 of freedom, rational self-interest, and individual rights. The Iran Book Show. Welcome to Iran Book Show. On this, I don't even know what day it is. It's Friday, and it's the last day of March. Hope everybody is having a fantastic time. Let's see. We've got a few people on the chat that are there. Yes, I've got the sun shining on me. So that is west, I guess. That's the window in my hotel room. And I guess I'm facing west and the sun is going to shine. The sun is going to set over there during the show. So as we go here, I am sitting in my hotel room on the 19th floor of the Marriott Hotel in Santa Cruz in Bolivia. My first time in Bolivia. And it is interesting. I'm looking over, I guess, away from the city. So I'm right at the edge of the city. I'm looking over forests, some buildings in the background. There are mountains way in far away. It's kind of a pretty view. And I'm looking forward to a talk tonight. Not in La Paz, I'm not in La Paz. I'm in Santa Cruz. The second, well, debatably, the second largest city in Bolivia, depending on whether you talk to people who live in Santa Cruz or you talk to people who live in La Paz. Wait a minute. Why is this? Yeah, it's working. Okay. So I am in Bolivia. I'm giving a talk tonight at the university here. I will be live streaming that to the extent that the technology works. So stay tuned. Sometime around 7 p.m. east coast time. That will be live streaming my talk. For those of you who might have caught it last night, I live streamed my talk. Was it last night? No, the night before last. God. The night before last, I live streamed my talk from Medellin, Colombia. I'll tell you about Medellin in a little bit. And we will see about the talks that I'm going to do in Peru, whether I live streamed those. I'm also giving a talk tomorrow morning here in Santa Cruz. I'm not sure if that was going to be live streamed to a regional conference of Students for Liberty. And so that should be interesting and a lot of fun. And I'm trying to think. So we'll do some, I hope, live streaming from Lima, Peru. One or two of my talks there. And that'll be it, I think, for live streaming. Maybe from Sao Paulo, we'll see. But that might be it for in terms of live streaming actual talks. I will be doing a show tomorrow. I will also be doing a show on Sunday. There is time. So I'll be doing a show tomorrow again from here in Santa Cruz. And then Sunday I'll be doing a show from Lima, Peru. So I apologize for not having done any other shows while I've traveled this week. It's just been, it's just been crazy. And too hectic and too difficult and just couldn't pull it off. Richard Hover says, I can't believe you're having a blast there. I'm not, there's something wrong grammatically with that. Roland, but the sentiment, I appreciate it. Michael says, I saw your Q&A in Columbia leftist repeat the same mythology with such confidence. Very disconcerting. Shows how early we really are in this movement. I mean, yes, if you, I encourage you to watch the talk that I did in Medellin a couple of days ago. It's on my channel. It's live from Medellin. And there was a woman there who was actually one of the senior correspondents for Forbes magazine in Latin America. And she expressed these leftist views and kind of onto, you know, why do we have to have these extremes? Capitalism, Marxism, you know, why can't we just all get along in a healthy, wonderful, flourishing welfare state. And yes, I mean, she expressed traditional views about child labor and homelessness. Child labor is a product of capitalism where capitalism is the only system in human history that is abolished child labor. Homelessness is a product of capitalism where homelessness is a product of regulation. You know, all the problems that they keep spouting as if those are problems of capitalism. Pollution is a problem of capitalism when you live in the most cleanest environment human beings have ever lived in. And then a guy, so the talk in Medellin Wednesday evening was at a kind of a shared workplace for crypto for the crypto business, but it has a bar and in the evening it just turns into a bar and it's open to the public. And a guy just walked by, an American, walked by and he heard talking about ideas. So he came in and he took it upon himself to represent the left's position about life and about the world. And he started on and on and on debating me about, again, about capitalism. So that's what Michael is referring to. And yeah, the same myth, the same arguments against capitalism we've heard a million times. And yes, it's very early. I mean, how many of us are there, us being people who are advocates of capitalism, believing capitalism, and understand capitalism and know how to defend it? How many of us are there to their gazillions, right? Every professor at every university, every teacher in every high school, every intellectual in every media company spouts what they have to say. Matthew says he sounded English, you're right. He was English. I mean, again, based on the accent I didn't talk to him, but based on the accent he was English. But think about how all the levers of intellectual power out there in the world are dominated by the left or by a kind of a conservative mindless conventional right. So no matter what you do, left or right, we live in a world in which almost everybody who produces intellectual content is producing intellectual content that is biased or that is interpreted, even if the data is right, interpreted badly, interpreted wrong. So that is the challenge we face. The challenge we face is that the people who actually have a proper view of the world of government, the people who have a proper view of economics, of politics, of liberty, of freedom, of individual rights, are like the tiniest of minorities in the world out there. The tiniest of minorities among intellectuals in the world out there. And until we can say that we have a big minority of intellectuals, we can't win. So the number one priority if you care about the future of the world is more good intellectuals. It's to train and produce a vast number of intellectuals who can stand up and defend capitalism, defend liberty and defend freedom and defend the individual and his right to his own life. And only when we have that, only when we have a vast majority of intellectuals, not a vast majority, a vast minority of intellectuals who hold these ideas and can communicate them and can advocate them, only then we win. Truth wins out in the end, but the end can be a long time. And truth also wins out, but in a shorter run it can only win out if it has numbers on its side. Truth is crushed by numbers. It just is. Because it's not given the space to be communicated. So it's not a surprise that we, it's very, very early and we have a lot of convincing to do and we have, that's, that is, that is, you know, that's just the reality. It's just the reality. All right. Let's see. Let's see. So, say yes. So that's what we have to get. We have to produce intellectuals. And in the meantime, you know, you can walk with Scott to, to sell us down the river to a bunch of, you know, fascist-leaning right-wingers who will destroy whatever attempts at a movement we create by forming coalitions with them and selling objectivism, selling out objectivism. All right. Let's see. Anything else about my trip? All right. Let's just, just give you a quick highlight of the trip so far. I did fly in to Medellin on Tuesday night. I have to say Medellin is a, I mean, all I know of Medellin is probably all you know of Medellin, that it was the cartel capital of Colombia. It was the drug capital of the world. It was, it was where all the drug cartel kingpins, kingpins were. And, and that's, you know, all I've ever known about Medellin. But, you know, going to Medellin, what a beautiful city. I mean, it is gorgeous. It's built in the mountains, the valley, but all up into the mountains. You're constantly driving up and down hills and mountains and stuff. The, it's very, these restaurant areas and coffee shops and stuff that are super charming. And so the place is super green. It's like, it's like you're living right in the midst of a jungle. And so it's super green. There's greenery everywhere. There are trees everywhere. It's alive. There's a lot of these coffee shops and restaurants that are, that are super enjoyable and, I mean, super pretty and look like fun. So I did a lunch event. I mean, this is, this is part of how do we spread the word and how do we, how do we help change the word? You, you know, I did an event for a liberal bank, I think bank it's called, which is a Colombian think tank, free market think tank. And it did an event for business leaders. We had about 25, 30 business leaders at a luncheon event. And they spoke about kind of the philosophy of, of liberty and why I and Rand were so important and why Rand was so important for the movement and why we could only, why we could only win and they could only win if they believe in political freedom. Embracing the ideas of the Enlightenment, but fundamentally the ideas, but ultimately the ideas of Ayn Rand, the ideas of reason and individualism and individualism, deep individualism in a sense of individualistic morality. And it was great. I mean, one of the businessmen that I met, just a really fascinating guy, relatively young guy, red out of shrugged, you know, successful businessman. He was there with his sister. They both ran, each one ran a business. And he had just read out of the shrug three years ago and he was just blown away. He's reading Opal for the second time. Opal Objectivism is the Philosophy of Ayn Rand. He has some questions about metaphysics. He's read Philosophy of Needs It. He's read a huge amount of the nonfiction, but he's really into Opal. I mean, he's really into the land of Picasso. And that was so, so cool. And to see somebody as enthusiastic and as excited, and that's the future. The future is more and more and more people like him. So that was for lunch. He actually came to the evening event, which you can see online. They did film the lunch talk, so I'm hoping I get a video of that and I will share that with you when I do. So look for that. I will try to share with you all the talks I do on the road and hopefully you enjoy them and you share them and so on. So yeah, looking forward to sharing all that good stuff with you. So yes, as I said, what was he saying? That you got a microphone. Yeah, and now that I have these new mics, these really, really fantastic mics, and I can bring my laptop, my camera, my tripod, my mics. I can bring them anywhere. And I don't have to rely on students. I don't have to rely on other people's equipment. I can just do it myself. I prefer to rely on other people's equipment when it works. It's easier. I don't have to think about it. It's enough that I have to schmooze with people and be nice to people. It's not hard to be nice to people. It's effort, right? And then you have to prepare for the talk and you have to know what's going on. And then on top of that, you have to set up the equipment and make sure it's filming and make sure it's taping and make sure... So it's just one more thing I have to worry about, but I've come to the conclusion finally, I think some of you came to this conclusion a long time ago, that I just can't rely on the locals to do it. The equipment's not good enough. It's not reliable enough. They don't invest enough in it. Many of them are students. They just don't have the equipment. So it is better that I just bring it myself. So I travel now with a backpack. I stick everything in the backpack. Go to the event a little early, set it all up and just press a button and we're live screaming. So that is the next step, that is the thing. All right, let's see. What are we doing here? Yeah, one other thing I wanted to mention before we kind of jump into this kind of news items. The show today, I'm not going to restrict too much on time. We've got about two hours so we can go as long as we want. As a consequence, I have to set the Super Chat goal at our usual long show Super Chat goal, 650 rather than the 250. I hope some of you come through and allow us to get to that number. This is the last day of March. So this will kind of determine income, a final piece for the income from March. So I'm hoping we can make it a good show from a Super Chat perspective. So feel free to ask questions. We're a lot less restrained than we are usually for the newsy shows. Because we're leaving much more time. So let's see. So I know we've got a lot of questions. We've got already a few questions. We'll leave that for later. Let's jump into news. And actually, I wanted to cover a news item that I didn't list, but I thought afterwards that this should really be a news item that I covered because it's just up my alley and it's just so offensive and pisses me off so much that it's not that I cannot, I can't just not talk about this. This is crucial. And that is the hearing was it yesterday or the day before yesterday that Bernie Sanders ran in the Senate. It was one of the Senate committees where they brought in the founder of Starbucks, Howard Schultz, and he got lambasted by Bernie Sanders for being a union, for breaking up unions. And I'm going to give credit to Rand Paul twice in the show today. I have many differences with Rand Paul and I thought that he was pathetic, is the right term during Trump's presidency in selling out basically his principles in order to be friendly with Trump, in order to go golfing with Trump, in order to be nice to Trump. I thought he sold out his principles, but as usual Republicans step up and I don't think Rand Paul has any different stepped up as an opposition figure. And I'm going to compliment him twice today on the show. But anyway, yesterday in the proceedings in this Senate hearing, Rand Paul let off his comments with a quote from Line Rand. A quote from Line Rand about how unappreciated, how much ingratitude we have towards the entrepreneurs, towards the businessmen, towards the builders and creators and how we're more likely to burn their stake than to just say a simple thank you. And that's exactly what you saw in the Senate hearing. I mean the disgusting nature of it. Here's a man how it shorts that I disagree with on many things. He's not politically, you know, anywhere close to where we are. He is a leftist by any measure politically. And yet here's a man who's changed the world. And you might think he's changed the world. Who cares, coffee? It's changed the world. He's made the world a better place for millions and millions and millions of people. He's elevated the drinking of coffee and you might be a coffee snob and think Starbucks coffee is not good enough. It doesn't matter. The fact is that hundreds of millions of people around the world go to Starbucks. Enjoy Starbucks. You know, I don't think other than a few Italians, I mean Italians generally and a few people, a few coffee snobs in the United States, who the hell knew what a cappuccino was? A lot of latte was. Never mind a cappuccino with soy milk and all this other stuff. Who knew this stuff before Starbucks? Starbucks has changed the culture. He's changed the world. He's made the world a better place for all of us. And one of the beauties is, you know, it's hard to tell, you know, when you go to different countries around the world. One of the comforting things about the world out there is that you go and, oh, there's a Starbucks. There's civilization here. And yes, even in Bolivia, and oh, I didn't tell you my impressions of Bolivia, but Santa Cruz is, this is a poor place. This is a poor country. This is, you know, even as compared to Colombia, the differences are vast in terms of, and you can see it. You can see it in the cars people drive. You can see it in the homes they live in. You can see it in the business section. This is a poor country, but there's a Starbucks here. And there's a Starbucks. There's Starbucks is all over Medellin, and there's Starbucks is all over Europe, including Eastern Europe, and there's Starbucks all over Asia and countries that never even knew what coffee was there, Starbucks now. And people's lives are just at the margin better off. They enjoy a cup of coffee now, and it's a beautiful thing. And this man, Howard Schultz built this. It's his vision. It's his management ability. It's his organizational skill. It's his vision. It's just a magnificent, beautiful thing. And indeed, one of the consequences of Starbucks is a huge boom in coffee shops, in small independent coffee shops. Indeed, what Starbucks has done is created, as great entrepreneurs do, they teach people what they really want. They teach people what they should desire. And the consequence of the explosion of popularity of Starbucks is an explosion of popularity of other coffee shops. In places where there's Starbucks, there are lots of other coffee shops. In places that don't have Starbucks, there are no independent coffee shops. And he was one of the great businessmen of the last 50 years, easily, who changed the industry, changed the world, had profound impact on our habits and how we consume drink, at least. And what does he get? He gets a bunch of parasitic, do-nothing, well, not do-nothing, destructive, destructive parasites, senators, complaining about it, land-blasting. It's good for Rand Paul for standing up for that. I mean, the real story is, it's a story I would always come back to, and that is the story of why the hell should businessmen have to testify in front of Congress? Shouldn't Congress testify in front of us? Shouldn't they be on the witness stand? So it couldn't defend themselves, but nobody can. None of these businessmen could defend themselves. Did the tech executives defend themselves when they went to Congress? The last person who defended himself well in front of Congress was, oh God, the crazy guy who built the largest airplane in the world. Somebody on the chat will remind me his name. Howard Hughes was the last man to testify well in front of Congress, and that was right after World War II. And he lambasted them and ridiculed them and showed them how small they were. So he was changing the world and how little puny these politicians are. And just the audacity of these people to not recognize somebody who is better than them. I'm talking about businessmen. Yes, Alex Epstein has done a fantastic job in front of Congress testifying, but Alex is not an entrepreneur businessman. The last entrepreneur businessman is CEO. Alex is an entrepreneur in a particular field, but I'm talking about big-time CEOs bought in front of Congress to be ridiculed and accused about their business activities. And the last one to actually stand up against them was Howard Hughes. That's how pathetic and bad things are. So we know how evil and horrible Bernie Sanders is, but good for Rand Paul for standing up for him. Boo to all the other senators who participate in this charade and participate in this immoral evil. And I'm still waiting for the day when an entrepreneur stands up and says something like, I do not recognize your right to question me. I do not recognize your right to question my business decisions. Who the hell do you think you are and just walks out of it? Waiting for that day. Maybe, maybe once before I die, one of these young people that I have introduced or have been introduced to objectivism over the last 20, 30 years and rise up to a level where they are invited in front of Congress as a business person and they do that. That would be pretty, pretty damn amazing. Okay, let's jump into the topics today. We'll start with, yes, well, this is everywhere in the news. I don't have a lot to say about this, but Donald Trump, it appears, will be indicted. He's been indicted on 34 counts of basically business fraud. There's not a lot to say here about this because we haven't seen the indictment. We don't know the details. I've talked about this before, you know, as much as I despise Trump and think he's probably the most corrupt president, the most corrupt human being who served as president. I don't think this is the case that needs to be brought against him. I find it interesting that even like the Economist, there's probably a left of center and the Washington Post, which is a significant left of center, also don't think this is an indictment that should be brought against him for those reasons, for the reason of just the wrong battle, the wrong battle to fight from a legal perspective. You know, so it also smacks of politicization. Bragg is one of the most leftist district attorneys in the country. He is awful. He's terrible at crime. He's terrible at everything. He chooses this one. So we will see how this plays out. It's not a popular indictment. I mean, the defenders of the indictment are saying that it shows that nobody's above the law. I guess that's true if the indictment makes sense, that that is good, that nobody's above the law. I'm all for nobody being above the law. But it's going to be a challenge to indict him on the issues, at least as presented, and that's too bad. Oh, video is frozen, I'm told. Can you still hear me? Can you guys hear me? See me? Video frozen, people say. It's not frozen on my end. And video audio is good, but video is not. I've got video fine, so the download to YouTube on my end looks fine. Alright, we're just going to continue. Let me know if the audio goes out. That's much more important. Anyway, you know, so this is going to be interesting to see soon, right? This is going to be seen really soon. And I will comment on it next week when we see the full indictment of it. So as you know, whatever criticism I have of the indictment has nothing to do with my love of Trump. Okay, the video is frozen. Hopefully it'll come back. You know, there's not, I don't know what there is I can do about it. But it is weird that in my download, I don't have frozen video and I'm downloading, I'm downloading YouTube. So on my end, it's not frozen. Alright. Oh, I see there, now that I rebooted, it froze. That's funny. Alright, let me just think this through if there's anything we can do here. We go to this. Yeah, we go to this. Wait a second and give me a second and I'm going to try to make this better. Okay, now you probably won't see anything. We're going to reboot that. That won't work. Alright, we'll do that. And then I have to go here, get rid of that. Alright, we'll see if that makes a difference. Hopefully video, yep, I see I'm back. Hopefully I'm back in motion without freezing. So we will see. Fixed it. Alright, cool. What the problem is, and I actually am technically minded enough to fix it. Ooh, it's getting hot here with the sun on me. Anyway, let's see Medicaid. This is kind of an interesting story and you can see kind of the altruists out there just whining about this. So Medicaid is basically socialized medicine for poor people. So if you have a sudden income below a certain amount and you get Medicaid, you get basically government paid, wealth redistributed, healthcare. This obviously raises the cost of healthcare for all the rest of us. It raises our taxes significantly. And right now, just to give you an example of how many people are on Medicaid. The population of the United States is about, I don't know, 350 million people. But right now on Medicaid, we have 84 million people. 84 million people are on Medicaid right now. 84, 84. That's a massive number. And you can't tell me that 84 million people can't afford health insurance. Now maybe it's true that they can't because we so regulated health insurance that we've made it super expensive. But even with the Obama subsidies of health insurance and everything else, I do not believe that anywhere close to 84 million Americans can't afford health insurance. But 84 million people in America. And clearly America is a major welfare state. So before COVID, people will regularly lose Medicaid coverage if they started making too much money. This is why getting a job when you're unemployed or when you're poor, getting a higher paying job often has 100% actually. Because what happens, this is what welfare does. What happens when you get a job is suddenly you're making too much money to get free healthcare. So now you have to pay for health insurance. That it could be that that incremental of getting a higher wage or that increment of getting a job actually makes you worse off than when you're unemployed or in a lousy job, in a job that paid very little. So sometimes getting a raise actually makes you worse off because suddenly you get kicked out of Medicaid and you have to buy insurance. This is how stupid and corrupt our welfare system is in the United States. And I think the way the U.S. welfare system is structured is far worse than the way welfare systems are structured in Europe. I think in Europe they're bigger and they include a lot more. But in many respects they are more efficient than the American system. The American system disadvantages or penalizes, put it this way, the American system penalizes people from actually gaining work and advancing in life and making it better at the margin, at least in the short run. So if you make too much money, you're disqualified from the program. If you move out of state, you're disqualified, you have to reapply for the whole program in your new address. Now this may explain why people in, I always say many times I've said, you know, why don't people in Ohio who've lost their steel jobs over the last 20 years, why don't they get in their car and drive to Arkansas where they're plenty of jobs? Well, maybe they don't do that because right now in Ohio they're getting Medicaid and they're getting welfare and they're getting all these things. And as soon as they leave, they lose all that and they have to worry about whether the job and everything else will pay as much as all the goodies they're getting for free in Ohio. So the other thing the welfare state does is it reduces geographic mobility. Indeed, if you look at geographic mobility, how many Americans actually move from state to state? Over the last 40 years, it's dramatically declined, not a little bit, it's dramatically declined. I did a whole show on this, I don't know, about four or five years ago, about the reduction in mobility and one of the big reasons is Medicaid. Medicaid, sorry. And the other reason they might be dropped from Medicaid is if they get health insurance coverage through the employer. So again, an incentive for employers or for employees not to advance or go to work for somebody who gives them healthcare because then they lose the free benefit. Now, all of these reasons to drop people from Medicaid were actually stopped during COVID. By the way, who was the president? Who stopped them? It was Donald Trump. So they were stopped in 2020 when Donald Trump was president. So they stopped kicking people out of Medicaid as they improved in a lot. So indeed enrollment in Medicaid grew by five million people between 2020 and 2022 to a large extent because nobody was dropped, people were added, but nobody was dropped. What is happening now is because the government is rescinding the emergency, whatever, COVID emergency powers, whatever. Or actually, no, actually, as part of the consolidation appropriations act, the bill that was just passed, that was signed at the end of last year. The Medicaid has to go back to checking eligibility. And once they check eligibility, they are estimating that they're going to kick out about 15 million people. So many, it's only grown by five million that they're kicking out 15, partially because weird record unemployment rates, wages have actually gone up and a lot of people are ineligible for Medicaid. So we're going to in the months to come, states, this is all administered at the state level, states are going to be kicking out 15 million people out of Medicaid. And of course, people are freaking out. This isn't fair. This isn't right. What about the poor? And yeah, but Medicaid is how is that right? And why is nobody proposing still nobody proposing a fixed our health care system to make it, you know, reasonable enough cost wise so that everybody can participate in it through insurance. Why do we keep resorting to status redistributionist altruism based remedies? Well, because our culture is dominated by altruism, the idea of sacrificing for the poor is deeply ingrained in our ideas and our psyche and our approach to the world and our approach to life. So there's a lot of shouting about this. There's a lot of objection. There's a lot of complaining. It's all over the media. It's all over the place. I don't think anybody's going to do anything about it partially because Medicaid and Medicare are going to go are going bust. But you're going to see this starting to affect people. You'll see a lot of sob stories about people losing their insurance, losing their Medicaid. And it starts with nine states in April, Arizona, Arkansas, Florida, Idaho, Iowa, New Hampshire, Ohio, Oklahoma and West Virginia, and it'll slowly roll out to all 50 states that'll have to drop their Medicaid enrollment. So yeah, this plays out just like you would expect in a culture that is obsessed with altruism. All right, that is Medicaid. Let's see, where are we? Yeah, the strict act. This is a nasty piece of work. The strict act is a bill being proposed by Mark Warner, who is a senator, I think from Virginia, Democratic Senator Virginia, but it has strong bipartisan support. That is, there are a number of Republicans that support this act. And again, here I'll give credit to Rand Paul. Rand Paul is fighting against this. He's fighting against the strict act. He's also fighting against the banning of TikTok. So Rand Paul is being very good on these issues. Again, my complaint against Rand Paul is, where were you when Trump was offering restrict acts and tariffs and all those other things? Why didn't we hear you, your voice much louder? But good for you standing up for this. Anyway, the restrict act is proposes to dramatically expand the power of the Secretary of Commerce to review business transactions involving information and communication technologies. So tech, products and services that are connected to what the government defines as foreign adversaries of the United States. And that pose an, quote, undue and unacceptable risk to the national security of the United States. In other words, this is a mechanism to increase, increase the power of the executive, increase the power of the executive to unilaterally penalize and restrict technologies and companies that are foreign owned in the name of national security. Let me just say thank you, Troy. Really, really appreciate the support. Thank you. It's good to see you. And thank you, Wes. Really, really appreciate that. You guys are fantastic and have brought us into $177 away from our goal. So we're very close. Anyway, this is a massive power grab by the government. You know, what is a foreign adversary? Who is a foreign adversary? Now, look, in a rational society, a big part of what the government does would be to help us define who our adversaries are, who our enemies are and clearly define policies regarding those adversaries. But this is just a way, again, for the government to grab power. It's primarily targeted at China. We already have massive trade restrictions with Iran and Iran and North Korea and Cuba and these other places that are so-called defined as foreign adversaries. It's not clear to me why Cuba is a foreign adversary, for example. And in this bill, it defines Cuba as a foreign adversary and why, for example, Venezuela is not. Maybe because American oil companies are lobbying not to have them included as a foreign adversary. Russia is included. Oh, wait a minute, Venezuela is included as a foreign adversary. I'm wrong. But China, Cuba, Iran, Russia, and Venezuela. Not a bad list. Not a bad list. But, you know, this list can be expanded by the executive branch. And it gives the, it doesn't define properly what national security is. We already saw Trump and Biden use national security as an excuse to restrict trade, to restrict commerce with various companies and with various entities. You know, Trump tried to use restrictions on auto companies and European auto companies in the guise of national security reasons. So national security can be twisted and turned in the world in which we live significantly. You know, the government doesn't need more power. The government doesn't need more power. And the fact that maybe the government doesn't have the power today to ban TikTok is fantastic. Because I don't think TikTok should be banned. And I don't think the government should have that kind of power. And I think making it difficult for the government to gain that kind of power is to ban a private company that clearly is not a threat to national security of the United States. But a lot of this bill is aimed at TikTok. It would basically give the Secretary of the Commons the ability to basically ban TikTok. Or any other technology company, they deemed a threat to national security without ever defining what national security actually means. Well, they tried to define it. Here's the definitions. Impact the country's critical infrastructure and digital economy. Impact. Sabotage the subvert, the again, the infrastructure, the communication and information infrastructure of the United States. Interference and manipulation of federal elections. What does that even mean? So if I advocate for an idea that you don't like, is that interference? That has to go. The interference and manipulation clause has to go. And here's another one. Undermining the democratic process to steer policy and regulatory decisions in favor of the strategic objectives of a foreign adversary to the detriment of the national security of the United States. Completely ambiguous. Clearly, I think ultimately a violation of the First Amendment. You can't prove this. You can't define it clearly. Very, very, very dangerous. So again, this is a bill that needs to be fought. And on top of that, if you try, let's say they ban TikTok, this bill, let's say this bill ban TikTok, and then you get a VPN, and you use a foreign internet connection through your VPN to access TikTok, you would be violation of the law and you could be fined or go to jail or whatever. Right. You would then be viewed as aiding and abetting a foreign entity that is damaging to the national security of the United States. This is truly really dangerous. This is the kind of stuff you would think conservatives and people who value the Constitution and people who value the First Amendment and people who valued the government spying on us. People who spoke up against the Patriot Act. This is worse than the Patriot Act. All of us, this is what we should be fighting against. And yet you will find that people like Holly, Josh Hawley, are huge supporters of this. Indeed, Josh Hawley has proposed legislation to ban TikTok in the Senate. Again, Rand Paul is the guy opposing him. It's good for Rand Paul. Josh Hawley is the enemy. And any kind of coalition with the Josh Hawleys of the world is suicide, literally suicide. You're killing off the only chance of civilization to be successful. And so this is the kind of bill that has to be fought. It's a Patriot Act 2.0. It gives the federal government, it gives the executive branch way, way, way too much power. And this is, again, should the government be able to define who our enemies are? Absolutely. Should under certain circumstances the government be able to restrict trade with certain countries? Absolutely. Should the government be able to restrict trade in certain industries under certain circumstances? Yes. But when you know that the U.S. government is not objective, when you know the U.S. government has already unbelievable amounts of tools to deal with problems and violates our rights left and right already. Do we really want to give them more tools? Do we really want to give them more power in the name of national security? They're already abusing the power they have in the name of national security. For example, Patriot Act in the name of national security, listening into our conversations, holding phone records, having secret courts where they make decisions about our fate. It's secret. America has secret courts, FISA courts. Just that is unconstitutional. The very existence of those courts is unconstitutional. So generally, I think we should be against anything that increases the power of the executive branch, anything that increases the power of the federal government, anything that increases the power over us. Because we know who's going to wield that power. And we know how non-objective they are. We know how power-lusting they are. We know how bad they are for us, for our lives, for our freedoms. The federal government has federal courts, FISA courts that can go after people for all kinds of things that the government decides to go after. Alright, let's see. Finally, let's talk about AEI again. I promised we'll talk a lot about AEI, but a development happened since I last talked about AEI that was worth mentioning. You know how I've talked about the fact that I have this love-hate relationship with Elon Musk? There are days where I think he's like a genius and brilliant and amazing and the greatest thing ever. And then there are days where I think he's just horrible and stupid and in a sense, well, not stupid because he's obviously super smart, but stupid in a sense that he's destroying our freedom and destroying our liberty and really a voice, an anti-progress voice. And this week, unfortunately, he's on my bad side. More than a thousand technology leaders earlier this week, including Elon Musk, argued that artificial intelligence labs, generally in the United States or in the world really, pause development of the most advanced systems. And they wrote this in an open letter that AEI tools present, quote, profound risks to society and humanity. AEI developers are, quote, locked in an out-of-control race to develop and deploy ever more powerful digital minds that no one, not even their creators can understand, predict or reliably control, unquote. According to, this is a letter, it was produced by the nonprofit group's Future of Life Institute. God, what a name. And, you know, other people signed this, Steve Wozniak, the co-founder of Apple. I don't believe that Steve Jobs would have ever signed this. Andrew Yang, who was the famous presidential candidate in 2020, you know, and many, you know, Rachel Brantz are not surprising because she's the president of the bulletin of atomic scientists which sets the doomsday clock. Basically they want you to pause. They want six months at least to stop, stop developing, and let's really think about this. I mean, there's so many things wrong with this. Let's stop progress. Why? Because it might have a negative outcome. That's called the precautionary principle in law. The precautionary principle basically says that when there's uncertainty about the future, which is always about what might happen, which is always, every new technology, then we shouldn't develop it. We should slow it down. We should stop. We should pause. We should try to figure out what that uncertainty is. But the future is always uncertain. There was a vox piece last week calling for pumping the brakes on AI progress with the same kind of thing that AI is going to take over the world. It's going to destroy it. It's going to kill all the people. All AI is biased. Of course, it's biased. Most of the stuff on the internet is biased. Where's AI learning stuff? From the internet and journals and newspapers, all that's biased. It's going to learn biased stuff. You can't solve it by stopping technology. Solve it by thinking for yourself. But it's this precautionary principle that is basically retarded the advance of technology in the nuclear industry. It's a precautionary principle that's retarded the advance of GMOs and gene editing and therapeutics in gene editing therapy. It's the precautionary principle that I think has slowed down for a long time, slowed down the space program for a long time and still does slow down the design and development of new airplanes, revolutionary airplanes. It is generally, it is what's killing progress in the world. It's what's killing economic growth. It's what's killing new technologies and new advancements that enhance human life. This is one of those vicious ideologies out there. And the idea that Elon Musk missed the technology, missed the progress, missed the advance, future, futuristic stuff is advocating for a precautionary principle on AI. It's just unbelievable sand. I mean, think of how many diseases are going to be cured because of AI's ability to model and project how drugs can be used or how biological systems work and what kind of treatments will work and won't work. How many lives are going to be saved by replacing us as drivers with autonomous cars which are run by AI, which is a thousand times safer than you driving, not me driving but you driving. How many lives are going to be saved even with AI helping us develop cheaper, more efficient and easier to build nuclear power plants? I mean, AI is a massive revolutionary technology that is going to, as I talked about the other day, going to increase productivity of labor, going to reduce costs, going to make us richer and make us more prosperous. And these people are repeating the lies about job losses, about change in society being too fast. We can't cope. It's happening too fast. That's exactly what they said about computers. It's exactly what they said about the internet. It's exactly what they said about iPhones. It's exactly what they said about every, but cotton loom, what was it? Automization of the garment industry in the 19th century. So it really is just unbelievable that Elon could sign up to something like this. It's unbelievable that people like Wozniak and other technologists are willing to sign up for something like this. It's sad. It says a lot about our culture and a lot about the world in which we live, that their behavior is acceptable in any kind of way and that this goes unmentioned and unnoticed. And look, the scientists developing AI are not interested in seeing the world end. This idea that you can't put safeguards into AI is ludicrous. AI is a human creation. Yes, we might not understand every step in the way in which the algorithm applies to any particular thing. We understand the algorithm. We can change the algorithm. We can rewrite the algorithm. We can put rules to the algorithm. AI is not conscious. It's nowhere near being conscious. It doesn't have its own goals. It can easily be given rules as autonomous cars are going to have to have, rules about not killing human beings and safety and all of this other stuff. But there's panic. There's panic of the most primitive Luddite type. And again, the upside of AI is just unfathomable. It's just hard to imagine how much upside there is. And by playing to these fears, not only do they create distrust out there of new technology among common people, but they're also encouraging regulators to get involved. They're encouraging the government. You're going to see testimony in front of Congress in the months to come about AI, about its dangers. You're going to see people of the highest caliber from Silicon Valley going yellow and musk and wasn't it? Going in front of Congress and saying, you have to do something about this. Now, this isn't even to talk about the national security issues. AI is going to be crucial to modern warfare. AI is to logic thinking to run modern battlefields and modern tech and modern weapons systems. And China's not going to pause. And China's not going to stop developing. And China's pretty advanced when it comes to AI as far as we can tell. Now, I think long term, they don't have a chance to keep up with the U.S. partially because of the chip restrictions and partially because, again, they're not a free society. Ooh, that's great. A cloud just came and covered the sun, makes all the difference in the world. I also look better on video without the sun shining in my eyes, but it also feels better. Let's hope the cloud stays there. Travels west with the sun. Anyway, this is, again, something to watch. This is one of those things that we need to defend. We need to be the defenders of technology, of progress, of advancement. We need to be at the forefront of rejecting the precautionary principle. And, again, to have somebody who's trying to go to Mars advocate for the precautionary principle when it comes to AI. I mean, imagine you apply the precautionary principle to go to Mars. There are already a lot of people who would like to shut the whole project down. This gives them more ammunition. And look, the fears are just not legitimate. AI will create more jobs than it destroys. And AI is not a thinking being with its own value system. People will reflect the value system of the programmers. So, will it be biased? Yeah. You want it not to be biased? Build a better AI. You want it to be objective as to AI? Let's build an AI based on objective principles. It can start learning by, in a sense, accessing all of Iron Man's writings. That would be cool. Okay. So, we'll keep coming back to this AI story, because I think technology-wise it may seem the most. There's a good writer, James Pethicoccus. James Pethicoccus, he used to be at the American Enterprise Institute. He probably still is there. But he has a great sub-stack, and he has a great name for the sub-stack. I love the name. The sub-stack is called Faster, Please. It's an exclamation point. So, Faster, Please. And it's a fantastic sub-stack that advocates for technology, that advocates for building, that advocates for economic growth and economic progress. So, if you're interested in any covers of the AI issues, if you're interested in these issues and human progress, look him up, Faster, Please by James Pethicoccus, who, again, I'm pretty sure is with the American Enterprise Institute. But he has a couple of posts on the AI thing, and he doesn't have enough followers. I can see just by the number of people who've like this post, I'm going to like it just to add to my thing, that he does not have enough followers. So, please consider following him. All right. Have I frozen again? Let me know if I'm frozen again. There's a chance that that has happened. No. Okay. So, I'm still good. All right. That's the content I had prepared. We went for an hour. Let's look at some of your super chats. Wow. I mean, we have blown through the $650 goal. So, thank you guys. That is incredibly generous of you. I really, really appreciate that. And yeah, let's take a look. John has the $200. Well, John and Vadim both put $200 in. So, I'm going to start with them. Thank you guys. That is incredibly generous. Really, really appreciate it. John says, this is for the awesome episode with Isaiah that I missed. Also, Ewan, did the Puss in Boots movie you watched have a wolf in it that represents death and chased Puss throughout the movie? I only asked because there's two Puss in Boots movies and I want to make sure you watch the right one. Yes, but this is what I've done, John, because I feel bad about how long it's been since I promised to review it in my recollection of the movie. It faded very quickly after I watched it, which is happening to me with age, but also says something about the fact that I didn't really enjoy it. So, I'm going to watch it again. Maybe I'll watch it on a fast forward basis, because I want to give you a detailed reason why, what I objected to. And to say that I think I understand why you liked it, but I want to tell you in more detail why I didn't like it. So, I've got it on my iPad now on one of the flights, probably the flight from Lima to Rio de Janeiro, which is a long flight. I'll watch Puss in Boots, I'll make notes, and I will get back to Shazbot, who is here, I'm pretty sure is here. On the flight over here I did watch MASH, the episode on MASH, and I did watch the Princess, whatever, Mono, Mono, Mono, Mono, Mono, Kato, something like that. And I will be commenting on both of those in the next, maybe tomorrow show, tomorrow Sunday. So, I am going to catch up on all my movie reviews that I have promised, and hopefully get all of you to do more movie reviews with me, because those are fun, even though it takes me forever to get back to you with reviews. So, thank you John, $200, that's very, very generous. Vadim, also $200. What does it mean when someone says the art of, is that the same as the science of? Is the word art in this sense the same as art as a painting or music or appreciation of reality or music in recreation of reality, one's metaphysical judgment? No, it is not. There are two senses of using the word art. One, what you might call fine art, which is what you said, it's a selective recreation of reality based on an artist's metaphysical value judgments, and that is fine art, that is a product. And the art of something, the art of thinking, take a line and pick off, or when you say something is a state of the art, it's really about the process of the way in which we do it, and it's not the science of because it's in a realm which is not scientific, it's not mathematical, it isn't limited to the particular methodology of science. Now, in many respects, this is a kind of question that I have to take away and think about because it's not something I just have off the cuff is the definition of art. I do remember Lena Pickup discussing this difference some way, maybe in the art of thinking and maybe as part of why am I calling this art of thinking? In what sense do we mean art here? But the art is the way in which you do it, the methodology of doing something, the art of thinking is how do we do thinking? What's the proper way? What's the right way to engage in the act, in the activity of thinking? The art of winemaking, the art of winemaking. What is the best way to make wine recognizing that it's not going to be with mathematical precision that you're going to be able to define it, that there's a certain element of inspiration, a certain element that the person doing it can't always reproduce exactly. And this is why, for example, wine, every batch is a little different, the circumstances are always a little different. Anyway, I'm sure there's a better way to define this right now. I'm sure there's a better way to define this, the art of war. It's not like there's one way of war, but here's some principles on how to guide you in approaching the question of war. Here's some principles that relate to that. This isn't a mathematical formula to tell you how to fight a war, but some sort of general principles on how to approach fighting a war. But it's a different use than the use in art. And I think it comes from the fact that art is assumed to come from inspiration and not from science. And therefore, art can be used in both those senses to capture that inspirational aspect of it. I am sure there's a better way to think about what art in this context means. But the important point right now is that they're two very different things. Art is fine art, which has a very clear definition, really demarcated. And art is used as the way in which we create, build beautiful good things. And the way in which we do it really, really well. We do something really, really well. Yeah, there's something called black arts, the arts of creating something dark and evil and, you know, bad. But it's the ability to do that, the mechanism by which we do that, which might not be explicitly scientific. All right, not your average algorithm says, thank you, here's 50 bucks. Here's for changing, saving my life when I was at my lowest. Wow, you know, happy to have done it. Thank you, really appreciate the recognition. Thank you, not your average algorithm. See, Schausbach says, President Camacho, Terry Cruz from Idiocracy has announced his run from the presidential race. We are saved. Finally, I've been waiting for somebody that I could get excited about voting for. Schausbach is going to give me hell forever for not liking, for not liking Idiocracy. I know, massive disappointment. Johannes Bustrom from Sweden. Hola, I've been wondering for a while now how hard, how it said it's too late to Peter, when Peter showed his painting to Howard in the later part of the fountainhead. Yeah, I mean, I've answered this question before. It is a question that a lot of people ask. The point is particularly, you know, for certain skill sets. And I think being an artist is one of them. You have to invest yourself to be world-class, to be really, really good. You have to invest yourself from a very young age in it. And you have to have a certain level of integration between your emotion and your thoughts and your reason in order to be, you know, amazingly good at that thing, right? So, you've got to have that integration for a big chunk of your life. And at a certain point, it's just too late to disintegrate all the garbage, to get rid of all the garbage. It's even too late to learn certain skills. You know, to be a great artist, there are just certain mechanical skills that you have to learn. And just like in sports, if you don't automatize those early, you're just never going to have it. But much more important for an artist, because what you're trying to project are important values, is you've got to have that integration between body and mind and emotion. Your soul needs to, you have to have a perspective. And for an artist, it has to be your perspective. It has to be your point of view, your vision for the world. And Keating has destroyed that. He has no vision for the world. He has been a second hand of his own life. He is what the masses want him to be. He is what the people expect him to be. He has no mind of his own. How can he suddenly create art that is his when his whole epistemological training, his entire life is being to do what other people want? He can't. It's too late. Even if he recognizes that, it's too late to reshape your soul after. Your soul after certain points in life, particularly again as an artist, which requests such deep and intense integration of mind and emotion and your soul needs to be integrated. And this is why a lot of people, this is why it's easier for people to accept objectives of when they're young, harder as they get older. It's still possible as they get older. But the younger they are, the easier it is in a sense also to live it because they have more time to integrate the ideas. And their brain is more plastic. The older we get, the more calcified our brain and our neuron networks and our attitudes and our views of the world and our emotions are. And to get rid of the bad stuff, the earlier you do it, the better. And beyond a certain point, again, particularly for certain professions, art being the main one, it's just too late. That's what he means. Hopefully that answers it. Happy to delve deeper if you have a follow-on question. Ian says, did you see Eliza Jukowski's article in Time on AI? He wants people to blow up data centers that are used to train GPT models, crazy that people listen to people from less wrong like him. I mean, it doesn't surprise me. They probably watch Terminator 2, if you remember, over and over again. And in Terminator 2, as much as I love that movie, because they know what the future holds, we don't, but they know what the future holds. They're busy, you know, kidnapping scientists and blowing up data centers. That's the whole point. But yes, this is now going to be the new motivation for terrorists, for the unabomber in the future, future unabombers. If you are an AI scientist, beware. It's also going to be, you know, these people are going to be harassed. It's now also a big issue that most AI scientists was for industry. Industry is evil because it's motivated by the profit motive. We need more scientists to be in universities. We need to increase the budget that universities take and hire more scientists and not let them go to industry because again, industry is evil, industry has a mind blowing up the world and destroying the world. I don't know how exactly you can make a profit if the world is destroyed. But anyway, people live with that kind of mythology. Andrew says, it's too late for Peter to be first-handed. Yes, I think it is. Remember how the extent to which Peter Keating is a second-hander in every aspect of his life. Even the woman he marries ultimately. He marries her because everybody else desires her. It's impossible to come back from that. That doesn't mean you can't, as Andrew says, don't be discouraged by it. You're not, I'm sure most of you are not Peters. I'm sure none of you are Peters to the extent that Peter Keating is a second-hander. So you shouldn't be discouraged by that fact. Okay, James says, is it typically not poor people who are corrupted with envy but rich people who are envious of people even richer than they are? You know, I don't know. I don't think these things are determined by class. It's a matter of values and personality. I don't know that there are more poor people who are envious or more middle-class people who are envious or more rich people who are envious. I don't know what the statistics are. I don't really care. It's an issue of character. It's an issue of individuals. It's an issue of first-handedness versus second-handedness. And that can inflict anybody at whatever economic level you happen to be. Dave asks, are Asian countries an example of collectivism without an altruistic foundation? It's not that they don't have altruistic foundation. It's that their altruism is weaker. Their altruism is less radical, less consistent and less focused on self-sacrifice. So yes, it's a sacrifice for a family, but your family is pretty close to you. So it's reasonable to care about your family and want to give up stuff for the sake of your family because of how close and how important they might be to you. There isn't this idea of sacrificing humanity. There isn't this idea of suffering for the sins of others. There isn't this idea of sacrificing for God because God demands it. None of that exists. And in that sense they have collectivism with an altruistic foundation but a much, much weaker altruistic foundation. It's not suffering for the sake of suffering. It's suffering for something that you have some connection to. Family, country, clan, tribe, you know, in Asian countries a very clan, tribe kind of oriented or have been historically. Harper Campbell. 350,000 people are leaving California every year. Is that right? Is it that big of a number? How long can this continue before California either collapses or reverses its leftism? You know, I don't know. It can help. It obviously can't last forever. Ten years and it's three and a half million. I can't remember what the population of California is but that would be 10% of the population. It probably depends who's leaving. Is this a brain drain or is it something else? I think the quality of life in California starts at two rates no matter who it is. If it's low income people then you're missing low income people. The jobs that low income people do, you know, you're missing that. If it's obviously entrepreneurs then you're missing the wealth and the job creation of entrepreneurs. So no, it can't go on forever. Obviously California has to collapse at some point if this continues at this pace. But so far California has been ours. I mean so far California is still the biggest economy in the United States. It's the fifth largest or fourth largest economy in the world. If you counted it as a country it has a dominant position in terms of the amount of innovation in the United States, even globally the amount of innovation that happens, happens in California, the amount of wealth being produced in California. So I don't declare California dead yet but to survive it's going to have to reform ultimately. But the death could be very, very long because there's so much production and so many productive geniuses in California who are willing to keep being sacrificial animals. That's the bottom line. As long as people are willing to be sacrificial animals they will be and things can continue to survive. Thank you Martin, thank you James. James and Martin are just doing stickers for small amounts. We have, I don't know, 90 people watching and so you know that's, you guys too can just support the show, value for value just put the small amount, $2, $4, $5, $10 and it can help a lot. There's no sound. You guys have lost sound? That's weird. Let me know if you've lost sound. Somebody says this sound lost but I'm not sure if that sound is fine, somebody says. I'm just adjusting something. All right, let's see, what else do we have? Oops, where am I? Where did I? I'm missing my questions. There we go. Clock. It does get annoying how we have to fight so hard every inch when we should be running the world by now. Yep, yep. I know. Believe me, I know. I'm at it. Of all the people in the world out there I don't think there's more lines more than anybody else. I don't think anybody else is quite on the front lines right now more than I am. So I realize that if you watched the video from the other night you'd see it. Andrew says, is it fair criticism of intellectual objectivists that despite Rand's instructions they argue too much in political empirical basis rather than moral? But is that true? Do intellectual objectivists argue too much in a political empirical basis rather than moral? I don't know if that's actually true. But look, objectivism is hard. It's hard to avoid rationalism on the one hand. Abstractions devoid of concretes. Or empiricism concretes devoid of abstractions. And this phenomena is much more on the empiricist side. It's just hard and it requires a lot of work. It took Leonard, Leonard talks about this in his 30 years with Iron Man. He was a rationalist and it took him decades to get rid of his rationalism. If it took Leonard Peacock, who's a genius who's rationalism so long, it's going to be hard work to be an objectivist intellectual who gets the balance of abstraction and concrete examples in the real world right to be great teachers and great educators in our culture. Michael says, when is your next debate with Richard Wolff? I don't know. Don't know if you'll ever debate me. I haven't got anybody sponsoring it. I will be doing a debate. Just so you know, I will be doing a debate with James Galbraith on inequality. I've debated him twice already. I'll be doing my third debate with him on inequality in Dallas on June 1st. June 1st in Dallas debate with James Galbraith. It's a fantastic venue, Parkland, I think it's called. Fantastic venue. When I have more details, I'll let you know. But that should be a really fun debate and we'll have a lot of businessmen at the debates and hopefully a lot of you. If you're in Texas, you'll come and it should be a really good event. Dallas, June 1, a debate on inequality with James Galbraith. Schausbach says, quote, he's quoting, I don't want to run the nation's economy. I want your national economy runners to leave me alone. Who said that? That's the quiz of the day. That is John Galt. Basically, John Galt wants them to stop running the economy. Get out of the way. Get out of the way. Leave businessmen, leave the producers, leave the individual alone. Michael Sanders says, asks, what do you make of the transgender school shooter in Tennessee? The right is having a field day. Yeah, I mean, the right is stupid, just like the left is stupid. The left has field days when the right, when some nut on the right goes out and shoots a bunch of people. And the right has a field day when somebody in their political enemy group does something evil like this. Look, there are evil people out there. And evil people can be motivated by lots, all sorts of evil ideas. And in a world with lots of evil ideas, and in a world trending towards nihilism, you're going to see more of this, and you're going to see more of it from more different groups. And the groups in their headlines are going to be more represented, better represented, if you will, for this. So I don't have anything to really add. I mean, he sounds like, and haven't read a lot about this, because these shootings don't really interest me that much, other than the horrific phenomena that they are. But he sounds like a horribly disturbed human being who ultimately resorted to an act of the ultimate evil and nihilism by going out and shooting a bunch of kids. And what can you say other than, you know, this is an indictment of the culture in which we live, where I think nihilism and destruction are to some extent celebrated and where people are devoid of values and we're training generations of people to have no values. And I think the transgender phenomena generally is part of that. It's this confusion of what masculinity is and what femininity is. It's a confusion about what it means to be a man and what it means to be a woman. It's confusion about what it means to be an individual, what it means to be a first-hand thinker and how one should have values without religion and how religion undermines values. We live in a world where, you know, there are no values. I mean, we've seen right-wing people go into synagogues and shoot them up because Jews are importing Mexicans into the country to replace white people. We've seen, what was it in Texas, Bordetown in Texas. We saw a guy shoot up a Walmart and single out Mexicans and shoot them because they're coming in and replacing. We saw that shooting blacks was in Rochester, wherever. This is the kind of state of the debate, the kind of state of the nihilism in which we find ourselves. And until we recognize the importance, the irreplaceability of reason as our means of knowing the world and as our means of engaging with one another, in which to write as guilty as the left and abandoning reason, there will be more of this, not less. Barney says billionaire was an accomplishment. Now it's an accusation. Yeah, it's become that way. I mean, ultimately, Eingren gave that speech about the America's persecuted minority, the businessmen. So this has been a phenomena for a long time. But in many respects, it's getting worse. It got a little better in the 80s, 90s, and then it's gotten worse over the last 20 years. Andrew, several Fox hosts have claimed the indictment means we're living in a police state. Yeah, I mean, that's the kind of hyper, hyperbole, that's the kind of hysteria, the kind of emotionalism that leads to violence, ultimately. You know, this is why I don't think it's a left, both the left and right are responsible for this. If we leave in a police state, then it's time for a revolution. This is the kind of attitude that they are promoting. And it's horrible. Clearly he did something to violate the law. Should he be prosecuted on it? It's not that big of a deal, but he did something to violate the law. Did he give hush money to Stormy Daniels? I think pretty much everybody agrees that he did. And that's illegal, particularly during a presidential campaign. Do we care six years later? Maybe not. But you can't claim that there's no merit at all. You can claim that the prosecution's overreach, sure, as if both parties are not responsible for the prosecution's overreach when they can get away with it. Andrew Tchaikov says, what happened to American attitude that built New York City? Tell us that it's gone. It's that attitude to build faster, better, achieve, create, you know, blow up the mountain if you need to and drive the railroad through it. That attitude is gone. You can't build anything in America anymore. I mean, Orange County, they've been talking about doing this tunnel through a hill for a long time to help with traffic. They can't get it done. They can't do it. They talk about extending a highway for a few miles. Can't do it. Some animal might be hurt. Some thing, some tree might be destroyed. It's just, yeah, the state of America's attitude to its growth, production, success, prosperity, it's gone. Or maybe there's still spark there, but for the most part it's gone. Matthew, is there any essential difference between the government using force or threatening force while asking nicely, asking for a friend? No, not really. The government threatening force is using force. Threats are force. And when the government does it, doubly so, because they have the capacity, and we know they've done it before, right? They use force all the time. Paul asks, how bad is La Paz? Now, I'm not in La Paz. I am Santa Cruz. He says, I hear Evo is still big there. I'll be in Athens next week for AR conference. Great that you'll be in Athens. I won't be there, but you'll have lots of great speakers there without me. I have a great time in Athens. I mean, Santa Cruz is a poor place. It's a poor place. It doesn't, I mean, it's a poor place, I think, even relative to Columbia. So it at least appears that way. I might have a wrong impression. And Evo Morales is still president, and this is what socialism does to places. It freezes them into poverty. It sustains them in poverty. It's not like Bolivia was rich and then became poor, but it clearly doesn't allow them to become richer. And often it drains them of resources and makes them poorer. Look at Venezuela. Mark Thomas asks, would you be surprised if I showed that already some magic mystics preach that AI should be a kind of God? Crazies will misuse any technology it's important that it develop without their medley. Yeah, I wouldn't be surprised now. It's hard to surprise me with crazy anymore. Mark asks, maybe California should have split in six like Draper wanted it to. It was about a proposition six years ago. Other states are replacing it slowly. Yeah, maybe it's not clear how that would have gone and what would have happened to the six different states instead of one, but it's unlikely to be approved in a valid initiative anytime soon. It's still true Silicon Valley would have been relatively leftist and still would have been successful. So in a lot of other parts of the state that might be Republican would be super poor because they don't have the productive energies that the Democratic parts of the state have. I mean that is the big thing Republicans need to figure out why is it that better educated people, generally more intelligent people and generally more entrepreneurs vote Democratic than Republican. That's kind of how it's developed. So the more educated they are, generally the more intelligent you are, the more you read, the more interested in science, the more interested in technology, the more interested in the future, the more interested in stuff outside of your own backyard and the more entrepreneur you are, the more likely you are to be a Democrat and the more secular you are. That's not a good position to be in as a Republican and it's become dramatically worse since Trump, right? Trump changed the composition of the Republican Party in negative ways. Wesley says, if we develop a conscious sentient AI possessing the same level of intelligent cognition as us, would it deserve rights? Yes, I mean you'd have to really think about what to do with that. Now because of the amount of connectivity it has and the amount of power it could potentially have over human beings, over all of us, I don't believe that's exactly possible, although maybe with biological animals introduced, I think that's very far off and exactly what the relationship would be between human beings and it is very hard to tell. It's very hard to tell. But yes, it would definitely deserve rights if it was truly conscious and truly sentient and truly rational. Alright, last question. Mr. Muffin says, don't have debates. I find conversations like you had with Eric Weinstein more engaging. Yeah, I mean I'm happy to have conversations. The challenge is the debates sell more, more people show up, more people are interested in debates and it's harder to get good people to have conversations with. I wish they were. So I'm happy to do much more enjoyable to do conversations than debates. Some of my best stuff, like my conversation with Lex Friedman with Dave Rubin, my conversation with people like that have been some of the best material. So absolutely, I prefer conversations than debate, but I'll take a debate if that's what's available. Exposure is what I'm looking for, getting in front of more people. That's what I'm looking for. Alright, thank you everybody. This has been a very good, very generous fundraising from a super chat perspective. So I really, really appreciate everybody who's contributed and everybody who contributes monthly and everybody who's contributed to past shows and everybody who generally supports the Iran Book Show. There will be another show tomorrow. I'll try to give you a heads up about what time. It'll be earlier than this, probably more like 12 or 1 o'clock east coast time. I will do a show. So I look forward to seeing you then and there'll also be a show on Sunday. Again, not sure exactly what the timing of that show will be, but probably early afternoon, probably about 1 o'clock. I will see you guys tomorrow. Oh, have a great weekend. It's Friday. It's Friday before 30 p.m. So have a fantastic weekend. I hope you really have a good time. I'll see you tomorrow. Bye.