Transcript for Pop!Tech Juan Enriquez

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JUAN ENRIQUEZ POP! TECH 2006

So the last time I was here I talked about genomes and life sciences,

and the obvious transition is to talk about countries.

[Chuckling from audience] Right.

And this book, The Untied States of America, could be subtitled,

Dyslexics of the World Unite. [audience laughter]

The really interesting question about countries is what they are,

and assume that you started with a blank slate.

So here's your country. And now you're in charge.

And you get to do anything you want, because you're the dictator.

So let's assume that you control all the media.

All the jobs. All the universities.

All the kindergartens.

Everything that goes in and everything that comes out,

all the inputs, all the outputs, you control them.

And you do that for 40 years.

Well, you'd assume that you'd have a pretty good control

over that country, particularly if you were as efficient, say, as the Germans.

[Die DDR mein Staat]

But the odd thing about this country,

the strange thing that is going on in this particular worker's paradise,

[zukunfts sicher]

is that after 40 years of absolute control over this country,

after having control over everything that comes in, everything that comes out,

you've got a little chink in the wall.

And that little chink nine days later led to that country disappearing.

Which is kind of amazing.

I mean, if you think about building countries and how you would want to control them,

Sometimes tea parties have unintended consequences.

Right? Somebody throws a little bit of tea in there,

and you don't know where you're going to end up.

And if you read the McCullough book of 1776,

it wasn't the intention of the founding fathers to separate.

It wasn't their intention that they could gain independence.

It wasn't their intention to secede.

As Washington was running around the country,

he was still trying to figure out how to keep it all together.

So here's part of what the world looks like today.

So Europe used to have one third less flags, borders, and anthems

a couple of decades ago—a few decades ago.

And you've tripled the number of borders on this continent.

And that's pretty astonishing.

That's not just the Yugoslavias of the world that are breaking up;

it's whole continents that are breaking up, and it's happening pretty often.

And, of course, this is an old story.

There's a really neat movie you can get from the Internet.

From Maps of War.

So here is the Imperial History.

Let's cover 5000 years in about 90 seconds.

This is the history of the Middle East.

3000 B.C. to 2006.

Kingdom of Egypt

Hittite Empire

Kingdom of Israel

Assyrian Empire

Babylonian Empire

Persian Empire

Macedonian Empire

Roman Empire

Byzantine Empire

Sassanid Empire

The Caliphate

Seljuk Empire

The Crusader Kingdoms

Saladin's Empire

Mongol Empire [audience chuckles]

Ottoman Empire

European Colonialism

Nation-States and Borders are Established

State of Israel is Founded

Israel Expands under Armistice

Era of Independence [Years pop up in each nation, 1922-1971]

Now why do you suppose it's so hard to govern these places?

[Laughter]

Yeah, good luck.

The interesting thing about this stuff,

as you go forward and you look at countries appearing and disappearing,

is how often it happens, how common it is,

and how often people take their country for granted.

Because they say that happens everywhere else;

it doesn't happen here. Right?

So in Europe today, this little division isn't over.

So in Northern Italy, you still have the country that wants to become Pandania,

because they're a little bit tired of being governed by Rome

and sending all the money to Sicily,

and they've got about 30% of the vote.

And if you look at Spain, well, there's a series of very strong regional identities in Spain.

Now think about that for one second.

This is a pretty defined geography.

This is one peninsula; it's been speaking Spanish for, oh, at least 500 years.

It's been a united kingdom for at least 500 years;

it's had one religion for about 500 years,

and even within that very defined kingdom, very defined geography,

you're still getting Basques and Catalans and Galicians

coming out and saying, we want our own autonomy, we want our own country.

If that can happen to Spain after 500 years, could it happen anywhere else?

Well, that's an interesting question.

Are there any examples of regional identity that we could possibly find inside—

oh, let's pick a random country—say the U.S.

[audience chuckles]

Well, there are 50 stars, but we're alone! [Texas - The Lone Star State]

Is this identity reinforced in any way?

Well, how about when you drink a beer?

And what is the marketing motto for Lone Star Beer?

It's the national beer of Texas!

[chuckling from audience]

And when you go to the money, the money tells you it's the Lone Star State.

And then when you go out to the Texas Department of Tourism,

what is the motto of theTexas Department of Tourism?

[Texas It's like a whole other country.] [Laughter]

Indeed.

They like this so much, they put it on their license plates. [It's like a whole other country.]

And by the way, you really have to trust what people put on their license plates.

It often tells you a lot about a place.

If you go to the state of Connecticut,

richest state in the union, remember what the license plates used to say?

It was done by the kids.

Preserve the trust.

[Audience laughter]

Thank you, Grandpa.

This is now getting to the point where you can issue your own currency

for your own presidents. [The Republic of Texas - President Samuel Houston]

Oh, and by the way, as of two years ago,

you have to pledge allegiance to the flag of Texas every morning [Keeping an Eye on Texas - Honor the Flags]

as well as to the flag of the United States.

By law.

Curious.

So what do you suppose these flags have in common?

It turns out Six Flags over Texas ain't just an amusement park.

And it may be that there will never, ever, ever be a different flag from that one

that will ever fly over the Texas territory,

but so far that has not been the history.

So it's really dangerous to take countries or flags or borders or anthems for granted

and say, as long as we have an amendment that says you can't burn this,

then it'll last forever.

Well, that's an interesting way of doing it.

Until you get a disabled special forces veteran who stands before Congress and says,

And when you give the flags the rights and take them away from the people,

then you've made a mistake and you're going to lose that flag.

So these are the countries in the world that now have autonomy

or secession movements within them.

It is actually a very common phenomenon these days.

And, in fact, we've gone out there and generated a whole series of borders

and, by the way, borders are creations of human beings.

Borders are not creations that you see from space, even on islands,

because you can split islands.

Dominican Republic and Haiti.

Or even the British Isles.

We'll talk about that later.

So if it turns out that there are no natural borders on this thing,

then the logical consequence of this is these things that we hold so dear,

[Flags, Borders, Anthems]

Turn out to be myths.

And they are myths generated by human beings,

and they last only as long as your kids are willing to believe the same myths.

Because the day your kids say, Hey, that was great for you;

that was great for Grandpa, but I don't believe in this stuff anymore,

then that flag goes into an archeology museum,

and a new symbol, a new myth, a new belief system

comes into the fore.

And that happens to country after country after country.

You can take

oh, strong, patriotic phrases like this one,

[Long Live the... Red, White, Blue]

and it's amazing how many people actually, really, truly believe this even today.

And not just in the United States.

In fact, the Russians agree.

[Laughter]

And, by the way, so do the citizens of Luxembourg.

Even the French.

And, of course, the Dutch.

So let's get a little more specific.

[What I really mean is... Stars and Stripes, Forever!]

How about this one?

Well, again, there's an extraordinary amount of agreement on this particular stuff.

The Brits agree.

The Cubans agree.

The Danes agree.

You know what? Even the North Koreans agree.

[chuckling from audience]

Here's what happens to countries:

You get this political system, or you get this economic system,

or you get the system of beliefs, religious or whatever,

that goes out there and promises you that you are going to have X, Y, or Z

because you are a citizen of this worker's paradise,

or of this particular country, or because you are a member of this particular tribe,

you will have the following benefits.

The problem is that occasionally, those benefits are not quite the reality

of what people live.

And the broader that gap gets between what people are being promised and told

this country stands for, and what that country is actually delivering,

then you start getting this gap in legitimacy, and that legitimacy gap

if it gets too broad, allows countries to disappear in nine days.

Even if you control all the media.

Even if you control all the jobs.

Even if you control all the schools.

Once that legitimacy gap gets too large,

once there are groups or tribes or autonomous regions inside a country

that decide, I don't want to believe the same myth,

then countries can fall apart very quickly.

Of course, this isn't the first time it's happened.

Countries are a new creation.

The flags of old used to be your heraldic shields.

You used to give everything for your honor, for your family, for your shield.

And, of course, the greatest of emperors has also disappeared time and again, and again,

even though these folks, of course, never thought it would happen to them.

The interesting thing is, even the most powerful of gods can disappear.

It's not just countries and empires, it's gods themselves.

When the gap between what a god promises and what a god delivers gets to be too large,

that god goes into an archeology museum.

So if you don't sacrifice ten virgins tomorrow, the sun will not come up.

And the sun comes up, a series of times,

well, that god and that god's promises become less relevant.

And even though there are a whole pile of people running around the world today

that think they have the only answer in a Bible that was originally written in English,

[chuckling from audience]

or whatever other version of a book you want, this is delicate stuff.

And it's delicate stuff because when you manipulate stuff,

and you separate the reality from the promise, and it gets too far,

then those gods, and even gods can disappear.

Which takes me back to a wonderful piece of graffiti that was photographed on a Baghdad wall.

Dear God, Please save us from those who believe in you.

[chuckling from audience]

Here's the trend line in nation-state creation, 1950-2006.

It is not just the era of decolonization that's generating flags, borders, and anthems.

It is a constant system.

We are generating about 3.12 new sovereignties per year during the 1990s,

and it's happening to rich, it's happening to poor, it's happening in Asia,

Africa, Europe, Christian, Buddhist, black, white, you choose.

It's happening all over the place.

Here's a conclusion.

[It is not a God given right For any country... To exist forever. ( Even if in God it trusts.)

The one exception to this, the one really odd place,

is the Americas.

The only place where you haven't tripled the number of flags, borders, and anthems

in the last 50 years, is the Americas.

In fact, the last truly new border in the Americas, where you just brought a border out of nothing,

was Panama in 1903.

Anytime you see a system in science or in any other structure,

where the whole system's moving this way, and then there's a great big outlier that's acting different,

that outlier's an interesting place to study.

So, one option is, the Americas is immune.

[It will never... Ever... Happen here. ]

Is that true?

Is there something different in the Americas that means that

the whole rest of the world can triple its countries and borders and flags

and anthems, but it will never happen here?

Or, are you beginning to get secessionist movements today in Bolivia,

with some people wanting to generate the Republic of Santa Cruz?

Is the same thing true in Ecuador?

Is the same thing true in parts of Chile? Parts of Columbia?

And as you go through that, could it even happen in Mexico?

If you ask the president and the first lady of Mexico how things are going—

Well... [audience laughter]

It depends when you ask.

But it turns out that Mexico is four entirely different countries.

The cuisine of the Mayans has very little to do with the cuisine of the North.

And the dress. And the way you talk.

And the way you do business.

And the Mayans of Chiapas and Oaxaca are completely different

from the Mayans of Quintana Roo and Yucatan.

And as you look at these countries, it's actually very hard to keep and govern places like this,

to the point where about one-fifth of Mexico's population, or the equivalent,

has walked across the border.

And they settle in the U.S.

The darker this is, the more Hispanics there are.

Now, remember those old maps?

Why do you suppose that Hispanics would choose this particular settlement pattern

concentrated in this region and in Florida?

There's probably no historical reason for that.

[Audience chuckles] All right?

There is no evidence that [uses Spanish pronunciation] Los Angeles

or Colorado or Florida or San Francisco or any of these other places,

had anything to do with previous settlement patterns.

[Chuckling from audience]

Here's what settlement patterns in L.A. look like.

So 70% of the kids in the L.A. County School District today are Hispanic.

And the most popular single name inside California hospitals today is Jose.

And you're getting a very bizarre hybrid.

[Welcome to Amexica] And that will shape what this place will look like 50 years, and 100 years out.

And some people don't like this. [English only!!! or Get the hell out now!]

In fact, some people are very unhappy about this.

But as we go forward in these very difficult debates,

because I'm not arguing that you shouldn't control your border,

and I'm not arguing that a country doesn't have a right to control the border,

I'm not saying it shouldn't be done.

I am saying the words that are used today are going to be remembered for a long, long time.

And how you treat people today is going to be remembered for a long time.

These are stories that pass on for generations.

And if you want some pretty quick evidence of that, look at every single license plate in Quebec.

Where the motto on the license plate is, Je me souviens (I remember).

I'm doing all right now; I've got my French; I've got my schools;

I'm doing just fine economically; but I remember 50 years ago and a hundred years ago

when I couldn't speak my language, when you beat me for speaking my language in schools,

when I couldn't get the jobs, when I couldn't have French radio,

when you tried to shut down my religion,

and you tried to kick me out.

And that took a great country like Canada and brought it within 0.5%

of seceding, separating, becoming two countries, in 1995.

And how we run this debate today and whether we use it with the stridency of a Lou Dobbs,

or not, is going to be remembered for a long time.

And we probably don't want to see license plates in California that say,

Yo me acuerdo (I remember).

Bad idea.

But let's come back to the theme of this general flag.

Here's a really interesting question for this particular flag.

How many stars do you think will be on this flag in 50 years?

And why would one even ask that question?

I mean, it's always been 50, right?

[Laughter from audience]

The placement of the stars wasn't even mandated until 1912, with Taft.

You can put them anywhere you want.

For the most part, you win some, but sometimes you lose some.

It hasn't just gone in one way.

[Stars in The US Flag] But the interesting thing about this is the trendline.

This is a trendline that you will see in very few nations on this planet.

See, most countries get smaller after independence.

The U.S. and Brazil are two of the only countries on this planet

that have consistently gotten larger since independence.

This is a really unusual trendline.

The trend is for countries to get smaller, to separate, to secede.

You've got debates going on today in Belgium, Netherlands,

France, England, Spain, parts of Germany, parts of Austria.

I mean, it goes on and on.

But not here.

That's a really interesting trendline, and what this particular photograph implies,

and means, is that there has never been a president of this country

buried under the same flag he was born under.

Ever.

And until a president is born after 1959, and dies, and there are no changes

in stars, there will never be a president buried and born under the same flag.

People assume continuity where there is none.

So here's one option.

If you follow the past tendlines, it's easy to see how the country gets bigger.

Right? 55, 60, 65 stars, easy.

You bring in Puerto Rico, you bring in the Virgin Islands,

you bring in Guam, you bring in the Marianos,

perhaps part of Cuba, maybe a part of Northern Mexico,

maybe Canada splits, maybe it doesn't.

I don't think it would surprise any of you if in 50 years, the border with Canada was open,

and you had a common currency and a common customs unit, and a common labor market.

In fact, in 1949, Newfoundland separated from Great Britain,

and had to make a choice.

And it was trying to figure out, do I want to be an independent country,

do I want to stay a part of Britain, do I want to become a part of the United States,

or do I want to become a part of Canada?

And it was actually a very close vote.

And there are prime ministers of Canada who still think that parts of Canada will annex to the United States.

The colonies did happen to go all the way up there,

and Quebec should have been a U.S. colony, except that they spoke French and were Catholic.

So they weren't allowed in.

But then there's another option, which is

[45 or Less? How Dare You...]

countries throughout the world also sometimes get smaller.

And that is much more common than getting bigger.

What could possibly drive less stars on this flag?

Well, before you answer that question, think for a minute

of what it means to sit in the middle seat right there.

This is 10 Downing Street, and if you're sitting in that middle seat today, your name's Tony Blair.

And it used to be John Major; it used to be Winston Churchill;

it used to be, oh, Robert Cecil, Marquis of Salisbury, Prime Minister of Great Britain,1902.

What is the inventory that Prime Minister Cecil and his cabinet were looking at in 1902,

when they sat at this table?

Well, here's one of the maps they looked at.

The entire world was a highway to get to their empire.

Put up the global projection; it's simply a highway to get to different parts of your empire.

11 million square miles.

The inventory in this place was, we have the best universities,

we have the smartest people; we have the best manufacturing;

our navy is second to none; we can project force anywhere in the world;

we have the most respect anywhere; we can fight two and a half wars;

and we don't even have to tax that much.

The question these guys never asked is, what do you suppose that map will look like in 1955?

And if they had asked that question, it's conceivable they could have gotten it slightly wrong.

Just a thought, [chuckles from audience]

because 11 million square miles turned into 89,000 square miles.

And now even the core of that island is falling apart,

to the point where Scotland has the first independent parliament since 1246,

and the fastest-growing foreign language is Welsh.

And remember those pesky Irish that kept doing all that stuff?

Well, the pesky Irish have now become richer than the average Brit.

And have better universities. [chuckling from audience]

And have better beer. [laughter]

The other thing you've got to look at before you answer the question how many stars on the flag is,

why do you suppose these flags are red, white, and blue and have stars and stripes on them?

Because they all could have been U.S. states.

In fact, they came very close to being U.S. states.

And the flag could already have 55 or 60 stars, if these had stayed in.

And as you look at this stuff, the real danger of the United States is not from the outside.

The real danger in the United States comes from the inside.

It's not the Hispanics that are going to determine what happens to the U.S.;

it's not the filipinos; it's not the Russians.

What's going to make a difference in the United States is what we do today.

[Some Generations... Act like trust fund heiresses And squander all their ancestors built.]

Do we have any evidence that this might be happening?

[chuckling and murmuring from the audience]

Hmm.

If you wander over to 44th Street and 6th today, this is actually now about 89,000. [NATIONAL DEBT - Family Share]

Present value of what has been promised to families, in terms of Social Security

and Medicare, and the rest of this? 473,000 bucks per family.

In debt.

Here's a trendline: You start with Truman, you go through Carter,

that's what the national debt looks like.

Then you get the fiscal conservatives coming in, in the era of small government,

[audience laughter]

And here's the bottom line: A tax cut is not a tax cut, unless if you and I pay less,

and our children owe less.

Because if you and I pay less and our children owe more,

it's simply a deferred loan with a high interest rate.

And we're now spending 22,000 federal dollars per person over 65,

and $2200 per person under 16.

That's an 11 to 1 ratio on what was as opposed to what's coming.

And the gray vote is about to get a lot bigger.

So guess what that trendline's going to look like?

This is the consequence of this stuff.

[The world's reserve currency belongs to a debtor nation.]

Oh, by the way, Britain did the same thing.

Here's what the high-tech export trend looks like.

[U.S. High Tech Exports]

because high tech is going to save us, right?

Here's what it looks like compared to China.

[U.S. vs. China High Tech Exports]

that's not a good trendline.

Here's what divisions between states look like.

[Givers/Takers]

If you are red, you get more than you pay in taxes.

If you are blue, you pay a lot more than you get in taxes.

The only neutral place in this is Indiana.

Some of these states are paying out $1.76 per $1 they get back.

Well, often it's the rich who separate first.

That's the division with the Catalans and the Basques.

And by the way, that was the first part of Yugoslavia to leave.

It wasn't the ethnically conflictive part; it was the part that felt,

I want to join the E.U., and the rest of these bums won't be allowed in.

Here's what reading patterns look like in the U.S. today.

So on Amazon, if you go out and you say, if you bought this, you should buy this.

Well, this guy Krebs went out and mapped that stuff.

And what ends up happening is those who are liberal end up exchanging an enormous amount of books,

those who are conservative end up exchanging an enormous amount of books,

but they never read what the other people read!

The only point of contact between liberals and conservatives

in terms of Amazon books, is Bernard Lewis's What Went Wrong?

[chuckling from audience]

That may not be good.

If this was only happening in books, it wouldn't be a problem,

but the political debate has become so polarized

that you're listening to cable channels that tell you what you think;

you're listening to radio stations that tell you what you think;

you're listening to congressmen who tell you what you think;

you're listening to a whole series of people

that are narrow cast into having what you think;

and everybody around you thinks the same way,

and then all of a sudden you go — Who's this other 50%?

Where the hell did they come from?

Who are those people who think in such moonbat terms?

All right? And that's how you divide countries.

You end up not having debates. You end up not respecting tolerance.

You end up saying, He's from the other side of the aisle, and I'm never going to speak to him.

Now that's just fundamentally wrong.

That can divide countries.

[United States of Canada, Jesusland]

[chuckling from audience]

All right?

[No worries?]

By the way, this is not just an issue of flags and borders and countries and gods,

it's an issue of business as well.

Because just as flags and borders and countries can disappear,

so too can industries and businesses.

If you were in the Fortune 500 in 1935, you could expect to be there for 94 years.

If you make it into the Fortune 500 today, you can expect to be there for 14 years.

We're seeing an enormous churn in terms of institutions.

And in this churn, if I had a long-term take away,

[Juan Long Take Away]

[audience laughter]

This being a Chinese restaurant in Geneva, Switzerland, of all places.

[more laughter]

[It is not necessary to change... Survival is not mandatory. -W. Edward Deming]

Don't take your country for granted.

Don't assume that because you don't burn a flag, that's going to fix things.

Don't assume that you can spend today, and don't assume that you can owe tomorrow,

and that there will be no consequences.

And for God's sake, quit calling each other names.

Let's take all the politicians who want to untie this place by dividing us,

and stop it. Because that's just wrong.

90% of us are willing to talk to one another,

even though we don't agree with one another.

But there's a 5% over here, and there's a 5% over here,

and it's not Democrat, and it's not Republican.

They're fundamentally dividing this country, and if you look at the history of what happens in other countries,

you should not take this country for granted.

And we've got to stop some of the political debate, some of the financial debate,

and fix our education system.

If we don't do that, there will not be 50 stars on the flag.

Thank you.

[applause]

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