Samo Burja: Intellectuals, Culture, and the Technosphere — #70

Samo Burja founded Bismarck Analysis, a consulting firm that investigates the political and institutional landscape of society. He is a Senior Research Fellow in Political Science at the Foresight Institute where he advises on how institutions can shape the future of technology. Since 2024, he has chaired the editorial board of Palladium Magazine, a non-partisan publication that explores the future of governance and society through international journalism, long-form analysis, and social philosophy. From 2020 to 2023, he was a Research Fellow at the Long Now Foundation where he studied how institutions can endure for centuries and millennia.

Samo writes and speaks on history, institutions, and strategy with a focus on exceptional leaders that create new social and political forms. He has systematized this approach as “Great Founder Theory.”

Steve and Samo discuss:

00:00 Introduction
01:39 Meet Samo Burja: Founder of Bismarck Analysis
03:19 Palladium Magazine: A West Coast Publication
06:39 The Unique Culture of Silicon Valley
12:55 Inside Bismarck Analysis: Services and Clients
21:37 The Role of Technology in Global Innovation
32:15 The Influence of Rationalists and Effective Altruists
48:09 European Tech Policies and Global Competition
49:29 The Role of Taiwan and China in Tech Manufacturing
51:14 Geopolitical Dynamics and Strategic Alliances
52:51 China's Provincial Power and Industrial Strategy
56:04 Urbanization and Demography, Ancient Society
59:43 Intellectual Pursuits and Cultural Dynamics
01:04:11 Intellectuals, SF, and Global Influence
01:13:47 Fertility Rates, Urbanization, and Forgotten Migration
01:22:26 Interest in Cultural Dynamics and Population Rates
01:26:05 Daily Life as an Intellectual

Music used with permission from Blade Runner Blues Livestream improvisation by State Azure.

–

[rathindrakuruwita]

Spandrell came up with IQ shredder with regards to Singapore

[georgek]

Great episode. Love listening to Samo.

[davidk]

Thank you both for a very informative and interesting discussion.

[kreek]

Burja is correct that Europe has previously had mass migrations. They were almost always intra-European phenomena. Even the barbarian invasions that ended the Roman Empire were mainly Europeans and often, as we now know from paleo-genetics, light on the "mass" part. Has there been a mass migration into Europe from another continent since the First Farmers arrived from the Near East? The current masses arriving in Europe are mostly from even farther afield, which means more distant genetically and culturally. The Italians who have migrated to France in the last few centuries constitute a very different and much less disruptive alteration of French genetics and culture than the appearance of Algerians, Senegalese, Vietnamese. The numbers in the present case are also much, much larger relative to the time of the migration period. In short, I think his analogy is very misguided.

His idea to develop a special economic zone in the US is counter-intuitive and shrewd. It could be the industrial equivalent of Silicon Valley (which used to be much more industrial itself). Texas is the place for it. This much is obvious. In the Midwest, the unions would cause it to be stillborn. Besides, Elon is already in Texas.

One reason for some optimism on Europe is that there are strong signs of a nuclear renaissance in America. I predict much of Europe will follow when the new reactor designs are proven safe and affordable. And those who don't follow--will buy energy cross-border from those who do.

In the next few years China will fall further behind in chip quality since it will take at least that long (probably longer) to build the equivalent of the latest ASML machines. Also: ASML is developing the next generation, which may be 10-15 years out. Is the West any better at protecting its highest value IP than it was in the Cold War? I doubt it, though I don't think China can rely upon the type of ideologically motivated spies that contributed especially to the early decades of Soviet espionage.

[kpc]

really excellent, 2 of my favorite thinkers

[ErnestoEduardoDobarganes]

If we wanna make it into the Future, we better take Samo with us.

[lonecandle]

Would subsidizing rural towns or farms to keep more people rural increase the birthrate?

[cygnusx-]

i just hiked up Triglav in August I suppose Samo has done that since he was supposed to have done that at some point in his life,

[worldsnake]

The qualities of Silicon Valley and its position as "America's America" that you two talk about here, can only exist as long as America stays prominent in the world, at least in the top ~3 countries given its size and population. But this requires that America be functional politically, something that Silicon Valley intellectuals tend to ignore because it's a dirty complex problem that doesn't nicely fit into their abstract "clean and beautiful" intellectual models.

OTOH, China absolutely understands the dirty complex politics of the real world, and directs its elite intellectual capacity to solving these problems. This has been a tradition there both since ancient times ("seek truth from facts") and from its modern adoption of Marxist materialist methods of analysis. For Silicon Valley to preserve itself, it absolutely must get involved more heavily in the dirty complex politics of America as a whole, that is to fix America's decline.

I am talking here not about rich elites schmoozing with politicians, but about actually directing SV's intellectual productive capacity towards solving political issues from a macroscopic perspective. For example, US manufacturing is stagnant due to a whole host of societal issues, not all of which have solutions under the US legal system. But SV can do things that USG can't do, that can still have huge positive consequences politically and socially.

[joshfranklin]

What’s up with the audio on this one? Great conversation otherwise though!

[factorousfactorous]

Consultants types, and especially the very good ones, become so articulate, concise and structured, that a lot of the cognitive effort that you would normally have to use to understand their incoherent babling is now not being required. This lack of friction counter intuitively makes it harder to focus on the conversation.

[FuncraftVideos]

Yes, but Silicon Valley people are usually illiterate when it comes to history, geopolitics, etc. I've found this to be the case in most "transhumanist" communities of various sorts, which SV is aligned with imo

[mrjvc]

Next up: Bag of Sand interviews Matt Stone

[PhilipWong]

What a strange world we live in. While people in the U.S. talk about culture, parties, events, and dancing, elsewhere in the world, conflicts rage on. In the Middle East and Ukraine, lives are being lost in wars. Most conflicts around the world will end immediately the moment the U.S. withdraws its diplomatic, financial, covert, and military support.

[GrissiniOfficer]

Will the host stop saying "yes, yes, yes, yes mhm yes yes" literally every two seconds, even most of the time subsecond to keep himself stimulated so he can comprehend what burja articulating?

[bankbank]

epic glazing by steve... I'm 30 minutes in and the entire podcast has been an advertisement for this guy's consulting company

[mistman]

Intellectual vigor of this episode is truly lacking. i had to constantly skip forward.

I like to hear from people that are smarter than me, where I have constantly rewind the conversation.