In this conversation, political analyst Yuriy Romanenko and philosopher Andriy Baumeister discuss the concept of a "new axial age"—an era of fundamental civilizational transformations comparable to the pivotal period of 800-200 BCE, when great philosophical and religious teachings emerged simultaneously from Greece to China. The interlocutors analyze the collapse of the liberal world order, America's shift from democracy promotion to cynical national interest realism, Europe's decline as an innovation hub, and the degradation of political elites. Special attention is devoted to artificial intelligence's impact on the future of work and society: experts predict the disappearance of 92 million traditional jobs by 2030 and the emergence of vast masses of "useless people" deprived of motivation and career prospects. The discussion covers the formation of a new world order with 4-5 power centers, regional leaders and "oasis zones" for capital, the role of virtual worlds and gaming communities as alternative realities, and Ukraine's fate in this shifting landscape.
The Concept of Axial Time: From Karl Jaspers to the Present Day
Yuriy Romanenko: Friends, hello to all—surfers, slackers, deviants! Today we have a magnificent guest whom you all know well—Andriy Baumeister. We'll be discussing the new axial age. Yesterday he had an excellent year-end broadcast on his channel. I watched it too, though I haven't finished it yet, but I took notes, listened, and saw events I'd already forgotten about. And I thought that indeed, the new axial age is an excellent term, a very apt concept.
For those unfamiliar with the German philosopher Karl Jaspers, let me explain that he coined this term—"axial age." It's a concept denoting the period between 800 and 200 BCE, when essentially simultaneously across different world regions, seeds of the new appeared: new religions emerged, philosophical ideas searching for the meaning of existence, forming new ethical norms. Myth separated from rational thinking. Names like Plato, Aristotle, Buddha, Confucius, Laozi, and others began to shine.
This concept highlights the moment when humanity first became conscious of itself as an autonomous subject. It helps us understand that there was similarity in processes across various regions, despite the fact that they often barely communicated with each other, or communication was very weak due to the logistics and technology of that time. This term introduced the notion of a spiritual revolution whose consequences we still feel today.
So I thought: what indicates we're in an equally massive process? What new figures have emerged, what new philosophical or religious teachings? But in any case, it seems to me that Curtis Yarvin is too small a figure to claim he's a harbinger of the new axial age. We'll talk about this with Andriy Olehovych today. Good evening, Andriy Olehovych!
Andriy Baumeister: Good evening, Yuriy!
Yuriy Romanenko: So, let's start with the framework. What signs, what factors of a new axial age do you see? Who are these figures? Because it seems to me that today the key, most crucial problem is that the guides of human civilization—whether in the U.S., Europe, China, or Russia—they all look rather small against the backdrop of the tasks facing humanity.
Because essentially everywhere we see this gerontocracy ruling enormous social systems. Whether it's the U.S.—Republicans or Democrats, these are all people of very advanced age, people operating with rather anachronistic views and concepts. China too, and Russia, well, that's obvious—encapsulation in history, no new breakthrough ideas. Europe, despite having many young leaders trying to overcome something, on the other hand shows absolute rigidity of thinking and fear. It seems to me that fear dominates Europe.
Perhaps you'll elaborate on this later, show us, because you're inside Europe and see it very well, and I'm therefore particularly interested in focusing on what's happening in Germany itself, in other major European countries that have always been pillars of thought. And therefore the world may indeed be on the threshold of such fundamental changes determined by the emergence of artificial intelligence and various technological innovations that have radically changed communication, logistics, and affect social relationships. But most of humanity hasn't yet grasped the scale of the transition we're approaching.
The Collapse of the Western Project and the Birth of a New Worldview
Andriy Baumeister: Yes, absolutely! If we're talking about the original term, it's been slightly adjusted in recent decades. For example, the recently deceased renowned historian Shmuel Eisenstadt shifted Jaspers' timeframe slightly. But how to put it simply? This is a fundamental change in worldview, a fundamental transformation of the worldview and everything within it. That is, the main ideas, main goals, main values.
Why do I believe we're now experiencing this new axial age? I believe this year is precisely the beginning, because everything connected to the old picture is collapsing. Let me touch on this briefly. For example, from the sixteenth century Europe ventured into the oceans and by the late nineteenth century became the dominant force in the world. That is, a certain set of ideas: Enlightenment, Christianity, technologies, political ideas.
And in the twentieth century, after two world wars, both the United States and the Soviet Union were essentially two schools of European thought, two European projects—liberal and communist. In 1991 the first one, the communist one, was destroyed. And now over the past twenty years the United States has also been gradually sliding down, grasping and trying to resuscitate itself.
And we're now seeing the first signs of this time when the European project, the European idea or Western idea is gradually becoming just one among others, and in the near future threatens to become one of five or six forces—that is, it's being marginalized or ceasing to be primary.
Accordingly, all the authorities, personalities, ideas connected with the greater Western project are departing. It turns out that technologies are easily possible without the Western idea. It turns out it's not necessary to have liberalism, democracy, fundamental freedoms, human rights—that is, this entire package of the old world, without which modern systems work perfectly well.
And to conclude what you said. You ask: where are those personalities or ideas that show this new break, this new worldview? I can answer a question with a question, but in the new worldview, personalities don't necessarily have to determine direction. What if it's a philosophy of big numbers, big programs, and what essentially ceases to be a personal principle?
Of course, I wouldn't want precisely these ideas to become primary, but what I sense and see is precisely this rejection of the personal principle. This is a European project. Why should personalities determine things? They may rather transform into a servicing system, servicing resources for more powerful forces.
The Race for Super-Intelligence and the End of the Era of Individuals
Andriy Baumeister: 2025 is the year of an explosion in competition for super-intelligence development. I spoke about this in my year-end video. Trump promises $500 billion in investments. Ursula von der Leyen demands 200 billion euros from Europe. Zuckerberg is creating a super-intelligence lab. Likewise OpenAI and several other major groups have entered this race.
The goal is to surpass human intelligence, to exceed the capabilities of human reason. And if this goal is even partially achieved in the coming decades, then personality is already an obsolete, poorly functioning resource. These are completely different categories. This is one possible variant of the new axial age. I'm not saying this one will necessarily prevail. I personally wouldn't want it to, but this is what's visible now.
And connected to this is a complete change in our notions of politics, economics, the labor market, leisure, the idea of justice, the idea of distributing goods. That is, behind all this, behind the fundamental change in worldview, everything surrounding us is completely transformed: how we live, how we spend our leisure time, what we consider work, what we consider success, what we consider goals. And precisely this year, 2025, most vividly shows this complete shift in directions.
Yuriy Romanenko: But developing what you're saying, I'd suggest along with our viewer. He writes: "Behind all super-universal institutions, even ones like AGI, there will still be persons who implement all this in life. Without them as drivers, there will be no transition. First personalities of transition, then transition as a fait accompli."
I completely agree with this, because our war has shown very well what personality means in history, and at various levels. That you can't accomplish many seemingly unthinkable things without personality. And conversely, the absence of personality commensurate with the scale of the challenge leads to enormous problems, enormous trials, enormous grief, enormous tragedy.
And essentially we see that in the West, everywhere really, people prefer to orient themselves toward someone who has authority, who has a weighty word, a weighty position, who has knowledge, perhaps secret, because people love mystery. Mystery, miracle, authority—remember Dostoevsky's Grand Inquisitor. And essentially power has always been built on these pillars.
Even if we take the United States, we see that what Curtis Yarvin and his crowd propose, they too use these mechanisms—mystery or the miracle of tech giants, where there are super-managers, technocrats who have grasped many mysteries of existence and created brilliant organisms of their corporations that have concentrated such resources that, in their perception, are the only ones capable of delivering the miracle of humanity's transformation and escaping the trap of representative democracy as they see it.
But on the other hand, it seems to me there's also a mass of delusions there, connected with overestimation of their own capabilities, as we saw with Musk's example. Because what happened with Musk this past year is also a very interesting illustration that even the most powerful person who has enormous resources, enormous influence including media influence, suddenly starts getting entangled in the consequences of his actions, in the logic he's accustomed to using to achieve success.
And suddenly it turned out that in politics, business logic absolutely doesn't work, and that society, not just American society, suddenly viciously starts trying to bite Musk, cause him problems, refusing Tesla or other services connected with his brand. And this at some point led to Musk's withdrawal from politics, and he had to solve through Vance the problems that arose because he quarreled with Trump.
And as information appeared just recently that Vance managed to reconcile them, and Musk abandoned his own project—creating a third alternative party, which again is also a symptom of the crisis existing in the U.S. Because it's quite obvious that both the Republican and Democratic parties have reached certain limits in their ability to mobilize all of society, not just their most radicalized supporters, into the projects they propose.
Transition Period: Personalities Still Play a Role, But a Diminishing One
Andriy Baumeister: I'm not saying the world or worldview has completely changed today. I'm talking about signs of sliding into the destruction of the old picture. And at certain stages personalities will still play a role, but an increasingly smaller one.
If the goal is, for example, creating super-intelligence, if the goal is creating a technological civilization, the question arises: what scope is there for personality in decision-making at all? Even today, people living with GPT chats, constantly sitting in various search engines—their very thinking changes, their very leisure and their prospects change, strategies are completely different. We don't know what will become of us in ten years if we increasingly draw on, rely on these assistants.
For now, yes, absolutely. What we see in America's national security strategy is a conservative counter-revolution. Absolutely, it's conversely an attempt to return to such a libertarian or right-liberal vocabulary: competition, growth...
Yuriy Romanenko: The nation-state.
Andriy Baumeister: Yes! The nation-state, competencies, merit, progress and so on. The new agenda of the past twenty years canceled precisely this language, the language of capitalism, crudely speaking. Now they're returning to it, but I'm not sure they can—these people who created both the national security strategy and the people around Vance. Conditionally, they can be called such a rightward turn with a synthesis of Catholic doctrine and right-wing liberalism.
I'm not sure they can have successors, like now in Europe. In Europe there are no forces of the common sense revolution or conservative counter-revolution, as I call it, that could partner with Vance if he becomes president from the Republican Party after Trump.
And when you talk about personalities—I don't see personalities on Europe's political Olympus. There was Scholz, Merz came—one faceless type replaced by another. And Macron is a completely artificial construct. Meloni—something works out well on migration policy, but again, her position isn't entirely clear, her profile. She easily changes her guises. Scandinavian countries are generally something technocratically faceless.
It would be hard, if, I don't know, Finland's leader didn't constantly meet with Trump with his grimace and smile, we wouldn't even remember who that is. I'm not even talking about the Baltic states and so on. We don't see personalities, we see actions of some forces, some technological projects that select certain personalities to be an avatar. Conditionally speaking, Karol Nawrocki or Emmanuel Macron are avatars.
Therefore I'm saying this is the threshold of a complete change in politics oriented toward personalities or some personal strategic decisions.
Yuriy Romanenko: In history, of course.
From Ideology to Cynical Realism: America's New Strategy
Yuriy Romanenko: It seems to me there's another important point, since you've already mentioned this U.S. national security strategy—that essentially the Americans are saying openly, so openly, cynically, that we basically don't give a damn about ideology. We do business with everyone if it benefits us, we do business with everyone, whether it's Saudi Arabia...
Andriy Baumeister: Precisely the shift, this new axial... I just didn't want to burden our viewers with these things. Look at what it says. If we take from the seventies onward, the late Brezhnev era—what is the Western world famous for? These are supposedly free countries, as they call themselves. They adopt as doctrine fundamental freedoms and human rights. They speak of themselves as the free world and oppose totalitarian, authoritarian regimes, the Soviet communist bloc as they say, and so on.
When the Soviet Union collapsed, from 1991 this ideological program was modified. Now this ideological package should spread across the entire world: fundamental freedoms, human rights, free market, liberal values. And we started the twenty-first century the same way. Until 2019-2020, all the analytical journals, American ones—from Foreign Affairs to CNN—hammered our brains that the twenty-first century would be a struggle between democracies and autocracies, democracies and illiberal regimes. They talked about this even before 2020-2021.
And the Russo-Ukrainian war began under this banner, essentially defending democracy and so on. But this early December 2025 strategy says the following: we absolutely don't care who you are—autocracy, totalitarianism or monarchy. You can be good partners of ours, you can be bad partners. The main thing is that you're strong, because strong subjects have different national interests, they're tougher. This is said between the lines in the document.
Yes, every nation has the right to its national interests, but if you're a big beast in these jungles, your interests are tougher, and if you're a small creature, they're a bit more modest. We will of course encourage our partners in the democratic bloc, as the document says, but we'll feel perfectly comfortable in trade or communication with, for example, the Saudis, with China. But China is ambivalently named there—not named as an enemy but as an opponent, though it's clear this is one such specter of future enmity.
That is, the document says: we're discarding all these Western ideologies about freedoms, democracies, liberalism. There are interests, balance of power, pushing your interests and spheres of influence. That is, this is the natural order. It seems to me this is a very beautiful construction. I don't know how long it will last. It's quite risky for countries like small countries. This means small creatures must befriend others...
Yuriy Romanenko: Yes.
Andriy Baumeister: Must know how to make friends.
Yuriy Romanenko: The time of regional coalitions is coming.
Soft Power and New Geopolitics: From Museums to Islamic Roots
Andriy Baumeister: The time of regional coalitions under the patronage of some larger players. But this means, I'll finish, I also paid attention when doing the year-end review—this also means an answer to the question: not only with whom you befriend, let's put it simply. Your national interests are determined not only by whom you befriend and what relationships you can build with other beasts in our forest, but it's also determined by what soft power you have. I don't know, beautiful tail, shiny fur.
I was amazed how in Abu Dhabi and Dubai brilliant museums were created in a few years. This year a natural science museum opened, and then the Museum of the Future opened a few years ago. In 2022 the Louvre opened. And this year, on November first, a colossal Egyptian museum opened—I want to visit it. Where, incidentally, the idea of soft power.
The Egyptians say: "We are the cradle of human civilization. Europeans wrongly appropriated Egypt as the beginning of Western civilization or civilization with a capital C. No, it's us, Egyptians, now we ourselves will conduct excavations, research ourselves and understand that humanity began with us."
Therefore the question for Ukrainians: what is our soft power too? With whom do we befriend, who are actually our friends or partners? Well, there won't be friends. In that world where the strategy is written, there are no friends, only situational partners or longer-playing ones. And there's definitely soft power. What's your attractiveness?
And I find it interesting that absolutely innovative Chinese, Indian, Saudi or Egyptian projects still flirt with the past, and they're trying to jump into the new world while lengthening their history. See, Egyptians pull it there, the Islamic idea pulls. This is a very lengthy process.
Turkey, for example, has abandoned such stupid nationalism and understands itself as a continuation of the great Ottoman Islamic world. India, Modi is betting on Hinduism and nationalism mixed precisely with religious idea. And Chinese intellectuals, despite developing super-modern technologies and robots, still pull toward old eras, imperial eras, toward Confucius and so on.
This strange combination of a leap into an innovative world and, on the other hand, soft power that pulls you toward some sources you can bet on. We have our interests because we're also an ancient civilization, or we offer such an innovative project of science, culture, space and so on. This is such a very complex combination. Playing such a game is much more difficult than, for example, declaring a course toward Europe.
"Cocooning" of World Order and the Disappearance of Universalism
Yuriy Romanenko: Well, essentially, the question here is: what is Europe under these conditions? Because the disappearance of this liberal framework that characterized the West, which generally defined the West's civilizational role, because it still carried a universal character. When it was understood that an inhabitant of Indonesia, Pakistan or Mali could be included in the West's civilizational framework and become American. This applies primarily to the States, because precisely there was such a melting pot.
And essentially when this strategy appeared, it says that's it, this framework has disappeared, and what's happening, as Vitaliy Kulyk very aptly introduced such a term last week—"cocooning." Cocooning of large regional blocs and not only regional blocs is happening, cocooning of various political regimes in an attempt to protect what you have at the current moment.
Because if we look at what the States are doing now, it's an attempt to protect the sphere of influence you can really control, because controlling everything no longer works. There are neither resources, nor desire, nor ideology that would allow justifying this...
Andriy Baumeister: This duality, what you're saying now, let's just analyze it. We can afford such luxury, not chasing numbers.
Yuriy Romanenko: Of course, of course.
Andriy Baumeister: Look, the thing is, yes, this is declared at the beginning, what American strategy is, what it consists of. Old false strategies of presence throughout the world, dominance throughout the world are criticized. And we say: "Phew, America is restructuring, now it doesn't want to be in the whole world, but where it needs to be." We should be where it benefits us, says the document.
Then we start reading this document and begin: aha, Western Hemisphere, it benefits us to be here. Okay, so half the world is already ours. Here Greenland should also be ours, because also the Arctic. And now further—the Asia-Pacific region, this is a zone of natural U.S. interests, and we won't allow China to even become a regional leader there. The documents say this between the lines.
Europe—we'll return it to the Western idea, we'll re-westernize it. Europe is very harshly criticized there. And it turns out that in the document, on one hand we don't want to be everywhere, but reading carefully, we see that this is, in other words, American hegemony redefined as presence in those places that allow being everywhere. That is, this is the right presence, the right points that allow being absolute world leaders.
China and Russia aren't granted, or India, the right, for example, to another hemisphere. No, this is also a zone of our interests. Therefore the document's focus.
And as for Europe—well, nobody really knew what that was, because after World War I everything went some other way. When the European Union was created, they tried to create some such more or less suitable concept. Pope Benedict XVI tried to write Christian roots of Europe into this document. Didn't quite work out.
And today, when America criticizes Europe for betraying the Western idea, it's even less clear what this Europeanness consists of. Well yes, we see beautiful old cities, still semi-functioning large corporations or the auto industry. But inside these cities, beautifully made and so on, you don't quite feel what Europeans want and how they see their future.
Said in the document: fourteen percent of world GDP now, it was twenty-five. Europe's share in the world economy may decrease. What innovative projects in Europe have there been in recent years? What major achievements? Who's on the lists of tops, for example, in artificial intelligence development? If you ask these questions, and Europe's contribution to any serious breakthrough things—it's such, well, I'd say, a very cozy retirement home for respectable gentlemen. Well, and for various young people who arrive, breaking through fences, seas, oceans to still receive benefits there.
Europe Like Ukraine Ten Years Ago: Illusions of Grandeur
Yuriy Romanenko: Don't you think Europe now very much resembles Ukraine ten to fifteen years ago, when we already, well, basically, the inertia of this Soviet legacy was fading? Because the assets we received—technological, production, educational, infrastructure—they started gradually collapsing, while the world around was rapidly transforming, especially from 2008 when the crisis began that essentially continues to this day. And all subsequent events, in my understanding, are links in one chain of this global reorganization.
And essentially we consoled ourselves with these illusions that we're a space power. Remember how much was said about this? We're a space power. Now the space power in the fourth year of full-scale war cannot...
Andriy Baumeister: But North Korea is already a space power.
Yuriy Romanenko: Yes, yes, North Korea is more of a space power than Ukraine, because our space giants can't provide in normal quantities, or even normally provide any products that would ensure at least parity on the battlefield. The same ballistic missiles. Aviation power and so on, so on, so on.
And Europeans, it seems to me, simply have a different time lag. And Europeans are now finding themselves in the same trap, and they're not ready for the fact that rapid change is necessary. That is, Ukrainians also weren't ready that change was needed. They thought the structures of a stable world would be eternal. That what we got in the nineties, independence—this situation would continue forever. And all our elites ignored, and society ignored all the alarming signs that appeared from the early 2000s.
And Europeans—they're now in the same situation. That is, they're concerned about utilities, they're concerned about social benefits. They don't ask who will pay for all this. And most importantly, that pride, say, that Germany has in the form of various technological schools, the auto industry—that this is all in the past, that China overtook them on the turn, and the States overtook them.
And when you drive through Germany, you catch yourself thinking that all the infrastructure you see—this is last century's infrastructure, this is the sixties through eighties, nineties at best. That's when, that's when Germany was growing, it was dynamic, it unified...
Andriy Baumeister: Yes.
Yuriy Romanenko: It was full of strength. That's it. And all this remained. And suddenly into this grace of the past penetrate others. These migrants of the most diverse kinds, many migrants from the Muslim world—from Syria, Turks and others. And it seems to me that further, in the next stages of crisis in Europe, the same shoots will begin to appear that have already fully unfolded for us.
That is, what was in Germany in the thirties of the last century—searches for the new, who's responsible for this. There the figure of the migrant, most likely it will be the figure of the Islamic migrant primarily. And since there are already very many of them and since many integrated, many didn't integrate, and even bigger problems are connected with this, then new persecutions will begin, as it was in Spain in the fifteenth century—restriction of rights, civil wars as a consequence. Do you see the threat that Europe might slide into a state of carnage, not having the ability to overcome this challenge of enormous technological, social breakthrough that's unfolding now before our eyes, primarily from the U.S. and China, as two flagships in an attempt to overtake each other?
The Paradox of Post-Soviet Space: Active People, Parasitic Elites
Andriy Baumeister: Europe is a very complex system, yes, to immediately clearly describe and simply what's happening here. It's important to enter the passages, some tests. I'd say that Ukrainians, Russians, Belarusians or Kazakhs have actually learned over these years of mobility and struggle for some new ideas, to open some new businesses and so on. They adapt quite well around the world, but we, namely Ukrainians and Russians, got authorities and a political system that completely blocks activity from below.
Therefore such a paradox: a fairly passionate, active, innovative group of people or middle class that arose in such turbulent several decades, starting from the Soviet Union's collapse, adaptive, risk-taking. But the political system all the time wants to wage some wars, engage in some cancellations, imprison everyone and so on.
And in Europe, despite the middle class disappearing, people are inert, but there still exists a more or less predictable political system for now. Therefore rich Ukrainians, rich Russians, rich Kazakhs or Armenians, they go to England, go to Germany, go to France and live as such rentiers and pay taxes. And naturally Europe uses this, because any person wants to guarantee their future, their children's future.
What do they do? They come to the same France or England or Germany, buy some real estate there. In Germany now this is less and less possible. Children go to the best schools, then try to realize themselves somehow, and their developments, capitals or some assets these people try to transport to Europe.
Europe will have enough for the coming decades to feed huge crowds of people and keep them on social assistance, because they still have an oasis, in quotes, of "calm." In Ukraine there's no such calm.
But on the other hand, here's a test: if a young guy or girl, Ukrainians, come to Germany, and they have an ambitious goal, like in Kyiv or Lviv, to open a small business somewhere in Eastern or Central Germany, and especially in Western Germany where everyone's already asleep, everyone's already rentiers. He or she will see that it's very difficult to do, that any activity—this is an interview that active Germans give. Activity is blocked. They put such a straitjacket on you, the system presses on you and imposes paternalism on you. You're being controlled. You're not needed so active, innovative and so on. Roughly the same in several other European countries.
And the question arises: what must happen to Europe for the middle class... In France there was a revolution, the nineteenth century was the springtime of nations, and these revolutionary, innovative movements constantly created this dynamic in Europe. Now, except for threats of some... well, I don't know, now even theft isn't a threat, and even some murders, well, they write about them, but basically, home robberies.
I have several acquaintances, just in Italy, there in Tuscany or in Germany, they live in a house for half a year. Well, it's normal when houses are robbed, these people aren't found. Police practically don't work. This is the first test. That is, young people who want to create their business, small and especially medium.
And the second important test—how the entire modern technological structure works. The banking system is terrible, it's slow, it's antediluvian. The tax system is oppressive, terrible. That is, the banking sector, taxation, the ability to be an initiator of some new projects—all this in Europe is very difficult.
And people who come to Europe from the post-Soviet space must somehow adapt to this. Some continue to conduct business at home in Ukraine and Russia, pulling all their relatives and children to Europe. But this is such, I think, a dual path. Well, and some practically just start enjoying life, leaving these bright projects.
Europe is not a breakthrough zone, and therefore I'm so fascinated by projects created in China, in the United Arab Emirates, in Turkey, in Egypt, in Vietnam. These we should study and watch. Stunning projects are being created there, super-projects! And, well, Europe, yes, it's nice to come, walk around Paris, spend money if you have it. Well, then what to do?
You've settled in Paris, what will you do there? Will you organize your small business or will you huddle in some circles? That's the question. That is, this isn't a zone of active creative life. Against this background the United States always wins over Europe precisely because they create such space. Well, in Europe this simply doesn't exist. Indeed, this is victorious socialism living off what was earned by previous generations.
The Trap of Western Education: Diplomas Without Prospects
Yuriy Romanenko: Well, there's another trap for people coming from, conditionally, Ukraine or Central Asia or Russia itself, who invest money in their children's education hoping...
Andriy Baumeister: Mm-hmm.
Yuriy Romanenko: ...that the children, well, will stay there and occupy an appropriate position, consists well simply in underestimating Europe's structuredness. This is not only Europe and the States.
Andriy Baumeister: Of course! And their elites simply won't accept them. You won't enter there.
Yuriy Romanenko: Yes, yes, yes, yes. That if you get a child who finished there, conditional Harvard, Oxford, Cambridge, has a good education, but he really can't apply it anywhere, because you need to return where mom or dad sits, who have this capital and who already had their share within the old formed social system, and live off this.
It turns out that this enormous educational machine that was deployed in the West after World War II, especially in recent decades, and which works to give more and more and more—it's all only about money, primarily. It doesn't solve the question of integrating these elites it generates on a global scale. Because the number of people they produce exceeds their necessity, their need worldwide.
And as a consequence, this creates enormous revolutionary potential, because educated people who can't find themselves and can't integrate either in Europe, or in the States, or in their homeland—they must fit in somewhere. And accordingly, we see this in the example of the States themselves, which have produced an enormous number of elites over the past, say, forty years. But the state's need for these elites is very, very, very seriously limited.
And this is another such process tearing apart the West now, as it were in its broad understanding. Or the same Europe...
Andriy Baumeister: Of course, they declared globalism to us, yes, at the end of the twentieth century. And people who went for this... What did globalism amount to, for example, in Ukraine? To foundation boys and girls who learned English well, did internships, studied in American or British universities and came to Ukraine to distribute, teach everyone life or direct some USAID money into such beautiful presentations, projects.
Here, say, this is part of Western money to create a Ukrainian elite. Here it is, the Ukrainian elite. This is a 35-45-year-old girl or guy, man and woman, well-dressed, knowing English, but their potential is absolutely not creative. Practically, these are holders of some others' ideas here, for example, in Ukraine.
And therefore when Ukraine starts demanding its own elite making decisions, they weren't raised. There are no such elites. And when this boy or girl gets somewhere in Europe, then the path is also to some foundation, I don't know, to the European quarter in Brussels, into some offices on lower floors of some large offices.
Yes, miracles happen, absolutely. We won't absolutize it like this: no, it doesn't happen. Well yes, someone breaks through upward, but again, this is an individual story. We're talking about the system. Europe is not for success. Europe is not the land of success.
Overseers Instead of Elites: Colonial System Under Liberal Facade
Yuriy Romanenko: Well, and here it seems to me that what you didn't mention is that these guys who studied there in corresponding foundations, institutes—they're overseers. That is, as if they thought it was...
Andriy Baumeister: Yes!
Yuriy Romanenko: ...elite, but actually they had the function of overseers, because they must ensure the implementation of corresponding norms that will ensure control of corresponding institutions in this or that country that falls under this hood.
And further, what Rubio said, that the system of American dominance turned out to be overstretched, the liberal order no longer serves our interests because it contradicts them, since we need to close off, openness already harms. China uses openness as a backdoor through which it pumps enormous resources from the States themselves, and therefore closing off is necessary. And this whole system started collapsing.
And nothing except being overseers, though this is presented under the guise of such ideological screen, corresponding liberal...
Andriy Baumeister: Here's westernization, yes? Look at our speakers, what beautiful presentations! In my social networks it's a deluge. 2025 is constant carnivals from holiday to holiday. All reports are beautiful, all about the future, all about strategies, all about Ukrainian breakthroughs. And everyone's so beautifully dressed, looks good and so on.
Yuriy Romanenko: Yes...
Andriy Baumeister: But this was five years ago, and ten years ago, and so on.
Yuriy Romanenko: Because nothing but representation. And representation looks like a screen behind which real interests hide. To insert some comma in a contract regarding, for example, a raw materials deal, as it were there...
Andriy Baumeister: Yes, real interest. We're at war, war exposed our country's wealth.
Yuriy Romanenko: Yes.
Andriy Baumeister: Because that our country is super-rich, only specialists knew, some groups of people. But war exposed it, because: oh, what's happening there? And what's happening there, where further, where Pokrovsk, where else? Ah, such lands! And what we had in southern Ukraine, yes? And what was there, in such-and-such oblasts?
Yes, and these overseers and the facade creates the appearance of democratic, liberal, some structures. On the other hand, quite a colonial system, but let's call it by its direct name, which is designed for the labor of other people, not so beautifully dressed, receiving very little, but by those regions' standards this is also decent money.
And completely different people supply values and products, conditionally speaking, to European countries or the United States or other worlds. And we're surprised how, oh, it turns out so much was still made in Ukraine and how many factories Ukraine had where everything was produced precisely for Europe or where resources went further West or where.
Europe created, for example, green programs to protect their forests by 2030. By the way, Europe is now very quickly abandoning the green agenda. This is simply stunning! They continue talking about it. But, for example, they saw that the Chinese overtook the Germans in electric cars and already themselves start understanding that the course toward electric cars—they lost the race. And now they understand they need to return. And where to return? We need to change ideology and so on.
So, when they talked about their green agenda and protecting forests, we saw Ukrainian trains carrying this timber toward western borders. That is, timber resources, minerals, well, naturally, oil, gas and so on. That is, this facade created an appearance of Europeanness and Westernness. These people knew how to speak beautifully, they knew how to convince.
And the most unpleasant thing for you and me, Yuriy, as people trying to analyze: when Europeans need to be informed about what was happening or is happening in Ukraine, they'll interview these girls and boys. And they in good English or French tell this facade invented story. There about democracy in Ukraine, well, true, still young, about how we're all approaching the Western world model and so on. That is, this is also a powerful ideological screen. And this part of these people simply... I see this in the European press.
The Crumbling of Facades: From Liberal Democracy to Cynical Pragmatism
Yuriy Romanenko: Look, now facades are crumbling, that is, the crumbling of facades is beginning worldwide, starting from the States that threw out the facade of liberal democracy, well, and ending with what's happening with us. Because our facade of European integration, Euro-Atlantic integration, has now simply crumbled to pieces, because even sociology appeared that only thirty-eight percent there see NATO as a defender.
Suddenly it turned out NATO doesn't exist, that this was, well, this was self-deception...
Andriy Baumeister: Deliberate, brazen, practically. The selling of air we talked about, yes?
Yuriy Romanenko: Yes, yes.
Andriy Baumeister: Selling air.
Yuriy Romanenko: Yes, yes, yes! And therefore a parade of sovereignties begins, let's call it that. What was fixed in the U.S. national strategy will actually be everywhere. And this is already happening, because, well, say, for Indonesians—I gave this example in one of the broadcasts, it seems even in ours, our last broadcast about Thucydides' trap. I said that Indonesia's prime minister said that we actually thought, the West, that you have values there, you have... this picture that's presented, it corresponds to reality, but actually it turns out naked interest. Regarding, for example, raw materials—oil, diamonds, some coltan.
And it turns out, how then do you differ from the Chinese, who don't want us to change some political system there, don't demand anything like that, but just give money or give some technologies. And essentially what Trump is doing now says: "And we won't demand this either now. We're trying to return to a competitive position relative to China. Now we also won't ask to change the system, no facade democracy interests us."
Andriy Baumeister: And this change, yes, regime change we're refusing.
Yuriy Romanenko: Yes.
Andriy Baumeister: And if you read: so you're refusing, meaning this was part of your policy...
Yuriy Romanenko: Yes.
Andriy Baumeister: ...changing regimes in your favor.
Yuriy Romanenko: Yes, because now it turns out that access to the resource base through the old such politics doesn't work, and everything transitions to cynical neorealism, there, in the spirit of Theodore Roosevelt with modern developments and with artificial intelligence that hovers somewhere in the background.
And in this situation, identifying what is the real true interest, the real tendency that determines your life—this becomes extremely important. Because if you're in sadomasochistic delusion about other people's values, about their real goals, then you turn into...
Andriy Baumeister: About equality of countries.
Yuriy Romanenko: Yes!
Andriy Baumeister: That you're equal, you're the same as us, for example.
Yuriy Romanenko: Yes, yes, yes.
Andriy Baumeister: Germans tell Ukrainians, conditionally speaking, at the highest level. But this is simply a lie.
Yuriy Romanenko: Yes, and then it turns out you're simply risking life, and you're risking the future of a whole country and even whole regions, because they start tearing them apart, like, say, now Somaliland was recognized the other day.
Andriy Baumeister: Beneficial to one of the countries, for example, and it was first to recognize...
Yuriy Romanenko: Yes, Israel recognized...
Andriy Baumeister: ...recognition of this country.
Yuriy Romanenko: Yes, Israel recognized Somaliland. Let's name specifically who. And in these conditions, when the world is sliding into such cynical attitude toward each other, essentially speaking, where is the ontology of this new world and corresponding axial time around which this new world will start unfolding? Because it's obvious that if something new, it shouldn't have the old. Or a fundamental break with the old must occur.
The Architecture of the New World: Five Power Centers and Reservation Zones
Andriy Baumeister: Let's, let's speculate, let's step onto thin ice a bit.
Yuriy Romanenko: Yes, let's.
Andriy Baumeister: With such crude phrases. Well, first, let's start with Ukraine, then move to the whole world. This ideology of ours, which we've analyzed many times, has created a fairly large group of people, several million, who don't want to think in terms of realism.
The first task is for the consciousness of large groups or masses to learn to think more realistically. In questions, in terms of state interests, interests of developing your business, your technologies, your scientists, engineers and so on. Over the past twenty years in Ukraine we've unlearned this.
I see in social networks how people throw themselves at dummies, this nonsense is pumped into their heads again about some miraculous future, about how we're all holding onto our ideas. We don't trade this, that, we need to ask the people about territories and so on. We're going West, we all want to become part of the EU and NATO.
That is, all these things, how to break them to switch to another regime? What we must do today, what we must do tomorrow, who are our potential partners, where are our breakthroughs? This is the language of realism. We need to forget the idea of Ukrainian nationalism, these ideas of various missionaryism.
Now regarding other countries. What's breaking? Order is breaking. Between the collapse of great European empires, well, if we still count the Ottomans partly European, yes, five large systems... Between wartime, between World War I and World War II, it emerged in the 1945 regime. The 1945 world regime is a regime of a couple hundred nation-states.
And Europeans smokescreen them with ideas that each country is sovereign, that there should be a parliament, president, elections, some historical goals and so on. All this existed until the 2020s of our century already, the twenty-first. And it seems to me that gradually this veil of false pictures about some states, of which there are a couple hundred, that each of them has some projects, should gradually collapse.
And the first idea of globalization at the turn of the twentieth-twenty-first centuries also spoke about the death of the nation, about transnational and trans-state large structures. And in these structures, where we don't rave about ideas of national identity and some our invented myths, we start switching toward real things.
For me the first important symptom that the new world will accelerate is when we completely abandon the words democracy, autocracy, nation-state or global world order. Around the world there will be zones where elite, technological centers exist, people making decisions, and satellites will build around these centers.
This is like a city, capital and satellite cities, and several more cities connected to them. I see the twenty-first century or the coming decade as a complete change of the post-war, by World War II I mean, post-war order, where everyone's told about equality of states, about two hundred nations, about some relationships and so on.
Yuriy Romanenko: Who has power in this world?
Andriy Baumeister: Power in this world, temporarily it will be four to five centers. We talked about this last time.
Yuriy Romanenko: Mm-hmm.
Andriy Baumeister: Absolutely, the United States—their leadership isn't going anywhere, but they've already understood that now they must transform it. This is an important outcome of 2025. This is of course China. Moreover China is not only already entering toward economy, technologies, military sphere, but look, this year they're holding a September third parade. Turns out they already finished World War II. They defeated imperialism and fascism. And there where Xi was present, Putin sat on the right, and the North Korean leader sat on the left. That is, already an offensive on this soft power too. That is, China.
India all the time walks among such potential kings. Something works out, something doesn't. But absolutely India will also occupy a third very important position. The fourth position, possibly, is Europe, but it's not meeting expectations now. And the fifth position—this isn't me saying but Western analysts—this is Russia. But Russia itself is quite vulnerable to play a solo game. Absolutely it will seek partners.
And that America suddenly so sharply in the face of the Trump administration started orienting toward economic cooperation with Russia, we still don't know everything, but for now we see rapprochement happening—this is some breakdown of the system, this will be competition for partners. Because if the United States approaches Russia, then what about the close beautiful friendship between Russia and China? After all, trade and blackmail of each other.
Or what about India's orientation also on the Western economy and on relations with the United States? These five forces that will try to pull toward themselves both the best minds and opportunities for development. Well, for now of course China and the United States, but you can't write off India.
Yuriy Romanenko: And Turkey?
Andriy Baumeister: And these regional leaders. See, the Saudis, Turkey, Brazil—don't write them off. Indonesia—don't write it off. A potentially developing region. And sleeping Japan, which can wake up at any moment, now isn't its best time, but precisely it was prophesied to be practically the second force after the United States. In my childhood, as you remember, 1970s-1980s, well, Japan was cosmic.
This is such a dynamic world. When we talk strategies—this is conditional. I'd rather talk now about elites who have great intuition for situational, advantageous realistic decisions here and now. Yes, you need to calculate several moves ahead, but building big strategies and talking about "strategic partnership"—this is a lie.
In such a world being created, there's no strategic partnership, because tomorrow you're talking about China as partner, the day after it can become your enemy. For example, I'm talking about Russia. And exactly the same for the United States, Russia was in doctrine practically an enemy, and now they're talking about possible economic cooperation.
This is a very interesting world. This is a world of very quick decisions and special intuition, sensing what we need at a given moment. And these old European songs about universal values, about some such long period of spreading beautiful liberal ideas—doesn't work anymore. That is, they hinder, conversely, the development of several countries, such as Asian countries for example. Well, what democracy is there in Asian countries? Unsuccessful, successful? There's not very much democracy there, even in South Korea.
Three-Layered World: Elites, Capital Oases and the "Unnecessary Majority"
Yuriy Romanenko: Under these conditions, what unites people? Look, conditionally speaking, beyond these large centers—China, I don't know, Turkey, the Gulf, Japan and so on, the States, Europe... Well, there's a mass of intermediate countries, like us, yes? We're doing the splits between various geopolitical plates, and technocratic plates too, because corporations, they also form their plates and try...
Andriy Baumeister: We're a toxic squeezed-out field with potential, of course. And countries like the United Arab Emirates or other countries are oases for capitals, so that people who've earned, people with ideas could take root there and legalize their business. That is, these are zones attractive for development.
The United States is a fairly tough zone, see, they're separated by oceans, and you can lose your residence permit there, you can be deported. Yes, there are certain threats, or the American mentality might simply not suit you. But you can work, conditionally speaking, somewhere in India, in China, or maybe in South Africa, and beautifully buy yourself a house in Dubai or Cyprus, or somewhere in other zones, in Turkey, where you can do serious projects, where there's lenient taxation and where the system offers you a set of guarantees.
This is the main infrastructural foundation for breakthroughs. In Ukraine this doesn't exist and in Russia either. In Russia they'll ride up on you, take away, arrest, or you must be silent and passive. In your business you can be active, but in politics you're nobody. You must keep quiet because this isn't your affair. And you must speak very carefully. We've become very similar to Russia here.
But holding large assets in Ukraine, well, this is risky. If Ukraine, starting from Yushchenko, let's dream about the past, and with the country's development, had created such favorable zones for developing ideas, capitals, for relations with the whole world, with Asia, with the West, with Europe, maybe Ukraine would have succeeded.
That is, there are large forces, let's call it that, conditionally speaking, five large power centers. There are regional leaders who build their relations on skillful interaction with these large forces. And there are small oases, well, like Dubai for example, or Cyprus, or other places, where zones of such free creativity and capital life.
Yuriy Romanenko: Only capital. Nodal points for capital, where capital flows.
Andriy Baumeister: Nodal points for capital. Previously this was Switzerland, yes, but now in Switzerland it's also quite expensive living and so on. Well, here you go, Cyprus. The old point of capital application is Switzerland. And nobody in Switzerland thought about giving money to Nazis, that someone there talked about some ideas. Money is money, property is property.
And here you go, Switzerland, United Arab Emirates, possibly, well, I don't know, Monaco, some other forces. Why not create such zones in Ukraine in the 2000s, 2010s? No, the brain didn't reach this. This is a potentially dangerous zone, therefore everyone who comes to power in Ukraine immediately thinks about how to then transport all this—either family, or lifestyle, or money—somewhere far away.
They don't connect themselves with the future, therefore Zelensky can behave the way he behaves. He doesn't feel the situation of his cause's collapse, yes, what he's investing his life into. Because sooner or later he'll be evacuated, and he will be evacuated. And he has an enormous amount of property on European territory and not only Europe.
And this is how everyone who came to power at such highest level behaved, or large businessmen. They always have these airfields. And Ukraine is such a zone where you can, yes, earn, where there were qualified people, where there was a fairly gray economic zone, where not everyone was very law-abiding like in the same Germany. Well, this gave results, but again, not for the long term.
Ukraine was good for small steps, but building something for the long haul... You build today, and tomorrow some new young people in new suits came and said: "You're an enemy! Baumeister, you're an enemy." You created a museum, you bequeathed your library to the city of Kyiv, you created your school, but uncles in camouflage came and said: "You're an enemy of the country. You don't say the words yellow, green, red, but say gray, black, blue. And this means you're an enemy. You speak different words, and we're taking your school, looting the library. Paintings you collected to give to the city, they disappear somewhere and everything."
This is the fate of the past hundred years in Ukraine. Understand? These museums, foundations, universities, scientific laboratories, scientific centers that died exactly the same way in the nineties. What's the point of working for the long term, people who are now twenty years old think?
So this three-layered world, let's call it a three-layered world. Such elephants, large systems with large resources. These are regional leaders, these are zones of capital application points. And this is the rest of the world, the rest of the world that can supply resources—lands, resources, labor hands.
Artificial Intelligence and the Fate of "Unnecessary" People
Yuriy Romanenko: Well, Masha Tanovitskaya correctly writes, but also this new zone of computational capabilities, because for AI, for its enormous potential, enormous energy and computational capabilities are needed, which must somehow be covered. And therefore appears there the Zaporizhzhia NPP as a zone for mining, as what sounded from the U.S. This will be another important function. Hence Greenland, hence interests...
Andriy Baumeister: And let's, Yuriy, connect this. This is a very valuable thought, yes, computational capabilities absolutely, because it turned out that I read and cited in one of my lectures that to train chat GPT-4, not five but four, required an amount of water equal to the annual water consumption in a German city of one hundred seventy thousand people. This is just training the chat. And can you imagine the scale of all this in general, yes? How much electricity, water and so on is needed, that is, earth's resources.
But here's another thing. In my video I cited two examples about labor market transformation by 2030. Well, possibly this is too exaggerated, but by 2040, but it says 2030. This is the disappearance of 92 million traditional jobs, this is the dying out of several professions in some spheres up to sixty percent job losses.
What jobs will be in demand? Well, requiring qualifications, ability to work with complex systems, and there are fewer such people. And who provided, what sectors provided work for people, well, say, ordinary ones? Ordinary work: deliver boxes, I don't know, mail, arrange something in a supermarket, stand there at a post, right, work as a taxi driver. If all this dies out and is replaced by technologies, yes, artificial workers—these zones outside our just outlined world: main power centers, regional leaders, capital application points.
The rest of the world can automatically turn into a world of reservations, where people practically don't work, where they consume, I don't know, sit at screens, watch series, play games, I don't know, reproduce themselves in the best case if they're given such opportunity. But these are zones like Indian reservations in the United States. That is, zones of non-working, unqualified people, unnecessary for the twenty-first century, where we need to deal with them. You can't shoot or poison them, they must live somewhere, but they're practically useless, and certain infrastructure must also be created for them.
And this fourth world, let's call it that, the appearance of a fourth world where millions of people, receiving some basic incomes, monthly or annual, engage in elementary consumption. I'm not painting this so such a world will definitely come, but the world is moving in this direction. And if today we're not preparing for it, and we're not ready for it, we need to understand that one way or another, this world will come—if not in 2030, then in 2050. You and I, Yuriy, will still see this world.
Yuriy Romanenko: Of course, I also looked at this World Economic Forum report "The Future of Jobs 2025" which describes transformation until 2030. But there, incidentally, is optimistic data, for example, that 170 million jobs will be created, while 92 million will be reduced or replaced. That is, plus 78 million net final...
Andriy Baumeister: Yes, these are numbers, but who, what, pay attention, what jobs?
Yuriy Romanenko: Yes, specialists...
Andriy Baumeister: 92 million, if globally, this is little. And after all, other countries, ordinary countries—this is ordinary simple labor. Yes, this really is bring, guard, pack, deliver, meet, sit in an office, execute some small tasks.
Yuriy Romanenko: But isn't the same...
Andriy Baumeister: Then it'll go higher and higher.
Technological Revolutions: Different from Industrial Ones
Yuriy Romanenko: Look, but wasn't the same thing happening there in the late eighteenth, early nineteenth century, when seamstresses who worked on old machines turned out to be displaced by enormous weaving machines that started appearing in factories? Or coachmen who in the early twentieth century saw no bad prospects, suddenly were displaced by the internal combustion engine. That is, basically, such innovation cycles, they always...
Andriy Baumeister: No, no, here I can't agree. This is a question of thinking. This is very good, you've thrown in a good thesis. Look, if we read the history of capitalism's development in America, for example, Greenspan's book, yes, "The History of Capitalism in the United States," we see there the theory of creation through destruction. Yes, there were very many artisan productions, very many such small productions, masters. In their place large factories, plants and large projects were created. But!
The result of these large projects is colossal socialization of people. Factories, plants, large corporations. This is building new cities, jobs, large schools and so on. People were needed there. This is simply modification of labor, this is scaling. But a factory without workers won't work, a factory without seamstresses won't work. But this brings us industrialization, urbanism and creation of large cities, large infrastructures and ultimately mass production.
Americans were the first to invent in the mid-twentieth century all these cheap, well, I don't know, plastic dishes, forks, spoons, cheap furniture, cheap everything for mass consumption.
And we're now talking, Yuriy, about something different. When not modification of labor and conversely scaling—we must have more workers, meaning more children, factories, medical facilities, large cities, we build entire districts. A factory opens—we build an entire microdistrict for this factory.
Now the situation is fundamentally different. Production is being created that doesn't need people in many respects, displacing humans. And these unnecessary, non-working people, you won't build new hospitals, factories and so on for them, or entire microdistricts, because they, working, earning, try to develop along the labor hierarchy.
You came to work in a shop as a youth, became shop foreman, then reached director. You change the quality of housing, buy a car, buy a private house, demonstrate success. But if you don't work at all, that is, you're a useless person, you have no growth line or, say, growth scale. You initially receive some sum to survive.
And therefore another process arises. Demographics and population growth aren't profitable in such a situation.
Yuriy Romanenko: So it's already, it's already stalling. This is visible everywhere.
Andriy Baumeister: It's already, but it won't be profitable already ideologically, yes? Now we see how several factors coincide, when there's this decline in reproductive capabilities and the number of children being born. And when the idea will be brought under this, this will become an even more serious problem, because the industrial revolution and capitalism need people, and it creates large maternity hospitals, hospitals, there, I don't know, hygiene and other things.
And here many people aren't needed. If we have, for example, five million idlers in our backward region, well, it's better if there were two, one way or another. That is, we must regulate.
If you remember, I gave lectures on eugenics and other things. The West got over this in the early twentieth century. The United States was ahead of the entire planet, especially the state of California. The scale of this sterilization process of women, bans on concluding marriages and these racial ideas connected almost with an animal representation of humans, well, this continued until the fifties in the United States, still until the early sixties. The peak was the first half of the twentieth century, twenties-thirties.
Yuriy Romanenko: Look, well...
Andriy Baumeister: Hundreds of thousands of sterilized women in California alone!
Ukraine as Pioneer of the New World: Adaptation Instead of Birth Rate
Yuriy Romanenko: Look, well, if we return to our realities, isn't Ukraine a pioneer in this regard? Because we have low birth rate, we have high mortality. And basically, if we understand that extra people aren't needed, then, meaning the key task consists in adapting existing people to these changes.
Because I'm looking at this report, they identified the main driver of changes, and they say that factors that will most strongly change business models: artificial intelligence and big data. 86 percent of companies expect transformation precisely from implementing data processing technologies. Green economy—transition to sustainable development will become the second most important factor of job growth. Renewable energy engineers, ESG specialists.
Demographics: forty percent of employers are preparing for consequences of population aging, which increases demand for specialists in care, economics and healthcare. The fastest...
Andriy Baumeister: Which artificial intelligence can replace—care and so on.
Yuriy Romanenko: Well, here of course it can, but I think there must still be an empathetic component necessary in care. If artificial...
Andriy Baumeister: I agree with you, I think so too, but I think tendencies will incline in this direction. In Europe there's a shortage of such people.
Yuriy Romanenko: And here they are, here's what they see as fastest growth: AI and machine learning specialists, big data analytics, fintech sphere engineers...
Andriy Baumeister: Yes, yes, yes.
Yuriy Romanenko: Fintech sphere engineers, cybersecurity specialists, renewable energy engineers. Fastest reduction: clerks in postal services, but this is already disappearing for us and throughout Europe, cashiers and bank operators, data entry specialists, administrative assistants, secretaries, accountants...
Andriy Baumeister: Office workers.
Yuriy Romanenko: Yes, yes.
Andriy Baumeister: Lower level.
Yuriy Romanenko: Yes.
Andriy Baumeister: What I was telling you, thanks for reading, so our viewers who didn't read this hear it. That is, these are super-qualified, really, professions, and not everyone's capable of them. We have anthropological constants. Some of us can achieve results in one sphere, but not in another. And there are people for whom this simply isn't given.
They console us, saying: oh, these professions will be in demand. Well, what percentage, even if we take our country or Europe, what percentage of Europeans will be able to master these professions and work at such level?
Virtual Worlds as Alternative Reality
Yuriy Romanenko: And don't you exclude that the mass, this whole mass of people or a significant mass of people will simply go into virtual gaming space and will spend their life there and earn money there? There will be money there, there will be assets. I just know there are masses of games already now where for people it's valuable to invest thousands of dollars there, for example, having some leveled-up account, and they're ready to spend time on this.
Then come people who buy up these accounts because for them what's significant is that hierarchy which... I'm just observing this myself. I'm conducting such an experiment, I play one strategy from time to time. And I'm just watching this as a beginning anthropologist. I'm watching...
Andriy Baumeister: Well here...
Yuriy Romanenko: I'm interested how people communicate, how they build social connections among themselves, how they create clans. That is, this is all virtual such added value. They, on one hand, live in reality, earn some money there, but on the other hand they've already obtained there something that is value for them.
For them what's important is the hierarchy that's there, which manifests from the point of view of skills they level up, abilities and so on. And they even communicate and even meet there in reality. Because within this social organization, and we're talking precisely about social organization, because there servers war with each other, conclude alliances, fight for resources and think where to get these resources, some skills there, well, and so on and so on. So...
Andriy Baumeister: Here, here, here.
Yuriy Romanenko: This has already happened. There are people, I'm conducting such a peculiar focus group. That is, I'm trying to understand what they're doing there, why they're doing it. I have such research interest. There are absolutely different people there. There's not only some youth, there for example in the group there's 68 years old, a man from Germany, from Greece, from Thailand, absolutely from different countries of the world.
At the same time they group very seriously along national lines, because it's easier to communicate, easier language of meta-communication...
Andriy Baumeister: You're describing this axial age from another side, here it is.
Yuriy Romanenko: Yes.
Andriy Baumeister: Let's think through logically to the end. Look, when these players, these gaming communities—I'm now voicing thoughts alien to me, because I'm a Christian conservative, Catholic, yes, admirer of Plato, Kant and Heidegger. But I'm interested, this is the opposite view.
If we're a large community of gamers, we start understanding that success in these games presupposes long staying there...
Yuriy Romanenko: Yes.
Andriy Baumeister: ...faster reaction, more precise, more perfect system of calculation in computing moves.
Yuriy Romanenko: Yes.
Andriy Baumeister: And we gradually start identifying with this system.
Yuriy Romanenko: Yes.
Andriy Baumeister: We buy new gadgets to, well, I don't know, improve our brain, sleep less, eat less, so certain products arrive to us. Practically we turn into part of these virtual systems. At some stage we start completely merging with them, with these systems, and in these systems a completely different reality starts being created, another world where there are its own bonuses indeed, its own competencies, its own rewards, its own religion, its own politics.
But this is no longer people's politics, not people's religion, not people's money, but these are some bonuses of this system. And this very much corresponds to those reports you just discussed. Masses of people either unnecessary or talented but wanting to enter this virtual reality, practically identify with it over time during their life or through a generation.
Practically human biological nature, anthropological, our constants turn out to be the most vulnerable and unnecessary resource, because we get tired, we calculate poorly, we need food products, we need at least once to walk through a park and not sit in this system. We went out to the park, and there already several gamers have broken forward. We mustn't leave the game.
And if creating strong motives, strong impulses, strong motivations, then having entered this world, many will never leave it. In perspective.
Yuriy Romanenko: Well, look...
Andriy Baumeister: Here's such an axial age for you.
The Realism of Virtual Worlds: Same Laws as in Reality
Yuriy Romanenko: Look, not everything's so bleak, because again, I'm living...
Andriy Baumeister: Why so bleak? If you read several very respected people—Kurzweil, such a somewhat smart nutcase but very much strength. I read physicists, astrophysicists, and they conversely say: "This is solving problems." This is a solution. We're now evaluating this as a negative, pessimistic prognosis. For them this is conversely, this is progress, breakthrough.
Yuriy Romanenko: Look, so I relate to this absolutely calmly, because I see that for many people this is value. They along the way don't completely lose connection with reality. That is, they walk, stroll, they go somewhere, they meet, they transfer their virtual practice of communication, interaction, success into reality, because they meet among themselves there and see who this person is who stands behind some player there who has status.
And this is real, you can live from this, because you, spending time, you earn resources that you can spend on ensuring food and everything else. And essentially this is such utilization... I can't say here utilization of human energy, simply human energy goes into imagination, into itself.
Andriy Baumeister: I'm simply saying that over time perfecting the player for optimizing staying there and with technology development we can gradually become part of this world.
Yuriy Romanenko: And so...
Andriy Baumeister: This is an intermediate stage when we go out and walk in the park or use benefits obtained from there.
Yuriy Romanenko: I'll tell you, I'll tell you that precisely the same principles work there that work in reality. Because if you understand how a social system works, if you understand what conflictology is, if you understand how economy develops, resource base and all that, then you according to your skills that you have in reality, you start developing very quickly, because you understand how to organize them, you understand what your priorities should be for what, what the timing should be.
You calculate the logic of game organizers, because you understand that game organizers need profit. They're also earning from you. If you're spending money there, spending time, and this way you distribute resources in such a way to optimize spending your resources and not turn into prey for the organization.
Andriy Baumeister: You yourself are changing. I'm soon summarizing—I'm collecting both new books and journals and research on the topic: how our psychology and anthropology change under the influence of technology development. After all, we hope we can always stop the game or leave from there, or live for a long time in such realities without changing essentially.
But research of the past two years shows this very strongly changes our psyche, our emotional world and our intellectual world. This is so far first research, well, true, of large institutes, large research groups, but we still don't know the results completely. Too small a time period, but for now we can clearly say: we already don't remain the same.
Even a person communicating with chat GPT, he's already not the one who never used it. Or a person who several hours a day follows—as if dives into a smartphone or into other gadgets—this is already another person. He loses the sense of time's integrity, he's torn. Most often his psyche is vulnerable, he lives by emotions of that world, and there in this world enormous numbers of communities can pounce on him that can crush him and so on.
This is the observation of researchers, psychologists, anthropologists, sociologists. Maybe somehow we'll do a conversation on this topic. I'll simply show these studies, numbers and results. They're quite pessimistic.
Tools of Expansion or Path to Degradation
Yuriy Romanenko: Look, I'm not so pessimistic because I see precisely the same patterns as in reality. If you have, if you're psychologically stable, if you understand your priorities, if you cut off secondary, tertiary, then you figure it out, then you live there essentially with the same effectiveness as you live in the real world.
And most importantly, knowledge about the real world, say, I had dialogue with a person from Turkey who lived in that region—Trabzon, Rize area where I've been. And as soon as I started calculating him, I was interested why he behaves this way? And as soon as I started calculating him and showed that I understand in what context he is, why he behaves this way, what geography he lives in and so on, his attitude immediately changed one hundred eighty degrees, and he, conditionally, from enemy turned into virtual friend. And an absolutely different level of communication began.
Therefore people remain people in the virtual world too, absolutely, despite all these bells and whistles that artificial intelligence gives. Although for me, for example, I see in artificial intelligence simply enormous opportunities for expansion and for those who understand how to structure these enormous data arrays, how to capture, how to go to markets where you couldn't be present.
Because even your interview, our interview, our conversation about Thucydides' trap, I, for example, translated it with AI's help, translated to Polish, translated to English, will translate to other languages. And basically an audience that never knew Baumeister there can now, or me, can get acquainted with the work.
And you get, accordingly, expansion tools. You would never have entered these markets before, wouldn't have earned money, wouldn't have influenced there, wouldn't have understood what's happening there. And in turn they wouldn't have understood what's happening with you if this tool hadn't appeared.
For those capable of building such large models in their head, for them simply, I don't know, limitless space opens for expansion, but very, very large space that allows going beyond all this need, this wretchedness that's there beyond this studio, due to those reasons we talked about. And perspective opens for him. You run where there's energy.
Andriy Baumeister: I agree with you, but this is the minority, Yuriy, what are we talking about? This isn't me saying, experts say and engineers and scientists.
Yuriy Romanenko: So look...
Andriy Baumeister: Chances, but for the minority.
Yuriy Romanenko: So it's always been. Look, Marco Polo was, represented the minority that went to China, carried there some goods with high added value, from there carried also goods with high added value, along the way enriched themselves with knowledge and everything else. Whereas the absolute majority of people who somewhere there in the fields of terrafirm worked and grew, there, I don't know, what they there...
Andriy Baumeister: Well, for example, spices, yes? Conditionally speaking.
Yuriy Romanenko: Yes, yes, yes! They lived absolutely wretchedly, even by concepts of contemporaries and the same Marco Polo, because they generally didn't imagine how the world is arranged. Their whole life passed in one and the same place, and therefore it seems to me we shouldn't make tragedy from the fact that some people or even many people, they're not capable of overcoming their wretchedness, there, due to objective reasons including.
New Worldview: Non-Working Majority and Demotivation
Andriy Baumeister: We're not talking about tragedy, about pessimism and optimism. We now, our topic is the axial age.
Yuriy Romanenko: Yes.
Andriy Baumeister: First thesis. Second was an important question: how is the world changing in connection with the collapse of the former worldview and birth of a new one? Two. And three. We today, Yuriy, are trying to probe without pessimism and optimism. I'm not giving evaluations, I'm building a model of a certain hypothesis.
Yuriy Romanenko: Mm-hmm.
Andriy Baumeister: And I'm saying: the minority has always determined trends and ruled the majority. This is first, agreed. But until our time, several centuries if not millennia, the majority ruled... or the minority ruled the majority one way or another, either forcing or motivating the majority to work, create some products or services.
This is another thesis. And we're approaching a world in which the majority or initially a significant group of people, their work isn't needed by anyone at all. Harari wrote about this even in his third book, but so, in such journalism still. We now already understand this reality.
And when we organize the non-working majority, the minority organizes the non-working majority, other tasks arise. Everything the Western world lived by breaks. Another idea of freedom, another idea of justice, another idea of truth, another idea of success. Another idea of what the West built the past fifty years.
It tried to smear ideas of justice and equality of opportunity, scatter them across the whole world. But this didn't work out very well. At first it worked, now this collapse happened. We see this was still a lie, and the West still consumes clothing created by semi-slave labor somewhere in Asian countries, and uses resources extracted in some countries, not on the territory of the same Germany, Norway or France.
Here's another question. We're simply analyzing. The novelty is—appearance of large non-working groups of people, demotivated, as Stuart Russell, one of the fathers of artificial intelligence, in one of his recent books talked about how this will destroy people's motivation. Understand?
If we don't work and don't build a career, success—earn more, buy a gift for the wife, so children study in a slightly better school, for this I must work. If I have no motivation, I cease being human.
Non-working majority, entertaining themselves through some games, maybe through some virtual entertainments, they're demotivated, they have no biography, nowhere to strive. You turned fifteen or sixteen, and where does your life path go? You understand you won't break into this minority. You have no career ladder, social elevator, and you from fifteen to, conditionally, seventy or one hundred years exist along such a horizontal, practically live in these worlds.
Here's the challenge! I'm not saying this is pessimism or scary. Or we must find for the majority, we as representatives of the minority, some creative, constructive occupations. Stuart Russell says: "Plan B." Okay, they won't work, but they'll discuss art, literature, contemplate, meditate. I have weak faith in this, that the majority will sit down to meditate and discuss Mozart's symphony or some contemporary jazz.
Yuriy Romanenko: It will engage in what it's always engaged in. It will be absorbed by everyday problems.
Andriy Baumeister: But it worked, I emphasize again, it worked to then engage in everyday problems during leisure.
Yuriy Romanenko: It will entertain itself more and work in the sphere, in the entertainment sphere. Because human attractiveness becomes a key factor of his success in such society. Because how much he's capable of entertaining others, being interesting to them, will determine what status he'll be in, including in these virtual worlds. As far as I see, this is...
Andriy Baumeister: Good, I think let our viewers write comments. After all, my task isn't to convince you, but our conversation precisely as thesis-antithesis.
Yuriy Romanenko: Of course.
Andriy Baumeister: We're creating such optics of complementarity. I'm not insisting on my position.
Yuriy Romanenko: Of course.
Andriy Baumeister: I'd conversely not want that world I'm voicing. I'm precisely its enemy, its opponent. But we must understand in what direction society is moving and all these systems.
By the way, in that world you described, nation-states aren't needed. That's the thing.
Yuriy Romanenko: Yes.
Andriy Baumeister: In this virtual world of large gaming groups, the state is the main threat. Covid showed this. The state immediately makes borders, barriers, starts limiting and doesn't give opportunity for expansion. The state is a constraining factor for such an axial world. That's the thing. Nations, national borders—a constraining factor. It's not needed.
Yuriy Romanenko: Mm-hmm.
Andriy Baumeister: More movement is needed.
Germany Today: Life Without Motivation
Yuriy Romanenko: And tell me, in contemporary Germany, yes, how do you see, the majority, is it motivated or in reality of its life is it living actually also without some motivations, simply floating along? Simply because such behavioral norms are given, they don't particularly think about how these norms appeared. They're just such. You need, to be a law-abiding citizen, you must do such and such, such and such.
Here are red buoys, you immediately get hit on the head if you cross. There after all is a ferocious disciplinary society, in the best traditions described in Foucault. And accordingly Europe's low passionarity today, it seems to me, is connected among other things with this, this is my, this is now my assumption, in polemic with you, that in reality many of these people, they're already living without motivation.
Their life is so determined that they drum from bell to bell. That is, career is clear, opportunities are clear, credits are clear, housing is clear, absolutely everything is clear. Europeans live in a society of thought-out clarity where the state acts as mom and dad simultaneously and determines everything that happens to them.
Isn't this the key problem, as it seems to me, of Europe, that adults there are practically children. And the state thinks humans are children who need care. Therefore it reaches the ridiculous when they put up such fences there somewhere, where earlier ancient Greeks there walked to some cliff and stood, watched as Persians there approached, now they'd be told no, no, no way, here you can fall, therefore we still have responsibility to bear for this. How do you, what do you say about this?
Andriy Baumeister: Well, first, yes, to finish our conversation, like specifics, yes...
Yuriy Romanenko: Yes.
Andriy Baumeister: As in Germany. First, you shouldn't be too brazen to, having lived slightly more than four years in Germany, though all my life studying Germany, German culture, German civilization, still judge it. But since I'm quite integrated and work and pay taxes and so on, I can judge this.
What do I see? Indeed, this is influence, first, of false ideas that started spreading the past twenty years or so in Germany. Partly they're the result of German repentance of 1945, which started as the right idea, but Germans had suppressed the sense of greatness of their culture, greatness of their contribution to humanity's treasury. Publicly a Frenchman can say this, Trump can say this, but a German—no.
But the past twenty years the main target of criticism was everything connected with capitalism, with competition, these, competitiveness, success, breakthrough, achieving some results. All this was described as bad. And as a result... Well, of course Germans live on old baggage, they're rentiers.
Absolutely, some still work, I don't know, still the auto industry breathes importantly, but trains are late, planes are late. And when you read Germans, advanced intellectuals or large businessmen, they say they feel everywhere a diffused atmosphere in Germany—an atmosphere of blockage.
That is, at some level, if you're an ordinary person citizen, like Ukrainians getting into Germany, some, well, received what they'll never receive in Ukraine. If you're not an ambitious person, in Germany for you it's not bad, they'll care for you in old age, your children are provided for, they have teachers, there, this and that and so on. If you don't have enough for an apartment, the state will supplement for your apartment.
Moreover, you can rent housing until death, you'll never be evicted from this housing. If you lost work or earn little, they supplement you. Yes, enormous holes arise in the budget, they constantly write about this. This debt pit increases.
For example, in the same Saxony on average, they calculated, about six thousand euros of debt per person mathematically, and large cities—this is Dresden, the capital, Leipzig, the largest city, and there Chemnitz—billion debts just for utilities. This is practically they overspend these large masses of money.
But again, if you're not an ambitious person, well, then your family, you'll somehow feel better than in Ukraine. You'll have decent housing, decent services, they won't throw you on the street, you won't die from some illness, the system takes you under its wing. That this system is gradually collapsing—this is fact. And that sooner or later there simply won't be means to help this ordinary person anymore for these hospitals, schools, infrastructure, social assistance—this is also fact.
But for now these years there's still this reserve, and Germans perceptively understand this. They don't understand how to break out of this. Starting from Merz, ending with political scientists or journalists, everyone precisely understands their disease, everyone clearly understands the symptoms, but nobody understands how to cure this.
And yes, indeed, I'm saying again that with such taxes, for example, reaching 47-46 percent, moreover taxes both income and triple taxes, practically, yes? If you're also a believing person, you still pay church tax, you have annual income, monthly tax, annual tax and also religious tax. This demotivates for breakthroughs, for growth.
Therefore many active Germans try to leave and engage in business or make careers outside Germany. And even you read the American strategic document—example of a large chemical corporation building a factory in China using Russian gas. These are only the first swallows.
So we can say, yes, this lulling demotivatedness. And I'll finish our conversation with small comparisons. If you get into Milan, for example, or Rome, or Istanbul, Warsaw, you see that until late stores work, people try to earn, people offer these or those services, create some small, make businesses and so on. And life catches the eye. At nine evening a restaurant is open, eleven evening, there somewhere people walk, they offer you these or those services.
In Germany this doesn't exist! And in entire districts of very beautiful, very good cities, sometimes it's hard to find a restaurant, cafe, I don't know, some beauty salon or some other services. Everywhere offices, lawyers, real estate, offices and so on. Sometimes the feeling that you're moving through such a lunar landscape. Building facades are decent, streets are quite clean, but several blocks not a single establishment, and you might not meet a single person on these streets, quite good, beautiful and so on. Sometimes the feeling of absence of life's rhythm. This is strongly transmitted to me.
Yuriy Romanenko: Mm-hmm.
Andriy Baumeister: In Milan, in Warsaw I feel, in Istanbul I can dine in a restaurant at one in the morning, understand? And if a person wants to earn, he'll bring you any day, on Saturday, Sunday. That is, this will for life activity. In Germany this doesn't exist.
Very many holidays, very many such zones, periods when, well, everything practically stops. Well and here's the result, it seems to me, will be quite understandable. This demotivatedness is diffused in the air. I understand there are beautiful projects, institutes, research centers, doctors, beautiful medicine. There are still universities, scientists. I'm not trying to paint such a black picture, but we're talking with you about tendencies and the general.
I have such experience, and this is felt, understand? Kyiv life, despite bombings, water shutoffs, Kyiv lives, yes, Kyiv is active. And in a city where they don't bomb, there some Leipzig or Dresden. The feeling that war just ended yesterday, and people after eight there's almost nobody. And this activity, its absence.
Yuriy Romanenko: Yes, yes, yes.
Andriy Baumeister: Poland is between Kyiv and Berlin just still, when you get into Warsaw, the feeling that you're like in Kyiv: everything boils, many restaurants, many beautiful some establishments and so on, storefront design and so on and so on. Moreover, you're often in Poland, you understand perfectly what Warsaw is like there.
Yuriy Romanenko: Yes, Poland produces an impression of greater such vitality, compared to Germany or Austria. But it, there's more such unrestrained energy in it, like ours, yes? You understand this.
Andriy Baumeister: Well, yes! What created America, America's greatness. There must be business life, it boils, everyone wants to earn, everyone offers some their services, offers some their talent, their labor for something. And in Germany indeed this doesn't exist. Well, in the Italian hinterland it's also not very much. In large cities—yes.
Yuriy Romanenko: Yes, agreed.
Andriy Baumeister: But they can provide what? They can provide rich Ukrainians, Russians the opportunity to buy housing, invest some money, pay taxes, invest in Lisbon, in Cascais or somewhere there, I don't know, Madrid or Barcelona. And they can still enjoy twenty, thirty years when an active Syrian, active Chinese, active Ukrainian or Belarusian will create something.
Yuriy Romanenko: Well and relative safety. Relative because...
Andriy Baumeister: Here, here and relative safety of course. Namely safety not as personal on the street, which also in Europe you can't count on anymore and you need to be careful, but safety in terms of that, well, the authorities aren't interested in pressing on you if you're engaged in something. And you relatively have guarantees from the system. Infrastructure works and state, that it doesn't steal.
And to finish all the same on this moment, a German official of regional, say, or city, or district level, absolutely it's visible that taxes go precisely on community life. This is visible, they constantly repair, update, something such is constantly created. And the official's task isn't to steal money but conversely to somehow utilize them, because there's clear, transparent all documentation.
Absolutely corruption in Germany also exists. We won't absolutize this, idealize it like that. But the German official of various levels, he precisely helps the system cope with utilizing taxes and investing them in these or those spheres of life. With us this simply disappears into a bottomless barrel.
Ukrainian Corruption: Where Billions Disappear
Andriy Baumeister: I calculated how much money was allocated to us from 2022 for humanitarian purposes, for help to internally displaced persons, for recreating infrastructure. This is colossal money!
Yuriy Romanenko: How much is this, how much in billions, don't you remember?
Andriy Baumeister: Well, I can, I can name the figure that the German Atlas... Look, from 2022 Ukraine received from Western partners annually about 267 billion euros, they count in euros. 130 billion euros, 49 percent—this is military aid annually, 118 billion, 44 percent—financial support, and 19 billion, about seven percent—humanitarian aid. This is 19 billion just such direct, direct aid.
And also, for example, I calculated how much USAID gave Ukraine for humanitarian things in 2023. This year, incidentally, it was closed, as you know, but this also was all for humanitarian things and for supporting officials' functioning. There the sum was somewhere several hundred million euros, dollars. Then this is American aid. Imagine what numbers these are? This is every year.
Yuriy Romanenko: Well, this is...
Andriy Baumeister: If we're talking about 19 billion euros annually just for humanitarian needs, if even one billion from them—you can build in Galicia or Volyn several small towns and whole cottage districts. Completely, with medicine, new schools, new roads and so on. This struck me, these are enormous numbers!
Yuriy Romanenko: Well, I'll say, knowing, say, also interested in what money reaches Ukraine. I'll tell you that 80 percent doesn't reach the money, here, this money in real terms.
Andriy Baumeister: Understood, this is corruption.
Yuriy Romanenko: Yes.
Andriy Baumeister: Here it works.
Yuriy Romanenko: Yes, therefore...
Andriy Baumeister: They want to help us further.
Yuriy Romanenko: Yes.
Andriy Baumeister: Their help needs to be divided by, as you said, completely...
Yuriy Romanenko: Yes, one hundred...
Andriy Baumeister: What reaches, this is also for Ukraine large, agree, sums of money.
Yuriy Romanenko: Of course, even, even if 20 percent reached from 19 billion, then every year, calculate, it would turn out very decent sum. This would already be under 20 billion all the same over four years.
Conclusion: New Year's Wishes
Yuriy Romanenko: Well, I think we'll finish. We had, in my opinion, an excellent conversation, organic. We reasoned along the way and complemented each other, and everything turned out, in my opinion, so cozily, quite and interestingly both for me and for you. Therefore I want your audience, because I'll give you the video, I hope you'll place it on your channel, upload this broadcast too, let your audience also watch this conversation.
And I congratulate mine and your audience on the coming! I hope the next year will be pivotal, including from the point of view of ending this our military madness. And in conditions of this new world order's onset in the era of the new axial age, that each of you finds your place under the sun and will be happy at the same time. Because probably happiness is that category each person strives toward and tries to find it.
Andriy Baumeister: Important that this place be a place of activity, yes? I also join with congratulations. I wish a blessed, creative, peaceful, bright 2026. And we of course talked about different colors, used different expressions, optimism, pessimism, but I wish you to be all the same an active subject in these processes and understand that our ability to quickly change, polish new skills, new competencies, adapt to new conditions—this is precisely the pledge of our success.
The world demands from us speed of reaction and constant work on ourselves, constant education, constant advancement. Well and happy 2026. All the best!
Yuriy Romanenko: Yes, thank you, Andriy Olehovych, enormous thanks and until new meetings already in the new year. Be happy!
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