Sarah Paine — How Mao conquered China (lecture & interview)

萨拉·佩恩 —— 毛泽东如何征服中国(讲座与访谈)

Dwarkesh Podcast

2025-01-30

1 小时 48 分钟
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单集简介 ...

Third and final episode in the Paine trilogy! Chinese history is full of warlords constantly challenging the capital. How could Mao not only stay in power for decades, but not even face any insurgency? And how did Mao go from military genius to peacetime disaster - the patriotic hero who inflicted history’s worst human catastrophe on China? How can someone shrewd enough to win a civil war outnumbered 5 to 1 decide "let's have peasants make iron in their backyards" and "let's kill all the birds"? In her lecture and our Q&A, we cover the first nationwide famine in Chinese history; Mao's lasting influence on other insurgents; broken promises to minorities and peasantry; and what Taiwan means. Thanks so much to @Substack for running this in-person event! Note that Sarah is doing an AMA over the next couple days on Youtube; see the pinned comment. Watch on YouTube. Listen on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or any other podcast platform. Sponsor Today’s episode is brought to you by Scale AI. Scale partners with the U.S. government to fuel America’s AI advantage through their data foundry. Scale recently introduced Defense Llama, Scale's latest solution available for military personnel. With Defense Llama, military personnel can harness the power of AI to plan military or intelligence operations and understand adversary vulnerabilities. If you’re interested in learning more on how Scale powers frontier AI capabilities, go to https://scale.com/dwarkesh. Get full access to Dwarkesh Podcast at www.dwarkesh.com/subscribe
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  • What I'm about to say are my ideas.

  • They don't necessarily represent those of the US government, the US Navy Department,

  • the US Department of Defense, or the Naval War College.

  • You got that clear?

  • Complain to me if you've got problems.

  • All right.

  • I'm going to talk about Mao.

  • He's an incredibly consequential figure.

  • For the 20th century, he's one of the most consequential political or military figures.

  • And he's also one of the most important figures in Chinese history of any century.

  • And he's also a terribly significant military and political theorist.

  • And this is not an endorsement of Mao.

  • It is rather just an accurate description of his global and enduring importance.

  • And think about China.

  • Historically, it's represented I don't know,

  • a third of the world's population, a third of the world's trade.

  • That's a big slice of humanity.

  • Moreover,

  • Mao's theories have been used by many enemies of the United States to take over failing states from within in order to assert dictatorial rule.

  • He is also probably the most brilliant and most famous psychopath in human history,