 Can I make 40 here? So it is about 5.15 a.m. The birds are chirping by 4 a.m. So during my past five weeks in Australia, I've been typically waking up by about 4 a.m. and It's Sunday here. It's Sunday morning and yesterday was Christmas and yesterday it was Shabbat and I'm in Tannam Sands and there's no synagogue in Tannam Sands. There's no synagogue in Central Queensland. It's the best of my knowledge. I don't think there's any synagogue within 300-400 miles of here. So there's an interesting interesting day. What do you do when you observe the Sabbath, when you observe Shabbat according to Orthodox Judaism and yet there are no other observant Jews near you. There's no synagogue and it's also Christmas Day and you're back in Australia with your family. In large part, I've turned to Australia to spend time with my family and get to know better my brother and my sister and my uncles and my aunties and my nieces and my cousins and my family holds initially Christmas in Tannam Sands and it's a big family event. So this is how I approach these things. So in general, I believe in holding your religion lightly. So this may not be the approach for everyone, but you can be religious in a way that's incredibly obnoxious. You can be religious in a way that separates you from other people. You can be religious in a way that makes you difficult to interact with unless you are on the same religious path and observance level and I'm not into that. I think one should wear one's religion lightly so that it's not an unnecessary obstacle between between you and other people. It's not the constant reference point for all your conversations. So for example, I've been active in 12-step programs for a decade, but to the best of my knowledge, I've never referenced Judaism in any of my participation in 12-step. So never mentioned it with my sponsors. I've never mentioned it to the best of my knowledge in any of my shares. I don't mention it in outreach calls. Virtually never. So other people I know are always referencing, for example, their Christianity. Jesus said this on the Sermon of the Mount, the Apostle Paul said this, St. Peter experienced that, you know, Martin Luther tells us this, and I don't enjoy that, right? Particularly when the other person knows that I grew up a Christian and left it, I don't want my 12-step meetings contaminated by other people's religion because one of the principles of 12-steps is that we don't invoke outside issues so as to avoid separating people who badly need help from a program that can help them. So introducing my Judaism or someone else introducing Christianity or introducing politics into a 12-step program, to me it just unnecessarily separates you from other people and throws down unnecessary blocks between other people, addicts who need help and a program that can deliver the help and if you're going on about your religion or your politics or any hot button outside issue, it just gets in the way. So similarly in the workplace, I don't talk that much about Judaism. I just let it go. Similarly, within Judaism, I don't talk that much about 12-step programs. Like if it comes up, I'll talk about it, but I don't I don't push and promote, you know, an alternative spiritual path within Judaism. And so too, I when I when I spend time with my family, I didn't talk about Judaism unless someone else asks. I just let it go. And I admit I find it obnoxious when people have to constantly refer everything back to one thing, be it a 12-step program or be it their religion or be it God or Libertarian economics, whatever, when people have to constantly refer back to one thing, I find it obnoxious. So I guess I'm post-modern. My very simple understanding of post-modern is that there's no one overarching ideology that is sufficient for dealing with life that is sufficient for explaining the challenges that we face. So that's my understanding of post-modern. There's no one story that is adequate for our story. There's no one story that's adequate for life in the 21st century or 40 Christmas for all situational peace. Thank you. Thank you, Art Bell. So Art Bell, you you make a lot of interesting comments and I really appreciate them and I think you'll appreciate this Art Bell. I bought a Shura mic for my iPhone and I'm using it right now and to give better quality audio. But unfortunately, I did not buy the video package. So when I try to use my Shura mic with my gimbal, my phone tilts to one side. So to save 40 bucks on the video package with the Shura mic, now I can't use my Shura mic with my gimbal unless somehow I find a way to add tape and maybe a small pebble onto the other side of my phone to try to balance it out. So that when I walk down the street with my gimbal that the phone's not tilting to to one side. Why didn't I buy the video package? It was just like an extra $30 or $40. And now I'm reduced to trying to tape pebbles onto one edge of my phone so that it doesn't tilt to one side. Also, you suggested that I do more YouTubes about music and that's a great idea. Along with many of your other suggestions, they're excellent. So I as supplies my favorite group of all time and I understand it now through the lens of 12 step addiction like the songs of air supply, right? The greatest hits there. Are they not all about love addiction? So when you're 70% of people have a positive self-image, right? Are you sure about this? There's no certainty. You're certain. Okay, so 70% of people I think have a positive self-image. That's what I read when I read up on self verification theory. And so we all filter all our life experiences and feedback we get throughout through our own self-image. So 70% of people have a positive self-image and so when they hear positive things like, ah, yeah, you know, that's right and they feel good about it. But when you have a negative self-image and you hear positive feedback, then it disturbs you and it kind of decoheres your worldview. It it shakes up your worldview and makes you feel less secure because if you have a negative self-image you prefer to be around people and situations that bring out that negative feedback. So I have struggled with this and the negative self-image and it's just below the surface. So unless I'm in peak spiritual condition that that negative self-image will frequently rear its ugly head. And so I think the 30% of the population with the negative self-image they are particularly vulnerable to addiction. And so when you're an addict, it means that you've found some kind of process or substance that makes the pain go away because obviously if you're living with a negative self-image your life is going to be quite painful. And you could have like some positive experiences, but you're going to filter them through your negative self-image so that you stay stuck in varying levels of self-hatred. So for me as a someone growing up with that negative self-image and discovering the high of falling in love, right, and romantic infatuation and sexual excitement, you know, those romantic and sexual highs would take the pain away. And air supplies music I think kind of embodied that that love addiction that just characterised so much in my life and has probably played a significant role in why here I am at age 55 and I've never been out to sustain a relationship longer than a year. So it's an interesting question. Why do we love the text that we love? Why do we love the music that we love? And as I understand it now, my love for air supply music is because it's the music of the love addict, right? It's the music that reflects myself, reflects my love addiction and that yearning for a skate. Oh man, the Mazis are out here. So many sand flies and mosquitoes in this area. I'm just reading a book on Gladstone. So Gladstone's the big city, about 30 minutes drive from here, and it's a city of about 30,000 people. And according to this book, it was long known as a slum city. So I'm sitting right now in Tannam Sands, Gladstone's the big city, 30 minutes drive away. It's now a major international port. They have major liquid natural gas plants and you always see, you know, major tankers lining up even here from Tannam Sands all the way into the Gladstone port to to pick up the natural gas and then ship it around the world. So now Gladstone's an international port, but in its media portrayals until maybe the 1980s, it was known as the slum city according to this book. And so when I was seeing a doctor in Brisbane in 1989, I mentioned I was going up to Gladstone. He would warn me about, you know, make sure you don't get any sexually transmitted diseases from the girls in Gladstone. Vivian Veritas, long time no see. Vivian, I am thinking about moving to Australia. So I feel very happy here. I've got family here. And now I'm about to like rationalize and give reasons for why I want to move to Australia. But it's primarily an emotional experience. Right. I had an emotional experience my first morning in Australia just walking along the beach and feeling at ease, feeling happy. Damn, there's so many mozzies out. Now one's at my mic. That like when I ride the public transport in LA, I'm typically the only, you know, white person on the bus. But I don't have that in Australia. Public transportation is a perfectly pleasant experience in Australia. I go to the beach. There are no gangs. There's no rampant crime. There's just more of a sense of ease here. There's virtually no crime. There's, you know, virtually nothing to be afraid of. And it's really easy to connect to other people. Because you have things in common. You're on the same wavelength. So United States has never had the camaraderie and cohesion and homogeneity that Australia and England have, let alone the cohesion and homogeneity that France, Germany, and Japan have. So I just walk around here and I feel at ease. Now probably like after I move here, I remember when I moved here before, music is distraction or confirmation. Hurt without her is a great cell to women ego boost. Yeah. So when I moved here before after about six to nine months, I did start missing the United States. So probably if I move here, there will be things that I miss about the United States. But right now I'm just enjoying the camaraderie, the cohesion, the sense of connection, the high levels of social trust. And it just means that I, you know, walk along feeling happy and at ease and get a good day, mate. How's it going, mate? Like it's just effortless to open up conversations with people. And you're kind of on the same page. And so thinking about very seriously thinking about making this big shift to move to the eastern suburbs of Sydney. I mean, quality of life is just so good. Right. You can use public transport. You can walk around at night at during the day. You're not threatened. You're not under assault. It's very easy to form bonds. There's like a whole, whole thing. There's a whole culture of mateship, right? Where you're basically you'll do anything for your mates and they'll do anything for you. And so I found that in Orthodox Judaism, that that culture of mateship. And I also find it throughout Australia, which is absolutely intoxicating to me. So I'm having a ball. So I guess back to Shabbat versus Christmas. So yesterday was Shabbat for me. And yesterday was Christmas. And my family tradition, meaning not my immediately family, but my relatives, my uncles and aunties and nieces and cousins, etc. all gather in tandem stands for Christmas. And I gathered two. So I wasn't going to, you know, shun family Christmas for my Shabbat. So I observed Shabbat by I would walk to breakfast. All right. I didn't I didn't drive. And so it was less than a mile. And then I would walk to, you know, Christmas lunch. And obviously I'm vegetarian and, you know, I can eat I can eat fruit and I can eat salad. And so it wasn't hard finding things to eat. So I can keep kosher. Now, one, one thing that I compromised on is that when someone says Merry Christmas to me, I say Merry Christmas back. So normally I would not say that because it's it's inauthentic to being an Orthodox Jew. So I know some Orthodox Jews disagree with me about this. They don't think it's any big deal. But when you're saying Merry Christmas, you're essentially saying that Jesus is the Christ. And as an Orthodox Jew, obviously I can't say that. I don't have any any religious faith. Any, you know, I'm not a I'm not a theologically resonating with Christianity. I don't believe that Jesus is the Christ. Now, Australia is overwhelmingly a secular country. So Christmas is, you know, far more of a secular celebration in Australia than it is in America. But, you know, my druthers is that I wouldn't say Merry Christmas. And so I try to avoid that in the United States. But virtually nobody says happy holidays here. So it's kind of nice because Christmas is a huge Australian holiday. And nobody says happy holidays. Nobody. I haven't encountered anyone say happy holidays. What people say is Merry Chrissy. I like that. Merry Chrissy. So Australians, Australians shorten everything like tinies for tins. It's it's ISO for living in isolation. Australians have some. I just I just love the slang here. So yeah, Merry Chrissy, like everyone's wishing each other Merry Chrissy. And none of the shops are open. Yeah. So normally I wouldn't say Merry Christmas because ideologically it just seems inconsistent with being an Orthodox Jew. And at the same time, it's kind of inconsistent with my idea of trying to carry my religion lightly. So, you know, I don't want to create unnecessary divisions between myself and other people. I don't want to be obnoxious. I don't want to be the the fart of the dinner party. All right, I don't want to be the skunk at the at the big bash. And in America, I try to avoid it because in America, happy holidays is like perfectly acceptable in big cities. But in regional Australia, and I think in in Sydney, too, like Merry Chrissy and Merry Christmas is Der Rigour. So that's that's a compromise that that I've made. So yeah, this is an overwhelmingly secular country. Christmas is overwhelmingly secular. So I also I don't put on Christmas hats. And I didn't dress up special for Christmas. I didn't like wear something red. So I was like, why aren't you wearing something red? I wore this shirt to Christmas breakfast Christmas dinner. Right. Oh, thank you. Thank you, Vivian. Oh, my God, I'm I'm so sorry. I will I will connect with you privately. That's, I can't imagine the pain and the dislocation that that comes with that. Wow. Wow. So if I do look better, if I do look happier or giddy, as some people say, that's socially conditioned, right? It depends on me being in a society that is congenial with me, right? It's really hard. And I don't think it's even healthy to try to be health, you know, to happy on your own. We so need other people. And here I feel like I'm in a I'm in a place that is just conducive to human happiness. It's like conducive to to flourishing. I guess some new angles here. So my brother works in a garden center with, you know, with all these beautiful plants, right? It's got all these beautiful plants around the home and working in a garden center. It's, I think it's highly conducive to happiness. My brother can't remember the last time he heard an angry word from a customer. He never has angry customers. Can you imagine going through your day never hearing an angry word? Like I've been in Australia for five weeks and I don't think I've heard an angry word. Now Australians do get angry. I'm not saying it doesn't happen, but I haven't seen it. Like the kind of tension and racial conflict and crime and dislocation and decoherence and low social trust that characterized much of life in Los Angeles is just not here. Now I still love Los Angeles. There are many wonderful things about LA and I don't think LA is a dystopia by by any means, but it's just really intoxicating here and it has a has a big effect on my happiness levels, right? To walk down the street and just be happy to see people, right? And to be able to speak with them. So in Los Angeles seems like half the population does not speak English. So I remember going to Friday Night Live at Temple Sinai in Westwood and the mayor, Antonio Villarigosa, spoke to us and he encouraged us to speak to someone who does not speak your language. Like how on earth do you speak to someone who does not speak your language? Like how incoherent is that? So I'm not encountering many people here in Australia that don't speak my language. So there's an attitude among some of my relations like, oh is Luke still into that Jewish thing? I thought he'd given that up. And that's a totally understandable family reaction because I am a man of enthusiasms. But there are some enthusiasms that I pick up that last for many, many decades, such as my my enthusiasm for Judaism. Now my enthusiasm for Judaism has waxed and waned, but it's not that I've ever completely lost my enthusiasm for Judaism. It's just that the aspects of being Jewish that excite me change. So I really enjoy that I can go to a synagogue and I can immediately feel a bond in that home and at ease with my tribe without respect to any of their beliefs, right? Plenty of atheists go to synagogue. Plenty of secular people, secular Jews go to synagogue. You don't have to keep this out if you don't have to keep kosher. You don't have to believe certain things about God, about the divine nature of the Torah to feel perfectly at home in a synagogue. So while many Christian churches, as I experienced, were heavily divided on lines of ideology, generally speaking, I have not found that in most of the synagogues I go to. There are plenty of non-religious orthodox synagogues. You've got an orthodox synagogue, you've got orthodox rabbi, you've got orthodox services, and most people who go there are not religious, but they go there because it's a meeting place. It's a tribal meeting place. It's a tribal watering hole. It's a way of connecting with your people. It's a source of the solace and joy and friendship and connection and community and networking and tradition. These are all wonderful things. So when I was initially getting into Judaism, I was all about the ethical monotheism. The Judaism has this mission to spread ethical monotheism in the world. The teaching that there's one God is primary demand for our behavior is ethical behavior. There's one God who primarily wants us to be good to one another, and I love that. I still love that, but that doesn't have to be the prime focus of my Judaism. There are days or months and I can appreciate other approaches because I know just for me, I get sick at times of people talking about God, God, God, God, God, God, God, God, God, God. To me, it's reductive, but to me, God is interested in more things than religion and theology. I experience people who are always invoking God, God, God, God as a flight from reality. People want a magic key, and then for many people, God is the magic key, and then for other people, the Jews are the magic key, and then for other people, it's libertarian economics is the magic key, or race is the magic key, or 12-step recovery is the magic key, or psychology or psychoanalysis provides the magic key to how the world works, and there is no magic key. There are some useful ways of viewing life. For example, IQ tests and group IQ levels are highly predictive of certain group life outcomes. There are more or less useful ways of understanding things in life, but there's no magic key, and so I find it reductive when people are constantly invoking God as the solution to all their problems, and to the solution to the problems of the people around them, and to the solutions of society, and I find that boring. It gets on my nerves. After a certain point I got, no, stop talking to me about God. I feel like you're using God as an excuse to avoid reality. I feel like you're using God as an excuse to avoid taking responsibility. I feel like you're using God as an excuse to avoid making hard decisions. I feel like you're using God as an excuse to looking at your choices more clearly. I feel like you're using God to try to escape from the bewildering nature of life, and the many questions that life is constantly asking us, the many challenges of life, and you're just trying to reduce it. Oh, it all comes down to God, and for some people that might work, but to me it's just reducing all the wonderful colors and excitement in life to just one color. I like the color black, but I don't want everything to be black. I like the color blue, but I don't want everything to be blue. I think we should be able to talk about things in a completely secular way at times and talk about things without reference constantly to God, or to religion, or to race, or to recovery. One note, Charlie's get really boring. So I had a Christmas, and I didn't discuss Judaism once. I didn't discuss my Jewish identity once. I didn't discuss my Jewish conversion once. I didn't discuss my Jewish path. I had a Shabbat completely free of any discussion of anything Jewish. I just simply hung out with my family. All these bloody muzzies, and yeah, I was wearing my yarmulke, and I didn't dress up in red for Christmas, and I wasn't wearing Santa hats, and I didn't pull any of those things that you pull crackers or something. Two people were like pulling, and then there's some small gift inside. Not that I have anything against it, but I didn't go all red for Christmas. It was a time to hang out with family, and I didn't discuss theology. I didn't discuss God. I didn't discuss religion. I wasn't the skunk at the Garden Party. I don't think I was a downer. I don't think I detracted from anyone else's Christmas. We have such a huge effect on other people, and so I think it's really important to me to not be a downer, to add joy, where I can add joy, and to add comfort when I can add comfort. And wow, I feel like reciting the prayer of St. Francis that when there is anger, now I'll bring peace. When there is sadness, I'll bring comfort. When there is division, I'll bring harmony. So I know that Dennis Prager talks about how his older brother, who's always been an Orthodox Jew, so Dennis was never really Orthodox, but his older brother, who's a doctor, has always been an Orthodox Jew, but he would go caroling. He would go singing Christmas carols, I think, with his university fraternity. So there are plenty of Jews who participate in Christmas to varying degrees without seeing it as a religious thing. So I find it interesting that there are Orthodox Jews who go Christmas caroling. I like Christmas. I like Christian culture. I appreciate December being different. I appreciate people being a little nicer. I like the music moderately, mildly. So in home, I was in Mariah Carey's All I Want for Christmas is You was the big song. So I was hearing a lot of Christmas music, so I started at Mariah Carey. All I Want for Christmas is You was the number one selection. And then Wham! Last Christmas, I gave you my heart. The very next day, I gave it away this year to save me from tears. I'll save it for someone special. So that was on the playlist. And then We Are the World. Remember that anthem from 1984 to raise money for starving people in Ethiopia? So I think we need another big anthem with all the rock stars to try to end the civil war in Ethiopia. So I think that the Christians and the Muslims, they're engaged in a civil war in Ethiopia. And don't you think that if all the great pop singers got together and sang a song, that that could end the civil war. We had farm aid and we had, you know, Hungary and Ethiopia aid. And now we need a song to reduce murder between Christians and Muslims in Ethiopia. So perhaps, you know, this community, we can write that song that ends the civil war in Ethiopia. What do you think? And then also played on Christmas morning here was Will They Know It's Christmas. So I think that was the British response to We Are the World. So the British pop singers got together Will They Know It's Christmas over there. So those are the hits. So yeah, it was nice being with family. And it was nice, not sacrificing who I am. So I think we're constantly faced with choices to sell out our integrity for the sake of connection or stand in our integrity and risk connection. So let's say somebody wants you to do something. Let's say your spouse, all right? Your spouse wants you to do something that would cause you to violate your integrity in something important. All right? So your spouse wants you to do something that's say that's a form of theft. There's a form of lying. It's a form of selling out some other commitment that you've made. All right? Any relationship is going to have constant choices between do you sell out your integrity to preserve your connection to your spouse, to your child, to your parent, to your friend? Or do you sacrifice your integrity to preserve the connection? Or do you risk your connection to preserve your integrity? Right? And so I think we're all frequently challenged by that. And so sometimes it will cost you a marriage, right? If you're not prepared to constantly sell out your integrity and what you stand for, it may cost you your marriage. On the other hand, if you do sell out your integrity, your spouse will lose respect and love for you. And that could cost you your marriage too. So it's an interesting issue. So many times we think, you know, oh, I don't want to sacrifice my integrity and we're just being delusion, right? We're just being petty. So sometimes it's worth making compromises to maintain connection. But sometimes by selling out yourself from what you stand for and who you are, you devalue the connection because you are no longer you. Because, man, it's marzies just driving me crazy. You are no longer you. Like the person that got married, that person is no longer here because you're so constantly sold yourself out and compromised. Now, sometimes compromise is the right thing to do. This is elucidated in David Schnark's great book, Passionate Marriage. You will constantly be caught upon to choose between your integrity and your connections. And it's very painful. So I could, you know, I could sell out my Jewish identity to fit in with, you know, my family for Christmas, right? My family didn't ask me to do that, but, you know, I could have felt that that yearning. Have you ever been part of a group where you felt the peer pressure or your spouse put pressure on you or your friends put pressure on you? Yeah, get a citronella candle, mate, grow some hand citrus for those suckers. Yeah, way too many sand flies and mosquitoes around here. So many people who moved to this area became quite arrayed at all the sand flies. And, you know, one woman marched into the office, I think, of the mayor or the local developer and like put her, you know, badly sand fly bitten, you know, baby on his desk and said, what are you going to do about this? Virtually no mosquitoes in Los Angeles, in my memory. So Los Angeles, that's one good thing they've done. They've wiped out the mosquitoes. So yeah, what do we do about human connection when it threatens our integrity? And so I think it's really easy just to sell out to try to maintain human connection. But then you're going to feel lousy about yourself. On the other hand, you can you can wield your integrity as a bloody weapon to keep people at bay. So I know many people who use every excuse possible to keep others at bay, like in coronavirus COVID has been an absolute blessing to many people, because then they can set, you know, all sorts of laws to keep other people at bay. And so many people are looking for excuses, whether it's in their religion or whether it's COVID or, you know, whether it's their integrity about, you know, the environment. Many people are using all sorts of excuses to keep other people at bay. And that's obviously not the path to a happy life. Being afraid of other people, being afraid of human connection, being afraid of the vulnerability that comes when you are connected to other people, that's not a good way to live. On the other hand, I have formed such intense connections that it's frightened me because I would realize I would give up anything to sustain these connections. Like I've been in relationships that were so intoxicating to me that I would give up anything to stay in those relationships. And then the more desperately I try to cling on, the more the other party would, you know, want to be rid of me. And also, you know, non-sexual relationships, just friendships. I've had some incredibly intense friendships where the conversation was so intoxicating, the connection, the friendship was so intoxicating that I was highly motivated to compromise in any way possible to maintain that connection. So I know I'm not alone in this. I'm thinking about one friend who doesn't want to get into any kind of romantic relationship because it hurts so much when it ends. And with every relationship comes the possibility of betrayal. Like as soon as you form any kind of bond with someone, that immediately creates the possibility of betrayal. Betrayal meaning that they may indeed act in ways contrary to your expectations. So we use that hyperbolic word betrayal to label people who act differently than what we expect or what we wanted. And so you may go on a journey to visit a friend and they might say, hey, I can't hang out with you tonight because I've got this work obligation. So by putting work first ahead of your relationship, you may feel betrayed. It's like, hey, I just drove 300 miles to see you and you're going to put work first. You're betraying our friendship. And that's like a hyperbolic reaction to someone having different priorities than what you wanted or what you expected. But as soon as we form any relationship, we're ensuring that there are going to be times that we feel betrayed. So by converting to Orthodox Judaism, it must have felt like betrayal to many people who are in my life that I walked away from the religion in which I was raised. Now by converting to Orthodox Judaism, that doesn't mean that I don't think that sometimes there are valid criticisms of the behavior of certain Jews or I've exposed some bad behavior by certain rabbis, some sexually predatory behavior by rabbis. And by exposing that, then other Jews would say, wow, you betrayed your conversion to Judaism because you're making us look bad in front of the non-Jews. So all sorts of people constantly feel betrayed by me for various reasons because I don't live up to their expectations of me. So I'm impressed by people who've never lost a friend, but sometimes I've had friendships, you know, severely damaged because I simply went in a different direction. So for example, when I embraced the Nathan Coffness critique of the Kevin McDonald culture of critique, there were friendships that were damaged and destroyed by that simply because it seemed to me that the evidence was pointing in this direction that seemed to me that Nathan Coffness made a stronger case than Kevin McDonald did. And then as a result, all sorts of people felt betrayed. And I may read something today that causes me to completely go back on things I've been saying for the past 40 years. I am constantly changing as my understanding of life changes as I get new information on new perspectives. I am constantly changing and I find that frequently puts a great deal of strain on my friendships or relationships or even virtual relationships such as with viewers who are often disgusted when I change my mind on something. So for example, I thought voter fraud in the United States was a pretty significant deal. And so when Donald Trump lost the, appeared to be losing the 2020 election, my immediately thought was, you know, is this voter fraud? And then I investigated the matter and I found that there's very little evidence for, there's no evidence for a substantial voter fraud in the United States. And so most of my audience felt betrayed. I would do live streams where every single person in the chat passionately, vehemently disagreed with me. I had people quite willing to like completely burn all bridges to me because I would not sign on with the false allegation that voter fraud played a major role in the 2020 election. So I realized how easy it is to get captured by your audience, right? It's intoxicating to have people appreciate you and it's intoxicating to build, you know, bonds with people all over the world, every single person in the chat at on some streams. So we're talking 10, 20, you know, maybe 30 people. So it's intoxicating to develop an audience and develop a following or to develop some income. It's so intoxicating that like any kind of good relationship, you're then heavily incentivized to sell out your integrity to maintain the relationship. So after the 2020 election, I was, I was faced with a dilemma. Did I want to put what I experienced, what I saw, what I felt is my integrity that I'd examined the evidence and it did not seem to me that voter fraud played any important role in the 2020 election. So I could sell out my integrity and what I understood to be truth to maintain a connection to my audience or I could risk most of my audience walking away and being absolutely disgusted and berating me. And so I typically choose what I see, what I experienced, what I think is my integrity. Of course, I could be completely delusional. So I have usually chosen my integrity and so a lot of relationships have then gone by the way. So there may have been things that I could have done that I could have carried my integrity more lightly. So it was less obnoxious. But like my father, I've kind of gone through my life and blown up a lot of connections and relationships and community because my understanding of reality would change. And so for I, from say, I don't know, 2014 to 2017, I was, I liked the populist right-wing approach to politics because it was anti-immigration and it put social coherence and social trust as a primary value and I believe in both of those things. So I liked right-wing populism. And then with the false allegations of voter fraud and then the hysterical reactions against COVID vaccines, it seems to me that the populist right and the right in general and conservatives in general had a really bad COVID. I don't think they were facing up to to the reality of the situation of how serious a threat this was. It seems to me, generally speaking, that most of the lockdowns were defendable and may very well have been the right call. I don't think the elites were imposing lockdowns and getting us vaccinated for some nefarious agenda. They may be wrong about this or that. But I don't agree with the right-wing populist approach to COVID lockdowns. I have discussed for the, no, I don't have discussed, I disagree with the anti-vaccine, anti-COVID vaccine positions. I think some of the rioting in protest of the lockdowns I think has been hysterical. And so with regard to COVID, I think, generally speaking, the elites have been right and the populists have been wrong. Now, with regard to immigration, I believe the populists are right and the elites are wrong. With regard to voter fraud, I believe the elites are right and the populists are wrong. So on some things, I side with the populists, on some things, I side with the elites. And I have a lifelong habit of following what I believe at the time to be true no matter the damage it then does to my relationships. So I'm in awe of people who've never lost a friend. And I'm in awe of people like Tucker Carlson who can build out this enormous audience. And I'm in awe of people who can make a living as a pundit. But I am disgusted by the nonsense that Tucker Carlson frequently spews. I'm disgusted by the things that he has to say to keep this low IQ populist audience. I think booster shots are a great idea. So Israel is now giving out the fourth shot. So the second booster. So I got my booster shot as soon as I could. So I think early October I got my booster shot. So as I expected, remember when Omicron came out, and there's a lot of discussion that Omicron may evade all the vaccines. And I said, no, I would be shocked if Omicron avoided all vaccines. But the different vaccines may have different levels of protection. And yeah, it turns out that getting the booster shot in addition to the vaccine plays a significant role in protecting against Omicron and protecting against risks of death, severe illness and hospitalization. So main issue, you know, can you observe Shabbat and Christmas? Well, obviously, as a Jew, you can't observe the religious component of Christmas. But I think we can, doesn't Omicron seem like it is the vaccine? Yes, it does seem like it could have very much a vaccine like effect. So the Omicron surge seems to be diminishing in South Africa. We have evidence from all sorts of countries now that Omicron is less serious than Delta. And so I would expect that that getting Omicron will provide significant protection against future variants of COVID. But apparently there are people who've gotten sick with COVID three times. And so what's better, natural immunity or vaccine immunity. And it seems like the consensus elite position right now is that both are good. So I have friends who caught COVID and then think they don't need the vaccine. So there are studies that show that natural immunity is better than vaccine immunity. And then there are other studies that show vaccine immunity is better than natural immunity. Seems to me one would want all the immunity one could get from variants of COVID. So both natural immunity and vaccine immunity embrace them. So to the best of my knowledge, I've never had COVID. So to the best of my knowledge, I only have vaccine immunity. But it may well be true that people who caught Omicron and survive it will then have substantial immunity against future variants of COVID. And Omicron may be the beginning of the end of the COVID threat, maybe. So COVID will continue to mutate. But it may well mutate in increasingly less dangerous directions. So we may well move from pandemic to pandemic. Now, I am in the state of Queensland, Australia right now with the Chief Health Officer says essentially that he welcomes mass infections. Is it fair to say that long term effects of the vaccines aren't really known? Well, that's an interesting question. And it's very well phrased, Elliot, that's very well phrased. So I think it's fair to say that we have no indications that the long term effects of the vaccines are going to be negative. We've been vaccinating people for hundreds of years. And sometimes some forms of vaccinations have gone terribly wrong. But the vaccines approved for use with regard to COVID in the United States have been pretty well studied. And we've been using vaccines very effectively against polio, against chicken parks, all sorts of things. So we have decades of very substantial positive health results from using vaccines. So I don't believe we have any evidence to suggest that the long term effects of the COVID vaccines approved for use in the United States will be negative. Because we have a great deal of familiarity with vaccines and how they work over time. And the vaccines approved for the use in the United States, I don't think we have a single documented case of anyone dying from them. So the AERS, people can lodge their adverse reactions to the vaccine. But that's just someone's self-report. That's not solid data. Okay, so back to the main topic. Can one observe Shabbat and Christmas? And yeah, I think you can carry your identities lightly. So let's say you're a really strong believer in the beauty of your people. And the strengths of your people and the gifts of your people to the world, that doesn't mean you have to harp on the beauties of your people in every conversation. That doesn't mean that you have to hate other people and doesn't mean that you can't celebrate with other people. I think generally speaking in life, the more we can celebrate with other people, when we can experience other people's joys, the target of previous vaccines have been stable vaccines. This is the first time that vaccines have been developed for a virus that is still actively evolving. That's false. That's absolutely false. Everything's, you know, viruses are always evolving. You don't think that the chicken parks evolves. You don't think measles mutates. You don't think polio mutates. Polio is caused by a virus. Polio mutates. But to be honest, I haven't thought much about what you just raised. So I could do, I could do some more reading on it. But yeah, I don't, I don't see any, any reason to be suspicious of the vaccines of proof of use in the United States. So there's no vaccine against chicken parks. Okay, smallpox. Thanks. All right. One of those poxers. All right. We developed vaccines against smallpox. Well, back in the 18th century, Edward Jenner, when he noticed that the milk maids would get milk pox, but they then would be essentially immunized against smallpox. So we've essentially doubled our lifespans in the past 120 years because of vaccines and because of sanitation. So it used to be prior to about 100 years ago, most people died of infectious disease. Most people died young of infectious disease. And now most people don't. There's no way to gather long-term evidence on a vaccine that is a year old. Well, there is a way, you know, as time goes by, we will, we will know more and more. So the vaccine was tested for a year, for almost a year. And now it is over two years. We've got two years of testing of vaccines. And we have no empirical reason to believe that there's anything dangerous or anything damaging about the COVID vaccines approved for use in the United States. Now, the China vaccines against COVID and the Russian vaccines against COVID don't work. So, you know, what Chinese products do you most equate with quality, right? We don't think of Chinese or Russian goods as being equated with COVID. Yes, previous vaccines were tested for five years. Okay. And so this time they were tested for one year. All right. And they were thoroughly tested and they were not rushed to the market. They went through very rigorous testing and there's no reason to, we have no empirical evidence to believe that they're dangerous. Like, give me some examples of previous vaccines that turned out 10 years down the road, you know, they started producing all these malefacts. We don't have examples of that. When we've had previous vaccines where there are negative results, they happen immediately. They don't happen five years down the road, 10 years down the road, 20 years down the road. We have no evidence that vaccines, you know, given in the past, only start to show negative effects, five, 10, 20, 30, 40 years down the line. So yeah, Russia does make some good military goods and China does make some, you know, good quality goods as well. It's just generally speaking, we don't associate either of those countries with high quality production. So, Shabbat versus Christmas. That's my primary topic and I'm sure there are many Christians who've gone to synagogue and found some sort of blessing for it. What about all the autism? Checkmate, no. We have no evidence that autism is caused by vaccines. We have more diagnoses of autism because medical providers are getting more skilled at and testing for autism is getting more competent. So when I google, why do we have so much more autism these days? That's the explanation that comes up. When people get more expertise, when they develop better tests, then they are able to make more accurate diagnoses. So apparently, autism is much more likely among boys than among girls. If you have one autistic child, then the odds are two percent to 18 percent that you'll have another autistic child. And apparently, autism comes from the father. It's not from the mother's genetic contribution. So I was just doing some study on autism. So yeah, Shabbat and Christmas. So it's also another opportunity to recognize that different religions have different gifts. There are all sorts of things that Christians do really well that non-Christians can learn from and admire. And there are things that Jews do really well and Judaism does really well, that non-Jews can admire. And there are probably things that Muslims do well. I can't name them right off that non-Muslims can learn from. So we can hold on to our own identity and we can hold on to our own integrity. For example, Elliot and I strongly disagree about vaccines and think we may disagree about voter fraud. And we probably strongly disagree about all sorts of things. And yet we're still friends. So the more you disagree, the more strain that does place on a friendship. But strain does not equal devastation. You can have your friendship will be slightly strained if you support different sports teams, if you have different favorite songs. So it's not easy to hold on to your integrity and hold on to the relationships that are most important to you. But it's a quest that is worthy. So I have tended to volatility in that I'm holding on to what I think is my integrity and that's cost me a lot of relationships. And then other people, they form much more on the side of they've given up what they think of as their integrity to hold on to their relationships. I think the ideal is the middle path, right? To try to do everything you can to maintain the relationships that are most important to you while simultaneously not selling out your integrity. And that's a tremendous challenge. So Elliot and I, for example, and Ricardo and I, we passionately disagree about all sorts of things. And yet Elliot and Ricardo and half Galician and Jim Bowden, these people are important to me. But they're not so important to me that I'm going to pull my punches in what I say on a live stream. I'm not going to change my positions. I'm not going to swallow my point of view. On the other hand, if we're together and we're hanging out, yeah, I may not bring up things that we disagree about so that we can just have a pleasant social time together. So life is a narrow bridge. The important thing is not to be afraid. Bye-bye.