Power shifts

Speaker A: 00:00:00

Hello and welcome to the Cognitive Engineering Podcast produced by me, Fraser McGruer, for Aleph Insights. In this series of podcasts, we take a look at interesting topics and discuss what we think they tell us about analysis and decision-making. I'm here with Chris Wragg and Nick Hare of Aleph Insights, and this week we're discussing Asia coping better with COVID-19 than the rest of the world, and due to the lockdown, unusually, we're recording this remotely. Chris, is Asia coping better with the current situation with COVID-19 than the rest

Speaker B: 00:00:33

of the world? Well, I mean, that is debatable, but I think on the whole, if you look at things, because there are obviously all sorts of discussions about whether or not China has announced the full extent of those affected in China, but if you look at the reported figures, right, taking those with a pinch of salt, you have China with fewer than 5,000 deaths as we stand, Japan 328, South Korea 240, Singapore 12. Now, obviously, you've got to adjust those to the sizes of populations and all those kinds of things, but then if you look at the US and major European countries, the US is on around 50,000 deaths, and many major European countries, with the exception of Germany, on around 20,000 deaths. So, obviously, there are discrepancies between reporting and some data may have been covered up, underestimated, so on and so forth. Also, there may be issues to do with whether or not it's the right strategy to stop everybody from getting it and not building up a certain number of people with immunity and so on. But regardless of that, I think all major developed nations would have sought to probably try and minimize the number of people dying from it in the first instance, and kind of keep hold of it and, you know, postpone it spreading as much as possible and try and sort of keep track of things. And it seems on those measures, Asia has probably done considerably better than Europe and North America, by and large. So, that got me thinking, well, like, you know, that's quite stark. You might just be in this specific area of disease management, because they have had, you know, recent epidemics to have to cope with recently, you know, SARS and so on previously. So, they may be better set up for this particular type of crisis. But I couldn't help asking the question to myself, is this one of those times in history where you suddenly realize, oh, that particular part of the world or that region or that power is now better at doing stuff than some other power? You know, is this, you know, the time when the West might, when we look back historically, this might be one of the indicators that the West wasn't quite as good as we thought it was, and Asia was better, you know, certainly East Asia was better than we thought it was.

Speaker A: 00:03:10

Okay, and that's really what we want to talk about is at certain times, we're talking about power shifts, aren't we? We're talking about how you know that the world has changed. And this is a moment of kind of where something is revealed. So, and I guess what's handy with COVID-19 is it's a global thing. And so, we can get a global comparison, I suppose. Nick, would you like to weigh in? Yeah, I mean, on the specific issue, I think,

Speaker C: 00:03:33

mean, it sort of happened in: 1989

Speaker B: 00:06:14

precipitates that. But but but I mean, what's interesting is it takes these, these sort of benchmark, benchmarking kind of events to make the world realize, you know, like, there's a classic example of the the Russo-Japanese War of, you know, the turn of the 20th century, where essentially, I mean, you know, Russia had its its ass handed to it by, by Japan. And it made the global community realize that, first of all, you know, imperial Russia was a bit of a a bit of a sort of sick man of Europe. And that, you know, Japan was a now a global, a global power. And it's, you know, and that precipitated all kinds of events, both in terms of the way Japan was treated by the international community, post that period, and, you know, things that happened internally within those countries. So, you know, Russia itself, arguably, that that was a catalyst for, you know, the revolutionary activity that took over the next couple of decades. And, you know, in Japan, the fact that they sort of, they won the war, but lost the peace, you know, but demonstrated that, that they had martial and economic competence, you know, in many ways, may have been a sort of an encouragement for their, their more sort of expansionist policy, which, which, which, you know, kind of resulted in the Second World War, Second World War, their,

Speaker A: 00:07:52

their involvement in the Second World War. So here's a question. I'm thinking about this as, as analysts, we've, I like the term you used there, Chris, which was benchmark events, because those are sort of events where everyone can, you know, any kind of lay person can sort of see that things have shifted, right? So, but we also talked earlier on about how and when it's less perceptible, and you were talking about Nick, the growth of us decline of you of British empire, etc. So here's the question. How is it when when there's no benchmark event, and you want to have some sort of, you know, as analysts, you want to know what's going on and be able to predict project what's happening? How can you how as analysts? Can you figure out when there is a

Speaker C: 00:08:38

ay Singer, I think, since the: 1970

Speaker B: 00:11:21

Yeah, well, I think it's, it's interesting. Obviously, you can have this sort of approach of measuring underlying factors and trying to trying to keep track of, you know, where, where a country, or, you know, nation state is at any one time. But ultimately, it's a little bit like, you know, heavyweight boxers is, you know, they can kind of go along in parallel, but it's, it's only really when you, you put them in some kind of direct competition, that you that you understand, you know, there's still uncertainties that, that, you know, kind of need need to be resolved. And I think war is actually a very good test of all those underlying indicators that we were talking about, you know, if you look at sort of, you know, technology, obviously, and your ability to, to harness technology plays a role in warfare, your economic strength, your sort of political cohesion and ability to marshal your your nation, the alliances that you've built up your position within the sort of global community, all of those things come into come into play during, during war. And so, you know, that's, that's why something like a war is a is a, you know, is often when you get this acknowledgement of a power shift, because it's a direct kind of

Speaker C: 00:12:45

, the run up to the to the to: 1990

Speaker B: 00:13:42

like, you know, well, is China actually more powerful? It raises the idea, actually, I hadn't kind of thought about this previously. But, you know, whether this, these, these shifts in power are kind of linear or incremental, you know, or sort of, you know, whether you get step changes, and I think I think you probably do. And I think some of these benchmarking events are often, then sort of self fulfilling in some way, you know, so a nation feels humiliated or whatever, and, and starts to doubt its own prowess, and, you know, goes into some, you know, they then have a revolution, which makes things worse. And, you know, whatever, whatever it might be. Likewise, a country unexpectedly does well at something, and there's national pride, and other countries then sort of think, oh, hang on a minute, you know, we ought to support this country. They're obviously the, the, you know, the preeminent power in our area now, and things, things change for them. So I think, you know, it's true, you know, you do get these, these kind of quite gradual shifts in power between, you know, the US going up and the British Empire going down. But I think these, these particular types of events are often great catalysts for much more radical shifts in power, they accelerate things, basically. Yeah. So I had a look at, I had a look

Speaker C: 00:15:10

at empires. Yeah, because there's obviously quite, there's some pretty good data out there. It's not perfect. It's dodgy in a lot of ways. But particularly, like, one of the things I look for was when, when was the empire at its largest extent? And I don't, I don't, and just in terms of space, because obviously, in the past, we didn't really have any good measures of GDP, and so on. So you've got to kind of look at how big it was. Before you continue, and I know you're

Speaker A: 00:15:32

in geographical terms, around: 1900

Speaker C: 00:15:47

British Empire. Yes.: 1920

Speaker A: 00:17:17

so I keep interrupting you, but this is fascinating. I would imagine if it's classed within there, like the Third Reich would be pretty good on that sort of on that.

Speaker C: 00:17:24

Yeah, I'm not, I'm not, I will have a quick look to see where that where that appears in my list.

Speaker A: 00:17:32

Yeah, last: 1000

Speaker C: 00:17:38

it was a bit of a failure. The German just that's the other German Empire. Let me just find it. I'm not sure the Third Reich. It was. Oh, it was never big enough. Right. Yeah. Yeah. So now I've got about it within in my above my cold off. There's 50 50 empires. Yeah, the Mongols that get well, I think this is the Mongols that the the go took carganate.

Speaker B: 00:18:07

Is that Yeah, well, I mean, there was so you know, you have the Oh, was it that the golden golden carnate and something to do with sheep at some point as well.

Speaker C: 00:18:17

Yeah, that's right. So they started they kicked off in 552. And we're at their biggest extent in just five years later. And then they then they spent another sort of 200 years, just, you know, disappearing. But yeah, so they're top actually. And then you have the Seleucids, then a bunch of Chinese dynasties, which I don't really know very much about. So the Song, the Jin, the Qin dynasty, but let's not forget, everyone's favorite empire, the Roman Empire, which, of course, didn't end till the 15th century, because Byzantium was a direct continuation of the Roman Empire. So, so the Roman Empire was is up there in the sort of the these empires, which, you know, Peter out for much longer than they than they than they took to took to appear, but also look to the opposite. Right. So empires, which which, you know, rose and rose and rose and rose and then disappeared within a few short years of their height. So who do you think's in

Speaker A: 00:19:15

there? Well, Alexander's Alexander. Well, you know, I mean, he went up quick, he went up very quickly,

Speaker B: 00:19:26

didn't he? I mean, that was that was in, like, within, like, 10 years, virtually. Yes. The

Speaker C: 00:19:32

Macedonian Empire is in there. It's in the sort of top 10. Yeah. Okay. But you're right, Chris,

Speaker A: 00:19:37

because that was quite a quick burner. And then an even quicker decline. No, it would be the the Genghis Khan, whatever one class it was. Is he a monk? Was he a Mongol? I think we've just done

Speaker C: 00:19:50

the Mongols, haven't we? Yeah. Okay. So that's what I'm getting. Yeah, no, it's the opposite. So you're saying these are empires that take a long time. Yeah. To reach their greatest extent and then disappear very quickly. Yeah. Well, I mean, I would say, then the go out with the

Speaker B: 00:20:03

British, the British Empire must have built up over, you know, a very long time. We've said,

Speaker C: 00:20:10

orrow, or it could be another: 1000

Speaker A: 00:21:15

But Chris, I want to bring us a little bit back on track. But before I do, Chris, anything you

Speaker B: 00:21:21

f imperial China as you know,: 1000

Speaker C: 00:22:17

Well, then that brings that brings me on to this is something I read quite recently, actually, in sapiens by by Hariri. I don't know if you guys have read that. I think I have. I'm aware of it. Good book. But anyway, there's a chapter about empires being one of the predominant unifying forces in history. And, and he basically makes the argument that empires don't actually disappear, right? They because what they do is they just become the culture. So you know that, but the cycle of empire that he sort of sketches out as a kind of, you know, idealized model is that, first of all, a small group establishes a big empire. And then there's an imperial culture, that's fortress very much, you know, the elite, the empire is run by the people who founded it, and they're the elite, and everyone else kind of works for them. And then at some point, the subject peoples adopt that ruling culture, and eventually demand equality. So you had, you know, at the beginning, you had of the Roman Empire, you had the Romans essentially ruling a bunch of barbarians, those barbarians basically became Romans, and, and then, you know, co opted the Roman state, and then when it disappeared, well, essentially, you've got Roman, I mean, you've got Roman culture, essentially still hanging around today. Likewise, you could say that, you know, actually, the British Empire is in terms of the kind of the rules that that we sort of developed in Europe, for how country, what countries are like, you know, the sort of Westphalian idea of what a country is, is essentially now the norm, the rest of the world,

Speaker B: 00:23:54

not to mention the Anglophone world, and, you know, the sort of Anglo Saxon system of law and

Speaker C: 00:24:00

economic governance. Well, exactly. So so like, actually, maybe, you know, you could say on one hand that the European empires are all dead, and have disappeared. But on the other hand,

Speaker A: 00:24:09

they're still thriving away. Yeah. And actually, that kind of brings me back to what I want to talk about, which is this, this question of how we notice these shifts. Because what I wanted to ask was, how does this matter? And why does this matter? So what I was thinking about is if on let's say, going by the I forget the name, the person, the study that you mentioned with the graphs, and so on, Nick, which, you know, using different set of metrics, plots, the China is currently more composite index of national capability. It's catchy, isn't it? So I'm just wondering, so if you're, you know, with a population of what, over a billion on one side, and what was population of us 300 million or so 350? If you, you know, if you think a picture of a day in life of one of if you if you take an average citizen, if which clearly doesn't exist from one of those countries, and how do these big sort of movements, these macro movements, how does that affect an individual? But, you know, in one sense, you can't compare. But in other sense, maybe we've talked a little bit about this in the kind of the hang, I mean, I know, we were talking about empires, but kind of the hangover things of law, and language, and those sort of continue to have long tail effects, if that's, you know, not quite, I don't know, I'm like, I'm groping towards a

Speaker B: 00:25:27

question, but I don't think I've got one. Yeah, I think I think I know where you where you're sort of going. And I think the, the issue for me is, you know, how it affects the citizenry is really sort of, yeah, psychologically, I don't, I don't think it has an immediate tangible effect on their, you know, how much money they have, or whatever. But I think it's mainly psychological. And, and if you look at those shifts, I was thinking about, you know, how so obviously, war is a is a big indicator, military shifts, you know, things like the sacking of Rome, right? A good example, but then you've got other sort of shifts, like technological ones, right? So when Soviets put, you know, a human into space, that really put put the wind up, you know, the Americans and and the American populace itself, you know, insisted on on, well, there was political drive towards a space program, and and so on, then you get political kind of shifts, like the collapse of the Soviet Union, which can be very dramatic and precipitous. But then, you know, perhaps it's the economic shifts that are the ones that are less seismic, unless you get, you know, like a sort of Great Depression that like hyperinflation in Germany, but not, you know, perhaps in the rest of the world. But, but by and large, you know, there are different areas, those kind of things can happen in. And I think the impact that they that they have on on the population in the in the country, which is perceived to be the greater power at at the time, is one of sort of demoralization, and maybe a re energization. And in the country that's on on the up, or the, you know, the power that's on the up, I, it's obviously, you know, a sort of morale booster, and, you know, galvanizes

Speaker C: 00:27:29

felt like to live in to be in: 1920

Speaker A: 00:29:30

it. Yeah. I don't think we've got time. I was I'd like to ask a question, but I don't really have we don't really have time. So I think we'll wrap up. Yeah, yeah, we'll just stop there.

Speaker C: 00:29:40

Just like just like it just like the British Empire. We were going really strongly there. And now it's just all come crashing down. But that's probably better than you know, than the road taking the more the Roman approach and starting well, and then having 25 years, you don't want

Speaker B: 00:29:55

to be in terminal decline for too long, you just want to get invaded by the Ottomans.

Speaker A: 00:29:59

Yeah, exactly. So on that note, we'll wrap up. So thank you, as always, for listening to the Cognitive Engineering podcast. I'm Fraser McGruer, been here with Nick Hare and Chris Wragg of Aleph Insights and until next time, goodbye.