 Let's talk a little bit about, you know, something that's in the news a lot and people talk about a lot and you know, there's the two approaches to it. One is people who kind of say, well, some of this is true and others who dismiss us out of hand and that that's the conspiracy theories. I think Alex Jones is probably the most famous just because he's in the news so much. But really conspiracy theories are everywhere. You know, you've got the source conspiracy theory. He basically runs the world. He's the devil from the left. You've got the Koch brothers who are conspirators of the right and then you've got, you know, all the way to the elders of Zion and I still hear the building books. I thought the building books were passe, but I still hear the building books and the watt childs and running the world. So don't forget about the lizard people. Yeah, I never knew if that how serious to take that one. The other ones I think they they're serious about them, but I don't know. I mean, who knows because there's one about the Queen of England too. Yeah, that's the LaRouche people think that she runs it. That's right. I should know that because the LaRouche people hounded me for for a couple of years. They were after me. So I should know. But yes, the Queen of England, she she she runs everything. She it's all run from her. So yeah, you know, and there are lots of them and they come up all the time and then of course they're real conspiracies like what we're seeing with with with the Catholic Church and you know, people do bad things and they do bad things in organized way and the real conspiracies. So so you published a essay recently, which surprised me a little bit because I never thought of I ran talking about conspiracy theories because he doesn't have an essay on it, but about I ran's view of conspiracy theories. So could you give us like a like an introduction to what that is and maybe describe the essay a little bit. Yeah, well, actually, let me just give you a little background about why I got into this topic. I'm, I got interested in it because of my, my, my background in philosophy and, and in particular in epistemology. I started actually was teaching a logic class in grad school was right after 911. And I was starting to hear all these 911 truther conspiracy theories, and I wanted to have nice case study that I could work with in my class of really sloppy reasoning. And I dug into some of these 911 conspiracy theories and, and I worked up a nice case study that I could have the students analyze. We could talk about that later if you're interested. Yeah, I know it's an interesting one because I've, I've actually gone up against some of these, some of these 911 so-called truthers. So I actually really dug into it and I looked at all their arguments and I started to see patterns and, you know, they're really good examples of, in many cases of what I ran calls the arbitrary of speculating about possible explanations for things without any ground in the evidence where your imagination is really what's running things. And in the, in this case, at least your fear. So, I became interested in them as examples of arbitrary reasoning. And I that when I started work then at the Institute, I wanted to see, well, how can I use my, my interest in epistemology to write articles that are that have cultural currency to them and apply to the controversies we're dealing with every day and Lo and behold, there all this kind of conspiracy rhetoric starts to pop up everywhere just in the last few years, especially with, with Trump. And I mean, it's not just Alex Jones, he's a conduit of it that's particularly vocal and there's been controversies about him, but, but our president regularly engages in a lot of this kind of rhetoric. And a lot of his critics, or sorry, a lot of his fans do, but it's critics to because there's, I mean, there's conspiracy theories about Trump all the on the left. And so it's, it's on the left, it's on the right, it's everywhere. And what, and so I started to dig deeper into just doing keyword searches on Iran's works to see where she commented on this. It's something I'd noticed before that she was dismissive of them, but I hadn't really looked closely to see what kind of common themes there were in her commentary on these issues. And she's not somebody who so much spends time dissecting arguments of conspiracy theorists, which for I think a number of good, for a number of good reasons, I think, and it's not sort of not worth spending time on because so many of them are so absurd, but what she does do is when she's, when she's looking at various political and cultural controversies. She's trying to explain why things got to be the way they are why there's some kind of irrational destructive policy that's that people are doubling down on in spite of the fact that they ought to know that it's irrational and destructive. And she's trying to explain it by reference to the ideas that the major players accept openly. And when she does this, she often comments on how well everybody on every side of this issue holds these major philosophical ideas, for example, the morality of altruism. And so when you have both people, both sides of the issue basically agreeing on the basics, and they only haggle over the particulars of how the policies to be implemented. Some people might look at these kinds of examples and start to think there's some malevolent dark power behind the scenes that's manipulating everything to make this happen. And on a number of these different kinds of issues, she says, it's not a conspiracy and you've got to look to the the basic premises that people accept in the open that that even the people who worry about conspiracies except people who can't quite on who don't understand what it means to take ideas seriously. And they don't understand that people actually believe these ideas and actually act on them. And so the biggest the biggest issue is that she thinks the major decisions in history, the major decisions that move the world are are ones that are in effect out in the open. Now there there is stuff that happens, you know, in the back in the back room. Before we get to that, let's just get let's just, I want to dig a little deep in what this out in the open means. Sure. I mean, what makes Rand unique, I think among among intellectuals suddenly today is the idea that she believes that history is moved by ideas, and that those ideas are not hidden ideas. But their idea is that almost everybody accepts and that when you analyze the events of the day you analyze, you know, why people did what they did in 911 why we responded the way we did tonight and 11 let's say, all of that. There's no hidden agenda here there's no some secret cabal that, you know, been a lot and told us why he did it. And Bush was motivated by something when he did what he did and it turns out that he's motivated by altruism just like just like the pacifists are motivated by altruism. And at the end of the day there's not that big of a difference between them, and that that it's the ideas in the open and that the ideas move history and ideas move important events in the world. There's no, there's nothing else. Yeah, I mean 911 is a good example to discuss that she obviously didn't comment on this but so you know your listeners are probably more familiar with it. The essence of the various theories about the truth review is that our government either planned and actually executed these terrorist attacks or at the very least they say they knew that it was going to happen and they kind of let it happen. And the reason that they did this was because they wanted to use it as a pretext to go to war in Iraq for oil or something like that or Halliburton wanted to get defense contracts or what have you. And it's so it's imputing these, these motives of secret greed and they're, they're, they're launching a multi billion dollar war just so they can line their pockets with a few million. But, you know, as I'm sure you've you're aware and you've commented on many times in the past. The reasons why this happened are are far more transparent. I mean, as you say, both sides of our political party, especially in our foreign policy, there's, there's, there's a long time commitment to the idea that United States is not the most important ones that we need to be deferential to other countries that we can't be. We can't have an aggressive foreign policy and there's, there's, you know, decades of appeasement that have contributed to this, the buildup of this threat and then it even gets down to the, you know, the very detailed level where you have, you know, the various non-11 hijackers in this country doing, you know, training on airplanes but nobody wants to, nobody wants to ask any questions about that because, you know, these are foreigners and we don't want to be discriminatory. We don't want to upset Muslims, you know, we don't want to attack them as Muslims. Right. And I mean, there are probably a lot of other things and I don't think everything about the way that the, the attacks went down was simply because of altruism. A lot of it's just plain old good old fashioned incompetence on the part of the government, but that's also, that's, that's long standing issue. And exactly what you would expect when it's not focusing on the task of national defense in the way that it should be because it's busy focusing on a million other, you know, altruistic welfare policies or whatever, what have you. Yeah, and of course, and of course they, you know, some people couldn't understand the, how can people be so evil, how can people be so, you know, how could they, you know, the government can be that evil, the US government can be that evil. But, but foreigners can't be that evil, Muslims can't be that evil, individuals can't be that evil, they attribute all the evil to the powers to be the conspirators. And of course, no, I mean, if you study what Bin Laden says and what he believes and what he thinks and what he's done, and how he behaves. Yeah, no, he's exactly that evil. And there's no surprise here and he, and he tells you exactly what his motivation. I mean, there are even people who thought part of the conspiracies were that the CIA paid him, right, to do it. So it even got to that point because people couldn't. Well, I mean, there's a lot of reasons why people go to the conspiracy theories, maybe we can talk about that towards that fear is definitely part of that. But it, but I think it's deeper than fear. But I think a lot of it has to do with the fact that we're not trained in our culture to think of ideas as guiding decisions and ideas shaping history that's not taught that that's not so people look at the events of the world and they are bewildered, you know, it's it's it particularly if they share, as you said, the values of the people engaged in what they're doing, but they did the right things. How could this happen. And definitely a common theme is that in Rand's commentary is that there's I mean she has some sensitivity to why people would would believe in conspiracy in these conspiracies because she understands that yeah the world is bewildering. And you, you sort of have to if you don't know how to use philosophy to understand the ideas that move the world you this is sometimes the best that you've got left. Because it's hard to understand the motivation behind evil. It's hard to understand that some people just want to destroy things for the sake of destroying things that they don't have any kind of actual self interested motive. That they just hate people or that they're trying to convince themselves that they're good, even though that they're even though they're not. There's a whole issue here of the role of irrational philosophy and rationalizing base motives. And there's a whole issue here also about one's view of evil. Yeah. Not just that people misunderstand what evil is, but that they have the view that evil is powerful. And this intersects with a lot in her philosophy because of course, he famously argued that evil is impotent and thrives only to the extent that it gains the sanction of the good. That's the actual issue of conspiracy theories. Well, because the people who believe in these conspiracies they believe that evil is powerful. Yep. They think that that some kind of dark forces behind the scenes actually have the power to pull the strings that move the world. And Rand's view is that they don't. And I mean there are conspiracies there are people who do things secretly infertively behind closed doors. It's a good example being lied in was juicy. Right. Yes, absolutely. But I mean the language that she always uses to describe them is their cockroaches their parasites their termites their insignificant little creatures who because of the philosophical concessions that good people give to them are able to hide and and rationalize what they're doing. They under the cover of this philosophy that we ourselves agree with. And if we didn't give them that if we didn't give them that cover, both intellectually and sometimes materially, they wouldn't have the power that they that they have, and they wouldn't be able to get away with the things that they do. So take Bin Laden just as an example of that right. He became prominent because the CIA funded him in Afghanistan that's not a conspiracy theory that's just fact. Yeah. When he turned his guns to them to the United States we ignored him we lob missiles into deserts we did everything we could just not to not to actually kill him and not to actually destroy him when we knew he was planning attacks in the United States we bolded him with our statements and examples of weakness he often quotes, you know the US, you know, tail between the legs running from Somalia or Bebu to whatever. So it's our weaknesses our altruism it's our unwillingness to confront him that emboldened him that gave him the power, and then out of me, ultimately allowed him to succeed so even so so we can take any case of modern evil at that, you know at the political scale, it is emboldened and made possible by you know the fault of the good. And something I think that's really interesting is that this is a this is a identification that she made, you know in the middle of the 20th century where the major evil that she was analyzing was the spread of communism throughout the world. And the communists were far more powerful than the Islamists aren't far more dangerous and far more threatened I mean they had a conspiratorial. But even still, she was able and even though she was herself a refugee from communism. She still was able to see these people wouldn't be able to pose the threat that they pose it weren't for the concessions the West and intellectuals more broadly are giving them. And so if it's true about the communists certainly true of the Islamist threat. And that was the main conspiracy she was dealing with at that time is that the communists they you know in infiltrating the US government and they get their causing all this stuff and and this is why the state is growing or whatever. So what was her what was the retort to that to the idea that the communists were the with a real force behind American politics. Well I mean she did think that there were some and you know this is part of the reason why she was involved in the army McCarthy hearings. Testified before you act. And so she even she thought that they were there and she thought that they should be investigated and people who are, you know, actual members of the Communist Party of the United States which was dedicated to overthrowing the government they should be. And they were criminals, but at the same time she thought that there wasn't that much they were able to get away with. You know, unless it was because we were, we were sanctioning them and giving them power and the passage that I quote in the article, which is from one of her very early nonfiction pieces from for the new intellectual really says at all. She says if America parishes will perish by intellectual default there's no diabolical conspiracy to destroy it no conspiracy could be big enough and strong enough. Such cafeteria socialist conspiracies as do undoubtedly exist are groups of scared neurotic mediocrities who find themselves pushed into national leadership because nobody else steps forward their pickpockets. They are nearly intended to snatch a welfare regulation or to and who suddenly find their victim is unconscious that they are alone in an enormous mansion of fabulous wealth. With all the doors open the seasoned burglars job on their hands watch them now screaming that they didn't mean it that they didn't that they never intended the nationalization of the country's economy. As to the communist conspirators in the service of Soviet Russia they're the best illustration of victory by default their successes are handed to them by the concession of their victims. They're critical of conservatives because she she identifies conservatives assuring them all premise of the communists and therefore the conservatives not being able to stand up to the the welfare status to the efforts to ultimately lead to socialism in America and and of course, we've seen that in spades today. The final sentence of that quote. History fade and malevolent conspiracy easier to believe this is about the motivation right then the actual truth that we are moved by nothing but the sluggish inertia of unfocused minds. And the unfocused minds here are the conservatives the Americans the people who have, you know, who are letting this happen. They're not the communists right the communists the cockroaches they're not even on focus minds. It's the default of the people just accepting this and going with the flow that she's really upset about. Yeah, and you see this for example in the in her analysis of the of the antitrust issue which is one of the first examples I discussed. And she says there are conservatives who will hem and ha and get on their high horse about tax rate changes and, you know, tiny little middling regulations, but when it comes to the antitrust laws, which openly penalized them for being successful and and are in her view drawing us closer to a kind of dictatorship where there's no rule of law and arbitrary decisions, formed out to be, you know, nameless bureaucrats. They have nothing to say about that. And they're as on board as they ever could be and you see that today in in the antitrust rhetoric that is now coming mostly from the right mostly from conservatives who are jumping on the bandwagon very quickly about it. But everybody agrees. And, you know, the tech, the tech companies are now that the new target, who are the most successful and inspiring industrialists of the last 30 years, they want to maybe the last more than 30 years even but but more than that I would say what's really ugly about these attacks is that there's a there's a there's a attack on free speech at the coupled with it that is the motivation for the antitrust is issues related to speech which makes it so much more I mean economic justifications are evil enough but then if on top of the economic justification you're making these attempts to manipulate what private entities do with their own content that just takes it to to a next level. Yeah, this is actually the next piece I'm working on. Oh good looking at the at Iran's own commentary on this very same issue in the early 60s with the Kennedy administration or the same thing happening. And they were using antitrust law to justify restrictions on broadcasters. It's starting to me how much he hated how much he she thought Kennedy was bad.