 Okay, happy Saturday everybody hopefully you're all doing well. This is this is the Iran book show and We are this is a living living objectivism episode and we're talking today About well, we're gonna talk about a bunch of different things and I'd really like to take your question today with with blog talk radio actually working you can call in today on on On the blog talk radio Line it's 347 324 3075 so 347 324 3075 I see people are joining us from from on Facebook. That's good So we've got Facebook going. Hopefully we'll get YouTube going here in a second and people will be able to join over there as well and And So I encourage you to today to ask questions now don't just start filling the streams with questions, you know the The streams of the chat sections because I can't keep track of that so wait until I ask you to ask questions and then ask them on those on those chat facilities But oh my god, Jonathan honing just reminded me it's young people today And I'm doing the show. Wow, that is about a sacrilegious as it can be Jonathan So he asked me am I fasting today and of course being the good the good Jew that I am I completely forgot it was young people today and No, I'm not fasting. I haven't fasted on young people since I don't know since my teenage years at some point in my teenage years. I decided That appeasing my parents was not a good enough reason to suffer through Fasting, you know, the Jews fast when they when the Jews fast they fast they take this seriously They not only do not eat for 24 hours They don't drink no water. You're not allowed to brush your teeth. You go to synagogue. Everybody stinks And and it's it's of course the best part of Yom Kippur is the meal at the end of Yom Kippur Where everybody just just just you know, you just eat and eat and eat and there's tons of food but You know now and now the left has its or not the left But a lot of people a lot of the kind of the healthy crowd have the equivalent of Yom Kippur where Were you fast what is it called cleansing it's called cleansing is supposed to fast and not drink and not eat anything And it's supposed to be good for you. No, it's not eating is good for you drinking is good for you So Anyway, no no no fasting for me No fasting for cleansing no fasting for Certainly not for religious or tribal reasons. We'll talk a little bit more about tribalism Later, but no, I'm off the fasting the fasting thing. So But thank you Jonathan for reminding me that the today is is Yom Kippur and You know, I remember I mean this tells you everything you need to know about religion. So On Yom Kippur, you know, you you spend you spend a lot of time in synagogue At least I did when I was a teenager. I would go with my grandfather who was quite religious I didn't believe anything, but I but I went again to it to appease and For a big chunk of the ceremony of the of the praying There's there's a number of times during the day Well, what you do is is you basically admit to all your sins and you admit to the extent to which you are fundamentally inherently a basically a sinner and And you kind of you kind of hit your heart and is it, you know, I Sins I did this I did this I'm a you know, I'm a bad person and Please forgive me God the whole point of Yom Kippur the whole point of of This holiest of Jewish days is to admit to all your sins and to ask for forgiveness from God and to purify yourself through fasting To purify yourself to export all the sins right to to be reborn as a as a good person It's it's it's there's an element of original sin Not quite because in Judaism you can actually ask forgiveness and and and to some extent, you know You're not you're not inherently evil, but Yom Kippur is in that sense. I think quite a Christian holiday for Jews it's it's a It really is there's this assumption of a sinful human being of the inherent inherent Sinfulness of man kind the imperfection of man and in many regards, I consider Yom Kippur maybe the most Christian of all holidays and You know, it's really it's really interesting. I I hated it. I hated the fasting. I hated the synagogue. I hated the whole the whole idea of You know man or me more accurately as as inherently as inherently a sinner and rejected the whole thing so You know, so I haven't fasted in a long long long time so and we'll never do it again Don't worry, you know, maybe if you can convince me as a kind of what is it as the as the cleansing Cleansing thing, you know, maybe maybe then it makes sense. I don't know All right, so Thank you all for being with me on on this Saturday I'm in New York City as As a title this doing doing everything from my laptop. I think I figured out some of the problems we've had in the past I think it's basically a lack of memory on my laptop And lack of processing power. I really do think that we're you know I'm gonna have to upgrade my laptop in order to really effectively do this from the road To a to a power Mac which has 16 gigabytes of memory and and a little bit more oomph in its processing power We are you know doing a lot. I'm asking the software to do a lot manage the chats You know a stream both on blog talk in on Facebook YouTube and periscope and I just think that my computer right now Is it's just not up to it so? So unfortunately, that's where we are and but I do expect that that we will upgrade upgrade these capabilities and and Make it possible for us to to do this in the future more effectively with less problems as we move around the world anyway, that's That is that is in our future. So I'm in New York At the end of this long European trip. This is my eighth country on this trip. I started out in London almost a month ago. I think some of you saw my talk. It's hard to believe It's it's the same trip that I I met Saragon of Alcott, I think that's right. I'll where I talk about socialism in London. I haven't been home since then and You know right now Since then I've been to seven countries that was London Tbilisi Baku Paris Geneva Copenhagen Kiev and now New York. So You know fabulous trip a lot of interesting people a lot of talks a lot of presentations a Lot of exposure a lot of again, you know more More interaction kind of with Europeans with Eastern Europe in particular Tbilisi Kiev Fascinating in particular But you know, we've talked about a lot of that New York It on Wednesday this week I did a debate at Yale the video of the debate is up online. I had a good opponent I have to say I mean I thought I thought he was a smart He made a good as good of a case as you can for his position I think he was challenging because he does what the best of the opponents do they bring out a lot of data They tell hit they they make up history and they tell so you have to You have to challenge them on so many dimensions that it becomes very very very difficult so You know, so I think I covered you to watch it watch what he does. I think you've learned a lot about The state of kind of leftist academia From what he does the kind of the quality of their thinking or lack of it, but he was good I mean, I don't I think it was it was hard for me It was not it was not easy some some of these debates are easy because the opponent stands for nothing says nothing means nothing Represents nothing this guy actually had a point of view. He actually had Data he had a narrative about history that was wrong, but a narrative about history. I had to spend a lot of time kind of cool, you know Debating him on history, which which is time-consuming for me and and it's good for him Right because then then it's my facts versus his facts go figure out who's right. Yeah, he wins that I think he is at an advantage in that kind of situation because Most of these kids know nothing about history know nothing about the facts of the world and he's an accomplished academic He's a law professor. He's got a PhD in philosophy from Oxford University You know and they're more likely to believe him than me. So I You know again, I think you should watch it. Keep an open mind I know that the tendency is to say oh you're on just crushed him because you agree with me So it seems like a crushed him, but you've got to approach this objectively if you were a Student who has mostly heard the other guy's story What would you think not knowing? Everything that you know, but what would a neutral student think that that's the perspective you have it taken it's hard You know, it's hard. So I think I think it was as good as they come right as good of an opponent as I've had I thought he was I still see it up. I still thought I crushed him. I still thought I beat him I still thought any objective observer would see is that that the truth and justice and Was on my side, but Again, he was about as good as it gets All right, so I encourage you to go watch that video. I think it's I think it's up. They'll be a Snazzy really well edited Video of the same thing of the debate put up over time The Federalist Society put on the debate at Yale. It was a beautifully run event The well attended there was a large audience. It was a beautifully filmed. They had three cameras The I think the live stream went off well, but they've got footage from three cameras. They're gonna edit it re-edit it now And be able to present what I think is a is a really powerful debate So look for the kind of edited version of the debate coming in the weeks to come so You know thank you to the Federalist Society they did a great job This was one of the highlight events for the year They they've spent a lot of money on this by the way the next event that the Federalist Society is a really highlighting and putting a Lot of effort and money and resources into highlighting is an event by Tara Smith at the University of Chicago Law School It's gonna be a discussion a talk that she gives on free speech So we'll look for that coming up. It'll be it'll be live-streamed and then again, it'll be edited professionally presented as a professional video, so I think you know I encourage you all to to Watch it when it becomes available. So it's a kind of focus on that and be attentive to to that coming Down the roads and down the road. All right Let's see. I've got a question here. Let me take the question and then I'll I'll get back to some of the topics I wanted to discuss This is from Ronald Williams on on Facebook. He asked I would like to know why you dislike alone Musk so much Is he wrong for taking government subsidies versus letting his competitors take them playing the game? He was born into he is on record asking the government to remove the subsidies Well, I don't know about this. He's on record asking the government to remove the subsidies I haven't seen that I'd like to see it But the fact is that since PayPal Elon Musk is only started businesses that rely exclusively on government subsidies on government projects and government involvement There's a lot he could do in the fields in in in the in technology that does not rely on government subsidies But he has chosen explicitly To focus on those realms that rely on those subsidies whether it's solar panels With I think it's solar city whether it's electric cars with Tesla where he gets massive subsidies you I mean Because he gets massive massive subsidies primarily from the state of California Because of the co2 mitigation that supposedly he provides so the utilities pay him kind of as a as a to be as a mitigation for for their the cost of their carbon And of course SpaceX which relies on NASA now SpaceX I find the least objectionable of what he does because SpaceX is somewhat admirable because in SpaceX he's got a 30-year plan to colonize Mars. He realizes the only way to get there The is by In the short run Working for NASA but not just for NASA also putting private satellites into space and so on But he's working for whatever customers he have Tesla and solar city are not the same There it's not that the government is the customer the government is the subsidizer Tesla is an illegitimate project. There is no legitimacy to electric cars. They are completely Uneconomical they make absolutely no sense They are an inferior technology to everything we have around us It is still an inferior technology Tesla is still an inferior car And the only thing that makes it viable that makes Tesla viable is the heavy heavy subsidies That he gets and the same thing with solar panels. I'm a huge fan of solar energy. I wish solar energy would take off I remember doing my in high school Kind of my senior project I can't remember for what course it was on Solar energy and solar panels and I went to interview scientists and I thought it was really cool It wouldn't be amazing if you could harness the Sun and get the energy from the Sun and in those days that this is 1978 79 the scientists told me oh We're just years from a breakthrough any day now We're gonna have this massive breakthrough and it's gonna become this massive source of energy And of course here we are 40 years later and there has been no breakthrough and it's still unbelievably expensive It's inefficient. It's unproductive. It requires battery storage, which is inefficient unproductive Incredibly expensive and the only reason it is even on the table. The only is because of Mandates by the government to switch the alternative energy, but not nuclear or What do you call it from dams? Whatever right and It has to be solar. It has to be wind. These are unbelievably inefficient unproductive sources of energy and yet We have them and Elon Musk goes into that knowing that he makes it marginally more efficient, but marginally more efficient is still unbelievably Unproductive and inefficient as compared to any other side is compared to fossil fuels. So I encourage you to to eat You know them all defense of fossil fuels by My good friend Alex Epstein, so I encourage you to to do that. So yeah, so Elon Musk has chosen chosen to pursue industries and projects That are explicitly can only exist Because of government subsidies now I would have forgiven him a SpaceX because I think SpaceX is unique and I and I do Look and I admire Elon Musk at the same time. So I have a very much I love hate relationship not that I have a relationship with Elon Musk. I don't you know, I've never met him I doubt he knows who I am. He might know who I am but But it's it's because He is a man of vision and he has this long-term perspective particularly is reflected in SpaceX He has this goal of colonizing Mars, which I think is amazing and incredible And and he thinks long-term which is amazing and incredible And yeah, and and look Tesla's a gorgeous car and what he's done with it is pretty amazing Again, it would not be viable in the marketplace if not for the subsidies so I admire much of what he does and at the same time Despise the fact that he is the epitome of cronyism the epitome of what he means to be a crony now It would be great If we could if if he could become a champion a real champion not just in some comments some way But a real champion for eliminating subsidies That would be terrific. So So I would have a lot more respect for him. I would a lot more admiration for him You know, so anyway, uh, let's see All right, so if you want to ask questions, we've got kind of three platforms. We've got facebook We've got the chat feature on blog talk And we have the chat on periscope and youtube. I'm kind of monitoring all three But it's going to be hard. So I don't know if if on the platform you're on you can Put your question in bold or make it go or caps of some way that I can see it that it pops into my Into my vision as a question rather than You know, rather than just as uh, uh You know just a comment that that would be helpful. So I'd be happy to answer questions Happy to answer questions. All right, uh, let me also let me let me just Make this note while while you guys think of questions you want to ask you can also And maybe even better you can call in questions And you can call and talk to me three four seven three two four three zero seven five and when you do that Make sure to press one So uh one after you've dialed in after you can hear the show press one And that'll notify me that you're calling and not just to listen to the show but to actually ask a question. So, um That would be terrific. Uh, if you actually did that, um, all right, uh You know gale asked how much do I think alon musk's ideas are distorted by subsidies? I mean, I don't know I don't know alon musk. I it's hard for me to say Um, you know, he obviously has these ideas about artificial intelligence and about robots that I think, uh, That I think are wrong that I think make no sense that I that I think You know don't have respect for for human intelligence and human reason But uh, it's hard to tell. I think a lot of people in silicon valley have their views I think there's a certain hubris that people in silicon valley have They think with some justification that the smartest people In the room or the smartest people in the world that they know everything That they can predict the future. I think that's why they tend to be statists It's because that they think they could be great central planners And um, and I so I'm not sure that his, uh, bad ideas Are a consequence of the subsidies versus just a consequence of bad ideas Um, you know that you get with a lot of people in silicon valley a mixture of genius And brilliance when it comes to their technology their their ability to run a business their ability to To to be great, you know in terms of the marketplace and in terms of the But in you know an inability or in in the uh, uh, to uh I don't know to to to to get to have a real understanding of A philosophy of the state of humanity of the state of mankind and what it entails A real a lack of understanding of capitalism and of the marketplace and how it works in spite of the fact that they are Brilliant at participating in capitalism participating in the marketplace And deploying their products into the marketplace. They seem to have an inability to comprehend The beauty of how it all works to to to accept That individual it what drives the marketplace as individual um Is is if you will individual, uh Values and uh, you know in some ways they want to They want to impose their own values on the marketplace in a in a kind of bizarre way So I've talked about silicon valley before I don't want to get into too much of it It's it's not what uh, but you know feel free to ask me questions. Uh, jeremy question previous post I'm not sure what that means. So if you have a question Type it in I I don't really I don't really see it um All right, is there an objective message to a work of art Okay, here it is Is an objective message to work of art as opposed to a subjective Or intrinsic interpretation of the artwork regardless of the author's intended message This came in careers atlas project Yes, I think there is an objective message to work of art a good work of art a high quality work of art Projects an objective message and that objective message might not be What the author intends it's to be so it might be that the author thinks the his message is x But the actual message of the artwork is y and the reason is That an artwork reflects An artist's metaphysical value judgments It reflects The deepest value judgments he has so you know often These value judgments are held Not explicitly but But implicitly they are sometimes held By subconscious rather than than his conscious and he might be trying to paint consciously A particular message But his the art is is much more reflective of of the subconscious State and his subconscious values and that's what gets reflected in an artwork. So And a lot of times for example style Reflects a certain psychopath's terminology that that is The the the quality of his consciousness and his view with regard to Observing reality. So the for example the the A lot of impressionistic painting Might have a very positive sense of life in the sense that it portrays things with a lot of color and positive and And and joyful and and and people is basically enjoying life and and having a good time You can see that in in Renoir often. I mean very positive But the fragmentation of the visual the fragmentation of reality Represents a certain fragment epistemological fragmentation A certain view of how we view reality, which is distorted and perverted And I don't think I don't think the Renoir would have necessarily Thought that necessarily that being explicit in his mind. The artists are not necessarily philosophical It comes across to its his His subconscious You know subconscious, you know epistemology Epistemological view. So that's what's reflected in the artwork. So, yes And again, it has to be good art No, I don't think impressionism is related to a romantic to the romantic movement to In many respects impressionist is a rejection of the romantic Most impressionistic art is naturalistic It shows the world as it is in terms of theme But broken up and fragmented in terms of the means of perception So so through dots through through brushstrokes It breaks up the world if you want to see romantic art in painting One has to go to the academic painters. I think of A france of england, uh, maybe some of the romantic academic painters of germany Casper is one of them where Reality is in sharp focus. There is drama in the painting. There are choices. There's clear You know romanticism is art according to iron man Is is is an is an art that reflects Man's free will romanticism is art is an expression is competitive romanticism and philosophy Which is something very different romanticism and art is a reflection of The fact that man has free will So it is art that reflects Choices Reflects that it has a certain drama to it that is reflective of of a choice of I could go this way. I could go that way You know, there's a there's one of my favorite sculptures is in paris. It's called spartacus It's at the Louvre museum and it is It is spartacus having broken his change Standing in defiance Of of slavery and defiance of of the of the perception of himself as a as a slave And he is for liberty. He is for freedom and he's broken his chains And it is a magnificent romantic sculpture. I mean clearly free will clearly drama Clearly he has chosen a particular path and you can see it that he has chosen that this is not arbitrary This is not random. This is a choice that he has made so All right, so so Impressionism even in its best even when the scene is the most positive Is typically just a scene. It's just typically just a capture of A particular Thing that's happening in the world out there and it it almost never has drama in it. So, you know, a lot of it is kind of even even romantic Landscape painting can be can be dramatic, right? There's drama. There's no human choice there, but there's there's a certain Decisiveness in in in what is drawn. It's reflective of Of the choice the artist has made about picking a particular point of drama and But but the impression is purposefully, you know, Monet as pretty as it might be chooses to do, you know Green lily lily is a lily pond and it's just a lily pond and there's no drama to it. It's it's it's kind of pretty but there's nothing reflective of Something going on of action of choices of drama as reflected in it. So, uh, anyway Jimmy says many subjectivists would say that there's no one interpretation of a work of art So it is subjective but but it is one interpretation of a work of art Now it's not easy to get to but one has to be objective in how one's interpret art. So you have to look at what is in the art piece objectively What what are the components of it? What is the style? What are the images? What is the story being told? And you know, and it's harder The more abstract a work of art is so it's easiest. I'd say in literature It's hardest in music and I don't know how to do it in music And maybe none of us know how to do it in music But that's because our knowledge on the standing of what music is actually portraying is still very primitive and I know it talks about that in the romantic manifesto but it's it's it's it's harder in painting and sculpture than it is in in literature because literature is the most conceptual and the most it tells you in in in in Very detail what it's trying to say. So there isn't an objective interpretation And what does it mean to be objective? It means to go by the fact What is the fact of what is in the painting? What is the fact of what this paragraph is saying? What does it actually mean? You know, what is the fact fact regarding? The style that that is being that is being conveyed here. So That's what it means to be objective. It means to go by the facts. It means to go by reason It means to go by the evidence. It means to go by what is actually being portrayed by the art form and not by your emotional response to it So so not by You know, your most of the parts obviously is incredibly important So for example, I can imagine having a piece of art that I that I interpret and objectively see Oh, you know, there's there's real something meaningful to here and it's it's really good But that I don't have a positive Emotional response to it for a variety of other reasons Right. So your emotions and your objective interpretation might not be the same You have to be able to back off and interpret it objectively And if you want to see how that's done, you can look for some lectures by for example, mary ansuers I think there they might be some in the easter or online, I think on the iron man institute website You can find an essay. She wrote called metaphysics in marble where she Analyzes objectively interprets objectively Marbles marble sculpture in other words And and you can see an example of that, but it's hard And and there's some of that obviously in nomadic manifesto. I ran does it It's hard Be skeptical of a lot of objectives to try to do this because because it's hard and very few people know how to do it Oh another brilliant example of this another billion example of this Is lennard peacocks eight eight great plays Which you can now get in book form not just Online on a r.i. Campus. I encourage you to go to r.i. Campus One of my favorite courses all time of lennard peacocks could have taught me To analyze and you can apply his methodology not only to plays but also to movies To literature it's it's really it's it's taking iron man's ideas And applying them to aesthetic analysis to objective objective aesthetic analysis In a powerful way and so I very very much encourage you to To do that. All right, I see we've got a bunch of questions I'm a bunch of phone calls now I'm gonna take a quick commercial break after the commercial. I want to talk about my new book And and After that, we will take some of these call this The iron rand archives has more than 1500 photographs of iron rand her life and her work Become an ari monthly sustainer today and you are eligible to receive the iron rand photo series every month These high quality reproductions each with historical anecdotes provided by the archive Will be shipped to you in a protective sleeve and are suitable for framing or for collecting in a photo album Becoming an ari monthly sustainer is the most convenient way to contribute your automated monthly gift of just 25 That's less than one dollar per day helps to sustain our vital program And qualifies you to receive the iron rand photo series When your first monthly contribution is made you'll receive the first set of two photos Then for as long as you contribute at at least 25 a month You'll receive an additional set of two photos each month for residents outside of the united states A monthly donation of $50 is required to receive the photo series Signing up is quick and easy Just go to iron rand.org slash donate and look for the link at the bottom of the page to become an ari sustainer All right now I have a feeling that those of you in facebook and other places are not hearing the commercials. That's okay Um And i'm not sure you're going to hear the callers as well So i'll try to repeat the questions But let me let me do a few more questions related to art that i think is interesting So somebody asks but what if an artist intentionally creates a piece of art that has no meaning? Well a again the intention of the artist is not what matters It's what is reflected in the artwork and uh So a lot of times what today is regarded as art is not even art So he gives an example of malta tongue smoking adobe That might not be odd. It might just be garbage. Uh, a lot of times white on white people just scribbling on pages Paper is not art and has no meaning no matter what the the artist intended the meaning to be it has no objective meaning And yet an artist can say i don't think this has any meaning and yet it does if you objectively analyze. So again What odd does is reflect not the artist's explicit thoughts But to a large extent it expresses the largest the artist's Subconscious the artist implicit values the artist implicit's view of you in reality Which you can capture from the artwork in a way that the artist can never explain So the artist actually point of view is irrelevant. What's relevant is what is in the art What's relevant is what you can see in the piece of art So it it doesn't matter what michael angela says about the david You can see in the david a certain set of values You can see in the david a certain objective perspective and no matter what michael angela thought about it that the david stands on its own and indeed This is why Great art you should be able to objectively if you i mean you have to be good at this But you should be able to objectively analyze and integrate it even if You don't know the story behind it the art you you've never heard of the artist He hasn't told you what he thought or anything like that Really good art should you should be able to see it? So I I often don't want to read the descriptions and people's analysis of it Until after I've actually examined art and looked at it and thought about it and analyze it Because because I want to be able to see if I can You know if if I can get it So the art has to have it okay, so Yeah, I mean so I don't think One person's interpretation of a piece of art is as good as anybody else's interpretation of good. No Some interpretations are true and some interpretations are just wrong some interpretations are You know you might have multiple interpretations that are all flawed that is but but there is a true right interpretation This is true This is definitely true in art now in art. It's hard That's why you could have multiple interpretations. They're all seen reasonable And it's hard to figure out which one's right and which one's wrong And it's hard for the person to accept that his interpretations might not be right because he's got so much emotion tied up That's what art does it invokes emotion. So So, you know, but the fact that it's hard does not make it any less objective Okay, before we get to other callers or other questions. I haven't looked at facebook to see if there are other questions there But before we get to that Oh, no, no, no, I didn't scroll down. There are lots of new questions on facebook. All right Let me let me just mention my new book and for those of you on video. I'll I'll pick it up and and and show it Um, it's uh, it's called in pursuit of wealth the mall case for finance It's uh co-authored with uh with don Watkins. It also has an extensive and excellent x assay By ray Niles is an economist, uh, phd in economics from george mason university and teachers at the university here in new york city and So so The book is out. It's on amazon. You can get it on kindle and it's soft cover It's not going to be in your local bookstore because we self published this on amazon So, uh, basically amazon is our vendor and you can only really get it on amazon So sorry those I don't think it's on the iBook. I think it's only on the kindle But I do encourage you to buy it. I also I would also say, you know, this is a great book to to buy if you're in the financial industry And give to your employees give to your bosses Give to your clients It is the it is the first book I think ever To articulate a moral case for finance To explain what finance does to explain why what it does is moral Explain the standard by which morality should be evaluated and then that is the standard of human flourishing Somebody's asking about audible. I'll have to get back to you an audible as far as I know Right now. It's not an audible. I'm hoping it will be But but you know, I think was still working on that one So this is a book that explains the standard by which, uh, when evaluates the morality of of a human endeavor The extent to which it it it enhances human flourishing that it creates values for human life It it's the only presentation. I know of the real moral case for finance Uh, as I said, it was co-authored with don wadkins It's got a short essay by dog altner and a pretty extensive essay, which I'll talk about in a minute By economist ray Niles Um, the the book is based on a on a lot of work I did You know for for many many years on finance Of course, I taught in the 90s at center color university when I was a professor I called ethics and finance and uh, you know I developed a lot unfortunately a lot of the material I did back then is dated And a lot of the I had a great examples back then about mike milkin and hostile takeovers and jugpons and things like that um So a lot of that material that material is not in here, uh, unfortunately, but uh, but you know the the core Of what is here is from those days Um, it's also based on a course that I did at at a predecessor to okan. I think in 1990. I don't know nine maybe Which was the moral case for finance That course by the way Will be released as a podcast Uh, starting in a couple of weeks, uh, the moral case for finance The course I did in the 90s as a supplement to this book will be released in I think Five or seven. I can't remember how many uh episodes on, um You know on uh on blog talk radio as a podcast so you will all have access to that for free Uh and and be able to listen to it as you read the book I think it's a great supplement to the book and they are discuss Mike milkin and and uh in hostile takeovers and jugpons and all that stuff that was very relevant in the 80s and 90s Not so relevant in people's minds today. Most people don't remember it. Uh today Um, you know the the the book was also inspired by an essay I wrote. Oh wow I don't even remember when I wrote it exactly. Uh, it's in it's in the objective standard. Um, so it would be whenever the objective standard started So uh in the in the mid 2000s actually wrote it before that I think Um, and on the morality of money lending a short history so that essay is in the is in the book And and for a long time I wanted I wanted to get this book written and I and it took me a while to convince don Uh that he could do it that he could help me write this book. Uh that he could really dig into it and really Get it because it's a complex issue. Finance is not easy and and don was worried About being able to properly represent it and and properly understand it and kind of dig into it and and and and get it Uh, but he did and and he's done a phenomenal job of the number of essays here that are exclusively his Uh, the number of co-authored essays and and he's done a fantastic job and really Taking a lot of this material and putting it in writing and and Re formatting it and and bring it up to to date and and bring it up to up to today's context and and that is excellent He's uh, so uh So the book is divided into three parts Uh, the first part is how finance help helps us flourish the lead essay You know the most important essay the new essay here is the small case for finance Where we kind of do the overview of the whole of the whole case that we're going to making and setting up human flourishing as the standard The second essay in the book is the morality of money lending which which I did a long time ago Which presents a history of finance and how our finance has been demonized forever for 2000 years and and everything about that Um Then there are a couple of important historical Um essays that deal with history the history of finance particularly, um I you know, uh The first essay is focused on kind of the great depression and then the financial crisis and and everything that happened in between So a lot of the mythology that says finance caused all the crisis finance create all the problems It's always bankers fault And don wrote that finances and free and never really was it's it's this myth That finance is free and finance caused all these problems. So it really sets the the the history straight Uh, which is excellent because it's and it really really important and really really quiet You have to you have to do that Um, you know to establish that finance has always been regulated and to the extent That or almost always yeah, it's always been regulated and to the extent that it's been successful It's been in spite of those regulations and it's been an incredible achievement of the financiers to overcome those regulations and still Be be this incredible benefit to mankind and I did a podcast I think last week on the blaze About all the benefits of finance and and I covered you covered you to listen to it in addition to reading the book And in addition to listening to the podcasts that are going to come about it so Don does a good history Generally about regulations That cause a crisis The crisis that is blamed on financial markets Which causes more regulations which then cause the next crisis which is blamed on finance which causes more regulations And this is a perpetual Perpetual kind of machine kind of thing until we get to the point today where banks are basically kind of utilities run by the government Almost entirely and very little freedom All right, the fourth essay in the section is the dubious origins and purpose of central banking This was written by ray niles and and it's really important because again history We have to set history straight And a big part of history is the fact that the The product of banking the the the most important product that banks were responsible for until the until kind of the 20th century in the us and until the Maybe the 18th century in the rest of the world was money And yet money is being nationalized and fiat money through central banking has has because dominates and and central banking not only Does it distort Money by by just printing it but it distorts interest rates which distort the economy It distorts, uh, it distorts through regulation of financial industry It distorts the world of finance in many many ways So it's a really crucial essay describing The way in which central banking has you know, so this is that in a sense A continuation of kind of the important addition to what don wrote about the history of finance this now You know compliments that but with with an essay of saying it's not just the banks are regulated and finance is regulated But then at the core of it is the central bank that distorts everything that happens in the economy and particular What happens in finance again? Think about how great the achievements of finance is though When they have to go up against all these barriers So those two essays are crucial and then there's another essay by dawn Steve Jobs, Bernie Madoff and wall street greed Which is an important essay he wrote a while ago, which kind of differentiates between Right What does it mean to be greedy is Bernie Madoff greedy and Steve Jobs greedy, you know And this goes to the question of selfishness is is Bernie Madoff selfish and Steve Jobs selfish That's the that's the shallow perspective of selfishness, but there's something fundamentally different Between the greed and the selfishness of Steve Jobs and Bernie Madoff Maybe Bernie Madoff is not selfish. Maybe Bernie Madoff is self-destructive So maybe we need a different category for Bernie Madoff. Maybe if selfish is Steve Jobs It's a good thing. Maybe the The self-interest the greed of wall street and of Steve Jobs is a good thing And It's it's a misapplication of the term to use it for Bernie Madoff the crook Because the fundamental thing about Bernie Madoff is the fact that he is self-destructive not That he is he is creating anything not as he's building anything not that he's fundamentally bettering his own life so So that's an important essay that so that's part one A lot of history kind of framing the debate framing it in terms of self-interest framing it in terms of morality But also emphasizing the history and the function of finance because you there are three things you have to do when defending an industry In my view is understand its function and how it enhances human flourishing Understand its history understand, you know, why if bad if thing bad things happen why they happen and in what sense they happen And uh and third You have to be able to understand the morality the the the profit motive the selfish aspect of it So this section covers all of those part two connects in a sense our previous book Donna my previous book on Inequality with this book and it talks about the inequality attack on finance And this is a series of mainly short essays Although the first two are a medium length essays the first one is turning tables and inequality alarmists Which is an essay Donna and I co-authored on Inequality and and the difference between Why equality should mean and only really means politically is is equality of liberty equality of rights equality of freedom equality of before the law and and why economic and and income and all of those equalities that you Wrong it's a wrong way of looking at the world the whole conceptualization of things in those terms is wrong and false So that's I think an important essay if you want to get a short version of our book This essay is a good feature of that the next day that I think is a really excellent essay that don wrote It's called luck is overrated. We analyze this perspective, which I got at Yale Really hammered it this this other guy hammered at Yale in a subtle kind of way um That everything's luck, you know, Steve Jobs Bill Gates got lucky one buffer got lucky the whole luck debate an important crucial philosophical issue I'll do I'm going to do this issue One of these podcasts I'm just going to dedicate to the luck question might get don what don on to talk about it It's it's uh, so that's a really good essay and then you've got Other essays that deals with these kind of related issues The issue of rent seeking and why rent seeking is is is the wrong term The whole issue of ceo pay And how to look at ceo pay properly so those issues and then the final one is about certain controversies So an essay on index fund an essay on insider trading an essay on subsidizing bank bonuses And then a short essay by dog altner On uh on john allison and how dot frank and and dot frank in the regulations So and in this finance controversies section could have been A hundred times longer You could do essays on a million different things Around this we could have done junk bonds here and and and milk in and and How start takeovers and a bunch of stuff here But just in terms of room and time and and so we had a few have a few samples here And then finally at the end of the book is an epilogue There is an interview with me don interviews me And we have a lot of content and I think I think a lot of you will Particularly if you're in finance, I think you really enjoy this We cover a lot we cover a lot of stuff that is not covered in the previous sections We get into what's you know the issue of cds's and cdo derivatives and and a lot of kind of Issues that relate to finance. So, you know, it's a really good interview. I I'm pretty proud of of You know what I say there and the analysis that goes on there and everything so Um, yeah, you know buy the book But but really buy a bunch of them and give them to your friends You can get them on amazon. It's the best way to get large quantities of them. Just buy them at amazon Give them to friends Give them to colleagues if you're in the financial industry. I think this is a must book This is a book to give to clients. This is a book to give to your co-workers This is a book to give to your bosses if you run a financial company You know, I would love to come and speak about this at your company. So You know invite me over I invite me to come and give a talk and You know, this is an important issue You will not find a better defender of A finance as an activity of finance as a as a model activity as a wealth creating activity than I am So, uh, you know invite me over My project over the next few years is really to work on defending the financial industry and really Get in front of financiers And get into a position where we can we can really communicate and really Give financiers the backbone the moral backbone the moral You know confidence that they deserve and I've I've done this I've spoken actually in where was it in tbilisi of all places in tbilisi, georgia I spoke at the bank of georgia to a group of executives Basically on the steam of of how productive and moral what it is that they do and they loved it, right? Because it basically vindicates it says. Yeah, we're good guys and they are good guys And you if you're in the world of finance are good guys in in your in your profession So, uh, give me an opportunity to do that for you So if you if you run a group If if you have a company if you want me to come in and speak to that company Or if you want me if you're in a business school you want me to come to speak at a class or or to mba students or to bitter students Just let me know dropping email and uh, and I would love love to do that so Okay, great. So I am going to we're going to take another quick break here And then when we come back I I see I've got a couple of callers And I know I I can see kind of just scanning that we've got some questions on facebook We're going to take those And uh, let's see which commercial do I want to use we're going to use this one. We'll be right back after this 2017 marks the 60th anniversary of iran's atlas shrug 12 years in the writing it is iran's masterwork Despite being published six decades ago the novel continues to gain recognition and profoundly influence business leaders thought leaders and a growing number of political leaders It's presence in today's culture cannot be denied The fascination with atlas shrug persists because it grapples with the fundamental questions of human existence And presents radically new answers Whether you're an adoring fan who wants to add this new addition to your personal library Or someone who wants to read the book for the first time to see what all the fuss is about Pick up your copy of atlas shrug today An updated cover for the mass market edition of the novel recently hit stores. Check it out You can order your copy today on amazon All right, we're back you're listening to iran book show We're in blog talk radio facebook live youtube and Periscope everything is actually working Uh, and so that's that's unusual and that's that's that's cool Um, so everything's actually working and and we're doing we're doing we're doing okay Nothing break, please um, I was just talking about my my new book with don wattkins In pursuit of wealth in all case for finance I encourage you all to get a copy. Let me just note somebody asked this on facebook live Um, that it's not just for people in the field. It's a book explicitly written For people who don't know that about about finance I think I think the professional benefit enormously from it But I think if you're if you know nothing about financial benefit a lot from it partially You'll understand the world around you a lot better Um, and and you'll understand what happens what is happening in the world around you much better You'll understand things like the financial crisis and the great depression And just what happens on a day-to-day basis in the world of finance much better You'll get much more confidence about your defense of capitalism and defense of free markets By reading the book because it the financial world is a whole other perspective It's also An area where economists do not typically write about it's it's finances It is seemingly a distinct field and a lot of economists don't really Understand or get finance that much I find including austrian economists don't usually think in terms of financial markets so, uh I don't know of any other book like this. I don't know of any other book that's tried to do anything like this Even the extent to which we just explain markets and the history of markets financial markets. Um, so I think this is a book for everybody so Go for it. I hope you all uh You all buy copies by copies for friends by multiple copies To give away it. This is a great christmas present. You know christmas is coming up Soon it's just around the corner a stock up on on christmas presents by kindle version by a softback version Um You know And really If you like the book The other thing that's really I would urge you to do is write a review Please please write a review on amazon one of the ways in which books get Become successful on amazon is because people write reviews. So, you know, they'll probably be about I don't know Something like 10,000 people are going to listen to the show overall If if I could get You know 20 of you to write reviews on amazon if I could get if I could get 20 of you to buy the book and read it A and then write reviews on amazon this book could easily become a bestseller. So If I could get 100 of you to buy the book look the book is cheap particularly on the kindle It's like 3.99 or 4.99 or something ridiculous like that So no excuses and you're gonna, you know, it's a good read It reads well Uh, and and if you look at the back cover, it's been endorsed by by you know, some of the leading Mines in finance today from john allison to peter schiff to dimitri baryasne A very successful hedge fund manager to jeff yas Who runs the largest option trading firm in the world to avi more an incredibly successful venture capitalist so You know by the book recommend it to your friends buy multiple copies as I said But write reviews and encourage your friends to write reviews Give it a star rating one word review something just just get on amazon so that so that there's something Something that amazon records. It helps the book a lot. All right. We're gonna take a quick. We're gonna take a caller here Hi, you're new on book show. Who's this? Hey, you're on. This is mark from michigan Hey, mark from michigan. Uh, what's up? Hey, so, um, this actually follows up nicely with your book You just mentioned john allison gave you a blurb for the book and he's he's great And I was reading a wall street journal article yesterday about Trump and minutian interviewing candidates to replace jenna yellen at the fed and The focus of the article was on these two former fed governors jerome powell and kevin walsh But they also just threw in there that john allison was in the running And so I want to know what you think about that and also it said that john allison was Offered a position on the central bank's board of governors earlier in trump's tenure, but he turned it down So I was wondering if you knew That that happened and the motivation behind that and if that would scale to also being offered the top job So, so let me so let me i'm gonna take you offline just because there's uh Just because the audio setup while i'm on the road is is complicated and if I have you online It's it's kind of a mess. All right, so the question is about john allison and the fact that john allison has been mentioned as in the running for the head job at the federal reserve and In the article not he's not one of the two leading candidates, but it did mention that he has been interviewed for that job It also mentioned that in the past John had been offered a position on the board of governors of of the federal reserve And and had turned it down and so I guess I guess he's asking what I think of that and what do I know about it and and so Ah, I you know, I need to really think about what I can say because the real person who should answer this is is john allison Of course, not me. Let me let me just say about john allison that that John has just agreed to join the board of directors of the ironman institute He'll be joining our board In the next so I don't know about the board of governors of the federal reserve, but a thousand times more important The board of the ironman institute. That's that's a that's a much more important board And he is joining that board starting later this year John john was interviewed for a number of different positions with the trump administration He was interviewed for the position of treasury secretary Uh early on and then he was interviewed for the position of I think vice chairman of of the uh of the um Of the central bank and is now I don't know if he's been interviewed, but it's definitely under consideration and the number of Senators and others who would like to see him Uh, certainly I could imagine somebody like rand paul would certainly want john allison to be The you know chairman of the federal reserve I think there are a number so Let me just say that that and I'm trying to think what john said publicly the other day about this but but I think john is uncomfortable Being in a trump administration And uh, he's uncomfortable being on the on the on the federal reserve board When there's little you can do And I think he also I think there's a question of whether He could be he could actually be even if he was nominated would the senate approve him To be chairman of the federal reserve john is on record unequivocally And under oath I think would state that he believes that the federal reserve should be abolished So if if he was in front of the senate And they asked him and this is in counter to greenspan who was a great liar and and and and lied constantly and and deceived and While he was chairman of the fed I don't I don't actually believe john allison could do that So if he was asked Uh in his confirmation hearing Are you heading an organization that you want to dissolve? He would say yes, and then would republicans vote for him and my guess is the answer is no You know the answer is no So, um You know, so I I I don't think it's realistic to think that he will be offered the job Uh and even if he accepted that he would actually be appointed chairman of the federal reserve And I think any other position I just think is just you you don't have enough influence to make a difference And you're sanctioning the existence of the organization and the existence of the mixed economy and the existence of all the bad stuff that this administration and other administrations would do By joining them You know without without having the real without having I think the enough Real influence to make a real fundamental significant difference. So I mean at the end of the day you're gonna have to ask john these questions because I I don't want to speak for him Um, and and we've obviously had private conversations about it But I don't know how much of that is so I'm what I'm saying is only stuff that he said publicly So I'm trying to be careful Um But but so that's where it is He is on consideration. I I think it's very unlikely that he gets offered the position. All right. We've got another another caller Um, how are you on the year on a book show? Who's this? Aloha, it's stewart. Hey, aloha stewart. How's it going? Have it heard from you in a while Yeah, it's going great. Um, so may I ask you about um a particular? Um psychological profile that's often given of these islamic terrorists in europe, especially france Sure, you can yeah, go ahead Because I find strange how both the left and right cite this but they come to seemingly opposite conclusions But what they often say is that they find that these islamic terrorists who attack people in france They seldom grow up in households Where they were raised to be very devout muslims since childhood Usually they come from families that were you know, nominally muslim, but they're not Practicing they're not devout and usually what happens is that they go through adolescence feeling alienated and lonely Often they go through a bad breakup And then you know feeling dejected they go through these radical mosques and get radicalized and what I think is strange is how I see these secular center-left people saying oh this absolves islam Of blame because if it was true that islam was to blame Shouldn't it be the ones who were always devout since childhood who always do these terrorist attacks? And on the other hand, I hear these right wing people like tommy larence say Well, doesn't this prove that even? You know supposedly nonviolent muslims are actually violent. They're I think she said They're just one bad breakup away from going on killing spree Yeah, so let me take you offline again because the audio issues uh and uh And talk about this so stewart is asking about the psychological profile Of many of islam is particularly in france and and also also to some extent in I think the uk You find the same kind of profile And the profile the psychological profile of the terrorists Tends to be People people who grew up in muslim households, but but not particularly radical You know Very religious orthodox muslims You know nominally muslim practice some aspects of islam, but the parents tend to be You know such traditionalists and And and not not real Dedicated to islamism and what happens is these kids grow up? For whatever reason They're alienated. They're frustrated. They're They're not happy that some of them actually get involved in violent gangs Separate for this and then in their search Just like some in the some teenagers in their search go to drugs or go to harish krishna or whatever These young people tend to to to find the local radical mosque and The islam the moderate form of islam if you will Is unappealing because it's not it doesn't provide them with enough of a A vision enough of a mission enough of a drive to overcome the alienation It doesn't fill them with purpose the way these Islamist jihadist Mosques do the way the way this ideology that is you know seemingly consistent You know Driving purposeful has a mission for them It has a clear clear line of sacrifice and purpose and something that they that they want to do and and You know the the left says interpret this as look this is a sign that it's not islam that it is It is just these these wacky cult-like figures on That the pervode islam from their perspective and these kids are troubled kids to begin with And it's their fault and of course The right uses the same thing to say but you know that this is all about islam This is everything all muslims are just are just on the brink of being of being sucked into to this radicalized view, you know radicals being consistent view of of of islam And radical is not the best word for this because I I think of myself as a radical but an extremist Is not the right view of this but but you know the jihadi the islamist view of of what islam is and So you know so what is it and and of course Both both have elements of truth to them, right? You know it's it is true that most people particularly The terrorist the muslim terrorists in the west The ones who are in france or in england or in germany Not who maybe second generation born in those countries or third generation born in those countries who then become jihadis They It's it this is this is this is true that they are disturbed people that they are people who Have not Accepted any of the the world around them have not Integrated in any respect into the world the western world around them This is not true of in my view of most muslim youths in these countries Most of them to some extent at least have absorbed some elements of the west so that they're not inclined To put on a suicide vest and go blow themselves up Um, they value their life too much and they've learned from the people around them first of all because they're just human beings They value their life too much plus to some extent They have absorbed elements of the west that is around them Now it's hard in france and england for this to happen particularly in france Because french society is so isolated and french society has not tried to integrate them has not tried to assimilate them But it's put them in ghettos basically Usually on the fringes of paris where they live among themselves and they're less and less exposed to western values and and and what life in the west is But i think most of them still absorb a little bit of it and and and and many of them are quite secular and uh, but There's an element within that Are alienated the alienated from french society the alienated from their parents because they're teenagers after all They're alienated from uh for much of what's going on in the world around them And they are looking for purpose in life. We all need purpose in life Purpose is really really really important And when they look at western society what they see is materialism and lack of purpose And this is particularly reflected in in europe is kind of a a drift through life a drift through the world No Purposeful activity. This is why europeans don't have babies. They don't have children because they they really see no purpose in life They're pessimistic about the future. They they you know, i'm gonna i'm reading right now a fascinating book written by a frenchman Called submission and and i'm gonna do a podcast about it I'm just i'm just in the middle of it and i want to finish it before i talk about it too much but You very much get the sense of of the of the westernized french Purposeful the lack of purpose in their life So if you're a a teen Looking for purpose Growing up in a religious cultural environment, you you know, you're looking at the world out there and you see nothing but But shallow materialism You look at your parents and they have an uncommitted View of islam, which again seems purposed less. They haven't absorbed into west They haven't they're not Fully committed to islam than neither here nor there And it's very appealing to be attracted to a charismatic Consistent Somebody who can give you real purpose and take the islam that you already have absorbed in your childhood and really push it all the way consistently And and i think that's exactly that's exactly what happened now Muslims are particularly susceptible to this because islam as a religion is is has this I mean the islamists and the jihadists are Appealing to islam. They're appealing to the quran. They're appealing to actual sentiments in these books. They're not making anything up Right, it's their interpretation of these that is just as legitimate as anybody else's interpretation right, so They they they have they have legitimacy within the islamic world The parents can't counter it with very much because their form of islam is weak Purpose less unprincipled not focused on anything and ultimately its religions or anything goes right So it's both it's islam but it's also Particularly it's islam as it appeals to a particular type of person and luckily for all of us This type of islam appeals to a very very small minority of people I mean think about it. There are millions and millions and millions of muslims in europe Imagine if all of them were truly committed to putting suicide vests and going up and blowing themselves up to malls On trains or all over the place. I mean that would be the end right it would be Total war and it would be unbelievably destructive And it's not happening and it's not happening because 90 percent 95 percent maybe even 99 percent of them are not committed to it Nice now a larger percent that we would like is still committed to the idea Of the religion dominating life and dominating europe But very very very few of them are actually willing to take up Arms and to take up suicide vests and actually go kill themselves for it And you know of the 1.4 billion muslims in the world In spite of the fact that many of them Support al-qaeda and and isis very very very very very few of them Are actually willing to join isis or to act on behalf of isis and al-qaeda Thank Allah i guess for that right or thank god or thank something right thank human Human love of life even even a little bit of it. You know even among muslims For that fact that very very very few of them are willing to fight for it because what you don't want is 1.4 million suicide bombers I mean that would be something So it's islam But it's not only islam There has to be another component in this component is the psychological state of these youths who are willing to to accept You know killing and murdering and and dying For this cause and and that's the tiniest minority. So The psychology is important and psychology is suicidal now. I think in the middle east It's it's it's easier to get them But even in the middle east, you know, they're not that many of them They're just not that many of them, right? There were 15 19 suicide 19 suicide bombers on 9 11 I don't know how many, you know, you could run up the numbers Of all the people who've committed suicide bombings over the last 20 years and the number's not that big Again, luckily, right and and not every palestinian is ready to go out and just shoot israelis and die as a consequence and The fact that they are muslims doesn't make them violent The fact that they are muslims even committed To some extent to jihad or to the ideology of jihad doesn't make them jihadists Doesn't make them willing to take up and actually do it. Luckily, right? So the first step is is to destroy and kill their capacity to arm themselves and the capacity And the the idea of victory and the idea of purpose. You see this this this is the core of the psychological element The reason these young people do it is because it gives them purpose in life Purpose is only you only gain purpose Because you believe that they that there's something that's going to be achieved by what you do Because you believe you will be victorious because you believe the cause is a cause that can win My whole point and this is a psychological point about You have to crush the enemy and you have to crush the Saudis you have to crush the iranians And that will stop suicide bombings in paris Is because they lose purpose Because once they realize that the I don't know the black rock in kaba in mecca is meaningless Is disintegrated that they that the west is is much more purposeful than they are Is willing to defend itself and they have no chance whatsoever of every winning then the purpose is out the window Then then the number of people you can recruit Shrinks by 90 percent. So as it is it's very hard to recruit anybody That they're not that many people that are being recruited Now you add to the equation that complete destruction Of their ideological base base of support in Saudi Arabia and in iran And now your recruitment is going to go down to very very close to zero so if the west fought The purposefulness the psychological appeal Of suicide bombing the psychological appeal of killing would go away because There would be no doubt that it's not working today. It looks like it's working You know every time every time they kill people in paris some Some aspect of french culture Appeases them a little bit more and a little bit more and a little bit. We don't publish cartoons We take statues of paintings of mohammeds out of museums. We don't place certain operas They're winning And they know they're winning And when you're winning you get more recruits Losing teams don't get recruits You got to make them the losing team And so if you stand up to them They will completely fold because it is so much driven But by this this the psychological aspect. It's not It's not as so many people portray it Islam equals jihad And islam is always going to lead to jihad. That that's not the case islam leads to jihad when they think jihad It can be successful And if islam is crushed is if islam is brought to its knees if islam is humiliated if islam is made to be to be Received itself as the complete and utter unequivocal failure that it is As a as a philosophy as a religion as an ideology as a culture Then islam will change it will not change until then then it might have an enlightenment then it might Abandon the muslims might abandon the religion completely and in secularism will rise But only when it is crushed when it's destroyed when it is brought to their knees that the closest way of it came to that Was was in in the 19th century when when it was clear that the Ottoman empire was in decline That that islam was was way way behind the achievements of the west Where the muslim world questioned everything and they when they were seeking secularization And the great tragedy as I as I talk about in my course on the short brief history of the middle east which all of you should listen to It's now on blog talk radio. It's on itunes. It's it's it's on all the podcasting apps And it's really really good if I can say so myself you'll actually understand the middle east versus What I find is 90 of the people Particularly objectivists who talk about the middle east have no understanding of it. They don't know the history They don't know the first thing About the history about the context about what happened about how it happens By the way right now on blog talk radio And on uh, so on all these podcasting apps You're getting you can get my course on the rise of total tyranny islam So it goes back to the founding of the muslim brotherhood and and you know How that came about and how that led ultimately to al-qaeda now It doesn't cover modern times. It doesn't go all the way up to isis But it covers and in a sense predicts isis It it covers all the way through past 9 11 and into into iraq and and it's it's It's the it's it's evolution of this ideology this this uh this form of militant islam of jihadism And again, listen to it before you start talking about the topic because most of you I don't want to be insulting but most of you don't know what you're talking about when you talk about these issues Anyway, when when the islamic world was in the 19th century was convinced of its own Deficit of its own failure of its own incompetence and To a large extent of the superiority of the west Um They actually looked to the west for answers and I said I was in azabajan in baku That's about the time when in baku. They decided they wanted to establish the paris of the caspian sea They were completely secularized and they wanted a secular society They were not interested in religion and they they they built an opera house in the 19th century in baku And they brought over opera singers and opera companies because they wanted western civilization And the great betrayal I call it the great betrayal Is that the west when these rich muslims send their kids to study in western universities? What these kids studied Instead of the enlightenment values of reason and individualism Which would have liberated the middle east Instead of that what they studied was socialism and fascism And what they brought back were the secular values of socialism and fascism and syria and iraq Which were secular countries under the bath party the bath party was a was a fascist party modeled after musselini's fascism and today For generations now in the psyche of muslims when they think about secular when they think about secular what they think about is fascism What they think about is the bath party and they know they don't want that And what is the west offer them an alternative some kind of mixed economy Unfocused no purpose no meaning life is nothing life is Of course, they're not going to accept that so the other alternative is religion So The middle east has become more religious Much more religious Over the last hundred years much more religious over the last hundred years than it was a hundred years ago A hundred years ago. It was moving towards secularism 50 years ago. There was still a chance now The secularists have gone right saram hussein is gone Uh, uh, Assad now is is becoming a a a even though he's completely secular He's becoming an abbot shia and he's gonna he's gonna be a complete Satellite of the iranians and khizballah and khizballah of course is a nadi shia So religion is everywhere. Then was the brotherhood dominates on the on the sunni side And and the iranian view of religion on the on the shia side. So This is the default of western intellectuals. This is the fact that we have not stood up for the right values We do not give young people purpose purpose in reason individualism purpose in the in the in the You know, not even in the objective sense, but but in the in a in a secular Founding father sense, right? We've abandoned that so what are they gonna emulate? There's nothing to emulate All right, so, um I think I answered stewart's question. All right, we've got one other caller Hi, you're in the iran book show. Who is this? Good afternoon, Dr. Brook. This is Skyler. Hey Skyler all my regulars are calling today Go ahead Uh, I think I figured it out Should we call liberals Collectivists leftists and should we call conservatives collectivists rightists? well, well Okay, so I'm gonna take you offline again And answer the question offline. So the question is should we call Left collectivist leftists Leftist collectivist leftists and rightist collectivist rightists I mean, yeah, I mean, I think it's two different forms of collectivism. So so there's two different emphasis in their collectivism There's a collectivism of the left and there's collectivism of the right And I and I think we should contrast it with individualism individualism, which is need Ultimately need the left no right, which I think is what objectives are and what some But you find elements of individualism in some people on the right and some people on the left Is actually a good a good article that I was going to talk about today But I won't I'll talk about it in a in a future A blog post by Andrew Sullivan who's kind of I guess left of center, but but I mean, I think of him in some regards as one of the good guys in spite of the fact that he's left of center It's it's called America wasn't built for humans and and the article is really interesting. He's wrong in many ways but is is his His thesis is that look this this country was built for individualists And would become tribalists and humans are inherently tribal And you know, we're deteriorating back into tribalism and and he's right in the sense that individualism is a massive achievement and that the I don't want to say instinct, but when we don't use reason when we don't think So at the preconceptual level Human beings gravitate towards tribalism because it's safer. It's easier. It's more emotionally appealing So So this is it's a it's a really good article Particularly if you can tease out what's true and what's false in it So I'm going to talk about it because it's it's an important article and I've talked quite a bit about tribalism And there's a lot more to say about tribalism because I think it's the evil of our day right now Very much the evil of our day and it's it's it's it's even infecting the objectivist movements in in in Yeah, in ugly ugly ways. So I I intend to I intend to talk quite a bit about this in in future episodes um but uh What was I anyway so scarless points. So yeah, so so I I I think basically today unfortunately Most people are collectivists and collectivism is gaining tribalism is gaining and and it's on the left It's on the right. It's in the middle. Uh, I think It's even among people who call themselves objectivists. We're seeing collectivism and tribalism So, um, I I think the The spectrum on which one should differentiate what differentiate oneself is not left or right anymore Maybe and maybe never was I don't know but it because I I think left or right comes from fans and it comes from the the post French revolution kind of way in which the french parliament was structured And and I don't think it's a very maybe it was never a useful term But suddenly today, I think we have to the the spectrum is collectivism to individualism And I know the the objectives out there say yes collectivism is the left and individualism is the right Fine, I don't think it's very useful because everybody everybody everybody thinks the nazis are the right Everybody thinks racists are the right everybody thinks republicans are on the right Everybody thinks that so and it's not and the word right doesn't mean anything It just means right or left. It doesn't mean right in a sense of right versus wrong So it's not it's not a term that I think is worth fighting for right? um And I think that there is a distinction between Nazis and antifa right that they're focused on different things There's some one is one is more marxist and one is is not marxist in in their collectivism comes from From racial identification and the other the collectivism comes from Uh, you know from a kind of a post modernist kind of perspective So there's usefulness in identifying In in differentiating between collectivists of the left and collectivists of the right They come to their collectivism from slightly different perspectives And there's usefulness if you're going to fight against them to realize that and acknowledge that and and and Hand deal with that right So I'm an individualist. Am I on the right? Am I on the left? I don't know what that means, right? And and and I I'd rather stay away from left left and right You know, I I I find myself agreeing often with writers on the left. I find myself agreeing often with writers on the right Um, who are who are viewed traditionally on the left on the right? You know, what is what is Dave Rubin? What is sam harris? What is uh, I don't know. What is jordan peterson? Right now jordan peterson would say he's on the right. Dave rubin is in the middle Sam harris is on the left, but is that really a useful way to differentiate between them? It doesn't mean anything I don't know. I I know I I do know I I don't think so. So, um So I I've abandoned I use those labels because I think it's still helpful To say those leftists because some people leftist or those writers because some people, you know, they're associated with the right But I don't view it as left as good and right is left as bad and right is good or the other way around I've viewed us left and right as bad and individualism is the good and And uh, you know, you're gonna have to get used to it because that's how I talk And that's how many of us at the institute talk. So and I know not everybody in objectivism is on on board with that, but Then tell and convinced otherwise that's the way it's going to be right, uh, okay, let me see if we have any questions here Okay Yeah, I mean one of the yeah, okay, let's let's just look here facebook um Please talk about sam haus and the new atheism who believe in the religion of statism and collectivism, please Well, I mean, I don't think it's statism and collectivism as a prior as a primary I don't think that's the that's yes, and I think it's altruism Which is the primaries. So, um, I find what's sad about the new atheists Is that they are willing to challenge metaphysics and epistemology. They're willing to challenge, uh, the, uh The christianity and the conventional wisdom But but they're not willing to challenge christianity and the conventional wisdom when it comes to ethics So they're conventional in ethics Even though they're they're kind of radical when it comes to metaphysics and responsibility not as radical design Rant but but pretty good, right? So, um, we have it We have common ground on metaphysics and epistemology and we have no common ground when it comes to ethics and therefore Therefore politics now notice that in that sense, they're the flip side of libertarians libertarians, uh, you know, uh challenge conventional wisdom when it comes to politics and economics and and and then they stop and just like the, um New atheists they're conventional in morality And opposite of the new atheists they're conventional in epistemology and metaphysics So many of them are religious and many of them have a lot metaphysics, right? So, uh, and it's certainly many of them including even von Mises, right is a Kantian in in in much of his epistemology. So It's fascinating to me that libertarians and I've told this to libertarians. I've told this I remember talking to John Tomasi a very well-known professor at, um, at, uh, uh, Brown University who's like a libertarian conservative Catholic kind of thinker and I said, you know, What you're doing is you're challenging political philosophy. You're really pushing the boundary in political philosophy. You're challenging economics. Um, but you refuse to go deeper You refuse to challenge ethics. You just accept Christian ethics and you refuse to challenge Religion you refuse to challenge epistemology and metaphysics And he said, yeah, yeah, and I said objective is we go all the way We're willing to challenge every single one of those and you should assume That if you've got something new radical and different to say about politics that it probably Is going to require rethinking ethics epistemology and metaphysics that you're not going to be able to come up With a solid foundation for something new and radical and philosophy in politics If you're grounding it in the same old conventional Foundations that have led us to all the statist regimes that we have today And and so and I think that's that's the that's the huge problem among conservatives and libertarians and then if you look at if you look at, um, uh At the new atheist they go the other way they challenge these fundamentals But then they stop and and you know, Sam Harris even goes far as far as to say That he that you can get an art from an is But then his art to all conventional altruist conventional christian morality kind of things So he kind of he kind of has to distort his perception of what the is is that drives those arts And it's sad because Sam is is incredibly smart and and incredibly competent and I admire a lot of the work he does and and on religion and other things and um, so, you know But he can't go there. He can't go there And and I think Jordan Peterson In many ways is is, um Is that it's conventional throughout right? So he's really not challenging the metaphysics Although he's got an interesting take on the metaphysics the same with epistemology. He's accepting conventional epistemology Although he's got an interesting take on it And and he's he's conventional in morality although again the thing with that with Jordan Peterson is He's conventional across the board from politics all the way to metaphysics But he has an interesting twist on all of it. He has his own way of looking at it which is which is interesting and um Makes him interesting to read and and to think about and observe. All right, uh, let's see any other questions. Let's look at Let me just flip to Where is youtube there's youtube and see if there's anybody Yeah, all right, so so not not not that much not that many questions online Um, have you ever thought about writing a book aimed at the working class and lower people to convince them to become Capitalists for their own sake as anyone then that I mean, I I thought that a free market revolution To some extent was that it was written for kind of a tea party audience Which is if you will the lower class or working class or whatever not not necessarily intellectuals It was written. I think in you know, maybe it's still a hard book to read. But look, but I also believe that At the end of the day civilization is shaped by intellectuals and civilization is shaped by By by those who capture the intellectual high ground and and my very much my focus Is on trying to create the next generation of intellectuals and my appeal to most of you Is is the most important people listening to the show for me are young people who who have the potential inability and ambition to become intellectuals in the future and um And that is uh That is the most important audience because at the end of the day, I don't think the world is changed by numbers Not numbers of people numbers of intellectuals. Yes. I you know, we need a thousand me's we need a we need a hundred on cause We need a hundred greek salamiaries. We need uh, a thousand Alex Epstein's right. So you need a you need the Purposefully the philosophers got lower numbers and the popularizers like me and alex got larger numbers But you need a lot of us and and to change the world. That's what needs That's what is needed to change the world And when we need all of you who are not intellectuals To support the cause to argue for the cause to to help fund the cause To contribute to the cause and a variety of different ways that you all do But at the end of the day the people who change the world People who write books give lectures teach classes teach courses and do all that so um If you are young If you're ambitious If you're smart If you're interested in ideas You're my primary target And if I can convince you to come and join us at the institute To uh to to take the OEC the objectives academic center To get engaged with us to become an intellectual in the future to to be The next alex epstein or don watkins or uran brook or on calgate or greek salamiary or terra smith or or any of the You know any of the intellectuals we have That's the long you know, you know All of the other those guys, you know, whatever field you do That's at the end of the day what we need and and and and and that's who i'm hoping you guys Some of you guys become and uh You know i view my success the success of these podcasts partially Is how many new people we get in the OEC? How many new smart people we get to become new? Fellows at the iron man institute become writers become speakers and that's what i really want I want to generate hundreds of these and um, and i'm you know, i'm counting on you to be those people so um Join us join us in this battle Go to the iron man website iron man institute website. Uh engage in the battle. All right. We're gonna wrap up now um buy my book In pursuit of wealth the mall case for finance. It's it's on amazon. It's in kindle form in a soft back form I get it for your friends get it for your relatives get it for Uh, you know people in your world get it for It particularly if you're in the finance industry um You know, uh Use it use it. It is a tool. Is it a tool? Uh, so use it apply it um And so on oh what what says how long a career Is worth aoy investing in a potential intellectual? I i'm not sure what that means. You're asking how long A career they still gonna have well, I mean it depends on how much investment is required But but you know the focus is on young people because I expect a long career Um, it's a lot of work to train a new intellectual. It's a lot of work to train a new intellectual Alex was at the institute seven years Don I think ten years I was trained for a long long time. Um Uh, all of us got lengthy training somewhat on the job some of it in advance And it takes a lot of work and um You want to get the maximum amount? So I don't know exactly how to answer that but but a decade two three four As much as possible If you're asking because you're older and you just don't have a runway It would depend on how much training we thought would require Um, how much investment of fun all right by the book again In pursuit of wealth in all case finance and thanks thanks, so You know to Thank you to those who have already bought the book think of you those who are going to Going to buy the book soon Thank you to my co-author Don Watkins to rain Isles Uh for his essay To Doug Altner, but uh, yeah, I mean go buy the book I think whether you're interested in finance or not you will enjoy it and it will enhance the other thing I want to encourage you to do is to listen to my history of the Middle East brief history of the Middle East on itunes on Any of the podcasting apps on blog talk radio and now the course I think four of the five episodes already out On the the rise of totalitarian islam the fifth episode will be without tomorrow the day after Go listen to that. I think the more educated you get about this topic The more intelligent the conversation we within This movement will have about the threat Of jihadism of islamism will be and uh, I don't know other than ilan jono I don't know anybody who knows this topic better than I do And I think I think you'll benefit from listening to those courses also, you know, ilan jono's courses that you're on the At the easter but now these are all available for free as as as podcasts Available to you anytime you want to listen to them. All right Thank you all I will see you tomorrow. We've got the blaze tomorrow between two to four eastern time Right after that show I'm flying home to california. So I'll be doing that from the tell So you can listen to that on the blaze radio. I'll try to do it also On uh on facebook and and all of that we'll see We'll see if that work. It won't be high quality because it'll have to be through wi-fi, but we'll see if I can make that work One note From next weekend The blaze is going to move to saturdays. So uh, they're moving my show to saturdays, which means that they're gonna We're gonna do it in the morning Pacific time it's gonna be from nine to eleven and then they're gonna replay the show in the evening So it's get double the exposure, which is great. It's a good sign. It's a good move For for more exposure for the show So, um, I encourage you to to listen on the blaze and and get engaged. All right You are uh, you've been listening to your own book show and Talk to you tomorrow and then again next week. Bye