 The radical, fundamental principles of freedom, rational self-interest, and individual rights. This is the Iran Book Show. All right everybody, welcome to Iran Book Show on this Friday. It's 10 p.m. where I am. What about you guys? It's late over here, so I am in Tbilisi, Georgia. It's 10 p.m. I know many of you, it's still middle of the day, early afternoon, one o'clock eastern time, and 10 a.m. Pacific time. So California is now 12 hours behind me. I'm rolling towards the end of the day and many of you are just beginning, so it's a big time difference. And I guess it's pretty cool that I can be all the way into Tbilisi and you guys are where you are, and it all kind of works. So we're doing a show today, I'm going to try to do a show tomorrow, and on Sunday we'll see how that works. Let me just turn this other microphone off, I think that's better. Again, I appreciate you joining me. Now there is a little bit of a risk, I'm not sure how well the internet is going to work over here, so we will see how well that functions. Those of you on the chat, let me know if there are any technical glitches. I assume the sound sounds really good because I'm using these new mics that are really cool, but let me know if the picture is there because I can't monitor everything on the small laptop screen. As I said, I'm in Tbilisi, Georgia. Last time I talked to you I was in Bratislava, Slovakia, that was yesterday, hard to believe, seems like a week ago. Last night I flew into Tbilisi. For those of you who don't know, Tbilisi is just south of Russia, it really is Georgia. It's this little sliver that's between Russia and Iran. In between Georgia and Iran you've got Armenia and you've got Azerbaijan, and there's Iran. So it's a tiny little piece of earth, it doesn't go quite from the Caspian Sea, the Caspian Sea is Azerbaijan, but it goes all the way to the Black Sea. It is a beautiful country, an interesting country, a country with an amazing winemaking tradition and excellent wine. They claim wine was invented here, that this is the birthplace of wine. They can take their roots of wine back to biblical times here, and indeed this place is ancient. It goes back to biblical times. So it's a fascinating place. It's not on many people's list of tourist destinations, but I enjoyed here. The food is good, the people are super friendly, and they put on great events for me. Today I did three talks, three. In the morning I did a talk for the Georgian Bankers Association. That is the Association of Georgian Banks. A number of, I'd say, middle management, senior management people from the different Georgian Banks were there. I talked about the morality of finance. They seemed to really enjoy it, and indeed they asked me to come back and said they would put on a bigger event in the future now that they know who I am and the quality of what I have to say. They recognized it as controversial, but of interest and interest to them. So that was in the morning, then in the early afternoon. Now, right now, in Georgia, just to give you context, students are still on winter break. So they only go back to school next week. So I couldn't speak at the university I used to speak at because the students weren't there. But they did organize an event for me at one of the local think tanks. We had a small group of people there where I talked about the morality of finance. We ran into a big debate about religion versus objective morality. So that was a good event. And then in the evening, my friends at the new economic center that's affiliated with the University of Georgia put on an event. And in spite of the fact that students are on vacation, we had about 100 people there. And most of them students, a lot of high school students, which was fantastic. High school students, college students, some adults. I gave a talk on the history of finance as part of a lecture series that the new economic school is putting together about the history of economics. So I gave a talk on the history of finance. I think the response was terrific and lots of questions. The video of this talk, the talk in the evening will be available in a few days, a few weeks. We'll upload it and you'll get an opportunity to see it. I think you'll enjoy it. It was a lot of fun for me to do then. Over the weekend they are holding here the A is A Academy. It's going to take four essays. We're going to talk about a man's rights, the nature of government by a man. We're going to do an essay that I wrote on inequality and then the money speech by Francisco. So two essays on Saturday, two essays on Sunday. I don't know how big the group is. I think it's going to be a small group. We're going to basically sit in a big square. And I am going to manage a conversation about those essays. It's supposed to be very interactive. The students will have read the essays in advance. And we're going to just delve into them and dig deep into them and answer questions and go back and forth. How cool is that to have an opportunity to sit down with students who are not students of objective as informally and talk about ideas. Talk about dying grand ideas. So I'm excited about the weekend. It's difficult, of course, to do academic events over the weekend. So this is a great opportunity and I'm super excited about that. So anyway, a full program in Georgia. Then on Monday I'm still waiting to hear whether I'm going to Poland. But I expect I'm going to Poland to give a talk about the war in Russia. I haven't heard about whether the university was banning me. There was a university that was banning me because they assumed that I was pro-Russia for some reason. Anyway, I'm waiting to hear whether that'll work. Let me just see. So I go to Poland on Monday. I go to Zurich on Tuesday. I'll give a talk for the Liberal Institute in Zurich again on capitalism, socialism, and war. And then I travel on Thursday to Budapest. I'm going to give a talk, I think, on the morality of capitalism in Budapest. Maybe I can throw in a few lines about why Orban is such a disaster. Then from Budapest I fly to Sweden, to Uppsala, University of Uppsala in Sweden. And from Uppsala I fly to London where I'm doing a couple of events in London over the weekend. So full schedule, as you know, as you can tell. As I said, I'm going to try to do as many of these shows as possible during my travels. I remind everybody that you can use the super chat to ask me questions, and I encourage that. It's a way to support the show. I know we don't have as many people watching as we do when I'm home in regular shows. So a few people less opportunity, I think, to contribute. But I see some of you already starting to contribute. So thank you. I very much appreciate that. So let me see what is going on with, let's just see if I can reload this. Oops, probably shouldn't have done that. There we go. Okay, that's better. Thank you, Wes. Wes just contributed $50. Thank you. I very much, very much appreciate that. So today we have a goal of $650. I'm trying to make up for the fact that there are very few shows. For example, yesterday's show, we didn't make, you know, it's hard to make the target when so few people are watching. Okay, one last thing about Tbilisi, and then we'll get into our topic, which is woke cancel culture. And Rod Dahl, you know, the children's book author, Dahl, and generally the latest trends among woke and cancel culture. I'm not going to make this show very long, partially because I'm losing my voice. I've done three talks today. This is fourth. So voice is going and it's just hard given the dryness. One last thing about Tbilisi, my hotel here is right across from the parliament. The Georgian parliament is right across the street, a little to the side, but across the street. Tonight, as you know, and as I talked about yesterday is the one anniversary of the beginning of the war in Ukraine. There was a massive demonstration just out here. It's kind of wound down over the last 20 minutes. I think they went until about 10 p.m. and it wound down. But there were tens of thousands of people right outside my hotel, right over here towards the parliament, waving Ukrainian flags, waylaving Belarusian flags. I think there are a lot of refugees here, if you will, from Belarus. A lot of people who object to the authoritarian regime in Belarus, object to Belarus's support for Putin, who are here in Georgia. Of course, there are a lot of Russians that have escaped Russia to avoid being conscripted into the army. There are also people, the Ukrainians here who have escaped the war. But mainly it was Georgians and Georgians came out to support Ukraine. I sit here in Tbilisi and within an hour's drive, maybe two hours drive, or within an hour, two hour drives, there are Russian soldiers. Not that far away. Those Russian soldiers occupied two provinces of Georgia that they took by force in 2008 in a short war. There was stopped, I think. I think the reason Putin didn't go all the way to Tbilisi, only because he worried that George Bush, who was quite supportive of the Georgians, would intervene in some way. So he stopped, but he still occupies. The Russians still occupy two provinces within Georgia, a significant portion of the Georgian land mass. And it's literally an hour or two outside of town and you have Russian troops, Russian tanks, Russian border patrols. The Georgians know about the Russian threat to freedom, the Russian threat to liberty. The Georgians know what war with Russia means. And they also know that if Putin gets away with what he's doing in Ukraine, they are likely to be next. He's right here. He's not far. He would love to get all of Georgia. He would ultimately like to get Azerbaijan, where there's a lot of oil and a lot of the gas lines that are trying to gas and oil pipelines that are trying to go around Russia, circumvent Russia, go through Azerbaijan. He has a lot of interest in this region of the world. He is interested in Georgia's access to the Black Sea. You know, there is a gangster and a mobster and a mafioso out there running a big country, a significant country, a nuclear-powered country in Russia. And the Georgians know what he's capable of and they are incredibly supportive of the Ukrainians. The Ukrainian government is not. The Ukrainian government is more trying to have their cake and eat it, trying not to upset the Russians too much because they're afraid of the Russians and because they have a lot of economic ties with the Russians that they don't want to upset. But the Georgian people, I think, everybody I've met, 100% behind Ukraine. One of the interesting things is I'm meeting a lot of libertarian types, like free market types in Georgia. And almost all of them, and this is true in the Czech Republic, not all of them, but almost all of them look at me and ask, what is going on with American libertarians? How can American conservatives and American libertarians be pro-Russia? And my answer is the same. My answer is what it's been forever. And that is, you know, the libertarians in particular, the libertarians, hate the American government. They hate the American system of government. They hate the success of America. They hate the fact that he is a state that is being successful. They are true believers in anarchy and they hate the state, any state that's successful. And indeed, they hate America so much that they love America's enemies. So the enemy of the enemy is my friend. If the enemy is the American state, they love America's enemies. And you know, the fact is that many of them are also conservative. They have conservative social values in spite of being libertarian. And they absolutely ask that. They all ask that. What is going on with American libertarians? Why American libertarians? So pro-Russia. They can't understand it. And so that's part of it. Part of it is the hatred that I think American libertarians have towards the American government itself and the American system of government and the American success as a government. I think the other aspect of it is Americans are clueless. Americans are clueless. They have no sense of the world. They live in a little bubble. Most Americans don't travel. They live in a bubble where they pretend that the most evil regime out there is the American regime. They have no appreciation, no really estimation of the value that their own government, their own country represents. They don't understand the extent to which America is good and they have no conception of what lack of freedom really is. They think they're not free because they pay income tax, which is true. They're not completely free, but wow, are they much freer than human beings have ever been in history? Wow, are they much freer than most people around the world? And they have no concept of what evil is capable of. They have no concept that evil people exist out there, that there are regimes that will slaughter and butcher and oppress anybody. They have no respect for human life of their own people or of the people they're fighting. And this is why American libertarians in particular are so anti-Israel and they think the Arabs, you know, the Palestinians are so wonderful and the Israel's so horrible. Because again, Israel's a regime that's been successful. It's a country and a government that's been successful. And it's a slap in the face to anarchists who think only anarchy can win. Now again, not all libertarians are like this. There are many, many exceptions among American libertarians who understand that Russia is the enemy here, that Russia is the evil party here. There are many, many pro-Ukrainian libertarians. But the bulk of their libertarian party right now and many of its chapters, if you follow them on Twitter, they are viciously anti-Ukraine. They buy into every piece of Russian propaganda. You see the same thing with conservatives. You see it with Jordan Peterson, which is, I mean his position on Russia is disgusting, is too nice of a term for it. And part of it is being clueless, but part of it is also the elevation of being anti-left to all-encompassing, dominating every other idea and every other value. And the domination of social values. That is they love Putin because he's anti-gay. They love Putin because he's anti-trans. They love Putin because he's anti-woke. And that to them is above and beyond anything else, anything else. Anyway, so these libertarians I speak to every day as I travel through Europe. So you can pretend that these are mythical libertarians, but I meet them day to day. I can give you names if you seek. You know, libertarians in Czech Republic, libertarians in Slovakia, and now libertarians in Georgia. And I suspect I'll get the same question from libertarians in Poland who are overwhelmingly pro-Ukrain and significantly concerned with the state of libertarianism in America. And it's decline into admiring fascists, admiring authoritarian leaders like Putin. And you know, when it comes to conservatives, admiring people like Oban. We'll get to Oban in a second. I think I'll get a super-check question about him in a minute. All right, let me move away from that. That's just to give you an update on the state of, oh God, I've got these nuts on my, I'm glad you're European, but I can teach you something about European, at least some of you. And to the extent, let me just say this, to the extent that European libertarians are pro-Russia, anti-Ukraine and pro-Russia, then a pox on all their houses. It doesn't surprise me. I'm not exactly, I don't consider myself a libertarians who admire Putin or who are pro-Russia in this war. You know, it's disgusting. So maybe I'm meeting the better libertarians. Cool. I like meeting the better libertarians. I'm all cool with meeting the better libertarians. So, go for it. You know, whether you live here or you don't live here, I don't really care because the point is that the people I meet are complaining about this. Maybe they represent the small minority of libertarians. That's sad for libertarianism. If the libertarians in Europe support Russia, tell with them. And you know, it's a complete and utter, libertarianism is a complete and utter disaster in that perspective. All right, so let's see what else. Yeah, I mean, and really, yeah, and let me say if you don't believe that American libertarians are pro-Russia, just check out the Twitter feed of the Libertarian Party. Okay, let's see. So I really did not want to talk about Ukraine again. I talked about that yesterday. So I'm going to move on. I assume you've everybody seen the latest woke phenomenon. The latest woke, what do you call it, a conflict or ridiculous act, which is, of course, the rewriting of, what the hell is this window? God, what some have called an act of literary vandalism. I like that. So this is an article called an act of literary vandalism, where the publisher, not because of anybody demanding it, not because of the government forcing them, not because of any act, the publisher who owns the copyright of the books. And according to current law, has every right to edit them, change them, has taken the books of Robert Dahl. You might know, I know Robert Dahl primarily from Matilda. Matilda is the main book of Robert Dahl's that I have read. He's a little bit too absurdist and a little bit too vulgar and ugly for my taste in children's literature. These are not books I particularly encourage my kids to read. They're kind of fun and interesting, but they're also ugly. They emphasize ugliness. So I guess to some extent I canceled Robert Dahl a long time ago because I don't really, well, a while ago, because I didn't really enjoy it except Matilda. I thought Matilda was really, really funny and quirky and interesting. But what Dahl is known for are characters who are quirky and different. He describes them often as fat and ugly and all kinds of colorful descriptions. The action is often depressing. His books don't necessarily have happy endings. And ugly things and grotesque stuff happens to people. In a story, you don't like that? Don't read Robert Dahl. I will love Dahl. Just Dahl. I'm just calling Dahl because everything else is clearly too difficult. Anyway, what the publisher decided to do is the publisher has decided to soften him and to make him more, quote, appropriate for the 21st century and for woke culture. So, for example, in Augustus' group, one of the characters in his books is no longer fat because to call somebody fat is just inconsiderate and not nice. And why point that out? And it's just not politically correct. It's not woke. Mr. Twit is no longer fearfully ugly. Fearfully ugly. Not just ugly. Fearfully ugly. Because again, it's just not right. The umpa-lumpas have gone gender-neutral in the new editions of the books. This is the publisher Puffin. And they have basically taken all the books and they've assigned special woke sensitivity readers. Literally, they call them sensitivity readers. And these sensitivity readers have gone through the books and have marked all the passages that they have found potentially offensive to some potential child, adult, I don't know. These sensitivity readers, sometimes they're called inclusive minds, I don't know what the hell that means, which is a collective for people who are passionate about inclusion and accessibility in children's literature. So, these are people who specialize in destroying children's literature for the sake of woke culture. So, the company is reissued all of Dahl's books with these new writings. Let me read you a few examples of what they've done. So, in the original, the 2001 edition, this is The Witches, Dahl wrote, Don't be foolish, my grandmother said. You can't go around pulling the hair of every lady you meet, even if she is wearing gloves. Just you try it and see what happens. The new one says, don't be foolish, my grandmother said. Besides, there are plenty of other reasons why women might wear wigs and there is certainly nothing wrong with it. So, the idea is, in the book, I think witches wear gloves and wigs. So, now, it doesn't want to suggest that every woman out there has a wig so they make it explicit. Dahl would never write a sentence like, there are plenty of other reasons why women might wear wigs and there's certainly nothing wrong with that. Not a Dahl sentence. That is completely out of character of his books. Another example from The Witches. Even if she is working as a cashier in a supermarket or typing letters for a businessman, God, that's awful. That is a stereotype of a woman. You can't have that. So, the new edition says, even if she is working as a top scientist or running a business. Another one from Matilda. She went on olden day sailing ships with Joseph Conrad. She went to Africa with Ernest Hemingway and to India with Rupert Kipling. So, these are all authors. Joseph Conrad, Ernest Hemingway, Rupert Kipling. Now, of course, Joseph Conrad and Rupert Kipling are not PC anymore. They're not okay. You can't refer to them. They're both authors from the imperial past of Britain. They both have, can be interpreted as being racist. Not acceptable anymore. So, the new version is. Now, of course, this is Matilda reading books and going on trips because, you know, adventures through novels. I mean, that's a beautiful sentiment, right? In the new novel it says, she went to the 19th century estates with Jane Austen. That sounds so boring. She went to Africa with Ernest Hemingway. Ernest Hemingway is still okay. You can all read Ernest Hemingway and still be okay. Don't worry. And California, which with, you know, with John Steinbeck, instead of to India with Rupert Kipling. So, again, all the references to physical appearance have been edited. The word fat has been removed, you know, in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. You know, now he's only described as enormous, not as a ball of dough. Ball of dough is out, right? In the same story, the Oompa Loompas are not tiny titchy or no higher than my knee, but merely small. I mean, how dull of a language. I mean, dull is known for this kind of tiny titchy, no higher than my knee, you know, small. How dull is that beyond anything else? They were once small men. Now the Oompa Loompas are small people because we can't gender define them. I mean, who knows? Maybe they've chosen not to be men since then. Boys and girls now have been turned into children. No boys and girls. And the cloud men in James and the Peach have become cloud people. And fantastic, Mr. Fox's three sons have become three daughters. And then you've got whole sections that were never written, that they've added. They've added. So this is kind of a corporation, a publisher. Not on any pressure as far as we know. Nobody wrote to them and said, I mean, maybe some people wrote to them, but not on any heavy pressure to do anything decided of its own decision. Supposedly to maximize audience to complete a neuter. As they call it, what do they call it? You know, literary vandalism, to commit literary vandalism against dull, by rewriting these books. It's just stupid and horrible and offensive and ridiculous, and you could go on and on and on. But there is real evidence, I think, and I've got, you know, you can actually see some graphs and numbers. And it's not definitive, and it's still, you know, a question of book is then a theme. And I've said this on other shows. It really does seem that this wokeness thing has peaked. I mean, indeed, this dull, you know, rewriting of Dahl's book has irked not only conservatives. Indeed, conservatives are some of the quieter voices with regard to Dahl. And it's not just kind of the Barry Weiss center left. You're seeing even some of the people who consider themselves woke, part of the academic movement that led us to the place of woke that exists today, even they are criticizing it. I think this is one of the first examples where we're seeing even people on the left that in the past have just gone with anything saying, wait a minute, maybe this is too far, maybe this is too much, maybe we've crossed. We might have approached peak woke. Now peak woke is measured by certain things. I think two things are going on here. One, we've probably reached peak of absurdity. We've probably reached peak of just number of offenses and number of incidents and the number of publications and the number of books. The flip side of that is that some of the most damaging things that woke have brought into our life, into our management, into the way we run our businesses, much of that has been normalized. I don't think DEI standards at businesses for hiring are going away, although as I'll tell you in a minute, DEI departments in many tech companies are shrinking significantly. I think, you know, I've talked about these DEI statements that faculty, new faculty at University of California have to make if they're going to get a job. I don't think that's going away anytime soon, but I have a feeling that a lot of departments are going to wait them less, less than others. And it seems like there's kind of a new permanent level of these institutions and this attitude this now is going to be in society. But the real naughtiness is probably peaked and over with. I think maybe a good representation of that is the resignation of the prime minister or the first minister, I don't know how they call it, I think they call it the first minister of Scotland. The fact that even in Scotland, as left-wing as it is, as social as it is, as crazy as it is, their whole attitude towards the whole issue of trans was so absurd and so ridiculous and so over the top that basically their first minister had to resign over it just a few days ago. But I actually have actually, there is an article out there by a guy named Musa El-Gabi who is an academic and he has just documented the fact that by many measures, by almost every measure that is quantifiable, the whole woke issue peaked last year, two years ago in 2021. Now let's start just with a little bit of background on the whole social justice woke issue. This really came about, really started to see a shift towards heightened identity politics, primarily focused on sexual, race, gender, heightened sense of social justice, primarily in areas like tech, finance, education, journalism, art, entertainment, design, consulting, and primarily led and driven through the universities. We started to see that in about 2011. We started to see the shift. I think the first real movement of the 2011 and then it continued with the kind of with the post-Trump resistant movement and it culminated I think with BLM in 2020 and everything happened after BLM. So first, the first thing you can see is post-2011 you see dramatically heightened protest movement, active protest and it's higher if you will professional class and others that now are dedicated to the idea of protesting all the so-called social injustices that are going on. And really protests in the name of social justice, in the name of DEI, in the name of Wokeners really peaked with BLM. They've never achieved the BLM level post-BLM. Now there hasn't been an event that stimulated but that was really the peak. It also was the peak of, I would say, the peak of acceptance in American culture of the whole Woke agenda. I think when BLM started people saw the pictures of George Floyd murder. People were very upset and people who weren't typically far left and would typically throw the whole even Occupy Wall Street or even any of the kind of other big time leftist agenda. People really responded to George Floyd and responded. Reflection and a lot of honest support for whatever positive element there was within BLM. I think a lot of people were convinced there was systemic racism and there was the potential of racism in police departments and right or wrong I think many of them were honest and they demonstrated. But then as the demonstration turned into riots and the riots continued and continued and continued and as data came out about maybe America is not as racist as some people think it is a lot of people turned away from BLM and I think really I think the beginning of the end of the beginning of the descent of the whole movement starts with the BLM protests. It was the peak and since then it's been in decline and the big part of the decline is people being disenchanted with it. And people walked away I think and walked away from the whole work movement but it took time. It took the absurdities of wokeness to really come to the forefront. During the same period of time 2011 to 2022 there was a significant unrest within the economy within institutions in finance and journalism in tech and social media. There were significant campaigns to get people fired. Every year you heard stories about people getting fired because of opinions they expressed that were not quote politically correct based on the latest woke thing. And when institutions were called upon hey why did you do this? Why did they issue apologies? On contentious political issues organizations and institutions and corporations took strong stance which they hadn't historically. Corporations donated enormous amounts of money to activist organizations and all of them almost all of them expanded their DAI initiatives. And in terms of output in terms of what was printed and newspaper and television what was said in books and academic scholarship issues of discrimination based on race, gender, trans issues all of these issues you see from 2011 upticks in publication and talking about it and repeated certain woke terms all accelerated through that. And you see this even before Donald Trump was elected and then accelerated once Donald Trump was elected. The entertainment business became more and more woke and you saw more and more movies and TV series that panned to the world crowd. You saw more and more cancellation campaigns against actors, producers, writers who didn't fit into the mold exactly. So there was this massive trend from 2011 really to 2021 where all of this happened. And people if you look at liberals or left people who identify as liberals or democratic they moved far left on these issues. And this became a real big issue indeed it was so bad that to some extent it became these woke issues became dominantly issues of white leftists. And to a large extent they alienated, non-whites they alienated less educated they let it effluent because the real woke people were rich, were well educated and they tended to be white. But after 10 years of this acceleration and again a lot of these statistics coming out of this article called The Great Awakening is Winding Down by Musa Al-Gabi you can find him he's got a sub-stack like everybody. And he makes the argument that this is peak now, that this unrest is gone. If you look at the number of scholars under fire, the number of scholars that are being attacked, the number of scholars that are being threatened. So if you look at incidents where students are targeting scholars or petitions against professors or sanctions against professors or most dramatic where professors have been terminated. All of those peaked in 2020 or 2021. 2022 is a down year from by every single one of those measures. Indeed I think a good example of this is the uproar in Hamelin College about the showing of the Muslim of the painting of Muhammad. Yes Hamelin College landed up firing the professor. But you know what? Almost everybody left, right and center objected. The art department, the art department about as left as you can get probably at the University of Minnesota objected. Other universities objected. The teacher who was fired was hired by another university in Minnesota with Muslim students in that university and yet they were hired. So there's a real shift. I think if that incident happened two years earlier they would have fired the professor. Everybody would have supported them and they would be quiet. But the fact is in this case even the New York Times came out against it. Multiple publications came out against it. Again that unanimity of wokeness, that unanimity of ideas from the left to a large extent that has disappeared. That has gone away. If you look at data that looks at cancer culture incidents from 2010 to 2022 by all measures it peaked in 2020. Again some peaked in 2021 but by 2022 they were all down. Indeed they're down to 2019 levels in some cases even below 2019 levels. They're certainly not back to 2010. And they're never going back. There's some new normal that is going to be established. But they're definitely done. If you look at scholarships, publications focused on bias and discrimination from 2000 to 2022 being going up and up and up and up and up and then they peak in 2020 and they've been coming down slowly. They're still high, still way too many publications that publish about bias. But then nowhere near as sexy of a topic as viewed as crucial as a topic as they were before. Even in the media, if you look at just media, news media, publications and TV and stuff like that, well I think this is just print media. If you look at the frequency of the use of the term racist, racist racism. Again it was pretty flat until about 2010. There was always discussion about racist, racist, racism. But 2010 it just goes like that. It just goes through the roof. Peaks in 2020, collapses in 2021, goes down again in 2022. And in places like the Wall Street Journal, it's almost back to 2010 levels. Places like the New York Times, it's back to like 2015, 2016 levels. In the Washington Post, it's back to 2015, maybe 2016, 17 levels. Every single one of the major publications, it's down significantly. So I've told you, I thought Wokeness is peak, but this guy is giving us data, which is cool. If you look at search terms on cable news, cable news discourse about diversity, equity, harm, racism, sexism, white privilege, all of them down. Peaked in 2021, down in 2022. Now again, this could all reverse. This could be a false alarm. Other aspects of this, here's a story which I found interesting. The New York Times was recently, and I'm reading from the article, The New York Times was recently targeted by GLAAD. This is one of the, I guess, pro-trans groups. In an open letter signed by dozens of celebrities and thought leaders, primarily for publishing stories about transgender issues that included perspectives of people who did not simply celebrate and affirm progressive activists' preferred narrative. So they were attacked. The New York Times is attacked by all these celebrities and even writers at the New York Times that they're not pro-trans enough. That they're trying to be objective in presenting non-pro-trans views at the same time. So here's what happened. Like in the past, the New York Times would have said, sorry, we'll fix it, fire a few reporters that wrote those stories and hired new people. But this time, instead of an apology and instead of saying they'll do better or firing people, benching people, reassigning people, instead of all that, they wrote the following. Quote, We received the open letter delivered by GLAAD and welcomed their feedback. We understand how GLAAD and the other co-signers of the letter see our coverage. But at the same time, we recognize that GLAAD's advocacy mission and the Times' journalistic mission are different. Wow. Our journalism strives to explore, interrogate, and reflect the experiences, ideas, and debates in society to help readers understand them. Our reporting did just that and we're proud of it. That's pretty cool. That's a good response. Now, you could question whether the New York Times lives up its own standards and you should. But the fact that they stood up to GLAAD, the fact that they reaffirmed their commitment to such reporting and that they would not be just a mouthpiece for leftist advocates is pretty impressive. Now, it even gets even better, I think, because contemporary demanding greater conformance with progressive activists, the narrative of progressive activists on transgender issues. And this was the New York Times' response, quote. It is not unusual for outside groups to critique our coverage or to rally supporters to influence our journalism. In this case, however, members of staff and contributors to the Times joined the effort. Their protest letter included direct attacks on several colleagues, singling them out of policy. We do not welcome and will not tolerate participation by Times journalists in protests organized by agris advocacy groups or attacks on colleagues in our social media and other public forums. Wow. Two years ago, you would have not seen that from the New York Times. Two years ago, I could have told you stories of the exact opposite happening in the New York Times. Times, they are changing. It's just, I mean, mind-boggling that the New York Times wrote that. And you're seeing it across the board. And if you look at opinions of Americans, liberals, leftists, they're moderated as well. They moved away from the more radical position. So here's a question that, here's a statement that people were asked whether they viewed positively or negatively. Do they disagree with it, basically? Do they disagree with it? Here's this, and work their way up. Blacks should do the same without any special favor. So in the past, among white liberals, 40% disagreed in 2012. That went up to almost, disagreement with this is down among blacks, among Hispanics, even among white conservatives, but their numbers were never very high to begin with. But in every measure, the idea that blacks should do the same without any special favors is more popular now than it was two years ago. Again, small movements, slightly from 80% to 60% is not slightly. Again, these could reverse themselves. It's a small popularity of, you know, a lot of these leftist ideas has become, is declining. The vibes have shifted. It's definitely shifted. Let's see. And we're seeing it in corporate America as well. I think I told you last time that when you look at the big tech layoffs that have happened over the last few months, many of them now, companies are changing their attitudes towards DEI and towards woke. Take Netflix. Work as possible. But then, when workers at Netflix attempted to cancel Dave Chappelle in late 2021, the company didn't support them. They didn't apologize. They didn't cancel Dave Chappelle. And in the country, executives issued a memo informing protesting employees that if they weren't open to publishing content that they disagree with, they should quit when they did layoffs. A lot of the employees that complained about the Dave Chappelle thing were fired at Disney. They had PR controversies around Disney and Florida, but they made all these movies that were super woke and super everything that did very, very badly in the box office. Guess what happened last year? They fired their CEO. Bob Chapeck was fired. Ex-CEO Bob Iger came in, immediately was more conciliatory towards the whole culture wars, acknowledged that Disney and its employees have maybe different values that much of America promised to try to accommodate the values of a wider spectrum of Americans. Disney had seemed to supposedly making efforts to have a broader reach and appeal to a broader segment of the audience. I mean, across the board, employees seem to feel less social pressure to conspicuously conform with demands. Again, I'm reading from this article made in the name of social justice. Instead, executive seems to feel increasing social permission to marginalize, censor or purge employee activists in order to shore up their own authority and enhance the bottom line. Now again, and has now become entrenched in corporate America some version of it, but I think the excess of wokeness, the worst of wokeness, the craziness, I think that's peaked and I think that's in decline. And I think we're getting some semblance of normalcy and reasonable a nest, reasonable nest, yes. And I for one am encouraged and think that times are better, right? Times are better. Now, I think a lot of people out there don't like that message. I think there is an entire industry based on and I try a emotional connection based on the idea that the world is falling apart, that the world is horrible and terrible, that all the trends are going against us and we need to fight everybody and everything because, you know, the world is horrible and wokeness is all over the place. I think a message that says things might be getting better is not a popular message. I don't think I'm going to add any subscribers as a consequence of this. I don't think I think quite the contrary. I think in the end of America, the end of the end of the world is much more appealing, it seems, to people. All right. Yeah, things are better. Definitely things are better and things are going to get better. All right. Let's see. I mean, well, things are better for productive people who earn a good living and because war cancelling in decline. For all the reasons I gave during today's short presentations. All right. Let's see. All right. Let's jump into the super chat here. Johannes says, it seems to me many mothers have struggles with control even when their son is an adult. It's appealing to deal with it as a son. I mean, look, I think many mothers and many fathers can be irrational and often are irrational. I think that often fathers don't have, for us, feel more attached. I do think that in the culture in which we live, women tend to be more emotional than men. I don't think that's necessarily coded in and deterministic, but it's true in the culture that we live. And as a consequence, women express their emotions negatively and positively more than men do. And therefore, women form this emotional attachment with their children in ways that often men do not. And so, yep. Ooh, people are accusing me of behaving badly. I'm curious. I haven't followed all of the chat. I can't because I was on this laptop. I can't follow the chat and do everything. I think it's my standing on principle people don't like. Anyway, Tekeja asks, I'm new to objectivism somewhat. I've read Atlas Shrugged and Fountainhead, watched a lot of your videos and a lot from the Institute. Could you give me an example of how to simply define objectivism to a Christian family member? Simply define objectivism. Objectivism is the reality. I mean, I think the best way to do it is with Ayn Rand's kind of objectivism on one foot. I'm trying to think where you can find that. Is it in the voice of reason? One of the essay books has that column of Ayn Rand's where she defines or describes objectivism. A is A, upholds the law of identity, rejects existence of contradictions in reality, upholds the law of causality, rejects the view of the primacy of consciousness, that consciousness creates reality, rejects the idea that reality your emotions. The way you know about reality is through reason. Reason is our basic means of survival. It is the way we know reality. It's how we accumulate knowledge. We don't get knowledge from revelation. We don't get knowledge from my emotions. What is the individual's ability to survive and to thrive and to flourish? For that, he must discover a morality. He can't do it automatically. It doesn't just come from him. Objectivism is the philosophy of egoism, of an individual living for his own life, for his own flourishing, for his own living for life. Objectivism rejects sacrifice for other people and rejects sacrificing other people for yourself. And finally, politically, objectivism is for capitalism. It rejects individual rights and the ability of the individual to live by his own mind, pursuing his own values, a rejection of socialism, a rejection of fascism, a rejection of all-statist ideologies and statist methods and a embrace of a limited government, limited to the protection of individual rights. Okay, let me address this issue in the chat. Armin, thank you. Really, really appreciate it. Armin came in with $100. Let me just address this issue that Abu Yen makes. He is calling me a sectarian. I am a sectarian. I think that objectivism is the right philosophy. I think that there are many libertarians out there that do damage, dramatic, significant damage to the cause of liberty. I think libertarians who support Russia are causing us real harm and they should be repudiated and they should be condemned and they are no friends of liberty. I think that the Hopperian and Rothbardian views of anarchy are destructive to the cause of liberty and people should not support them, should not embrace them, should not endorse them. I understand that a lot of people are anarchists out of what I think is an innocent mistake I don't condemn them, but I think many are not, many of the intellectuals are not. And yes, I reject them. I do not believe in big umbrellas. I do not believe in cooperating that anybody who puts a sign on his forehead saying liberty. I have high standards and people I cooperate with, people I work with, people that I'm going to fight the battle for liberty and freedom, they're going to be people who live up to those high standards and I'm not interested in those people who not only don't live up to those high standards, indeed reject the high standards. So I have nothing to do with Putin lovers, I have nothing to do with Orban lovers, I have nothing to do with lovers of real anarchy. So I don't think it's an insult to call me a sectarian. I think it's the only way liberty will win is if the holders of liberty hold it consistently, if the holders of freedom and liberty understand what it means and are willing to fight, fight, fight against anybody who opposes liberty and freedom even if those people appear superficially to be on their side and to be allies. To hell with you. So I have nothing against, you know, any, I can't remember calling a Boolean a nut, but you know, I've called lots of people nuts and usually they deserve it. Let's see, and you know, the many people hold crazy ideas. I, you know, take your craziness and go somewhere else, I'm not interested in being with you. You know, I once said, you know, the battle for liberty is a tough battle, but he is a game. I don't take it as a game. For me, it's a life or death struggle and battle. The people I have in the trenches with me marching up that hill to capture, I want them to be back. I want them and if people I don't like, I'm not going to trust. So there it is. I'm not saying I didn't call you a nut, a Boolean. I just don't remember. I call by names like nuts, mistaken. I can't remember when I spammy of trying to convince anyone the nut is not an insult. No, not an insult. I meant to insult. Whenever I called somebody a nut, I meant to insult them. It was not intended to be not an insult. I just don't remember why I said it about you and I don't remember what the cause was. But my expectation is that I had a good reason to call you a nut. And I don't have any problem with insulting people. Do you have a problem with insulting people? Anyway, some people deserve to be insulted. I expect that a Boolean, you deserve to be insulted when I said that. And you don't, you know, I have no problem with that. Anyway, let's go back to the Q&A, the super chat. By the way, we're about $237 short of our goal. It would be great if we could reach that goal. Again, you're helping fund my trips. You're helping fund the fund. The fact that I'm not doing all those shows instead of traveling. But you will see all the videos of all my presentations. But those don't usually get super chat. We need to exceed expectations to make up for all that time. All right, anyway. Whoops, some sense of end game in Ukraine before more support. Does it have any logical appeal to you in the sense of no foreign entanglements? Absolutely. We should have an end game. The end game should be the complete and utter defeat of Russia in this context that every last Russian game I think the United States should devote. State keep itself short of sending troops to Ukraine. And I think it should be short of sending troops to Ukraine. And short of bombing Russia. I don't think Americans should be in a position of killing Russians. And the only reason I say that is because of the risk of nuclear war. Russia will engage in nuclear war and defend Russia itself. So I think as long as Russia is out of there, I think we should give them the weapons necessary to do that. Looking to use their capability of actually defending themselves from the Russians. If Ukraine had nuclear weapons, the Russians wouldn't be doing what they're doing today. Hunter-Hunter asked, I find this because it hurts the poor the most. They would say yes. I think that's right. This is advocacy for capitalism out of altruism. And that is not sustainable. And it doesn't hold up. It doesn't hold up logically. And it doesn't hold up in reality. Those people don't stay supporters of capitalism. Syrcus, Golem drank a special juice concoction to keep his voice lubricated while filming loads of the rings. Fourth, speaking engagement. This is going longer than the others than some of the others. I just get dry mouth from being in the hotel with the heating on. So I need either humidifier or I just need to get out more. Plus it's winter. Winter, everything dries up because of the cold. So it just is what it is. In Prague, handling my parents probate in three countries. No problem, Jason. You know, I'll be in Prague again. There are some libertarians who actually like me, who not like some on the chat easily offended and easily upset. But there are some who like me and keep inviting me back. Maybe that'll change. Maybe they'll stop inviting me back because I'm such a offensive, what was it, sectarian. I don't know. I seem to be traveling all over the world speaking to all kinds of groups in all kinds of contexts, libertarians, conservatives, center left. I'm speaking everywhere and yet I'm sectarian somehow. I won't speak to anybody. All right. John says, I just started the video, so I'm starting 191 short of the 650. There's a really good chance we can make the 650 or maybe more in the next few minutes. This is turning out to be an hour and a half, two hour show, which is not what I expected it to be. So please, from now on, only $20 or above questions. It would be great if we got some $50 questions and we made it to the 650 quickly or maybe exceeded it. But no more $5, $10 questions. I just, we just don't have the time to answer them. All right. Let's do these quickly. These are $5 and $10 ones. Roland says, I spent two weeks in Tbilisi to get around the COVID restrictions. So I could make it to Okan in Austin. It was definitely worth it. Absolutely. And Tbilisi, I like Tbilisi. Tbilisi is a nice place. Roland also says, Orban's party officially has cronyism as its chief policy. They call it supporting domestic businesses. Yes. And it's cronyism up the wazoo. I mean they have, they completely control the media. They control other big businesses. Orban's, all these college buddies have juicy, juicy positions that pay them a fortune. And you know who pays the bills? The European Union. That is the Germans, the Dutch, the Danish. Northern Europe pays the bills for Hungary. Hungary is a subsidized country. However, well or badly, you know, well the Hungarian economy is doing, it's because they're basically dramatically subsidized by the European Union and basically by the Northern Europeans. It really is an ugly scenario. I mean Hungary should be kicked out of the European Union. Michael Sanders, why do you say guys like Bill Gates and Steve Jobs will succeed no matter what system we live under? Once they, once your IQ exceeds 160, nothing can stop you. I don't say that Bill Gates and Steve Jobs will succeed no matter what system they live under. I don't think that's true at all. I think that in feudalism, they don't necessarily succeed. I think that in many systems, in communism, they're probably in the gulag and killed. I don't think it's true that once your IQ exceeds 160, nothing can stop you. I think under many systems, when your IQ is 160, you're the first one to be burnt at the stake. Or most people born with an IQ of 160 in primitive cultures, nobody even knows it. Nobody cares. Nobody discovers it. They just die just like everybody else. Most of them don't make the age of 10. Over 50% of children born in such societies don't even live to age of 10. Of course the system you live under matters. Dramatically matters. No matter what your IQ is. If IQ mattered that much, which it doesn't. Jay Park, Colin headed to Lake Tahoe, California to ski but a blizzard rerouted me and delayed it. I hope your travels continue to go well and stay safe. Any skiers in the chat? I'm sure there's some. Good luck getting to Lake Tahoe. I heard there's a massive storm going through. The snowpack is even bigger now. But when you do get up there, the snow will be fresh. It'll be fresh powder and it'll be a fantastic skiing. So enjoy Jacob. Michael says, how do you deal with handling weirdos at conferences or Q&As? We live in such an irrational times. You must encounter obnoxious and difficult people quite often. I'd actually say that the number of obnoxious and difficult people has come down. There used to be a lot of crazy people coming to objectivist conferences and objectivist talks. I mean real nutcases, people that were certifiable. It's gotten a lot better. Questions are much better. The level of the intelligent questions is better. The number of sane people is greater. So I'd say it's quite the opposite. I think the number of people coming to our events, my events, is far higher. The level of sanity is far higher today than it used to be. I just had an event here in Tbilisi. At least 100 people in the audience, very young. Fantastic questions, fantastic engagements. People are really engaging and interested and passionate. I don't know why you guys are so pessimistic. Michael says, has conservative talk radio been any semblance of a positive force for capitalism and freedom and individual responsibility in the culture? Or have they been largely useless pushing us into fascism? I think they were somewhat useful in the 1990s. I think the young Rush Limbaugh was generally useful. But I think that ultimately they became useless and worse than useless, pushing us into mindlessness. I think the blind support of Donald Trump, whether before he was elected or after he was elected, within their own listeners led us to Donald Trump, made Donald Trump in many respects possible. I think thousands of Rush Limbaugh lost it completely and became just a tool, a tool of the Republican Party. I think generally the Obama presidency, Republicans and conservatives and talk radio lost it. They became so fanatic or so anti-Obama that they just became mouthpieces for the worst elements, particularly the early 90s. I find it boring by the interesting and exciting. Overall, ultimately, Rush Limbaugh, no, I don't think so. I can't imagine she would have. Michael says, it's infuriating how many people view slavery, sacrifice and being ruled over. It's infuriating how many people view slavery, sacrifice and being ruled over to working, coming together. So views is the same thing. Yeah, I mean, absolutely, it's infuriating. What is the tipping point, Michael asks, what is the tipping point when the government has become a net rights violator rather than a net rights protector? It really is when there is a one-party system of government and when they have political prisoners. Those are the three criterias that Rand used. I don't think any one of them is enough. But two out of the three is plenty to say we're not free anymore. Josh Meyer writes, travel to Cape Town, the South Coast, and Johannesburg in July would be staying in nice places and with family. I think, yes, I think if you know where you're going, if you have people picking you up at the airport, locals picking you up in the airport that are only going to travel through the safe neighborhoods, then yes. I mean, Cape Town I think is the murder capital of South Africa. You definitely need to be careful where you go in Cape Town. But if you stay in the nicer areas and the tourist areas, Cape Town is one of the most beautiful places on planet Earth. It's truly beautiful. Again, the same in Johannesburg. I would say just be aware, be alert at all times, same as you would go if you went to Brazil, and let people who know the place guide you through it and stay in really nice places in really nice areas. And be careful when you drive around. I mean, I drove all of South Africa by myself, but that was in a different time, in a different era. I think things are much worse today. Michael says, so intellectuals, no deep down that I ran will be there undoing some. Some, yeah. I think some do. That's why they either attack viciously, or some of them even express some mild support. Yes, I think some of them do. Gail asks, educating children this way, and of course we get the politicians we deserve. Absolutely, Gail. Michael says, how do children turn evil? They come out so pure and good. Well, they don't come out good. They just come out children. They're neither good nor evil when they come out. They're just struggling to figure the world out. And when they start thinking, when they start being conceptual, some of them choose to evade. And that's the turning point. Evasion is the turning point. Choose that. And that's when they turn evil. Bree says, is there anyone talking of kicking Russia out of Georgia now that they are so weak? Also, there is a Russian girl who moved to Tbilisi, Natasha's Adventures, 373 subs subscribers. It might be worth talking to her. I don't think there's any talk of kicking Russia out of Georgia. Georgia doesn't feel strong enough. And you see, their perspective is, and I've talked to Georgians here, although somebody will tell me in the chat in a minute that I don't talk to anybody and I don't know who I'm talking to and I'm making stuff up, which is what Abuyen was doing earlier. But I talked to Georgians here and they say, look, Europe rallied around Ukraine because they see Russia as a direct threat if they win in Ukraine. It's not clear the world will rally around Georgia. It's not clear that the Europeans will care about Georgia. Georgia is far from Europe. Georgia doesn't have a border with Europe. The only ally Georgia could hope for in this area is Turkey. And who wants Turkey as an ally exactly? So Georgia doesn't feel confident enough to take on the Russians. So I don't think there's any talk about that. And by the way, there are lots of Russians here in Tbilisi. A lot of Russians who've escaped Russia are here in Georgia. JJ Jigby says, do you think the doll estate is just trying to get ahead of what they perceive as doll's inevitable cancellation and therefore declining book sales? It's a marketing move made out of fear, no? I don't think so. First of all, I don't think the estate is involved. I think this is purely the action of the publisher. I think the publisher thinks that they need to be woke. I think they initiated this. They brought in these sensitivity readers. They thought they were doing, quote, the right thing. They thought the establishment, the leftist establishment would praise them. It hasn't. And they thought it would be a good marketing move. I don't think there was any effort to cancel doll. This isn't a response to some movement. The number of people that care about this nonsense has always been small and still is very small. So no, I think this is a publisher being overzealous. Scott, can you see that woke has peaked is, coincidentally, a useful narrative for Bill Crystal types that don't want to have to push back on it? Why do I care what Bill Crystal thinks? I don't care what Bill Crystal thinks. I'm looking at the data. I'm looking at what's going on in the world. All I care about is reality. I don't care about what their motivation is and who's pushing and who's there. That's the kind of politicking that other people can do. I care about reality. I care about facts. And if woke has peaked, I don't care what other people are going to use it or not use it or all that bullshit. I'm interested in the facts. Has woke peaked? Are academics writing more about woke today or less about woke today? Is the New York Times more receptive to the woke? Or less receptive to the woke? Is Silicon Valley firing people in DEI departments? Or aren't they firing people in DEI departments? It's the whole Bill Crystal types. First of all, who are these Bill Crystal types and types that are much worse than Bill Crystal? Jordan Peterson types. The Yom Khazoni types. Yom Khazoni is a thousand times more dangerous than Bill Crystal is to America and to Americans and to your liberties and to your freedoms. So I'm not interested in what Bill Crystal types will do or won't do. I'm not interested in what the neoconservatives might think or not think. That doesn't interest me. What interests me is truth, facts, evidence, reality. And I'm not going to be all hysterical so I can get the Bill Crystal type. It's to be hysterical so they fight harder. That's absurd and ridiculous. Not on this show. You don't get that nonsense. I'm not going to try to manipulate you so you can behave in ways that I think are helpful to you. I'm going to tell you the truth and you decide what to do. Wow, what a concept. That's unusual. Andrew says, what does it say that your trolls accuse you presenting no evidence during a show when that evidence is being presented? I think the question answers itself. They're trolls and they're not serious. They're not serious. If they were serious, they'd present evidence. If they were serious, they'd actually present facts. But it's not about facts. It's about fear. Scott's primary motivation, for example, is fear. Fear of the left. Fear of anything the left does. And anything he thinks will hold back the left. Anything he thinks will reduce that fear is okay, including lying and denying facts and rejecting facts and manipulating people. As long as the left is held back, that's all he cares about. And if the left is declining in its power, for example, if woke is declining, there's a problem because so many people have defined themselves based on a negative. And if that negative goes away, if that negative changes, they're in trouble. They're going to have to change their attitude. So now I don't think woke is going away. I think woke will only morph. I think there'll be something new that the left does that's going to be horrible and awful that will attack. I'm just saying the phenomena of wokeness seems to be, and I've said a number of times during the show, I might be wrong. It might turn around. It might go the other way. But so far, over the last couple of years, it seems to be in decline. This is a good thing. We should celebrate this. We should be excited about it. And maybe some of our efforts would work a celebration. And instead, they're bemoaning it. Oh, don't say it. Don't say it. It's not about changing the name. It's about the phenomena. And because they're afraid of that, if it goes away, what will that identity be? A suggestion CNN series on Alex Murdoch is like Shakespearean tragedy on the slippery slope of immorality. Interesting. I'll have to take a look at it. All right, Robert Mancuso. What are your thoughts on Peter Zihan's predictions of China's demise over the last 10 years? I'm going to do a show on Peter. When I get back to Puerto Rico, I'm not going to do it from the road. It's too complex. But generally, I agree with Peter about China's decline. I think he exaggerates it. I think China is in decline, but I think it's going to be much slower than Peter thinks it is. I think it's going to be slower demographically and I think it's going to be slower economically. I think it's in decline. That trend, I think, is absolutely true. But I don't think it's going to happen quite as fast as Peter Zihan promotes. Again, the way you get followers, the way you get hefty speaking fees and huge amounts of money and attention and large crowds is by making big, bold, exaggerated predictions. Whether that is predictions about the end of the world, that works. That's really works. The predictions about the end of China and the United States surviving, which Peter does, that works. And making them bold and sometimes rounding out the edges of facts so that the facts are not completely there. That's how you do it. And you can see that with some of the biggest proponents of this are the anti-vaxxers. They make these bold predictions. People are dying. They're dropping dead in the streets because they got vaccinated. It's destroying civilization. It's worse than the Holocaust. The number of people that are dying because of the vaccines. They are making a lot more money on social media. I mean a lot more money by orders of magnitude of like 10 more money than I do on social media because that's what sells. That's what people want. People want simple and scary. Simple and scary. My ideas are complex, subtle, nuanced, thoughtful. And for the most part, I'm not here to scare you. I'm not here to scare you. For the most part, I'm here to judge ultimately. And I don't think the world will end. I've been around for long enough to know that they've been catastrophizing since the 1960s that the world... Well, no. Since the beginning of time. But in my lifetime, every couple of years, there's a new catastrophe on the horizon. Peter is interesting. And a lot of what he says is true. But a lot of what he says is not. And China's in decline. It's going to take him a lot longer than 10 years to collapse, if you will. And I'll be interested to look back 10 years from now and see who is right, me or Peter Zayn. That's interesting. Me versus a lot of the catastrophizers out there who was more right. We'll see. Wesley says, you've spoken very highly of Georgia, being pro-freedom, yet many there at Maya Stalin. How do you reconcile that? I don't think many here at Maya Stalin. There are people here that at Maya Stalin. Because there's still an element of collectivism and tribalism here. And he's one of them. I find that many, many more people at Maya Stalin in Russia than at Maya Stalin in Georgia. I have to say, I've never met a Georgian student who admires Stalin and now granted. I've only been exposed to hundreds of them over many years. I've been coming to Georgia for about eight, nine years. Well, yeah, pretty much every year except for the two COVID years. I was here every single year. And it was, so I don't, I have not been exposed to the lovers of Stalin. Yet I've been exposed to a lot of people who hate Stalin, who know a lot about Stalin. But there is a Stalin museum and people go there and stuff. So I'm not saying it doesn't exist. I'm just saying I don't think it's a dominant feature in the culture, at least as I've seen it. And I don't think it's a significant number. And it's the largest chapter of students for liberty. Certainly in Europe, it is in Georgia in spite of the fact that Georgia is a tiny little country. It typically has over a thousand students, sometimes 1500. The regional conference they have here in Georgia has more students attended than the big Pan-U. ESFL in Georgia is massive and ESFL is not pro-Stalin. And it's one of the largest student groups in Georgia, one of the most influential student groups in Georgia. So yes, I'm very positive about Georgia. And again, there was a period in Georgia in the 2000s where there were massive pro-market reforms like we haven't seen in almost any other country. Those were led by Shesha Grili who is now in Georgia. They completely changed this. And believe me, they were no fans of Stalin and they completely changed this culture. Now it's back slid a little bit since then. Some of the reforms were overturned. But Georgia has a relatively, in the global scale of things, relatively free market. And a relative attitude towards freedom among its box-eyed. Alright, Bash Bandigan says, a few bucks for logic and freedom. Thank you, Bash Bandigan. And Jason says, where did you eat in Prague, any main dinner with the gang there? Unfortunately, I did two events in Prague. One at Severo and one at Anglo-American. For those of you who say, I am sectarian, which is bizarre, right? Because I speak to everybody. Severo, which used to be very libertarian, is now more libertarian conservative. They invited me to come and speak. I went to speak. I then spoke for Students for Liberty, a libertarian organization and a bunch of libertarian. Even one person who supports Russia, who I got into an argument with, were in the audience. I spoke in front of them. So that ate up. I flew into Prague, gave two talks, and then right after that I had to go to my hotel room because I had participated in a board meeting via Zoom. So I basically didn't eat in Prague. So no, there was no main dinner, no good restaurant. I really haven't eaten. My first night in London, I ate at Palomar, one of my favorite restaurants in London, an Israeli restaurant, which was very good. But other than that, even in Georgia here, I still really haven't, hoping on Sunday, we go to a good Georgian restaurant because I kind of miss good Georgian food. Like we're snacking a Georgian food, which I like. But there you go. I speak in front of large numbers of broad groups of people. But when the anarchists in Prague tried to argue with me, I told them what I think. And when the Bitcoin fanatics in Prague told me what they tried to argue with me, I told them what I think. But I don't hide in any kind of cloister. I don't go and hide from debate. I don't hide from controversy. I don't hide from people criticizing me. I go into the battlefield. I go where they are, and I engage with them. I don't know what sectarian means. I'm sectarian in some sense, and I believe there is a truth. And most of the people out there, including most libertarians, are wrong about what it is. I also, in the battle, I want people to side with me. But I also realize that to get people on my side, I'm gonna have, you know, you call me sectarian, then how do you explain me talking to all these different groups? And then if I say, you know, that's a fact. Ooh, wow. Some alt caps are better than others. Some end caps are better than others. That's absolutely true. That's why I'm debating Brian Kaplan on anarcho-capitalism in September. Right? It keeps getting delayed, not because of me. I'm debating him. What more do some of you want? It's mind-boggling, right? You know, just the, I don't know, the silliness of kind of the criticism on here. Yeah? I'm sectarian in some respects, and it turns out I'm not sectarian in other respects. So I know these kind of things are subtleties. They're hard for you. But, you know, I said I don't have any problem with being sectarian in a sense. My sect is the right sect, so I'm fine with it. But I also do reach out to groups that completely disagree with me, and that I disagree with them. So I don't know what you want to call it. I don't really care. Are we still on? Do you guys still have a video? Kudababa says the video is gone. Okay. Martin Anderson says, I enjoyed the event in Batislava this week. Thank you, Martin, for being there. Really enjoyed meeting you and seeing you. The talk was excellent. Thank you. Even though it wasn't all objectivist, I didn't just speak to my sect. Also, great with high quality recording for sharing. People seem more interested in tuning in when I told them I was there live. Excellent, Martin. Thank you for sharing. Thank you for being there. It was really cool. Thank you, Martin. Harper Campbell says, I'm trying to find the video of you fighting with Bill O'Reilly. Does A.O.I. have it? Can you post it? I don't have it. Bill O'Reilly took all those off. I appeared on Bill O'Reilly maybe five times, and at some point all five were on YouTube, but they were all taken off by Fox, so they've all disappeared. I've been on Neil Cavuto many, many times. I've been on Fox many, many times on CNBC. Unfortunately, I don't have copies of them. I can't put them up. I'm not sure if I have the copyright to put them up. Probably don't. I also, you know, so I did a ton of media on Fox and CNBC in the 2000s and early 20s until Fox banned me in 2012, but that video is not available on YouTube, and I can't put it up because I don't have the copyright, which is unfortunate because I think a lot of that video is CNBC who disagree with me, and I still went on. I know. It's shocking for a sectarian like me. All right. Thanks, everybody. I appreciate the support of the Super Chatters. We did well, even though we didn't quite make our target. We did pretty well, 140 short. Yes, I want to remind you, you become monthly contributors to the Iran Book Show by going to Patreon, subscribe star, or iranbookshow.com slash support. You can do it through PayPal that way. Oh, James just asked a $20 question. Do you believe people reflectively attack and belittle Iran because we live in a filthy nihilistic times, and they know on some level she has the answers to the hedonistic nihilistic emptiness, and they fear this. Yes. I think that's a big part of it. I think that's a big part of it. And I think people attack, you know, not to compare myself to Iran. I'm not comparing myself to Iran, but I do. But it just created the thought in me that people in this chat attack me and they feel me, because they find, you know, somebody who thinks and who tries to discover truth and is nuanced and is, tries to be nuanced in a sense that thinks not in a tribalistic kind of way, but applies reason to the facts of reality. And yet as principal, they find that just difficult and a challenge to their own way of thinking. And it's easier just to lash out an attack that actually engage in a discussion. All right, guys. Thank you. I appreciate everybody. I appreciate your support. I appreciate you being on the chat. By the way, the more chat there is, the better it is for the algorithm. So I appreciate all of your arguments on the chat. It helps with the algorithm. It helps promote the video. I am going to sleep. It is, God, it is quarter to 12, quarter to midnight here in Tbilisi. I have two seminars tomorrow morning. So I'm, and then two interviews. I'm doing two interviews for different podcasters. You know, those sectarian podcasters. I'm doing two interviews tomorrow as well for Georgian podcasters, bloggers. So full day tomorrow as well. All right. Have a good night. Bye. Know who you are. When I used to mention your interviews or clips, they've seen you. Keep it up, you guys. A huge amount.