Keepin’ It (Capitalist) Real(ism)

**Matt** (0:07)
Okay, welcome to the 66th meeting of the Junto Club.

**Michael** (0:13)
Almost number of the devil.

**Matt** (0:15)
Almost, almost. It is April 19th. So in 1727, Benjamin Franklin organized a group of friends to create a club for mutual improvement, where they discuss topics around science, philosophy, politics, and business.
We sort of just copying that idea a little bit, using this as a chance to have people read books, bring ideas, discuss topics to try to learn a little bit more, and improve ourselves a little bit, an excuse just to hang out. So that's the Junto Club. I'm Matt, joined by Shu and Michael. Today's topic is going to be on the book, Capitalist Realism by Mark Fischer.
So look forward to that if you want a little bit of politics. But we always start off with a quote from Shu. Not Shu's own quote, he finds other people's quotes. He's not a quote maker yet.

**Michael** (1:08)
No, I feel like one episode he did maybe use his own quote, but yeah.

**Matt** (1:14)
He's practicing, he's practicing. I think episode 100 on, Shu has to make his own quotes from then on.
That will be enough practice. But all right, Shu, do you have a quote for us today?

**Shu** (1:25)
I do not have a quote. I have multiple quotes. Now, since we've done frequent now too, so I need to use all the chance to get all the quotes in.

**Matt** (1:35)
Okay, I'm going to limit you to your favorite too. Okay.

**Shu** (1:38)
All right. So actually, today's quote is coming from a book, Art of War. Ah, Sun Tzu. Yeah. So in light of the recent events, so I think it's good to go over some of these quotes. So the first one I'll start with is, our warfare is based on deception.
So a peer weak wins strong and strong when weak. Of course, it's always easily said and done. The second principle is to know yourself and your enemy. So if you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles.
And then the third one is, the spring art of war is to subdue the enemy without fighting. So the goal is to win without fighting. This quote actually reminds me of a sensei that said during Aikido training, he's saying that when we practice martial arts, actually the goal is not power. The goal is control. I think something he mentioned specifically is like, control is more important than power. All right. The fourth one is the speed is the essence of war.
There's no instance of a nation benefiting from prolonged warfare. I think that is a bit of common sense. And it does, anyone you want to pick out and talk about more, we can.

**Michael** (2:55)
I mean, when you were talking, I was thinking a little bit about just like, particularly with the first two, sort of like, knowledge is power. If you can sort of understand, like, from a more like global sense, sort of where you are and where your opponent is, like, then, yeah, it's very easy to anticipate the end results and, you know, understand how you need to behave to get what you want.
Yeah.

**Shu** (3:23)
Yeah.

**Matt** (3:23)
I was thinking about the end goal is to, like, win without fighting or let's say not fighting in general. It reminds me.

**Shu** (3:30)
So the ultimate goal of, yeah, the ultimate, the supreme art of war is to subdue an enemy without fighting.

**Matt** (3:37)
So Shu and I have both trained martial arts on and off for context for everyone. While Michael, we did some very basic boxing training for him in our lab during our grad event days, but we won't say he's an expert. But anyway, with that background context, I've never, I don't think I've been in a real proper fight. I've had some sort of minor scuffles when I was younger, that never really evolved to a real fight. But there's been a couple of occasions where things, for whatever reason, because I'm generally a much ill person, but things have escalated. And I remember once, one of the reasons I think I've never been in a fight besides I don't go do stupid things in general is a couple of times where it's been an issue.
My response has just been to back up and put my hands up and then just stare. So I had guys getting aggressive, where they're looking for a fight. It probably helps that I'm tall too. If I was smaller, maybe they won't care. But what I remember is they were kind of taken aback. I think they were surprised that I see someone just stop and put their hands up and just wait, not like you're going to yell and do whatever or get weird, but just be like, my hands are up. If you step to me, we're going to be throwing punches, right? And then they've like seen that and just backed away. So I feel like that, now, those quotes kind of reminded me of that, like, you know, project strength and then you can avoid fighting. And sometimes.