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Game Theory #12: The Law of Eschatological Convergence

Original Transcript

As I mentioned last class, there are three major questions that will determine how this war is fought, what it will end up looking like, and how the world will change. And as I discussed last class, I'm making three predictions about this war. The first is that the United States will use ground troops, and this will mean that Donald Trump will institute a national draft. The second prediction is that Israel and the United States will not use tactical nuclear weapons in this war. Number three is that the Al-Aqsa Mosque — the third holiest site in the Islamic world — will be destroyed during this war.

Last class I explained my analysis and reasoning for my first two predictions. Today I'll explain my third prediction. But before we start, I want to look at some videos so you understand some of the context and some of the players in this war.

This is Senator Blumenthal of Connecticut, one of the hundred members of the US Senate and one of the members of the Gang of Eight. When you are fighting a war, the White House has a responsibility to report its objectives, its purpose, and how the war is progressing to eight members of Congress in a confidential setting. This is Senator Blumenthal after he's been debriefed by the White House. This is what he had to say about the progress of the war so far.

"I emerge from this briefing as dissatisfied and angry, frankly, as I have from any past briefing in my fifteen years in the Senate. I am left with more questions than answers, especially about the cost of the war. My questions have been unanswered and I will demand answers because the American people deserve to know. And I guess I am most concerned about the threat to American lives of potentially deploying our sons and daughters on the ground in Iran. We seem to be on a path toward deploying American troops on the ground in Iran to accomplish any of the potential objectives here. And there is also, as disturbingly as anything else, the spectre of active Russian aid to Iran putting in danger American lives."

Three things to take away from his talk with reporters. First: the administration — the White House — has not articulated a budget. How much will this war cost? Which means this is an open-ended war. We don't know when it will end and therefore we don't know how much it will cost. Second: we are on a path toward the deployment of ground troops in Iran, which basically means a national draft. Third, and crucially: he says they know for a fact that Russia is already involved in this war, aiding Iran.

This next video is the Iranian Foreign Minister Araghchi speaking to NBC News. NBC News asked him: there is talk in the United States already of ground troops being used against Iran. And I want you to observe his response and then the response of the journalist.

NBC: "President Trump has not ruled out boots on the ground in Iran. Are you afraid of a US invasion in your country?"

Araghchi: "No, we are waiting for them."

NBC: "You were waiting for the US military, the ground troops?"

Araghchi: "Yes. Because we are confident that we can confront them and that would be a big disaster for them."

NBC: "So you're saying that Iran is ready and willing to take on the US military if there were to be ground troops?"

Araghchi: "Well, we were ready for this."

Certain things to appreciate here. First: the Foreign Minister is not at all concerned about ground troops. In fact he essentially said: it's a trap. You come in — we've been preparing for this for about twenty years. We will destroy you. Second: notice the journalist is completely surprised by the answer, shocked into silence, having to ask again: wait, are you saying you're ready for ground troops? This shows you that within Washington DC, within the Trump administration, within the foreign policy elite, within the media elite, they haven't really thought this through. They haven't really considered the possibility of losing this war. It's a bubble — an insular bubble where everyone believes the same things. That is very problematic if you are to continue fighting this war.

Now I want to show you a video from 1990. This is Rabbi Schneerson — the leader, now deceased, of an organization called Chabad Lubavitch. We'll talk more about Chabad Lubavitch as we go along. But I introduce you to him now in 1990, speaking to Benjamin Netanyahu, who at the time was a young and upcoming politician in Israel. What's going on here: as an up-and-coming politician, Netanyahu is going to the rabbi — and rabbis are the most powerful people in Jewish society — basically saying: will you give me your blessing, will you support me in my political endeavors? The rabbi says yes. They also talk about how things are progressing, and there is almost like a plan in motion to achieve certain religious objectives. Things are going well, the rabbi says, but not going fast enough — because we need the Messiah, the great leader of the Jewish people, to come. And we can set in motion things that will force the coming of the Messiah. So let's speed things up. Netanyahu listens. I'll explain the significance of this later, but I want you to be aware of who these people are.

Next, a journalist asks Benjamin Netanyahu: what book are you reading now? And he says he is reading about Rome versus the Jews — a book by historian Barry Strauss about the three wars that the Jews fought against the Romans, which were essentially a holocaust for the Jewish people. A lot of Jews either died or were enslaved. The Romans burned down the Second Temple. There is this deep historical animosity of the Jews against the Romans. But what Netanyahu says is: I'm reading this book because we lost that war against Rome. But the next war against Rome, we must not lose. The question then is: who is Rome? It's not Iran. It's probably not Russia. It's probably America — the great empire. This is strange because Israel is the ally of America in this war, but Netanyahu is saying our real enemy is Rome and that's what we must prepare for.

Next video: this is Pete Hegseth, the Secretary of Defense under Donald Trump, around 2018, speaking in Jerusalem to Christian Zionists and Zionists. He stands at the Western Wall of the Temple Mount and says something remarkable: that he visited these Jewish holy sites and was amazed by the spirituality of the Western Wall. He then names a series of miracles: 1917, the Balfour Declaration, when the British Empire permitted the Jews to found a nation state; 1948, when Israel was founded; 1967, when Israel fought a war against its neighbors and won; 2017, when Donald Trump transferred the American embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, recognizing Jerusalem as the capital. And what he's saying is: if this is a series of steps to achieving a divine plan, then the next miracle should be the rebuilding of Solomon's Temple — the Third Temple — which means destroying the Al-Aqsa Mosque.

Last video: this is a rabbi in Israel talking about how last year, during the twelve-day war, Iran was firing missiles at Israel. What he says is: that was an opportunity for us to pretend an Iranian missile hit the Dome of the Rock — the Al-Aqsa Mosque — thus destroying it. Then the Arabs will blame the Iranians, the Arabs will go to war against the Persians, and then we can just sit back and watch.

Now I'll explain what is really going on. I keep saying this, but it is hard from a purely geopolitical perspective to explain this US-Iran war. You have to look at the religious angle. And that is what I want to focus on today.

So, the three holiest sites in the Islamic world: Mecca, Medina, and the Dome of the Rock — the Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem, which Muslims believe is where Muhammad ascended to heaven. And the Jews and the Christian Zionists believe this site must be destroyed so they can build the Third Temple — Solomon's Temple. That is the big question in this war.

Today I want to introduce you to a new concept in game theory called the law of eschatological convergence.

Eschatology is the story of how the world ends. It's compelling for people because, as we discussed, human beings have three questions: where do we come from, why are we here, and where are we going? Eschatology provides a story that answers all three: why God created us, what our mission on earth is, and what God has planned for the end of the world. Different traditions have different eschatologies. What's important is to figure out at what points these eschatologies converge — meaning: where they agree with each other. Why is this important? Because it allows you to predict how they will behave. Think of a story as the operating system of a society. It is a script that people will act out. If you can figure out the different scripts and see where they converge, where the union of these different scripts are, then you can actually predict how the world will turn out. That is the law of eschatological convergence.

Before going into the eschatologies themselves, I want to explain the universal law of game theory. Whoever wins a game is able to do this: mass times energy times coordination. Mass is just the number of people on the team. Energy is how much attention, focus, and motivation there is — how invested you are in winning and how hard you are willing to work. Coordination is synchronicity — how well the teammates work together.

And something crucial to appreciate: coordination is the most important of the three. I would say it is four times more important than mass alone. You can have a lot of people, but if they don't work well together, you'll be defeated by a smaller team that does. And energy is twice as important as mass. If you are playing a solo game, mass and coordination don't matter — only energy does. How motivated are you? How much time do you put into practice and improvement? In a team sport, mass is constant, so what matters is energy and coordination.

There are different ways to increase energy and coordination. A great inspiring leader makes people more motivated and allows them to work well together. But leaders die. Family — blood — works well because of shared origin, but you cannot account for internal conflict within a family. Historically, the force that allows teams to beat other teams over the long term is narrative — a story. Why? Because a story implants in the minds of all who believe in it a series of actions they must take to win the game. Think of it as a script — and in a script you know what part you play. You just have to act it out, and that allows you all to work together to achieve the desired outcome.

And in narrative, the most powerful form is eschatology. Because eschatology is a complete script in which everyone knows what he or she must do in order to achieve the desired outcome. Eschatology also transcends both time and space — you can spend centuries acting out the script because everyone knows their role anyway. And it can transcend borders, going beyond ethnic identity and family. The most powerful mechanism in history is eschatology.

What is eschatology in practice? Most religions require you to be a good person — be humble, be kind, be generous. But there are certain aspects of religions that are extreme, and we call these their eschatologies. The classic example is the Jewish religion. In the Jewish tradition, the Israelites angered God by disobeying him — God told them not to worship false idols, but they sinned. So they were kicked out of Jerusalem and forced to wander the earth in diaspora for centuries. And so what they believe is that each person needs to engage in an act of redemption, of humility, of submission, of piety to God — if they are to redeem the whole Jewish people. And when that happens, when they recognize their own limitations and submit to God, then God will send the Messiah to redeem them, lead them back to Jerusalem, defeat the enemies of the Jews, bring all the Jews from the diaspora back, unify the Jewish people, and then build the Third Temple so that God can come to earth and live with all the Jews and create heaven on earth. That is the mainstream Jewish religious narrative.

But then you have extreme fanatics who have a different eschatology. These people we can call accelerationists. Their point is: this is fine, but it's way too slow, and it dissolves us of individual responsibility. If you have faith in God, you should want to hurry things up and force the return of God as soon as possible. And you do that by recognizing that if you actually — before the Messiah comes — go and create the nation of Israel, bring all the Jews back, build the Third Temple, defeat all the enemies — then the Messiah will come naturally. Most Jews hear this and think it is blasphemy — you are defying the will of God, you think you can manipulate God into action, that is the worst possible sin. So this eschatology is considered a fringe extreme. But if you think about it, what an extreme eschatology really is doing is creating a vector that forces the mainstream religion to move in a certain direction. And whichever eschatology is the most extreme, the most driven, will be the one that wins out — because even though it's shared by only a few people, those few are the ones working the hardest to achieve their vision, and therefore they are forcing the religion as a whole to move in that direction.

This is illustrated by the story of Rabbi Schneerson and his movement, Chabad Lubavitch, which was founded in what is now Belarus and over time moved to America after suffering persecution by the Russians. Today they are a global movement with significant influence in Russia, America, and Israel.

Here is an example from 1939, showing the extraordinary coordination that eschatological commitment enables. The year is 1939. Nazi Germany has conquered Poland. In Warsaw is the head of the Chabad Lubavitch movement — Rabbi Yosef Yitzchak Schneersohn, who is the father-in-law of Rabbi Schneerson. He is an old man, he is in Warsaw, and the Nazis are overrunning the city. His followers in America want to save his life. The problem: America and Germany are not allies, commercial airflight is not available, and the rabbi will need visas not just for himself but for his entire family. What I will show you is how powerful these people are, operating through shared eschatological vision and willing to make necessary sacrifices to help each other.

In America, the rabbi's followers mounted a rescue effort. They hired a politically connected lawyer to secure American visas for the rabbi and his family. They reached out to Attorney General Benjamin Cohen and Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis — the most powerful Jewish figure in America at that time. These were people the rabbi had met during a fundraising trip in 1929. The American political apparatus was won over, dedicated to helping the rabbi escape Europe. Now the problem: how do you deal with the Nazis?

An American official reached out to a German Nazi party member who specialized in nationalist industry and economics, asking if he would be willing to save one of the leading Jewish scholars in the world. And the man said yes. Why? Because he had studied at Columbia University in the early 1930s and had forged relationships across the American-German divide. He secretly contacted Admiral Wilhelm Canaris, the head of German military intelligence. Canaris — a skeptical Nazi who disapproved of SS atrocities and thought the invasion of Poland was a mistake — enlisted a senior officer named Major Ernst Bloch. Bloch was what they call a Mischling — a German with some Jewish ancestry — but because of his valor in World War I, he had been declared of pure German blood by Hitler himself in 1939. Bloch was instructed to find the rabbi and bring him to safety.

Block and his colleagues had to maneuver through the ruins of Warsaw without arousing the suspicions of the SS to find a rabbi who did not know of their mission and did not want to be found, and who was naturally afraid of all German soldiers. Jews in the city were unwilling to divulge their leader's location to a Nazi officer. Eventually the information came via the Chabad network to the American charged'affaires in Germany. At the end of November, Bloch found the rabbi's apartment and convinced the residents he was there to help. Having obtained fuel coupons, train tickets, and military clearances for SS checkpoints, Bloch loaded the rabbi and his family under a truck and headed for the train station. There the family received first-class tickets and boarded a train filled with Nazi officials and soldiers. And that is how they got him out.

In other words, they are able to work above the bureaucracy of different nation states, on opposite sides of a war, in order to achieve their eschatological goal. That is what coordination at the eschatological level looks like.

Now, the law of eschatological convergence. Once we know the different eschatologies and know how they converge, we can make certain predictions about how this war will progress.

The first major eschatology I want to look at is Zoroastrianism — the eschatology of the Persian Empire, and the first eschatology in history. It is simple: in the world there is truth and there is a lie, light and darkness. It is our responsibility as humans to live for the light and die for the truth against the lie. At the end of days there will be a final battle and a day of judgment, where the god Ahura Mazda will come down and create a paradise. What matters is to live a noble life and await the day of judgment where heaven on earth will manifest. This is important because it tells you how the Iranians fight this war — the Iranians refuse to take the initiative and destroy too much. They refuse to be the villains in this war, because for them it is important to die for the light, to fight for the truth.

Zoroastrianism had a major impact on Jewish eschatology. Jewish eschatology — and again I'm only talking about the most extreme version — holds that the Jews disobeyed God and in order to repair the world and save themselves they need to engage in redemption. In the mainstream this means spiritual growth and being good to others. But in the most extreme version, redemption means acting out God's plan to compel the return of the Messiah: create Israel, return the Jewish diaspora, build the Third Temple — which will trigger the war of Gog and Magog — and when the Jews are most threatened, the Messiah will come to save them. This will create the Messianic Age: God rules over the earth through his Messiah, who comes from the house of David.

This Jewish eschatology would go on to influence the Protestants, creating a movement called Christian Zionism. The technical name is premillennial dispensationalism — which sounds complicated but simply means that God has a plan for how to create heaven on earth, and we have a duty to fulfill his plan by following his instructions. What Christian Zionism does is take the Jewish eschatology and make certain changes. The first change: they say that the Jewish Messiah is actually not the representative of God but the representative of Satan — the Antichrist. For the Christians, the true Messiah must be Jesus. So the Antichrist rules over the world from Jerusalem, is very charismatic, starts the war of Gog and Magog to conquer the world and destroy the Jews. At this point Jesus returns to save God's chosen people. And when Jesus returns, there will be something called the Rapture, where all Christians immediately ascend to heaven. So in the beginning, Zionists and Christian Zionists will work together to reach a certain point in history — what we call the Greater Israel Project. But then they will diverge and fight against each other. They are allies now, but eventually they will turn against each other.

Now let me talk about the Freemasons. The Freemasons are also working within the Christian Zionist context but are much more focused on how to actually implement this eschatology. What they want to do is take the concept of the Antichrist and turn it into a system. This system is what we discussed last semester: Pax Judaica. What is Pax Judaica? It is that Israel controls the world through AI — an AI surveillance state. Or in their exact words: a holy empire. In this state will exist things such as the mark of the beast, which is digital ID, and this digital ID will also lead to digital currency — a microchip or QR code implanted in your body. And Pax Judaica envisions a one-world government based in Jerusalem, with its headquarters in Solomon's Temple — the Third Temple.

Then you have the Islamic eschatology. In Islamic eschatology, when such a system is created it will be called the Dajjal — the Antichrist — and when this happens Jesus will return to defeat the Antichrist. That is the mainstream Islamic eschatology. Then you have the Shia — the Iranians — who believe that it will be the Twelfth Imam, the Mahdi, who will lead the community of believers into victory against the Antichrist. You can see how these eschatologies are basically lining up together.

There are two more eschatologies I want to look at. The Catholic eschatology, which we can call the City of God — the idea that the Church, based in Jerusalem, is the messianic age because it represents God and brings peace and prosperity to the world. The Roman Empire fell, but this was all part of God's divine plan — Rome was the city of earth, of power and money and wealth, and what matters is Jerusalem, the city of God, of spirituality. The Catholic City of God came to an end because of the rise of the Protestants and the Anglo-American Empire. For the Catholic Church to achieve its eschatology and establish again the City of God, what it needs to see is the Anglo-American Empire destroyed — just as the Roman Empire was.

And the last eschatology: the Orthodox eschatology, specifically the Russian Third Rome prophecy. Moscow will become the third Rome — the first Rome was Rome, the second Rome was Constantinople, the third Rome will be Moscow, and there will be no fourth Rome. When Moscow becomes the third Rome, history ends and peace and prosperity come to the world. What this means is that Russia will unite the Orthodox world. And something very important: this prophecy says the Russians will defeat Turkey in a war, and the Greeks will return to Constantinople — modern-day Istanbul. And so the Russia-Ukraine war is not just about Russia protecting its borders — it is also meant to achieve Orthodox eschatology, to destroy Europe and NATO, so that Russia can achieve the Third Rome prophecy.

Now let's look at the convergence. Where do all these eschatologies agree?

First: the Greater Israel Project will be achieved. Pax Judaica — a one-world government — will be established.

Second: the Al-Aqsa Mosque will give way to the Third Temple. All these eschatologies either say this explicitly or are indifferent to it — none of them actively oppose it. That is why I predict the Al-Aqsa Mosque will be destroyed: they need to build the Third Temple, and the convergence of multiple eschatological traditions either demands it or does not resist it.

Third: the rise of anti-Semitism. This will force the Jewish diaspora to return to Israel — which is very important for this eschatology.

Fourth: the war of Gog and Magog. We don't know exactly what this is, but it is supposed to be the final war before the return of God, before the end of history. Another way of saying this is that this war in Iran will lead to the war of Gog and Magog at some point.

Fifth: the United States and China are not part of this eschatology. For whatever reason, all these traditions agree that the United States will not partake in future events — neither will China — meaning something will happen to these two countries that will make them no longer significant. The best prediction for the United States then is civil war.

So looking at these convergences, we can predict certain events that will happen over the next two to four years. First: the US will use ground troops, which will create a national draft, which will create civil conflict in America — a lot of young people will refuse to fight, protests will erupt, the national guard will be deployed, and this is the recipe for civil war. Second: because the US uses ground troops and loses, CENTCOM — the American military in the Middle East — will transfer effective control to Israel. Third: the economies of the GCC are being destroyed, and that is part of the plan — for Israel to achieve the Greater Israel Project, it needs to absorb the GCC, parts of Turkey, and parts of Egypt. The GCC is basically finished, its economies collapsing to make them irrelevant. Fourth: Turkey and Saudi Arabia will enter this war and suffer tremendously because of their participation. Fifth: the Al-Aqsa Mosque will be destroyed. Sixth: the rise of Persia. Why is this important? You need the Islamic world to unite against Israel for the end of days. Iran winning this war will activate its Persian identity. And in the war of Gog and Magog, Gog is interpreted as Persia and Russia — together they will march against Pax Judaica. Seventh: Israel achieves the Greater Israel Project and Pax Judaica. Greater Israel is the territory God promised Abraham. Pax Judaica is the one-world government based on AI surveillance. Capital and technology will flow to Israel — companies like Nvidia, Oracle, Microsoft, and Google will probably transfer themselves to Israel because that is where the power will rest. Eighth: Russia wins the war in Ukraine and the Greeks return to Constantinople.

So what this shows us is that just by analyzing the most extreme eschatologies of different religious traditions, you can identify points where they agree. And at those points you can figure out how they will affect current geopolitics and make predictions about how the war will progress and how the world will transform itself in the next two to four years. This is the law of eschatological convergence.

I keep repeating this, but purely from a geopolitical perspective — from a realpolitik perspective — this war in Iran makes no sense. But if you look at it from an eschatological perspective, it makes perfect sense.

A student raised an interesting point: there might be a simpler political explanation — Trump tried to do to Iran what he did to Venezuela, it failed, and Iran fought back. If that explanation is true, then what we can expect is Trump declares victory and goes home. But here is why that doesn't work: once you start a war, you can't simply end it. Iran's main advantage is that the GCC cannot defend itself — it's a flat desert, Iran is a mountain fortress. Before, people thought US bases could defend against Iran, but now everyone recognizes those US bases can't even defend themselves. Iran has also closed off the Strait of Hormuz, which means the GCC cannot export oil to Asia or import food — it requires the Strait just to survive.

Now let's say Trump says: this is a stupid war, we're going home. What happens? Iran turns to the GCC and says: you attacked us, you destroyed our infrastructure and our economy, you have to pay compensation. And: now we control the Strait, so if you want to use it, you have to pay us a toll. All that money that used to flow from the GCC to the United States to fuel the US economy — now it flows to Iran. We're talking about trillions of dollars. Iran uses this money to repair and industrialize its economy. In five to ten years it becomes an economic miracle. The United States leaves the Middle East. Iran becomes the superpower controlling the entire Middle East. Then Iran and Israel sign a peace treaty because Israel has nuclear weapons and Iran doesn't want them used. But the United States no longer gets any money from the GCC. The entire US economy — based on the stock market, on finance, on AI, on GCC investment — collapses. The people will have a revolution. So actually, from the American government's perspective, you are better off sending people to Iran than having the people in America cause a revolution. Can Americans go home? The answer is no — because if they go home, their economy collapses and they have a revolution anyway. Whether Trump made a mistake or did this intentionally, the outcome is the same. And strangely enough, this outcome aligns with the different eschatologies in the world.