 The radical, fundamental principles of freedom, rational self-interest, and individual rights. This is The Iran Book Show. Alright everybody, welcome to Iran Book Show. On this Tuesday night, hope everybody is doing well, having a good week. Sorry, I don't know what's going on. YouTube has changed something. It will not communicate with my restream. Everything that used to work is no longer working. So if I plan a show in advance, set it up in advance to live stream, it won't connect the two. I have no idea why. I will try to call restream, or I don't think I can get anybody to YouTube. I'll try to call restream tomorrow and find out what the hell is going on. But frustrating, frustrating, frustrating. Anyway, we got on so it is working. Technology today is, I don't know, a bunch of technology is just not working for me. I'm not sure exactly what is going on. Maybe it's me. Maybe it's the technology. I don't know. I don't know. If anybody knows, if everybody is an expert on streaming to YouTube, let me know if you have any ideas what the hell is going on. But it doesn't seem to let me schedule a show, stream to the schedule. It lets me stream a new show, which is what I just did. I canceled the other one, scripted this one. Anyway, you all here. Thanks for joining me. We're going to be talking about today about fear. I think Mike says we need 300 likes. I think it's the 300 likes thing. I think we got 300 likes. Maybe YouTube would link up my channel again. I don't know. I don't know. All right. Remind everybody, if you want to ask a question, the way to ask a question is to use the super chat. I know you guys like to chat among yourselves. That's great, but I'm going to try to ignore you unless you highlight something in the super chat and ask a question. Only costs. Best Fed Hank has just done it for two bucks. It's not a big deal, although, as Ali will tell you and remind you, if you're listening live, we are here to raise $600 per show. So we're off to a great start with five bucks. Remember, $20 super chat questions get priority. They get answered mid-sentence, mid-sentence, mid-show. The low amounts, those also get answered, but they get answered at the end of the show. I want to just quickly remind you, you can sponsor an episode. You can choose the topic. I'll talk about a topic of your choosing. That is $1,000. You can get me to review a movie or a TV show of your choosing. That's $500. An episode of a TV show is $250. Right now I've got a Q Roy. Wow, thank you. I really appreciate that. In honor of the new policy of restricting fundraising pitches to the beginning and end of the show, instead of being 85% you on a 15% fundraising telethon, your show will give us 100% you on the best and most persuasive spokesman for objectivism. Thank you. Thank you, Roy. So after blazing start as a consequence, Stevan asks, is my debate in Philadelphia still happening? Yes it is. October 12th in the University of Pennsylvania. As soon as I get links, information, logistics, I will publish them on Twitter and other places and I'll let you know on the show. I haven't received them yet. I guess I should stop bugging the student who is in charge of that. I will do so soon. So $20, Super Chat gets priority. Please do that. Of course you can support the show monthly, regularly or as a one-time contribution by going to runbookshow.com slash support by going to Patreon, subscribe star, all the options for support locals as well. It's great to do it there because then I know, I know what to expect and it is perfect. Oh, I did mention I've got a, I've got a three shows that I've got to review. Saving Private Ryan. We've got Tin Cup and we have the episode from Star Trek the next generation. So those are the three that I will be watching in the next few weeks to do. Next week I fly to London and then to Europe. Not exactly where in Europe. I was supposed to give two talks in the Netherlands. The Netherlands just shut the border to Americans and to anybody who visits the UK. And I'm going to UK first. So it looks like I'm not going to the Netherlands, which is unfortunate. Two events planned on the same day in the Netherlands still planning to go to Greece, Vienna and Lisbon in Portugal. So we will see if any of that actually happens. It sucks. It sucks that, you know, the world is just nuts. Nuts. We're going to talk about that. Let's see. Yeah, the Netherlands would have been fantastic. So although it would have been a very quick in and out. So, but anyway, I think that's what I wanted to share with you guys. Simon Grassy writes, I saw you mentioned a couple of shows ago. You lost followers due to the abortion view. You've cemented my position on Objectivism, but I'm still pro-life. I'd love to take you up on a debate offer. You know, sure, we can find a context in which to debate. You know, abortion is pretty solidly in Objectivist position. It was an advanced position. I mean, she was probably more adamant than I am about it. And, but happy to debate. I lost about 80 followers. So if you, you know, net it's about 30 because 50 added, but we lost about 80 people too because of my position on abortion. Probably the same number on Twitter, but that's on just on YouTube. But you know, life is what it is. The Objectivist position on abortion is pretty click cut. There's no, there's not a lot of disagreements among Objectivists about this. Maybe there's some people who are going to argue about the third trimester. Maybe, but not many. And, but first and second trimester, there really isn't any debate. Partially because Ayn Rand was so clear about it. And it is a fairly click cut case. And for those of you confused about an MBO and a baby, one you can see and one you can't. Perceptual information is important. One you need a ultrasound to see and the other one you can see with the naked eye. That's a big difference. Big difference. One is a part of his mother and the other one is not. But anyway, I don't want to talk about abortion. And it seems like I've said everything I have to say about it. A number of people actually added subscriptions to my channel and financially supported the channel because of my position on abortion. So that's a nice thing. Best for the Hank says, I need a moral boost. Can you give a quick summary of why selfishness is not an evil value? God. Just a little thing like that, right? For 20 bucks. So why selfishness is not an evil value? It's pretty straightforward, right? I mean, what you're asking is who should be the beneficiary of your action? Well, it's your action. It's your life. The fundamental choice all human beings face is the choice between existence and non-existence, life or death. It's only that choice, the choice of life or death that makes values, that makes the concept of giving the evil possible. That which promotes life, that which leads to life is the good. There is nothing else. There's life and there's non-existence. Non-existence cannot be a value. It's the negation of value. Value is in pursuit of life. Thank you, best friend Hank. That's better. So to live, to live, once you choose to live, once you've made that choice and almost everybody makes that choice, then your entire value hierarchy needs to be organized around living. And what does it mean to be selfish? It means to live. It means to place your interest above all else. It means to focus on your life, to live for you. So what's alternative to selfishness? It's the alternative is to highlight and to emphasize death. It's the focus on non-existence because every value is either for your life or against your life. And once you make the choice to live and some people make the choice to die and it's not fine but it's okay. It's their choice. But once you make the choice to live, then everything else is necessitated by their choice. Then the question is, well, how do I live? You have to use your mind. In pursuit of what? In pursuit of life. What do we call that? Self-interest, selfishness. So it's your life. You only have one of it. There's no alternative to it. Live the best life that you can live. It's both philosophically makes sense. It also is common sense although, God, nobody thought of it, not in those terms. So the whole field of morality is meaningless if it's not focused on providing you with a path, providing you with the values and virtues with the road map to life, to living. And that means being selfish. That means being self-interested. That's what it means. All right. I'm going to do these questions quickly. Have you ever been to Falling Water? Yes. A profound, spiritual, amazing experience. One of the most stunning places ever. You stand on these balconies and you stand just amazing. I think I did a show after I visited Falling Water and described the experience. It was truly stunning what he managed to achieve in that building. Truly, truly amazing. Greg asked, do you think vaccine will become mandatory in the West? I don't know. I mean, I think they're going to make life for people who are not vaccinated so miserable with the variety of vaccine passports to get into restaurants and to get into businesses that it's going to be almost equivalent to mandatory, right? It's not about a business's choice whether to allow you in or not to allow in. They are going to make it such that the businesses have no choice, but to exclude you unless you have a vaccine. And that's equivalent of vaccine mandate. But it looks like they're going to do it whether directly or indirectly. Some form of vaccine mandate is going to happen in the United States. And some states in the United States, if not the federal level, and in some countries in Europe, I mean, we'll see. We'll see exactly how it manifests itself. But in France, you cannot get into a restaurant. You cannot get into any kind of public event unless you show that you have been vaccinated. That is by law, not the choice of the restaurant or the event. And as a consequence, they are pushing people to get vaccinated because otherwise they can't live their lives. And if they make vaccines or a requirement of employment and a million other things, then there you go. It's a vaccine mandate. So I think in many parts of the country and I think in many parts of the world, you're going to see the equivalent of a vaccine mandate. In Puerto Rico, you cannot go to a restaurant unless you have a vaccine card or a recent test. Although restaurants do have the choice. If they don't want to check your vaccine status, they have to lower capacity to 50% some choice. All right. Let's talk about fear. I know I talk about fear a lot. I did a run rules fear, but that one was more focused on the positive of a coming fear. Today, I want to talk about the impact of fear on our lives and on our world and what is going on around us and it relates to this issue of vaccine mandates. I think the United States and to some extent the Western world but certainly the United States took a real turn in 9-11. And let me backtrack a little bit from that in a sense that the best thing about Ronald Reagan, the best thing about Ronald Reagan's presidency is that coming into the 1980s, Americans in particular were pretty depressed in a dark mood. They had lost their mojo. Japan was overtaking them economically, at least that's what everybody believed. The innovation was in decline. It seemed inflation, stagflation, unemployment, high crime. Crime was going through the roof. People don't realize how bad it was. The United States seemed like it was in a state of massive decline. Jimmy Carter was a pathetic, ridiculous, almost president. And it really seemed we had gone through, the United States had gone through a Richard Nixon, to some extent a comic called Joe Ford, a ridiculous, pathetic Jimmy Carter. And I think the best thing about the Reagan presidency was that he returned a sense of optimism. He returned a sense of can-do. He returned a sense of we are invincible in some way. Nothing is impossible to us, to the American spirit. An attitude of don't expect from the government, although he didn't shrink government, but the attitude, fend for yourself, go for it, be successful. And the attitude changed in the country. The sense of the country changed, it shifted. And that's his greatest virtue. Much greater than anything he did governing, or anything he did vis-a-vis, I don't know, the defense budget, or taxes, or anything. More than anything, it was that spirit. You know, Richard said, morning in America, yes, that political ad. You know, the return of America to America is returning to its heyday, and it's rising up again. And in a sense, that attitude, that positive attitude, that gung-ho that we can achieve, we can succeed, we are real power, we are real force in the world, and we as individuals can be successful. And a certain unity of the country, as somebody noted in the chat, he won 48 states, 49 states, really, 49 states. He lost Minnesota. That kind of unity. The country collapsed, not necessarily around Ronald Reagan, the man. By 1984, arguably, he was already losing his mental capacities. But they rallied around a message, a message of hope, a message of success, a message of prosperity, a message of economic growth, a message of we can do it. Nobody will stand in our way. We can beat the Japanese, we can beat the Germans. We can be successful economically again. And it's not just we can be successful because of some central planning vision. We can be successful because the American entrepreneurial spirit is being unleashed. And generally, people, it was just an upbeat mood in the country. And if you lived through that period, you really sensed it. And then upbeat mood sustained itself, I think, until 9-11. It sustained itself through, you know, a pathetic George Bush senior, and through Bill Clinton and his, you know, charades and nonsense, and attempts to central plan and backtracking for that, and shutting down government because the Republicans in Congress and all of that. You could sense it in Silicon Valley. You could sense it in various places around the country. A sudden optimism and positivism about the direction of the country, about the future, about what was possible. The internet was launched, people excited. Of course, it didn't hurt that the Berlin Wall came down, that the Soviet Union was dismantled. We had won. America had won. The vision of America, of a liberal, you know, limited government democracy. Seen to have won. The end of history was declared by some, by Fukuyama. And the mood generally in the U.S., but also in the West, more broadly, was positive, upbeat. Certainly in the U.K. during Thatcher, Thatcher did the same thing to the U.K., even more dramatically, I think. And there was this real sense of success, accomplishment, and a return in a superficial way of kind of the American sense of life, of the gung-ho of we can achieve, and so on. And then 9-11 hit. And that entire thing just, in a puff of smoke, went away. 9-11 resurrected the sense of doom, a sense of impotence, a sense of weakness. And more than anything, fear. Fear. Fear for the future. Fear of terrorism. Fear of our own government. I mean, think about the conspiracy theories around 9-11. It created this moment of intense patriotism and intense unity. Everybody loved George Bush for a short period of time. But immediately suspicion and fear, the largest restructuring of government since the Great Depression, the establishment of the Homeland Security. Homeland Security! They're coming to get you. They're coming to kill you. And, you know, we instituted TSA, screenings. Everybody goes through these machines. You have to take off your shoes, take out your computers, obey. Do what the man tells you to do. Don't argue. Don't say a bad word, because the TSA might get pissed off at you. We now allow the NSA to listen to our conversations, to aggregate data on us, to view us as suspicious, to monitor us. The Patriot Act, TSA. And then we go to war. Wars that are endless, that we can't win. American kids are dying. Body bags coming home. Not too many. Because, and most of us don't feel it, because after all, we have a small army and there's no draft, but still, a sense of impotence. We can't change the world. We saw that in Afghanistan with retreat of our troops. 20 years we spent there, the people running the Afghan government, the Afghan government was announced today. It's the same people, minus Mullah Omar, who is dead. Same people who were running the Taliban in 2001, during 9-11. The Haqqani Network, a network of terrorists responsible for the killing of Americans left and right, responsible for cooperating hand-in-hand with al-Qaeda. Four of the Haqqani members, Haqqani network members are in this current government of the Taliban. We spent 20 years and what did we achieve? Nothing. I mean 20 years of relative freedom for Afghans, but nothing for us. And Afghanistan is returning to where it was. So we approve it ourselves to be weak. And people know this. People sense this. People look around. America is not what it used to be. We're weak. We cannot win. And more than anything, we are afraid. We're afraid to win. We're afraid to lose. We're afraid to stand up for ourselves. Fear post 9-11 dominates. We certainly are afraid of Muslims. And there are people in our community, the objective community, people out there who live in constant fear of the Muslim invasion of the United States of America or of Europe. People are willing to justify. I saw this. I've seen this in a chat recently. Orban of Hungary's authoritarian dictates all in the name of, well, at least we don't have Muslims in Hungary. Let me tell you something about Muslims in Hungary. The Muslims who were trying to cross through Hungary didn't want to stay in Hungary. They were just moving on to Germany. Hungary is poor. Hungary is subsidized by the EU. Muslims don't want to live in Hungary. They want to go to Germany where the Germans are handing them checks. There was never fear in Hungary of Muslims being in Hungary. They were saving the Germans, the Swiss, the Swedes. The rest of Europe. People are afraid. People are afraid of their neighbors. They're afraid of their job, for their jobs. But let's go back to 9-11. 9-11 brought about fear of the other. Fear of terrorists. Fear of Muslims. But also a sense of impotence. A sense that we couldn't defend ourselves without crushing our own freedom and our own liberty. And again, the crushing our freedom and our own liberty is TSA and NSA. TSA and NSA. So to deal with fear, we crush liberties. Datapoint number one, 2001. Then we get to 2008. An economic crisis. A housing bubble collapses. Banks go under. And the whole American model of what is perceived wrongly, falsely as capitalism, is no longer. It's no longer the model. It's no longer the model for the US, no longer the model for the world. To save capitalism, we must abandon capitalism, George Bush told us. Paulson tells us, if you don't give me $700 billion, he tells Congress, not us, $700 billion blank checks I can do whatever I want with it, the world will end. He got us $700 billion for the bank bailouts. With a blank check. Treasury could do whatever it wanted with it. Panic, fear, and a real sense of distrust of our government, of our institutions, of our economic model, of everything about American life. People came out of 2008, 2009 fearful, fearful for their jobs, fearful for the future. And with a new story, a story that tells us that wages have stagnated, that middle class is shrinking, that the economic economy of the United States has gone nowhere in 40 years. All lies. But a story that seemed viable coming out of 0809 when supposedly capitalism has just crashed. And immediately, immediately, you get books like Thomas Piketty's Das Kapital for the 21st century. That's the title in German. And what you get is more fear. More willingness to accept constraints and restraints. And the response to the fear originally was a little bit of a positive boost. All those Reagan Republicans remembering, oh, maybe the solution is less government and more individualism and a little bit of kind of people going out into streets and they called themselves the Tea Party. And the Tea Party went out the streets proclaiming a return to the Constitution. Without any clue what the Constitution meant. It turned out that the Tea Party was mainly a rebellion against this fear, a wanting to go backwards in time to a safer, easier time. A time where you could feel safe, where everything was predictable. And it wasn't, there was no solution. There was no way out. There was no reassertion of American confidence, of American independence, of American strength, of American individualism, of American capitalism. No. There was some wishful thinking for a past that was long gone. And America voted for a candidate who at least for some people represented not to pass with the future hope, hope and change, remember hope and change. Got neither hope nor change out of President Obama. But more fear. Fear of the government taking over healthcare. Fear of a split in our country. A complete divide. A fragmentation. And then you get a presidential candidate who senses the fear, who knows the fear, and who knows how to capitalize on it brilliantly. 2016 campaign of President Trump, it was brilliant. We'll go down in history as one of the great campaigns ever. Because he sensed the mood of the country. The country was a country of fear. And what Trump did is he brilliantly channeled that fear. Yes, life sucks in America. Not mourning in America. Life sucks in America. There's devastation, there's carnage in the streets. And the reason that fear is those nasty immigrants, those Chinese, those foreigners, those other people. That's the reason. That's the cause. Your fear is justified. America's in decline. I know how to fix it. And America went for it. They voted for it. And today, and throughout this, really, there's been the fear of starting, I guess in the mid-20s, the fear of saying the wrong thing, of the academic left crushing you, of being de-platformed, of being chased out of campus, of you're saying the wrong thing, of writing the wrong thing, speaking the wrong thing, publishing the wrong thing, associating with the wrong people. And right now, right now, a friend of mine recently is lodging a new website that's going to be very, very, very anti-left. And he's in academia. And he asked me, should I do it anonymously? Or should I use my name? Why anonymously? Fear. Fear of the repercussions. John McQuother has an excellent article in The Atlantic. I think it was last week. Academics are really, really worried about their freedom. Academics are afraid. We're not talking about conservative academics. We're talking about left-of-center academics. But ones who don't share the nutty left's views, who don't share the far left. They don't share the views of critical race theory. They don't share the views of egalitarianism. They don't share the views of socialism. They don't share those views, but they're still left-of-center. I don't know. Take Steven Pinker as an example. There's just been a petition to kick him out of the Linguistics Association. Yeah, the Linguistics Society. They want to kick psychologist Steven Pinker out, because they consider his views racist and sexist. We're talking about Steven Pinker. They want to strip him of his Linguistics Society fellow status and remove him from the organization's website, listing as a linguistic consultant. Now, this is Steven Pinker. Well-known, big public intellectual, well-established academic, he has tenure. Imagine what it's like to be an assistant professor who hasn't got tenure at a university today. I mean, you don't know what to say. If you veer away a little bit from the conventional wisdom, you're out. Some professors are afraid to speak their mind. They're afraid to publish their research if it is outside of the mainstream. I mean, Glen Lowry describes how he gets hundreds of letters from academics afraid to speak. The Heterodoxy Academy conducted an internal member survey of 445 academics. Imagine expressing your views about a controversial issue while at work at times when faculty, staff, and or colleagues were present. To what extent would you worry about the following consequences? Right? My reputation would be tarnished. 32.68 are worried about their reputation being tarnished by expressing a view about a controversial issue. Again, very concerned, extremely concerned was, okay, so well over 50% were either very concerned or extremely concerned. And my career would be hurt over 50%. And of course, a big part of why you cannot speak is because people are afraid of hearing unpopular views. These kids in universities, the snowflakes, they're afraid. I mean, even minority professors, professors of color, I guess we call them. This is one professor who writes, at the moment, I'm more anxious about this problem than anything else in my career. The truth is that over the last few years, this new norm of intolerance and the cult of social justice has marginalized me more than all racism I have ever faced in my life. So we have now, and I think I described this last show, or there was an article, I can't show who's article it was, but anyway there was an article that I described last time called The New Puritanism of the Left and Applebaum, I think, and Applebaum. It's got a new puritanism of the left. And of course, that just feeds the right, fearing the left, the left fearing the right. Everybody, a lot of people, fearing immigrants, a lot of people fearing ourselves, impotence about how do we deal with all this. I mean, the fear of people speaking something that's a little out of the mainstream is so bad that some people think that what's going on in American universities reminds them of Stalinist Russia or Maoist China. Yeah, I mean maybe there is something to be afraid of. There is. Because societies that are filled with fear in all directions, some justified, some not justified, but are basically a feeling of impotence vis-à-vis that fear. Always going to look for somebody to solve their problem. Always going to look for an authoritarian to come in and save the day. They need a savior. They need a saint. They need somebody on a white horse to come in and rescue them. It could be that what's in our future is another Ronald Reagan who will flip all this and will bring us back to a sense of what it really means to be an American. But I think the far greater danger is that as we look at each other with contempt, distrust, and fear, we bash each other. We look for somebody, somebody who can calm us down, tell us everything's going to be okay, and in the meantime, take control. Of course, the latest fear is the fear of a virus. A fear of a virus. A fear that has led the authorities to shut us down. And it's not just authorities. Most people want to be shut down. And of course, a fear that has led people who are usually pro-science, usually pro-drug companies to fear the vaccine, to fear a solution, to fear their neighbors. So once again, we have, I think, three monumental events that will go down in history as shaping the kind of world, the kind of country we are going to become. I think it's 9-11. It's a financial crisis and COVID, all within a span of 20 years, all resulting in growing government in response to growing fear. The more we fear, the more we struggle with not understanding, not knowing, and with a pessimism about the future, the more we are likely to allow government to grow bigger and bigger and bigger and to take over bigger and bigger and bigger chunks of our lives. Those three events will be key. The fourth is, but those three events will be key. And it's, I don't see how we get out of it. I don't see how you get out of the spiral right now. It is an incredibly powerful spiral we are heading towards. The left gets wackier, which generates a wacky response from the right, which generates a wacky response from the left, and down and down and down the drain, we go. And the only way out is to stop and do what we're supposed to do to begin with. Use your mind and think. So, you know, it really is insanity. It's insanity on all fronts. I mean, I've talked about vaccines before and the suspicion and the fear of vaccines, which is absurd and ridiculous. The suspicion and fear of, you know, for the young people of this virus, which is absolutely ridiculous if you think about the probability of real danger. So the challenge is to reverse this. The challenge is how do we get back on track, which is best for Hank's question here, which I'll get to in a little bit. But, you know, I'll just mention, Hank, that, you know, this is what people seem to like. People like the depressing shows. They get a lot more views than the uplifting ones. And of course, this brings us to Australia, which has taken this to a nutty absurdity. Is Australia still a free country? Is there any real freedom left in Australia? I mean, Australia won't let its citizens leave. You can't leave Australia. Now, if you're concerned about not spreading the virus in Australia, why do you keep people leave? I guess you're worried about them coming back. And a lot of Australians are stranded outside of Australia and can't get back because they won't let them in. Or if they do come in, they have to go through ridiculous isolation. So, international travel from Australia, you get after your permission. You have to ask for permission to leave your country. Now, that reminds me of, I don't know, North Korea. Communist dictatorships, cities, whole states are shut down in Australia. You just can't leave your home. You can't go too far away. And this all went to the Supreme Court of Australia and they said, it may be accepted that the travel restrictions are harsh. It may also be accepted that they intrude upon individual rights. Wow, they know what individual rights are. Parliament's aware of that. They waited all in the balance and intruding on your individual rights is okay because we're in an emergency. To travel between states in Australia is severely restricted. In South Australia, one of the countries six states, they're developing an app, an app. I mean, you have to, this wouldn't even, I mean, if this was in China, everybody would be in an uproar, China social scores or whatever. But this is in Australia. This is supposedly, Cory, you can tell us, a free country. They're developing an app so that when you quarantine at home, when you travel from out of state and you come back, not out of the country, out of state, and you come back to South Australia, which is one of the states, the six states in Australia, right? You're quarantined at home. Now you'll have to download this app. The app combines facial recognition and geolocation. The state will then text you at random times and you have 15 minutes from the time you get the text from them to take a picture of your face in the location that you're supposed to be, your house, and they can tell facial recognition, the house. And if you fail, then the local police are going to come and check on you. I mean, this is worse than anything China's got. Now, this is the premiere of South Australia speaking. It says, we don't tell them how often or when. On a random basis, they have to reply within 15 minutes. I think every South Australian should feel pretty proud that we are the national pilot for the home-based quarantine app. Why use anchor bracelets when you can use facial recognition? And the politicians are proud of this. And the people will probably vote him in again. Because this is what fear does. Fear of a virus. A virus that kills very few young people. A virus that can be dealt with by, if you want to quarantine anybody, quarantine old people who are susceptible to it. If you even need to do that. In Taiwan, not that far from Australia. Well, maybe far. They managed to do it without that. In Victoria, another state in Australia. They've announced a curfew. And they've suspended parliament for key parts of the pandemic. We don't need parliament because there's an emergency. Now remember, parliament was in session during both World Wars and the Spanish flu. But now, we're so afraid of our own shadows. We're so afraid of life. We're so afraid of living. We're so afraid of dying. Part of living. Do we shut ourselves at home? Suspend the institutions of government. And shudder alone at home under the blankets. Oh my God. The virus will eat me. It's insane. In New South Wales. The police minister defended the deployment of Australian military to enforce lockdowns. Military to enforce lockdowns. He says some citizens of the state thought that the rules don't apply to them. So you got to use the military to show them who's in charge. In Sydney, where more than 5 million people live. And in Melbourne, as being in lockdown for two months. Melbourne, second largest city. It's been in lockdown for even longer than that. When people have protested, the police have gone out. They've arrested hundreds and fined many. And they use pretty violent tactics against the protesters. So when do we say a country is not free anymore? If you forbid your own citizen from leaving your borders. If you strand tens of thousands of your own citizens abroad. They can't come in. If you don't allow them to travel within the country. If you don't allow them to leave home. Or leave their city limits. If you ban protests. Arrest the centres. Can you really call the country free? And why are Australians tolerating this? Why? I mean Australians, I always thought of as rugged. Tough. You know, a crocodile of Dundee types. To survive anything. But what has happened over the last hundred years. Is we become. Afraid. We've lost our self-esteem. We've lost our sense of confidence. As a culture, the West is withered away. I mean, we overcame Nazism. We overcame communism. But a few Muslim terrorists. A financial crisis. And a virus. Wiping us out. And a big part of that is the fact that. For a hundred years. We haven't believed in anything. We don't stand for anything. Yes, we were anti-communist and anti-fascist. But what will we pro the mixed economy? We will pro. Bland. Nothingness. So behind this fear. Behind this psychological lack of self-esteem. Lack of self-confidence. Lies. Real philosophical quandary. Who are we? What do we stand for? What is the West? What are its ideals? What is Australia? What makes Australia unique? What makes America unique? What is America? Again, Tucker Carlson has told us. That America is beautiful scenery. And religion. Now who? That doesn't make any sense. How can you believe that? And if that's the case. Then nothing special about America. Everybody has beautiful scenery. And lots of places have got Iran. I'm sure has beautiful scenery. And it certainly has got. So what makes America? What makes the West? What makes Western civilization? We don't know. We have a vague sense that we were once great. We have a vague sense that there's something good about what we're doing. We have a vague sense about positives. But then whatever sense we have. Our wonderful academics on the left tell us. Oh, no, no, no, no, no. The West was founded on slavery. The West was founded on bigotry. The West was founded on just list the sins. There's nothing special about the West. And the right tells us. No, no, no. There was nothing uniting us. Maybe the color of our skin. But I think important. Oh, it's Christianity, maybe. It was smarter. We have higher IQs. So nobody, nobody out there. Nobody in our world today is actually defending what made the West great. What made America great. What made Australia great. What makes any country that embraces the values great. Nobody, nobody is defending. The values of the Enlightenment. Patrick, if you think Tucker Carlson is a decent man, you don't have a clue. Tucker Carlson is a charlatan. And he's worse than a charlatan. He is, he is deluding millions and millions of Americans about a false notion. I showed the clips of Tucker Carlson telling you that America was great because of its beauty. If you believe that, then you have no clue what America is about. So yeah, is it surprising that we're trading liberty for safety? No. We don't know what liberty is. We don't see the value in liberty. Because the value of liberty is rooted in the ideas and the principles of the Enlightenment. It's rooted in the ideas of individualism. It's rooted in the ideas of reason. Liberty doesn't come from faith. It doesn't come from God. Religious societies don't become pro-liberty. Liberty isn't rooted in the masses. It isn't rooted in the past. It isn't rooted in tradition. Liberty is rooted in ideas. In ideas of freedom. Sorry, in ideas of reason and the sanctity of the individual. So Hank, if you want the positive, the positive way of getting out of this, it's to stop supporting our enemies. It's to stop supporting the people who would destroy this country. Left and right. It's to call them out. It's to embrace the principles on which this country was founded. It's to establish and succeed in your own life so you, as an individual, have the self-esteem not to be afraid. Fear is what comes when you don't trust yourself. Fear is what comes when you don't stand up for your own values. Because you don't know what they are. And you can't justify them. And you can't stand by them. Yes, more Aristotle, less Plato, philosophically, absolutely. First and foremost in your life. Make it in your life. Stand up for yourself, for your values. Fight for your values. Fight for reality, for truth, for objectivity. Be successful. Be happy. And then stop embracing your enemies. Call them for what they are. And stand as an independent. Independent of the tribalism that exists today. Independent of the collectivism that exists today. So Bess Faghanck asks, can you cover one more virtue or positive thought that could give me and your audience something to think about and either apply or build upon in our lives? Yes, it's all about your happiness. And ultimately what that means is your self-esteem. And that means you should focus on being successful. Don't succumb to the fear of your neighbors. Don't succumb to the fear of your politicians. And here I mean, stop being afraid of immigrants, of Muslims as a category. Of the left, of the right. Stop being afraid of them. Deal with them as issues. Have the confidence to know that you can handle it. And that we as a country can handle it. And if we can't, then we are lost. Well, we're lost anyway. Edward says, Taka doesn't like big government. God, you guys only listen to what you, when you listen to people like Taka, you only hear what you want to hear. When Elizabeth Warren came out with her economic plan when she was running for president last year, Taka Carlson basically endorsed that plan. There's no big difference between Taka Carlson and Elizabeth Warren who is far to the left of Joe Biden. So don't tell me that Taka Carlson is against big government. Taka Carlson loves big government if big government achieves the goals he wants it to achieve. If the central planners are following his central plan. You all have a selective way of listening. Where you only hear what you want to hear. So stop, stop sanctioning, stop supporting the tribalists. Stand on your own two feet and embrace the principles in which this country was founded. I mean, in a sense, for America at least, I don't know about Australia, but for America at least, it should be easy because we know where we come from. We have a history. We have a history like no other country. We are the only country in the world that has history grounded on the right principles, grounded on the ideas of the Declaration of Independence and the ideas of individual rights, the ideas of individualism and respect for reason, for the human mind, for the rights of all individuals, for equality, equality before the law, more importantly, equality of rights, equality as of liberty. It should be easy. It should be easy. Ian, I said he endorsed her economic plan. Oh, I'm sorry, maybe you're not talking to me. All right, let's see some $20 questions. Let's see what do we have. I'm going to take the ones that are more... Yeah, Joe asks. It's a good question. Can you explain what exactly culture is? It is used so often in a trouble way. When I hear it in any legitimate use, it has... it is vague to me. Should we focus on the culture or would it solve itself if we just focused on ourselves? There's a sense in which... I'll talk about what culture is in a second, but there's a sense in which all you really should be doing is focusing on yourself. Part of focusing on yourself, part of focusing on yourself is letting people know around you the ideas that shape you, right? And that's how you have a positive impact on the people around you, and in that sense you have a positive impact on the culture. Now, a culture is used, and I think, two different ways. Culture is... broadly should be, right? The way I'm grand-used it is the achievements of a particular people, a particular region, a particular nation, the people in that nation, the achievements of those people. That would be what their culture is. It's what have they achieved. It's like you don't consider the culture of the United States, the homeless people, right? The culture of the United States is associated with the achievements of Americans, the business achievements. I think the strongest feature of American culture is its positive attitude towards business, towards making money, towards success in business. Today, technology is a huge part of American culture. That ambition, that drive, entrepreneurship, that's what American culture is more than anything else. It's the achievements. Some people, some cultures, their greatest achievement is their food. They just don't have many achievements. Their culture doesn't achieve much, and in that sense they don't have much of a culture. And there's certain aspects of American culture that are wanting. We don't have great artists, for example. The culture of a place like Italy is much more associated with opera in a certain emotionalism that is expressed in their art. So culture is the kind of sum of achievements of the people within that place, right? But culture can also mean the behavior patterns of the people in a place. The ideas, the self-esteem that permeate the place. Certainly part of American culture in that sense is used to be that sense of don't mess with me, don't tread on me, leave me alone, let me live my life, that individualism. And that is an achievement of the United States. That is part of American culture, that sense of individualism, at least it used to be. We have Hollywood. I don't know how much you can attribute art to Hollywood, but entertainment certainly. Some art, lots of entertainment. So the way you change your culture in a sense of the attitudes, the sense of life, the values that people have is with ideas. Philosophy changes a culture. Art has an immense impact on a culture because it concretizes ideas for the culture. So art both reflects the philosophy of a culture, but it also helps shape the philosophy of a culture. So yes, focus on yourself is the best thing. Be successful. But if you care about the world in which you live, and you should, then part of taking care of yourself is to provide the kind of values or the kind of education or the kind of arguments to your neighbors that they should take care of themselves too. That they should care about the world in which they live too. And this is the way to do it, right? A particular way to do it. So you should focus on more than just yourself because we're running out of time, and you've got to multiply yourself. And one of the ways you multiply yourself is by getting your neighbors to have similar attitudes to yours. When countries like the UK and Australia built a pseudo-religion about supplying universal health coverage as its highest moral ideal, it's no wonder that they become near despots in a pandemic like this one, no? Yeah, that's a really good point. I don't know about Australia in healthcare, so I can't really comment about Australia in that sense. But certainly the UK has built an entire... The UK has built an entire religion around the National Health Service. And even though it is a massive failure, it's even not very good as socialist medicine comes. The NHS is even... It's not very good as compared to, for example, socialized medicine in mainland Europe, which the British hate to hear, but it ranks very low on almost everything. They worship it, and therefore to sacrifice your liberty for the sake of the NHS, that's fine. If the NHS has burdened, well, you know, we should all just stay home. Let's not think about fixing the NHS. Let's think about limiting our own freedoms. The NHS doesn't suffer. So yes, I think that's absolutely right that as we've made these health services godlike, and therefore worthy of our sacrifice, then it's no surprise that when we are asked to sacrifice, we so willingly do so. All right. Corey from Australia, you know, puts in, I don't know how much, 79 Australians, 80 Australian dollars is probably about 50 bucks. Some Australians... Thank you, Corey. That's very generous. Some Australians object to these travel restrictions on the basis of human rights. And I had police officers responded on national television was it's not human rights to harm others. This is the shallow intellectual level of authority figures. Now, there's a sense of which he's right, but he is distorting it, of course. You don't have a human right to hurt others. And that's why if you're carrying the virus, if you're infected, if you test positive, you shouldn't be allowed to travel. Just having a probability, a chance. Maybe you're not. Maybe you're going to hurt others. Or if you're not vaccinated, there's a chance that you're going to hurt others. That is not objective. That is not a reason to limit your freedom. So I am fine with saying if you test positive, if we can prove that you are carrying the virus, you can't travel. You can't do XYZ. That's fine. You know, you should be quarantined. That's the only job of government. But you can't quarantine the innocent. You can't quarantine people who don't carry the virus. If I test negative, I should be completely free. And if I don't test, burden of proof is on you. Yeah, you can test my temperature from afar. If I don't have a fever, you got no reason to stop me. But remember, we gave up on that. We gave up on the burden of proof with the TSA. You don't have to have any characteristics of a potential terrorist for you to strip surgery. I don't have any characteristics of a potential terrorist for you to pat me down. I mean, I've seen eight-year-old blonde little girls being patted down because they might be suicide bombers. Once you accept that, you can accept lockdowns. It's just a question of can they scare you enough? You can objectively define a probability, but a probability is not reason to violate your rights. The only reason in which your rights are restricted is certainty. You're innocent until proven guilty. Or there has to be probable cause. There has to be probable cause. So, yes, people are arrested before they've been proven guilty. But they can only be arrested if they're probable cause. And if there's no probable cause, you can't stop them. You can't stop them getting on a flight. You can't stop them leaving their state. I mean, Australia's gone freaking crazy. But so is the US, so is New Zealand, so is France. So did the UK for a long time. It seems to have founded sanity more recently. Corey says, I agree with you, but my point was he was implying that the risk or probability is grounds of violating rights. Yes, that's right. I think that's what I said, Corey. Guilty until proven innocent, in other words, yes. That's exactly what he was saying. And that's exactly what every travel ban out there is saying. When Americans ban Europeans from coming in, when Americans ban Chinese from coming in, when Americans are not allowed into certain countries, when people are not allowed to leave their homes. That is absolutely the point of he is saying, and this is all these governments are assuming, all these governments are assuming that you are guilty and they don't even give you a chance to prove you're innocent. Like, if you appear to want to come to the US, you can't even show up at the airport with a negative PCR test and say, hey, I'm innocent. Doesn't help. I'm vaccinated. Doesn't help. You're not allowed in. Not allowed in. But again, in a TSA line, you're guilty until proven innocent. You're carrying a bomb until we see you don't have a bomb. I mean, no people of self-esteem would tolerate a TSA. No people of self-esteem would tolerate a lockdown, particularly not an indefinite one. No people of self-esteem would tolerate the government imposing itself in such a way as it has since 2001 on us in so many different ways, in so many different contexts. It just doesn't stop. And no people of self-esteem would say, oh my God, I'm afraid of a vaccine. It's a scam. I mean, the lack of self-esteem is everywhere on all sides, all sides. No people of self-esteem would say, don't say that. I can't handle that. Even if it's wrong, I just can't handle hearing it. I'll melt. It's just a crazy world we live in. All right, let's see. Here's another $20 question. In Anthem, equality wonders how men who had the word I could give it up and submit themselves to the world that they created. I guess we can say now that Australia is part of the answer. Yes, it is. And it's really, if we want to take a real-life example, this is going to be controversial, but what the hell? It's always been bewildering and hard to understand, hard to contemplate. How countries that seem normal suddenly descend into authoritarianism. Thank you, Corey, I appreciate it. How countries that seem normal, Germany in the 1920s, yeah, there was hyperinflation, there was a lot of problems, but they were normal people, civilized people, heights of civilization. How do people like that descend into authoritarianism so quickly? How do they accept a furor without a whimper? And you can see it. You can see it in the last 20 years. You can really see it how it slowly creeping in, how slowly people's independence is going away, how slowly people stop thinking for themselves. They associate with the tribe. Left or right, it's a tribe, and they'll defend the tribe to the death. They're man. How slowly they can be locked down and, oh, yeah, there's a virus, there are immigrants, there are Chinese, whatever, and the fear just overwhelms. And people who used to be pro-free trade, oh, my God, no, not anymore, you can't do that. People who used to be pro-immigration, oh, my God, but it's Mexicans. The fear just shuts down their rational thinking. And it's on topic after topic after topic, and the virus has just brought it all out. And now we're literally willing to be locked up in our homes. Locked up in our homes. Not because we chose the wrong leader, but because we've given up on liberty, we've given up on freedom, and we're willing to exchange liberty and freedom for safety. And we'll get neither, of course. Corey said that Australia actually begins its constitution by reference to Almighty God. God help us. God help us, indeed. So, yeah, Anthem is an extreme example, in a sense, right? But that is, you can see authoritarianism on the rise all over the world, as it has been for decades, and you can see the pattern, and the pattern always involved making people very, very afraid of each other, often, of each other, and waiting for somebody to unite and to bring safety, to bring comfort, usually in the guise of some form of patriotism, or some form of great other, worldly value, or mission, or goal, something beyond yourself, right? Fight for something beyond yourself, you are told, by the collectivists. As soon as they say beyond yourself, run for the hills. Run for the hills. Because that's when the word I disappears, because the word I is me, myself. They want you to go beyond that, to where? To oblivion. Ali writes, I really enjoyed your podcast with Lex. Are you going to appear in Joe Rogan podcast anytime soon? I wish, if Joe invites me, I'll go anywhere, anytime, I'll do it. Joe, if you're out there listening, happy to come on your show. I've never been invited, I've contacted, Joe Rogan actually follows me on Twitter, used to, still does, I think. And he, but he won't respond to when I email him, or when I send him stuff, and encourage him to have me on the show. Said nothing's come of it, so, who knows? We'll see. We'll see, maybe one day. I'll break through by being on Joe Rogan's show. Joe would cry. What would he cry of? I wouldn't make him cry, I promise. Joe on the chat invites me, but I want to go on Joe Rogan, not on your Joe, Joe's, whatever. In Star Trek, George Lucas has been Kenobi, tell Luke, your eyes can deceive you, don't trust them, stretch out with your finger, feelings. Please comment. Yeah, I mean, Star Wars is not a good movie, not good philosophy, nothing really good about Star Wars. I mean, it's got some heroes and some good action scenes, if you lived in the 70s, if you haven't seen modern special effects. But I am not a big fan of Star Wars. I don't get the story. And it's, yeah, your eyes can deceive you, yeah, your eyes can deceive you. Don't trust them. What should you trust? Not your reason. Ultimately, you have to trust your senses, because that's all you got. Your eyes are all you got. Stretch out with your feelings. Your feelings are the things you should distrust the most. Certainly more than your eyes and your reason. You've got to connect with the force, Iran. You've got to connect with the force. Yeah, that's mysticism. So look, philosophically, Star Wars is a mess, and that's not the point of Star Wars. The point of Star Wars is to be a fun action adventure, and that it is up to a point. It's not my favorite series. I don't hate it, but it's not my favorite. Star Trek is a lot better. Frank, no, Bjorn, isn't a distrust of this authoritarian government a white pill? Yeah, I mean, we should distrust our government. I don't know what you mean by this authoritarian government, as compared to which authoritarian government? To Trump's authoritarian government? Should we have trusted that one? I don't think we should trust our government. I don't think we should trust the government. This is the sense in which you guys think I'm probably business. I trust business a lot more than I trust government. I trust entrepreneurs much more than I trust government. Even big business, I trust more than I trust government. But I don't trust government agencies. I don't trust politicians. I don't trust the government bureaucrats. I don't trust the FDA. I didn't take the vaccine because the FDA gave it emergency approval or permanent approval. As I said in my vaccine rant, we should probably make that a separate video. As I said in my vaccine rant, I trust the vaccine because scientists at private companies made them and made the discoveries necessary for them, implemented them. I trust Pfizer, what's the German company? I always forget the name of the German company and Moderna. I don't trust the FDA. FDA is way too cautious. Way too cautious. Talked about this, the vaccine should have been available in June of last year, not in November or December. James asked, what do you think about Martin Burin and Grover Cleveland? Have you ever read Meditations by Marcus Aurelius? Who from history did you learn the most? Grover Cleveland might be one of the best presidents ever. I don't know much about Martin Burin, but Grover Cleveland I've read a little bit about and he was definitely a limited government vetoed mobiles I think than any other president. So somebody I respect, Larry Reid, I think considers Grover Cleveland the best president ever. He's certainly one of the best, whether he's the best or not, is BioNTech. Thanks, Rob. BioNTech's the other biotech company. So I'm a big Grover Cleveland fan, much better than Coolidge even. Late 19th century, of course. Have I ever heard Meditations by Marcus Aurelius? No. Who from history did you learn the most? What depends on what you mean by history? I mean, Aristotle, whether reading him directly or mostly through people who interpret him. All the Enlightenment thinkers, people like Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo, scientists, and Ayn Rand. Those are the people I learned the most from. Best friend Hank, why are people who descend from immigrants scared of new ones to America? Because we're comfortable in America? Because while our forefathers who were the immigrants took on a lot of risk to come to America, we've abandoned risk-taking. We lack the self-esteem for risk-taking. We're stuck. We're stagnant. Immigrants change things. Immigrants bring in new food, new languages. They bring in entrepreneurs, ideas, better ways of doing things. Cheap labor, take away our jobs, our jobs. Immigrants change things. And if you're a French porch conservative, you don't want change. And if you're a union-loving leftist, you don't want change. That's why the unions and the conservatives hate immigration. They don't want immigration because they don't want change. They're afraid of change. So that's why they're scared of new Americans. Best friend Hank, thanks. You've been very generous today. Thank you for speaking the truth, Iran. Thank you for sharing with your audience those things that can make us all healthier and freer individuals if we apply them honestly and objectively. I'd like to see the chat light up with thank you from those who agree. Well, thank you, Best Friend Hank. I really appreciate that. And Ali is very happy because she's made her goal. Jennifer says, Captain Cook gave a great speech once about the mission of the ship being to explore the unknown and unabashed. Yeah, I mean, Star Trek, certainly the original series, maybe next generation also, had this unabashed sense of adventure, seeking new worlds, going places where nobody else is gone, fearlessness, self-esteem. You know, it's one spaceship, going into space. Who knows what kind of civilizations, what kind of enemies, what kind of evil they will discover out there. And not caring, just thriving and loving the adventure of it. The curiosity. I was going to do a Iran rules for living, rules for life, Iran rules for life on curiosity. And maybe that'll be my next show. But think about the curiosity of the great adventures of the great explorers of the 16th, 17th century, 15th century. Think about how that's captured in Star Trek. I mean, would a Star Trek like show be successful today? Not just a drama on a spaceship, but a spaceship that's focused on going out there, discovering new planets, taking on risks, being adventurous for the sake of being adventurous. Stunning. I mean, that was still the 60s and 70s. And I don't know if it's still around today. I don't know. We now have superheroes who defend planet Earth from, I don't know, what, from villains from outer space. But there's no us going out there, seeing the world, believing that we will survive. We will succeed. I mean, you get glimpses of it. One of the reasons I am willing to be positive about Elon Musk is that he gives off that sense of adventure, of we can do anything, of we can be successful. Yes, he's too much of a crony and he gets too much money for the government and all that. Yes, but at the same time, he had a great tweet yesterday or the day before yesterday, a few days ago. He was talking about putting up these satellites up into space and beaming that they will provide internet connectivity to the whole world. And somebody wrote in response, yeah, but what about the regulators? What are the regulators going to do in these countries? I mean, how will they control the internet if you're beaming that down for space? And Elon Musk said, I mean, this is brilliant, right? This is why I like the guy in spite of everything, in spite of all the irrationality, the craziness, the cronyism and everything. He said they'll shake their fists at the satellite. And that's perfect. That's what barbarians do when they see a plane. They shake their fists at it. I mean, what are they going to do? They shoot the arrows. What are the regulators going to do? They're going to shake their fists at it. That attitude, let them shake their fists. That attitude is what made America. That attitude as well, get us out of the mess we're in. And even though he doesn't live up to that attitude completely, I have immense amount of respect for Elon Musk and developed over the years respect for Elon Musk because of that attitude. So, yeah, it's not giving a damn about what the conventional wisdom, the authorities, the people in charge, the people who want to tell you what and how to do things think. Yeah, if they want to give me money, I'll take it. But I'm not going to suck up to them. At least that's the aura he gives off, even though we know to some extent does suck up to them. Let's see. Jennifer, oh yeah, we did Jennifer. We did the Captain Cook question. Theemaster, why is it common for a person to get angry when they see someone wearing the same clothes as them? Someone, someone in particular that you know? I never get angry when I see people wearing the same clothes as me. It doesn't bother, mainly because I don't see it because I don't have their observation capabilities and I don't particularly focus on people's clothes, particularly men's clothes. I think because they feel like they're infringing on their individuality, a lot of people place a lot of stock on the way they dress as expressing their individuality. So the dress, the coat, the jacket, the tie expresses who I am. Now, I for one never got that. I don't understand it, but that doesn't mean it's irrational. It just means I don't get it. And when somebody else is wearing exactly the same thing as you, then it feels like, wait a minute, maybe I'm not, maybe why are they expressing me? Or maybe it's undermining my individuality in some way. I'm not big on fashion. I just don't get fashion. I don't understand it. I like comfort. That is comfort and basic symmetry, right? Basic look, but if I dress nice, it's primarily because of my wife's fashion sense, not mine. So I have no sense. But right now, I'm in shorts and barefoot, right? And that's how I live my life. And I wear a nice collared short sleeve shirt for all of you because I'm online. Landon says a lawn is a mixed bag, but so is Raiden. Yeah, I mean, that's right. In different ways. Raiden would never be a mixed bag in the same way a lawn was. But yes, people are mixed. I mean, everybody's a mixed bag. In the world we live in, almost everybody's a mixed bag. Certainly entrepreneurs, the great industrialist. I mean, Zuckerberg's certainly a mixed bag. Even Steve Jobs, as much as I admire him, of all of them, I admire him the most, in certain respects, was a mixed bag and gates and all of them. But yes, you've got to admire the good things about a lawn musk. All right, we're down to the last three questions. James asks, you said a few years ago, Brazil had potential. Do you see the same potential of Brazil now? How do you evaluate a country for future potential? It appears no country is economic and personal freedom. No, no country is economic or personal freedom. That's absolutely right. Some small countries have more, but no country is on the right track even towards greater and greater economic freedom. I don't see it. Every country that was on the right track like Chile or even Georgia seems to have done a U-turn and heading in the opposite direction. I just spoke in Brazil by Zoom, of course, yesterday, and I'm still positive about Brazil, not because of politics. I mean, Bolsonaro is a disaster. The only bigger disaster for Brazil is Lula, right? That would be like Trump versus... But somebody worse than Trump, somebody even more wacky than Trump, versus who would be Lula? Worse than Bernie Sanders, right? Bernie Sanders would be good relative to Lula. So politically, Brazil is a complete basket case. But what I find inspiring about Brazil is the number of people interested in ideas, the number of people interested in debating philosophy, the number of people familiar with free markets, ideologies, primarily the number of people familiar with Ayn Rand. There are these networks of young business people all over Brazil. I spoke for one yesterday who, as part of the network, require reading the Fountainhead or Atlas Shrugged. It's part of the curriculum, if you will. They are very friendly towards Ayn Rand and very inspired by her. And I think in that sense, they were... Brazil has the, what do you call it, infrastructure, the intellectual infrastructure, at least among young business people, to really bring about cultural change and to move the country in a better direction. So we will see. And we will see if that manifests itself in anything. But right now, Brazil is a complete basket case. Bolsonaro has been a disaster. Some economic liberalization would know when you're enough or know when you're as much as one would have expected, given the people he brought in. But obviously, it turns out they couldn't do as much as we would have expected and would have wanted them to do because of the politics. And because Bolsonaro is not a real capitalist. The people who brought in a capitalist, profi market, he was not, so he could never get passed. All right, demon, demon. I feel like you have a misconception of ISD brought on by people like Sam Harris. Misconception of ISD, what's ISD? I think you have a misconception of ISD brought on by people like Sam Harris. Contrary to Sam, I find it helping people embrace the individuality and help take deep looks into oneself, almost like observing life through a different lens. Look, I... You got to capitalize ISD for me to understand what the hell you're talking about. Sorry, demon. Look, it is quite possible that in certain circumstances, ISD can help you be less repressed, help you unblock certain things. You know, it's clear that chemicals have an impact on our brain. Anti-depressants work. Anti-systrophania drugs work. ISD is another drug. It has impact on our brain. Exactly what the impacts are. Exactly how positive they are. I don't know. That is for science to determine. As a non-scientist, I have no position about it. Right? Right? So, it's... I said, I think yesterday, or when the last show, Sunday show, I said that one of the great tragedies of the war on drugs was that the research that was being done about ISD and other psychedelics in terms of their potential benefits was hampered, stopped, because of the war on drugs. So, we're about 40 years behind where we should be. Well, not 40 years, 50 years behind where we should be. In terms of the impact drugs really have on our lives and on ourselves. Now, I've never taken ISD, and I have no interest in taking ISD. I know who I am. I know what I am. You know, I don't see it providing with a benefit in that respect. And I'm afraid, I am afraid in the sense, of putting a chemical in me that has an impact on my brain that we don't fully understand. I value my brain too much. I value my mind too much. It's not the experience on the ISD that worries me. It's what is it doing to the mechanics? You know, maybe 20, 30, 40 years from now, if there's a deep understanding of what's going on and there are clear benefits, I don't object on principle. It's more that you can lose control, but you can create a safe environment in which losing control is not a problem or not a safety issue. But I just don't know what happens to the brain and what kind of permanent effects it has on it. I just don't know. So my point is that Sam Harris abuses his ISD experiences to justify the non-existence of free will and the non-existence of an eye, of a self. He uses ISD as an excuse for his intrinsic mystical philosophy. He's a mystic after all. So that's my view of ISD and it's not much of a view because it's not much of a topic for me. I'm waiting for the science to catch up with everything else. My point has always been that Sam is just misusing it as a guy and he knows most of us don't take ISD so we can't argue with him about the trips we had, but then it just becomes subjectivism. My trip, I saw this, your trip, you saw that. What's real reality? Which one of those? Well, neither. Sam is a rational dude up to a point. But if you deny free will, it's tough to be rational. All right, we've got one more $20 question. Let's see, David. The Texas abortion law by granting the power to sue abortion provided provided by groups who have no actual interest in the pregnancy is the most immoral thing I've seen in the era of COVID immoral dictatorial fiat rule. Please comment. I said so over the last three to four shows. It's disgusting. It's a complete rejection of the rule of law. If you don't have standing, how can you sue? If you make this a standard in our legal system, I can sue anybody over anything, whether it affects me or not, just because I don't like it. It is truly bizarre. I really think the Supreme Court's going to overrule it, but who knows, given the Supreme Court? It's that part of the law is more bizarre, more offensive, more authoritarian than the actual ban on abortion. So, yes, I think the Texas law is one of the most irrational laws ever to be passed in the United States. In the last hundred years, I don't want to go beyond that because I don't know. It's completely nuts. And this part about suing without standing, God help us. God help us. I mean, God help us from abortion bans as well. It's very difficult to be the optimist that best friend Hank wants me to be. And talking about best friend Hank, he asks, in the Garden of Eden, were there mosquitoes? Yes, of course. All of God's creatures are good. The difference is that in the Garden of Eden, when a mosquito sucked your blood, it didn't itch and it didn't hurt and it was all done with love. And you didn't kill the mosquito. And that's the kind of world so many of the people out there would like. You don't have to do anything. And you just, food is just there. No effort. No killing mosquitoes. No challenges. No values. Just a state of, is it LSD or weed or, I don't know what it is. Just some kind of drug that just allows you to float. No responsibilities. No values. No happiness. But no pain and suffering either. All right. Harold Gray asks, some Aussie dollars for your own. Thank you. I wish you could appear on our public funded TV network with this message. I wish I could too. Aussie would be shocked to hear it. It's, I mean, it's really stunning to me to hear all that because I always thought of Aussie as tough, independent people. Action Jackson. Whoa, you're here. If you saw me wearing the same clothes as you, would you be mad? Yeah. But that's only because it's you. But you assume you, I know what clothes I'm wearing. It's powers of observation that are generally beyond me. Corey asks, the only mixed bags I like are mixed bags of lollies. You mean lollipops. I like mixed bags of nuts, unsalted and premium nuts. No peanuts. I hate peanuts. No peanuts. Andrew asks, you triggered pure collectivism and Jesse Lee Peterson asked you if you love white people, black people, et cetera. If you don't love all, you love none. He's, yeah. And yeah, Jesse Lee Pearson is a complete and utter weirdo. Bizarre. All right. Finally, we've got Landon's question. I disagree with you, Iran. Oh my God. You can't do that, Landon. You disagree with me. How dare you? I have to Ocon. Yeah. Thanks for coming to Ocon. It was really nice meeting you there. I think the best thing people can do to improve our future is support ROI and attend Ocon 2022. Well, okay. The best thing you can do to change the world, support the future, increase your happiness, increase your capacity to pursue values, increase the energy with which you pursue values, is one, attend Ocon 2022 in Washington, D.C. in over the first of July weekend next year. Two, support ROI and its mission so that it can actively change the world. Three, support the Iran book show. And of course you can do that since we're at the end of the show now. By Super Chat, we've reached our goal. We've reached $600, but over $700. But we can get to $800 in the last few minutes of the show so you can do that. You can support the show through Super Chat. You can do that every live show. You can even do it non-live. There's such a thing as applause for non-live shows. And you can click on the applause button and make a contribution right there on YouTube. It makes it possible for you. Second, you can go on www.uranbookshow.com slash support. You can go on Patreon. You can go on Subscribestar. You can make a contribution to Iran Book Show there also on locals. Yeah, I mean, at the end of the day, what will change the world are intellectuals. The Android Institute is dedicated to training those intellectuals, giving them the tools to go out there and help change the world. One of those intellectuals is me. I was given those tools by the Android Institute years and years and years ago. You're listening to the show. Hopefully that means it's a value to you. If it's a value to you, express that value by supporting the show, by supporting the Android Institute, so we can have 1,000 Iran's, not exactly like me, different than me in all kinds of fields, doing all kinds of work, but basically promoting the ideas of reason and individualism in the world out there so that ultimately we can change the world. Ian says he gives a right to X of what he gives me every month. That's great. That's great. So thanks everybody. Thank you for all the superchatters. Thank you for all the supporters. Thanks for everybody who supports the show. Those of you who listen, who don't support the show, you know who you are. You should consider it. You're getting a value. You're obviously getting a value because you're listening. There's a way to express the value for value part of this by going on and supporting on uranbrookshow.com. I will be back on on Thursday. In the meantime, have great productive, successful week. JJ Zbiz asks, do you buy your shirts from Charles Triwiff? No, I don't. They look their clothes. Very good company, by the way. No, I don't. This shirt is, I can't remember. I think I bought most of my clothes at some point in Nordstrom, but I don't buy clothes very often. As you notice, I kind of repeat the same shirts over and over again because of that. Tessa, thank you. Really appreciate the support. All right, guys. Have a great night. See you on Thursday. Bye, everybody.