Feudalism to Capitalism: 30 Years War Historical Analysis

[00:00:00][Music] foreign [Music] hello and welcome back to We're Not So Different podcasts about how we've always been idiots my name is Luke I am an amateur historian and as always I am joined by Dr Eleanor yaneka who is anything but uh today we are talking a little bit about the shift from feudalism to capitalism the 30 Years War and more with a very special guest um and in light of this guess we are once again foregoing our question this week but it will come back next time so um you know over the course of nearly 100 episodes we've covered a whole lot of topics on the show far too many to count really but there were a few we would like we do like to revisit quite often even some some of some that occur outside the Medieval Era we typically call home of course there's historical materialism you'll no doubt recall that we spent a long time following the materialist trajectory of History focusing extensively on the centuries-long transition from the feudal mode of production to the capitalist one and then there's the Holy Roman Empire the most thoroughly medieval institution ever to exist uh and it kept going like that even after the era ended in addition to being a constant source of humor in our daily lives we also did a short series on the hre recently that tracked its history into the early modern era uh we finished that series with a full episode about the pivotal 30 Years War concluding that it was fairly important then there's the Protestant Reformation the end of memorialism across early modern Europe and the ongoing changes in Warfare that all feed into the 30 Years War seeing as how we returned those topics so often we figured it would be nice to have a guest to come on the show and talk about them in a little more depth and that's why we are happy to Welcome Matt Chrisman uh by way of introduction Matt is one of the co-hosts of the highly successful Chapo trop out Chapo Trap House podcast and also hosts weekly twitch streams additionally Matt co-hosted the hell of presidents podcast series with Chapo producer Chris Wade which tracked the material power and circumstances of the presence of the United States from 1776 to the present day but Matt is really here to talk with us today about his and Chris's new successor series the hell of presidents which is called hell on Earth and will be released on the Chapo patreon feed beginning in January 2023.

[00:02:51]hell on Earth follows the progression of the 30 Years War and how it created the circumstances that allowed capitalism to become the predominant mode of production across the globe Matt thank you for thank you so much for coming on the show how the hell are you I'm good thank you for having me great great yeah so you did uh you did the series on um on you know the presidents of the United States uh and and you know it was really good so why go from that to talking about the 30 Years War what what Drew you into that particular conflict above something else well it was uh at uh like hell of presidents it was a topic suggested by uh Chris rate our uh producer of Chapo uh when we came up when the opportunity came up to do projects you know separate from the show uh one of the first ideas was like me doing something historical and Chris suggested what about presidents because I tended to get wound up on the subject of presidents so be a good framework so we did the show and we kind of realized as we were making it that we're really describing is how uh like capitalism is practiced in the United States the context of the United States the settler Colonial project that it was using like a a capitalist engine that was produced in the the fires of 17th century Europe and applying it basically to this different context this different uh material reality uh and then how it is able to essentially uh uh sublimate all of the uh contradictions of that mode of production through uh land and Free Labor and uh dominated labor those kind of things uh and how that then because it becomes this stable political structure is able to exercise you know Global power on behalf of this new globalized capitalism and so when we got done Chris said hey I was I was thinking what about the 30 Years War uh because that's a subject that you know is kind of under discussed and also has a lot of these same themes and at first I was like oh yeah I hadn't I hadn't really thought of it honestly as an option because you know I'm not really a medievalist uh it's not my specialty so sort of like it it was a little outside my bailiwick but once he started talking about it I was like oh yeah this is the next step because for describing this and the end of this process well then it makes sense to that we'll be able to get even more detailed and a deeper understanding if we look at its beginning and we realize that the the 30 years Works can stand and in for this mid 17th century explosion that rippled across the entire world I mean the king the Qing Dynasty or the Ming Dynasty collapses in uh in China at this very time and um there's like four coups in the ottoman uh Empire at the same period as well like throughout every like large uh human uh civilizational settlement around the world there's these huge ruptures caused uh in large part by the little Ice Age by the this huge climactic change and so uh I think the way we want to sort of frame it as to understand how capitalism comes into being out of this you know mode of production feudalism that had been extinguished in practice in a lot of ways but still held political and ideological and cultural hegemony how how does how does that uh stalemate break and I think the way that we describe it in the way that makes sense to visualize it is it's like a toothpaste tube you've got uh you've got uh a feudalism that is in terminal crisis its contradictions accumulated to the point where it can no longer move forward it is only going to eat itself from within everyone is going to try to save it and by trying to save it they will destroy it like that is the dynamic that sets in because they can't because the the dominant political structure has no interest in changing a feudal mode of relations even though it doesn't work anymore so they're not going to change it by themselves the change has to come from below but the whole point of below is that it's below the people there do not hold wheeled power in a way that can direct the flow of events and channel things like the technological innovations that have exploded during the same period because the demographic boom and all that and the new and the new liquidity in the economy caused by greater circulation of species like this is creating these the conditions that can deal with things like oh a huge drop in productivity of Agriculture that is caused by the little Ice Age exacerbating one of soil extinguishment just because of you know non-uh improving our agricultural practices this is a thing this is a new way of doing stuff that could if it was coordinated into a project that brought together culture and Technology uh uh and and and production than it could uh adjust in the face of this seemingly existential apocalyptic and everyone who was alive at the time thought of it in an apocalyptic terms Challenge and they did they saved they saved the ship and by docking It in America they ensure that it's eventual world domination but uh yeah but but when you see with this happen the pressure of of uh of existing contradictions plus the accelerant of climate change pushing a situation where people in that middle strata are able due to um the liquidity of the situation caused by the explosion of violence we're talking about and the state capacity built by fighting these wars uh creates a new structure a new a new political structure that can actually effectively address conditions and not just sort of react to them until it annihilates itself which is what's happening everywhere else but again the people at the top will never do this it goes against their interests so only those who can find a material interest in doing so are going to actually be motivated to do it and that is the city people that is the work that is the merchants it's the burgers yeah the reason that they're called the bourgeois uh and they are able to bring together a bunch of things that had emerged spontaneously out of the collapse of feudalism like the printing press like Calvinism uh like the double entry bookkeeping uh the joint stock company uh [ __ ] star Forts and uh and uh rifled but you know whatever yeah yeah uh they're able to bring it together and and US of Reform restructure the social order but of course in so doing seeding the very uh destruction of that order in time once it can no longer deal with adjusting material conditions which we are now also facing and like them facing a situation with a extinguished uh a a mode of production that has extinguished its usefulness and ability to deal with the world as it is but a ruling power that is incapable of addressing that for fear of losing their privileged position within it and that causing or at least contributing to a accelerating crisis caused by climate change the system kicking in basically uh to show that something has to give here but which a call that cannot be recognized by any ruling Elite which is why uh the conditions of change are always going to be a crisis and and uh and often violent and deadly crisis yeah this so I mean I'm just sitting here nodding and going yeah [ __ ] yeah man I feel the time because I I don't have you ever heard of uh there's this uh historiographical concept that we call uh the the general crisis of the 17th century yes yes yeah which has come up with by Hobbs Bond so uh basically everything that Matt just said is kind of like a rolled up in there which is just basically like all the institutions are [ __ ] you get you've got like widespread Financial issues and then it's all just kind of like hits into this period of muck and the thing that I really like to point out with this is exactly what you're just talking about uh Matt which is you know over and over again I was constantly telling people you know England's not that [ __ ] important like in the medieval period people ask me things about England all the time and I'm like man I don't care about England right like England doesn't mean anything it's it's like a poor little backward water that's on the edge of society but that's why you end up seeing England really kind of come storming forward at this time because they have the most to gain right like you know institutions such as you know sure the Holy Roman Empire is kind of like falling apart at this point but you know they dig their heels in because they're very very important and they've got a lot of land and they're like no [ __ ] it we can't let this go England's got nothing to lose who cares about England right and they're like well we we're we're tiny we don't have any land it's like come on everyone get in the [ __ ] ship let's see who we can go like colonize because there's there's nothing to uphold at home so you see like these smaller places like I mean the Dutch really yes go they go for it so hard because like again like they're like we live in a swamp sure like we we make a lot of money off of wool or whatever but they have every single reason to get in a boat and see what is going on over in Asia right now and it's because there's nothing for them so you know that should I think give us hope as you know the small people now because it's like well maybe maybe we can even get something out of this yeah no it's the same way the crisis is horrifying but all the condition everyone is acting in their in the narrow short interest to keep it going like everyone in power is doing that they're doing what they think will keep it going because they depend upon it they really are like there's the kids territorial dumbass brain tells you know they're trying to destroy this they think it's good no they want to keep this going this is all they care about they don't think they can because they've lost control of it the same way that the that the feudal rulers had lost control of the social structure uh but that means that everything they do to try to keep it is destroying it and it by destroying it means creating new conditions that people are going to react to in a fresh way and it's going to create new relationships to our ecology that are going to deal with that now that could be bad it could be good it's going to be both obviously but it's going to be a synthesis it is going to be a moving forward of uh what had happened before I really do think that's true but people are just so we have so fully identified capitalist reality as human civilization as the human race that the idea of it being like destroyed rather than reformed from within in a less violent way uh that becomes an apocalypse the same way that the medieval or the late medieval early modern people thought that they were in an apocalyptic moment like it's the exact same mindset like we have the same lack of any faith in the future because our systems can't produce a future but if a future got produced anyway against anybody's knowledge or understanding that that's what they were doing and who by the middle strata within countries and then by the middle strata of countries the Goldilocks countries not the not the uh uh the one the overweaning um like political structures like the Holy Roman Empire uh or the [ __ ] uh gold Rich Iberia what what why are they gonna hustle they're in the Mediterranean sun and they have free silver just pouring in their uh ports every day it's the three passive income it's the dream of every Hustler why that's what you that's the view you grind for then you chill and the grinding of course is being done on other people in other lands that makes it a lot easier to do but like what if you're in the med training why are you gonna why are you gonna raise yourself and of course you know in the Far East there's not enough there's not enough resources there's not enough fertility there's not enough population more than anything coming from those things uh to make anything really happen it's in a densely uh a densely populated but relatively resource poor part of the western half of Europe that it's gonna it has to emerge from [Music] yeah that the like the way that that England you know they they obviously were involved in the political and diplomatic aspects to an extent in the 30 Years War but the way that they just kind of stayed out of everything and were largely unaffected by it in a number of ways and so they were just like well that happened I guess we're going to go to America now you know like they just saw it and we're like nope yeah check please I'm done but yeah exactly they just had no nowhere to go with it yeah so um you know one thing one thing that we talked about with the 30 years war is just you've got this like you're very eurocentric conflict about largely about schismatic religion and dynastic politics and it's in a lot of ways mostly constrained to the German land so like how does that end up having this extremely outsized effect and This Global importance on everything and you know spanning for three four hundred three hundred years after it happened well the glib answer uh is the Treaty of Westphalia and of course people will say ah excuse me no it wasn't that first of all there was two treaties and a piece get it right uh but also there's a pushback on the idea that West the Treaty of Australia created anything and I think that's true like of from a pedantic point of view yeah it did not make the modern state but it it was a ritual sort of legal recognition of a change of Affairs that had occurred without anybody knowing it and that had been manifested by the mass violence of the 30 Years War and necessitated finally this ruling class to do something to recognize it and it creates this or as I said it does not create but recognize it a new uh structure that takes away that abolishes the attempt that had dominated the medieval period to re-establish the Roman Empire in some form to to create Universal monarchy in some way across Christendom to to have the religious and political uh uh Powers once again fully overlap within Europe like that's what everybody is pushing for one way or another by advancing their dynastic claims but of course they can't do it in the in those conditions Europe will not allow it geographically uh uh uh environmentally you can't once that thing is broken it cannot be rebuilt but everyone's been trying and of course the Holy Roman Empire is the is the largest remnant of that effort uh and post 17th century Europe will no longer be a site for that kind of uh politics it will instead be a competition among medium-sized polities for uh preeminence among them and uh that competitive framework drives all of these Elites into a seating basically to the demands of their burger class against even their own perception of their long-term self-interest but out of a desire to maintain their short-term control over those political structures mm-hmm and once that happens all these innovations that had emerged sort of spontaneously and that also emerged in places like China and India but there were suppressed away from one another by a centralized Imperial state that had no no interest in seeing uh a a uh Revolution it didn't because it didn't need to it had no real threat to itself no existential threat but these political classes in these medium-sized uh states have an exit are existentially opposed to one another they won't uh create a new Empire but they will overthrow their control over their own place their own area because they're going to be fighting over control of resources and territory with the same War structure they have War doesn't stop at this point it doesn't get replaced with Commerce it explodes you've got uh Wars of Austrian and Spanish succession uh the Seven Years War it becomes endemic to the continent all the way until World War one uh right but it's the political structures are no longer going dominated by a confessional politics that seeks to impose a uniformity of religion that's gone and with that you have this new diplomatic reality where different states Sovereign context is respected like you you're you're France you're Spain okay I'm not going to claim that I'm the I have the kingship of you and I'm going to take over that's not going to happen anymore you're your own thing sorry but we are going to um compete now for the same power and Prestige that we had uh and that is going to supercharge thanks to the technological cultural innovations that have been accumulated that's going to be supercharged by motivated States like the Dutch trying to get away from uh Spain get out from under the Spanish yoke and the the Brits trying to [ __ ] Keep Their Heads above water as this back Backwater [ __ ] uh Sheepfold that was mainly just a one it was just a one export economy for for most of that period it was it was it was a petrol state for [ __ ] wool and and there those motivated States and they're incredibly motivated middle classes uh because they're the middle classes forged in those conditions those precarious conditions are going to take take the reins and once they take the reins that's the Divergence that's the rocket ship exploding that plus of course the providential deposits of coal uh in England that allow for this like literal supercharging of the technological uh uh social structure that blow the whole thing open and I find that so funny you know like as someone living in this God forsaken country for my sins or whatever and the Hopeless Tory Wasteland of England right it's really funny and interesting right because you know England gains so much in this period because of that you know because it was just like well yeah this is where we keep the sheep or whatever they really go hard on you know uh for a banking and stock and you know Double Entry bookkeeping and all these things and of course you know there's the whole cool thing and now of course we're out of coal because thanks Margaret Thatcher peace you know I'm like and don't get me wrong I'm not I'm not here to be like Yay Cole I'm more like Yay minors whatever uh but we're still it's so obvious right in the hinge point that we're at now that this country has no ability to lead any form of Reform at all whatsoever because we're just completely dependent on like being a banker for for the world and that's the only thing that we can come up with and so that's why you end up seeing you know [ __ ] like what happened to us in 2019 at the elections and things like that because any form of reimagining it just screws us so it's going to be really really interesting to see what happens when we have these kind of like middling places it's like you know what the [ __ ] Nigeria about to do I'm really interested in like what's going on in like these really fast growing places that have tons of tech and a lot of people who are going to do something really really interesting in the in the next little bit but it just shows us how we can still learn something in theory from the 30 Years War you know we look at the 30 Years War and we go here's all these things that it's done but nobody ever learns the historical lessons they just do it again and we're just doing it again right now but in an incredibly stupid way you know like yeah yeah just full steam ahead uh uh yeah but at the the Eternal Cry of the capitalist uh yeah but I'm Different it's like yeah sure this this this holds everywhere else that I've ever watched but maybe I'm one of the elect have you ever considered that and you know what if I really if I act like I am one of the elect I probably am and that makes me that that replaces the belief that used to be sustained ritually uh and is now just by me going out in the market and making my bread that becomes my [ __ ] religious practice yeah because you may yeah you you made the money you made the uh you you made you made the big bucks and so therefore you know you obviously are of better stock than uh then then your inferiors who didn't make the money and that's not because of circumstances or dumb luck or who your family is it's you know because you're genetically special and therefore better you're elect baby God God kissed you on the forehead before you were born exactly Yeah well yeah speaking of uh of religion so you know 30 Years War obviously doesn't happen without protestantism in the Reformation but you know how did it get from a Schism in Western Christianity to you know the total breakdown of public religion is a guiding force in Europe especially after the I mean during the war but especially after it uh well because it becomes a wedge to sort of pry away the more uh uh socially and economically Federal parts of Europe from the more uh uh feudally dominated ones because you had a few you have the feudal structure still ruling over Europe as a hegemony but in specific places uh there was not a a powerful extent extension of uh a feudal Authority like for example in the Netherlands uh there really isn't a a uh a feudalism per se ever established in the Netherlands uh in the low countries so you have counts you know uh and you have uh uh powerful families like the house of orange being the preeminent one uh but they have no uh they never really were able to extend legal authority over the small holders because that part of Europe would have required too much capital investment to make profitable for for any Sovereign to actually endure the cost of if they want to make more money you invade your cousin's Shire and take it over you do not do not take the money that goes to your Urban coats and your pewter uh hats and whatever the [ __ ] and gestures you know the stuff that affirms your actual status and Power in the hierarchy of your cousins you're not gonna [ __ ] take that money and spend it to what get uh to dredge a river and [ __ ] build some uh um windmills uh and and sink money in to some boring [ __ ] like Dykes [ __ ] that bow that work in the Netherlands was done by peasant associations who came together and said hey the instead of the the the Surplus in labor we would give to our count who because he does not offer this uh uh service essentially is not able to extend his legal authority over the the people the way he has other places because the reciprocal relationship that defines feudalism is not able to be persist because again they have to do literally all of the work and spend all the money so they take that that but would have been required to give to their uh to their feudal Lord in other parts of Europe they're able to put together use to build the dams to build the dikes and the and the canals and the windmills and the superior uh fishing vessels and they're able and they're all able to do that because they're trying to survive trying to make it not as a polity dominated by a feudal Lord but as a bunch of hustling [ __ ] uh uh people individuals trying to make it instead of if uh uh hobbsian personifications of a dynastic State and family structure that everyone has to be dependent everyone has to be uh accounted for and that's why when when this breaks out when when the Reformation breaks out uh sovereigns are basically universally opposed to it yeah any Sovereign is like nope get out of here the princes of Germany are are Protestant curious but they're not sovereign so they have that precarious relationship to power and so this challenge to a a a church Authority that buttresses Royal Authority is advantageous to them just as it is to the the city people of Germany and there's tons of City people in Germany which is why that's where the Reformation starts there's tons of City people in in the lowlands too because yes because because you can't farm right it's like what what what Countryside it's like that is a ditch yeah like and all there is is cities that are you know making cloth and they're they're bringing stuff in from other places and they're making wool and cloth and that's what they do and they've got a ton of money and they are a network of cities so everybody's lit literate right everybody's literate everybody like goes back and forth a lot everybody travels everyone talks to other people and they've got money they've got no one looking at what they're doing and they can read right like and and like even even the feudal structure that does overlay it and it does exist you know the counts and whatnot uh and then of course the habsburgs you know as as they're over they're eventually God bless them but even the interests of those people those those uh counts are aligned uh because uh of their relationship to the the house of Habsburg and their uh their independent interests uh there I had another thing but I'll get back to it I can't remember the Dutcher just [ __ ] I'm obsessed with uh I'm obsessed with the little swamp guys I love the wetlands like I mean in the first place I like uh the silly made up Flemish and Dutch languages which I don't think are real uh and and I like and I'm really into cities so I like seeing what it is that people do there and they're they're like these fascinating little Gremlin people across uh the Middle Ages just because they've got tons of money but nobody knows what to do with them pretty much and they just kind of like get ignored you know I'm sorry I remember what I was trying to say yeah go on uh go ahead so they still have uh they still are like a polity before they get absorbed by the habsburgs they're they're this duked him the Duke Duke them of burgundy which for a while is a computer competitor among like the sovereign states of Europe like the the Duke of burgundy is is trying to extend his power like it that is a project you know they Ally with England during the Hundred Years War and then after they leave they sort of try to take the place of the English as this uh alternative source of sovereignty in in that area uh but uh you know they're they're just too poorly disposed to do anything about it other than eventually get owned Charles the Bold R.I.P uh but but because of that because of that they're uh motivation in that you know contest uh the uh Dukes of burgundy are dropping huge racks on the fineries on uh Wonder rooms on uh balls and [ __ ] all of all of the putterances of power that affirm it that all requires people to be making it all day and that creates a a this suction this this this this Royal circulation of currency but from the extraction economy back into the urban economy that that uh bring that brings them together again because they're a middling power until the Habsburg show up at which point the conflict becomes uh unsustainable the contradiction is too deep there because you no longer have this uh this uh burgundy Duke you have this extension of a Habsburg Dynasty that has no interest in competing that way because it does not feel the same exactly substantial threat that a uh that a lowlands or in England does yeah that makes sense um don't risk getting stranded with a bad battery our professional Parts people at O'Reilly Auto Parts will test your battery for free if your battery does need to be 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know um earlier you were uh you had mentioned uh a little bit about climate change um in uh in in starting or being a factor that leads to 30 years worth so like how did the little ice age uh you know help lead to that and help make it worse because I'm very interested you know in the idea that regardless of all the stuff that we do and all of our material circumstances and everything like that at the same time the planet is you know this giant thing and when it when it changes patterns or or you know climate gets worser and as the case now where we're making the climate worse you know it's just we we can't we can't compete against that that just changes the game yeah utterly right well you gotta remember that the little ice age uh happens in a context where uh European agricultural productivity has been on a uh decline because of the underlying depletion of soil because the feet the feature of feudal mode of production is that there is no structure within it to mandate to motivate to towards uh Improvement of agricultural yield Improvement of the soil there's nothing to make anyone do it if you're a feudal peasant and you're giving a percentage of your uh labor and and surplus to a lord that you don't you as long as you have enough to eat and sustain yourself if that's as much work as you would want to do because it sucks it's bad it's unpleasant it's tedious it is a thing that all all structures exist to keep people from having to do basically in one area by making them having to do somewhere else like that's the essence of a class Society uh and so without that motivation the soil before even the Black Death was in a bit declined but then the Black Death sort of clears the board and creates this conditions plus medieval warming warmth period at that point that explodes demographically and you have a huge uh explosion in the population of Europe uh but at the same time the soil is getting more and more depleted and then in those conditions when the Surplus the system used to depend on is imperiled in the long term already and is the margin is shrinking in those conditions uh there is this drop in temperatures uh like two and a half degrees I believe over that period that uh just destroys agricultural productivity destroys harvests entire harvests with late frosts and and Rain uh but also um stunts the amount of production that can be found from any individual Harvest and with that conditions uh you know you have famine you have mass huge explosion in the cost of food and all of that creates huge social misery at a basic level that then has to be metabolized by the system uh and that is why so much of the ferment of this period is religious in its framework because that is the language people had to assert a a common Humanity in the face of suffering that there was no political spear outside of that so that is what people uh that's the language people took so the Reformation I really think is like partly an attempt by Luther and people like him to try to rescue the social structure that feudalism had uh created uh from itself from stop from stopping the Lords from everyone from the Lords down from acting in the selfish way the ungodly way that they had been if they just read the Bible if they just if they just heard God's word themselves then they wouldn't have to have faith in institutions and rituals that were corrupted and tainted by association with a system that was amiserating people over time it was not promising anything other than uh tomorrow being worse than today was yeah yeah and and if that is true then there has to be some way to every human will try to express it out their opposition to that and and uh the Reformation becomes the language of that resistance uh and and some people take it to its logical conclusion like the anabaptists who push it to the bounds of its political structures but a fat Happy Monk like Martin Luther who is like as soon as he gets a brewery and a wife he's like oh my God this is awesome life rules everything's great yeah I get to sit around the table with my Bros all day I get to [ __ ] write letters to everybody I get to troll I get to post yeah like he's my poster he's a poster he gets to post the system allows even though this is these are conditions of the scarcity and administration I'm talking about not for Marty Luther not for him for him the system provides yeah he's halfway yeah yeah like he's he's 100 like you hear him like when all the peasants get hold of him and they're like all right that's it now we're revolting he's like now hang on just a [ __ ] minute hold on nobody said that the poor people are supposed to you're just supposed to you're just supposed to pray in a different way and then keep doing the thing and but he explicitly gives the game away in that one but the thing is like even he of course he's self-interested but that's self interested in self-interest is laminated in his true belief because like if you told he did not think that's where he thought that he thought that because he truly believed if everybody got the gospel they would all believe like he did and therefore the princess would stop being inquisitive the princes would let things change to help uh feed people would would change their relationship to power would relinquish power maybe even in in order to save uh in order to uh uphold their fellow Chris their fellow Christians and that is that's he had a real belief all the reformers had the true belief in that but by but all their actions were bringing about the end of the system that sustained that God the god of Luther because the god of Luther is I do believe the cath a Catholic God uh uh as opposed to the The calvinist God Who it comes a little later I I think those are different uh conceptual Concepts I think that the god of Luther is in his like internally uh it is different texturally I guess than the calvinist god he's more he's closer like remember Luther Luther says of the Euchre he will not say even though even though his entire argument against sacraments is they're not in the Bible even though the the Eucharist is not in the Bible he still insists that there is a true presence of God of in in and he is willing to break with swingly and the Swiss over it even though that is when they're trying to bring everybody together but because his deeper uh commitment is to the idea of a of a Catholic Church that brings back unimagined Christendom but he doesn't realize is that it's too late for that because how could he he's a [ __ ] monk how could he know what's happening he had a chance to know his dad could have taught him his dad wanted to teach him his dad wanted him to be a lawyer to become a hustler because basically uh you know become Thomas Cromwell or whatever uh but but that would have been for Luther surrendering his soul to this new life this new world that he didn't want to be a part of and he wanted to stop it from happening I think the Kelvin is different Calvin coming later Calvin accepts that this is now a colder place the world is is the the Gods like the glow the presence has Departed because Luther says there's a presence of the Eucharist you bring people around a piece of bread and God is there in a way that means something to that to the pelvis now there's the God is Departed God's gone we cannot feel him anymore we can only think him into being we can only conjure him internally by acting as puppets basically by by doing what allows us to rise and to surrendering our Christian Fellow feeling and saying goodbye to the notion that we can't actually exploit and uh and uh trick and and uh and emiserate our fellow people we can't do that now we have justification just as just as the uh the feudal Lords were justified by their martial dominance now your your success of the market has the same justification uh but now in a world where you can't affirm religion ritually anymore where where the the the assumption is of estrangement uh and that is the only religion that's going to be able to dominate the world and do what needs to be done to save class Society from the deteriorating conditions of the 17th century yeah I mean this this is so much like exactly the sort of like [ __ ] I work on right because like when you look at for example reformers in the 14th century now if you look at the lollards or like you look at like my pre hussite check reformer stuff right they're kind of going on this oh yeah there needs to be greater personal uh personal spiritual responsibility so like maybe see it a little bit more of that and they're like but maybe we can reform the Church you know and they're saying let's reform the Church they're like the church is pretty much [ __ ] up as it is but like let's get in there and we'll Tinker under the hood uh maybe we can hold a couple of sign odds we can like get these guys to stop being so corrupt and we can kind of go from there you get a little further on and the whole sites are like I'm afraid that it's [ __ ] man uh and we're gonna just have to start a new church completely then you get Luther who's like yeah agreed but Luther and Huss like the who sites they're all on the but we can keep the stuff right yeah we can keep the presence of God we can keep the interventionist God right that who you pray to who's interested in your spiritual salvation because he's like yeah I like that when you pray you get to Calvinism and he's on this predestination tip and it's sort of like yeah well [ __ ] it you know like you know God's already decided what's happening you know the universe is almost an automata that he's created and and it's wound up and it's just gonna do what it's gonna do so now you can say like well kind of [ __ ] my fellow Christians right yes at least at least with medieval Catholics they're like yeah it's bad like it uh yeah I mean that's why they had to let them make the Jews do it and then would periodically go and beat them up right exactly and it's like they know they know like they're doing [ __ ] up [ __ ] right they know that like the class system is bad that's why they're constantly like yeah but when you die and go to heaven everyone will be the same but Calvin introduces this uh no the cast system's actually good by the way and it shows that God loves you and it just brings in this whole other era of Christianity that we're still really suffering from like every time I see some nonsense come out of some Republican in America it's just Calvinism yeah like in the weirdest way where it's like I don't even really know what anything what you're saying has to do with Christianity as a whole but it does have to do with this idea that I am where I am society as a result of you know someone got the wheel spinning you know and that and that has been totally uh secularized also because you can't find a Terrain of uh like uh mainstream politics in this country that is not fundamentally calvinist like like the the the the broad left liberal world is one of the Damned and the elect but they're just damned and elected based on their their political virtue rather than uh their uh their adherence to you know biblical Behavior principles or whatever that it's still the same thing like uh they uh we I just we for the show we just read this article by these Nautilus like uh Tech fascists who are all about well you know to save the spark of humanity that exists in my son's Zephyr uh we're going to sacrifice every other human on earth if we have to uh and they call them and they describe themselves as secular Calvinists they said it explicitly so like yeah because that's because that's the only way you can justify a class Society is if some people are destined to be miserable because otherwise you could intervene you could stop it but that becomes a sin because if it's a violation of it for the secularist nature for the liberal for the sentimental liberal uh uh uh goodness whatever the hell uh and for the for the uh uh for the actually you know uh the mythologically inclined uh the will of God but either way it's the same expression we need to have a class Society we need to have regimes of domination in order to sort people that's what the the social machine the social engine of Calvinism the just that capitalism creates is a sorting machine yes yeah oh God I lost just like a tangent on this like really quickly because I lost my entire [ __ ] and like almost threw something at a wall uh but like I saw a unfortunately I I once again was forced to perceive Elon Musk and he was uh and he was giving a speech about how sex without procreation is a logical yeah like you should and just having sex to enjoy it doesn't make sense yeah and I was like that's a literal Thomas Aquinas argument it's a literal argument that was made by Thomas Aquinas and you've just like taken the God out of it and I [ __ ] hate it it's like and and but it you can't understand that even if it is an equinean ornament argument outside of capitalism right yeah because it's like well you have to strip out all of the pleasure of life right and so even like day-to-day bodily functions have to be understood as like moving towards this goal and you have to listen to Elon Musk about it because he's got a bunch of money so like clearly he's some guy that you should ask about sex because it's like you know it's either like you have sex for procreation or you're going to have to like offer your stewardess a [ __ ] horse or whatever right it's like this is the guy because it's the it's the materialization of the calvinist uh uh no the calvinist idea which is not uh uh the individual as like a subject of God a submitter to God but rather uh uh the subject as God because the Covenant God is in your head only like we said and that means uh that the fear the alienation caused by your like big other relationship to get laconian on it with with God means you're always subject to him even when you're sinning even when you're doing bad stuff he's in there telling you you shouldn't be doing that and that means you can never really enjoy anything right and that is that's the thing that that's the that's the the hair shirt that's the mental hair shirt that the calvinist applies but it's one thing you know if you believe you're going to hell then that's a meaningful thing oh God no I keep doing this I'm gonna and then so you keep thinking of hell oh burning oh my God burning in a sulfur pit that's awful oh Jesus now people nowadays can't sustain a real visceral belief in that is happening actually happening to them they cannot visualize hell they cannot smell the crispy flesh the way that those people could because time has gone forward you know we've had encounters with technology and science that have stripped us of a lot of the load-bearing members of that old belief in and ability to visualize actual eternal torment but that was that's replaced with been replaced with is the existential Terror at the thought of non-existence of of the of the of the blankness that cannot be could perceived because it cannot be experienced by definition so it is this this this horror and then uh capitalism becomes how to keep that horror at Bay now you can't uh you cannot do good deeds to get away from it what you can do is distract yourself from it and find other uh mode places to fill that hole or attempt to fill that hole and that's going to drive you eventually to if you're at the top of this uh Heap like our ruling class where you're that removed from humanity and your conceptions are that alien to Human Experience that it becomes oh I must individually live eternally my brain must continue forever so that I am be God because yes the calvinist was terrified of the pit but he also did have that belief that God existed which meant that there was a concept of Heaven behind hell that could always underlie hell and kind of keep him on this like in the in the in the hamster wheel basically to keep him from saying what is this getting me [ __ ] off you know he stays on the hamster wheel because there's that heaven too uh and everyone and you need that and and if you are an end of History last man with no con ability to conceive of an afterlife because science doesn't says it isn't real um then you are left having to construct your own fantasy because loving forever technologically is as much as a Fantasy by these people's conception of like distant from science as the belief in God is but it doesn't matter because it's more plausible you're it's easy it's it you can convince yourself of it if you're motivated enough even if you believe to be a rationalist even if you believe to be scientific in your thinking even though it is as much of a leap of faith uh right as believing in a God is it's the exact same leap of faith but it's framed into material terms uh and you're going to drive yourself into a [ __ ] wall trying to pursue it and bring the rest of us with them with you well yeah and I mean I think completely here as well if we think about that you know as these are the new limits of you know what what a theoretical Heaven Is Right like so now it's Mars right we're all gonna go live on Mars yeah right and and if that and that obviously you know it it has a specific Link in with again this you know calvinist way of thinking about the world right because it's like oh and also by the way it's a new frontier so uh don't worry we're gonna we're gonna sort all of the problems of you know limitations on you know the planet and the fact that you can't just like keep extracting it's like oh no no no no we'll go find another planet where we'll all be rich and we'll all live forever and then we'll find we'll find we'll find the stuff there guys and then there'll be more stuff and then we'll go to another you know it's and it's capitalism destroyed Earth and made it unlivable but we're going to it is going to make livable a completely inhospitable Planet how but which is the stupidest thing it's literally it is the literalization and materialization of the deus ex machina it is the actual machine God machine which is what this is all this that's the Messiah yeah like they were all looking for Jesus in the 17th century they were waiting for Jesus to show up and they're like oh we're getting all this apocalypse we should sure you could use Jesus Jesus ended up being uh a capitalist Jesus ended up being a [ __ ] certificate in the in the Dutch East India Company it is not a guy trying to bring everybody together anymore it's a guy it's it's an object trying to turn you into an object uh and but nobody of course can recognize that because their cultural uh uh reality cannot perceive it and so I think there is something because they did get him like I said they did get a messiah and it was this technological structure that had emerged that allowed them to adjust and create uh stabilize material conditions and advanced material conditions uh in Europe but that Messiah as I said it could not be recognized as Jesus these Tech the tech Messiah these people are looking for would is The Singularity of some kind something deal where we get so good at computer the computer could do everything yeah that is that is what they're thinking is going to break through all these uh things like dumbass Elon Musk love to say I'm actually utopian anarchist uh the thing is he is he absolutely is he absolutely is because there is no other uh social uh uh Horizon then like world spanning uh Ian Banksy and Anarchist uh facilitated by culture but thing is guys like Elon Musk think oh you get there by allowing me to have all the money because I know what to do with it because I'm the the god defining the world defining uh consciousness of Genius that has transcended all others uh and I got this by the way I got to this conclusion totally rationally and using epic science I got to the point there I am essentially uh the Messiah oops so I I'm going to uh but that doesn't mean that the the technological structures that are going to get us past this uh get us through this bottleneck art being built and aren't going to create their own uh uh uh cultural structures that reproduce them they are just invisible to uh the Imperial um gays which is the only gays we can use to talk to each other with it's the only heuristic that we are have access to to to communicate through social media uh that it's invisible it's literally invisible to it just as the emerging capitalism was invisible uh to the the to the feuding cousins who are destroying each other over these these questions that were ending up only cutting their own throats destroying their own positions of power yeah yeah and uh I think I think with the with the guys like musk and uh Peter Theo Peter Thiel and and all those guys it's like you know they they seem you know they they seem to be afraid of something like off in the future like the extinction of the extinction of the human race like off in the future like the sun's gonna burn up and you know it's going to burn the Earth they seem they seem so worried about that stuff you know they've transcended these concerns that we have now these material issues that we have where our world is you know getting worse and we can see it and and it doesn't look like there's any help on the horizon they're like yeah yeah that's fine I'm gonna stick my brain in a computer so that I can survive and they could stick that on a spaceship and then when the earth can sue or when the sun burns you know expands and four I don't know four billion years or whatever it is to to consume the Earth then at least I'll still be out there my brain will still be able to you know shape Humanity because perceiving their own persistent ego is the only value like that's that's what effective altruism is the factorials is that the individual human ego is the ultimate uh value of the universe because it uh determines value basically so therefore it is the only thing that means anything in the universe as though there is no consciousness outside of the individual uh human ego or that the ego is an actual uh like meaningful uh um determiner of events like we think we're acting as egos but we are actually carrying out social roles and it is that social part that is invisible to the capitalist Imperial gays and it's that visibility that's leading it to a destruction and that is without them even knowing it helping build something that's going to replace yeah yeah so I mean that's a perfect segue you know we've talked a lot about the 30 Years War but uh another thing that uh that you know you've said your your upcoming show is going to be about is the transition out of the you know the feudal mode of production and into the true capitalist one so like what are the big things that the 30 Years War really sets in place for the final break of you know that feudal move whenever that comes if that's when if you know if that's at Oster litz or you know wherever wherever you set that in time uh well uh I think a big part of it is that it uh as that it helps a step that I guess 30 Years War as part of the greater uh the 80 years War uh is part of the process that breaks that builds uh this the Dutch Republic and then allows us to uh uh assert itself on the world stage and do things like essentially build the trade infrastructure that is going to make the world system uh like the snap the triangle trade and the the Atlantic uh Corridor and the [ __ ] uh the Slate the network of uh slave all these Calvinists uh whether weighing their souls on the [ __ ] uh uh uh on on against the weight of a Feather or meanwhile building the [ __ ] slave trade uh so that is a huge part of it is that is that it creates these conditions and it also uh creates the conditions that fatally destabilize the uh English Monarchy which is similarly important in pushing things in the direction of this new social order uh because uh James the first makes the decision that you know at the time appeared very reasonable to keep out of the 30 Years War for the most part they sent some troops and some money and some diplomatic missions uh uh but there was a concerted effort by James to try to balance the powers against each other and not try to have that holy war that the Protestants were sort of or the creation rather of a holy alliance between Protestant States uh that that was being sought uh and that did though have the effect of directing inward a lot of the social pressure that was being alleviated across the continent in these religious wars uh and and that led to uh a situation where the very unstable Anglican uh structure which is uh comes out of the fact that the One Sovereign who does sort of embrace the Reformation does so for entirely personal private reasons and personally continues being a Catholic and maintaining uh Catholic uh sacraments and rituals in England throughout his life uh and those things are all fundamentally inextricable from this explosion in Germany which is the most the most richly urbanized part of Europe but the one that is uh paradoxically but also inevitably dominated by the most uh thoroughly feudal social structure uh and that contradiction is going to explode more violently than any other contradiction on the continent because of how deep and dramatic it is and how the one thing sort of creates the other because it's the light hand of the Empire that allows these cities to do what they do in the first place to start doing the sort of uh things that happened in Northern Italy uh but a little later and uh in the condition thanks to the Reformation uh where real uh Sovereign challenge to Imperial Authority can emerge uh and and that that is what sets the table creates the array of uh Technologies social Concepts uh economic instruments trade networks that can then be brought together uh by first the Bourgeois of the Dutch Republic and then once they sort of get too high on their own Supply and refuse to pay taxes to fight the wars they need to win in order to keep their trade networks uh the even hungrier and more uh schizophrenic culturally schizophrenic English the more in need of some sort of uh economic expansion to quell the screaming social pain that's racking through their body politics right yeah um oh [ __ ] I'm just gonna say something okay yep I was I had something you know it was going to be the greatest the greatest comment that we'd ever heard everybody was going to be stunned by my uh intelligence yeah I don't remember what I was going to say um Eleanor yeah it's it's you know what we're just so it's like you know this kind nesses that you have like you know England basically having this monarchical crisis and like getting their little Civil War out of the way early uh meant that they like somehow I have to deal with a new king now so you're of our lore 2022 and I'm getting told that like you know the Tampax guy's my king now or something like that I'm not a British citizen he's not my king uh so like let me let's just make that clear but it's really interesting because you know it is you know they they managed to kind of do the conversion before you kind of get to the end of feudalism in many other senses you know like they managed to you know because they're not on the continent even though they're involved in the Napoleonic Wars you know the same kind of um you know these same sort of hinge points that like bring down other monarchies or move monarchies into more caretaker roles earlier don't apply to the British and so we just had this like stupid tiny little Civil War which was actually just more about like uh I don't know I think he's looking a little too Catholic don't you think he looks a little too Catholic yeah no that's you know no bring him back because we don't want to be like the French you know and then and then suddenly you still have a king you know 200 years later right and and it's wild it's dutch it's like you see the synthetic emergence of this thing where the first two the the the the the Dutch are precociously uh Bourgeois liberal in their politics like they because of the relative weakness of the of of the stockholder uh uh there uh and they create this this reduced monarchy this cut to size monarchy uh that has through the experience of you know fighting the the Spanish and you know their own Burger Class come to an understanding of the world and their place in it as ma as Sovereign that the uh the the English kings cannot imagine like Charles the first cannot get his head around the fact that the world that he that the uh realm he governed uh was fundamentally different than the one that was in his head and no one was ever going to be able to tell him otherwise no event was ever going to be able to prove him wrong because it's deeper than that it's a belief that transcends empirical observation which we all have when that's the big lie of uh west of Western rationalism is that there is such a thing as a objective uh perspective we all have grounding beliefs that are totally immune to what the evidence of our senses uh and for Charles it was that that Royal Authority must be uh uh the the definition of Royal Authority uh was this uh power over transaction you know over the land that would not allow England to be a competitive uh stable polity anymore in the conditions of Crisis that they were in uh and so they they the the parliament cut his head off but that that was precocious as well and so that emergence uh middle class is then able to basically shop around and find a monarch who will sit in the throne and do the do the rituals but in his head contain an understanding of his relationship to Parliament to the people to the market that is an entirely different world than the one that they cut off when they chopped Charles's head chop Charles's head yeah absolutely yeah definitely definitely um well Matt uh thank you so much for uh coming on the show I think uh before you go I just um you know I wanted the the 30 Years War has so many uh so many interesting guys oh so many good guys I just wanted to you know uh take some time just to remember some guys and I think the first one we have to start with is uh you know Gustavus adults oh man the one guy the guy who the one-man argument in favor of monarchy as a uh political tradition yeah yeah because because that guy [ __ ] whips I love gustavo's Adolphus that's the I would I'd sign up for it I'd be like okay why not give it a go sure yeah because uh you have with the Swedish uh State this fascinating over performer in its own way uh it's never going to be able to be at the center of capitalism because of its distance from you know markets and resources uh but uh their political structure is able to be dynamic in a way that few others are because if it's incredibly uh flat social uh distribution it's a 90 peasants there's barely any uh Noble uh uh class for the king to uh contend with and that allows for this incredibly precocious State structure to emerge where they're doing conscription and for Central taxation at a time when that is beyond the capacity of any of the Western European dynasties and it produces this Monarch who leads from the front and is the Chad's Chad uh he's got his uh he's got This indoor kid nerd friend uh oxen Stern it a bunch things off of uh yeah it's like this guy is is a Dynamo and and as a result he just rolls over Germany it's amazing like you go from a period where the raps were could essentially not lose they were rolling double sixes in every contest on the risk board uh they were chasing Mansfield around Germany with a [ __ ] big Mallet they they sent uh they sent Krishna Denmark's running home to his mama go freeze your ass off in the Copenhagen [ __ ] uh and they're even they were toying with the idea of of building a Baltic Fleet and turning the Baltic into a Habsburg Lake uh and that triggers among other things the uh this just Steamroller to come in and just blow through Germany uh go from go from uh Pomerania to Munich in a year and a half it's it's unbelievable but if you lead like that by definition you're taking greater risks than somebody who's uh staying home with the kids while the campaign's going on uh and as a result uh the system that structure they have is is uh vulnerable because it's so damn top heavy because it's so much of it is personified in the sort of world historical figure of Gustavus Adolphus so when he gets uh when he gets clapped at litson uh that kind of breaks it's astounding how it sort of breaks the back of this the Swedish machine even though it hangs around you know for another Century it's like once Gustavus is gone it's it's it's a it's a one-way ticket to uh Baltic Oblivion once again for the swedes sorry guys you had a good run thanks for Delaware by the way really enjoying having Delaware in this country [ __ ] [ __ ] really really appreciate their their Chancery Court having so much uh say in over my life yeah that's uh that's great thanks so yeah so Matt uh there are a lot of of mercenary captains in uh in the 30 Years War so like you know who who's the most interesting to you are you a volunteing guy or oh I love I mean while it seems to me is fascinating to me he's the Richard Nixon of the 30 Years War he's the middle class kid uh and ability you know he is he is he is the middle class in grievance bear but also accessible to all the middle classes skills and abilities because he's an incredible logistic uh and financial genius he he is able to uh lash together this uh huge fiefdom through lines of credit and and through uh the latest application of uh of rational business practices like he ran his lands like factories to squeeze the most out of them uh and he applied that to uh gaining this insane amount of power in an incredibly short period of time uh and hilariously the the the elector's force Ferdinand to fire him because he's too powerful and then as soon as Gustavus shows up and just kicks everybody's ass and kills poor Tilly uh they have to get his ass out of retirement he's he's chopping wood at the at the homestead and they ride up like at the beginning of Commando uh uh but and and then he but he he gets back in power he's he's put back in charge he gets a unified control but immediately just starts deciding to free ball the whole thing and create his own peace and dictate his own terms for Germany uh the whole time racked by this deep resentment and anxiety relative to the uh the feudal Elites that he rubbed elbows with who he never felt like he could satisfy the same way Nixon always felt the gays of the Eastern establishment on him and uh and the way that he kind of drove through it all was [ __ ] astrology like the idea he doesn't have modern science to guide himself with he doesn't have our uh scientific method to to to to make our impulses appear rational which is why we do this which way we use that uh but he needs something because he is a rational man of the Modern Age and what is the closest thing to him that he can use astrology and he does and he and he and and that helps push him through uh to the eventual point where he gets clapped also uh by uh the emperor and you see how like all the real emergent figures all the people who really break the mold and burst forth get their heads cut off just like yeah drag the farthest behind like Charles the first like the the advanced and the advanced guard and the the the laggards tend to get chopped off and then it's the people in the middle who survive who make the thing so it is like you see this winnowing towards mediocrity uh among everybody which is of course most boldly uh past the 30 years a little after the 30 years war ends but is most personally manifested in Charles II of Spain where you have uh uh the feudal uh order producing getting to like the terminal point of uh of of cannibalism where inbreeding leads to someone who is a functionally uh uh incapacitated incapable of reproducing which is really all they need to do more they just need to make another one that's all I need to do I hate thinking about it yeah they just got down to the end and they just couldn't uh really scraping the bottom of the barrel you know yeah yeah this really [ __ ] yeah like I don't know why I've never thought about that specifically it's just really [ __ ] up that like the only thing they needed to do was reproduce uh and because of you know the compounding circumstances and you know genetics and things like that you get to this last guy and he's like nope yeah it's like and now you rolled you rolled sixes uh or I'm sorry you rolled Snake Eyes here genetically yeah yeah and now and now what do we have we have to deal with the the air to the Habsburg Throne uh showing up in your uh in your mentions on Twitter yeah oh God complaining that tradcasts have been have been unjustly removed Mr Elon please please restore the track cast to Twitter please restore me to uh I guess the Austrian throw I don't know what the [ __ ] he even wants for well for a while Habs Works weren't allowed to go to Austria they're I think they're allowed oh really they're allowed to again but for a while they were not allowed in there like keep your chin over there get the [ __ ] out but that's not true you've done enough I think that you've enjoyed Vienna and uh for everyone thank you so yeah go home go go live somewhere else well back to Switzerland yeah yeah and robber barons God damn it oh Jesus uh Matt thank you so much for coming on the show I one thing I did want to ask is we get some questions about this did you have any uh book recommendations or you know things that you really like yeah we're going to do a bibliography page that will direct people to when we launch it but uh some of the books that were most important for writing it for me were uh Chris has his own uh we'll put them all together on the website but for me uh obviously CV wedgewood's 30 Years War it's not going to give you all the detail but oh the language is so good it's it'll make you care which is what matters way more than finding out what happened but if you really want to know what happened you can't beat Peter Wilson's 30 Years War Europe's tragedy it gives you all the Gory details uh and uh you if you find yourself uh artistically attached to the subject enough to really want to get in there that you can't beat that one there's also a really uh interesting comparative study of the crisis the 17th century by Jeffrey Parker called Global crisis it's really good that is really good yeah uh so those are those were three were really uh big on there but uh like you know uh German McCullough's Reformation book is really good if you want to kind of get the the uh The Sweep of that event across the continent yeah yeah cool thank you so much for that and again thank you for coming on the show uh really love your stuff um and uh and you know really really loved tell the presidents looking forward to uh Hell On Earth as well do you have uh anything anything you want to plug before we go that's it that's the chapel we have a we have a uh you can buy a yearly subscription now uh if you don't want to be on on a plan and uh it'll be included in there uh so yeah it'll dropping hopefully January 11th nice cool cool well thank you thank you so much and uh and we're looking forward to it uh everyone else um yeah Eleanor do you uh have anything you need to plug today same old please to buy my new book uh the ones for future sex that'll be nice I'm quite tired man buy this [ __ ] book uh otherwise like that's that's the main one at the men thank you yep and uh yeah as always Luke is amazing on Twitter uh you can find my old podcast people's history of the Old Republic it's about Star Wars found it wherever you're listening to this uh but anyway thank you everyone so much for listening and we will see you next time bye you're a holiday Powerhouse you host the dinners shovel neighbors sidewalks and make everything from scratch you definitely don't need help making the holidays happen but Duncan's holiday Blend Coffee a warming medium roast complete with sweet notes of dried fruit and molasses or a cranberry orange muffin made with real cranberries just might convince you a little help never hurt especially the hot caffeinated kind America runs on Duncan present participation may vary limited time offer terms of life Dan so glad we were able to meet today thanks for coming over what's that pretty awesome right it's my new flexi spot E7 Pro Plus standing desk goes from sitting to standing with the push of a button you know I've been thinking about getting a desk like that I have back pain from being in a chair all day but I feel like they're either cheap and flimsy or crazy expensive that's why I went with Flexi spot this desk is super sturdy but totally affordable the base is made of Automotive grade carbon 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