Greetings. I had lots of ideas for this week's, frankly. I was going to follow up the

One Ring with artificial intelligence versus real ecology. I've also been constructing a framework

for philanthropy on eight broad categories that philanthropy

needs to urgently consider and start to fund ahead of the Great Simplification.

I also start to write one how I could be wrong about the Great Simplification.

And another idea that I'd like to share publicly

is I've started doing these things in moderation

called Silent Saturdays.

And I plan on talking about all that.

Of course, last Saturday was not a silent Saturday. and I have various contacts around the world who were calling me Saturday morning, letting me what's going on of the horror and the tragedy in the Middle East, in Israel, and subsequently Palestine, Lebanon, etc.

And so I didn't do that, frankly, and I'm going to give a very brief reflection on my

thoughts on Israel today.

Okay, so those people following this podcast are aware that energy is the currency of the universe and that oil is currently, doesn't always have to be, the hemoglobin of modern culture.

What you might not know is that within around 800 miles of Israel, in a triangle called the black gold triangle by some

contains around 50 to 65% of all the world's remaining oil.

So without getting into, you know, predictive speculation on what's going to happen the next few months,

which I never really do.

This podcast is about painting the game board of the next decade and beyond. I really don't have

an edge in predicting what's going to happen in the near term. But if you squint and take a step

back and look at this situation, there are all kinds of complex potential Archduke Ferdinand like situations here,

between the Sunnis and the Shias, between the Muslims and the Christians, between the Middle East and the West, between a new potential axis of Russia,

Iran, Saudi Arabia, and China, and Israel, the U.S. and the U.K., I don't know.

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