Dwarkesh Patel

And if I said in the French Revolution, Napoleon rose to power and spread nationalized warfare across Europe, and then we landed on the moon, I've skipped some steps.

Right.

Right.

And we know that about modernity, but we don't remember that about earlier periods.

Right.

And I think the go my way as opposed to go well is a really important distinction.

Yeah.

Because the...

You know, Petrarch wanted a world with these values.

Yeah.

And he thought, for example, that this would be a triumph for Christianity and what we would call Catholicism, though there's only one Christianity from his point of view at the time that he's happening, except for the East, which is different.

You know, he was sure that when we found the ancients, fundamentally all of their philosophy would agree with Christianity.

that the ancients were wise, therefore they will be correct.

And, you know, Plato will 90% agree with Christianity.

It just needs like a little shaker of the Trinity on top to be Christianity.

And when he says, go find these ancients, he of course is in a world that doesn't have the ancients yet.

The world doesn't have the ancients yet, so he's just guessing what's going to be in these books.

But he says, if we find them, they will uphold good values and everyone believes him.

And then they go find them and they squabble with each other.

There are Hedonists and Epicureans and Stoics and all sorts of chaotic things, much more plural than he anticipated.