 The radical, fundamental principles of freedom, rational self-interest, and individual rights. This is The Iran Book Show. All right, everybody. Welcome to Iran Book Show on this Thursday. I'm packing. I don't know what you guys are doing. Hopefully everybody's having a fantastic week and getting ready for a fantastic weekend. I am all focused on packing. I leave on Saturday for a three-week trip to Europe. I'll be giving talks all over Europe. So if you're in Europe, you might want to try to catch one of my gigs. It should be a lot of fun. And so just to give you a quick update, I'll be in Amsterdam on Sunday. Gent in Belgium on Monday. I'll be in Vienna on Tuesday in Reims. Reims, France. So about an hour and a half outside of Paris on Wednesday. I'll be in Edinburgh on Thursday. All of those, I think, with the exception of Reims, are open to the public. So all of them are open to the public. Ryan asked, will the talks be recorded and shared? I certainly hope so. I've asked everybody who's invited me to speak to record the shows. So I really, really hope they are recorded. And we will get to, you know, I'll be able to share them with all of you guys. So if they're recorded, and if I know all of you will complain about the sound quality and this quality and that quality, I always get that. But to help with that, you know, these students are recording them. I'll take whatever they can record. And some of my most viral videos are the ones that had the laziest audio visuals. Then I will be, the following week, I will be in Berchewa and in Tel Aviv. Two talks in Israel. Thank you, Manuel. I really appreciate that. I'll be in Berchewa and Tel Aviv for two talks. And from there, I go to the UK. Well, I'll be in Portugal for a conference. But then I go to the UK and in the UK, I've got talks at, let's see if I remember this, Sussex. These should all be open to the public. Sussex, Exeter, something, INRAN Center, UK is doing some debate panel thing. And then Bristol. So all places outside of London, those are all open to the public. I will be talking to a couple of high schools. Those will not be open to the public. And then we have the INRAN Institute European Conference, which will be held in London that weekend, the first weekend in April. So this should all be amazing. I'm not speaking in Lisbon. I'm attending a conference. It's a closed event. So I won't be speaking there. I might have some time to meet some people, but it's going to be tight if I do. Well, maybe if you're in touch with other objectives locally there, they're trying to organize something for me to meet up with some objectives in the Lisbon area. I'm still trying to work out the details and figure out if that's doable. All right. So that's my European trip. It's going to be hectic. First few days is a country a day in London. It's every day is a train to a different direction, Sussex, Exeter, Bristol. But it's going to be a blast. It's going to be a lot of fun. So I need a pack and you know, I'm going for three weeks and my rule is no matter how long the trip, no more than a carry-on bag. So I have to figure out how to fit it all into a carry-on bag. I do change clothes every day. And how to get it all in there, but we will work on it. No, there are quite a few objectivists in Portugal, it turns out. Somebody contacted me on Twitter. They want to organize something. So I don't know. There are quite a few of them. So every day is a different place, carry-on bag. Yeah, hotel reservations. I'm renting cars. I'm driving. You know, hopefully I won't miss one of the borders and land up in Ukraine, but I'm not near there. The closest I'm getting there is Vienna. Whoa, it's Jennifer's birthday. Jennifer, regular listener and a huge supporter of the Iran Book Show. And a friend is, it's her birthday. I didn't realize that. Happy birthday, Jennifer. Cool. Thank you, Robert. NASA for reminding me. I did it. I didn't even have to spell out his name this time for me. And in April, I go back to Europe. And this time I'm doing a tour of countries that border with Russia. That's going to be in April. So I'm going to do Czech Republic, which doesn't really border it, but Slovakia, which does border it. So I'll be in Bratislava. I'll be in Warsaw in Poland. I'll be in Estonia and I'll be in Georgia. So we'll do a little tour surrounding Ukraine and surrounding Russia. So that should be fun. There I really will have to watch, not crossing the border by accident. Yes, I was planning to go to Kiev, but everybody's vetoed it. Nobody will let me go to Kiev. I'm not going to Kiev. Now volunteering. They don't have my old tanks over there. I'm now volunteering to go fight. I will stay safe. I will stay safe. I'll try to stay healthy. I'll try to eat well. I'll try to exercise. I'll try to do the things. Tomorrow I'm getting a vitamin infusion so that to keep me energized and so on for the trip. All right, today we're going to be talking about Elon Musk. We'll talk about Elon Musk. I've got some videos of Elon to talk about. We'll discuss them. We'll talk about his tweets. We'll just talk about Tesla and SpaceX and talk about Elon Musk. And I have to admit that I've changed my mind about Elon Musk. So we'll talk about me changing my mind about Elon Musk as well. And we'll do that. It's going to be, I think it's going to be a fun show. So stick around. Don't go anywhere. We're going to do this Elon Musk thing. I'm going to talk a little bit about Ukraine, a little bit, just to get you up to speed on world news. Quickly, nothing happening in the United States. At least nothing that's being reported. So there's no news in the United States. I mean, it seems like everybody just wants to talk about what's happening in the world. Based places, go Celtics. Yes, go Celtics. We'll see. Unfortunately, I'll be traveling around Europe while in the games on. So this is where, as I travel around Europe, I'll be using my ExpressVPN to fake the internet into thinking I'm in the US so that I can watch Celtics games on my iPad. So yes, you all should subscribe. You all should get ExpressVPN. I think the best VPN out there, at least the one I use, and I've been using it for years. And it's a sponsor, the Iran Book Show. And if you go now and if you sign up, you get three extra months, you just go expressvpn.com slash Iran. I think the link is down below in the comment section. And if enough of you do that, they'll actually send me a few cents. So it's basically, this is ExpressVPN, ExpressVPN. So they are a sponsor for the show. So that is pretty cool and exciting. I watch basketball games. I don't know regularly, but when the Celtics are playing well, I watch them. I don't watch any other basketball. I'm not interested in watching sport unless my team is playing. I'm not interested in sport unless I can be a complete another tribalist in the minute. No, no, no pistons. Pistons are not going anyway. All right, let's see. Yes, Super Chat. I need to remind you of that. People have already started asking questions. You can go ask questions. You can ask about Elon Musk. You can ask about anything. You can comment. You can tell me I'm wrong. You can tell me I don't know what I'm talking about. You can tell me anything you want, but use the Super Chat to do it. That way you support the show. And it's highlighted, right? And I copy-paste all the questions on the Super Chat. And I put them to the side so I can address them later. So, you know, you're going to get my attention. Of course, $20 questions or more get priority in the Super Chat and get longer answers in the Super Chat. So far, all the questions have been under $20. But then again, R.W. did a lot of questions. So he's over $20 already. So please support R.W. on Bookshow by using the Super Chat if you're here live. Don't forget to like the show before you leave. And yeah, and of course, if you want to support the show, you can do so on a multi-baser since you're on Bookshow.com slash support. Patreon is a scribe style. And yes, what do we want to do? Yes, remember $600 goal. Catherine Mendez is here to bug you. So I don't have to. I won't really mention the Super Chat until we get to the Super Chat section after we talk about Elon Musk. All right. Before we get to Elon Musk, two pieces of news. One, not from Ukraine but from the world. Elections were held, I think, yesterday. The before yesterday in South Korea. The leftist lost. Yay. I don't know much about the candidate who won, but he's not a leftist. He's once to be tough on North Korea. That's a good sign versus the leftist who was very soft on North Korea. Do you know? Here's a fact maybe you don't know. Every living former president of South Korea has been indicted for fraud. Every single living. I don't know how many they are. Every single living former president of South Korea has been indicted for fraud. Interesting. I have a feeling the difference between South Korea and the rest of the world is not the levels of fraud, but the levels of prosecution and vigilance. Prosecution and vigilance. So it could be that the South Korean president has a phantom of the freedom of treatment and mises. There is a strong contingency of free marketers in South Korea. Indeed, my book, Free Mark Now, Equal is Unfair, was supposed to be published in South Korea late last year. I need to find out if they published it. Maybe now that there's a friendly president, he'll invite me over to do a speaking tour for the book, promotions for the book. I like South Korea would be nice to travel there again. Oh, the other good, that was one piece of good news, I think. The second piece of good news before we get to Ukraine is that in Puerto Rico, I know you guys don't care, but I do. In Puerto Rico, they have now eliminated all mask and vaccine mandates. It is. So today I went to a restaurant. No masks. Even some of the staff are not wearing masks. I want to get out like a juicy, a juice thing. No mask. Even the staff are not wearing masks. It was so cool. So happy. So excited to go to Europe where slowly all the mandates are going away. We'll do a show on COVID again at some point. I'm doing a debate in Israel about COVID, whether a socialist health care response better to COVID than private health care. So that should be fun. That'll be in Israel. I don't know if I'm doing it in Hebrew and English. If it's in Hebrew, you guys will never be able to understand it. But maybe I'll do my part in English, and he'll do his part in Hebrew, something like that. We'll see. But yeah, mandates going, hopefully, like in a week, they're deciding whether to renew the mandates for airplanes. Wouldn't it be cool? Wouldn't it be unbelievably cool? Too good to be true, indeed, if they did away with mask mandates on airplanes. That would be so amazing. That'd be so amazing. Because that's the last bastion of those oppressive masks. And then you're stuck with them for like the eight hours when I fly into nationally. Although I did notice when I flew to Texas last week that the flight attendants didn't really care that much anyway. Yeah, I think people figured out that on the dawn of World War III, COVID wasn't that big of a threat. I saw the stat today, officially now, COVID is less deadly than the flu for all age groups. Even 85-year-olds, the flu is more deadly than COVID. So this is, for the first time, they've got the data, I think, because of Omnicron and because of vaccination and because so many people have it, COVID now officially is less deadly than the flu. It wasn't originally. Originally for 85-year-olds, it was 16 times more deadly than the flu. But now it's less deadly than the flu. All right, Ukraine quickly, you know, not much is changing. The Russians are slowly moving forward on the ground. You know, I don't make much. I don't get too excited about all these accusations about killing civilians. And I mean, it's a war. Civilians are going to die. There's just no other way. And indeed, if you want to win a war, then one of the ways to win a war is to go after the civilians. I mean, there's just no stopping it. I know I'm still wearing the headphones because I'm going to need them because they're going to play some Elon Musk clips. So, but Russians are getting closer to Kiev. They've surrounded that city in the south, whose name I can't pronounce. Ukrainians seem to be in Kiev. They seem to be holding their own on the east. But there's no question in the Northwest, the Russians are inching slowly towards Kiev. So five kilometers at a time. But at this rate, they'll be there next week. You know, the Ukrainians have not won this by any stretch of the imagination. It's not a done deal. The Russians still have an overwhelming force in terms of just numbers. Hard to tell how big the Ukrainian military force is. And whether at any point in time they'll be able to push the Russians away. So it's still ugly. It still looks bad. But the Russians obviously bogged down, but they are moving, inching slowly towards everything. You know, Russia has completely been disconnected economically from the world. That is huge. We'll see what China's posture is. It seems to be evolving for day-to-day. On the one hand, I think there's a lot of supply schools going into Russia, but on the other hand, for example, I heard today that the Chinese are not willing to sell Russian airliners' parts for airplanes because Boeing and Airbus have said they won't sell them parts. And now the question is, will the Chinese and the Chinese supposedly have said no. So all of this is going to be interesting to watch as we move forward. But nothing dramatic so far has happened. Again, the sanctions have been expanded. I expect tomorrow or Monday the Biden administration will expand sanctions as well as the UK did yesterday. So that's what's going on. We keep seeing the pro-Putin people are still out there. They're still writing. They're still tweeting. They're still engaged. The model equivalency is still out there. Now there's this rumors of Biolab, an American Biolab in Ukraine. And you're going to hear a lot of fake news, a lot of fake news from both sides. Ukrainians are very, very good in the media. They're very, very good in telling the story. It's a good story to tell. David's standing up to Goliath, the type of story. Ashton, whoa, thank you. 500 bucks like that. That's great, Ashton. Thank you. Well, I'm going to read his question. His question. I assume it's a he. Ashton is a he. We're going to take that. Anyway, what else did I want to say about Ukraine? You know, people are starting to say, hey, Zemlinsky is not really a hero. You know, people are turning him into, you know, the guy is heroic. The guy, I don't know what he was like as a president, but as a war president, he's been phenomenally heroic, heroic. Okay, Ashton writes, the problem people have with their society adopting and practicing a less of economic philosophy is because people believe they have no leisure time. Such an economic system would make people constantly work all the time because they would only be able to barely afford basic essential requirements for survival. What's your answer? I guess I don't understand it because it's exact opposite. Wait a minute. The problem people have with their society adopting and practicing a lesser of economic policy, philosophy, is because people believe they will have no leisure time. What? Such an economic system would make people constantly work all the time because they would be able to barely afford basic essentials required for survival. What's your answer? I mean, think about it. Jesus. Before capitalism, there was no leisure time. Zero, zilch, nada. You woke up. You went, worked in the fields. You came back home. You ate. And you went to sleep. There's no electricity. That's a product of capitalism. There was no lighting. Most people couldn't read. No television. Before capitalism, there were no restaurants. First restaurant, restaurant, real restaurant that you go to to eat, not a tavern, not a way, a failure with an inn. But a real restaurant. The only time there was ever been a restaurant was, first time was late 18th century in Paris. And then it spread through the 19th century. Of course, now there's a restaurant, a million of them, everywhere. There was no such thing as vacations before capitalism. Vacations. To go on vacation. Spend some time at the beach. Go skiing. Go to the mountains. Nobody did that. Nobody. Not even the rich. I mean the rich, the very rich went on vacation. Yes, the aristocrats. But common people didn't. And the working day was all day, every day. Capitalism has shortened the working day. The working week. The working year. Capitalism made people so productive that the hour of work can buy thousands of times more stuff, including the things you need, like housing and clothing and food, than it could pre-capitalism. So capitalism dramatically enhances your productivity. Dramatically increases your leisure time. Dramatically increases vacation, restaurants, movies, TV, listening to music, all this stuff. Didn't exist without capitalism. Capitalism made it possible. I mean pedicures, manicures. Nobody has pedicures and manicures without capitalism. So, and indeed the reason people work so hard today is not because they need to work so hard today, all they want to do is live a basic, simple life. You can live that without working very hard at all. It's because they want more, which is good. I'm all for wanting more, but they want more. And that's why they work hard. They don't have to work hard. So in every respect, capitalism has been an amazing, stunning, phenomenal benefit to the working class and to everybody in terms of leisure time. So it's exact opposite of what they're arguing. The only way they're going to get more leisure time, the only way they're going to get more wealth, the only way they're going to get more goodies is if we become more capitalist, not less. But I think Ashton knew that and was just asking me as I would go on a rant. All right, lots of questions. I see them all, but we're going to do what I promise to do, which is talk about Elon Musk. So let's talk about Elon Musk. So let me start by saying that I used to have a negative opinion of Elon and some of you have heard it. I certainly had a negative opinion of Tesla. Less so about Elon. I just didn't think about Elon Musk, didn't consider Elon Musk. But I had a negative opinion of Tesla. Why did I have a negative opinion of Tesla? So basically because it seemed to be a company whose whole purpose in life was to vindicate the whole notion of climate change, the whole notion of sustainable energy. Elon Musk was also involved in Solar City, a big solar panel, he's big in sustainable energy, he talks a lot about it. My sense is, and I still think this is right, that he's bought into some of at least the climate change panic and bought in to some extent into a peak oil, at least I've heard him talk about when oil runs out, but when oil runs out it might be a several hundred years from now. So he's bought into some fallacies, so that's one thing I didn't like about Tesla. It represented to me all the activism, all the attitude, all the view that climate change was the problem and had to be solved and we had to do everything we could to engage with that. And Tesla seemed to be structured around that and then of course you combine that with Solar City, that's what it's all about. And then if you add to that the fact, and this was really, really important, that Tesla early on probably would not have survived without government subsidies. Now it's true, government gives you subsidies and government gave electric car subsidies, you take them, I'm not against them, taking them, and Elon Musk claims he never lobbied for them, I don't know if that's true, let's accept him by his word. So he took them, but what really upset me was the fact that the company wouldn't have survived without, not just the subsidies, subsidies are actually relatively small, but they suddenly wouldn't have survived without the carbon credits that the state of California and others, I think the state of California is the majority, provide them. So auto companies have to pay Tesla, auto companies write big checks to Tesla as a way to offset their carbon footprint as required by states like California. So that's what I didn't like, I didn't like the fact that I as a taxpayer in the state of California and all of you as taxpayers wherever you might be were basically subsidizing Tesla. You know they got government loans, but so did every auto company get government loans. I think the main thing is the carbon offsets. Basically Tesla was making money at the expense of Ford and Chrysler and General Motors because of California's hysteria and panic and regulations regarding climate change. And we're talking about hundreds of, we're talking about billions and billions of dollars. So I resented Tesla, I resented the idea that the company couldn't have been successful without it. There's no way I don't think they could have, they came very close to bankruptcy a couple of times, a few times. I don't know that they could have achieved the economies of scale that are required for them to survive. Now Paul says I'm assuming the actions they took would be the same without these carbon credits. Teslas you mean. Maybe I'm assuming that, but I don't see another path for them. I just don't see the economics of Tesla without government support over the last 20 years. Today, yes. Today enough people are bought into it. It's enough and they've driven the cost down enough. Today I don't think it's fine, but I don't see how they could have survived without it. So I was skeptical about him as an entrepreneur given that the survival of at least one of his companies would completely depend on government. And of course the second company, SpaceX, which is amazing in its scope and its ambition. And I've always thought that actually visited SpaceX in the early 2000s out in the desert. I didn't meet Elon Musk, but I met many of the engineers who were there at the time. But so SpaceX was a super exciting company. But again, the only way it could make money, the only way ultimately it could achieve its long-term goal was to work for the US government. So now again, there's no choice there. The US government is the biggest buyer in space. Everything would be different. We live in a mixed economy, of course. They might have taken a different path in both scenarios. He might have been able to do it without government support. Maybe. We just don't know, right? We just don't know. So that is the source and has been the source of my skepticism, my skepticism about Elon Musk for years. I just didn't know what the true motivation was and how real was he? How real was he and to what extent was he just an exploiter of loopholes, an exploiter of government largesse? My opinion of Musk has been changing over the last two years, really since the beginning of COVID. And I think there are two reasons for this. One is some of the stands he's taken with regard to COVID. But second, well, three reasons. One is because of the stands he took regarding COVID. Second, I started paying attention to Musk. I started, in a sense, paying attention to what he said, what he did, what was going on. And third, I started listening to his interviews, which really is an aspect of number two. I started listening to his interviews and started listening to things he actually says. And my opinion has completely shifted around Musk. Now, I still don't know. I still don't know whether those two companies could have been successful without government intervention. I don't know. And we don't know that about a lot of companies. We don't know in a truly competitive market without government regulations which companies would survive and which wouldn't, which who are the real entrepreneurs and who are not. I have my suspicions, but it's hard to prove unequivocally in the world in which we live. But when you hear Musk speak, he comes across at least to me a sincere, real, completely, completely geeky, right? A complete geek, a total nerd. He's not charismatic. He's not particularly articulate. But he is authentic and sincere, I think. I think, brilliant if not a genius, and truly exceptional in terms of his attitude to work. He says things that business owners just don't say. He's proud of his achievements. He is proud of the life, the kind of life he lives. And he's got that essential American spirit, what Ayn Rand called a sense of life, that he can do anything, that anything is achievable. I'll show you a few examples from his interviews in a minute, that you can succeed, that you can go to Mars and you can populate the stars, that you can make big, long-term, crazy plans and fulfill them. I mean, what he has done at SpaceX, more than what he's done at Tesla, in my view, is truly stunning. It's revolutionary. It's amazing. It's beyond amazing. The cost reductions at SpaceX, the ability to reuse rockets, to land the rocket back, and we'll talk about some of how he does this. The Starlink, the taking up platform, this reminds me of Amazon, reminds me of Bezos. You've got satellites going into space. What are you going to do with them? The world only has so much use for them. I wonder if you can use them to put up satellite dishes. Okay, let's put up satellites for internet connectivity. And then let's give the Ukrainians access to it so they can have internet while the Russians are shutting down all their other internet connections. So, stunning. What he's done at SpaceX, technologically, vision-wise, stunning. It's an inspiring thing in business today, I think. All right, so what I've done is I've got some video I thought we'd look at. I think you'll enjoy it. And then I've got some of his tweets, because it's the other thing, I've started following him on Twitter, and he's a good tweeter, and his tweets are often really good. So, I thought we'd go over, these are short clips, four minutes here, four minutes there. I do recommend the Lex Friedman interview with him. I'll show a little clip of that. I do recommend that Joe Rogan, he has two interviews with Joe Rogan. You know, the other thing about Elon Musk, which I didn't like, and I still don't like, because I think this is where I wish he had the right philosophy, is he's a little flippant, and he's a little silly, and he's a little childish sometimes, like when he smokes pot with Joe Rogan on his show. And like the names he gives his kids, which is just ridiculous. But I also like the fact, like the fact that he doesn't give a damn. That he just doesn't give a damn. And that's, again, that American spirit. I don't care what you think of me. I don't care what you think about the names I give my kids. They're my kids. They're not your kids. Go they are. So, the whole notion of he really doesn't care what people think is a beautiful thing. And I've spoken to people at SpaceX, past employees, and he's brilliant. And he comes up with a lot of the ideas, or at least he sets a lot of the big audacious, ridiculous goals. So, I think a true inspiration today. All right, so the first clip is from an interview he did with the Babylon Bee. It's quite an entertaining interview. I recommend watching the whole thing. I have some choice words to say in this interview about woke culture and why woke is wrong. So, all of you who are, who is only topic in the world that you love is anti-woke. Clearly, Elon Musk is anti-woke, so you can enjoy that. But I chose this, I chose actually, let me just say, I forgot to say this. The show today is sponsored by Derek Brown. So, Derek Brown paid for this show. Derek also sent me these clips. So, I didn't watch all these interviews from beginning to end. He chose these segments and these interviews. I thought they were good choices, I'm using them. But this is a good section where Elon Musk basically tells you about his life. In an effort to explain why he doesn't just retire. He can't really, why doesn't just go and live on a beach. He doesn't really answer that question. He goes into the whole description of his life. And it's interesting because it gives you some perspective on how much he's actually achieved. How much he's actually, you know, actually achieved in his life and where he came from. You know, he came from South Africa originally, but it sounds like he went to school in Canada. So, here we're going to do, let's see, I think it's this one. Yeah, there's Babylon Bee. So, we're going to play this and I'll comment. Jewing after whatever, how the mood strikes. You can make plenty of money and you can do whatever. What drives you to this kid? Yeah, it could be slipping my ties on a tropical island. A robot's syrup. You know, wind-soping with naked models. Yeah, literally. Some people do that. So, what drives you to this kid? Obviously, you work in our work. Wait a second, why am I not, what do I? Christian has a sense of humor. Why am I not doing that? And of course, all these guys at Babylon Bee are all Christian conservatives and it's like naked models. You're not supposed to do that alone. I've been wrong all this time. Why am I working 90 hours a week? This is crazy. It's always fascinating the idea of like, I've made it. People always want to be able to say, I've made it. I've arrived. Yeah. And like, how do you, you know, you hit those little islands in your life and you actually have to break yourself up that mindset? And what are ways that you break yourself up that mindset and keep on going? I didn't put all this effort into building SpaceX and Tesla because I thought they were easy ways to make money. I mean, anyone who starts a car company thinking it's the easiest way to make money is a fool. Yeah, absolutely right. There are only two car companies that have not gone bankrupt in the history of the United States and that's Ford and Tesla. And Tesla came within inches of going bankrupt multiple times as to SpaceX. So like, who starts a rocket company thinking it's going to be successful? I started both. I mean, both those companies I thought had less than a 10% chance of success. I mean, that's pretty amazing. You know, it's pretty amazing. The idea that you start a company and as you're here, he put all his money that he made on PayPal into these companies. So all his wealth was tied up in them with a 10% chance of success. I mean, that takes a lot of self-esteem. It takes a lot of courage. It takes vision. It takes a certain joy in just shooting for the moon. Well, he is shooting for the moon. I mean, really just going for it and going big, not going small, going big. Who does that? Who goes big? Everybody today is such a wimp and careful and worried and overly thoughtful. And, you know, why just not go for it? And these are two companies that, yeah, other companies go bankrupt. That's what other companies do. And rocket companies? Where does that come from? So just that, wow. Isn't it fun to be alive when there's a businessman like this who's going for it? Fall on, going for it? That's truly the American spirit and the American sense of life. And I thought it was overwhelmingly likely that I would lose the money that I made from PayPal. You know, I came to North America when I was 17, just by myself. And I had, like, a few thousand dollars in traveler's checks, back when traveler's checks were a thing, you know. In Canadian dollars. I landed in Montreal. I have some family in Canada. And my mom's uncle lived in Montreal. But, like, we didn't even know his phone number. So I landed in Montreal. And my mom says, I just got a letter back from my uncle. And he's in Minnesota or something. So I'm like, oh, okay. I don't know what to do now. So I just stayed in the youth hostel and bought a bus ticket across Canada. And I worked in various odd jobs and stuff. Worked on my mom's cousin's wheat farm in Saskatchewan for six weeks. That's where I had my 18th birthday, actually. Worked in the lumber mill, chainsawed logs, and did various odd jobs. And then went to college in Canada for a couple of years. I paid my own way through college, by the way. But in Canada, it's, like, easier because the college is more subsidized. And I was a Canadian citizen through my mom. So, and I got some scholarships and loans and stuff. And then I applied to the University of Pennsylvania. And I didn't think I'd be able to go because tuition's really high. But they gave me a scholarship and loans and stuff. So I was able to go there. I graduated with about $100,000 in student debt. And I was going to do grad studies at Stanford and decided to put that on hold to try starting an interact company. I actually, I tried to get a job at Netscape. But they didn't, I had sent my resume in to get a response. So I was like, okay, I guess I can't get a job at, there are only a few internet companies that can get a job at anything. So I was like, I guess I want to do some of the internet. I've got to start my own company. But I ended up writing the first maps and directions on the internet. I wrote it personally. Maps, directions, yellow pages, white pages. On a puny computer, like with hardly any, so you had to be like, the code had to be super tight. I even have some patents on like maps and directions and yellow pages and white pages and stuff from ages ago. They're lapsed now, but that company ended up getting bought by Compact for about $300 million. I own 7% of the company. So I got like $20 million from that. I put most of it into x.com, which merged with Confinity to create PayPal. And then I got about $180 million from that. And I put all of that into SpaceX, Tesla, and Solar City. I just basically kept all the chips on the table. And just like let's play another round. And most people take the chips off the table or at least some of their chips. And then SpaceX and Tesla ended up being valuable. And that's around. But the reason for SpaceX and Tesla is... Whoops, whoops, whoops, whoops. All right. So there's a rundown of his career. I thought that was a quick rundown. That was nice. The guy is a serial entrepreneur. He's done this more than once. He started a software company basically in grad school, sold it for $300 million, I think he said. And he owns 7%. He got $20 million. And then, of course, he's one of the founders ultimately of what became PayPal, x.com that became PayPal. That is quite a resume. That's impressive. And somebody says, ooh, he's got the Canadian spirit. Well, the amazing thing is, and this is, I think, I don't think you Americans like to hear this, but the fact is that the people who have the most American spirit are immigrants. In this case, he grew up in South Africa, where I have family roots too. He grew up in South Africa, moved to Canada and then to the United States. And as an immigrant, these are the kind of people you guys want to build walls, want to keep out, he changed the world. But it's often immigrants who have that American spirit, that spirit of we can do anything. That spirit of nobody's going to stand in my way. That how it works, spirit, if you will, of I am going to make it, even after working a query for a while. And I think Elon Musk has exhibited that throughout his career. He just goes out there and does it. He makes it happen. He's obviously brilliant. He's obviously super smart. But part of it is that he makes it, that he is ambitious. He's willing to walk super, super hard, super, super hard. And he doesn't believe we need to go to Mars because the world is ending, because the climate change is something like that. He doesn't believe that at all. We'll see that in a minute. All right, let's switch gears. And let's talk about Elon's kind of, how he thinks about solving problems. To some extent, his epistemology. So let's look at this. This is from Lex Friedman's show. And I think this is an interesting segment. See what you think of this. You know, Lex has always asked super thoughtful questions. And Elon has these pretty amazing answers. What's the pause before he answers? What's your source of belief in situations like this? When the engineering problem is so difficult, there's a lot of experts, many of whom you admire, who have failed in the past. And a lot of people, you know, a lot of experts, maybe journalists, all the kind of, you know, the public in general have a lot of doubt about whether it's possible. And you yourself know that even if it's a non-null set, non-empty set of success, it's still unlikely or very difficult. Like where do you go to? Both personally, intellectually as an engineer, as a team, like for source of strength needed to sort of persevere through this. So notice the question is about belief, about source of strength. And you'll see in a minute, Elon doesn't know exactly how to answer this question because he doesn't think in those terms. And that I find super interesting. And to keep going with the project, take it to completion. Listen to pause. Just thinking. That's rare. Source of strength. It doesn't really know how I think about things. I mean, for me, it's simply, this is something that is important to get done. And we should just keep doing it or die trying. And I don't need source of strength. So quitting is not even like... It's not in my nature. And I don't care about optimism or pessimism. Fuck that. We're going to get it done. Now that's the American spirit. After that, we're going to get it done. We just are. We're going to figure out a way. And we're going to get it done. That's the kind of attitude that, you know, America is always represented. And I can't think of anybody right now out there who represented more than Elon Musk. And it's like source of belief, source of strength. No. I just get it done. We just get it done. I tell the team, we just need to get it done. Figure it out. Get it done. Can you then zoom back in to specific problems with Starship or any engineering problems you work on? Can you try to introspect your particular biological neural network, your thinking process and describe how you think through problems, the different engineering and design problems? Is there like a systematic process you've spoken about first principles thinking? Is there a kind of process to it? Well, you know, like saying like, physics is low and everything else is a recommendation. Like I've met a lot of people who can break the law, but I haven't met anyone who could break physics. So that's great. You start with facts. You start with reality. You start with what the laws of physics are if you're an engineer, right? That, you cannot change. But that's kind of the first principles. So first, for any kind of technology problem, you have to sort of just make sure you're not violating physics. And, you know, first principles analysis, I think, is something that can be applied to really any walk of life, anything really. It's really just saying, you know, let's boil something down to the most fundamental principles. The things that we are most confident are true at a foundational level. And that sets your axiomatic base and then you reason up from there and then you cross-check your conclusion against the axiomatic truths. So he's missing the observations and all of that, right? He's missing the concretes, the experience and all that. But this is pretty good. This is pretty good. You know, some basics and physics would be like are you violating conservation of energy or momentum or something like that? You know, then it's not going to work. So that's just to establish, is it possible? And then another good physics tool is thinking about things in the limit. If you take a particular thing and you scale it to a very large number or to a very small number, how do things change? Well, it's like in number of things you manifest. Yeah, I mean, I wanted you to get that piece on first principles. And now he thinks about problems, how it starts with reality, physics represents reality really. You test against reality, you always confirm against reality. I mean, he's a real thinker and you get a sense that he's a thinker from the way he answers questions. Finally, I want to show this clip. At the end of Joe Rogan's show, I think it represents a bit about, you know, what motivates him around, particularly around SpaceX. You know, you get a little bit of an idea of his motivation. I think he's, you know, he looks a little, maybe this is the episode where he smoked pot with Joe Rogan, I don't know, because he looks a little off. So ignore that, listen to what he actually says. A lot of folks. Yeah, I mean, but like, you know, my goal is like try to use full things, try to maximize the probability that the future is good. Try to do useful things and try to maximize the probability that the future is good. That's not bad. Yuan's rules for life, they kind of fit in there. It doesn't contradict them. Could be more fleshed out. Make the future exciting. Make the future exciting. There's another one. I love that. Look forward to, you know, so you look forward to another one. You know, with Tesla, we're like trying to make things that people love. You know, it's like not. That sounds a little bit like Apple, trying to make things that people love. And, you know, that, it's just, it's just, he has this vision of, I want to make amazing, exciting, thrilling things that'll make the future better. I mean, wow, that's a great vision for an entrepreneur. How many things can you buy that you really love, that really give you joy? So rare, so rare. I wish there were more things. That's what we're trying to do. Just make things that somebody loves. Make things that somebody loves. You could phrase it in a different way. You could talk about the fact that what business does is you create values, values for people. Why are these things values for people? Because it's stuff that people love. Stuff that people love to consume, to use, to drive. There's my iPhone. Stuff that people love to use. This is something I love to use. That's, it's a beautiful thing. And it's, I think what ultimately inspires every great entrepreneur, the creation of value, the creation of value, making the world better by creating value and doing it by challenging yourself. When you think about making things that someone loves, like do you specifically think about what things would improve people's experience? What would change the way people interface with life and become more relaxed or more happy? You really think, like when you're thinking about things like that, is that like one of your considerations? Like what, what could I do that would help people? So this is a funny thing. It's like Joe Morgan wants something that help people. But when he goes to help people, he goes to meditation. He goes to relax. He goes to the superficial things. And Elon is all about creating real values, exciting stuff, building stuff, making stuff, none of this touchy-feely, oozy, or altruistic stuff. Now Elon wants to help people, then help people by creating great values for them. Yeah. Maybe they wouldn't be able to figure out. Yeah. Like, like what are the set of things that can be done to make the future better? Make the future better is much better than, you know, help people. So I think the future where we are a space-faring civilization and out there among the stars, this is very exciting. I agree and I love that. It's super exciting. If the human race is out there in the stars, it's super exciting. If Star Trek or whatever come and become real, if all the sci-fi stuff that we read is real, that would be truly super exciting. It's not about planet Earth decaying or, you know, it's about how ambitious we're going to be. Any more than Christopher Columbus didn't set sail to find, you know, to explore new lands because he was worried about the decay of Europe, but because he was an explorer. He wanted to discover new lands. He was ambitious. This makes me look forward to the future. This makes me want that future. Looking forward to the future, wanting that future. All positive things. There need to be things that make you look forward to waking up in the morning. You wake up in the morning, you look forward to the day, look forward to the future. The future where we are a space-faring civilization and out there among the stars, I think that's very exciting. That is a thing we want. I agree. Whereas if you knew we would not be a space-faring civilization but forever confined to Earth, this would not be a good future. That would be very sad, I think. I agree. You don't want the sad future. Of just the finite lifespan of the Earth itself and the solar system itself. No, no, no. That even though it's possibly, you know, I mean, how long do they feel like this sun... Well, then Lex... Imagination really lacks imagination. He doesn't get Elon Musk at all. Well, it's probably, if you're saying, when does the sun boil the oceans? Right. About 500 million years. So, is it sad that we never leave because in 500 million years that happens? Is that what you're saying? No, I just think, like, if there are two futures and one future is we're out there among the stars and the things we read about and see in science fiction movies, the good ones are true. We have these starships and we're going to see what other planets are like and we're a multi-planet species and the scope and scale of consciousness is expanded across many civilizations and many planets and many star systems. This is a great future. This is a wonderful thing to me and that's what we should strive for. Hmm. But that's biological travel. That's cells traveling physically to another location. This is Rogan getting to be all this mushy stuff, right? Yes. Do you think that's definitely where we're going? No. Yeah. I don't think so either. I used to think so. And now I'm thinking more likely less than ever. Like, almost every day less likely. We can definitely go to the Moon and Mars. Yeah. And we think we can go to the asteroid belt and we can go to the moons of Jupiter, Saturn. We can even get to Pluto. That would be the craziest place ever if we colonized Mars and re-terraformed it and turned it into like a big Jamaica. Jamaica. That's where his head is. Just oceans. I think we should. That would be, I mean, imagine. Great. That would be great. It's potential, right? It's possible, right? Yes. We could turn the whole thing into Cancun. Well. I mean, over time. It wouldn't be easy, but yes. Right. You could just, you could warm it up. Yeah. You could warm it up. You could get some air. You could get some water there. I mean, over time. Hundreds of millions of years or whatever it takes. We could be a multi-planet species. That would be amazing. We're a multi-planet species. That's what we want to be. Legitimately like air conditioned Saturn. Great. I'm pro-human. Yeah. That's the, I wanted to get to that. I'm pro-human, right? Why is he saying all this? Why does he want to know this? Because he's pro-human. And if you watch, if you watch these, you know, there's all, you know, you could watch a lot more. There's a ton of stuff. There's, there's a bunch of stuff. But even when he's talking about climate change, his argument is not the world is going to end in eight years. He's no Greta. His argument is ultimately this will probably warm the planet and this is going to cause problems. He's also going to, he also says oil is finite. It might take a long time, but it is finite. We're going to have alternative energies at some point. Why not accelerate it? Why not reduce the risk? Now, I think a lot of that is rationalization. I think he's wrong about climate change. I think he's wrong about the urgency. I think he's wrong in much of what he's advocated. Somebody said he blocked Alex Epstein. I'm not surprised. I think he takes the wrong view on climate change, but he's not taking it because he hates human beings. He's not taking it because he hates life. He's not taking it. He's mistaken for whatever reason he's mistaken. And his motivation seems to be that he wants to promote human life. He wants to make life better. He wants people to have a better life. And if you're worried about climate change long-term, and he always emphasizes long-term, not tomorrow, then he's for finding alternative sources of energy. I don't know what he thinks about government subsidies and government, all of that. He has said, I think you all saw, I think I showed the video of him saying he doesn't believe in subsidies. Government should subsidize. He doesn't need subsidies. He has said that. Whether he's been consistent about that, I don't know, but he has said it. And I wish, I hope he is very consistent about it. But I just, at this point, I like him. I like his attitude. I like his sense of life. I like the spirit. So here's some tweets from Elon Musk. Oh, maybe I can share this as well. You can see these. Give me a second here. I need to shift windows. There we go. All right, you guys can see that. Here's one recently. Hopefully it is now extremely obvious that you should restart dormant nuclear power stations and increase power output of existing ones. This is critical to national and international security. Good for him, right? Then he says, for those who mistakenly think this is a radiation risk, pick what you think is the worst location. I will travel then, eat local food on TV. I did this in Japan many years ago, but it's a Fukushima. Radiation risk is much, much lower than most people believe. Again, science. He goes by the science. Good for him. We know the story of the Starlink. The Ukrainians said, hey, you want to go to Mars. You want to do this. But what about sending us some Starlink so we can get some internet here in Ukraine? Within 10 hours, they were being shipped over. Elon Musk came on Twitter and said, hey, you're going to get them the next day they got them. They've made them work now. And of course, in addition to that, he refuses to control what is being delivered over Starlink. Starlink is being told by some governments, not Ukraine, to block Russian news sources. We will not do so unless at gunpoint, sorry to be a free speech absolutist. Good for him. Anyway, it's, hold strong Ukraine. And also my sympathies to the great people of Russia who do not want this. Nice. Hate to say it, but we need to increase oil and gas output immediately. Extraordinary times demand extraordinary measures. Now, we need to increase oil and gas always, not just immediately. This is where we disagree, right? But he's not inflexible. And then he says, obviously, this would negatively affect Tesla, but sustainable energy solutions simply cannot react instantaneously to make up for Russian oil and gas exports. Anyway, it's important warning. Starlink is the only non-Russian communication system still working in some parts of Ukraine. Some probability of being targeted is high. Please use with caution. So I guess people who are using Starlink receivers could get bombed. Here's a good one. I like this one. Why is the traditional media such a relentless hate stream? Real question. Most news outlets attempt to answer the question, what are the worst things happening on Earth today? It's a big planet. Obviously some bad things are happening somewhere at any given time, but focusing relentlessly on those does not give an accurate picture of reality. Good for Musk. If you scare people enough, they will demand removal of freedom. That is the path to tyranny. Absolutely. Let's see. We'll make this the last one. We should be much more worried about population collapse than population growth. You and projections are utter nonsense. Just the multiple last year's births by life expectancy, given downward trend in birth rate, that is best case unless reversed. If there aren't enough people for Earth, then there definitely won't be enough for Mars. I think these tweets give you a bit of a sense of, as I said, kind of the sense of life, the spirit that Elon Musk represents, which I think is all positive. I'll just remind you of a couple of other things. There was during COVID, if you remember, when the state of California wanted him to shut down a Tesla plant in California, because of COVID, he said they would have to come and arrest him and his workers. He was not shutting it down. He was making it optional for his workers to come, but he was not going to shut down. All his workers showed up, and this plant was never shut down. Never shut down. They made exceptions for it. They concluded it was essential services and they kept it open. I love the one where people ask them, well, how are we going to regulate the Internet because it was a beautiful, again, expression of that spirit of we're going to get it done, we're not going to let anybody stop it, and all the regulators can do about it is shake their fists, because they don't have any power over me. They don't have any power over the creator, the producer, the maker. Elon is an amazing person, I think, an amazing entrepreneur, an amazing business person. He is an amazing idea producer. One of the clips I saw him, he was asked about what's going on in his head constantly. It's like fireworks, explosions going off. It's constantly thinking, constantly new ideas. You know, his boring machine thing was something he drew on his hyperlink or whatever was something he drew on a napkin, basically. It's ideas that come. Most of them, I guess, see the light of day, some of them see some engineering drawings, some of them actually become companies. But he is a real exciting producer. Producer. And in a world of people who are dull, people who are boring, people who are conventional, people who just play by the book, Elon Musk is a brush, a brush. A breath! A fresh air! He is truly amazing and an inspiration. And I am all in on the Elon Musk fan club. So I'm a real fan now. I've become one over the last couple of years. We need a lot more Elon Musk's in the world. He's not perfect. He doesn't get everything right. But he has the attitude. The attitude that changes the world. The attitude that brings revolution. And it's the attitude I wish millions had. He is the kind of person you want to go along for the ride with. Not many people like that. There are a lot of dreamers. There are a lot of dreamers. There are a lot of fantasizers. There are a lot of people who think big thoughts. How many people execute? How many people make it a reality? How many people make it real? Live it? I just, I hope in his personal life he's happy. I hope in his personal life he is as fulfilled as he seems to be in his business life. Linda, thank you. Really appreciate that. All right, we are going to do some superchance. Let me say there's a bunch of them on Elon Musk. We're going to start with those. We're at about $773. $774. It would be really cool given that I'm just not, I don't know how much super chat money I'm going to be able to raise this month. It would be really, really cool if we made it to $1,000 today. Not a lot more money like 220 bucks, 230 bucks to get there. There's still people who are hesitating to support the Iran book show. Hopefully Elon has inspired you. Hopefully these are kind of shows you want to watch, not just the all the war analysis and how awful the world is, but also the good side and the good people and the good, the amazing. I mean, I don't think I emphasized enough how amazing what SpaceX does. I mean, those rockets that launch and one of the ways in which they do that and I've talked about this in the past on shows is one of the things that Elon Musk is very, very good at is embracing failure and learning from failure and failing to learn. That is failing so you can learn and it's all of that has been so crucial, visibly crucial at SpaceX. It's just an amazing, amazing company. All right. R.W. writes, this is why Elon is a hero. Sure, he takes subsidies, but says Tesla would be better off without them and that subsidies shouldn't exist. Yes, I've seen him say that, so that's really, really good. He defined California senseless and duality and shutdowns and kept his factory open. Yes, he did and that was, and he stood up and he argued for it. He staked the claim and that took a lot of courage. He offered himself as the first person to be arrested. Yes. He left California because of their terrible politics and regulations. He wants to take humans to Mars and build global high-speed internet access. He doesn't give a damn if hippies say his satellites are eyesores. He said he won't censor the internet through his satellites unless government forces him by gunpoint. Yes, he's amazing. What can I say? He is amazing. I'm a fan. I bought into it. Ooh, we got a $50 one from Dan. I don't think I have a bigger than $50 one. Let me just check. $50 gets priority. Actually, I'm going to wait on it because let me get all the Elon Musk ones done, Dan. Sorry. Then I'll get back to you. So let's do all the Elon Musk and then we'll do the $20 and above ones. All right. No. No. No. No. No. A lot of questions not related to Elon Musk. No. Let's see. No, God. Okay, here we go. I applied for Tesla a couple of days ago. This is Travis for lab manager in Austin. I am hoping I get it. If anyone can put in a good word for me, please do. I assure you I'm a great candidate. That's Travis Gould. I hope you get the job. Look forward to hearing from you. Let's see. R.W. says, again, who knows? Tesla might have survived in a free market where government is out of financial markets and institutions. Also true. I mean, you never know what would have happened in a free market. Good things. And we'd be a lot richer. And maybe Tesla would be that's all technology. Who needs that? We'd be flying cars already without all the government regulations and controls. Shazmat asks, could automakers have paid me for carbon credits? I haven't produced any cars at all, let alone gasoline powered cars. I would have sold them for half price. No, Shazmat Tesla got the carbon credits, not you. What regulators allow SpaceX to land a man on Mars? Do you believe Elon Musk will do it by 2025, as promised? No. I don't think he's going to land a man on Mars by 2025. Elon Musk, which I didn't mention, I meant to, I've got notes here, is that he often promises things that are unreasonable and he can't meet and he doesn't meet them. But he likes to set big audacious super aggressive goals possibly to get his people motivated. And then he misses the dates. So what? As long as he gets it in the end. So I doubt that he can get it in 2025. The other thing I love about Elon Musk is he's pissed off the SEC and he's had a big fight with the SEC about so-called insider trading laws. And it's great. He stood up to them, he's made fun of them, he's made fun of them publicly on Twitter. But on the flip side he has said irresponsible things on Twitter like you know, he said that Tesla was going to be bought out by a private equity fund which drove the price up a lot. Now I don't think he sold, he never made money off of that. But it turned out that you know, it was very preliminary and there was no real reason to think they were going to get bought by it. So he does have a tendency to play around on Twitter on stuff that he shouldn't be doing as a responsible fiduciary as a CEO of a company. He shouldn't say he thinks the stock is overpriced even though I agreed with him and it has corrected since he didn't sell when he said it was overpriced and he wasn't selling at the time. He says stuff on Twitter he shouldn't be saying. But again, he's almost like a child there's a certain innocence and there's a certain playfulness. I think he's standing up there, he sees a beautiful thing. Truly is a beautiful thing. All right, let's see. Okay, Andrew says that it shouldn't determine an overall judgment of Musk. Do you think it is possible for someone that smart to believe the whole country could be powered by 100 miles of solar panels without evading? No, I don't think he can believe that. I don't know if he said that then he certainly is evading. He should know better than that. So yes, I think when it comes to solar power, when it comes to alternative energies, when it comes to some of his responsibilities as CEO, I mean he sometimes is unthinking. He sometimes is unthinking and that's bad. Free trade rights, Alex Epstein is probably the most rational think on energy climate environment issues, I agree. Musk blocked him on Twitter is that an act of evasion? Yeah, I think he doesn't want to hear it. I think he's not interested. Again, Musk is not perfect. He's not perfect. This is flaw, he's got significant flaws. But given who we have today, R.W. says, can Lex get you in a lawn on a podcast together? I don't know. We'll see. We'll see what Lex wants to do. Okay, let's see. On the news, heard there's a trend of people keying Tesla's. What do you make of that? Yeah, it's basically envy. It's disgusting. It's un-American. It truly is horrible. It truly is horrible. But it is because he's rich. And people are doing that. It's because he's not aligned with the crazy left and he's not aligned with the crazy right. Paul says $10 for taking another look, changing your view and sharing the inspiration created by this once-in-a-lifetime productive genius. Genius, I agree. Paul says the character's an atlas. I'm spying, but it's a wonderful breath of fresh air for the soul to see a real living in the hours of my own days. Yes. I mean, I thought Steve Jobs was like that. I found Steve Jobs amazingly inspiring and properly motivated and just an amazing, amazing human being. I think his story's amazing. The way he presented himself on stage was amazing. His charisma was amazing. His motivation and inspiring products he created. I think Jeff Bezos is, but he's too in the background and too we don't see enough of him, but I'm sure Jeff Bezos is as inspiring as these guys and as smart and as thoughtful and as amazing. If you look at what Amazon has done and how it's grown a truly inspiring company, I think those are the three stories that most inspire me. It's Bezos, but on the quiet and then publicly now it's Steve Jobs who I literally had tears in my eyes when I heard he died even though I never met him in Elon Musk. Truly inspiring people in our lifetime. It's great to have inspiring people in your life. It's so amazing. All right, we're at $854 so just $145 to get to the $1,000 goal, so let's see if we can make it. All right, Dan who brought us a long way towards that goal, thank you Dan with $50. He says, just finished ominous parallels. I know it was written in the 80s. How do you think it holds up with additional commentary might you add considering the past several decades? Should I next read I finished Atlas Shrugged and Dim? Well, I mean, I think it holds up beautifully. I think at the end of ominous parallels is absolutely true. I would say that Dim the landed pickups Dim hypothesis is an added layer it fleshes it out in terms of the future and in terms of understanding the past he he focuses in on the attitude towards integration in a sense he makes the whole argument explaining the past and predicting the future around one central and key fundamental issue in epistemology and that is integration one's view of integration so it's an epistemological case and so I think Dim fleshes out the ominous parallels but I think it holds up. I think we're seeing everything that Leonard predicted we're seeing it happening in America slower than maybe he predicted it would happen but it's happening I think both Dim is happening before our eyes and I think and I think so is the ominous parallels they're both indicative of the threat that is coming and they're both indicative of where this country is heading it's heading towards authoritarianism and then Dim kind of narrows in about what type of authoritarianism it has to be an M2 which is a particular type of authoritarianism in terms of what else to read I would definitely read virtue of selfishness I'd read capitalism not known ideal that's what I would read alright $20 questions let's see where we have them we had a few Michael asks America's ruling class some of you may have to pay more for gas but this is a sacrifice I'm willing to make yes basically they have no interest in sacrificing their bigger agenda climate change so as to get more oil and gas so that prices can come down instead what they're going to do is they're going to blame all companies you're already seeing that as a huge push to blame all companies they do this every single time all prices go up it's all companies it's all companies it's all companies they're the ones responsible for this Elizabeth Warren was saying this weeks ago about meat packing companies about inflation is caused by greed which is amazing because I didn't know greed fluctuated that much Bree says Vosh had a 25 hour stream today and raised $315,000 for Ukrainian refugees he may be the only online socialist that is not a hypocrite but Vosh is a massive hypocrite the fact that he raised money for Ukraine doesn't change the fact that he doesn't live his socialism Adam says about the global disintegration of national theocratic support for Putin are there many national theocratic regimes and politicians continuing their ongoing ideological alliance against secular are there many there are some I mean you're seeing it in America certain parts of the conservative national movement is supporting Putin certain parts are not I think this is fragmenting the national conservative movement I think it's fragmenting conservatives generally which is not good for the coming election I think you're seeing it around the world you're seeing the right splinter on some still support Putin they love Putin they love a strong man they love muscle they love is nationalism they love his wokeness and some sympathize with Ukraine and you know and it's it's splintering the right but there are plenty of people still supporting Putin and unfortunately primarily intellectuals and in terms of countries I mean China is the obvious India there you get I mean India it's fascinating to see India support Putin big time and why would India support Putin you'd expect they wouldn't because China would love to invade India and take pieces out of India that China claims that theirs but they're supporting Putin because of the nationalist tendencies within India and again his non-wokeness so the Indian regime is very anti-left very nationalistic and it surprised me I didn't think that India would be this and somewhat theocratic so I didn't expect India to be so pro-Putin as it is Dave says when budgeting your life isn't it more egoistic to increase your income rather than cutting back your expenses yeah particularly the way to increase your income is to be productive it's to be productive and to increase your productivity and increase the value you're creating that's enjoyable it's a virtue in and of itself and it increases your money I think generally cutting back on expenses is you know the periods where you have to do it but it's generally a sign of failure ideally you're living a life where you're constantly on expenses alright let's see Brian asks are any form of government municipal bonds legit ways for the government to raise money no in my view they're not accepting war when the government has to raise a lot of money quickly so war would be the only exception to that but no I don't think so government should be able to raise the money and needs for projects on an ongoing basis remember government doesn't have to do big construction projects they don't have to invest in infrastructure all of that is private in a proper government is also a hero for doing what he loves and teaching people about objectivism thank you Hopper Campbell says why is Russia still freer than Venezuela North Korea they have starbucks and 7-11 and their people aren't starving miserable drunks but not starving because they are freer than Venezuela and North Korea they don't have starbucks anymore starbucks is closed but yeah they've been freer than North Korea and Venezuela for the last since the fall of the soviet union they've been opening up and freeing up and western capital has come in and it's been developing they're not rich, they're not super free in some terms there's been some economic freedom there's been some social freedom I've been to Russia speaking I can't go to North Korea of Venezuela to speak so they didn't go from soviet union to equal authoritarianism they went from soviet union to a semi-free state Liam asks 20 years from now will a sizeable portion of the population recognize that taxation is theft no no look, taxation is theft is way down the road you've got to change ethics and culture before you change politics so taxation is theft is, in my view a marginal issue it's not the most important issue out there the most important issue out there is egoism it's individual rights and unless people understand rights unless you understand people understand individual rights they can't understand the taxation is theft and they don't care even if they did understand so you have to get people to understand individual rights to get them to understand individual rights that is a major project that's a more like a 50 year project than a 20 year project what explains Russia's high GDP growth in the 20th century excited to hear more of your thoughts in my favorite book, The Beginning of Infinity what explains it is a couple of things one, they didn't have high GDP growth in the 20th century first they had very low GDP growth if you look at what's meaningful about GDP growth in terms of standard of living of the people there are many many countries who are much just as poor if not poorer than Russia at the beginning of the 20th century and became much richer than Russia by the end of the 20th century so the GDP growth they show under Stalin and so on it's like some of the Chinese GDP growth the government spends money that's GDP has gone up but it's not what I want is a measure of the quality of life the measure of the standard of living the measure of wealth of people so first it wasn't that high second to the extent that it grew at all it was a consequence of two things one, periods in which there was some freedom allowed for example even under Lenin period in which you know there was some private property and some establishment of private property because otherwise they would have starved and he needed to create some economic growth for that and then stealing technology and applying it stealing technology from the west and applying it so the big pushed industrialized by Lenin and Stalin based on western technology and Russians didn't really create anything, produce anything they stole and then they copied and they did that and they did it because they were so poor going into it Russia was a poor place there was some rise in GDP as a consequence of them doing it but it wasn't very high and it wasn't very major and then at the end of the 20th century after the fall of communism they had some freedom and there they had natural resources they had some businesses and businessmen and they had economic freedom and they took advantage of it they had at least some economic freedom and they took advantage of it and that resulted in this growth thoughts about beginning of infinity I'll talk about that more again the chapters that are just magnificent really really good finished chapter 9 on optimism which is excellent and then you have chapter 10 which is a dialogue between Hermes, the Greek god and Socrates which is terrible but it's terrible for the reason the other chapters are terrible that is that Deutsche's epistemology is completely wrong and it does a lot of damage that it's wrong so it's not helpful you know I just was on a thing with Deutsche where he was at a conference where he made a short presentation a small conference, just 20 of us and he was on video him and Steven Pinker and he was not impressive unfortunately he wasn't at his best so the things about Deutsche I love and then the things about Deutsche I just want to pull my hair up he goes through the whole chapter all the non-intuitive stuff about infinity that we studied in college okay so it's still a question of whether infinity exists or doesn't exist, whether it means anything to say that infinity exists this is the epistemological problems that he has and I'm sure the same thing is going to happen when he does his chapter on on quantum and I've got the same criticism of multi-universes I just you know I'm not an expert I'm not a physicist certainly but epistemologically all of that strikes me as wrong and I'm trying to get I'm eager to get an epistemologist, somebody who's an expert in epistemology on the show to talk about Papa's epistemology and what's wrong with it and why that causes Deutsche to go off but some of his stuff I mean the chapter on optimism is wonderful it really is okay Liam asks Hitler would have never deliberately destroyed the energy industry in Germany like today's leftist nihilists are attempting true but leftist nihilists are not establishing concentration camps that are killing millions and millions of millions of people it's not helpful to draw parallels with Hitler it just doesn't help you know unless you're drawing parallels with the intellectual movement that led to Hitler which is what Lenin Pigov does in the ominous parallels but I think saying the leftist today in Germany are the same as Hitler it doesn't or worse than Hitler it's not true and it doesn't work if people are honest and truth-seeking you get agreement after what Michael says it's consistency and clarity that counts in intellectual movements not numbers well numbers matter too but hopefully numbers grow if you have that consistency Bach's ban again some argue that the single family suburban dwelling is obsolete usually bad for the environment no I mean absolutely not I think the highway system in the United States that was built by the government distorted urban planning and distorted the way cities we live I think without government basically building that when I'm not sure it needed to be built and I'm not sure that private sector needed it maybe we would have more mixed use urban living I don't know but no I mean people love the single family suburban dwelling environmentalists don't like it because it takes up a lot of room they would like animals to roam in those houses and it takes up a lot of energy because people commute but in terms of a lifestyle it's a fantastic way to raise your kids so I think it's just more environmentalist panic and irrationality alright we are at basically $900 it would be great $500 right now just $100 and we're at $1,000 and I can go to bed my gosh why only a carry on bag if you're flying first class your luggage is free anyway it's not the pain for the luggage give me a break I fly business class it's not the pain for the luggage it's the one of the things I hate most in life one of the things I hate most in life is waiting I hate waiting I hate standing in lines I hate waiting for the stupid bags to come off the stupid machines to retrieve it I hate waiting for bags I hate the fact that they can get lost so you know I once had where was I maybe in Amsterdam maybe in Amsterdam and you know they forced me to check in my bag it was a carry on bag but they forced me to check it in because it was heavy or something and I had to pack it in there into the carry on bag and it's a little it's a little bigger than technically legal anyway they forced me to check it in and I'm waiting in Amsterdam and the bag doesn't show up and I'm sitting there and I'm waiting and it doesn't show up so I call them and they go and finally it dropped off the belt just on the other side of like the barrier so finally somebody found it and brought it out and you have to get them to go do their job and find the bag and everything and it's just God but I hate waiting so I'll take my bags with me everywhere I go I like I like in and out quickly I don't go three hours ahead to the airport I come in, I do the thing I go through security, I get to the gate I get on the plane, I get off the plane quick so that's my attitude generally alright guys, 100 bucks somebody, 100 dollars alright, let's see cold, savage someone who is religious and still conservative in some areas I have to say it is absolutely horrifying to see what the rate has become I fear them more than I do the left what can I do to help crush their influence, support the Iran Book Show which you already, thank you Morgan Carter, yeah, see you next week Morgan is organizing an event for me in Edinburgh and it's going to be it's going to be a new talk a new talk, a brand new talk Morgan has inspired, I'm doing a talk about basically what is art and why modern so-called modern art is not art at all and so I'm excited about it because it's always fun to kind of, it's a tough topic it's not one I can just stand up and deliver or like, probably do a decent show and so I'm looking forward to doing a new show so Morgan is organizing that University of Edinburgh, a week from today a week from today alright Frank says, no one seems has eyes on eastern Russia just a few miles away from Alaska could put and get into the U.S. into war by invading from Chukechi Peninsula why would he do that he's not going to invade the United States come on, he's just not going to he'd get crushed in a moment look what the Ukrainians are doing do you know what American airplanes would do to him God, I mean there's no chance and plus fighting a war in Alaska nobody would want to do that no, he's not invading the U.S. Stefan is writing, I'm currently taking Hilsdale's new course on ancient Rome and it's interesting how philosophy is almost completely absent at least consciously yeah, I mean and Hilsdale is very religious so they're going to taint everything with religiosity Ed says, I heard the highway system was built for national security so tanks could go where they were needed and it was claimed it was for national security but that's because by then the government destroyed the rail system but the rail system should have been able to transport tanks anywhere you wanted to faster and more effectively tanks are super slow indeed tanks would destroy you have to use trucks because we destroyed the railroad system we built the highways, we have too many trucks on the road which caused lots of traffic accidents highways are not a good way to transport goods that's what we have trains for but we don't have a modern train system and regulations from the beginning of America destroyed our rail system alright everybody, thank you we did not make a thousand and we did not make 600 without Ashton but Ashton made it today Ashton put in $500 and that's where we are that's where we are today we're at over 900 bucks so that's fantastic, thank you everybody thank you for your support those of you not yet monthly supporters of the Iran Book Show please become monthly supporters you can do that on IranBookShow.com or Patreon or Subscribe Star I will remind everybody I'm going to be in Europe for the next three weeks I leave on Saturday, not sure when the next show will be probably from Amsterdam on Sunday hours will be weird because there will be European hours maybe afternoons, maybe evenings, I don't know I will be giving talks for those of you in Europe Amsterdam, Ghent Vienna Reims, outside of Paris and Edinburgh, next Thursday then, two talks in Israel one in Tel Aviv, one in Berchewa and the one in Berchewa is a debate over response to COVID, free market socialism and then in the UK I'll be giving talks at University of Sussex Exeter, I'm going back to Exeter this will be my sixth time probably the university I visited more than any other university in the world so Exeter and then I'm doing something for Ironman Center UK and then the fourth event is going to be at Bristol, University of Bristol Richard is asking is your self esteem event still on for April, yes it is it's for the weekend after I get back from Europe, what's the attendee limit 20 people are spots available, yes how into gravity will it be, very so please join us for the self esteem workshop it'll be an hour and a half of just you and me and 20 people talking about self esteem giving you tips and ideas about self esteem talking about it, taking your questions it'll be very interactive, it's $100 you can sign up for it on the Iranbrookshow.com website and it'll be great we've got a few people signed up but there are plenty of spaces left only 20 people, 100 bucks each it'll be a lot of fun it's a great opportunity to have one on one time Iran could you publish your talking itinerary so we know when where and when to show up for your talks I'll put it up on Twitter and on my Facebook page I'll do that tomorrow so it'll go up on Twitter and Facebook with links to the events where I have links but I'll give you the information on Twitter and on Facebook so make sure you follow me on Twitter and Facebook it'll be there I think also that if you go to Iranbrookshow.com and you click on events everything is listed there as well Iranbrookshow.com click on events and you'll find all the relevant information alright guys I will see you in Europe whether it's because I'm doing a show from Europe or whether it's because you guys are coming to my events in Europe I hope the Europeans among you will be able to come and say hello and shake my hand and no masks allowed it should be a lot of fun and I'm sure my travels will be safe thank you Stephanie thank you everybody Katherine is kind of saying 54 bucks to get to a thousand maybe somebody but I have to go because I'm falling asleep I need to get some sleep I've got a long three weeks in front of me the shows will probably be shorter because I'll probably be doing it late at night from my hotel room after a long day and doing stuff this John just made it $30 only $20 gap because he gave $30 or $24 there's 10 from Travis so we're now $14 short so hopefully I'll keep talking until we get $14 so thank you Travis thank you John and Frank I'm glad you learned a lot about Iran maybe it's worth 14 bucks to you what you learned about Iran alright I will I really do need to go 15 bucks more I will see you all when is it I'll see you all from somewhere in Europe again it'll also be dependent on the quality of the wifi quality of the internet service that is always a limiting factor alright everybody have a great night oh Catherine says wait wait she says wait she doesn't want me to go she wants to get to $100 somebody put me out of my misery oh god alright there we go John thank you and John I'm talking to tomorrow so I'll see you tomorrow alright Catherine have a good night everybody thank you to all the super chatters thank you to all my supporters thanks everybody and have a great night, great week and I'll