?

Well, I think it's actually a lot worse, right? Because as I mentioned, the issue you have is their inflationary number.

I'd love to know what our real one is.

My math says we're somewhere around between 3,000 and 4,000%.

They're at 15,000%.

So the money has virtually no value.

It has about 4% silver in it by the late 270s.

So, I mean, did Rome at one point totally lose control of its borders before it lost control of its empire?

So can you just give me a summary of what you mean when you talked about gender fluidity in Rome? Because I just don't have the knowledge of that.

Well, so there's the fluidity, but there's also the role of the man, right? And the man in the Roman family was called the pater familius.

That was the person that was in charge of a household.

And he was responsible for how well his family was doing.

He was responsible for...

the marriages of his children.

He was responsible for the income of the family, the protection of the family.

What are some of the I can draw some of these lines, but I'd like to ask you to draw some of the parallels with what you see in the modern USA and comparing it to everything you've been talking about regarding Rome.

Or what does that mean in the narrative around the product?

So I think Apple is a really great example of that.

And maybe some people out there don't like the brand.

Some do, but they've done a great job with, if you're an Apple user, you have everything Apple in your life because they've kind of created a brand feel and a brand aesthetic that attracts a certain type of individual.

And I think for a lot of people, they're not considering that.

And when I look at that in history, I think the first Roman emperor, Augustus is a really great example of this.

Because Rome is really three eras in time.

It's because we're all unique in our own way.

Learn more at paypal.com/paymonthly.

Can you go back? Plato's government life cycle, detailed in The Republic, is a theory of political de- degeneration where states, like human souls, decline from the i- from their ideal to the worst form, moving through five stages: aristocracy, timocracy, oligarchy, democracy, and tyranny.

So the cycle of degeneration.

Aristocracy, rule of the best.

The ideal state governed by, the ideal state governed by philosopher kings guided by reason, wisdom, and justice.

Timocracy, rule of honor.

Degenerates when education fails, and warrior rulers, auxiliaries, pri- prioritize ambition, competition, and military honor over wisdom.

And he doesn't even want to be emperor.

Would it be fair to say we're seeing a similar pattern evolve there?

Well, I think if you're gonna look at America specifically, I don't know that we've been in this fall stage for a while, if that makes sense.

And once again, history doesn't repeat, but it does rhyme in a lot of ways, right? There's patterns you can notice and see.

For me, I actually see 1913 as a very pivotal year.

There's a number of things that happen here in America in that year.

The first is the 17th Amendment, which means that state legislatures no longer elect senators.

They're now popularly elected.

Have we been through a similar journey? And is Trump a Caesar?

Mm.

And they were like an upstart, if that makes sense, 'cause Persia had been kind of dormant for a while.

And then there's this guy named Shapur I who basically decides since Rome's going through a problem right now, it's 3rd century, where the center's becoming really weak.

So the west breaks off and forms its own empire called the Gallic Empire.

The east breaks off and forms its own empire called the Palmyren Empire.

So the, the empire itself is starting to kind of fall apart.

Now, it doesn't fall apart into those three pieces until after Valerian is captured, but there starts to be signs of kind of what's happening and that Rome's very weak.

No, wait

[laughs]

And that's why when people often ask me, you know, are we a republic anymore, are we an empire, I really look at not only an empire, but we're an empire that's fading in a lot of ways because we're destroying our money.

We don't look at what the real inflationary number is.

If you wanna look at it from 1790 till now rather than year over year, it's probably somewhere between 3 and 5000%.

And we're not giving people real numbers, but at the same time our politicians are too concerned about fighting each other and they're less concerned about who's coming into their country as well.

So there's so much-

How, what are, what are your, uh-

Well, that's one of the reasons I care about great works of Western culture, because most people at this point in time haven't read them.

And so how, how long was the process for Rome?

So the most famous work on the Roman Empire is Edward Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire.

It's written in 1776, um, in seven volumes, so it's, like, really great as a doorstop if you want something to hold your door open.

But [chuckles] um, you have to...

It's- to understand Gibbon's world is important, too.

He's born as a Catholic, but to get more political power, his father conver- convinces him to convert to the Church of England.

So he's gonna have a lot of problems with the early Catholic Church that's rising in Rome, and that's actually in his work, and he gives Christianity, um, a lot of flak for the collapse of Rome, when in all honesty, it really had nothing to do with it.

Did they try to deal with it?

changes the process and how the military is paid.

When the military, when an emperor would take office, they would get what's known as a donative.

And that's basically a gift of money you would give to the military to keep their allegiance.

And then the legions would also be paid every year as well.

So he gives the largest donative ever to that point.

And emperors after him will pass that.

But he also doubles legionary pay.

How did immigration work? Were there borders? Were there barriers? Were there walls? Were there fences? And were there people guarding those walls and fences? And is immigration the beginning of the end for an empire like that?