From UFOs two, ghosts and government cover ups, histories where would unexplained events. You can turn back now or learn the stuff they don't want you to now. Hello, everyone, Welcome back to the show, the show that never ends. Uh. My name is Matt, my name is bed and uh we're back in the room. This uh scary, dank, dark cave of a room, and we're here to tell you stories because that's why you're here, right, scary, stark, dank stories. Yeah, old bedtime stories. Hopefully you're tucked in bed with your whatever product you use to listen to this. Maybe you're just pretending to listen to this right now, you're not actually listening to it. Maybe you're just channeling this. Maybe you can hear electromagnetic waves. Maybe you're currently astraally projecting in this room right now and we just can't sense you, which we had talked about before. And as you know, if you're listening to the show, the US government did actually spend millions and millions of dollars researching this idea of astral projection, and the Soviet Union spent even more. Matt, it occurs to me that now, before we jump into this, we should tell people that you and I had a pretty interesting experience in this room earlier today we did we got to be guest hosts on a show called Stuff to Blow Your Mind. Because one of those hosts, Julie, is currently out of town, and uh, we have the privilege of speaking with Mr Robert lamb Or he's also known as Dr Anton and Jessup. Well, the there's a there's a passing resemblance between those two, but I believe he would argue they are very different people. Okay, that's probably correct. Dr Jessop certainly would. Uh. The thing that we talked about with Robert on that show. You know, we'll leave it to you guys to check it out. We don't want to spoil it for you. But if you are a fan of this show, we believe that you will also enjoy Stuff to Blow your Mind. Oh yes, if you aren't already a fan, yeah you probably are. Let's be honest. They're a lot bigger than us on this audio thing. Oh yeah, nothing wrong with that though. I believe in cooperation not competition, which brings me into a series of questions. By way of segue, here for you, Matt, you're ready, alright, let's do you enjoy games. Yes, I enjoy all kinds of games. I like vigia games, I like tabletop games, I like meta games, even like social games, sociological games. That's that's true. We went through a phase. There's a little behind the curtain stuff for all our listeners. Uh. You and I went through a phase where we pretty much studied body language to to the point of um to the point of reading people fairly effectively, I would say. And I fought it for a long time. Do you Ben, this is still behind the curtain, don't don't look too hard. But Ben showed me a book. Uh, and I fought it really hard. I didn't want to read it. I thought it was evil. Oh my gosh, I forgot about it. Yeah, but then I ended up looking a little more into it, and it's it's pretty terrifying. It's one of those things you can't unknown. Yeah, yeah, it's true. But the reason that I asked you about games is because, uh, you know, I love the fact that you said social games. But it leads me to my next question, which is, do you think that empires can coexist? Well, oh gosh, I guess it depends on how large you want your empire to be and if your empire truly is an empire. Um, I guess if the continents are far enough away, sure, sure they can. If you have like one continent over here and there's there's one empire there, one continent way over here, separated by lots and lots and lots of seawater. Perhaps Okay, so a buffer of some sort, yes, Okay, empires can't co exist together. I don't think so. Okay. I I see what you're saying. And the reason I asked about a game is because today's audio podcast comes to us from our earlier series on uh Soviet activity right in Central Asia. Yeah, all kinds of Soviet activity we've been covering lately. Yeah, everything from psychotronics to attempting to discover Shambala. Yeah, true story. That's so weird to me. Still. What we found when we were looking for Shambala, looking for Soviet act civity regarding Shambala, is that there were two camps of people there. There was one camp of what we can call true believers who really believe that there was Shambala or Shambala or whatever, uh, somewhere north of India, somewhere in the steps and that this land could hold keys to some sort of hidden technology. So it's kind of like the conspiracy theories regarding Atlantis or Lemuria or other fallen Hyperborean type civil civilizations. And then you've got people who believe Shambala is more of a philosophy or a state of mind, and they want to create a place where that state of mind can flourish, and additionally use it as a way of building support for communism and building support for the Soviet Empire anarchies, right, monarchs, at least for at least for enrollment von ran bug Stundberg. However, I found out there's more to that name. Yeah, that name is longer. I saw it when you made the video and put the whole name in there. Uh yeah, there's a vill Ham. Oh yeah, that wasn't even the whole name. I put as much as I could fill the bottom of the screen. Yeah. He was very um, very old blood aristocracy. So no wonder people you no wonder he wanted to bring monarchies back. He would have been related to so many people. Yeah, he would have been up there the crime. It wasn't exactly altruism. So so what we found when we were looking at this is that we found the search for Schambalah. This takes place in the twenties and the thirties, nineties, twenties and thirties, but we stumbled across something much bigger. When we're looking at this part, it turns out that the Soviet search for this law civilization or this spiritual haven was just one strange chapter in a much longer story about something called the Great Game. And of course you're first question is you know, oh, they invented Tetris back then, if only, if only? Uh, No, this the Great Game is something different. It's the term here is often attributed to a guy named Arthur Connolly. Arthur worked as an intelligence officer for one of history's most ruthless and for time, most successful corporations. That would, of course be the British East India Company. Yes, a corporate intelligence officer. So he's the one who said, so a great game. Yes, and they're this great game was played between primarily two uh empires, really two huge empires at the time. You're looking at Victorian era England and also the Czarist Russia at the time, and they're both vying for power across all of Asia. Yeah, and They're each is trying to establish hegemony over Tibet, Mongolia, Afghanistan, Pakistan, all the stans, all the stands, and we should take a second h Hegemony is ultimately the control of a region or area that is beyond state level power. So the United States currently uh is the hedgemon of North America, plays nice with a lot of the other countries, but ultimately decides when the buck goes and where the buck stops as to fall into a platitude. So at this point we have these two huge empires. England, the Brite Empire, has expanded all over the world by far. Their favorite thing that they have conquered is India. It is the crown Jewel, as it was called, of the British Empire, and they want to safeguard this crown Jewel because, um, you know, England collection of islands, excuse me, the British Isles collection of islands. And so this, this smaller nation in terms of land mass, had conquered a much larger area and had enormous geopolitical influence because of this. So they want to keep that piece of the pie. But Russia wants something else. Yeah, Russia is just trying to expand expanding its borders, is trying to acquire more and more resources and established trade routes to send those resources through UM basically send them all over Russia. And they really just want to maintain their influence over the region because you know, India isn't that far from their borders, right yea. So we've got yeah, exactly, We've got Russia expanding UM, trying to essentially annexed more nations or at least in incorporate them, and we have England saying well, how fast is Russia and growing here because we already called DIBs on India, which I know sounds cavalier, especially when we're talking about the deaths of literally millions of people, But these were the attitudes at the time. These governments, a lot of the people making the decisions, we have to remember, were monarchical, so they were removed from you know, kind of considering the common people of their own countries as people. Well, sure, and we we tend to forget sometimes that when you're in a palace or a boardroom, or just sitting in an ivory tower and ivory tower somewhere looking at all of these ideas, you the best way to look at them is when make them very small. Make a small Let's say, I don't know, table, wooden table. That's the size of wester and that's the that's the size of the world. And you look at with little pieces. Okay, here's where the resources are, Here's where the cities are that we want to maintain. This area. You can only see it from that high up. If you really want to control it, you have to see it from that high up. And this is the nature of the Great Game. The Great Game became popularized in a book by Ruggyard Kipling uh He wrote a book called Kim and Kim Is about this British orphan who is orphaned in India and he eventually begins to have adventures as a spy working for the British Empire in the Great Game. And that would be of course, trying to counter expanding Russian influence there. The Great Game itself is generally seen as starting around eighteen thirteen when Russia and Persia signed something called either the Treaty Gullistan or the Russia Russo Persian Treaty um and it did a couple of things that really set the set the stage of the game, and one of those was it gave Russia control of several key pieces of real estate, which would be Azerbaijan, Augustan, and basically eastern Georgia. Yeah. And that was a pretty nasty blow to England at that time because they had some heavy influence in Persia. You know, they had advisors in the court and stuff. Um. And this expansion, which goes back to the original question I have for you about whether empires can coexist and if so, how uh this question became increasingly comportant, and you can actually measure on the ground how much more important this question became. Um. And it's roughly three thousand miles. Yeah. At one earlier point, the distance between the closest Russian and English empire outpost was about four thousand miles. Uh. In a very short amount of time, it got to as little as one thousand miles. Uh. The thing that happened was a real life secret war. Yeah. So the interesting thing about this secret war is that it's not you're not dealing with massive battles. You're not. You're not dealing with armies that are ready to go to war with one another at any time. Well you are, but you're not seeing that happen. You're dealing with intrigue, you're dealing with literally secrets and espionage. Um, basically in the dark. It's a war in the dark. I like that phrase. Yeah, we're talking about some of the same people that we mentioned in the video series, right, uh, Barchenko and ror Rich. Rorrich especially was functioning as a spy often. That guy is fascinating. By the way, we need to do a whole just on him. Yeah, he impersonated the Dalai Lama. If you haven't seen our episode on this yet, please check out Soviet Search for sham Ba Lah. Okay, So we have got English and Russian agents, as you said, Matt, fighting this war in the dark. They're traveling in disguises monks and shamans and horse traders, and you know, keep in mind this is still kind of in the age of what would be known as Napoleonic warfare. Napoleonic warfare is when again, a very isolated person in power said, I should just line these guys up, and you know, get my buddy that I'm probably related to the line his guy his guys up and we'll sit at the top of our mutual hills and you know, see how many of them survive in them And yeah, and at this time, of course, if we look at a little bit of the military history, you know, the the evolution of firearms also taking place, would ultimately mean that Napoleonic tactics were suicidal. But no matter what, even before then they were. They were very bloody, and people were avoiding an out and out war by trying to subtly garner influence. So the Russian Empires sent somebody to visit the Dalai Lama, and then the British team would send somebody to visit the Amir of Afghanistan and war lords and Mongolia and other leaders of Stan's you know, emerits and stuff, and and yeah, they would maintain contact openly with with Moscow and and uh in with London as though everything's cool, guys, where everything's fine. They'll have a meeting. Yeah, yeah, we're gonna have a meeting. But as I'm having this meeting, buddy's over there and he's got the year of some warlord who's planning some bad things against you. And Russian and England would also when it was necessary cooperate to stop mutual threats. So the biggest example of this is the cooperation between the British and the Russians during World War Two, which is weird because it makes you think, doesn't it that this game has been playing for quite a long time. I mean, I know, chess games can take a while, but Jesus, yeah, that's what is God, that's over a hundred years, a hundred and thirty years. Yeah, So it's been going on for a while. And that led us to think about how the Great Game has molded the world in which we live today. So the Great Game has had effects on Afghanistan in which were I mean they are they have been catastrophic. Um, and it's it's severely limited the possible development of Afghanistan because of the Separation Act that's occurred, the coagulation of of power inside that country. Yeah. Uh, and that that country was also used as a buffer state to because you know, it's between Russia and India, or it was at the time, and battles, if there ever was a battle between those two powers, that's where it's going to take place. And uh, those effects, of course were catastrophic. The other the Stans were also influenced Kazakhstankmenistan Tajakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan as well, UM. Because they ultimately were quote unquote one by the Soviet Party about the Russian side, so they remained part of the U. S. S R. UM. You know, they were main part of Russia effectively even after the revolution in nineteen seventeen and when they were under this era of Soviet rule, they were still really important from a uh geopolitical stance because they they had these um massive resources. I think somebody checked me if I'm wrong on this. I think it was. Bakistan was known as um one of the bread baskets of Russia. So they supplied the Soviet Union with with a lot of food and unfortunately, because the central planning, a lot of people starved while they were exporting food. UM. You know, same in it. It turns out that the resources that are acquired in these areas, when you're in control of those areas, end up having a huge impact on what you're able to do that don't necessarily affect the bottom line of the empire, right because these are it's like having extra resources. So one great example is the Eurasian opium fields, and they basically gave England the means to pedal drugs to China um in what it ultimately became the Opium Wars, but it was basically an extra resource for them to get more money, right, Yeah, because if you think about it, they're not growing opium in the British Isles. They're not. They're not. They be completely against it. Yeah, it's not in my backyard. Kind of kind of makes you think about current Afghanistan right where opium production has skyrocketed. Is that correct? Yeah, some of the same opium fields as a matter of fact, and that is strange. Uh, the Opium Wars deserve a podcast all their own, but for now, this quick recap, just a high level look at the nature of what's going on, brings us to the big question of the day. When when do you think the Great Game stopped? Or do you think it stopped? Between those two powers specifically, I mean, how how could you ever prove that it stopped? Right? Yeah, that's a good question because it's so much of it was waged in a clandestine way and depended upon espionage, and and you're you're still looking at two massive I mean, there's there are there are large powers. I don't know if Russia is considered a superpower anymore. I believe they are. I've just read was reading an article about is Russia will will Russia become a superpower? Yeah, you probably heard some varying assessments. Is probably the most fair word to use here of Russia's ability. Um. Sometimes people will say that the only reason Russia is at the level it is in the U n. Security Council is because of World War Two, that it's just a legacy from that, or that it is a developing nation that's there because it has a strangle hold on gas, and often, weirdly enough, in the United States, uh, conservative politicians like to say that the United States should begin exporting natural gas to Europe as a way of curtailing Russia's influence. It is also fair to say that at this point, those guys are the nicest way you could say it is optimistic. Is literally the nicest way. But yes, so, the idea of Russia being a superpower is something that is tremendously important to Russia's long term strategy right and could be threatening to other countries, but not just the United States. Because I think it's obvious, Matt, that you and I both believe the great game continues. I think it absolutely does, and perhaps just a few more players have joined. Oh yeah, yeah, who would you who? Who would you say has joined the game? Well, the chessboard, Well, certainly the United States, Um, certainly China. Um. Just if you look at some of the spying that goes on and now the known spying that the US continues has been and continues to write implement um. Oh yeah, as we're as we're recording this. Angela Merkel, the Prime Minister of Germany right, was in the news for being rejected by the n s A when she asked, Hey, can you guys give me the stuff you stole from my cell phone? Yeah? Can I at least see the things that file on me? Yeah? I understand why they wouldn't do that, but stuff to look classy doing that, going back to going back to this, yeah, the to Two of the big new players in the game are China and the United States. Now, for a time, China was not able to be a peer level regional power due to in fighting, due to um the tremendous influence of both the British and the Russian empires. Today, China is ascendant and one of its big concerns in Eurasia is fortifying its security in Western China and making sure that it has secure access to energy. So this this means petroleum from the Middle East and Central Asia, natural gas, any of those products. Interestingly enough, China is also the world leader in construction of some alternative energy, world leader in building solar. Yeah. Well, and solar is it. I mean, there is no question solar will be huge, and I don't know how you can ever stop solar power from becoming the next thing, just because it's once it passes that threshold of being able to make it cheaply enough. Yeah, then I mean, well it's over all. The other energies can go take a hike, man, because the sun is not going out. That's interesting we say this now. Um. The big the new Anglo player in the Great Game is, of course, as you said, the United States. There's some strange similarities here because the United States, like the British Empire in the beginning of the Great Game, does not actually have sovereign territory. They're they're interested in establishing a hedgemonty hegeminy. Many people would argue, uh for the purpose of collecting resources and also for the purpose of preventing other threats to that rule. Um, you know, the biggest one would be a lot of people think the biggest one would be either China and Russia. But if you look at the way they're playing the game, Iran is the one. Is the country in the target in in the in the scope sites. Yeah, they've got a really big friend in the Middle East that you know, we have a really big friend in the Middle East that we have to protect. Um is real, Iran is there, is certainly there the biggest they feel it. Iran is their biggest threat. So we'll not saying that it's making the US and necessarily do what it's doing, but it certainly helps. Now I think, you know, I think that the United States is looking at Iran for a different reason, for a much more pragmatic reason. Now, you know, you and I had already talked about this in an earlier show, and we're both fairly skeptical. I'm even dismissive of people or politicians at least, who make arguments for wars based on ideology. It just doesn't cut it. I don't I don't believe it. I want to see some numbers, and I think there is a number play here in preventing iron There's also that very interesting um conspiracy theory about Petro dollars, right, and and that Petro dollar bring the back of the U S. At least that's what I've been hearing of a financial hedge on Hedgemonty. I'm saying the word too often. Now we know that we know that the United States, like China, wants to secure access to reliable energy for itself, but also for another player in the game that will get to um, one of the Let's go to Russia, one of the oldest, longest players in the game, Matt. What does Russia want? Well, it definitely wants to re establish its influence over the rest of the area, UM, not just inside Russia. And we can see that happening right now currently. Don't call it a come back, yeah, um. So yeah, they're they're interested in expanding, um, revitalizing kind of the the old Russian Empire, the part I mean, not necessarily the Soviet Empire per se, but you know, regaining some of that. Give me back my stands, uncle Sam. Right now. It's you know, the the US and Russia are at logger heads over the presence of US military bases in uh in some I think a Pakistan, maybe Kazakhstan as well, I can't remember uh And those are being used to support US operations in Afghanistan and additionally as building a possibility to wage war with Iran, which is unfortunately on the horizon the So that makes sense that Russia wants to gain back its influence and back control of the areas that it lost during the fall of the U S. S R. And I would say it has I'm not an historian, I'm not sure. I don't study this stuff very often. It just would make sense that there are still resources, important resources in those areas, um, that they want to get back. Oh. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, like you said earlier, most of these things are resource based in some way. Um, there's a reason you go, you send an army into a place where you try and take over a land space, and it's not usually because of an ideological reason. Yeah, it's not because you like folk songs or whatever. I'm pardon me for sounding so dismissive. Uh. Speaking of cynicism, there is another very old player in this game, and it's a very old player that a lot of people forget to their detriment, and I don't blame me because it doesn't get reported on the news is often as it should. The corporation the the original reason that we even kind of learned about this because of that intelligence officer who was working for a corporation. Yeah. Absolutely, Uh sometimes we might forget that, Uh, energy companies and finance companies or those concerning the financial sector can wield enormous interest, uh, enormous influence as well, and in some cases having some sort of influence is crucial to their survival. You know. We we forget often that, Um, the role of oil exploration played a big part in some of what the British Empire did when it divided different countries up you know, in the in the period leading up to the modern day. Uh. We forget sometimes how dependent other countries can become on loan from you know, private and semi public private sources like the I m F for the World Bank, and in some cases, uh, these organizations can provide tremendously necessary resources, you know, better, roads, school, sanitation, all of these things that countries need to order in order to get a chance to develop. As long as the I m F or whoever gets their peace too as Yeah, as long as the whatever agreements they make are something that they that they hold up to and that they are allowed to hold up to by anything else. Because what's interesting when we read about this is that many of the people in the situations here, especially historically, many of the people who were Eurasian elites you know, Lamas or uh and mirrors and stuff like that, these people learned a very careful balancing act, you know. So you would say one thing to the British to play them off the Russians in order to hopefully make your area of the world a little bit better or at least a little bit less dangerous. It's interesting now the world in which we live, where so much is open or at least able to be captured. Um As for everything from a cable that's sent from one country to another, one diplomat to another, I see interception. Yeah, there could be an interception and now it's open, just like what happened with those diplomatic cables that got leaked. Um it shows you exactly what you're talking about. Where we're we're playing a game, well, all all countries are playing some kind of weird game to make everyone think that now it's cool, man, We're good, is it? Is? It sort of like that game where, um, I don't know you listen, did this when you were a kid? We had this game where we would play tag in a library, which couldn't run because you were being watched by teachers. So there were a lot of people just power walking after each other until the eyes of the teachers were off them for a moment, at which point they made mad dashes. I ever did that. Well, we could try it in the office. I don't know who would who would care? Uh? But uh, this this is interesting because you know, we always like to do a little bit of further reading, a little bit of stuff to recommend this whole topic. While it might seem a little bit dry and removed from the average person's life, especially in the United States or in Europe. Um, the point of the matter is that people who are in charge of state level decisions, you know, those the wise old men and women who advise uh, the advertised leader, you know, whether it's a I don't know, CEO, prime minister, president or whatever. These Uh. The intelligentsia of international affairs very much believes in this concept of a grand game and that uh, Eurasia is ultimately the big either melting pot, opportunity point or point of conflict in in the world going forward. And when I say advisors, I don't mean people that were working in the nineteen forties. I mean people who were still working much more recently, like Zabeg new Brazynski, who wrote a book called The Grand Chessboard where he argues the same thing, and he basically says nothing has changed. People like Henry Kissinger, people like the advisors to putin, uh, putin himself. So when you get to that level, you have to have an understanding of the history or else you can't you you're not allowed. I mean, you can't be here if you don't have a vast understanding of the history of what you are doing. And sometimes that history does get lost in ideology. Very true. Uh, But this goes back to our This goes back to our question because if you think about it, if you think back to the early days of the of the Great Game, we had um, we had a corporate power working with a state power to achieve the British Empire. And you know, if we're being honest, state and corporate powers have always historically intermingled you know, um, the separation of Yeah, the separation of a corporation from a you know, a family or a monarchy as an official state power is a little more recent than we would like to believe us. For me, it's of the way I visualize it. It's the corporate side, is the funding powers, the money powers to an extent, and then the army or the warring powers with the state, at least the way I'm seeing it currently, And they have to because you know, somebody has all the money. Sometimes it's the monarch that has you know, the treasure trove room, but usually it's the wealth of your nation, um, which isn't always, not always controlled by the state power. Yeah. No, I know it sounds incredibly cynical to talk this way about this, because one of the questions that would pop up would be, you know, ideally, why can these states not have their independence? Why can they not be able to democratically elect their leaders in real elections, not some kind of kangaroo court election? And why wouldn't they be able to pursue their own interests that would benefit them rather than a larger regional power. Um, I totally agree. I think they should be able to do that. But the point of the matter is that often they end up being client states or being proxy this scenes of proxy wars. I hope that this doesn't happen again. But it leads us to the question, Matt, do you think that empires can coexist? I don't know, dude. I feel as though one day there will be no such thing as and well there maybe there will be one empire. Who knows, Maybe it'll be a death star like and it's gonna be really intense, cloaked dudes that can wield some kind of supernatural power. I would be in really your oacrifice democracy for superpower? Are you kidding? Well, if it feels like we have to head that way as as as much as it pains me to say that, it feels like a global power is inevitable or else you mean a single global power. Yeah, like a like a freaky empire, a freaky one empire thing. See, I think that could happen, but it couldn't be permanent. Well, I could see a um I could see something like nineteen eighty four's political situation existing where there are three huge states that have always been at war with each other, always been allied with one another. But if you if you play the Great Game effectively, you could convince let's let's say they're there are three right, Uh, I'm just trampolating here, But if you're playing the Great Game effectively enough, then you could convince if you're one number one, you could convince after defeating two and three kind of below board or through espionage or whatever you do it, you could convince the people who live in two and three that two and three still exist and everything's okay and nothing has changed, when really the power is with the with only one. So so it's simple just lie to billions of people and never get caught. Yeah, well, it takes you to Elvis Huxley's world, and when you combine in the Brave New World, then you start look getting close to what our world looks like. A brave New night. That's kind of cool, man. You go on my mind, well what do you think? Then I think, all right, this is gonna sound a little bit fringe. I'm sure the person much smarter than me has figured out this theory. This is just my two cents, entirely speculation. Okay, So in the beginning, we had we being humanity, we had the tribe, and the tribe was something that happened due to survival. We found that it was in the beginning, especially, it was necessary to have other people to help you to vibe right. So we set this precedent from the tribe arrived the religion, and the religion said, there is a reason for us existing other than just to survive here, and we are different to other people, and we or they deserve something good or bad. So the tribe started for survival, the religion gave a reason, and the state advanced a method. And the method of the state is that there are certain explicit rules that are pragmatic. We're not telling you necessarily what's going to happen when you die, or we're not telling you about the intangible spiritual things, but we are telling you that if you steal an elephant, you are going to jail, because that is not what makes society work. So let let's put in these rules that allows something like a supertribe to exist, you know. So then we went from the state to the corporation. And what the corporation says is uh still kind of left open to question. But in my in my opinion, what will ultimately become the biggest player in the great game will be some sort of British East India things, some sort of private corporation. I could easily see in our lifetimes. There's the worst part. I could easily see in our lifetimes. Some sort of state or area of the world that is transparently and obviously controlled by a corporation. And I don't mean some sort of sticky corruption charge. Yeah, I mean yeah, I mean like, uh, you know, Luxembourg presented by Google. I think it's just gonna be a Google stand or Google I mean before you and either and and here's the thing. Here's the thing. Depending on what which corporation is or how it works out, it might be better than the alternative. It might actually be better to live in a Google stand. As terrible as that sounds. Now, we have to remember that the human race and and trying to work with itself, is this continual evolution. So I think that soon, um. And when I say soon, I mean the grand scheme of things. Uh, the corporation, which would be the fourth step, will supersede the state. Yeah, but what comes after the corporation, Man, I don't know. I just want to go to space. I'm gonna be asked with you, I just I want to go to space. I'm not going to sell my soul for ticket, and I don't really believe in too much of that anyway, But just in case I'm not going to sell it, you can metaphorically sell your soul. You've metaphor? Do you remember that Simpsons episode where Bart sold his soul and he couldn't fog the glass in the automatic door? What open for him? Man? That got to me functioned on soul. Isn't that interesting? Yeah? More than a sermon? That got to me? I thought those doors are convenient? What will I do the Simpson's teaching, teaching people like you and I how the world works and how morality works. And let's toss it to you listeners. We hope that you enjoyed this episode and we want to know what you think. Uh? What what do you think will happen in these countries that we in the West here so little about? Who, if anyone, do you think will eventually control Eurasia? Uh? Will somebody win the Great Game? Here's a good one. Is it possible to win the Great Game? Or does it just continue? And be sure to to go on Facebook and give us a little message, UM, tell us what you think about this stuff. You can find us where conspiracy Stuff. You can find us on Twitter. We're at conspiracy stuff. Make sure you check out our old episode called The Long Deception, which talks about the Soviet Union and whether or not it actually collapsed. Really interesting stuff. UM. If you don't like social media and you don't want to watch our videos and you just want to tell us something, you can always email us. We are conspiracy at Discovery dot com. From one on this topic another unexplained phenomenon, visit test two dot com slash conspiracy stuff. You can also get in touch on Twitter at the handle at conspiracy stuff.

From UFOs two, ghosts and government cover ups, histories where would unexplained events. You can turn back now or learn the stuff they don't want you to now. Hello, everyone, Welcome back to the show, the show that never ends. Uh. My name is Matt, my name is bed and uh we're back in the room. This uh scary, dank, dark cave of a room, and we're here to tell you stories because that's why you're here, right, scary, stark, dank stories. Yeah, old bedtime stories. Hopefully you're tucked in bed with your whatever product you use to listen to this. Maybe you're just pretending to listen to this right now, you're not actually listening to it. Maybe you're just channeling this. Maybe you can hear electromagnetic waves. Maybe you're currently astraally projecting in this room right now and we just can't sense you, which we had talked about before. And as you know, if you're listening to the show, the US government did actually spend millions and millions of dollars researching this idea of astral projection, and the Soviet Union spent even more. Matt, it occurs to me that now, before we jump into this, we should tell people that you and I had a pretty interesting experience in this room earlier today we did we got to be guest hosts on a show called Stuff to Blow Your Mind. Because one of those hosts, Julie, is currently out of town, and uh, we have the privilege of speaking with Mr Robert lamb Or he's also known as Dr Anton and Jessup. Well, the there's a there's a passing resemblance between those two, but I believe he would argue they are very different people. Okay, that's probably correct. Dr Jessop certainly would. Uh. The thing that we talked about with Robert on that show. You know, we'll leave it to you guys to check it out. We don't want to spoil it for you. But if you are a fan of this show, we believe that you will also enjoy Stuff to Blow your Mind. Oh yes, if you aren't already a fan, yeah you probably are. Let's be honest. They're a lot bigger than us on this audio thing. Oh yeah, nothing wrong with that though. I believe in cooperation not competition, which brings me into a series of questions. By way of segue, here for you, Matt, you're ready, alright, let's do you enjoy games. Yes, I enjoy all kinds of games. I like vigia games, I like tabletop games, I like meta games, even like social games, sociological games. That's that's true. We went through a phase. There's a little behind the curtain stuff for all our listeners. Uh. You and I went through a phase where we pretty much studied body language to to the point of um to the point of reading people fairly effectively, I would say. And I fought it for a long time. Do you Ben, this is still behind the curtain, don't don't look too hard. But Ben showed me a book. Uh, and I fought it really hard. I didn't want to read it. I thought it was evil. Oh my gosh, I forgot about it. Yeah, but then I ended up looking a little more into it, and it's it's pretty terrifying. It's one of those things you can't unknown. Yeah, yeah, it's true. But the reason that I asked you about games is because, uh, you know, I love the fact that you said social games. But it leads me to my next question, which is, do you think that empires can coexist? Well, oh gosh, I guess it depends on how large you want your empire to be and if your empire truly is an empire. Um, I guess if the continents are far enough away, sure, sure they can. If you have like one continent over here and there's there's one empire there, one continent way over here, separated by lots and lots and lots of seawater. Perhaps Okay, so a buffer of some sort, yes, Okay, empires can't co exist together. I don't think so. Okay. I I see what you're saying. And the reason I asked about a game is because today's audio podcast comes to us from our earlier series on uh Soviet activity right in Central Asia. Yeah, all kinds of Soviet activity we've been covering lately. Yeah, everything from psychotronics to attempting to discover Shambala. Yeah, true story. That's so weird to me. Still. What we found when we were looking for Shambala, looking for Soviet act civity regarding Shambala, is that there were two camps of people there. There was one camp of what we can call true believers who really believe that there was Shambala or Shambala or whatever, uh, somewhere north of India, somewhere in the steps and that this land could hold keys to some sort of hidden technology. So it's kind of like the conspiracy theories regarding Atlantis or Lemuria or other fallen Hyperborean type civil civilizations. And then you've got people who believe Shambala is more of a philosophy or a state of mind, and they want to create a place where that state of mind can flourish, and additionally use it as a way of building support for communism and building support for the Soviet Empire anarchies, right, monarchs, at least for at least for enrollment von ran bug Stundberg. However, I found out there's more to that name. Yeah, that name is longer. I saw it when you made the video and put the whole name in there. Uh yeah, there's a vill Ham. Oh yeah, that wasn't even the whole name. I put as much as I could fill the bottom of the screen. Yeah. He was very um, very old blood aristocracy. So no wonder people you no wonder he wanted to bring monarchies back. He would have been related to so many people. Yeah, he would have been up there the crime. It wasn't exactly altruism. So so what we found when we were looking at this is that we found the search for Schambalah. This takes place in the twenties and the thirties, nineties, twenties and thirties, but we stumbled across something much bigger. When we're looking at this part, it turns out that the Soviet search for this law civilization or this spiritual haven was just one strange chapter in a much longer story about something called the Great Game. And of course you're first question is you know, oh, they invented Tetris back then, if only, if only? Uh, No, this the Great Game is something different. It's the term here is often attributed to a guy named Arthur Connolly. Arthur worked as an intelligence officer for one of history's most ruthless and for time, most successful corporations. That would, of course be the British East India Company. Yes, a corporate intelligence officer. So he's the one who said, so a great game. Yes, and they're this great game was played between primarily two uh empires, really two huge empires at the time. You're looking at Victorian era England and also the Czarist Russia at the time, and they're both vying for power across all of Asia. Yeah, and They're each is trying to establish hegemony over Tibet, Mongolia, Afghanistan, Pakistan, all the stans, all the stands, and we should take a second h Hegemony is ultimately the control of a region or area that is beyond state level power. So the United States currently uh is the hedgemon of North America, plays nice with a lot of the other countries, but ultimately decides when the buck goes and where the buck stops as to fall into a platitude. So at this point we have these two huge empires. England, the Brite Empire, has expanded all over the world by far. Their favorite thing that they have conquered is India. It is the crown Jewel, as it was called, of the British Empire, and they want to safeguard this crown Jewel because, um, you know, England collection of islands, excuse me, the British Isles collection of islands. And so this, this smaller nation in terms of land mass, had conquered a much larger area and had enormous geopolitical influence because of this. So they want to keep that piece of the pie. But Russia wants something else. Yeah, Russia is just trying to expand expanding its borders, is trying to acquire more and more resources and established trade routes to send those resources through UM basically send them all over Russia. And they really just want to maintain their influence over the region because you know, India isn't that far from their borders, right yea. So we've got yeah, exactly, We've got Russia expanding UM, trying to essentially annexed more nations or at least in incorporate them, and we have England saying well, how fast is Russia and growing here because we already called DIBs on India, which I know sounds cavalier, especially when we're talking about the deaths of literally millions of people, But these were the attitudes at the time. These governments, a lot of the people making the decisions, we have to remember, were monarchical, so they were removed from you know, kind of considering the common people of their own countries as people. Well, sure, and we we tend to forget sometimes that when you're in a palace or a boardroom, or just sitting in an ivory tower and ivory tower somewhere looking at all of these ideas, you the best way to look at them is when make them very small. Make a small Let's say, I don't know, table, wooden table. That's the size of wester and that's the that's the size of the world. And you look at with little pieces. Okay, here's where the resources are, Here's where the cities are that we want to maintain. This area. You can only see it from that high up. If you really want to control it, you have to see it from that high up. And this is the nature of the Great Game. The Great Game became popularized in a book by Ruggyard Kipling uh He wrote a book called Kim and Kim Is about this British orphan who is orphaned in India and he eventually begins to have adventures as a spy working for the British Empire in the Great Game. And that would be of course, trying to counter expanding Russian influence there. The Great Game itself is generally seen as starting around eighteen thirteen when Russia and Persia signed something called either the Treaty Gullistan or the Russia Russo Persian Treaty um and it did a couple of things that really set the set the stage of the game, and one of those was it gave Russia control of several key pieces of real estate, which would be Azerbaijan, Augustan, and basically eastern Georgia. Yeah. And that was a pretty nasty blow to England at that time because they had some heavy influence in Persia. You know, they had advisors in the court and stuff. Um. And this expansion, which goes back to the original question I have for you about whether empires can coexist and if so, how uh this question became increasingly comportant, and you can actually measure on the ground how much more important this question became. Um. And it's roughly three thousand miles. Yeah. At one earlier point, the distance between the closest Russian and English empire outpost was about four thousand miles. Uh. In a very short amount of time, it got to as little as one thousand miles. Uh. The thing that happened was a real life secret war. Yeah. So the interesting thing about this secret war is that it's not you're not dealing with massive battles. You're not. You're not dealing with armies that are ready to go to war with one another at any time. Well you are, but you're not seeing that happen. You're dealing with intrigue, you're dealing with literally secrets and espionage. Um, basically in the dark. It's a war in the dark. I like that phrase. Yeah, we're talking about some of the same people that we mentioned in the video series, right, uh, Barchenko and ror Rich. Rorrich especially was functioning as a spy often. That guy is fascinating. By the way, we need to do a whole just on him. Yeah, he impersonated the Dalai Lama. If you haven't seen our episode on this yet, please check out Soviet Search for sham Ba Lah. Okay, So we have got English and Russian agents, as you said, Matt, fighting this war in the dark. They're traveling in disguises monks and shamans and horse traders, and you know, keep in mind this is still kind of in the age of what would be known as Napoleonic warfare. Napoleonic warfare is when again, a very isolated person in power said, I should just line these guys up, and you know, get my buddy that I'm probably related to the line his guy his guys up and we'll sit at the top of our mutual hills and you know, see how many of them survive in them And yeah, and at this time, of course, if we look at a little bit of the military history, you know, the the evolution of firearms also taking place, would ultimately mean that Napoleonic tactics were suicidal. But no matter what, even before then they were. They were very bloody, and people were avoiding an out and out war by trying to subtly garner influence. So the Russian Empires sent somebody to visit the Dalai Lama, and then the British team would send somebody to visit the Amir of Afghanistan and war lords and Mongolia and other leaders of Stan's you know, emerits and stuff, and and yeah, they would maintain contact openly with with Moscow and and uh in with London as though everything's cool, guys, where everything's fine. They'll have a meeting. Yeah, yeah, we're gonna have a meeting. But as I'm having this meeting, buddy's over there and he's got the year of some warlord who's planning some bad things against you. And Russian and England would also when it was necessary cooperate to stop mutual threats. So the biggest example of this is the cooperation between the British and the Russians during World War Two, which is weird because it makes you think, doesn't it that this game has been playing for quite a long time. I mean, I know, chess games can take a while, but Jesus, yeah, that's what is God, that's over a hundred years, a hundred and thirty years. Yeah, So it's been going on for a while. And that led us to think about how the Great Game has molded the world in which we live today. So the Great Game has had effects on Afghanistan in which were I mean they are they have been catastrophic. Um, and it's it's severely limited the possible development of Afghanistan because of the Separation Act that's occurred, the coagulation of of power inside that country. Yeah. Uh, and that that country was also used as a buffer state to because you know, it's between Russia and India, or it was at the time, and battles, if there ever was a battle between those two powers, that's where it's going to take place. And uh, those effects, of course were catastrophic. The other the Stans were also influenced Kazakhstankmenistan Tajakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan as well, UM. Because they ultimately were quote unquote one by the Soviet Party about the Russian side, so they remained part of the U. S. S R. UM. You know, they were main part of Russia effectively even after the revolution in nineteen seventeen and when they were under this era of Soviet rule, they were still really important from a uh geopolitical stance because they they had these um massive resources. I think somebody checked me if I'm wrong on this. I think it was. Bakistan was known as um one of the bread baskets of Russia. So they supplied the Soviet Union with with a lot of food and unfortunately, because the central planning, a lot of people starved while they were exporting food. UM. You know, same in it. It turns out that the resources that are acquired in these areas, when you're in control of those areas, end up having a huge impact on what you're able to do that don't necessarily affect the bottom line of the empire, right because these are it's like having extra resources. So one great example is the Eurasian opium fields, and they basically gave England the means to pedal drugs to China um in what it ultimately became the Opium Wars, but it was basically an extra resource for them to get more money, right, Yeah, because if you think about it, they're not growing opium in the British Isles. They're not. They're not. They be completely against it. Yeah, it's not in my backyard. Kind of kind of makes you think about current Afghanistan right where opium production has skyrocketed. Is that correct? Yeah, some of the same opium fields as a matter of fact, and that is strange. Uh, the Opium Wars deserve a podcast all their own, but for now, this quick recap, just a high level look at the nature of what's going on, brings us to the big question of the day. When when do you think the Great Game stopped? Or do you think it stopped? Between those two powers specifically, I mean, how how could you ever prove that it stopped? Right? Yeah, that's a good question because it's so much of it was waged in a clandestine way and depended upon espionage, and and you're you're still looking at two massive I mean, there's there are there are large powers. I don't know if Russia is considered a superpower anymore. I believe they are. I've just read was reading an article about is Russia will will Russia become a superpower? Yeah, you probably heard some varying assessments. Is probably the most fair word to use here of Russia's ability. Um. Sometimes people will say that the only reason Russia is at the level it is in the U n. Security Council is because of World War Two, that it's just a legacy from that, or that it is a developing nation that's there because it has a strangle hold on gas, and often, weirdly enough, in the United States, uh, conservative politicians like to say that the United States should begin exporting natural gas to Europe as a way of curtailing Russia's influence. It is also fair to say that at this point, those guys are the nicest way you could say it is optimistic. Is literally the nicest way. But yes, so, the idea of Russia being a superpower is something that is tremendously important to Russia's long term strategy right and could be threatening to other countries, but not just the United States. Because I think it's obvious, Matt, that you and I both believe the great game continues. I think it absolutely does, and perhaps just a few more players have joined. Oh yeah, yeah, who would you who? Who would you say has joined the game? Well, the chessboard, Well, certainly the United States, Um, certainly China. Um. Just if you look at some of the spying that goes on and now the known spying that the US continues has been and continues to write implement um. Oh yeah, as we're as we're recording this. Angela Merkel, the Prime Minister of Germany right, was in the news for being rejected by the n s A when she asked, Hey, can you guys give me the stuff you stole from my cell phone? Yeah? Can I at least see the things that file on me? Yeah? I understand why they wouldn't do that, but stuff to look classy doing that, going back to going back to this, yeah, the to Two of the big new players in the game are China and the United States. Now, for a time, China was not able to be a peer level regional power due to in fighting, due to um the tremendous influence of both the British and the Russian empires. Today, China is ascendant and one of its big concerns in Eurasia is fortifying its security in Western China and making sure that it has secure access to energy. So this this means petroleum from the Middle East and Central Asia, natural gas, any of those products. Interestingly enough, China is also the world leader in construction of some alternative energy, world leader in building solar. Yeah. Well, and solar is it. I mean, there is no question solar will be huge, and I don't know how you can ever stop solar power from becoming the next thing, just because it's once it passes that threshold of being able to make it cheaply enough. Yeah, then I mean, well it's over all. The other energies can go take a hike, man, because the sun is not going out. That's interesting we say this now. Um. The big the new Anglo player in the Great Game is, of course, as you said, the United States. There's some strange similarities here because the United States, like the British Empire in the beginning of the Great Game, does not actually have sovereign territory. They're they're interested in establishing a hedgemonty hegeminy. Many people would argue, uh for the purpose of collecting resources and also for the purpose of preventing other threats to that rule. Um, you know, the biggest one would be a lot of people think the biggest one would be either China and Russia. But if you look at the way they're playing the game, Iran is the one. Is the country in the target in in the in the scope sites. Yeah, they've got a really big friend in the Middle East that you know, we have a really big friend in the Middle East that we have to protect. Um is real, Iran is there, is certainly there the biggest they feel it. Iran is their biggest threat. So we'll not saying that it's making the US and necessarily do what it's doing, but it certainly helps. Now I think, you know, I think that the United States is looking at Iran for a different reason, for a much more pragmatic reason. Now, you know, you and I had already talked about this in an earlier show, and we're both fairly skeptical. I'm even dismissive of people or politicians at least, who make arguments for wars based on ideology. It just doesn't cut it. I don't I don't believe it. I want to see some numbers, and I think there is a number play here in preventing iron There's also that very interesting um conspiracy theory about Petro dollars, right, and and that Petro dollar bring the back of the U S. At least that's what I've been hearing of a financial hedge on Hedgemonty. I'm saying the word too often. Now we know that we know that the United States, like China, wants to secure access to reliable energy for itself, but also for another player in the game that will get to um, one of the Let's go to Russia, one of the oldest, longest players in the game, Matt. What does Russia want? Well, it definitely wants to re establish its influence over the rest of the area, UM, not just inside Russia. And we can see that happening right now currently. Don't call it a come back, yeah, um. So yeah, they're they're interested in expanding, um, revitalizing kind of the the old Russian Empire, the part I mean, not necessarily the Soviet Empire per se, but you know, regaining some of that. Give me back my stands, uncle Sam. Right now. It's you know, the the US and Russia are at logger heads over the presence of US military bases in uh in some I think a Pakistan, maybe Kazakhstan as well, I can't remember uh And those are being used to support US operations in Afghanistan and additionally as building a possibility to wage war with Iran, which is unfortunately on the horizon the So that makes sense that Russia wants to gain back its influence and back control of the areas that it lost during the fall of the U S. S R. And I would say it has I'm not an historian, I'm not sure. I don't study this stuff very often. It just would make sense that there are still resources, important resources in those areas, um, that they want to get back. Oh. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, like you said earlier, most of these things are resource based in some way. Um, there's a reason you go, you send an army into a place where you try and take over a land space, and it's not usually because of an ideological reason. Yeah, it's not because you like folk songs or whatever. I'm pardon me for sounding so dismissive. Uh. Speaking of cynicism, there is another very old player in this game, and it's a very old player that a lot of people forget to their detriment, and I don't blame me because it doesn't get reported on the news is often as it should. The corporation the the original reason that we even kind of learned about this because of that intelligence officer who was working for a corporation. Yeah. Absolutely, Uh sometimes we might forget that, Uh, energy companies and finance companies or those concerning the financial sector can wield enormous interest, uh, enormous influence as well, and in some cases having some sort of influence is crucial to their survival. You know. We we forget often that, Um, the role of oil exploration played a big part in some of what the British Empire did when it divided different countries up you know, in the in the period leading up to the modern day. Uh. We forget sometimes how dependent other countries can become on loan from you know, private and semi public private sources like the I m F for the World Bank, and in some cases, uh, these organizations can provide tremendously necessary resources, you know, better, roads, school, sanitation, all of these things that countries need to order in order to get a chance to develop. As long as the I m F or whoever gets their peace too as Yeah, as long as the whatever agreements they make are something that they that they hold up to and that they are allowed to hold up to by anything else. Because what's interesting when we read about this is that many of the people in the situations here, especially historically, many of the people who were Eurasian elites you know, Lamas or uh and mirrors and stuff like that, these people learned a very careful balancing act, you know. So you would say one thing to the British to play them off the Russians in order to hopefully make your area of the world a little bit better or at least a little bit less dangerous. It's interesting now the world in which we live, where so much is open or at least able to be captured. Um As for everything from a cable that's sent from one country to another, one diplomat to another, I see interception. Yeah, there could be an interception and now it's open, just like what happened with those diplomatic cables that got leaked. Um it shows you exactly what you're talking about. Where we're we're playing a game, well, all all countries are playing some kind of weird game to make everyone think that now it's cool, man, We're good, is it? Is? It sort of like that game where, um, I don't know you listen, did this when you were a kid? We had this game where we would play tag in a library, which couldn't run because you were being watched by teachers. So there were a lot of people just power walking after each other until the eyes of the teachers were off them for a moment, at which point they made mad dashes. I ever did that. Well, we could try it in the office. I don't know who would who would care? Uh? But uh, this this is interesting because you know, we always like to do a little bit of further reading, a little bit of stuff to recommend this whole topic. While it might seem a little bit dry and removed from the average person's life, especially in the United States or in Europe. Um, the point of the matter is that people who are in charge of state level decisions, you know, those the wise old men and women who advise uh, the advertised leader, you know, whether it's a I don't know, CEO, prime minister, president or whatever. These Uh. The intelligentsia of international affairs very much believes in this concept of a grand game and that uh, Eurasia is ultimately the big either melting pot, opportunity point or point of conflict in in the world going forward. And when I say advisors, I don't mean people that were working in the nineteen forties. I mean people who were still working much more recently, like Zabeg new Brazynski, who wrote a book called The Grand Chessboard where he argues the same thing, and he basically says nothing has changed. People like Henry Kissinger, people like the advisors to putin, uh, putin himself. So when you get to that level, you have to have an understanding of the history or else you can't you you're not allowed. I mean, you can't be here if you don't have a vast understanding of the history of what you are doing. And sometimes that history does get lost in ideology. Very true. Uh, But this goes back to our This goes back to our question because if you think about it, if you think back to the early days of the of the Great Game, we had um, we had a corporate power working with a state power to achieve the British Empire. And you know, if we're being honest, state and corporate powers have always historically intermingled you know, um, the separation of Yeah, the separation of a corporation from a you know, a family or a monarchy as an official state power is a little more recent than we would like to believe us. For me, it's of the way I visualize it. It's the corporate side, is the funding powers, the money powers to an extent, and then the army or the warring powers with the state, at least the way I'm seeing it currently, And they have to because you know, somebody has all the money. Sometimes it's the monarch that has you know, the treasure trove room, but usually it's the wealth of your nation, um, which isn't always, not always controlled by the state power. Yeah. No, I know it sounds incredibly cynical to talk this way about this, because one of the questions that would pop up would be, you know, ideally, why can these states not have their independence? Why can they not be able to democratically elect their leaders in real elections, not some kind of kangaroo court election? And why wouldn't they be able to pursue their own interests that would benefit them rather than a larger regional power. Um, I totally agree. I think they should be able to do that. But the point of the matter is that often they end up being client states or being proxy this scenes of proxy wars. I hope that this doesn't happen again. But it leads us to the question, Matt, do you think that empires can coexist? I don't know, dude. I feel as though one day there will be no such thing as and well there maybe there will be one empire. Who knows, Maybe it'll be a death star like and it's gonna be really intense, cloaked dudes that can wield some kind of supernatural power. I would be in really your oacrifice democracy for superpower? Are you kidding? Well, if it feels like we have to head that way as as as much as it pains me to say that, it feels like a global power is inevitable or else you mean a single global power. Yeah, like a like a freaky empire, a freaky one empire thing. See, I think that could happen, but it couldn't be permanent. Well, I could see a um I could see something like nineteen eighty four's political situation existing where there are three huge states that have always been at war with each other, always been allied with one another. But if you if you play the Great Game effectively, you could convince let's let's say they're there are three right, Uh, I'm just trampolating here, But if you're playing the Great Game effectively enough, then you could convince if you're one number one, you could convince after defeating two and three kind of below board or through espionage or whatever you do it, you could convince the people who live in two and three that two and three still exist and everything's okay and nothing has changed, when really the power is with the with only one. So so it's simple just lie to billions of people and never get caught. Yeah, well, it takes you to Elvis Huxley's world, and when you combine in the Brave New World, then you start look getting close to what our world looks like. A brave New night. That's kind of cool, man. You go on my mind, well what do you think? Then I think, all right, this is gonna sound a little bit fringe. I'm sure the person much smarter than me has figured out this theory. This is just my two cents, entirely speculation. Okay, So in the beginning, we had we being humanity, we had the tribe, and the tribe was something that happened due to survival. We found that it was in the beginning, especially, it was necessary to have other people to help you to vibe right. So we set this precedent from the tribe arrived the religion, and the religion said, there is a reason for us existing other than just to survive here, and we are different to other people, and we or they deserve something good or bad. So the tribe started for survival, the religion gave a reason, and the state advanced a method. And the method of the state is that there are certain explicit rules that are pragmatic. We're not telling you necessarily what's going to happen when you die, or we're not telling you about the intangible spiritual things, but we are telling you that if you steal an elephant, you are going to jail, because that is not what makes society work. So let let's put in these rules that allows something like a supertribe to exist, you know. So then we went from the state to the corporation. And what the corporation says is uh still kind of left open to question. But in my in my opinion, what will ultimately become the biggest player in the great game will be some sort of British East India things, some sort of private corporation. I could easily see in our lifetimes. There's the worst part. I could easily see in our lifetimes. Some sort of state or area of the world that is transparently and obviously controlled by a corporation. And I don't mean some sort of sticky corruption charge. Yeah, I mean yeah, I mean like, uh, you know, Luxembourg presented by Google. I think it's just gonna be a Google stand or Google I mean before you and either and and here's the thing. Here's the thing. Depending on what which corporation is or how it works out, it might be better than the alternative. It might actually be better to live in a Google stand. As terrible as that sounds. Now, we have to remember that the human race and and trying to work with itself, is this continual evolution. So I think that soon, um. And when I say soon, I mean the grand scheme of things. Uh, the corporation, which would be the fourth step, will supersede the state. Yeah, but what comes after the corporation, Man, I don't know. I just want to go to space. I'm gonna be asked with you, I just I want to go to space. I'm not going to sell my soul for ticket, and I don't really believe in too much of that anyway, But just in case I'm not going to sell it, you can metaphorically sell your soul. You've metaphor? Do you remember that Simpsons episode where Bart sold his soul and he couldn't fog the glass in the automatic door? What open for him? Man? That got to me functioned on soul. Isn't that interesting? Yeah? More than a sermon? That got to me? I thought those doors are convenient? What will I do the Simpson's teaching, teaching people like you and I how the world works and how morality works. And let's toss it to you listeners. We hope that you enjoyed this episode and we want to know what you think. Uh? What what do you think will happen in these countries that we in the West here so little about? Who, if anyone, do you think will eventually control Eurasia? Uh? Will somebody win the Great Game? Here's a good one. Is it possible to win the Great Game? Or does it just continue? And be sure to to go on Facebook and give us a little message, UM, tell us what you think about this stuff. You can find us where conspiracy Stuff. You can find us on Twitter. We're at conspiracy stuff. Make sure you check out our old episode called The Long Deception, which talks about the Soviet Union and whether or not it actually collapsed. Really interesting stuff. UM. If you don't like social media and you don't want to watch our videos and you just want to tell us something, you can always email us. We are conspiracy at Discovery dot com. From one on this topic another unexplained phenomenon, visit test two dot com slash conspiracy stuff. You can also get in touch on Twitter at the handle at conspiracy stuff.