
71: Taking and Keeping Power: The Dictator's Handbook
02/25/22 • 119 min
“Democracies are not lucky. They do not attract civic-minded leaders by chance. Rather, they attract survival-oriented leaders who understand that, given their dependence on many essentials, they can only come to and stay in power if they figure out the right basket of public goods to provide.”
In this episode of Made You Think, Nat and Neil are joined by Adil Majid to discuss their key takeaways from The Dictator's Handbook by Bruce Bueno de Mesquita. The Dictator's Handbook delivers five rules for staying in power and succeeding within the political system.
In this episode of Made You Think, we cover a wide range of topics including:
- How dictators get in power and stay in power
- The Selectorate theory
- Taxation and why leaders are so fond of taxes
- FIFA, Olympics, and giving bribes for more power
- Decentralized finance as an alternative to the current financial system
And much more. Please enjoy, and make sure to follow Nat, Neil, and Adil on Twitter and share your thoughts on the episode.
Links from the Episode
Mentioned in the Show
- Episode 7: A Crash Course in Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Cryptocurrency (0:43)
- Episode 33: An Animal of No Significance: Sapiens by Yuval Noah Harari – Part I (1:25)
- Episode 34: Money, Power, and God: Sapiens by Yuval Noah Harari – Part II (1:40)
- Selectorate theory (4:57)
- Assets of the Federal Reserve (22:00)
- Ba'ath Party; Saddam Hussein (29:05)
- Caliphate (54:11)
- Arab Spring (1:11:10)
- Democracy Index 2017 (1:12:28)
- ConstitutionDAO (1:16:01)
- Corruption in FIFA (1:15:43)
- Bribing in Olympics (1:15:43)
- Marijuana episode (1:24:27)
- A Tale of Two Talebs (1:33:19)
- Ledger (1:59:31)
Books Mentioned
- The 48 Laws of Power (2:09) (Nat’s Book Notes)
- The Sovereign Individual (4:36) (Book Episode) (Nat's Book Notes)
- Seeing Like a State (4:37) (Nat's Book Notes)
- Antifragile (1:31:38) (Book Episode) (Nat's Book Notes)
- The Bitcoin Standard (1:34:26)
People Mentioned
- Robert Mugabe (10:32)
- Elizabeth Warren (12:49)
- Bernie Sanders (12:50)
- Elon Musk (13:10)
- Ron DeSantis (15:13)
- Donald Trump (15:42)
- Machiavelli (23:45)
- Fidel Castro (41:41)
“Democracies are not lucky. They do not attract civic-minded leaders by chance. Rather, they attract survival-oriented leaders who understand that, given their dependence on many essentials, they can only come to and stay in power if they figure out the right basket of public goods to provide.”
In this episode of Made You Think, Nat and Neil are joined by Adil Majid to discuss their key takeaways from The Dictator's Handbook by Bruce Bueno de Mesquita. The Dictator's Handbook delivers five rules for staying in power and succeeding within the political system.
In this episode of Made You Think, we cover a wide range of topics including:
- How dictators get in power and stay in power
- The Selectorate theory
- Taxation and why leaders are so fond of taxes
- FIFA, Olympics, and giving bribes for more power
- Decentralized finance as an alternative to the current financial system
And much more. Please enjoy, and make sure to follow Nat, Neil, and Adil on Twitter and share your thoughts on the episode.
Links from the Episode
Mentioned in the Show
- Episode 7: A Crash Course in Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Cryptocurrency (0:43)
- Episode 33: An Animal of No Significance: Sapiens by Yuval Noah Harari – Part I (1:25)
- Episode 34: Money, Power, and God: Sapiens by Yuval Noah Harari – Part II (1:40)
- Selectorate theory (4:57)
- Assets of the Federal Reserve (22:00)
- Ba'ath Party; Saddam Hussein (29:05)
- Caliphate (54:11)
- Arab Spring (1:11:10)
- Democracy Index 2017 (1:12:28)
- ConstitutionDAO (1:16:01)
- Corruption in FIFA (1:15:43)
- Bribing in Olympics (1:15:43)
- Marijuana episode (1:24:27)
- A Tale of Two Talebs (1:33:19)
- Ledger (1:59:31)
Books Mentioned
- The 48 Laws of Power (2:09) (Nat’s Book Notes)
- The Sovereign Individual (4:36) (Book Episode) (Nat's Book Notes)
- Seeing Like a State (4:37) (Nat's Book Notes)
- Antifragile (1:31:38) (Book Episode) (Nat's Book Notes)
- The Bitcoin Standard (1:34:26)
People Mentioned
- Robert Mugabe (10:32)
- Elizabeth Warren (12:49)
- Bernie Sanders (12:50)
- Elon Musk (13:10)
- Ron DeSantis (15:13)
- Donald Trump (15:42)
- Machiavelli (23:45)
- Fidel Castro (41:41)
Previous Episode

70: Meaning and Toil: Escape from Freedom by Erich Fromm
"The most beautiful as well as the most ugly inclinations of man are not part of a fixed and biologically given human nature, but result from the social process which creates man. In other words, society has not only a suppressing function—although it has that too—but it has also a creative function. Man’s nature, his passions, and anxieties are a cultural product; as a matter of fact, man himself is the most important creation and achievement of the continuous human effort, the record of which we call history."
In this episode of Made You Think, Nat and Neil are joined by Paul Millerd to discuss their key takeaways from Escape from Freedom by Erich Fromm. In this book, Fromm makes a connection between the rise of capitalism to the beginning of man's conflict with the modern sense of freedom. In this episode of Made You Think, we cover a wide range of topics including:
- Positive freedom and negative freedom
- Finding work that is internally motivating rather than work that is thrust upon you
- How the economic system impacts our psychology
- Comparison: Why it's easy to compare your progress and accomplishments to others'
- The two-fold approach on the pursuit of power
And much more. Please enjoy, and make sure to follow Nat, Neil, and Paul on Twitter and share your thoughts on the episode.
Links from the Episode
Mentioned in the Show
- Episode 69: The Quest of the Simple Life (6:19)
- Mixergy (24:33)
- 2Pac video (33:04)
- Episode 66: Making the Navalmanack (36:07)
- Principal of 2 Schools (48:26)
Books Mentioned
- Escape From Freedom (Nat's Book Notes)
- Awaken the Giant Within (9:47) (Nat’s Book Notes)
- The Art of Loving (27:02)
- Amusing Ourselves to Death (35:16) (Book Episode) (Nat's Book Notes)
- Finite and Infinite Games (38:14) (Book Episode) (Nat's Book Notes)
- The Almanack of Naval Ravikant (42:12) (Book Episode) (Nat's Book Notes)
- The Beginning of Infinity (52:10) (Book Episode) (Nat's Book Notes)
- The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (53:00)
- The Pathless Path (58:15)
- King, Warrior, Magician, Lover (1:12:37)
- The Dictator’s Handbook (12:40:17)
People Mentioned
- Tony Robbins (9:49)
- Cal Newport (36:51)
- David Perell (59:40)
- Tiago Forte (59:41)
- Tim Ferriss (1:01:53)
- David Foster Wallace (1:03:26)
- Scott Alexander (1:07:20)
Show Notes
0:34 Today we are joined by Paul Millerd, long-time MYT listener and author o...
Next Episode

72: The Masculine Psyche: King, Warrior, Magician, Lover
“It can be said that life's perhaps most fundamental dynamic is the attempt to move from a lower form of experience and consciousness to a higher (or deeper) level of consciousness.”
In this episode of Made You Think, Nat and Neil discuss their key takeaways from King, Warrior, Magician, Lover by Robert Moore and Douglas Gillette. This book presents the 4 archetypes of manhood, and explores what undeveloped masculinity looks like in the form of the archetype Shadows.
In this episode of Made You Think, we cover a wide range of topics including:
- The differences in Male vs. Female adulthood initiation
- King and Tyrant energy in politicians
- The rise in adult male virginity in the past decade
- The Shadows of each of the 4 archetypes
- Underdeveloped masculinity (Otherwise known as Boy psychology)
And much more. Please enjoy, and make sure to follow Nat and Neil on Twitter and share your thoughts on the episode.
Links from the Episode:
Mentioned in the Show:
- Maasai Ritual (15:59)
- The Business of Being Born (30:53)
- Tonic Masculinity - Dr. Cam Sepah (42:03)
- Manager vs. Leader (47:15)
- Warrior Genes (59:18)
- Adult male virginity stats (1:08:40)
- Filtering by height on Bumble (1:09:21)
- FDA tweet on national cereal day(1:14:21)
- Colin Powell's 40-70 rule (1:40:53)
- OKCupid blog archive (1:47:14)
- SolPay (1:50:15)
Books Mentioned:
- King, Warrior, Magician, Lover
- The Way of the Superior Man (1:07) (Nat's Book Notes)
- 12 Rules for Life (1:57) (Book Episode) (Nat's Book Notes)
- The Laws of Human Nature (2:10) (Book Episode)
- Man and His Symbols (2:14)
- The Fourth Turning (11:09)
- The Power of Myth (15:10) (Book Episode) (Nat's Book Notes)
- Escape from Freedom (22:13) (Book Episode) (Nat's Book Notes)
- The Dictator’s Handbook (57:01) (Book Episode) (Nat's Book Notes)
- Mate (1:06:06) (Nat's Book Notes)
- Models (1:06:08) (Nat's Book Notes)
- What Got You Here Won’t Get You There (1:17:08)
- Extreme Ownership (1:23:48) (Nat's Book Notes)
- The Alchemy of Finance (1:39:20)
- Flow (1:43:43)
- Thinking, Fast and Slow (1:44:23)
- Layered Money (1:53:46)
People Mentioned:
- David Deida (1:09)...
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