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Documentary 2017 - The End is coming Nostradamus Full Documentary 2017
For more than five centuries man has looked to the famed prophet Nostradamus for answers time and again
He has risen to the challenge
Nostradamus was a mortal man possessed with startling immortal vision into the modern age
Now the world of science has produced a new kind of seer
Unlike the predictions of Nostradamus the mathematical formula created by this man has warned of coming events with near perfect accuracy
But the new prophets most important predictions about our imminent future do echo those Nostradamus made more than 500 years ago
The 21st century threatens grave danger protracted Wars financial collapse
extreme weather and
escalating violence
People are gripped by fear
Consumed by their need to control the outcome of events
It's been shown that we're hardwired to want to peer into the future to do thought experiments about what's to come?
It's one of the things that distinguishes us from the animals and probably from our cousins the Neanderthals
This need to do
Checks on what the territory ahead might be like where the quicksand might be what mistakes we might make
for over 30 years
Dr. Bruce bueno de Mesquita has been fascinated by man's fate
He is a professor of political science at New York University who some say is revolutionizing the world of prophecy
Bueno de Mesquita is creator of a complex computer algorithm that appears able to predict future events
with almost 100% accuracy back around
1980 I received a grant from the Department of Defense they had heard about some of the work
I was doing and they wanted to do a controlled experiment see if it really works that they were of course skeptical they picked
17 issues they had government
Analysts provide the data that my model requires they also had the same government
Analysts write down their own predictions about what was likely to happen and the model was right in all 17
cases and their experts were right in about half of them Bruce brought a very systematic approach
And he had a great deal of precision so that well traditional analysts could ask a question and hit the target
Bruce would add the ask the question, and he would hit the bull's eye
Consistently one of dr. Bueno de Mesquita is most timely prophecies focuses on terrorism a tactic of war that has evolved over centuries
Modern chemical weapons and global webs of sleeper cells have extended the reach of this deadly threat
His predictions about the influence of pre al-qaeda terrorist groups
responsible for events leading to 9/11 would prove tragically precise in 2001
the Mujahideen who
Morphed into the Afghan
Taliban and became the principal supporters of al-qaeda are a very interesting political movement
their great push forward came from
Ironically the United States while an al-qaeda would still have emerged
It would have been lacking a friendly home in which it could build itself and become the global Menace that it became
Creating 9/11 surprisingly dr. Bueno de Mesquita
Z-- prediction of cataclysmic global terror was shared 500 years earlier by the world's most famous prophet
Michelle day Nostradamus
If you simply think of it as a creation of the West from the mood mujahideen. It's an organization that Nostradamus
Foresaw the outlines of that
Embody the return to a very militant and fundamentalist Islam
Nostradamus predicts in the year 1999 seven months a great king of terror will come from the sky
He will resurrect Genghis Khan the king of the Mongols
before and after
Mars rules happily is the first line of this quatrain a coded warning for the 9/11 attacks
the
Anagrams the word-plays of Nostradamus can also be in numbers as well could it be that one 999 is
actually 9 1 1 1
September but according to Nostradamus at 45 degrees latitude the sky will
fire approaches the great new city
Immediately a huge scattered flame leaps up
Was he talking about New York there was never a city a great new city he called it in existence in his time
ever created after his death
except, New York City
Nostradamus was no stranger to violence
16th century France was a time and place of great turmoil war famine religious conflict
It was an environment that prepared him well to understand the challenges of today
The big issues of our time global warming world war 3 culture wars
These are all ideas that were very important to Nostradamus
These are the important issues of our time and Nostradamus
And you all about it 500 years ago for a long time
We depended almost entirely on
People with historical perspective about how people would behave
and it's really only in the past generation that we've had the development of a serious science of
human behavior a serious science of social interactions
Similar to Nostradamus Bruce bueno de Mesquita closely examines human behavior, but unlike the historical prophet dr.
bueno de Mesquita
quantified subjective analysis using a computer algorithm
he bases his largely secret formula on game theory a prior concept further developed in 1950 by John Nash a
professor at Princeton University
Game theory is actually an idea that takes into account
That anytime you have two players be they to individuals or to countries
interacting with each other what one country does
Is heavily dependent on what the other country does to give you a good example? Let's take two football teams?
One team comes up with an offensive game plan how well that offensive game plans succeeds?
Depends in good part on the defensive game plan that the other side employs
History is comprised of facts about dates events and people
Dr. Bueno de Mesquita sees these facts as variables that can be inserted into a mathematical equation to actually compute future
Vence has history always contained a through-line of science one long algorithm that has evolved through the ages
Is it a mere coincidence that Nostradamus sounded a similar alarm about terrorism in the Holy Land over 500 years ago?
There's a tremendous number of prophecies that seem to relate
Pretty specifically to the 90s and into the early 2020s
And this whole arc is called the Islamic Crusade in which he describes the idea that in
1990 for instance on the eve of the first Gulf War
Sounded ludicrous sounded like what do you mean? We're gonna have an Islamic resurgence well in the last
1012 years this has turned into a very accurate prediction all of which
Nostradamus saw clearly is posing a tremendous threat for the West
What could be a bigger problem facing this country's security
I realize the government is going to be making some serious mistakes
They're going to make some decisions that have very bad consequences
And they're going to do that because they haven't used the best tools that's harming all of us
In the months following the attacks of 9/11
Dr. Bueno de Mesquita used his computer algorithm to analyze the likelihood of future terrorist strikes by al-qaeda in the u.s.
one of the
Predictions that came out of that study is that over the two-year window of time that it looked at that there would be no homeland
attack against the United States
at a time when
Most experts and most pundits were saying attack was inevitable
His bold predictions have earned dr. Bueno de Mesquita a reputation as a superstar seer
But some questioned the rigour of his approach if you were to look at the theoretical work that he has done
And compared to the theoretical work that other, ir scholars have done including people who are considered to be
formidable game theorists and formidable
formal modelers like Bruce himself
I don't think anyone would argue that Bruce stands out in that crowd and with regard to his
Model that he built as a consultant. We don't have access to that so it's just very hard to assess him
Mathematician or prophet dr. Bueno de Mesquita holds his proprietary algorithm close to the vest
But his predictions about al-qaeda 9/11 and the Middle East
indicate that even the slightest turn of events could lead to a domino effect of
Devastating global conflicts the study on al-qaeda turned out to produce very precise results it seems to me
understanding al-qaeda's
Tactics their choice of targets and so forth is fundamental to our national security
Michell day Nostradamus
and Bruce bueno de Mesquita both sound warnings of coming evil what other dark times do they predict and
How similar are their visions?
Nostradamus warns
Many died that no one will know the true owners of fields and houses and the weeds will appear in the city streets
Rising higher than the knees there are some fundamental problems in my view that every American should care about
rising cost of gasoline
recession
Personal safety
Resolution of the Iraq war the
World is in a very fragile
circumstance
Humanity is probably entering its most dangerous phase right now
Our ability to destroy our world our ability to destroy each other our ability to transcend
to new levels of insight
That for either good, or ill
These are
Powering down on us
rogue nations possessing nuclear bombs
Economic disaster world wars even a coming Antichrist
Nostradamus and bueno de Mesquita issued dire warnings of darker days drawing near will we respond
Before it's too late
Nostradamus wrote on a grand scale of epochs shifting nations rising and civilizations collapsing like
Nostradamus
Professor bruce bueno de Mesquita addresses the biggest issues of our time
His views are often controversial
But his predictions using math and science have almost always been accurate the Central Intelligence Agency did a classified study
evaluating the consequence of the accuracy of my predictions they concluded they were right about
90% of the time so these days people are a lot nicer to me than they they used to be a
number of critical problems that dr
Bueno de Mesquita has studied arise from the Middle East
His algorithm shows that if Israel and Palestine cannot settle their differences over the next decade
Global disaster could result if you think $4 a gallon for gasoline is a high price
You'll be looking at that and wishing for the good old days when it was
$4 we would easily be looking at 10 or 15 dollars a gallon that would be
Cataclysmic for the world's economy an unstable financial market is just one of bueno de Mesquita
''s major worries us reliance on oil is
to me a
Fundamental national security issue in it
it's generally debated in terms of the cost and in terms of global warming and
Only once in a while that people touch on national security
But let's be pretty clear here much of the supply comes from the Middle East
Middle East governments are many of them not very friendly to the United States, and they have demonstrated in the 1970's and on other occasions
That they can turn off the spigot to try to force the United States to do what they want
That's a real risk to the American public
Nostradamus foresaw a similar fate he predicted that land wars over rich natural resources would be a potent source of destruction
Nostradamus writes
Alas how much one will see the great people tormented and the sacred law in total ruin by other laws
Christianity is governed when gold and silver is sought through a new source
Oil seems to be a new source of wealth that Nostradamus talks about that will
renew
The Arab Empire he says from a new source of wealth
It doesn't specifically say what that source is, but he seemed before see that the large
He called it an Arab Empire
They would falter
But they would be renewed in the future by finding a new source of wealth and that can only be oil. There is a
references often in Nostradamus about the threat of a new resurgent Arab Empire
that seems to be
Made of religious extremists he calls them the heretics then it links into other things
He says about the Middle East and an Arab source being the cause of a future war between Russia and America so it it is
In a roundabout way Nostradamus talking about oil wars
the views of dr
Bueno de Mesquita and Nostradamus are strangely similar is this coincidence or are there common elements to their methods?
Scientists and seers have shared the common goal of understanding the future since the earliest civilizations
Science is such a relative invention the Romans saw everything as a whole the Greeks and the Romans both
So everything as a whole there was no way to separate
out from its use and
The most profound use you could have of knowledge
Sacred knowledge secret knowledge would be an awareness of the future an awareness of how events going on now would play themselves out
so yeah
You could say that prophecy particularly in the Greek and Roman says is a precursor to everything we think of the Sun in 8
BC Greece was the center of the Western world and the
Ancient city of Delphi established its mysterious Oracle to divine the fate of mankind the Oracle of Delphi
was an institution and had a
sacred organization there were some male priests
but the main figure was female and
She was called efia Pythia
was the one who gave the actual responses predictions and advices and
Everything the Oracle grew to such a fame
Then everybody wanted to have a prediction or an approval by Maya Paulo
We know that people came with very specific
questions for instance shall I sail to this place or
Envoy's from cities
were asking questions shall we make peace, also we declare war my favorite story of the
The Oracle at Delphi is an ancient Greek king wants you to know whether he should go to war with the Persians
He went to the Oracle said would this be a good idea
And she very cryptically said if you go to war a great Empire will fall. He made the assumption that
When she was saying a great Empire would fall. It would be the Persian Empire. He went to war he lost his empire fell
Pythagoras one of the great greek philosophers was the first to apply mathematics to the movement of stars
Like the oracle. He was known primarily as a mystic. He sought to understand the messages
He believed were encoded in the constellations
he's the single point in which the ancient mysticism the mysticism from Egypt and
points further east India and so forth a nerd our Western awareness
he codified put together in in a really simple way the idea that numbers and
Meaning were the same thing that we could actually assign meaning to our reality by doing mathematical processes
So from Pythagoras came all the basic ideas that would eventually become geometry
mathematics algebra
Etc from the time of Pythagoras in 500 BC - Nostradamus his time in the sixteenth century
the constellations were a central focus of mathematics astronomy
And astrology were always related
I mean they were they were pretty much seen as the same
Activity because once you could predict the movement of the planets and you were operating under the universal law that the heavens
influence the earth
Then you would try to
Predict you know what kind of influence would the heavens have over earth for human use
Nostradamus had his own form of algorithm was astrology
He often mapped the patterns of repetitious history by using
rare
astrological aspects conjunctions
So what he would do is he would determine where the stars were in the heaven
Cast a chart from that and then using a process called judicial astrology that allows you to read the astrology of large groups of people
Kingdoms kings and queens. He would make predictions Nostradamus used this same astrological
Analysis to predict events in our own time the pattern. He observed. Not only foretold of protracted wars over oil
but of a great danger arising from the Middle East a new law will occupy a new land around Syria Judea and
Palestine the great empire of the Arab barbarian will crumble before the century of the Sun is finished
quatrain
97 a century free says a new law will occupy a new land around Syria
Judea and Palestine the danger of that not happening is
that we will have a
Arab-israeli war that will start Armageddon
Dr. Bueno de Mesquita echoes Nostradamus is stern warning about the global consequences of war in the Middle East if there is a war between
the Israelis and the
Palestinians
Whoever is president of the United States is going to find it necessary to
Come to Israel's defense. This is going to impact a huge
cost on the Americans
we are already reeling under the costs of the Iraq war and
There is even the danger that American
Troops will need to come in
To help out we don't have the capacity we might need a draft. That's a cataclysmic circumstance
What can be done to forestall this possible disaster?
advocates of dr
Bueno de Mesquita believed that his mathematical approach can supply a method of dealing with such issues
In the early to mid 80s when Bruce's model first came into the CIA a lot of analysts used traditional what we call traditional
approaches intuitive approaches and using Bruce's model you get a
More accurate description of the world and of a political environment he found and his model
explained
That the perceptions of policymakers can be wrong that they they don't
Because they don't systematically analyze their environment or they have imperfect information their perspectives on the world is
Distorted candies new tools really help us avert catastrophe
Nostradamus has predicted war in the Middle East North Korea's nuclear threat and World War three more disturbing is that dr.?
bueno de Mesquita believes that any one of these potential conflicts could trigger a global conflagration a
Specter that may be on the horizon
Two men possessing the ability of second sight separated by centuries cultures and continents are connected by a common desire
to know the future
Michelle day Nostradamus and Bruce bueno de Mesquita have accurately forewarned us of danger
But the cunning of catastrophe is infinite
climate change
asteroid strikes
super volcanoes
plagues
If another major disaster occurs how will we survive?
often Nostradamus describes a
Nuclear plagues as a hidden plague something within something invisible a false dust that descends on the world. There's a
Rather horrific prophecy that talks about the creation of fearsome black globes that
Dispense Great Fire and hidden death Nostradamus writes there will be let loose living fire and hidden death
inside dreadful Globes
Horrible frightful by night the city will be reduced to dust by the fleet the city on fire
Healthful to the enemy
Is this a veiled reference to the volatile situation in North Korea?
dr. Bueno de Mesquita predictions about nuclear threats in Southeast Asia are equally disturbing he points to North Korea as
an area of primary concern on
October 9
2006 the communist country tested its first nuclear missile
Since then it has claimed the ability to build as many as seven warheads. We are insisting
that the North Koreans
dismantle their nuclear capability
Now that seems like the right way to go because there can be no nuclear threat if they take their nuclear threat apart
It's the wrong way to go
Dr.. Puente de Mesquita proposes a plan that would let kim jong. He'll maintain North Korea's nuclear
Capability, but some are troubled by his approach whose has a predictive model that
In a sense provides the magic formula for understanding where the world is going then why is it that the United States which is?
supposedly
Employing his model doing so badly in its foreign policy
But some US intelligence officials conclude that math is a reliable source of prediction
during the time that Bruce worked with the CIA there were many issues that he worked on I
Can't talk about most of them because they're classified in the world of politics and policy
People like to to forecast what's going to happen
They speculate constantly Bruce developed a very sophisticated, but intuitively obvious at least to me
Algorithm for showing how groups and leaders get together?
Negotiate and as a result
Certain policies emerge we need to understand
Kim jong-il's interests as well as our own. We need a deal that works for us and
Serves his purposes as well because if it doesn't serve his purposes. He's not going to stick to it
That was a mistake that was made in the past with him
If the u.s.. And North Korea faceoff in a nuclear conflict. Are we doomed to encounter the deadly consequences that dr.?
Bueno de Mesquita and Nostradamus foretell
Both men offer possible solutions one rooted in astrology the other in science
These two disciplines may seem far apart, but centuries ago astrology and science were one in the same
Taught by the highest institutions of learning and sought by the most important decision-makers in the land
Astrology as a predictive art something that policymakers could use was always
supported by people who made policies by rulers of all kinds almost all courts had their astrologer, so
Astrology seemed to be just as science yes today
the accepted tenets of astrology went unchallenged until
1543 when astronomer Nicolaus Copernicus published a book with a shocking theory that the earth rotated around the Sun
This contradicted the very basis of astrology all
astrology from Ptolemy on from the second century AD on was
Predicated on the earth being at the center of the universe the Copernican theory about the Earth's rotation challenged the merits of astrology
but the conventional wisdom of prophecy in the 16th century was deeply entrenched and
Society rejected this scientific revelation first of all in Copernicus this time it was about five scholars who even cared about astronomy
There's another thing in our hubris of the 21st century
We assume that the great Galileo and the grey Copernicus were astronomers. No that was their hobby
They were astrologers
Nostradamus used a variety of methods to generate his visions ranging from meditation to automatic writing where he scrawled his quatrains in a trance to
Alchemy the science of turning lead into gold
But his most consistent method still relied on the Stars
His maternal grandfather gave him his first astrolabe something. He kept with him his entire life
Well the astrolabe allows you to make very precise measurements of the Stars
so what he would do is he would determine where the Stars were in the heaven cast a chart from that and
Then he would make predictions
Son xx of Taurus the earth will tremble very mightily it will ruin the great theater filled
To darken in trouble air sky
And land then the infidel will call upon God and saints
this quatrains description of a dark sky and trembling earth points to what some believe will be the greatest disaster in history a
Rogue force will rise in the 21st century and threaten the very survival of the world as we know it
Nostradamus predicts the conflagration of fire in the sky
Which seems to mention nuclear detonation in century 3 quatrains 7?
So we're coming to that time period in which this whole rational scientific materialistic culture that we enjoy so much
It's wrapping up
It's coming to an end the Prophet warns
The fugitives fire from heaven on to their weapons the next conflict will be that of the crows
They call on earth for help that heavenly aid when the aggressors draw near the walls
Some experts say Nostradamus is reference to weapons fired from heaven is describing launched nuclear warheads
Weapons of mass destruction are now within the grasp of rogue governments such as North Korea, but dr.
Bueno de Mesquita Zaman predicts a controversial course of action that can avert this apocalyptic scenario
It recommends that North Korea disarm its nuclear weapons
Rather than entirely give them up
The deal with North Korea needs to be that Kim Jong Il the Dear Leader the head of the North Korean government
feels secure
That neither the United States nor the Republic of Korea nor anybody else is going to invade Korea and overthrow him
If Kim jong-il agrees to dismantle his nuclear arsenal
then the international community has no reason to
Follow through on the promises
They make to secure his regime
Because he has no threat left boy today mosquitoes algorithm computes that if Kim jong-il disarms his weapons nuclear war will be averted
It also predicts that failure to follow this radical course of action will alienate North Korea's leader and lead the world down a perilous path
It is much more likely to lead to his reneging on a deal
increasing the risk of a nuclear
exchange in the Korean, Peninsula
which would result in a catastrophic war the Chinese would probably have to come to his defense we then could be looking at a
Global war with China that obviously would affect every American
Not just economically, but in terms of our security at home and abroad it would be absolutely disastrous
But the other debate about game theory of erting nuclear disaster rages on I am probably
one of the most
Deeply involved
International relations scholars in the policy world I talk to people all the time in the policy world
about the
problems that the United States
Faces around the world and over the course of 26 years
I've talked to a lot of people and I have never once heard anybody mention
Bruce's models and say that Bruce bueno de Mesquita
Has come up with a way of predicting the future that I should take
Seriously, and look carefully into I don't believe in the assumptions that go into the model
But I acknowledge that the outcomes are
incredibly impressive
And I believe it
I mean I believe that comes I've seen them
Our ability to avert nuclear war may or may not depend on the methods of scientists like dr.
Bueno de Mesquita or perhaps we will discover the mystical prophets were more precise in diagnosis faith
Nostradamus wrote that the third Antichrist will rise in our times who will accurately
predict if the Antichrist already walks among us
Throughout the ages prophets like Nostradamus have captivated believers using the power of prediction, but to pass the test of time
accuracy matters most
Professor Bruce pointed de Mesquita claims that his algorithm goes far beyond previous human ability to predict outcomes
Which raises a chilling possibility?
our computers the next Nostradamus
Suppose there are five people
Involved and trying to influence the decision then each of those five people wants to know something about what are the other four going to?
Do and those other four each one to know about well?
What are the other three thinking and so on so that means that there are five?
factorial possible interactions, that's 5 times 4 times 3 times 2 times 1
That's 120 a smart person can keep track of
120 interactions in their head and get it right now suppose. There are just 10 people trying to influence a decision
That's still not very many
10 times 9 times 8 etc is over 3 million
Nobody can keep track of that in their head, but a computer can it doesn't get bored doesn't get tired
It doesn't need a lunch break. It doesn't need a vacation
It'll just keep on
Crunching away and my algorithm relies on the ability of the computer to handle that very
those very large numbers of interactions that ordinary people can't keep track of
nostradamus experts believe that pure science cannot achieve the elusive quality that makes Nostradamus a perennial stand out among seers
They assert that the world's most famous prophet took a personal approach and achieved an untouchable status
His prophecies a world the work of
Who knew his?
Fellow neighbors very well. He was a doctor he had entered many homes
He had travelled around parts of Europe he had been to the court in Paris
He knew human beings human nature and a number of his prophecies when you look at them
Nowadays you can feel also the humanists there in the 500 years since Nostradamus. Death which itself
he famously predicted his prophecies have been connected with many of the world's most seminal events as well as its most notorious figures a
Captain of great Germany will come to deliver through false help to the King of Kings the support of Pannonia
So that his revolt will cause a great flow of blood
Nostradamus experts claim that this quatrain priests age is the rise of one of the reviled figures of all time
Adolf Hitler
Some say another quatrain comes close to actually naming him
Beasts ferocious with hunger will cross the rivers the greater part of the battlefield will be against history
Into a cage of iron will the great one be drawn when the child of Germany observes nothing?
Others make the connection that history is actually the original name of the Danube region in Austria near Hitler's childhood home
Another prophecy says near the Rhine on the Noricum Mountains Austria is about Hitler again
it will be born a great one of the people come too late often Hitler talked about himself as
Too late to stop the great conspiracy that ended World War one before the Germans had actually been defeated
While Nostradamus applied foresight to predict these events wayna de Mesquita uses hindsight to test the accuracy of his algorithm
This two-sided view of the same moment in time
provides intriguing comparisons of the style and vision of these two prophets
one of the things that I like to do with my students is
Use the algorithm as a time machine
Put ourselves in the context of the time using the algorithm to see could we have changed the course of events
but what about world war ii could World War two have been avoided and I tend to focus on a very narrow period
November 1932
through March
1933 so between November 1932 and March 1933 there's a window of opportunity to have
Stopped Hitler after the November 1932 election the Nazis were the largest party in the Reichstag
But far from a majority
Hitler's cunning plan was to pass a series of laws called the enabling acts to gain control of the German parliament the Reichstag in
March of 1933 Hitler was very clear about what his intentions were if the Nazis took control of the
Reichstag his objective was to suspend the Reichstag and outlaw the opposition parties
Adolf Hitler would achieve a decisive political victory, which helped set the stage for world war ii on march 23rd
1933
Hitler got the Reichstag by a two-thirds vote to pass the
Enabling act but the enabling act did is it made him dictator?
He could do whatever he wanted so from that moment forward. He was Germany's dictator and Fuhrer and
The world was on a path to war
Hitler's defeat in 1945
Ended World War two, but it was just the beginning of the protracted conflict between capitalism and communism
The Cold War would become a struggle for power that consumed the United States and Soviet Union for 45 years
both Sears correctly calculated its eventual end Nostradamus wrote
One day the two great leaders will become friends
Their great power will be seen to increase
the new land
America will be at the height of its power - the bloody one the number is reported
It's almost as if Nostradamus is seeing a picture of
gorbachev
shoulder to shoulder with
Reagan he said one day the two great leaders will become friends their great power will be seen to increase
Nostradamus saw the future like a movie
Gorbachev the premier of Russia and his friend Ronald Reagan created the strategic arms reduction treaty and
Started us to a road away from the Cold War
dr. Bueno de Mesquita
z-- algorithm produced remarkably similar results to the prediction of Nostradamus the model was used to
predict in advance
that there would be a coup against Mikhail Gorbachev in the Soviet Union I
Had before the coup sent a communication to some people at the CIA saying that there was going to be a coup
That the coup was likely to fail within a week of its occurring
That Gorbachev as a result of the coup would be left in a weakened position and that within a year or so
after that the Soviet Union would implode and break up into autonomous
republics and ceased to exist
Side by side comparisons of the methods of Nostradamus and bueno de Mesquita
highlight, how science has split from its astrological roots one of the key figures in this evolution was Sir Isaac Newton the inventor of
Modern physics a man widely hailed as the greatest scientist in history
Newton's theory about the universe probably was the beginning of the end for astrology simply because the
Idea that the same law of physics
Controlled the movement of the heavens as controlled the movement and the changes of objects on earth
Meant that old idea that the heavens the unchanging heavens were
Controlling or at least contributing to changes on earth and to human life on earth was going to fall away
Most of Newton's work grows out of this idea that Copernicus started that you could create a mathematics
That would give you a way to determine
thousands of years in the future
where the planets were a lot of lineman's they were making a hundred years before Isaac Newton this would have been mysticism if
Nostradamus had announced that all natural law has as its base math man
he probably would have been hauled up in front of the Inquisition Newton could get away with it because
Mathematics had developed to the point that it had power the laws of motion were useful to people who were firing guns
And others without Newton's law of motion. It was very hard to aim a cannon accurately
Newton was also a deeply religious
Man who saw no conflict between his science and his belief in a divine being his great aim really was probably
Religious right was to try to understand how did God?
Transform materials, how did God create materials? How was God's power?
Located somewhere outside of this world how was it actually mediated through to human being?
Newton came to believe that the Bible contained a secret code that once deciphered would foretell the future
He worked feverishly to devise a mathematical formula to crack the code. He was convinced lay hidden in the scriptures
Newton never published all of his mystical works
There are works
About alchemy and their works about his prophetic timetables that have never been published that were still in manuscript in the British Museum
He didn't make a big deal of it during his lifetime because he wanted to be thought of as a rationalist
And he wanted that job from the king of being the keeper of the mint
He didn't want to rock the boat by introducing what at that time period the early 18th century
would have been
Old-fashioned ideas at the time that is towards the end of the 17th century there was great interest in apocalyptic
prophecy and there was his opinion going around at the end of the world is really close a
Newton thought that he could use prophecy to disprove that prevalent opinion and
That he could show that it won't happen
before
2060 this was his
calculation and this
Calculation of his is based on a piece of scripture on a verse in the book of the Damned you
Well he thought he found a beginning date and projecting from that he thought he'd found an ending date
Curiously enough the ending date would be right about now in other words the early 20th century by Newton's calculation
Like Isaac Newton Nostradamus believed that the Bible could be used to foretell the future
He foresaw three antichrists across the centuries the first was Napoleon and the second was Adolf Hitler
and if you look at Napoleon and Hitler you can see that they're
Massive similarities not in technique not an idea, but in what they want
Ultimately power is what the Antichrist wants, and it's secular power its power. That is
Individualistic that is based on the free will to choose evil to choose bad paths to choose
Paths that are against the ideas of God and the church if that's what the individual wants to choose
And we see that very clearly in Napoleon and we see it again very clearly in some of Nostradamus as quatrains about development
When we get to Hitler we see almost a mad beast
someone that the whole world has to unite to put back into his cage each of these antichrists seems to
Exponentially be worse than last
so
The final Antichrist which is supposed to have emerged some time between 1999 and September 11th
2001
Which may have been described in the prophecies?
We're in the times of the Antichrist now when we get to the third Antichrist
We're looking at a culture clash a war not just of
City-states or empire but a war of religions and cultures for the very soul of mankind
While Nostradamus was vague on whether man could survive the arrival of the Antichrist
He did point to a coming event that will be disturbingly decisive in one of his quatrains quatrain
1074 he mentions very specifically that soon after the turning of the seventh millennium
Which is any year now that there will be a major disturbance World War?
Three is not specifically mentioned, but there are indications that there is a major global
Conflict on the way as if to emphasize the peril the image of a major encounter is a theme
Nostradamus repeats over and over again
Dr. Bueno de Mesquita - has issued his own chilling prediction regarding the prospect of the war to end all wars and possibly
the existence of mankind
Over 70 million people perished in the two world wars of the 20th century a third world war if fought with nuclear weapons
Could be even more deadly
Nostradamus was an acute observer of human nature's tendency toward conflict it moved him to examine the specter of a final world war
There is one type of science which
Nostradamus refers to a lots and and he was well read at that science
It is
History he had read all of the historians of Greece in a robe, but he also used his knowledge of
history of the great events of the past of
human nature which
often tends to repeat itself and
Recreate the same catastrophes the same wars over and over again
The past announces the future the future repeats the past
religious wars in particular reverberate in the prophecies of Nostradamus
He pointed specifically to the widening gulf between battling religious extremists as the initial step to ruin
Some observers who have studied his work believed the initial stages of Nostradamus as prophecy are unfolding
When America sends more carrier task forces into the Middle Eastern region?
Within three days of announcing they were sailing to the Persian Gulf
Georgia is invaded by Russia
That is the great chess game that is about to embark
Russia
Their vassal is Iran for America their vassal is Israel
Nostradamus feared the danger posed by religious conflicts. He lived in a time when the true superpower was the church
Even kings and queens had to be cautious
This informed and shaped his understanding of political forces
If I write a letter to this church Minh is he going to go to the Inquisition are they going to come in and tear
Me apart. I'm sure that influenced his idea of
Society in the future and so forth and his idea of human nature basically the church in those days was very strict about that
The future was in the hands of God
Nobody could put a hand on the future
except God so when you claimed as Nostradamus did
To know what was going to happen in the future you were in a dangerous position
And he knew that the church had its eye on him
every now and then
There was a warning that maybe he was going to be
Taken to court put in prison to protect himself from the constant threat of persecution
Nostradamus couched his work in deliberately vague language that would not put him at odds with his enemies
This perceived deception is still part of his reputation today
It's a question. That's often been asked for
450 years now was he for real was he a conman
Nostradamus made it clear that he had to use the devices of a charlatan to hide his prophecies
He openly says so in his writings that he had to commit them to a nebulous wild passionate poetic state
to mask them so that they're clear enough for good people to see the future and change it and
Obscure enough that evil people would not see enough to make it worse
Like Nostradamus before him Bruce bueno de Mesquita has his detractors
Most academics are comfortable analyzing the past and don't use science and math to predict the future
early in my career doing work on rational decision-making on war and
Then applying it to prediction
I was given a lot of grief first of all a lot of people found offensive the idea
That Wars could be rationally calculated decisions. They like the idea that people stumbled into them by accident
And I pointed out that the vast majority
Of wars are won by the side that starts the war which suggests that they've prepared to win
It wasn't a random event the world of human behavior is probabilistic and this creates a certain amount of
tension and pressure within the political science world
for a large community of political scientists a great resistance
to this kind of
Modeling they they don't feel that mathematics has a proper place in understanding politics
Those who test the boundaries of science have often been greeted with skepticism
Almost a century after Nostradamus lived the roots of this intellectual freedom began to take hold and the age of reason was born
Fela soaps in the 18th century and the Enlightenment said we are relying upon a new method and
one part of that new method was the method of
scientific reasoning the idea that there was a
method of
reasoning that could be
That was outside human beings that didn't rely upon
the words of authorities whatever shape those may take
Was was actually a very powerful movement in human history you?
Had the great rationalist thinkers who thought that we could create whatever future we
desire and again
That's the source of very important historical events the American Revolution the French Revolution in which the idea of God
Church and the king who suddenly overthrown and human individual free will was put in its place
It's no accident that we went from kingdoms to nations at the same time that we develop
Rationalism science and all of these ideas that separated us out from the great prophetic pattern
This rational view of the world pushed prophecy to the margins the idea of the heavens controlling the earth was considered outdated
mysticism soon prediction became part of the scientific process
part of the Scientific Revolution
Was precisely the emphasis on?
experiment and
prediction the theory must be tested through experiments and it must be tested through the
Predictions that it makes about these experiments
Bueno de Mesquita. Z' own work employs the same philosophy
Decoding human behavior with hard numbers to forecast the future and trusting computers over his own personal view
He has used his model to analyze one of the most volatile situations in the world the future of Iran
My analyses indicate that the harder the American administration
pushes Iran
the more influence the
Hardliners have and the more likely it is that as a matter of
Nationalist pride the Iranians will want to go ahead and build it with your weapon on the other hand if we show a more conciliatory
Attitude if we show a willingness to renew diplomatic
relations with Iran
Then the hardliners will be left isolated and the more moderate elements in Iran will come to the fore dominate their domestic politics
And will have a much better situation
while bueno de Mesquita believes a peaceful solution is possible he
recognizes us Iranian relations are fragile if we push in the wrong direction and
We help empower the hardest liners in Iran
then we face the
Probable necessity of using military force to try to take out their nuclear capability
and if they succeed in building some bombs or hiding facilities that we can't take out then we're looking at a
Massive need for invasion and overthrow of the Iranian government
And that's gonna be that would be a tough battle a cataclysmic battle
The Iranians will use nuclear weapons if they can acquire them bats is messaging extremely dangerous situation
Nostradamus experts say that the famed prophet also predicted world war three would occur early in the 21st century
They point to growing tensions between Russia and the United States over the war on terror as possible early warning signs
Nostradamus wrote
Great po great evil will be received through Gauls
famed terror to the maritime lion
people will pass by the sea in infinite numbers without a quarter of a million escaping and
Thus he goes on to say in?
century two quatrain 94 the kingdom's given to men incapable of prudence
Will do these things then for the great brother's death and dissension
Now we've moved with this passage into the near future
We've started in a way with the fact that Russia and America were both
Close allies at the onset of the war on terror if a new Cold War develops between the US and Russia
The two brothers referred to in Nostradamus as quatrains it could rapidly lapse into armed conflict
or worse
The decisive war Russia and America are his two great brothers
And it was often shown in not only Nostradamus, but other predictive traditions
that
there is a
Pattern that said the Cold War was never going to cause a thermal nuclear conflict but within three
years and seven months to thirteen years
From the time that a Middle Eastern source undermines this Brotherhood
Russia and America could go to war thermonuclear war
Just as Nostradamus believed in the power of human intervention and matters of fate sodas bueno de Mesquita
He suggests policymakers look to a surprising source for solutions to the challenges we face
Math I believe that an algorithm such as mine or other techniques are
The way to solve these problems and to avoid being on the wrong side of the fragile
Choices that we face that can lead to calamity
Nostradamus predicted increasing trouble for our times and as the world's remaining superpower the u.s.
faces tough choices about when to deploy its military might in a climate where tempers flare and
Conditions are ripe for collapse the margin for error is small
The fate of America and the world may rest on key decisions that Nostradamus and wayna de Mesquita warned
Must not be mishandled
Iraq has been a focal point of cultural and political interest for millennia the
Region between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers is known as the cradle of civilization
Nostradamus feared that a calamity in this area would have far-reaching implications
He talks about a great army of Crusaders
occupying
Mesopotamia
Mesopotamia in Greek means between the two rivers the land between the two rivers that is Iraq he talks about a
Fast Company
Charging up the side of a river
that evokes to me the roostertail dust columns of
Panzer tank like attacks of American armored
companies going up Iraq during Operation Iraqi Freedom
Nostradamus warns his hand finally through the bloody *** he cannot guarantee his safety by the sea
Between two rivers he will fear the military end
The black angry one will make him repentant if you try to follow some of these quadrants
And you say ok we already have a huge war that's been going on for a long time in Baghdad in Iraq
There's really no good outcome to any of this if the war in Iraq galvanizes the entire Islamic community
Nostradamus suggests a deadly domino effect by means of three secretly United
Seeking for death by ambushes one against the other and the renewal of the triumvirate shall last for seven years
Yet the fame of such a sect shall spread the world over and the sacrifice of the holy and immaculate host
shall be upheld and then shall the lords be to a number of the north and
victorious over the eastern ones and
There shall be a great noise and warlike tumult that all the east shall quake and fear those two brothers of the north
Who are not yet brothers?
Nostradamus understood
Well the total adherence to biblical authority
He lived during the dawning years of a shift from a world dominated by the church that persecuted independent thinkers
To a rational scientific one where dissension was tolerated
You can see it first of all in the crisis of biblical authority right the crisis of the Catholic Church the
Schism that we call the Protestant Reformation
People said ok what is the basis of our Authority is it Scripture is it?
Tradition is it textual authorities
Or is it our own eye witness or a person's own?
Conscience by the time of Napoleon the idea of the church had become just an adjunct to the state
And it was this destruction of the Catholic Church's power and authority over all
aspects of life that really did in the whole
Of prophecy if the church was not in charge if the church was like the great Authority
Then did it matter if God had a plan as the influence of science gradually emerged the practice of prophecy went into hiding
Secret societies were formed to promote and pass on what were now considered to be the more esoteric
arts the Templars were a group of knights
appointed first of all by the king of Jerusalem and then ratified by the Pope to
protect travelers in the Holy Land the Templar secret knowledge seems to be the moment of Revelation
That's the moment when Jesus returns. That's the olly-olly-oxen-free
for Christianity
The immense popularity of books and movies above the Knights Templar such as The Da Vinci Code
support the ongoing fascination commanded by this medieval order
Nostradamus is possible connection with the mysterious brotherhood has long been a source of debate right around the corner from
Nostradamus house and Salon de Provence
There's a church that was designed and built by the Templars the information they carved on the front of that church
Could actually be one of Nostradamus
foremost influences for looking into the future and his vision of the future and
Directly influences awareness of this time period we're in right now
Part of Nostradamus his phenomenal success was his own clever use of secret methods
Throughout history would be prophets have kept their methods secret
Why why?
to gain advantage
Obviously if you have a way to predict the future
You don't want other people to get it
If others can have access to your methods
They can poke holes in them they can find out
That they don't really work them as prophecy became cloaked in secret and shadow in the 17th century
It took on the air of the occult and became viewed as something dark slightly dangerous
ironically this change also assured Nostradamus --is enduring thing
Nostradamus was sort of at this key time period in between
The developing science and the last gasp of natural philosophy, it's a very powerful one
Nostradamus is the only one of the seers from the Renaissance or the late Middle Ages who has survived?
Behavioral scientists believe that traditional prophecy is now unnecessary that mathematics is the key to dealing with today's chaotic world
What's really nice about this algorithm is that?
Thinking rigorously and just thinking
Systematically often come up with predictions that are completely different to those that you would actually in your gut you think out the right
Answer we should do this game
Theory assumes people are rational a lot of people misinterpret what that means it really means something very simple it just means
People try to do what they believe is in their best interest they can get it wrong
Things could turn out badly for them. They make decisions based on their beliefs and their preferences
I don't know whether I'd want to call it saving ourselves from ourselves, but it really lets us detach our
Emotional or our biases towards one set of behaviors being rights to what is the right behavior in this particular?
Circumstances bueno de Mesquita believes that his model can help steer our leaders away from a key
misunderstanding that often foils their best laid plans that
Misunderstanding is thinking that foreign affairs are somehow different from other domestic politics and that it's between nations
Nations make policy and that nations pursue their national interests
Why is it wrong because?
leaders run countries and leaders are
Interested in their own welfare and their own welfare may not be the same as the welfare of their citizens
There's a time to step down leaders
Don't like to step down they pursue their own interests they pursue staying in power
This is just one of the complex issues that is at play in America's policy in Iraq
Where one wrong step could lead us down a path to catastrophe?
Being a hawk is not always the best response being a doll is not always a soft option
The optimal thing to do is gonna vary by circumstance and this led to sort out when we should negotiate
When we should think about a military type option bueno de Mesquita sees Iraq as a series of knotted threads?
Where one wrong pull could lead to a number of bad outcomes?
The likely path of a withdrawal is that we would pull American forces out of a combat role
They would be sitting in enclaves in
Iraq waiting to be redeployed to the United States
nostradamus for saw a similar chain reaction it's interesting that he describes a
Calamitous war under cancer as a key
Disaster for a country that is born under cancer the United States is born under the sign of cancer
from Fez the kingdom stretches out across
Europe the city burns and sword slices the great one of Asia land and sea a great army that blue
Cross driven to death if you look at where we are in Iraq then the whole idea of Persia
Which is how Nostradamus would have thought of Iran in all the conflicts that we've been having over the last
10 20 years in the Middle East
It seems that Nostradamus saw them as one seamless whole he didn't divide them up into different conflicts
He saw them as this happens
Then that leads to the next step and that leads to the next step the many threats to global peace are clear
But other visions of Nostradamus and bueno de Mesquita
Regarding the United States are alarming can this country stem the tide of potentially devastating
Threats will America remain a major power on the world stage, or is it past its prime doomed to decline and decay
The United States did not exist during Nostradamus as lifetime, but the Prophet wrote many quatrains about a single dominant superpower
Hinting at its dark eventual fate as if answering his description
America has stood alone as the world's most powerful nation since the cold war
Now it stands at a pivotal crossroads can America transcend its troubles, or is a Titanic collapse already underway
America has its own very powerful sense of prophecy
One that grows out of the rationalists age of the American Revolution
But that is based on a belief that America has a destiny now. This is a rational
Secular destiny that we can create our own society our own reality
And it will be as powerful as all encompassing as Rome or Egypt
Well, we're there we're the most powerful empire. That's ever been on the face of the earth beyond the British Empire beyond Rome beyond Egypt
Nostradamus writes the king will want to enter the new city
Through its enemies. They will come to subdue it
captive free falsely to speak and act
King to be outside. He will keep far from the enemy
Empires die this is a lesson that Nostradamus learned and his grandfather's knee sitting in the ruins of glanum
We're in the time period now where we've reached this maximum expression of our culture of our Empire and as
Nostradamus tells us we're facing challenges, and we may not be able to overcome those challenges
Nostradamus experts believe he points to China as the next prominent precursor to America's fall from grace
He compares this threat to one he understood. Well as a serious student of history
The Oriental will come out of his seat
crossing the Apennine mountains seeing France
Transported through the sky the waters and snows and shall strike everyone with his rod
Nostradamus is using the illusion that was popular in his time of the last great boogeyman for Europe, which was jenga's khan and his
brothers and
Sons genghis khan was the legendary 13th century founder of the largest empire in recorded history, which stretched across asia
Nostradamus is comparison of this extraordinary dominance with the current surge of Chinese power is telling if it wasn't for
the death of
Genghis Khan and the death of his other successors
They would have conquered Europe, so he is speaking of a new Chinese Empire
That's coming, and it's not going to be America. It's going to be the century of the resurgent great Mongol
China is the rise of communist, China
Truly the threat to America's preeminence that Nostradamus
Suggests dr. Bruce bueno de Mesquita has focused his sights on answering these very questions if we look out a hundred years
And we ask the question what?
Will the role of the United States be in the world?
It will certainly no longer be the sole hegemonic power that it is today
historically America has relied on its powers of innovation to ignore pessimistic predictions and
avoid the foreign arrows that have sought to bring it down this cultural strength traces its roots back to the Age of Enlightenment an
Intellectual movement that began in France during the late 17th and early 18th
centuries one of the most important ways in which science has
Progressed or you know scientific knowledge has accumulated has been public and private funding for science that support of science
came to the United States in the 1860s 1870s and
From that point on you get a huge growth of science
The growth of intellectual ideas led to scientific discoveries and advancements that vastly improved not only man's understanding of the world
But his quality of life suddenly
Science began to attract financial patronage once enjoyed by prophecy that really took off
as a result of war really in the Second World War with public funding for military
research and from that point on you know if you think about the amount of
Taxpayers money which is spent on funding science through the National Science Foundation through the National Institutes of Health
It's huge I mean
it's and and to get that kind of investment in scientific research means that
Scientific knowledge is going to grow at an incredible pace, and that's what's happening today
in the prophecies of nostradamus
It's supposed to be at the time when America is left as
The sole superpower when that happens in America is at the height of its power. That's the beginning of the end
We're already seeing the decline of America as we speak
Bruce bueno de Mesquita is also focused on America's precarious future
While he agrees that there is trouble ahead
He is not convinced that China is ready to take over the role as the next great superpower now
There are lots of people who think that in 100 years China is going to be the world's great power
I think that's wrong. I think China will be a considerably weaker country because it's going to implode
It's interesting by the way to note that
China is the world's second largest economy today. It was the world's second largest economy in
1890
It has not moved in that sense. It's still a poor country with low per capita income
With a high income inequality as it grows more. It's gonna
Be hard to sustain the corruption and the the support for the central authority so I think it will
Collapse under its own weight if this prediction is accurate America can perhaps resolve its current problem before it's too late
According to bueno de Mesquita. How we address these problems may pose our greatest challenge?
science through an algorithm such as mine can point the way to
Find solutions to problems we need good science that evaluates logic and evidence
And we need to pick leaders who have enough wisdom to recognize the logic in the evidence and make good decisions
Unfortunately wisdom is a very scarce commodity very few people have it most of the time
Most elected officials don't have it if you're stuck with people who don't have wisdom
And all the science in the world will not save us. I'm always struck the
Decision-making is still is the last field that hasn't been systematized if we think about science we know how to think about
biology physics, we know how to think about chemistry we can put people on the moon, we have
tremendous advances in terms of understanding
decision-making processing people
We have tremendous computing power in computers
But yeah when it comes to decision-making it's still people we still rely on people's gut feelings to make these decisions
Scientists such as dr. Bueno de Mesquita have surpassed the constraints of scientific theory
But will the very science that saves us turn against us with a swift and deadly might
Nostradamus visions encompass the largest themes of life and human survival one image that occurs repeatedly in his writings is the Sun?
While he most often uses this primordial symbol to connote rebirth and renewal
The Sun also looms as an unmistakably dangerous element
By he'd like the Sun upon the sea around
Negroponte the fish are a spoiled the inhabitants will cut them up
When Rhodes and Genoa are in want of biscuits Nostradamus?
mostly describes a
Time in the future where there's the Sun burning and scorching and boiling the rivers and lakes
Nostradamus stressed the awesome power of the Sun
Implying that nothing can save man from nature's fury
including periodic extreme swings in the sun's temperature
global warming and the whole idea of droughts and agricultural disasters and
climate changes changes in the universe around us all of these ideas are very very powerful - Nostradamus
And he spent a lot of quatrains
Talking about the results of these
events
Nostradamus warns in the year that Saturn and Mars are equally fire the air is very dry long meteor
From a hidden fires a great place burns with heat little rain not wins Wars
invasions we can actually say that his
references to droughts in Africa and North Africa after do with the expansion of the
Sahara Desert and the problems with Darfur and Sudan we can also see that the whole global warming
is tied into his idea of floods and
the great
disaster that will befall Western civilization
For 40 years the rainbow will not appear for 40 years it will appear every day
The dry earth will grow more parched and there will be great floods related to sea
He talks about a flood that comes from the ocean and goes all the way to Paris
Which is what would happen if the oceans begin to rise it goes on to talk about super storms
the great city of the maritime ocean
Surrounded by a swamp of crystal in the winter solstice and in the spring will be tried by terrible winds
Bruce bueno de Mesquita has also analyzed the long-term implications of global warming and points out the
Complexities of an effective remedy to the danger the earth has a climatic cycle of rising and falling
temperatures, but we can do something about how much energy we burn whether we drive SUVs or drive small cars whether
We use
Incandescent lights or we use fluorescent lights the effect that human activity has on global warming
Is clear it's clear that it's real while the technological advances of the Industrial Age in the 19th century
Fueled man's phenomenal progress that same science now threatens our survival as a species
Global warming is just one example of the inventions of science as a potential source of danger and a number of other man-made threats
Ultimately could lead to our destruction
Science is a double-edged sword
And you know the science that can
Create genetic engineering that can end diseases is the same science in the hands of the Nazis that try to destroy humanity
We can light the world with the atom we can destroy the world with the atom
we can create a
New world we can destroy it
We're heading into an era of profound change
And how we handle that 10 years 20 years
Could be crucial to whether or not we have descendants science now pervades almost every area of our lives
But in many ways that has always been the case even
Prophecy is intimately tied to science the shared methods of Nostradamus and dr.
Bueno de Mesquita are a compelling case in point you could say that there is a similarity in the way Nostradamus and mr.
Y know de Mesquita approached the idea of
Assigning values to individual interactions a degree of being able to read people correctly sized people up correctly dr.
Bueno de Mesquita points to the objectivity of his model, but like Nostradamus
He seems to rely on insights into human nature in the application of his algorithm the piece. That's unique about his interviewing
some skills and his ability to
get people to tell him things that they might not tell somebody else he has a very particular kind of
very subtle skill in
Eliciting confessions
That allows him to
Extract and discern and combine information that I bet nobody else could get he interviews experts
And he says what do you think will happen and?
Then he runs it through his model and often he gets a different result and his result is more accurate than what the experts predict
and that sort of seems odd because
That's where a lot of the input came from to begin with he found and his model
explains that the
perceptions of
Policymakers can be wrong because they don't systematically analyze their environmental. They have imperfect information
They their
perspectives on the world is distorted and using Bruce's model you get a
more accurate description of the world and of a political environment
This same subjective insight into the human soul perhaps comes closest to describing the divining gift of Nostradamus
While the stars are his primary source of inspiration
His keen intuition and instinct for human behavior and motivation made him the seer for all centuries
he was very very good at reading people, and yes, I'm sure that influenced his idea of
Society in the future and so forth and his idea of human nature basically. I think anytime that you're capable of making
rational
About human behavior, but that's going to carry over into your larger view of history
Most of us don't make very good rational deductions about other people's motives, and how they're going to act
a keen understanding of humanity
Maybe what sets prophets like Nostradamus and their modern counterparts like bueno de Mesquita apart
It is a deeply seeded ability to see into the heart of human behavior the world of human behavior is probabilistic
Einstein is reported to have said that God doesn't roll the dice the universe
Well God rolls the dice with human behavior people behave probabilistically
And that means that making predictions is a very complicated thing
It's why what we call the hard sciences physics chemistry, so they're really the easy sciences the hard sciences of the social sciences
But we're dealing with strategic particles who?
Respond to the fact that we're trying to deal with them the precise
Measurements of a winning predictive ratio are difficult to determine as the boundaries of science and prophecy merge
But Bruce bueno de Mesquita brings both to bear on the complex issues
He examines such as the possible fatal heating of our planet
I've looked at the global warming issue with my algorithm, and it points to some I think important insights
There's a strong inclination to pursue global treaties as a way to regulate and resolve
The emissions problem and its effects on warming they have no beneficial effect. They are just feel-good mechanisms
They're Pat's on the back without real beneficial consequences the implications of bueno de Mesquita
''s analysis are grim more troubling is that Nostradamus
concurs Nostradamus describes
The Sun becoming like this terrible fire in the sky
At the 48th degree of the climacteric at the end of cancer
So great is the drought that fish in the sea river and lake are boiled egg daily?
Southwest France and distress from fire in the sky
It could be describing a great drought. That's going across the great plains of
America and Canada the grain belts of the world and might have some direct
connection to
the global famines that master Thomas for seeds
always focused on the big picture
Nostradamus was fascinated by crises that could have global consequences
If there was a famine that was bad enough to
Shut down the American food production
Where it would really look bad is not as so much in America. We'd be bad enough, but it would be catastrophic
Beyond America's borders because we are the breadbasket of the world
It's been estimated that if exports of food were cut off
In a year's time
400 million people in Africa might die from the famine starvation
Nostradamus sees this famine spreading out of control and our world descending into barbarism
The great famine which I sense approaching will often turn up in various areas then become worldwide
It will be so vast and long-lasting that people will grab roots from the trees and children from the ***
it would be so complete and
virulent that
Babies would be snatched from the breast and man would eat his fellow, man
Nostradamus is terrifying scenario is one of his most graphic descriptions of the end of the world
But the exact date time and place of its unfolding these are tormenting mysteries that have eluded even
prophets
Can boy today mosquitoes formula finally answered these questions, and what does Nostradamus see ahead?
Down the dark tunnel of time he will see sooner and later
great changes made
extreme horrors and vengeance for as the moon is thus led by its angel the heavens draw near to the
Today's headlines are dominated by troubling political and economic forecasts
But more frightening is that the universe has always followed a pattern for periodic destruction
Our planet has undergone at least five major extinctions in its known history the last one occurred 65 million years ago when dinosaurs?
Were wiped off the face of the earth
prophets and ancient cultures alike have long written of final days
All great systems of spirit have some vision of the end of days
Armageddon mark the Beast the fourth Horseman writes Sun vision of apocalypse Nostradamus
quatrains described the end of days in horrifying detail
I fire he will destroy their city a
Cold and cruel heart blood will poor mercy to know
words like
Death and
other violent words are a recurrence and are there by the
Dozen so the quatrains are full of those and they announce a very dark and bloody future
Both Nostradamus and Bruce bueno de Mesquita may share the belief that fate is not entirely predestined that
certain choices at critical junctures can change the course of human destiny
But here the situation grows extremely disturbing
are we able to see a larger planetary crisis that may now be reaching a point of no return and
What is the right choice to avert an apocalypse?
People might wonder can this model sort of save the world from World War 3 or from terrorism or from other sorts of catastrophes?
And the answer is you know it depends, right?
It's not in some very grand sense of course not but in the sense that it helps us make better decisions
Implement better policies get outcomes that are closer to the outcomes we'd like to achieve
It makes a contribution in the direction of making the world a safer place
So like wow you know how could how do we think about?
What to do when we know what's going to happen does that mean we should try to change it does that mean?
We should accept
It does that mean that human action can't still have a particular impact in this domain
all theories make simplifying
Assumptions about how the world works and when you make simplifying assumptions what you're doing is you're leaving out
important parts of the story and
In the real world sometimes those important parts of the story that you leave out matter very much in particular cases
It may be in the gap between prediction theory and reality that the skill of prophecy plays its most critical role
The art of intuition might yet be the best tool to foretell the future
Science and mysticism are definitely Rican verging in this time period and the way they're doing it is very uninteresting
It's not so much hard science
That's developing mystical ideas is that the soft sciences the sciences around the edge?
Of what we would think of as math and physics are beginning to develop ideas that are extremely
Mystical, but the scientist does is go deeply into the facts the algorithms
Available by gathering everything that the present holds in order to predict
What will the future bring, but what the scientists can't do is short Direction?
What the Prophet did was the Prophet said hey?
There's going to be disaster if you get so lost in the present that you don't have a vision of values of ethics
What are your dreams?
The scientists and the Prophet in the ideal world need to work together
They need to complement each other, but we need both of them
I think Bruce is a very unique individual
And he has very unique talents how he conducts the interviews the information he gets out of people how he gets that information
how he combines and elicits and hones and
Makes that information consistent from experts is a big part of accuracy of the model
And I would bet that if other people do the interviews
The how comes in the predictions are nowhere near as good as when he doesn't interview
the old cliche about computers garbage in garbage out is really true for falafel making and simulations a
model can only be as good as
the things that you teach it in terms of the things that pay attention to because
humans think more than just in their brain we actually do have another mechanism for
Thinking that's beyond our rational mind
So depending on a hunch is actually tapping into an intelligence that we have just beyond our own life
the art of prediction even the scientific method itself could be in the beginning stages of
revolutionary change in the world of social behavior and human behavior
We're really at the very beginning
Just in the past generations starting to make serious progress
And trying to think about a scientific approach to forecast them there have been people like Pythagoras or Aristotle
moving farther forward in history
Isaac Newton Galileo and so forth who wanted to use
Science to predict, and that's what I'm trying to do a plan to work out how the world of human decision-making
actually works
the art of prediction remains a work in progress
Will man find a way to avert an apocalyptic scenario
Nostradamus has visions offer. Hope though time may be running out
Nostradamus is brilliance is in allowing for free will we can of our own free will choose to have certain very disastrous?
futures or we can choose better futures
Even if God did give us a divine plan we can still screw up. Just like Adam did we can say Oh, No
Thank you. I don't really like this wonderful garden
I'm gonna go eat that Apple, and we'll see what happens after that that's probably the closest
Comparison you can make between
Mr.. Bueno de Mesquita as work and Nostradamus is the fact that they do include and think about alternative realities?
I certainly don't think that people's fate is
Ermand they have choice. We all have choice the models that I work on our models about making choices
Now I think that people can be
Influenced and these models are about how to influence people to produce better outcomes
I am optimistic that the solutions will be found
But we have to recognize that
small errors in decisions small failures to work through logic and evidence carefully
Can lead to disastrous consequences while events in history may not be set in stone
Human attitudes are another matter
Decisions we make now will determine if our age will be remembered as one of valor or one where failure to act
Leads to tragedy we're coming up onto some of the most challenging times
That the human race has ever faced a time of transition
Maybe as important is when we discovered agriculture
The issues that we're going to face are immense the territory ahead is dangerous
But filled with opportunities if we want to find the opportunities and skirt the dangers
We're going to have to remain interested
In looking ahead what we have to think about is
What would be a better resolution of a problem and how can we bring other people around to that resolution?
Can we help people?
See a better approach and produce a more peaceful world. There's also a more just world an apocalypse always involves
Destruction and rebirth the nature of spirit always is is that we're free to affect it
We're free to change it. We're free to have it happen