0:00:00 - 0:00:31 I want to talk a little bit about balkanization. That's a fun word. Balkanize to divide something into pieces. But it kind of has a special connotation in terms of being related to geographical divisions, government jurisdiction, so to speak, we will absolutely see increased balkanization in places that 0:00:31 - 0:00:58 are currently places and entities that are currently seen as one whole, whether this means specifically the United States Civil War or not, I promise you, you're going to see this at levels. So let's begin with the most nuclear level, which is your family. You're going to see brother against brother 0:00:57 - 0:01:23 , brother, against sister, sister, against sister, kids, versus parents and so on and so forth in neighbor, against neighbor and not just in the absolutes of what you'd expect in a full on conflict, you're going to see partitioning uh beginning in soft kind of ways. And as with all of these warnings 0:01:22 - 0:01:52 , some of you have eyes to see that this is already happening and it will continue, continue to increase in severity and obviousness as time goes by and like everything else we talk about, it will occur on a ramp with, with some spikes. So typically gradual changes with some sudden differences. So this 0:01:52 - 0:02:22 balkanization you'll see also happening at work and in churches and whether those are specific congregations or denominations as a whole, and essentially things will just fall apart and they fall apart as differences emerge between people or ideas or settings that were considered to be one. We could 0:02:22 - 0:02:49 go into the reasons for this, but maybe we'll save that for another time. Bubbling up. You're going to see counties, cities, states and nations divided and it will be in some cases surprising. And in other cases, just the next logical step to a process that's been obvious for some time in all cases though 0:02:49 - 0:03:17 , it will be unheard of. If you were to pull people from a past time about their, their insights for the future, they would not have enumerated those things as any sort of possibility. Specifically, I wanna talk now about shifts towards tribal organization. One thing that I believe is positive, it won't 0:03:17 - 0:03:39 always be used to that end and probably not most often, but one shift that is positive in this vein is that people will also group together and they'll group together in ways that they maybe wouldn't otherwise do. Or again, if you went back in time, no one would predict that this was going to happen 0:03:39 - 0:04:08 . You're going to see multiple generations of family living in the same home, you're going to see roommates forming more lifelong arrangements rather than something seen as temporary. Until one gets married, you'll see families living together, even families that aren't necessarily related by more than 0:04:08 - 0:04:34 friendship, they'll move in together. You'll see small groups of people coming together and buying land and living on that land as some sort of a collective. And I do want to delve into some of the reasons for that. Most of them are economic. We're going to see as is already the case if you've gone to 0:04:34 - 0:05:00 the grocery store lately, prices just continue to increase the availability of taken for granted goods and services will continue to reduce. And for all people, there is some threshold where these things are just not affordable. They don't make any economic sense and more and more people will see the 0:05:00 - 0:05:29 profitability of things that previously seemed very silly to do oneself, like raise your own food and preserve your own food and even you're going to see it as crazy as it seems you're going to see more and more people making clothing, making clothing. So watch for that. Um There are so many things in 0:05:29 - 0:05:59 our society where the the the long term historic value has been vastly distorted by what is actually short term situations of surplus and as that surplus goes by the wayside. So will these long term valuations of things we take so many things for granted right now that will go away. So watch for that 0:05:58 - 0:06:29 . It's going to be quite something to see in the past people thought about gathering as something that geographic gathering as something that only we'll say zealous to avoid the use of the word extreme zealous religious people did. And what you're going to see is that more and more not religious. People 0:06:28 - 0:06:53 do this and they do it for the most practical of reasons. And you're going to also see a shift away from this idea of totality as in a bunch of people coming to one place to raise up the city, you're going to see a shift away from that into kind of micro communities that pop up everywhere, fully within 0:06:53 - 0:07:17 the bounds of whatever was there before. And that's quite an interesting set of ideas that you probably never thought of. But that's what you're going to see and whether that's always used for good is a different story, but much good will come of it. And in some cases, those arrangements will lead to 0:07:17 - 0:07:44 very good outcomes. And again, all of this is as the world reconciles, the wealthy world reconciles to the fact that the things in which they placed value actually don't withstand the storms very well. And as the rains increase in intensity and the winds blow at higher and higher speeds, you're going 0:07:43 - 0:08:10 to see what is considered normal, get knocked down and replaced by what actually stands up to it. There are many interesting challenges in in these uh and these changes that are coming. So for one, what we will find in all this balkanization, 11 form of it will be whether people work for the government 0:08:10 - 0:08:33 or the private sector. And you probably aren't aware, but you can go look up graphs as to how that ratio has changed in the last few decades. And uh to save you some time, the rate at which people are leaving the private sector to work for the government, it keeps increasing. And of course, that means 0:08:33 - 0:08:57 that taxes have to go up. And of course, that means that things that used to be affordable and uh weren't a particular burden under a system with lots of surplus like property tax or sales tax or income tax. All of a sudden become an enormous burden for someone to have to carry. And as this continues 0:08:56 - 0:09:27 to be the case, people are gonna get very creative in finding ways to minimize that load in their lives and they will have to do so against greater and greater challenges because as more people do so, the ways to do so will diminish. That's probably the safest generic way I can say it uh safest as in 0:09:27 - 0:09:49 not over specifying and then missing the general value of what could have been extracted because I I was too specific. So these are ways, these are things that, that we should think about and prepare for and get ahead of the curve on. And the, the best way is probably just to look at the forest and the 0:00:00 - 0:00:31 I want to talk a little bit about balkanization. That's a fun word. Balkanize to divide something into pieces. But it kind of has a special connotation in terms of being related to geographical divisions, government jurisdiction, so to speak, we will absolutely see increased balkanization in places that 0:00:31 - 0:00:58 are currently places and entities that are currently seen as one whole, whether this means specifically the United States Civil War or not, I promise you, you're going to see this at levels. So let's begin with the most nuclear level, which is your family. You're going to see brother against brother 0:00:57 - 0:01:23 , brother, against sister, sister, against sister, kids, versus parents and so on and so forth in neighbor, against neighbor and not just in the absolutes of what you'd expect in a full on conflict, you're going to see partitioning uh beginning in soft kind of ways. And as with all of these warnings 0:01:22 - 0:01:52 , some of you have eyes to see that this is already happening and it will continue, continue to increase in severity and obviousness as time goes by and like everything else we talk about, it will occur on a ramp with, with some spikes. So typically gradual changes with some sudden differences. So this 0:01:52 - 0:02:22 balkanization you'll see also happening at work and in churches and whether those are specific congregations or denominations as a whole, and essentially things will just fall apart and they fall apart as differences emerge between people or ideas or settings that were considered to be one. We could 0:02:22 - 0:02:49 go into the reasons for this, but maybe we'll save that for another time. Bubbling up. You're going to see counties, cities, states and nations divided and it will be in some cases surprising. And in other cases, just the next logical step to a process that's been obvious for some time in all cases though 0:02:49 - 0:03:17 , it will be unheard of. If you were to pull people from a past time about their, their insights for the future, they would not have enumerated those things as any sort of possibility. Specifically, I wanna talk now about shifts towards tribal organization. One thing that I believe is positive, it won't 0:03:17 - 0:03:39 always be used to that end and probably not most often, but one shift that is positive in this vein is that people will also group together and they'll group together in ways that they maybe wouldn't otherwise do. Or again, if you went back in time, no one would predict that this was going to happen 0:03:39 - 0:04:08 . You're going to see multiple generations of family living in the same home, you're going to see roommates forming more lifelong arrangements rather than something seen as temporary. Until one gets married, you'll see families living together, even families that aren't necessarily related by more than 0:04:08 - 0:04:34 friendship, they'll move in together. You'll see small groups of people coming together and buying land and living on that land as some sort of a collective. And I do want to delve into some of the reasons for that. Most of them are economic. We're going to see as is already the case if you've gone to 0:04:34 - 0:05:00 the grocery store lately, prices just continue to increase the availability of taken for granted goods and services will continue to reduce. And for all people, there is some threshold where these things are just not affordable. They don't make any economic sense and more and more people will see the 0:05:00 - 0:05:29 profitability of things that previously seemed very silly to do oneself, like raise your own food and preserve your own food and even you're going to see it as crazy as it seems you're going to see more and more people making clothing, making clothing. So watch for that. Um There are so many things in 0:05:29 - 0:05:59 our society where the the the long term historic value has been vastly distorted by what is actually short term situations of surplus and as that surplus goes by the wayside. So will these long term valuations of things we take so many things for granted right now that will go away. So watch for that 0:05:58 - 0:06:29 . It's going to be quite something to see in the past people thought about gathering as something that geographic gathering as something that only we'll say zealous to avoid the use of the word extreme zealous religious people did. And what you're going to see is that more and more not religious. People 0:06:28 - 0:06:53 do this and they do it for the most practical of reasons. And you're going to also see a shift away from this idea of totality as in a bunch of people coming to one place to raise up the city, you're going to see a shift away from that into kind of micro communities that pop up everywhere, fully within 0:06:53 - 0:07:17 the bounds of whatever was there before. And that's quite an interesting set of ideas that you probably never thought of. But that's what you're going to see and whether that's always used for good is a different story, but much good will come of it. And in some cases, those arrangements will lead to 0:07:17 - 0:07:44 very good outcomes. And again, all of this is as the world reconciles, the wealthy world reconciles to the fact that the things in which they placed value actually don't withstand the storms very well. And as the rains increase in intensity and the winds blow at higher and higher speeds, you're going 0:07:43 - 0:08:10 to see what is considered normal, get knocked down and replaced by what actually stands up to it. There are many interesting challenges in in these uh and these changes that are coming. So for one, what we will find in all this balkanization, 11 form of it will be whether people work for the government 0:08:10 - 0:08:33 or the private sector. And you probably aren't aware, but you can go look up graphs as to how that ratio has changed in the last few decades. And uh to save you some time, the rate at which people are leaving the private sector to work for the government, it keeps increasing. And of course, that means 0:08:33 - 0:08:57 that taxes have to go up. And of course, that means that things that used to be affordable and uh weren't a particular burden under a system with lots of surplus like property tax or sales tax or income tax. All of a sudden become an enormous burden for someone to have to carry. And as this continues 0:08:56 - 0:09:27 to be the case, people are gonna get very creative in finding ways to minimize that load in their lives and they will have to do so against greater and greater challenges because as more people do so, the ways to do so will diminish. That's probably the safest generic way I can say it uh safest as in 0:09:27 - 0:09:49 not over specifying and then missing the general value of what could have been extracted because I I was too specific. So these are ways, these are things that, that we should think about and prepare for and get ahead of the curve on. And the, the best way is probably just to look at the forest and the 0:09:49 - 0:10:09 trees. And to think about the future in terms of the trends were already on and position yourself in a place where as things change, it ends up being less bad for you and then you'll be positioned to do great or good for others.