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Why Did We Ever Have Royalty? · Why We Do What We Do

• 0:03
  Speaker 1: You're listening to Why We Do what we Do. Welcome
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: to Why We Do what we Do. I am your
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: divinely appointed host, Abraham.
• 0:21
  Speaker 2: And I'm your heavy as the head host, Shane.
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  Speaker 1: We're a psychology podcast. We talk about the things that
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: people do, what they have done throughout history and maybe
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: still continue to do, and sometimes why they do things
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: that are mostly just subjugating other people.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, so we're going to talk about power and gemstones
• 0:42
  Speaker 2: and royalty and all the things that go along with
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  Speaker 2: the idea of royalty and monarchies and empires and pharaohs
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  Speaker 2: and the catch all that is royal blood.
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  Speaker 1: So much, so much of that. And if you're joining
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: us for the first time, welcome. We are so happy
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: to have you. If you like what you hear today
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: here on this episode, you can join us on Patreon,
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: like and subscribe, leave us a rating and review, pick
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: up some merch and tell someone I Well, actually, I
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: was thinking about this. I think that almost every podcast
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: I currently listen to someone recommended to me. I don't
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  Speaker 1: think there's any that I have in my roster that
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: I just found.
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  Speaker 2: That's true that I also have the same experience. So
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  Speaker 2: please recommend, because that's how people like us.
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  Speaker 1: That is my challenge. I guess to you my cry
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  Speaker 1: for help. I don't know. My suggestion, go tell someone everyone,
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  Speaker 1: Go tell one person, and then we will have quite
• 1:37
  Speaker 1: a few new people and then'll be great.
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  Speaker 2: Yes we will. It'll be wonderful. But first we have
• 1:41
  Speaker 2: to we do a thing at the beginning of the
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  Speaker 2: show where we like to celebrate random holidays. On the data,
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  Speaker 2: it comes out right.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, this is September eighteenth, and that means that we
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  Speaker 1: need to point out and wish you all a happy
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  Speaker 1: first Love Day.
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  Speaker 2: It's also Chiropractic Founder Day, when you might.
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  Speaker 1: Need to talk about chiropractors at some point.
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  Speaker 2: Oh we should.
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  Speaker 1: It is hug a greeting card writer Day. Ah, I
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  Speaker 1: don't know any of those.
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  Speaker 2: I love greeting cards. It's International Read an Ebook Day.
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  Speaker 1: Oh, okay, read any book really? Yeah?
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  Speaker 2: Sure?
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  Speaker 1: The suggestion National ceiling fan Day. Those are critically important
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  Speaker 1: for some people in certain areas, and thereer certain circumstances.
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  Speaker 2: The house I grew up in, the ceiling fan was
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  Speaker 2: very low, and I almost always hit my head on
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  Speaker 2: it because it was like very it was like several
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  Speaker 2: inches above my head.
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  Speaker 1: I'm thinking it was not very low, but you are
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  Speaker 1: very tall.
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  Speaker 2: And that's that's really the issue. It was. It wasn't
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  Speaker 2: it was a normal size. It was like an average
• 2:44
  Speaker 2: height fan. I was just too tall for my house.
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  Speaker 2: It's National Cheeseburger Day. I would celebrate with an impossible burger.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, National HIV AIDS and Aging Awareness Day. Both
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  Speaker 1: of those lumps together now, I guess.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, Well that's good because historically those things were not
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  Speaker 2: things that you stay together. So it's nice that those
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  Speaker 2: things are coming together, which is really wonderful.
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  Speaker 1: Yay, thank you medicine.
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  Speaker 2: Yay modern medicine and technology and science and education. Isn't it?
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  Speaker 2: Isn't it grand? Also, today is National Rehabilitation Day. I
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  Speaker 2: love that.
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  Speaker 1: Oh that's a great one. Yeah. National respect Day. Oh well,
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  Speaker 1: we will not be honoring that one today's episode.
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  Speaker 2: No, no, no, no, no, not today, folks, we will be
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  Speaker 2: honoring National School Backpack Awareness Day.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, you should be aware that there are such things
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  Speaker 1: as school backpacks. Yes, it is Rice Crispies Treats Day.
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  Speaker 1: Oh I loved those when I was younger.
• 3:36
  Speaker 2: Oh well, I lucky for you. I've got a recipe
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  Speaker 2: to make began ones if you would like sure, and
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  Speaker 2: they are tasty. It is World Bamboo Day.
• 3:47
  Speaker 1: Nice. It is World Water Monitoring Day. That one seems
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  Speaker 1: quite important.
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  Speaker 2: I would agree as far as weeks ago. It is
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  Speaker 2: Adopt a Less Adoptable Pet Week, so adopt that old
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  Speaker 2: man puppy. It's or whatever it is that you might
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  Speaker 2: need to find.
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  Speaker 1: I love old animals. They're so cute and so chill.
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  Speaker 1: And while you're doing that, you can look at the stars.
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  Speaker 1: Because it is Astronomy Week.
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  Speaker 2: I'm a Capricorn. It's a balance awareness week.
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  Speaker 1: It has built a Better Image week. Bear.
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  Speaker 2: Yes, it is Constitution Week, which is interesting. This in September.
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  Speaker 1: That is interesting. I wonder why it is International Clean
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  Speaker 1: Hands Week. I'm gonna go ahead and extend that to
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  Speaker 1: Clean Hands Century.
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  Speaker 2: Yes, super important. And it's also Malnutrition Awareness Week.
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  Speaker 1: Somewhat related to Clean Hands, but not directly. Yeah, okay,
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  Speaker 1: but that is just to let you all know that
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  Speaker 1: there are things that people have decided to celebrate this
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  Speaker 1: day or this week, the eighteenth of September, and that's
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  Speaker 1: really cool. So great on all of those things. But
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  Speaker 1: as we said, what we're actually tackling here today is royalty.
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  Speaker 1: I am going to preface this by sort of talking
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  Speaker 1: about why I even wanted to learn more about this topic,
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  Speaker 1: and I guess, long story short, it just had to
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  Speaker 1: do with the fact that I was thinking about kings, queens,
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  Speaker 1: the power that they have, the kinds of weird rituals
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  Speaker 1: that run in the echelons of people at that level,
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  Speaker 1: and got to thinking why did that ever even happen
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  Speaker 1: and sort of when and what's going on there? So
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  Speaker 1: I wanted to learn all about it and then share
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  Speaker 1: my knowledge with everyone, and of course, most importantly, superimpose
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  Speaker 1: my understanding of human behavior on top of it. Because
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  Speaker 1: you and I are both psychologists, we are trained in
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  Speaker 1: this field, specifically in human behavior, and have advanced degrees
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  Speaker 1: in this so we like to talk about those sorts
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  Speaker 1: of things. And royalty is a thing that is applied
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  Speaker 1: to humans and therefore is related to what humans do,
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  Speaker 1: and therefore is the purview of things that we will
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  Speaker 1: cover on this show.
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  Speaker 2: Yes, it's still a thing that people do that people
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  Speaker 2: respond to. It's a thing that still exists in our
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  Speaker 2: world today and at least in the United States on
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  Speaker 2: a scale that is pretty visible. Still. Yeah, like we
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  Speaker 2: talk about the royals more often than a country who
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  Speaker 2: hated the royals should talk about it.
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  Speaker 1: Seems like there are some people in the United States
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  Speaker 1: who are citizens of the United States who would like
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  Speaker 1: to see the United States adopt a monarchy type system
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  Speaker 1: of government. I don't understand that view, and maybe they
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  Speaker 1: won't either after we explain more about this. So let's
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  Speaker 1: start unpacking how royalty works.
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  Speaker 2: Yes, so ever, since humans started living in groups larger
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  Speaker 2: than a single family, most of the time we have
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  Speaker 2: been humans, we have arguably had that. But one of
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  Speaker 2: the things that defined our species was that we have
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  Speaker 2: lived in groups that were not single families. However, we
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  Speaker 2: have had some version of leadership that concentrates power. So
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  Speaker 2: there has been some person that has concentrated the power
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  Speaker 2: of that group together and led to that group, that tribe,
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  Speaker 2: that community, whatever it might be.
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  Speaker 1: And we don't mean power in the sense of batteries
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  Speaker 1: or wind turbans. No, No, we mean power in a
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  Speaker 1: sense meaning that people in these positions can make decisions
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  Speaker 1: that affect the entire group. If you think of like
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  Speaker 1: the five year old in the group, they're not making
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  Speaker 1: decisions that affect everyone. We wouldn't want them to do that.
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  Speaker 1: They're not good at that sort of thing yet, but
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  Speaker 1: and what sort of we're going back way a long
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  Speaker 1: time ago, because five year olds have done that in
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  Speaker 1: the past.
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  Speaker 2: Yes, they have.
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  Speaker 1: Five year olds definitely will rule their house in some
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  Speaker 1: instances even today. But we're just talking generically about these
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  Speaker 1: groups of people. You'd have this person who has the
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  Speaker 1: ability to sort of command the behavior of a lot
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  Speaker 1: of people in the group, and not everyone has that
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  Speaker 1: same ability. And this can range from very basic rules
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  Speaker 1: about what people can and can't do, to things like
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  Speaker 1: where we shelter, how and what we worship, what we wear,
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  Speaker 1: and even well beyond that scope of things.
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  Speaker 2: Right, So, of course people mostly started as tribal groups,
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  Speaker 2: with leadership concentrated in the hands of a leadership council
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  Speaker 2: or even as far as in the hands of only
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  Speaker 2: one person in some instances. So you'll find some examples
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  Speaker 2: of leadership in early human culture. That will be a
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  Speaker 2: group of people that make a decision together, and maybe
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  Speaker 2: they'll have somebody that will, like, I don't know, consult,
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  Speaker 2: you know, something like that. Like you'll see like in
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  Speaker 2: some situations where a shaman might consult, or an oracle
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  Speaker 2: might consult or something like that. Yeah, or you'll have
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  Speaker 2: a single person that will make all the decisions, regardless
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  Speaker 2: of consultation, regardless of insight, regardless of the wishes of
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  Speaker 2: other people.
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  Speaker 1: Yes, not super sustainable that model, as we'll find. But anyway,
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  Speaker 1: so these groups they sort of bands together, they more
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  Speaker 1: or less have some amount of power restricted to a
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  Speaker 1: small ish set of people in that group. The leadership
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  Speaker 1: council or even the leader might have the most power
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  Speaker 1: or something. But this sort of developed, and what might
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  Speaker 1: be called a quote unquote civilization evolved as tribes established
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  Speaker 1: permanent residences and sort of living spaces, they established agriculture, trade,
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  Speaker 1: they started building sort of economic structures with things like money,
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  Speaker 1: and then we did a whole episode on money and
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  Speaker 1: sort of how that came to be, and sort of
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  Speaker 1: very early in this process, the leadership structure sort of
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  Speaker 1: began to consolidate and distill into a smaller and smaller group.
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  Speaker 1: As the overall group sort of expanded, they'd get more
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  Speaker 1: and more people aggregated together, and yet the power would
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  Speaker 1: be distilled into a small increasingly small, sometimes narrowed down
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  Speaker 1: to a single ruler level of people that are at
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  Speaker 1: the very very top, the sort of top one percent,
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  Speaker 1: one percent of one percent, as Bonnie might say that
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  Speaker 1: had all or most of the power.
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  Speaker 2: Right, So mostly this ruler would acquire a lot of land,
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  Speaker 2: either through military conquest or purchasing it. Either way, they
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  Speaker 2: would control one of the greatest assets a person can have. Land.
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  Speaker 2: When you're talking about farming, when you're talking about residents,
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  Speaker 2: when you're talking about shelter and all those things, land
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  Speaker 2: becomes increasingly and incredibly important. Obviously, this one person cannot
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  Speaker 2: be responsible for maintaining all of the land. So essentially
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  Speaker 2: these leaders would offer to protect, to distribute resources across
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  Speaker 2: these lands in exchange for money. Obedience and resources. Might
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  Speaker 2: sound a little bit familiar.
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  Speaker 1: Right, Yeah, So basically if this sounds familiar, this is
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  Speaker 1: more or less how the mafia or the mob operates
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  Speaker 1: or operated. Are they still operating, Let's just say allegedly operated, Okay,
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  Speaker 1: allegedly fair enough, yeah, which is to say, like a
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  Speaker 1: mob would go into a business, threaten or even damage
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  Speaker 1: that business, and then offer to quote unquote protect that
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  Speaker 1: business in exchange for a regular from that business for
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  Speaker 1: their protection. This is kind of what these rulers would do, right.
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  Speaker 1: They'd walk into this land where people are hanging out,
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  Speaker 1: and they're like this land is mine now, I control it.
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  Speaker 1: So give me your stuff, and I promise I won't
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  Speaker 1: hurt you. Matter of fact, I'm going to take your
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  Speaker 1: stuff now, and I won't hurt you any more than
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  Speaker 1: I'm already going to as long as you continue to
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  Speaker 1: send me stuff. Now, if something else happens, I will
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  Speaker 1: come and protect you also from others. And like, let's
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  Speaker 1: just say you have a really bad crop year, I
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  Speaker 1: can send you crops from other parts of my kingdom.
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  Speaker 1: So there's some perks here. It's not all bad. But yeah,
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  Speaker 1: your stuff is mine now and you have to do
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  Speaker 1: what I say. That was kind of more or less
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  Speaker 1: the strategy they brought to this. So I think the
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  Speaker 1: way I think about this is they're very parasitic, right,
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  Speaker 1: Like they sort of would just leach off of the
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  Speaker 1: people around them, giving much less back than they received.
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  Speaker 1: There was an exchange, and they weren't uniformally all powerful,
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  Speaker 1: as we'll see as we talk about some of the
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  Speaker 1: histories and the examples here. But that was more or
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  Speaker 1: less the dynamic of the relationship with someone who's like,
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  Speaker 1: I don't really feel like working. I'm gonna just make
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  Speaker 1: people give me their stuff. Yeah, and then they became
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  Speaker 1: the ruling class if you will.
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  Speaker 2: Yep, and that's how we get here. So this started
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  Speaker 2: happening thousands of years ago in many places throughout the world.
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  Speaker 2: This wasn't like a specific area that this happened. Has
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  Speaker 2: happened all over the world thousands of years ago and
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  Speaker 2: multiple cultures. So in ancient China, dynasties may have started
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  Speaker 2: forming as early as two thousand and seventy BCE when
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  Speaker 2: the ruling Shia family consolidated power. And they are influenced
• 12:36
  Speaker 2: to repair damage after a great flood. So basically, if
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  Speaker 2: flood happens, they come in they go, we're gonna help you,
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  Speaker 2: but now you owe us, so we're gonna fix this,
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  Speaker 2: but now you owe us, and now you belong to
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  Speaker 2: us now. But the evidence for this is kind of
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  Speaker 2: murky though, and it may have been said started around
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  Speaker 2: sixteen hundred BCE by the Shang dynasty, which ruled for
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  Speaker 2: over five hundred years.
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  Speaker 1: And many people will have heard of some of these
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  Speaker 1: Chinese dynasties, super fascinating history, a lot of like interesting power.
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  Speaker 1: But essentially they went through this process. There would be
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  Speaker 1: a dynasty that was mostly a family that would rule
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  Speaker 1: for sometimes a short period of time like a single
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  Speaker 1: generation or two, and sometimes for many hundreds of years,
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  Speaker 1: but they never actually lasted, like none of them stood
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  Speaker 1: the test of time. Really, they were always something that
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  Speaker 1: would eventually move, shift, change, be replaced by something else
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  Speaker 1: as the culture evolved. And then when the new era
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  Speaker 1: of the new dynasty came in, it was almost always
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  Speaker 1: followed by pretty significant cultural upheaval in the sense that
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  Speaker 1: like major progress would be made on something where it
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  Speaker 1: wasn't being made before. Some practice might change or stop,
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  Speaker 1: someplace would get really really developed and become more urban.
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  Speaker 1: I mean, there was something. It was just a really
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  Speaker 1: interesting time in history, right absolutely in Africa. Egyptians were
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  Speaker 1: obviously Northern Africa. They were pioneering a form of sort
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  Speaker 1: of monarchy, monarchical government under a king labeled as the
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  Speaker 1: Scorpion King, so apparently that's a real thing as far
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  Speaker 1: back as six thousand BCE, so this is quite a
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  Speaker 1: long time ago. Most of the Egyptian rulers were called pharaohs,
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  Speaker 1: is a name that many people will likely have heard,
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  Speaker 1: but really they did serve a fairly similar function as
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  Speaker 1: other kingdoms. There was often this level of protection, but
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  Speaker 1: also you have to give me all your stuff, and
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  Speaker 1: there was a lot involved in trade. So there's a
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  Speaker 1: lot of commerce going on there, which meant that there
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  Speaker 1: was also things like the development of culture was a
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  Speaker 1: big part. But anyway, at its height, the Cometan people
• 14:43
  Speaker 1: have maybe heard of Kmet. The Cometin Empire also called
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  Speaker 1: the New Kingdom, under Pharaoh Aminotep the Third stretched all
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  Speaker 1: the way from modern day Egypt across the Mediterranean coast
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  Speaker 1: to where Turkey is today, which is a really really
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  Speaker 1: big chunk of land. They covered a huge.
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  Speaker 2: Amount, right, The Egyptian Empire was largely just this major
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  Speaker 2: like the at least like Egyptian rulers covered quite a
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  Speaker 2: bit of area. And you'll find like other African empires
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  Speaker 2: and other African kingdoms would cover smaller areas, like the
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  Speaker 2: Congo Kingdom was actually a much smaller area and kind
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  Speaker 2: of isolated to the west coast, sure, and the Great
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  Speaker 2: Zimbabwe Empire was like more centralized like Southeast Africa, and
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  Speaker 2: it was like so you'll find that like some of
• 15:26
  Speaker 2: we'll talk about it where some of these empires and
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  Speaker 2: some of these kingdoms were vast, vast lands. Some of
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  Speaker 2: them were much much smaller and covered a much smaller
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  Speaker 2: kind of area maybe where they gathered resources and they
• 15:37
  Speaker 2: were isolated from other places, but none of them, none
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  Speaker 2: of them covered as much area, land mass or ear
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  Speaker 2: space as ads did.
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  Speaker 1: Well, we will actually talk a little bit about another
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  Speaker 1: African kingdom, but another really big one to cover first
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  Speaker 1: is called Caliphate, and this was a kind of unique
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  Speaker 1: kingdom in the history of kingdoms around the world. This
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  Speaker 1: was a Muslim religious political government and it existed after
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  Speaker 1: the death of Prophet Muhammad around six thirty BCE. This
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  Speaker 1: was functionally a kingdom like other kingdoms, but it was
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  Speaker 1: directly intertwined with the religion of the land. Now, most
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  Speaker 1: other kingdoms that did have religion as part of the
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  Speaker 1: ruling the actual like church was adjacent to the kingdom
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  Speaker 1: like it was the religion was adjacent to the ruling class.
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  Speaker 1: But in the Caliphate, the religion was the ruling class
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  Speaker 1: like that was directly part of it. And the leader
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  Speaker 1: of the Caliphate was called the Khaliph or the Caliph
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  Speaker 1: I think khalif maybe, and so it was a religious
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  Speaker 1: figurehead of state that also governed by religious decree and
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  Speaker 1: sort of dictate if you will.
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  Speaker 2: Right, So there's also the Kingdom of Aksum Zoom, which
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  Speaker 2: is what is now northern Ethiopia, and rose to prominence
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  Speaker 2: at least a few thousand years ago. It was one
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  Speaker 2: of the first empires in Africa to develop written language.
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  Speaker 2: It seemed to rise the prominence as a juggernaut of
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  Speaker 2: trade and commerce. Probably why we're writing, or why writing
• 17:15
  Speaker 2: became so useful. And when you kind of look at
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  Speaker 2: where this existed, it was on kind of the eastern coast,
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  Speaker 2: just above the Horn in Ethiopia, and that's like a
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  Speaker 2: perfect space to be able to travel some of the
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  Speaker 2: rivers up the Nile and across the ocean, or across
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  Speaker 2: the sea over into the Middle Eastern Panhandle over there.
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  Speaker 1: It became quite economically powerful as a kingdom in Africa.
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  Speaker 1: Of course, many people have heard of the well known
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  Speaker 1: Roman Empire that started expanding. I mean, there was a
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  Speaker 1: long intertwining history of this, but it really started expanding
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  Speaker 1: roughly around one hundred BCE, and at its peak it
• 17:51
  Speaker 1: covered an impressive one point six million square miles of
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  Speaker 1: territory that includes parts of Europe, Northern Africa, and the
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  Speaker 1: Middle East. It was quite a substantial chunk of land.
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  Speaker 1: Although I actually think I remember hearing about and I
• 18:06
  Speaker 1: forgot to look this up in the context of this,
• 18:09
  Speaker 1: but I think that the area ruled by Genghis Khan,
• 18:12
  Speaker 1: although ruled as a maybe not the exact right way
• 18:17
  Speaker 1: to describe as power, it was like many times the
• 18:21
  Speaker 1: size of the Roman Empire. But anyway, that was the
• 18:23
  Speaker 1: Roman Empire. The kingdom obviously went through rulers like toilet
• 18:28
  Speaker 1: paper and just multitude of brutal coups and backstabbing and
• 18:33
  Speaker 1: all kinds of stuff. Yeah, actual literal backstabbing, very bloody
• 18:39
  Speaker 1: and gruesome. Anyway, this kingdom, this empire, as it existed,
• 18:44
  Speaker 1: oversaw a pretty tremendous unification of commerce, technological innovation, and
• 18:49
  Speaker 1: culture that has really kind of continued to influence the
• 18:52
  Speaker 1: world long after its existence.
• 18:55
  Speaker 2: Right, I mean, we see that kind of that ripple
• 18:58
  Speaker 2: throughout our culture quite a bit. Now. Of course, Europe
• 19:01
  Speaker 2: had some of the most and the oldest kingdoms, and
• 19:04
  Speaker 2: these mobsters would take over people's land and then charge
• 19:06
  Speaker 2: them attacks to protect it, as we described earlier, very
• 19:09
  Speaker 2: much so extortion and larceny and all that fun stuff. Yeah,
• 19:12
  Speaker 2: but because they could not monitor all their land, they
• 19:15
  Speaker 2: would appoint figureheads across the land as lesser rulers or
• 19:19
  Speaker 2: nobles in a system called fifdom. These minor kings could
• 19:23
  Speaker 2: essentially rule the land as they wished, only having the
• 19:26
  Speaker 2: answer to the actual king. Send money and resources and
• 19:29
  Speaker 2: armies if and when needed, so a higher king would say, hey,
• 19:33
  Speaker 2: little kings, send me your stuff, Send me your armies
• 19:36
  Speaker 2: when I want them, send me gold, send me foods,
• 19:39
  Speaker 2: send me food stuffs, and I will be happy in
• 19:42
  Speaker 2: fat over here in this castle while you all do
• 19:44
  Speaker 2: whatever you're doing.
• 19:45
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah. There were lots of names for the royal team.
• 19:49
  Speaker 2: In effect.
• 19:49
  Speaker 1: We can spend a second, I think, talking about some
• 19:51
  Speaker 1: of the names as they existed, but like vassals was
• 19:55
  Speaker 1: another name for people who were essentially subjects ruled by
• 19:59
  Speaker 1: the sort of overall king, And part of it had
• 20:01
  Speaker 1: to do with they wanted to specifically make sure they
• 20:04
  Speaker 1: were not calling them kings. So they had all the
• 20:07
  Speaker 1: titles they'd come up with. There was like Dutch and
• 20:09
  Speaker 1: baron and duchess and baroness.
• 20:12
  Speaker 2: And yeah lord lady, yeah yeah.
• 20:15
  Speaker 1: Things like that, duke if I didn't mention that one already,
• 20:18
  Speaker 1: And so they would come up with these other titles
• 20:20
  Speaker 1: that were meant to show you have a level of power.
• 20:25
  Speaker 1: You have a noble title and noble like social status,
• 20:31
  Speaker 1: but you are not the king importantly, So you do
• 20:35
  Speaker 1: get to command respect, you do get to tax your
• 20:38
  Speaker 1: regions incidentally, like they were responsible for their own taxes.
• 20:41
  Speaker 1: But the titles were actually pretty important. Although weirdly, one
• 20:45
  Speaker 1: that we found in looking up for this was that
• 20:47
  Speaker 1: prince did not necessarily mean just the son of a king.
• 20:52
  Speaker 1: Prince could actually refer to kind of any male royal blood.
• 20:57
  Speaker 1: Sometimes was even used as the name for the king.
• 21:00
  Speaker 1: But in British monarchies, when they took over in India
• 21:04
  Speaker 1: and they were installing Indian figureheads under their rule, they
• 21:09
  Speaker 1: specifically called them princes because they wanted to distinguish them
• 21:13
  Speaker 1: from the king. So like, you may be rulers over here,
• 21:17
  Speaker 1: but you are not the king.
• 21:19
  Speaker 2: Yeah. And I think something that's really important to kind
• 21:21
  Speaker 2: of pin down on this is that in all these
• 21:23
  Speaker 2: different examples, there are a lot of ways that people
• 21:26
  Speaker 2: came into power as part of these kingdoms or empires. Right, So,
• 21:30
  Speaker 2: Roman Empire, you saw democracy start to emerge, you saw
• 21:35
  Speaker 2: caesars start to show up. You saw people who were
• 21:37
  Speaker 2: you know, part of a blood line that became the
• 21:40
  Speaker 2: next in line. But also there was this kind of
• 21:42
  Speaker 2: like semblance of democracy that started showing up. You had
• 21:45
  Speaker 2: other places that where the eldest was elected the leader
• 21:49
  Speaker 2: of the group or the charge of the of the
• 21:51
  Speaker 2: tribe or whatever it might be. There's a lot of
• 21:53
  Speaker 2: different examples of this. But something that kind of started
• 21:57
  Speaker 2: to show up and started a form that was really
• 21:59
  Speaker 2: kind of annoying was this issue of divine rule. So
• 22:03
  Speaker 2: there would be folks that would show up and go, here,
• 22:05
  Speaker 2: I am appointed by God. Yeah, here I am to
• 22:09
  Speaker 2: rule you by a person who you cannot see. But
• 22:12
  Speaker 2: this type of thing happened, and this was not unique
• 22:15
  Speaker 2: to Europe. But I want to be really clear about
• 22:16
  Speaker 2: this because I think a lot of times you think, like, oh,
• 22:18
  Speaker 2: God appointed this king, so they must be the ruler.
• 22:21
  Speaker 2: But you saw that in Egypt as well, Like you
• 22:24
  Speaker 2: saw that with the pharaohs that a lot of them
• 22:26
  Speaker 2: were like there was divine intervention to ensure that the
• 22:29
  Speaker 2: pharaohs were part of the monarchies and whatnot that existed.
• 22:32
  Speaker 2: This happened all over the world. It did this idea
• 22:35
  Speaker 2: of divine rule. Yeah, and you exactly as you said.
• 22:39
  Speaker 2: It kind of had to do with both how they
• 22:41
  Speaker 2: acquired power and how they then chose to preserve that power,
• 22:47
  Speaker 2: and you can see some of the selection pressures that
• 22:50
  Speaker 2: might specifically influence how and why they made the decision
• 22:55
  Speaker 2: to bring in like I'm your ruler. For one thing,
• 22:57
  Speaker 2: if you imagine someone who's sort of pissing people off
• 23:01
  Speaker 2: a lot and they're going like, we really don't like
• 23:04
  Speaker 2: you as a ruler, than one way they can try
• 23:06
  Speaker 2: and preserve their their status, make sure they're not being questioned,
• 23:10
  Speaker 2: or at least try and lower the questioning is to say, like, listen,
• 23:14
  Speaker 2: I don't want this job anymore than you want.
• 23:16
  Speaker 1: Me to have it, but I chosen. Yeah, I have
• 23:20
  Speaker 1: to be here because God put me here, so like sorry,
• 23:23
  Speaker 1: but like it's just kind of the way it is.
• 23:25
  Speaker 2: Now give me your wife.
• 23:26
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm gonna I'm gonna take your wife and your
• 23:28
  Speaker 1: money and your food now. And God also told me
• 23:30
  Speaker 1: to kill you, so like that's what I'm gonna do.
• 23:33
  Speaker 2: Yeah, sorry, sorry about that. Sorry, I don't know a
• 23:36
  Speaker 2: lot of I don't know that if there are a
• 23:37
  Speaker 2: lot of kings that were apologizing for that though no
• 23:40
  Speaker 2: were going they were going, sorry, I gotta do this,
• 23:42
  Speaker 2: Like so all this job sucks, They're going nope, that's mine.
• 23:44
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Actually it was a lot more on anger, like
• 23:46
  Speaker 1: how dare you question God? I'm going to take your wife? Yeah,
• 23:50
  Speaker 1: a lot more like that. But anyway, I think there
• 23:53
  Speaker 1: was some practical avoiding or pushing away questions by saying
• 23:57
  Speaker 1: that they were divine, they were inspired by divinity. Another
• 24:00
  Speaker 1: one I think is that it did help, I think
• 24:03
  Speaker 1: often to use the church's influence to essentially say like,
• 24:08
  Speaker 1: because the church was a power into itself, right, and
• 24:11
  Speaker 1: like I said, most of the time, the church was
• 24:13
  Speaker 1: adjacent to the monarchy, not like the caliphate, which was
• 24:17
  Speaker 1: the church, but like most of the time it was
• 24:19
  Speaker 1: adjacent to it, and so having them on your side
• 24:22
  Speaker 1: was important. Now, that did mean they sort of had
• 24:24
  Speaker 1: to cooperate with church leaders, but again, like a king
• 24:28
  Speaker 1: can kind of do a lot of things, and they
• 24:30
  Speaker 1: could potentially install people in the church to say like
• 24:34
  Speaker 1: you are like going to do my bidding and in exchange,
• 24:38
  Speaker 1: I'm giving you a very plush life over here. So like, yes,
• 24:42
  Speaker 1: you back me up saying God tells you know, gives
• 24:45
  Speaker 1: me messages. I speak for God, and I'm gonna give
• 24:49
  Speaker 1: you all this, all these goodie goodies and like, you know,
• 24:51
  Speaker 1: you can have whatever sinful life you want behind closed doors.
• 24:54
  Speaker 1: You just make me look good to the people, right.
• 24:57
  Speaker 2: And I think the important part of that too is
• 24:59
  Speaker 2: that that I mean, not that that doesn't happen now,
• 25:01
  Speaker 2: but I do think that that probably happened more often
• 25:05
  Speaker 2: in spaces where kings or monarchies or reyalty had more
• 25:11
  Speaker 2: absolute power. Like I think what we see today is
• 25:15
  Speaker 2: kind of a shell of what you would expect, like
• 25:18
  Speaker 2: like kind of what we know to be kings and
• 25:20
  Speaker 2: all the stuff like that we hear about in stories
• 25:22
  Speaker 2: and whatnot. Like what we see today is a little
• 25:24
  Speaker 2: bit more of a shell. It's almost like a representative
• 25:27
  Speaker 2: or a ceremonial title or something like that. It doesn't
• 25:30
  Speaker 2: have the same kind of power that monarchies and the
• 25:34
  Speaker 2: you know, the in the late BCE, you know, type
• 25:38
  Speaker 2: of situations we're experiencing. So I think there is like
• 25:41
  Speaker 2: it is important to note that, like, yeah, we probably
• 25:43
  Speaker 2: could influence the church in a different way back then
• 25:46
  Speaker 2: because you did have the absolute power to do that
• 25:48
  Speaker 2: as a king, But now it's more like you know,
• 25:50
  Speaker 2: you can, but it's going to go on social media.
• 25:53
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and absolute monarchies kind of don't exist anymore. There
• 25:57
  Speaker 1: might be like a handful of them here and there,
• 25:59
  Speaker 1: but it is as you said, the absolute monarchy is
• 26:02
  Speaker 1: one where the king basically has no constrictions or the royalty,
• 26:06
  Speaker 1: whoever they are, has no restraints on what they do.
• 26:10
  Speaker 1: No one puts them in check, nobody tells them no,
• 26:13
  Speaker 1: there are no rules that they have to follow. They
• 26:15
  Speaker 1: can do whatever. Those have been rare throughout history. And
• 26:19
  Speaker 1: I mean, of all the unsustainable garbage that is this
• 26:22
  Speaker 1: system that is probably the least sustainable. Because again, like
• 26:27
  Speaker 1: if you think about the fact that you do have people,
• 26:29
  Speaker 1: like everything that you get, people are doing for you,
• 26:33
  Speaker 1: and if you piss off enough of them, you won't
• 26:36
  Speaker 1: have anybody to do anything for you anymore, right, right,
• 26:39
  Speaker 1: So like either you're if you get your jolleys off
• 26:42
  Speaker 1: by being benevolent and then people want you around, or
• 26:46
  Speaker 1: else you are mostly gonna get undermined really quickly, which
• 26:50
  Speaker 1: is usually what happened.
• 26:51
  Speaker 2: Yea.
• 26:51
  Speaker 1: It's like the most selfish people who tried to have
• 26:55
  Speaker 1: the and consolidate the most power were the most likely
• 26:58
  Speaker 1: to not laugh very long because there is an element
• 27:03
  Speaker 1: to having to work with others that actually brings me
• 27:06
  Speaker 1: to another sort of really interesting point about kings and
• 27:09
  Speaker 1: their sort of privileges and whatnot, Kings and queens, the
• 27:11
  Speaker 1: whole royal monarchy essentially. Right, One more thing I wanted
• 27:15
  Speaker 1: to point out, just as you were talking about with
• 27:17
  Speaker 1: respect to this divine rule thing, which was the aspect
• 27:21
  Speaker 1: of and this is going to send us off on
• 27:23
  Speaker 1: a totally different site tangent here. But let's just say,
• 27:26
  Speaker 1: for example, someone gives you a ton of power. They're like, listen,
• 27:30
  Speaker 1: you can go ahead and make decisions for us now
• 27:32
  Speaker 1: and for always. That's your right, and we're just going
• 27:35
  Speaker 1: to do whatever you say. I want to give you
• 27:36
  Speaker 1: what you want. Whatever you might think to yourself, that
• 27:39
  Speaker 1: sounds really cool. How do I make sure this doesn't
• 27:42
  Speaker 1: go away?
• 27:43
  Speaker 2: Right?
• 27:43
  Speaker 1: And so there's a certain amount of like sustaining that
• 27:47
  Speaker 1: power as long as possible that's embedded in the divine rule.
• 27:51
  Speaker 1: But that also relates to the fact of like, okay,
• 27:54
  Speaker 1: hold on, that's all well and good, but there's a
• 27:56
  Speaker 1: lot of people around me that I care about that
• 27:58
  Speaker 1: if I go away or if power is taken from
• 28:00
  Speaker 1: me for some reason, I don't want them to be
• 28:03
  Speaker 1: screwed up either. So here's what I'm gonna do, or like,
• 28:06
  Speaker 1: here's why I might want to use divine rule divine
• 28:10
  Speaker 1: appointment as the excuse for my power is I'm like,
• 28:13
  Speaker 1: I'm gonna make sure that my family is always well
• 28:16
  Speaker 1: taken care of. So I'm just gonna marry my cousin
• 28:20
  Speaker 1: so that sure never leaves the family, right, Like, I'll
• 28:24
  Speaker 1: have their family now gets a lot on my privilege.
• 28:26
  Speaker 1: But that's okay, We're still family. It's cool. It's like
• 28:29
  Speaker 1: away they might go. And so you can kind of
• 28:32
  Speaker 1: see how the selection pressure of power really does incentivize
• 28:38
  Speaker 1: inter marrying into your own family, also called incest.
• 28:44
  Speaker 2: I literally have no way to seg out of that.
• 28:47
  Speaker 2: So I think I'm just gonna say ads here and
• 28:50
  Speaker 2: then we can come back to this because I think
• 28:52
  Speaker 2: we all need a minute.
• 29:01
  Speaker 1: Okay, So we dropped the incest bomb.
• 29:04
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it was bound to happen.
• 29:05
  Speaker 1: It was Yeah, we're gonna have to talk about that
• 29:07
  Speaker 1: for a second, I think, yeah.
• 29:09
  Speaker 2: Yeah. So historically, what you'll hear is that families, royal
• 29:14
  Speaker 2: families will often they'll keep it in the family partially
• 29:18
  Speaker 2: because and I have a feeling I wonder and maybe
• 29:22
  Speaker 2: this we can kind of talk about this for a second,
• 29:24
  Speaker 2: I wonder how much of this was a joke gone wrong,
• 29:27
  Speaker 2: like or like kind of like somebody like talk themselves
• 29:29
  Speaker 2: into a corner. Like there was one king one day
• 29:32
  Speaker 2: that was like, God said, me and my family are
• 29:35
  Speaker 2: divine appointments, so that means my family is the is
• 29:39
  Speaker 2: supposed to be here. And then somebody was like, but sir,
• 29:43
  Speaker 2: what if you have a child with somebody who's outside
• 29:47
  Speaker 2: of your family And they go, no, we will not
• 29:49
  Speaker 2: do that because it's inside my family. Watch as I
• 29:51
  Speaker 2: kissed my cousin. And then like I think I think
• 29:54
  Speaker 2: it was like they backed themselves into a corner. Like
• 29:57
  Speaker 2: I feel like that was like and all of them
• 29:58
  Speaker 2: were just like, oh, this is such a but like
• 30:00
  Speaker 2: we got to keep up because like, if you want jewels,
• 30:02
  Speaker 2: we have to do this. Some of them wanted it.
• 30:08
  Speaker 2: It's some of them wanted it, for sure. But I
• 30:10
  Speaker 2: think also too, like I think that this creates a
• 30:12
  Speaker 2: different problem. And well, we're gonna talk about the interest
• 30:14
  Speaker 2: thing a little bit because we want to unpack that.
• 30:16
  Speaker 2: But I think this creates kind of a unique problem, right,
• 30:18
  Speaker 2: because the idea of power is passed down through the family,
• 30:23
  Speaker 2: which means that the minute that somebody is born, or
• 30:26
  Speaker 2: like whatever whatever system it is. There's a lot of
• 30:28
  Speaker 2: different systems, so I don't want to oversimplify it, but
• 30:30
  Speaker 2: the idea is that you are creating somebody who wants
• 30:33
  Speaker 2: what you have and is willing to move you out
• 30:36
  Speaker 2: of the way to get what you have. So now
• 30:39
  Speaker 2: you've got like you've created a child or a series
• 30:42
  Speaker 2: of children that all go, no, it's me. So you've
• 30:45
  Speaker 2: got like siblings killing each other because they're like I
• 30:48
  Speaker 2: want to be the king, and then the king going no, no, no, no, no,
• 30:51
  Speaker 2: I don't like you. I'm gonna kill you and get
• 30:53
  Speaker 2: you out of the way. And then like it's just
• 30:55
  Speaker 2: it's it's a mess because you just kind of incentivize
• 30:58
  Speaker 2: murdering everybody so that the person who sticks it out
• 31:02
  Speaker 2: can just be the king or the queen or whoever
• 31:04
  Speaker 2: it might be. Like, it's such a bad incentive incentive
• 31:07
  Speaker 2: for like keeping families together.
• 31:12
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean because and it literally tore them apart
• 31:15
  Speaker 1: and some of those instances. Yeah, there was an interesting
• 31:18
  Speaker 1: thing that I also read where they sort of were
• 31:20
  Speaker 1: talking about the fact that during one British queen's rule,
• 31:24
  Speaker 1: I don't remember, she really negotiated this like marrying to
• 31:28
  Speaker 1: different families around and on the one hand they talked
• 31:33
  Speaker 1: about the effect of this was it was very peaceful
• 31:36
  Speaker 1: because you got to think most of the time where
• 31:39
  Speaker 1: you had a monarchy and actual royalty, that they were
• 31:42
  Speaker 1: essentially the rulers of the swath of land, whatever it is.
• 31:46
  Speaker 1: They would then be in direct competition with the next
• 31:49
  Speaker 1: ruler over there, who has their own vassals and their
• 31:52
  Speaker 1: own lands that they rule. And so if anybody wanted
• 31:56
  Speaker 1: to expand their territory, or one of them started doing
• 31:59
  Speaker 1: really well and the others were like, hey, I want
• 32:01
  Speaker 1: their resources they have all of a sudden, then they
• 32:04
  Speaker 1: would war with each other, and that is very expensive.
• 32:07
  Speaker 1: They would often have to fund them themselves. They would
• 32:10
  Speaker 1: have to use up the people who are essentially funding
• 32:13
  Speaker 1: their lifestyle by sending them into a war, because god knows,
• 32:15
  Speaker 1: the King's not going over there, or any of the
• 32:18
  Speaker 1: royal family for that matter. And so they would war
• 32:20
  Speaker 1: with each other, and it was costly and it wasn't
• 32:22
  Speaker 1: really good for business, and most businesses, I mean the
• 32:25
  Speaker 1: arms business did well, but most businesses didn't do well,
• 32:28
  Speaker 1: and so instead they would send their family over to
• 32:32
  Speaker 1: Mary because now it's like I don't even it doesn't
• 32:34
  Speaker 1: even matter how much I hate that person. They have
• 32:36
  Speaker 1: my grandson now, and like that matters a lot to me, right,
• 32:41
  Speaker 1: So there was some like the marrying around to different
• 32:43
  Speaker 1: houses had a couple of effects. One is it did
• 32:46
  Speaker 1: help to increase the genetic diversity. It also helped to
• 32:50
  Speaker 1: instill peace, and it could start to unify the kingdoms
• 32:54
  Speaker 1: all together, so that there was just you know, some
• 32:57
  Speaker 1: relative harmonies, some sharing, some cooperation, which you know, basically
• 33:02
  Speaker 1: is all the things that governments would eventually try and
• 33:05
  Speaker 1: tackle some of them, some of them less than others.
• 33:08
  Speaker 1: But that was more or less the structure that happened
• 33:10
  Speaker 1: with an important caveat, which is that going back to
• 33:15
  Speaker 1: the incest thing, if they had kind of been intermarrying
• 33:19
  Speaker 1: for a long time, so like even sending someone over
• 33:22
  Speaker 1: to this other royal family probably still like cousins and stuff,
• 33:27
  Speaker 1: there's still some recessive genes that are going to find
• 33:31
  Speaker 1: a way to express themselves because they're carrying the same
• 33:35
  Speaker 1: recessive genes in that blood line over there. So anyway,
• 33:38
  Speaker 1: there was an aspect of that that was like cool
• 33:42
  Speaker 1: genetic diversity, good peace and the land, good Also it's
• 33:47
  Speaker 1: still the same royal people. It's always been right.
• 33:50
  Speaker 2: And you know, there's a lot of reasons why that
• 33:53
  Speaker 2: would occur, and the most common reason you'll hear is
• 33:56
  Speaker 2: because they wanted to keep their divine bloodline pure. Like
• 34:00
  Speaker 2: there are people that really believe that this is divine appointment.
• 34:04
  Speaker 2: Like God told me that me and my family are
• 34:07
  Speaker 2: supposed to be here. So in order to keep the
• 34:10
  Speaker 2: blessings abound, in order to ensure that we are blessed forever,
• 34:15
  Speaker 2: we're gonna go ahead and make our family tree just
• 34:17
  Speaker 2: a trunk by keeping everybody inside of it. And we
• 34:20
  Speaker 2: are not going to allow any sort of other blood
• 34:24
  Speaker 2: to get into our family tree in such a way
• 34:27
  Speaker 2: that it will dilute the divinity of our bloodline. And
• 34:30
  Speaker 2: part of that was superstition, part of that was religious belief,
• 34:33
  Speaker 2: part of that was whatever. But ultimately that led to
• 34:35
  Speaker 2: a lot of a lot of problems, a lot of
• 34:39
  Speaker 2: genetic will say, changes, maybe not a lot of healthy
• 34:43
  Speaker 2: not a lot of healthy babies that were born out
• 34:45
  Speaker 2: of this kind of process because of what you just described,
• 34:49
  Speaker 2: which is those recessive genes expressing themselves and creating some
• 34:53
  Speaker 2: unique medical problems. Yeah, it happened a lot. I mean,
• 34:56
  Speaker 2: didn't they believe and this is maybe this is me
• 34:58
  Speaker 2: talking off the top of my head, But wasn't that
• 35:00
  Speaker 2: kind of the thought with like King Tut. Wasn't that
• 35:03
  Speaker 2: like the thing is like they thought that he was
• 35:04
  Speaker 2: a product of like like siblings or like cousins who
• 35:09
  Speaker 2: were who like had a baby, and he himself had
• 35:12
  Speaker 2: some like genetic deformities.
• 35:14
  Speaker 1: I don't remember. I didn't run across that, but that
• 35:17
  Speaker 1: it'd be interesting to look that up. If people, if
• 35:19
  Speaker 1: you're listening to this and you're screaming at your phone
• 35:22
  Speaker 1: say or whatever, you're listening to us through saying no
• 35:24
  Speaker 1: or whatever, like write us and let us know. But
• 35:27
  Speaker 1: that could be.
• 35:28
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean I think I've heard this more than once. Okay, yes,
• 35:32
  Speaker 2: so apparently his parents were full siblings.
• 35:36
  Speaker 1: Oh goodness, Okay.
• 35:37
  Speaker 2: I love that I had the useless knowledge in the
• 35:38
  Speaker 2: back of my head. Why would I ever need that?
• 35:40
  Speaker 2: I had never there. I'm not a history major. I
• 35:43
  Speaker 2: never taught history. I wanted to teach history, but it
• 35:45
  Speaker 2: stuck in the back of my head, like I can't
• 35:46
  Speaker 2: remember when I ate three days ago, but I can
• 35:48
  Speaker 2: remember the King Tut's parents were siblings.
• 35:50
  Speaker 1: That worked out for us today?
• 35:52
  Speaker 2: Did you know? You know what? You're right? One day,
• 35:54
  Speaker 2: maybe I'll end up on Jeopardy with like stupid and
• 35:56
  Speaker 2: I'll be like, yeah, I remember that one.
• 35:59
  Speaker 1: I mean that kind of as the whole goal of
• 36:01
  Speaker 1: the podcast for everyone who's listening, Yes.
• 36:04
  Speaker 2: Who are his parents? For one hundred?
• 36:06
  Speaker 1: Thank you? Yes? To me, the logic of the like
• 36:11
  Speaker 1: keeping the bloodline pure, it's just it's kind of funny,
• 36:13
  Speaker 1: I mean, and it comes from a position of just
• 36:15
  Speaker 1: knowing this stuff now, and obviously they didn't sure, But
• 36:18
  Speaker 1: to me, it's sort of like, I'm not drinking that water.
• 36:20
  Speaker 1: I don't know where that's been. I'm gonna drink my
• 36:22
  Speaker 1: urine because that came out of me. I'm divine, so
• 36:25
  Speaker 1: like my pee is the only thing I'm drinking to
• 36:28
  Speaker 1: keep my liquid intake pure.
• 36:30
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and then why am I so thirsty? Why don't
• 36:32
  Speaker 2: I feel good all the time?
• 36:33
  Speaker 1: Well, these are the things your body's trying to get
• 36:37
  Speaker 1: out of you. Yeah, the water part's gone. You are
• 36:40
  Speaker 1: dehydrated by Lee's Yeah, that's right off with his head.
• 36:45
  Speaker 1: So mostly what we're finding is that mostly European kingdoms
• 36:51
  Speaker 1: try to avoid sibling marriages. I mean a void doesn't
• 36:56
  Speaker 1: mean not do. It just means do not that much.
• 37:00
  Speaker 1: But it's not ever, but did avoid And so in Prussia,
• 37:06
  Speaker 1: Britain and Spain it was marrying in the family. It
• 37:09
  Speaker 1: was cousins. It may have been nieces and nephews, it
• 37:13
  Speaker 1: may have been aunts and uncles, may have been second cousins,
• 37:16
  Speaker 1: but they were related in there. This was not the
• 37:19
  Speaker 1: case in some places, and not to call them out necessarily,
• 37:24
  Speaker 1: but Hawaii was one where it was the opposite intent.
• 37:28
  Speaker 2: Yes, I think it's important to clarify here too that
• 37:33
  Speaker 2: when we are talking about cousins, we're not talking about
• 37:35
  Speaker 2: cousins by marriage.
• 37:37
  Speaker 1: Yes, cousins, it's they are brother that's my uncle's kids
• 37:44
  Speaker 1: are the people I'm marrying.
• 37:45
  Speaker 2: This happened all over the place like this happened, And
• 37:48
  Speaker 2: this happened for lots of reasons, right Like this happened
• 37:50
  Speaker 2: because it was planned. It happened because maybe the royalty
• 37:54
  Speaker 2: had an extensive bloodline, because maybe the royalty were a
• 37:58
  Speaker 2: little bit more promiscuous. So so it was just a
• 38:01
  Speaker 2: higher likelihood that that would happen because they had so
• 38:03
  Speaker 2: many kids. I mean, that's kind of what happened with
• 38:05
  Speaker 2: Genghis Khan, right, like he had so many kids and
• 38:07
  Speaker 2: all over the place that like all of his kids
• 38:09
  Speaker 2: had kids, and then now you've got a lot of
• 38:11
  Speaker 2: people who have like are direct descended somewhere along the
• 38:14
  Speaker 2: line to Genghis Khan. So like it's one of those
• 38:16
  Speaker 2: things where you know, sometimes it was by accident, many
• 38:20
  Speaker 2: times it was on purpose though.
• 38:22
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, that's true, a lot of on purpose. And
• 38:26
  Speaker 1: so in the Hawaiian structure, it actually so they apparently
• 38:30
  Speaker 1: did not have a word for incest, and it was
• 38:34
  Speaker 1: actually considered again just trying to recount history here, special
• 38:39
  Speaker 1: care was specifically taken to try and select the nearest
• 38:44
  Speaker 1: possible relative as wife. So it was brothers and sisters
• 38:49
  Speaker 1: and that would be dubbed there was a special word
• 38:53
  Speaker 1: for this, like this was I don't remember what it was,
• 38:56
  Speaker 1: but like this was a specific practice of of marrying
• 39:00
  Speaker 1: siblings really close and the child, if one was to
• 39:04
  Speaker 1: be born, would be called Oh, the capu rank was
• 39:07
  Speaker 1: what it was. And they said that these were equal
• 39:09
  Speaker 1: to gods. And actually, because there is a lot of
• 39:13
  Speaker 1: expression of recessive genes in these marriages that would result
• 39:18
  Speaker 1: in things often like or such as you know, genetic
• 39:22
  Speaker 1: deformities or underdeveloped parts of their body, et cetera. They interestingly,
• 39:27
  Speaker 1: in that and other religions were then referred to as
• 39:31
  Speaker 1: godlike creatures.
• 39:33
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I was fortunate enough to sit in on some
• 39:35
  Speaker 2: talks while I was in Hawaii and listen to some
• 39:37
  Speaker 2: of the history and the storytelling about like the emergence
• 39:40
  Speaker 2: of the island and all that, And this actually is
• 39:43
  Speaker 2: true for a lot of cultures where a baby that
• 39:45
  Speaker 2: is not born like it was described in some of
• 39:48
  Speaker 2: the storytelling as like a baby that was born deformed
• 39:50
  Speaker 2: would be considered godlike or a demigod or representative of
• 39:54
  Speaker 2: some land. And there's like a lot of really cool
• 39:56
  Speaker 2: stories across multiple indigenous peoples about how a baby would
• 40:00
  Speaker 2: be born with shark like features or like plant like
• 40:04
  Speaker 2: features and they would be representative of some part of
• 40:06
  Speaker 2: the land or some part of the area that they
• 40:08
  Speaker 2: were in. So there's like it's it's a really cool
• 40:11
  Speaker 2: story mechanism, like storytelling mechanism as well. But one thing
• 40:14
  Speaker 2: I want to be clear about is that it was
• 40:17
  Speaker 2: only a matter of time before we ended up on
• 40:18
  Speaker 2: the incest thing. But I want to be clear that, like,
• 40:21
  Speaker 2: because we're talking about royalty incest is not the reason
• 40:24
  Speaker 2: that we did kings, right, Like.
• 40:26
  Speaker 1: That's true.
• 40:27
  Speaker 2: That's like kind of a tangential thing that people hang
• 40:29
  Speaker 2: up on. Like what ultimately happened is the reason we
• 40:32
  Speaker 2: ended up with kings is because you had folks who
• 40:34
  Speaker 2: were leaders that consolidated power and then use reasons to
• 40:38
  Speaker 2: stay in power and use reasons to keep their families
• 40:41
  Speaker 2: in power and maintain that power. Now we have different
• 40:44
  Speaker 2: versions of that. We have generational wealth as an example
• 40:49
  Speaker 2: of that today much so you know, like so when
• 40:51
  Speaker 2: you kind of talk about that, it's the same principles,
• 40:54
  Speaker 2: but it looks different. The thing about kings though, and
• 40:57
  Speaker 2: royalty is that it ultimately was not stainable. Like you
• 41:01
  Speaker 2: see monarchs fall, you see empires fall, you see government changes,
• 41:05
  Speaker 2: you see families disappear, you see people detract, right, they
• 41:09
  Speaker 2: detract from the group. Like there's all these different things
• 41:12
  Speaker 2: that happen that make it so a single family cannot
• 41:14
  Speaker 2: sustain that for forever. And that's something that happens too.
• 41:18
  Speaker 2: So the idea of a monarchy can't sustain despite the
• 41:22
  Speaker 2: fact that they have amassed so much power in such
• 41:24
  Speaker 2: a short amount of time.
• 41:26
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and I mean, for multiple reasons. I will say,
• 41:29
  Speaker 1: really quick, while we're on this, democracy is fairly new
• 41:34
  Speaker 1: as a system of government relative to how other governments
• 41:37
  Speaker 1: have existed. So democracy has not had to stand the
• 41:41
  Speaker 1: test of time the way that many kingdoms tried to
• 41:45
  Speaker 1: stand the test of time. Most of them did not
• 41:47
  Speaker 1: last terribly long, but some of them did last a
• 41:50
  Speaker 1: few hundred years, and like, democracy hasn't even had that
• 41:53
  Speaker 1: chance yet really in the most democratic form, there hasn't
• 41:58
  Speaker 1: been anything quite like it, really, and so it's still
• 42:02
  Speaker 1: kind of new, and so we'll see how long it lasts.
• 42:05
  Speaker 1: So I think there's a critical sort of aspect of
• 42:07
  Speaker 1: that to think about, Like do we know that democracy
• 42:10
  Speaker 1: is going to last longer? We don't. It is inherently
• 42:14
  Speaker 1: set up to not concentrate the power that exists in
• 42:18
  Speaker 1: the hands of the same family of people over and
• 42:22
  Speaker 1: over again. Mostly it's mostly not set up for that, right.
• 42:28
  Speaker 1: It is mostly set up to let power change hands frequently.
• 42:32
  Speaker 1: And I mean various countries have different intervals, but we're
• 42:35
  Speaker 1: usually talking on the order of like a decade is
• 42:38
  Speaker 1: really common of an interval for democracies to be like, Okay,
• 42:42
  Speaker 1: we've done this one for a while we're going to
• 42:44
  Speaker 1: now advance to the next one, and we're going to
• 42:47
  Speaker 1: just keep on churning through changes here because we are
• 42:52
  Speaker 1: marching forward through time no matter how much we want
• 42:54
  Speaker 1: to march backwards. Sometimes some people, not me, but some people.
• 42:58
  Speaker 1: And so I think just to say, like some manarchies
• 43:02
  Speaker 1: did last a long time, but there is an inherent
• 43:06
  Speaker 1: problem with monarchy is that it tends to just collapse
• 43:11
  Speaker 1: them fairly quickly. There is an inherent problem in podcast
• 43:15
  Speaker 1: that is adds, Okay, we're back. I think that was
• 43:25
  Speaker 1: our last break for the problem the inherent problems of podcasts.
• 43:30
  Speaker 1: But as we were talking about, I think the issue
• 43:34
  Speaker 1: with kingdoms, and this actually is going to segue nicely
• 43:37
  Speaker 1: into one of the one of the discussions that is
• 43:39
  Speaker 1: maybe the last discussions we have about them, is thinking
• 43:43
  Speaker 1: about the privileges that come with kingdoms or royalty monarchy,
• 43:47
  Speaker 1: the people who occupy those spaces. And again, as I mentioned, like,
• 43:53
  Speaker 1: if we think about the fact that people rule, all
• 43:57
  Speaker 1: that means is that they can command other people to
• 44:00
  Speaker 1: behave and those people will behave in accordance with those commands. Ultimately,
• 44:04
  Speaker 1: that's what it comes down to, right, and people can
• 44:07
  Speaker 1: be pushed pretty far in that system to do a
• 44:11
  Speaker 1: lot of things they might not have otherwise done. But
• 44:14
  Speaker 1: there's gonna be a point at which that breaks. And
• 44:19
  Speaker 1: when you concentrate power into the hands of some people,
• 44:22
  Speaker 1: unless they're very competent at their job, it's pretty easy
• 44:27
  Speaker 1: to lose the confidence of other people who are pretty
• 44:30
  Speaker 1: eager to take that power away from you and take
• 44:33
  Speaker 1: over that position. That could be other monarchies, it could
• 44:37
  Speaker 1: be people inside the kingdom, it could be your own family,
• 44:39
  Speaker 1: as we discussed, So the incentive structure is there if
• 44:43
  Speaker 1: there's not like a clear rule on how we select
• 44:46
  Speaker 1: our leaders, but leaders either take by force or just
• 44:51
  Speaker 1: get it because they're related to us, Like if anything
• 44:56
  Speaker 1: else happens or if something starts to break down, there
• 44:59
  Speaker 1: are a lot of people who would be pretty happy
• 45:00
  Speaker 1: to take that power away and take it for themselves.
• 45:03
  Speaker 1: And so there are always kind of balancing the game
• 45:06
  Speaker 1: of like I don't actually have anything. I don't have skills, right,
• 45:12
  Speaker 1: I don't have resources. I just have these people that
• 45:16
  Speaker 1: for whatever reason, will do whatever I tell them to do,
• 45:20
  Speaker 1: and the moment they choose to not do that thing,
• 45:24
  Speaker 1: I'm in big trouble. Yeah, And so that comes out
• 45:26
  Speaker 1: a little bit back to the sort of divine appointment
• 45:28
  Speaker 1: thing of like why you shouldn't say no to me.
• 45:31
  Speaker 2: Well, and on top of that, there's a reason why
• 45:33
  Speaker 2: the term regicide exists, right, Like, yeah.
• 45:37
  Speaker 1: It's a whole term for it.
• 45:38
  Speaker 2: There's a whole term for it, because royalty were killed
• 45:40
  Speaker 2: all the time for this very thing. It could be that,
• 45:44
  Speaker 2: you know, the people were unhappy with their rule. It
• 45:47
  Speaker 2: could be that their son or their daughter was going
• 45:50
  Speaker 2: to take over and they wanted the power sooner, or
• 45:53
  Speaker 2: they weren't happy then another person was going to get
• 45:55
  Speaker 2: the power. You know, there's lots of reasons why it happened.
• 45:57
  Speaker 2: But regicide exists because of that very reason, which is
• 46:01
  Speaker 2: somebody cannot hold on the power for very long because
• 46:03
  Speaker 2: they cannot keep people pleased for long enough. That's why
• 46:06
  Speaker 2: we see in the United States and like democracy and
• 46:09
  Speaker 2: the way that exists is that power switches hands every
• 46:12
  Speaker 2: few years, because like at least switches I say, like
• 46:15
  Speaker 2: it's like, you know, not like a tennis court type
• 46:17
  Speaker 2: of switching hands. It's more like a ping pong table,
• 46:20
  Speaker 2: Like it's kind of like you know, still with an
• 46:21
  Speaker 2: arms reach. You know, everything's kind of around the center.
• 46:24
  Speaker 2: But the reason that it changes so often is because
• 46:26
  Speaker 2: that is the ebb and flow of the people. And
• 46:28
  Speaker 2: if we were in a monarchy, it would be shocking
• 46:32
  Speaker 2: if the same king or the same family maintain that
• 46:35
  Speaker 2: for a long period of time.
• 46:37
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, the thing is like culture changes, people change,
• 46:40
  Speaker 1: and people what people want and need from their government
• 46:43
  Speaker 1: shifts over time, and so the king often does not
• 46:48
  Speaker 1: want that to shift. Over time, they're kind of incentivized
• 46:51
  Speaker 1: in a way to maintain static right to not move
• 46:54
  Speaker 1: or shift, and so they can start to lose favor
• 46:58
  Speaker 1: from people. And also, like people just get tired of
• 47:01
  Speaker 1: like the same people here are telling us what to
• 47:04
  Speaker 1: do constantly. I want this to be different. I want
• 47:07
  Speaker 1: someone who represents me more than that person does, and
• 47:10
  Speaker 1: me and my family and my group of people.
• 47:13
  Speaker 2: We've seen that happen in our lifetime. We watched Princess
• 47:17
  Speaker 2: Diana who was very much so bucked the norm of
• 47:20
  Speaker 2: the royals in England and like it didn't work out
• 47:24
  Speaker 2: right or like Megan Markle, like they did they do
• 47:26
  Speaker 2: not They did not follow the conformities, they did not
• 47:30
  Speaker 2: like the rules and stuff like that. You can say
• 47:32
  Speaker 2: what you want about them, but like the truth is, like,
• 47:34
  Speaker 2: ultimately they were detractors from the standards and the status
• 47:39
  Speaker 2: quo that is the current royal family and that has
• 47:41
  Speaker 2: been for decades and decades and decades, and it caused
• 47:45
  Speaker 2: a ruckus. It ruffled feathers and they weren't really doing
• 47:47
  Speaker 2: anything besides being human beings. But the royals were like, no,
• 47:53
  Speaker 2: you don't do that. Like they caused a whole, a
• 47:55
  Speaker 2: whole kerfuffle over it.
• 47:57
  Speaker 1: I think that's actually a beautiful segue into sort of
• 47:59
  Speaker 1: thinking of about the privilege and the status that comes
• 48:02
  Speaker 1: with royalty, because this is one of the things that
• 48:06
  Speaker 1: had me thinking about this in the first place, is
• 48:08
  Speaker 1: sort of what it means, what status they have. And
• 48:12
  Speaker 1: very broadly speaking, I found this cool paper that was
• 48:14
  Speaker 1: talking about sort of how class systems form because most
• 48:18
  Speaker 1: animal groups, there are a lot of social animals out
• 48:21
  Speaker 1: there that live in groups, and they will form a
• 48:23
  Speaker 1: sort of hierarchy, but nothing like the class structure that
• 48:26
  Speaker 1: we see among humans. The humans will almost always organize
• 48:30
  Speaker 1: into like an elite, a middle class, and a lower class,
• 48:34
  Speaker 1: and actually most people end up in the lower class.
• 48:37
  Speaker 1: It's like fifty percent or more tend to be in
• 48:39
  Speaker 1: the lower class, and so you concentrate then the remaining
• 48:42
  Speaker 1: fifty percent in sort of the middle, and then a
• 48:45
  Speaker 1: tiny fraction up there at the top and the elite there.
• 48:48
  Speaker 1: It's sort of the pyramidal shape, if you will, in
• 48:51
  Speaker 1: terms of how it's organized. But inside the privilege, you
• 48:54
  Speaker 1: think about like what happens in royalist lives, and there
• 48:57
  Speaker 1: is the very swanky, cushy, plush, comfortable part of it.
• 49:01
  Speaker 1: They get custom tailored clothes which we need to return to.
• 49:04
  Speaker 1: They get to throw lavish balls, They have very expensive, ornate,
• 49:09
  Speaker 1: high quality decorations. There was one we were reading about
• 49:14
  Speaker 1: where there was like a ruling hall with twelve million
• 49:17
  Speaker 1: dollars chandeliers in it. Yeah, decked out in gold and
• 49:20
  Speaker 1: crystals and stuff. Like just this insane, over the top, gaudy,
• 49:25
  Speaker 1: lavish lifestyle that they live. That is part of it.
• 49:28
  Speaker 2: Yeah. And then the other part too is like the
• 49:30
  Speaker 2: amount of what are in many articles described as servants. Yeah,
• 49:35
  Speaker 2: the amount of resources that are pulled together for a
• 49:39
  Speaker 2: single family, like it is pretty absurd. I mean one
• 49:41
  Speaker 2: of the articles that we read talked about how royals
• 49:44
  Speaker 2: were never encouraged to work or even learn. Yeah, like
• 49:48
  Speaker 2: they were like they don't even encourage them to learn.
• 49:51
  Speaker 1: And they have to rule, they have to like to
• 49:53
  Speaker 1: make decisions about the government and policies and people, and
• 49:57
  Speaker 1: they would they would come into power being barely literate,
• 50:02
  Speaker 1: not understanding how economics work, like believing that tariffs are
• 50:06
  Speaker 1: attacks in other countries, and like they were they were
• 50:09
  Speaker 1: very stupid people because again, the privilege was actually their
• 50:13
  Speaker 1: downfall in the sense that it was a great weakness
• 50:17
  Speaker 1: for them. They were not challenged. They would sometimes go
• 50:20
  Speaker 1: to private schools, but they were sometimes not required to
• 50:23
  Speaker 1: do anything at all, and so they would be very
• 50:25
  Speaker 1: bad at being humans basically because they didn't have to
• 50:29
  Speaker 1: learn anything growing up.
• 50:31
  Speaker 2: Well, and let's talk about for a second how ridiculous
• 50:34
  Speaker 2: it is that like royalty was kind of like contingent
• 50:38
  Speaker 2: upon passing that down to the next oldest, Like right,
• 50:42
  Speaker 2: some children were kings, specifically Henry the six I believe,
• 50:48
  Speaker 2: or Henry the fourth I can't. It's it's I'm terrible
• 50:50
  Speaker 2: with Roman numbers. Numbers. It's v I six six, that's
• 50:54
  Speaker 2: what I thought. Okay, So Henry the sixth became king
• 50:57
  Speaker 2: when he was eight months old.
• 51:01
  Speaker 1: Wow, so you know that's young.
• 51:04
  Speaker 2: That's young.
• 51:05
  Speaker 1: I would have been a bad king in eight months.
• 51:06
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and this has happened like all the way up
• 51:09
  Speaker 2: until nineteen ninety two, where King Oio of Toro and
• 51:13
  Speaker 2: Uganda became king at three in nineteen ninety two or
• 51:17
  Speaker 2: in nineteen ninety five. Sorry, so like this is like
• 51:19
  Speaker 2: something that still happens, and so I just I guess
• 51:22
  Speaker 2: maybe my point in that is, doesn't it seem ridiculous? Right?
• 51:27
  Speaker 2: The whole thing?
• 51:28
  Speaker 1: What should be the standard of someone who makes decisions
• 51:31
  Speaker 1: on behalf of an entire group of people is that
• 51:33
  Speaker 1: they have a pulse, Because that seems like a low
• 51:36
  Speaker 1: standard to have. I would much more respect the position
• 51:41
  Speaker 1: of someone where it was like, you're the most competent,
• 51:45
  Speaker 1: the most accomplished, the most above rebuke in your accomplishments
• 51:50
  Speaker 1: and education and ability to correctly assess and navigate complex situations.
• 51:58
  Speaker 1: Not you have eyes, you are born sometime you should
• 52:03
  Speaker 1: be a king, Like yeah, I think when we're talking
• 52:07
  Speaker 1: about the complexity of a job, like having to navigate
• 52:12
  Speaker 1: relationships between other ruling governments, you should be the most
• 52:18
  Speaker 1: intelligent person in the room, not the dumbest. I mean
• 52:22
  Speaker 1: as much as as possible, but it's a very weird
• 52:25
  Speaker 1: place we find ourselves where we're like we have specifically
• 52:28
  Speaker 1: in many instances and to this day, continue to select
• 52:32
  Speaker 1: people who would not be good representatives of us or
• 52:36
  Speaker 1: stewards of our resources, because they are good at making
• 52:39
  Speaker 1: us afraid. They're good at speaking down to us, because
• 52:44
  Speaker 1: they think and treat us as if we're stupid, because
• 52:47
  Speaker 1: they don't understand anything, and all they know how to
• 52:51
  Speaker 1: do is like use rhetoric. Anyway, it's clear I've gotten
• 52:55
  Speaker 1: off track of what we were talking about.
• 52:58
  Speaker 2: No, I think that, And that goes back to the
• 53:01
  Speaker 2: argument that that's not sustainable because you've got a person
• 53:05
  Speaker 2: in power who is not fit for power.
• 53:09
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that's a good way to put it.
• 53:10
  Speaker 2: There are some situations, and there are some monarchies that
• 53:13
  Speaker 2: have groomed those folks to take over, and they learn
• 53:16
  Speaker 2: the ins and out and they do all the things.
• 53:18
  Speaker 2: But for the most part, it's kind of a haphazard
• 53:19
  Speaker 2: system that just says, oh, you were born this way,
• 53:22
  Speaker 2: so you get to automatically get this power, regardless of
• 53:24
  Speaker 2: your skill set or your knowledge or your ability to lead.
• 53:28
  Speaker 2: And so now you end up in a situation where
• 53:29
  Speaker 2: you are grossly incompetent in that role, you can't sustain
• 53:33
  Speaker 2: that it does, it does, it will not last.
• 53:35
  Speaker 1: And to be fair, like, I definitely read that in
• 53:37
  Speaker 1: a lot of instances where someone very young or for
• 53:40
  Speaker 1: whatever reason not particularly well suited to the job would
• 53:45
  Speaker 1: mostly be just a figurehead, but they would have they
• 53:48
  Speaker 1: would specifically, like the powers that be would select an
• 53:51
  Speaker 1: advisor who was much more seasoned, much more experienced, much
• 53:54
  Speaker 1: more competent, who would actually sort of make the decisions,
• 53:58
  Speaker 1: but that the person who was the royal would sort
• 54:00
  Speaker 1: of be presented as as the face of the royalty
• 54:03
  Speaker 1: even though they weren't really wielding any power necessarily right,
• 54:07
  Speaker 1: they were and were also quite easily manipulated. But so
• 54:10
  Speaker 1: another aspect of that we need to come back to.
• 54:12
  Speaker 1: That actually is another piece, But another aspect of the
• 54:14
  Speaker 1: privilege I thought I just wanted to turn to is
• 54:16
  Speaker 1: that there's also a lot of restrictions for the monarchy technically,
• 54:20
  Speaker 1: like kings and queens can kind of do whatever they
• 54:23
  Speaker 1: want to a point unless they could in the past.
• 54:26
  Speaker 1: And apparently in what was it we were talking, it
• 54:29
  Speaker 1: was like in the Scandinavian Royalty they like ride bikes
• 54:32
  Speaker 1: around everywhere. Yeah, like so they've kind of gone the
• 54:35
  Speaker 1: more I'm of the people route, which I think is cool. Honestly,
• 54:38
  Speaker 1: I think I would appreciate that. Yeah, But there is
• 54:42
  Speaker 1: also a certain level of like, there are a lot
• 54:44
  Speaker 1: of influences that force them to do and be certain things.
• 54:49
  Speaker 1: They have to dress a certain way, they have to
• 54:51
  Speaker 1: attend certain balls, Like everything they do and say might
• 54:55
  Speaker 1: have political implications with other kingdoms. So they have to
• 54:58
  Speaker 1: receive these people and and put them up in their
• 55:01
  Speaker 1: nicest rooms. They have to travel to them and dine
• 55:04
  Speaker 1: with them. There's a lot of ritual and like them
• 55:07
  Speaker 1: saying and doing things that are inappropriate can land them
• 55:10
  Speaker 1: in a lot of hot water. They could be threatened,
• 55:13
  Speaker 1: they could be killed, they could have privileges revoked, they
• 55:16
  Speaker 1: could be usurped, and so there were a lot of pressures.
• 55:20
  Speaker 1: Like someone who was too willing to say yes to
• 55:22
  Speaker 1: try and appease people around them were just as easily,
• 55:25
  Speaker 1: if not more, manipulated into doing things they should not
• 55:28
  Speaker 1: have done as people who were like really aggressive and
• 55:32
  Speaker 1: refuse to listen to others and were then violently cast
• 55:36
  Speaker 1: out or otherwise taken over and forced into a more
• 55:40
  Speaker 1: public figure role. So there was an aspect of that
• 55:43
  Speaker 1: position that like it's kind of a crappy job to have,
• 55:47
  Speaker 1: no matter. I mean, there are things about it that
• 55:49
  Speaker 1: people would obviously love, but there are also things that
• 55:52
  Speaker 1: that would chandeliers, Yeah, but I mean, like people are
• 55:55
  Speaker 1: always watching you. You are the face of everything. Cameras
• 55:58
  Speaker 1: are on you, eyes are on you. Everything you do
• 56:00
  Speaker 1: is being scrutinized. Everything you eat, everything you wear, every
• 56:04
  Speaker 1: place you show up, every place you don't show up
• 56:07
  Speaker 1: is like a political statement. It's like there are aspects
• 56:09
  Speaker 1: about it that kind of suck that I think force
• 56:13
  Speaker 1: their behavior such that like they probably don't have a
• 56:15
  Speaker 1: lot where it's just do whatever. There's a lot of
• 56:18
  Speaker 1: like you have to be at this appointment and then
• 56:19
  Speaker 1: this thing and this ribbon cutting in this event, and
• 56:22
  Speaker 1: you have to go here and dine with this person
• 56:23
  Speaker 1: and host this person, and like their schedules kind of
• 56:25
  Speaker 1: packed all the time. But that's just another sort of
• 56:27
  Speaker 1: aspect of it that maybe someone would love, but I
• 56:30
  Speaker 1: would not.
• 56:30
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, no, no, no, I would be miserable in
• 56:32
  Speaker 2: that space.
• 56:33
  Speaker 1: Throughout history, mostly kings have dressed very very very lavishly,
• 56:39
  Speaker 1: lots of frills, custom tailored clothing, things are very ornate.
• 56:43
  Speaker 2: So many frills. So many powdered wigs.
• 56:46
  Speaker 1: So many powdered wigs. Oh, we should talk about wigs.
• 56:49
  Speaker 1: I have watched a really interesting video on this.
• 56:51
  Speaker 2: We'll do an episode on wiggs.
• 56:52
  Speaker 1: Yeah, we need to do episode on wigs anyway, very
• 56:55
  Speaker 1: very nice. And I got to wondering. I was like, why, like,
• 56:58
  Speaker 1: kings could presumably walk around naked if they wanted to.
• 57:01
  Speaker 1: They could wear a speedo, they could wear rags, they
• 57:04
  Speaker 1: could do whatever they wanted. Now, again, there are like
• 57:07
  Speaker 1: aspects of this other monarchies, how they would treat them,
• 57:10
  Speaker 1: and how they might be perceived of the public and whatnot.
• 57:12
  Speaker 1: But why would a king explicitly choose to dress in
• 57:16
  Speaker 1: this way if they didn't have to. Apparently, by the way,
• 57:19
  Speaker 1: in Britain in particular, the kings would wear these these
• 57:23
  Speaker 1: very tight stockings that would go all the way up,
• 57:26
  Speaker 1: so they were basically pandy hose, and then they would
• 57:28
  Speaker 1: also wear high heels to show off their shapely legs.
• 57:33
  Speaker 2: I love it.
• 57:34
  Speaker 1: Good for them, and functionally they were skirts that they
• 57:37
  Speaker 1: were wearing, which I honestly, i'm very I'm jealous of
• 57:39
  Speaker 1: cultures where men get to wear skirts because they look
• 57:41
  Speaker 1: very comfortable.
• 57:43
  Speaker 2: For sure, Like it's like that's the real thing.
• 57:45
  Speaker 1: Yeah, they look really comfortable anyway, this very lavish over
• 57:48
  Speaker 1: the top dress, and I kind of I've been wondering
• 57:50
  Speaker 1: about that and just sort of thinking why, And the
• 57:55
  Speaker 1: only thing that really makes sense in my mind is
• 57:57
  Speaker 1: that this it is a flex. It is I am
• 58:00
  Speaker 1: better than you. I can afford these nice things, I
• 58:03
  Speaker 1: can look fancy. I'm better than you. Otherwise you'd be
• 58:06
  Speaker 1: dressing this good. You can't because you're not. Meh. This
• 58:09
  Speaker 1: goes back to the class discussion, like they're specifically intended
• 58:12
  Speaker 1: to put you in your place by dressing up. And
• 58:15
  Speaker 1: I think that's kind of the role that all dressing
• 58:17
  Speaker 1: up fashion has served throughout time, and a lot of
• 58:19
  Speaker 1: it because how people dressed was often an imitation of
• 58:24
  Speaker 1: how the king and queen and the royalty were choosing
• 58:26
  Speaker 1: to dress. So whatever was in fashion for them became
• 58:29
  Speaker 1: the fashion for everyone. And again, it was them trying
• 58:33
  Speaker 1: to dress up to that station that they that they
• 58:35
  Speaker 1: sort of aspired to. It's again, it's just a way
• 58:39
  Speaker 1: of showing off I'm better than you. And I think
• 58:41
  Speaker 1: that whenever there's a very unpopular opinion as a side tangent,
• 58:44
  Speaker 1: I would want to get into a whole discussion on
• 58:46
  Speaker 1: fashion at some point. But I see people dressing up
• 58:48
  Speaker 1: and to me, they're saying, I'm trying to tell you
• 58:51
  Speaker 1: I'm better than you, And also I think you're not
• 58:54
  Speaker 1: smart enough to take me at my own level. I'm
• 58:56
  Speaker 1: going to try and dangle something shiny in front of
• 58:58
  Speaker 1: your face to make you pay attention to me, because
• 59:01
  Speaker 1: you're not glad enough to do it without me dangling
• 59:03
  Speaker 1: something shiny in front of your face, which is my
• 59:04
  Speaker 1: nice suit or my nice clothes or whatever. And so
• 59:07
  Speaker 1: I personally have always interpreted it as being very disrespectful.
• 59:10
  Speaker 1: I feel when I'm dressing up, I'm being disrespectful to
• 59:12
  Speaker 1: other people. And I also am wise enough to know
• 59:14
  Speaker 1: that that's not how anyone else thinks of it. So
• 59:17
  Speaker 1: I play the game. Yeah, yeah, but that is I
• 59:19
  Speaker 1: think the Kings are an excellent showcase of why I
• 59:22
  Speaker 1: have disdain for the fashion orientation of things.
• 59:26
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and I wonder how much of it is like
• 59:28
  Speaker 2: lost to tradition, Like I wonder how much of it
• 59:32
  Speaker 2: is like they do it now because that's how it's
• 59:34
  Speaker 2: always been done, but there's no rational reason for why
• 59:36
  Speaker 2: it should be done today, so like they don't like
• 59:39
  Speaker 2: consider changing it because it's just like that's just tradition,
• 59:41
  Speaker 2: that's custom, that's what we've always done. I can't imagine
• 59:44
  Speaker 2: that what is going on today for many royalty like
• 59:48
  Speaker 2: folks are it makes the same sense as it did
• 59:51
  Speaker 2: one hundred years ago, two hundred years ago, five hundred
• 59:53
  Speaker 2: years ago.
• 59:54
  Speaker 1: You know, that's a good point, and i'd be I
• 59:56
  Speaker 1: didn't actually dig into like if there was ever a
• 59:58
  Speaker 1: practical purpose that it served. But it's funny you mentioned
• 1:00:00
  Speaker 1: this is another topic I've always wanted to cover, is
• 1:00:02
  Speaker 1: tradition because to me, tradition is the label we give
• 1:00:05
  Speaker 1: something when it's practical utility is long dead. Yeah, like
• 1:00:11
  Speaker 1: things that we do that have a reason for doing them,
• 1:00:13
  Speaker 1: we don't call them traditions. There's a reason to do it.
• 1:00:16
  Speaker 1: Traditions are things that we do because there's no more
• 1:00:18
  Speaker 1: reason to do it. We're just doing it because it's
• 1:00:20
  Speaker 1: a It has now become a pointless, stupid thing that
• 1:00:22
  Speaker 1: we do because and so it's like it is the
• 1:00:27
  Speaker 1: to me, I've always thought of tradition as the label
• 1:00:28
  Speaker 1: we give to things that do not have a reason
• 1:00:31
  Speaker 1: to be And if that does have a reason to be.
• 1:00:33
  Speaker 1: It's not a tradition, right, it's just a thing that
• 1:00:35
  Speaker 1: we do because there's a reason to do it. That's
• 1:00:38
  Speaker 1: always how I've oriented to it. Anyway, There's probably more
• 1:00:41
  Speaker 1: to say about monarchy. Monarchies are weird. I think that
• 1:00:43
  Speaker 1: they're a bad idea. I think they're unsustainable. They're a gross,
• 1:00:48
  Speaker 1: gross misappropriation of resources. We were I mean we were
• 1:00:51
  Speaker 1: looking up there were there were these they'll have like
• 1:00:55
  Speaker 1: guest chateaus. Like it's like they're their country house, is
• 1:00:58
  Speaker 1: their country estate with hundreds of rooms, hundreds of rooms,
• 1:01:04
  Speaker 1: six hundred rooms occupying fifty thousand acres. Nobody should have this.
• 1:01:10
  Speaker 1: This is so pointless. I'm like, this is so not
• 1:01:14
  Speaker 1: fair to the people who paid for that, who don't
• 1:01:17
  Speaker 1: get to participate in it because it was appropriated by
• 1:01:20
  Speaker 1: this dick who just happened to be born into this
• 1:01:23
  Speaker 1: one family. I'm like, this does not at all make sense.
• 1:01:26
  Speaker 1: Like we're worried about people who are starving to death,
• 1:01:29
  Speaker 1: they're people who can't get medicine, who can't have clean
• 1:01:31
  Speaker 1: drinking water, and this guy has got a house that
• 1:01:34
  Speaker 1: could literally house a village of people. Like it's just
• 1:01:38
  Speaker 1: absurd and so I think that monarchies are dumb, they're
• 1:01:43
  Speaker 1: a bad system of government. They are not sustainable, and
• 1:01:46
  Speaker 1: they suck and they're bad for people. The incentives that
• 1:01:50
  Speaker 1: exist make them worse as.
• 1:01:53
  Speaker 2: They go on.
• 1:01:54
  Speaker 1: So that's I think that's my final take them is
• 1:01:57
  Speaker 1: don't have monarchies because they're bad.
• 1:01:58
  Speaker 2: That is the take on point. I think that's what
• 1:02:00
  Speaker 2: it is. Like, I don't think that there could be
• 1:02:02
  Speaker 2: another take on point with that.
• 1:02:04
  Speaker 1: I mean it literally just it's built off of selfishness
• 1:02:07
  Speaker 1: and greed, and like that's it. And then like they
• 1:02:10
  Speaker 1: just keep doing it because they.
• 1:02:11
  Speaker 2: Can, right exactly.
• 1:02:13
  Speaker 1: They're not not helpful, not super functional anyway. I guess
• 1:02:18
  Speaker 1: what I do the thing of like where am I
• 1:02:19
  Speaker 1: wrong about this? Because I sort of always end up
• 1:02:21
  Speaker 1: thinking that in my mind is like in governments where
• 1:02:25
  Speaker 1: you have a democracy, we have a lot of balances
• 1:02:26
  Speaker 1: of power. There can be so much bureaucratic red tape
• 1:02:29
  Speaker 1: that it can be difficult to get things done. And
• 1:02:31
  Speaker 1: in systems where you have a lot of power concentrated
• 1:02:34
  Speaker 1: in the hands of a very competent person who is
• 1:02:37
  Speaker 1: literate and not probably running for president of the United
• 1:02:42
  Speaker 1: States right from Florida anyway, like they can actually get
• 1:02:50
  Speaker 1: a lot of stuff done without necessarily having to go
• 1:02:52
  Speaker 1: through a thousand channels that take forever to get it done.
• 1:02:55
  Speaker 1: So I could see someone making that case of like,
• 1:02:58
  Speaker 1: there is an efficiency that can be brought to someone
• 1:03:00
  Speaker 1: who has a lot of power, who's also very competent
• 1:03:02
  Speaker 1: and can work through those systems. But bureaucratic system exists
• 1:03:05
  Speaker 1: because they prevent bad things from happening. And when someone
• 1:03:08
  Speaker 1: does something just because they have a whim to do it,
• 1:03:11
  Speaker 1: even when it's well intentioned, it can completely fall apart.
• 1:03:14
  Speaker 1: So again, it is better safe than sorry. I'd rather
• 1:03:17
  Speaker 1: have the bureaucracy that prevents bad things from happening slow
• 1:03:21
  Speaker 1: down progress, then race ahead on something that might work
• 1:03:24
  Speaker 1: but could also completely destroy everyone's lives. Right, nailed it, Okay,
• 1:03:29
  Speaker 1: now I'm done.
• 1:03:30
  Speaker 2: Okay, there we go. That's a nice cap on it.
• 1:03:33
  Speaker 1: We went so far, so much deeper on this, and
• 1:03:35
  Speaker 1: I thought we would even be able to go. Let's
• 1:03:37
  Speaker 1: go ahead and get to the end of this discussion
• 1:03:40
  Speaker 1: that we're going to have today, but first we'll make
• 1:03:42
  Speaker 1: yourselfer through one more set of ads. All right, now,
• 1:03:52
  Speaker 1: we always like to close out our discussions by talking
• 1:03:55
  Speaker 1: about some things that we're going to recommend, whatever they
• 1:03:57
  Speaker 1: might be, and it could be anything activities, it could
• 1:04:00
  Speaker 1: be books, movies, television shows, music that we're listening to,
• 1:04:04
  Speaker 1: activity whatever. I've said, all the things and anyway, we'll
• 1:04:07
  Speaker 1: recommend those. But first I must speak to the people.
• 1:04:11
  Speaker 1: I must go through the credits here because they are
• 1:04:12
  Speaker 1: so important. We do the credits because we are appreciative
• 1:04:15
  Speaker 1: of the people that help make this show continue to
• 1:04:18
  Speaker 1: be a show. And what that means is that if
• 1:04:21
  Speaker 1: you would like to have your name read on the credits,
• 1:04:23
  Speaker 1: you can join us over on Patreon. You get other
• 1:04:25
  Speaker 1: perks too. One of them is them going to read
• 1:04:27
  Speaker 1: your name. Another is that you get early episodes, add
• 1:04:30
  Speaker 1: free episodes, behind the scenes content, and you just help
• 1:04:33
  Speaker 1: us be a show. And like, that's really cool. If
• 1:04:35
  Speaker 1: you can't afford that, that's cool, totally get it. Thank
• 1:04:38
  Speaker 1: you for listening at all. Please go tell a friend.
• 1:04:40
  Speaker 1: But for those people who could do that, I just
• 1:04:43
  Speaker 1: want to say thank you, Mike, m Megan, Mike t, Justin, Kim, Joshua, Brad, Stephanie, Olivia, Brian, Ashley, Kiara,
• 1:04:50
  Speaker 1: and Michelle. Thank you all so much. Just really, we
• 1:04:53
  Speaker 1: appreciate you.
• 1:04:54
  Speaker 2: Love y'all, love y'all so so, so much.
• 1:04:56
  Speaker 1: In addition, thank you to my team of people writing
• 1:04:58
  Speaker 1: and fact checking from Shane and myself. Our social media
• 1:05:01
  Speaker 1: coordinator is Emma Wilson. And Justin is the man behind
• 1:05:04
  Speaker 1: the microphone who makes us sounds like a podcast.
• 1:05:07
  Speaker 2: Really Yeah, he's the best.
• 1:05:10
  Speaker 1: And of course, thank you all for listening. Thank you
• 1:05:12
  Speaker 1: for recording with me today.
• 1:05:13
  Speaker 2: Shane, Hey, anytime, happy to be here.
• 1:05:15
  Speaker 1: On this weird Tuesday evening recording. I know, is there
• 1:05:18
  Speaker 1: anything that I forgot or anything you would like to
• 1:05:20
  Speaker 1: add before we recommend some things.
• 1:05:22
  Speaker 2: Go listen to Doom Trees, No Kings.
• 1:05:26
  Speaker 1: Cool. Great, Well let's leave it vague at that and
• 1:05:30
  Speaker 1: we'll do some recommendations.
• 1:05:31
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I love it. Recommendations.
• 1:05:41
  Speaker 1: Okay, I'm recommending a movie. It's kind of an old
• 1:05:43
  Speaker 1: movie now, but that's what I've been on. I didn't
• 1:05:45
  Speaker 1: get to the theater much in the last year year
• 1:05:47
  Speaker 1: and a half, and so I'm watching movies as they
• 1:05:49
  Speaker 1: come out on streaming, and one of those movies is
• 1:05:53
  Speaker 1: a sort of sequel, prequel, follow up. I don't know
• 1:05:56
  Speaker 1: it's in the sphere of this movie. It's called Furiosa,
• 1:05:59
  Speaker 1: a Mad Max saga, so this is supposed to be
• 1:06:02
  Speaker 1: a prequel to Mad Max. It is a story of
• 1:06:04
  Speaker 1: the other main character in that movie, Furiosa, played by
• 1:06:07
  Speaker 1: Charlie's Theren, and this movie has played by Anya Taylor Joy.
• 1:06:11
  Speaker 1: This movie got a lot of hate from critics, and
• 1:06:14
  Speaker 1: I don't exactly know why. I thought the trailers looked awful,
• 1:06:18
  Speaker 1: to be fair, like, I actually thought the movie looked bad.
• 1:06:21
  Speaker 1: But I went in and watched it, and I was like,
• 1:06:23
  Speaker 1: this is a super good movie. Like it's got more
• 1:06:27
  Speaker 1: story than Mad Max Fury Road, which was a phenomenal movie.
• 1:06:32
  Speaker 2: Fury Road was written in all caps.
• 1:06:35
  Speaker 1: It was definitely written in all caps. Yeah, this movie
• 1:06:37
  Speaker 1: it's got It's got wonderful acting, great scenery, incredible practical
• 1:06:42
  Speaker 1: effects and a lot of it. There was like a
• 1:06:46
  Speaker 1: lot of CGI, but it technically had about the same
• 1:06:49
  Speaker 1: number of CGI shots as the original Mad Max or
• 1:06:51
  Speaker 1: the I mean not original, but the Mad Max Fury
• 1:06:53
  Speaker 1: Road Road. And it also was like a little bit longer,
• 1:06:56
  Speaker 1: so like they did use a lot of practical effects
• 1:06:59
  Speaker 1: and it's just it's a good movie. Like I defended
• 1:07:04
  Speaker 1: the Flash movie, and I can rightfully understand the criticisms
• 1:07:07
  Speaker 1: of that movie, I still thought it was fun. This
• 1:07:10
  Speaker 1: is like, legitimately a good movie. Furiosa is so like
• 1:07:13
  Speaker 1: I'm kind of sad that it got so much. Hey,
• 1:07:15
  Speaker 1: it's good, Like, go watch it. It's on it's streaming
• 1:07:18
  Speaker 1: on Max at the time that we're recording this HBO
• 1:07:20
  Speaker 1: for those of you who don't want to call it
• 1:07:22
  Speaker 1: Max because that's dumb name. But yeah, so that's that's
• 1:07:25
  Speaker 1: where I watched it. And then if not, like, go
• 1:07:27
  Speaker 1: out and get it from red Box or something. I
• 1:07:28
  Speaker 1: don't check. It's it's really if you're into action movies
• 1:07:31
  Speaker 1: and visual feasts for the eyes and it is actually
• 1:07:33
  Speaker 1: good storytelling, go check out Furiosa. I'm mad Max Saga.
• 1:07:37
  Speaker 2: It's on my list. I have been wanting to watch it.
• 1:07:39
  Speaker 2: I heard it's really good.
• 1:07:40
  Speaker 1: Oh Chris Hemsworth in this, I mean he is just
• 1:07:43
  Speaker 1: chewing the scenery as they say.
• 1:07:45
  Speaker 2: Yeah, he's great in everything.
• 1:07:48
  Speaker 1: He is so good. I mean he's really laying into
• 1:07:51
  Speaker 1: that character just beautifully. So just all around good performances,
• 1:07:55
  Speaker 1: great stuff.
• 1:07:56
  Speaker 2: I love it. I love it all right. So I'm
• 1:07:59
  Speaker 2: also gonna recommend a movie be Mine is a little
• 1:08:01
  Speaker 2: bit less intense in that and like action, I think
• 1:08:05
  Speaker 2: where it makes up for that is in emotion. And
• 1:08:08
  Speaker 2: that is a movie called The Iron Claw. Did you
• 1:08:11
  Speaker 2: get to see this one yet?
• 1:08:12
  Speaker 1: No? Is this a boxing movie.
• 1:08:13
  Speaker 2: It's a wrestling movie actually. So it's about the von
• 1:08:16
  Speaker 2: the von Eric family, and for those of you who
• 1:08:19
  Speaker 2: are not familiar with the von Eric family, it's based
• 1:08:20
  Speaker 2: on a true story. This family was a wrestling family.
• 1:08:23
  Speaker 2: That it was the kids of a wrestler named Fritz
• 1:08:26
  Speaker 2: von Eric whose signature move was the iron claw, where
• 1:08:29
  Speaker 2: he'd grab your skull and he could squeeze and that's
• 1:08:30
  Speaker 2: how we'd win. Well, he's a little bit hard on
• 1:08:33
  Speaker 2: his kids. They all got into wrestling and there was
• 1:08:36
  Speaker 2: a curse. They called it the Curse of the von
• 1:08:38
  Speaker 2: Eric family where like most of the siblings, actually all
• 1:08:42
  Speaker 2: the siblings except for one died under like freak accident,
• 1:08:45
  Speaker 2: circumstances or mental health or all. Lots of things happened
• 1:08:49
  Speaker 2: in this movie. Pretty intense. Zach Effron plays Kevin von Eric,
• 1:08:54
  Speaker 2: the main the main.
• 1:08:55
  Speaker 1: This is the Zach Effron one. He gets so bulky
• 1:08:58
  Speaker 1: for this.
• 1:08:59
  Speaker 2: And yeah he's ripped in this one. And then Jeremy
• 1:09:02
  Speaker 2: Allen White is carry von Eric and just basically the
• 1:09:05
  Speaker 2: whole story is just like tragedy after tragedy, this family
• 1:09:09
  Speaker 2: and then like zac Efron's character kind of like dealing
• 1:09:12
  Speaker 2: with it and kind of going like what is happening?
• 1:09:14
  Speaker 2: What is this curse? What does this mean? It shot
• 1:09:17
  Speaker 2: beautifully the story. I mean, they go over years of
• 1:09:21
  Speaker 2: story within a few hours and it's done so so
• 1:09:26
  Speaker 2: so well. Everybody that acts in it is incredible, like
• 1:09:29
  Speaker 2: and just it just ugh, it's amazing, Like it truly
• 1:09:33
  Speaker 2: is worth all the critical praise it got.
• 1:09:36
  Speaker 1: Okay, is this streaming somewhere or available where.
• 1:09:39
  Speaker 2: You saw it on a plane, but it is, it
• 1:09:42
  Speaker 2: is streaming somewhere. Yeah, I should be streaming somewhere. I
• 1:09:45
  Speaker 2: don't know exactly where, but it's it's definitely worth the watch.
• 1:09:48
  Speaker 1: Okay, Great, a couple of movies to check out. All right, Well,
• 1:09:51
  Speaker 1: we ran very long on this one. What we thought
• 1:09:53
  Speaker 1: was going to be a show. I wouldn't even say
• 1:09:55
  Speaker 1: it was going to be short. Yeah, and that made
• 1:09:58
  Speaker 1: it long. I need more notes for more constrained dialogue. Anyway, Yeah,
• 1:10:04
  Speaker 1: we'll let it go at that. Great recommendations periosa Mad
• 1:10:07
  Speaker 1: mac Saga and the Iron Claw or some movies you
• 1:10:10
  Speaker 1: can check out. And then, of course, if you like
• 1:10:12
  Speaker 1: to tell us anything that we got wrong or got
• 1:10:14
  Speaker 1: right about royalty and monarchies, you should email us directly.
• 1:10:18
  Speaker 1: You can reach us at info at wwdwwdpodcast dot com.
• 1:10:22
  Speaker 1: We are happy to hear from everyone. You can leave
• 1:10:24
  Speaker 1: us a comment, you know, go to the five star
• 1:10:26
  Speaker 1: rating all of that. But I think that is all
• 1:10:28
  Speaker 1: that I have. Is there anything else you'd like to
• 1:10:30
  Speaker 1: add Shane before we wrap up?
• 1:10:31
  Speaker 2: No, I think that's it.
• 1:10:32
  Speaker 1: Thank you everyone. This is Abraham, this is Shane Crowd. So, yeah,
• 1:10:37
  Speaker 1: you've been listening to Why we do what we do.
• 1:10:40
  Speaker 2: You can learn more about this and other episodes by
• 1:10:42
  Speaker 2: going to wwdwwdpodcast dot com. Thanks for listening and we
• 1:10:48
  Speaker 2: hope you have an awesome day