 The radical, fundamental principles of freedom, rational self-interest, and individual rights. This is The Iran Brook Show. All right, everybody. Welcome to Iran Brook Show on this Thursday, January 4th. We're almost done with a week of January 2024. Thanks for joining us for a news roundup where I, Iran Brook, bring you clarity on the news of the day. All right, let's just jump in. A lot of print, a lot of websites, a lot of rumors, a lot of stuff going on. On social media and newspapers, everywhere, really, on the latest documents being released regarding Jeffrey Epstein. And these documents are from the civil case that, one of the civil cases that was brought against Epstein. And this is from Discovery. All the kind of back and forth in Discovery and all of this. A lot of rumors about names are going to be released. The client list. We'll finally get to see the client list. Everybody needs to just calm down. I mean, the only reason these documents are being released, this is from Virginia. Guffrey, Giffrey, whatever, is a civil lawsuit against Epstein and Giselle Maxwell. The only reason these are being released is because the judge decided that most of the information in them was already public. So it's unlikely we're going to discover unfortunately very much new in what is being released right now. It's just confirming stories that already exist out there, the names that are being listed and names that we've heard before. The reality is that we still don't know the extent of the network of people that Jeffrey Epstein provided underaged girls to. We still have no idea who these people are, you know, the extensive list of them. Again, there are rumors about a lot of people. Nobody has been charged with having sex with underage girls except with the one, the one, was it fashion guy in France, Jean-Luc Brunel, who also committed suicide, committed suicide while waiting for trial in a French jail in 2022, just like Epstein. And it was a close friend of Epstein's and it was alleged to have raped and assaulted women and hang out with Epstein and probably partied with him. There just is not a lot of info here about, there's just not a lot of info being released, but there's just, we still don't know. Which is sad and unfortunate, maybe even suspicious in terms of their powers to be, they don't want us to know. Who's on those lists and who participated in what and who did what when? So it's sad, it's sad for the victims. A lot of the victims have not come forward and talked about this. I mean, there's just, there is this envelope of silence really around the whole Epstein affair, which is just disgusting and despicable. And depressing that somebody like Epstein could get away with what he got away with for so many years, that so many well-known people, that so many people in the public eye, befriended and participated maybe, and yet in spite of all of that, there's so little information that is actually being provided. We know who was on airplanes, we know who knew him and who hung out with him on different occasions. We don't know who actually abused these girls and these women. And in particular, who had sex with minors and who had sex with girls and women who were cursed into having this sex. So it is, the whole thing is despicable, it's ugly, it's horrible, but it's particularly shocking that so little is indeed known. A lot of long articles have been written and yet we know very little. And again, nobody, nobody yet who's been accused of all his court clients, nobody's accused. There's a lot of conspiracies. You know, one of the more popular ones is that Jeffrey Epstein was working for the Mossad and that this was all being used in order to blackmail American politicians in order to provide more aid to Israel. That's a very popular one, particularly among the anti-Semites out there. You know, there's a lot of conspiracy theories about how he died and whether he was murdered or committed suicide. There's a lot of conspiracy theories about who's on that list and why the list of people who slept with these girls, why that list has never been brought up because these are well-known people who have a lot of power. But we don't actually know. There's a lot of speculation and a lot of conspiracy stuff, but very little actual knowledge and actual prosecution. And in that sense, again, it's sad because people should suffer for their sins and some have, but more need to and it should be much more formal instead of just rumor mills and suspicions and accusations. It would be nice if some of these people were brought to trial. It is unfortunate that they never got Giselle to actually talk, to actually tell the truth about what was going on and actually name names. So we might never know. The reality is there's a good chance we will never know. But don't get caught up in the names. The names are coming out. I mean, there's very little there. There's very little in these proceedings, in these documents that is going to be new or interesting. Giselle, by the way, is going to spend most of the rest of her life in jail. And maybe she's afraid of being killed, but then again, that's again playing into the idea that Epstein was killed. So maybe, maybe not. But yeah, the fact that she didn't talk, the fact is that the information has not really come out and that the names being named, nothing new there. There's nothing to see, sadly. It would be great if we had more information. And what's interesting is very few victims are coming forward, right? We've got John Doe's. We've got a number of victims, but none of the kind of numbers you would expect given what was going on and for the years it was going on. And again, they haven't made accusations regarding specific people other than Epstein and maybe they too are afraid. Maybe Epstein is easy to accuse because he's dead. They can go after his estate and they don't want to name names because of their fate. They're afraid. Can't really blame them. All right. Jeff Epstein is such a, you know, such an ugly topic. He was such a disgusting human being. I, you know, and he really did interact with the elites of this country, partially because he had a lot of money to throw around. He was funding a lot of research and programs at MIT and doing a lot of philanthropy and therefore a lot of people interacted with him. And partially because the reality is that a lot of men, powerful men, want to be, want to be close to pretty women. And Jeff Epstein was a gateway to pretty women. And that gave him a lot of pull. I mean, this is the kind of superficial, you know, superficial culture in which we live. It's also the kind of repressed, sexually repressed culture in which we live, kind of the Christian culture in which we live. There were choirs that kind of drives men into this superficial view of sex and, you know, this, this, this attraction towards the superficial, the shallow, ultimately the meaningless men who are willing to risk their careers, their lives for these things. And somebody like Jeff Epstein with his, you know, smooth talking, a projection of, of, of success and ability and the, the, the, the association of success and ability with, with young, beautiful women. It's a provision. It's a provision that's led to, I think, a lot of distortion in terms of, in a lot of young men's mind about what success really means and what sex is all about and what, what, what aims and what goals one should have in life. But to the extent that we can diminish the allure of a Jeff Epstein and the model he represents, the better off society becomes. All right. What else do we have? Yeah, so that, that's what I have to say about Jeff Epstein unless there's new information that comes out that would, would suggest that we know more than we do right now. We don't know more than we, more than I've talked about in the past about this and you can find my past videos on this elsewhere. I just, I'm curious, what do you think of this lighting? Do you like it? You don't like it? A darker background, lighter font. I'm curious. Let me know. Also wanted to remind everybody that we have a show tonight at 6 p.m. East Coast time. It's going to be, it's going to be really, really interesting. I'm going to be talking to an economist who is in Argentina. He's going to be in Argentina. He is, he is, you know, an Austin economist and knows a lot about Mille. I think knows a lot about what Mille has already done. Knows a lot about what Mille's plans are, about the opposition and how it's going to weigh against him. So this will really be about Mille and about Argentina. So please tune in. I think it's going to be really, really interesting. And, and, alright, so as with everything on the Iran book show, we have complete and utter disagreement in the chat about whether you like the lighting or not. Paul loves it. David doesn't. Scott, as usual, is not Camero. It's mixed. It's better than Biden, but not as good as Trump, I guess. Alright. Anyway, tune in tonight. Tune in tonight and we will do that. Alright, let's, yeah, I'm purposefully trying to do a dark lighting, a dark background to highlight just to make it interesting. Do you like the lighting today? Alright, better, better than usual. Alright, we got a poll. See, you can vote on whether you like it or hate it. I have a feeling that the hates will win this out. Ooh, yes, so far. 50-50. It's moving. It's a constant moving target. Alright. You remember we talked yesterday about the bombing in Iran at the funeral of Soleimani, not the funeral, but the four-year commemoration for the death of Soleimani. Over 100 Iranians were killed. A lot of people were injured. And of course, the speculation was, it's Israel. No, no, it's America. It's the U.S. Well, I think, and nobody was taking credit for it. Nobody came out and said, no, no, we did it until today. And basically ISIS came out and said, wait a minute, don't give credit to the United States and Israel. We did it. So this wasn't attacked by ISIS. It turns out as well that it was a suicide bombing. So this was not clear from the beginning, but there were two bombs. Both of them were suicide bombings. So both of the terrorists who committed this died in this, and ISIS mentions their names, ISIS. I mean, it doesn't get much better than the two main Islamist forces in the world out there killing each other. So Iran and ISIS are going at each other. Good. I mean, good. The Iranians can start killing ISIS where they find them. ISIS can start killing Iranians and destabilization of the Islamist cause. One of the reasons I don't think Islamists will ever win is that they can't agree on anything. I mean, al-Qaeda hates ISIS. ISIS says al-Qaeda, they all hate the Iran because the Shiites were al-Qaeda doesn't really, because they cooperated with them. And Islamic jihad hates Hamas, which hates Islamic jihad, although sometimes they cooperate and sometimes they kill each other. And yeah, I mean, ISIS might be doing this because they don't get any money from Iran and all the other Islamist groups do. So who knows? But it does look like this was a case of ISIS doing this. A few other things related in the Middle East. The United States earlier today in a drone attack trying to get emulated Israelis struck the logistics and support headquarters operated by the Iranian-backed popular mobilization units in East and Baghdad. So they literally bombed back in Baghdad early and they did it this morning. In that bombing, they killed a senior field commander for one of these Iranian-backed Iraq-based organizations that has been attacking the United States. Finally, the United States has decided that maybe a wounded Americans trying to kill Americans, bombing Americans, I think well over 100 times, maybe that justifies a response, maybe somebody should be killed as a response. And they have taken out this leader of this terrorist organization. I guess there were a number of other deaths and injuries during this attack. So the United States doing something, something, very little, but something. At the same time too, the Brits and the Americans have said enough in Yemen, Houthis were coming out. If you don't stop, we're coming after you. We're really going to bomb you. We're really going to do something significant. The Houthis are basically yawning and continuing to attack ships. There was another attack today using this time not an air-based drone but a water-based drone trying to attack a ship. It was unsuccessful, but they are continuing to try the response of the British and the Americans. I think everybody's still waiting for that response. Everybody is waiting for it. Generally, the New York Times puts it this way. This is a title from the New York Times piece, but this is kind of echoed across the media landscape. There are attacks, heightened fears of a wider war for the Middle East. Everybody is panicking. Israel killed the Hamas leader, so maybe Hezbollah is going to go to war. Two of the bombings in Iran, maybe Iran is going to go to war. If the British and the Americans attacks the Houthis, maybe the Houthis... Well, they're already at war. Maybe something else will happen. So there is generally real angst around what are going to be the consequences of all this. And what is interesting is I really do think that the one party that seems most uninterested in actually a war right now is the party that has the most to lose from such a war. It's time that America realizes how powerful it is. America doesn't, or doesn't want to use the power, is afraid to use the power. But the reality is the country that has the most to lose from a war that fears a wider conflict in the Middle East right now more than any other entity is Iran. Iran doesn't want the war. If it wanted a war, it would have told Hezbollah to launch all out against Israel. If it wanted a war, it would have sent more troops into Syria and they would have attacked Israel directly. If it wanted a war, its destroyer in the Red Sea would be engaging with the Americans. Iran is petrified of the Americans. They're poor. The economy is struggling. As I've told you many times, the U.S. and Israel could take out all of Iran's basically ability to export oil. They could do it in a day because it's so one facility in the Gulf. Iran is a refined uranium that they could turn into nuclear grade, weapons grade. That could be taken out by the Americans for sure, even by the Israelis. Iran doesn't want any of that. Iran has difficulties at home. It now has to do with ISIS. It does not want a war with the United States. The only people who seem to not think about that is the United States. You know, the U.S. is the real coward here. They don't want to engage. They don't want to piss anybody off. They don't want to upset anybody. They don't want to confront anybody. They don't want to pursue their own self-interest. They don't want to do what's necessary for the defense of American interests. But Iran is really the one that's terrified. And, you know, I think even if Iran knew about October 7th in advance and maybe gave it a thumbs up, I don't think they expected it to be as, quote, successful as it turned out to be. You know, again, while they want to show some support for Hamas, they're not unleashing Hezbollah on Israel. Hezbollah doesn't want to all out war with Israel. They know exactly what will happen to them if they engage in an all out war with Israel. And Iran knows what will happen to them if they engage in an all out war with the United States. All right. Let's see. So again, just an update from the Middle East. Nothing really is changing much. Israel is under a lot of pressure to sell out. And it really looks like the Israeli war cabinet is more and more leaning towards some form of selling out. And of course, I think you know that Israel is being accused in the war crimes, quoting the Hague of war crimes by South Africa. And there's going to be a hearing about that later this month. So Israel's petrified and probably likely to compromise, sadly. All right. What else do we want to say? U.S. and Africa, yeah, this is related. So U.S. announced today that they are seeking drone bases. They're seeking to expand their military presence in basically three African countries, three relatively wealthy African countries relative to Africa, that is. Ghana, Ivory Coast, and Benin, these all countries on the western coast, of Africa, all countries to the southeast of the trouble spot in Africa. The fundamental, the main trouble spot in Africa is just below the Sahara desert in countries like Mali, Burkina Faso, and Niger. We've talked about this. We've talked about this area is being dominated by ISIS and al-Qaeda. This is the same ISIS and al-Qaeda that kills Christians in Nigeria. It is the same ISIS and al-Qaeda that have been causing problems in this region for now at least a decade. The United States has lost its base or is fearful of losing its base in Niger, which had a coup by a relatively anti-American, what do you call it, military coup. Not only did they somewhat anti-American, they're very anti-French. The French were helping the United States track and address the issues with ISIS and al-Qaeda, but Niger has kicked the French out completely, so the French are gone completely from Niger. But Mali, Burkina Faso, which also former French colonies, at least Mali, I think was in French, have a presence there. The French have very little presence right now. And this is real challenging, I think, for the U.S. that is worried about ISIS and al-Qaeda creating a base in this part of Africa from which to plan and launch terrorist attacks ultimately against the United States. So what it wants is to put more troops in more countries in Africa in order to, I don't know, to have drones to track the progress of ISIS and al-Qaeda. This is so defeatist and ridiculous in my view. The problem with ISIS and al-Qaeda is not that we're not tracking them. It's not, you know, it's not that, I mean, they're there, and they're going to be there as long as they don't fear America. They don't fear our drones. They don't fear us tracking them. It's not like a presence before Niger stopped them from doing anything. We have troops all over Africa. I think we have troops in 120 different countries. That doesn't seem to be slowing ISIS down or slowing al-Qaeda down. I'll tell you what is slowing them down. The pathetic weakness that America exhibits around the world. The very fact that the United States is not dealing with its enemies. The very fact that right now the United States keeps threatening the Houthis and does nothing about them. The very fact that American troops are being bombed and killed in Iran, Iraq and Syria by Iranian-backed militias, and we do nothing. What really emboldens ISIS and al-Qaeda is American appeasement, American weakness. It was a negotiated peace treaty with the Taliban that Trump engaged in and the running from Afghanistan that Biden engaged in. That is what makes our enemies thrive. That is what emboldens our enemies. Putting more troops in Iran to monitor them is not what we need. We need to destroy the source, to destroy their inspiration. As long as Iran continues to be a theocracy in the Middle East of Islamists, we will not rid ourselves of Islamist terrorists. As long as a country like Qatar is allowed to continue to fund terrorist activities by ISIS and al-Qaeda and the United States caters to them and puts them on military bases there and allows Qatar to play a crucial role in negotiating between Israel and Hamas. As long as Israel is willing to negotiate with Hamas and as long as the United States keeps pushing pressure on Israel to modify ISIS and al-Qaeda would get stronger. If the United States was serious about ending the threat of terrorism if the United States was serious about ending the threat of al-Qaeda and ISIS then number one it would tell Israel destroy Hamas, do whatever it takes. And by the way, destroy Hezbollah as well, you got a green light from us. That would be number one thing for them to do and say, yeah, we're serious about destroying Islamic terrorism, the Islamist cause. That would send a clear message. And then of course they would themselves be doing whatever they can to destroy Iran's nuclear capabilities, destroy their support for terrorism around the world, destroy any element within Iran that is threatening, never mind attacking the United States or Israel. They would have destroyed the Houthis by now. And then if you do that, I don't think you have to worry about ISIS and al-Qaeda in Africa. You can bring all the troops home and move their drones to more productive uses. What feeds our enemies more than anything else, more than money, more than ideology, more than anything is our weakness, our weakness that fuels the Russians, it fuels the Chinese and it without a doubt fuels the Islamists. Alright, some good news. There are a bunch of stories out about DEI dying. The DEI is, you know, whether explicitly or implicitly being de-emphasized by corporate America, it's become toxic that with the resignation of gay at Harvard, a lot of companies are wary, they're wary of offending their customers, they're wary of offending their shareholders. Now it's true that in some cases it's just going to be a change the name and the same policies will be there but they'll just change the name. But even Axios, kind of a leftist publication, has companies, a headline, companies are backing away from DEI. And you can see this, but if you search on a news, one of the news aggregators, if you just search DEI, you will find many, many, many news stories right now about how everybody is moving away from identitarian framework for hiring. Blackstone, you know, which is the ESG, post-the-childers moved away from ESG, they are now focusing on hiring for, quote, social economic diversity and the changing job requirements to find more diverse talent without targeting a specific race or ethnicity. Forbes is reporting this, sorry Fortune is reporting this. They're talking, companies are now talking about wellness and inclusion rather than DEI. They're starting to look at other ways to do work without, you know, the finding ways around the identitarian conceptions. I talk about employee experience or employee wellness, all kinds of other stuff. Now, again, part of this is your DEI by a different name, but part of it is DEI has become toxic. Part of it is the whole identitarian project is by many people found upon. And I think that in this sense, the, what do you call it, the critics of DEI, conservatives and others, you know, left-center, old-style liberals, that people are critical of identity politics. They're critical of identitarianism. A winning. I know Scott doesn't want to hear it because the last thing in the world he wants is for the left actually to lose because then how would there be no identity to his group? They, their only identity is that they're anti-the left. But the left is losing these battles. They're losing the battles for the mainstream of America. You see this in so many votes we've seen over the last few years where when these issues are on the ballot, they always lose. And you see it now even among the elites where, you know, with Harvard and Penn and Blackstone moving away from ESG, you're seeing the people are coming to the realization that, you know, maybe we need to find a different way. Maybe we need to, maybe we need to soften this, or maybe we need to move away from it completely. A lot of companies, if you remember, moved into the DEI space as a consequence of the George Floyd and the whole Black Lives Matter. That's old news already. That happened a long time ago. News cycle has moved on. And the good news is, I'm not saying it won't resurrect itself, it could very easily resurrect itself, but for now at least there is real momentum, momentum that needs to be capitalized on. There's real momentum in undoing a lot of the damage ESG and DEI have created within corporate America. And that's all good news that we should share in spite of the fact that some people don't want good news. All right, we have 102 people voted on the poll. We have 160 watching. So you too can, if you've seen the show in the past, you prefer this background or the previous background. Just curious, it's pretty close. 54 to 46 saying yes, they like this, they like this lighting better than the usual lighting. That surprised me. Just based on the chat, it looked a lot of the way around. So if you haven't voted yet, go to the poll and vote so we can get a better representation of your views. All right, finally, for those of you who believe in monopolies, a company called Perplexity has just raised, well, it's just raised $74 million that valued perplexity at $520 million. Perplexity is a company that is taking on Google in search. Perplexity is a company that is going to be using AI as a search engine that is going to try to drive people away from Google, away from Google search, away from using Google search and using their own search instead. Now, of course, everybody has tried to compete with Google and lots of companies have tried and failed over the years. It's going to be interesting to see whether Perplexity can succeed. It got one of the investors in Perplexity of Jeff Bezos from Amazon, so that I think is interesting. And of course, they're using a new technology, AI, to try to beat Google, but of course Google at the same time is heavily investing in AI and is going to launch its own AI internet search functionality. So whether Perplexity wins or not, what this really proves is that even when you get a dominant market position in a unregulated industry, there's always going to be competition. Somebody's always going to try to knock you off. Somebody's always going to try to do better. And whether they succeed or not doesn't really matter from a customer perspective because it forces you to be better at the same time. So it forces you to up your game, which is exactly the accusation against monopolies, right? They become, they don't improve. They just cruise. Not true, never been true in any kind of free market, any kind of even semi free market. All right, watch out for Perplexity. It should be interesting. AI generally is going to change our world for the better. The benefits of AI are really stunning. And I just can't wait. I think the next 10 years are going to really revolutionize the way we do a lot of things. And I really don't think most people have really come to grips with it. But everybody should be looking at their own profession and thinking, could AI do this? And me, I'm looking forward to the AI not only can splice my videos into short videos, which is doing very, very well right now. We're getting more subscribers because of this AI short videos splicing tool. But I'm looking forward to the AI who you will be able to go into the AI and say, what does your one have to say about X? And then it'll give you the video an exact timestamp where I talk about X. And that will be super cool. I mean, it has every single thing I've ever said on YouTube indexed and categorized in itself. And all you have to do is ask it a question and it answers. So that'd be good. So one affluent says he misses the arts in the background. But the yes vote that says they prefer this is beating the no vote out. You know, what can I say? So Louis Filipino says just one thing, Milay, not Milay. But what is it? How do you say Milay? Is it not? Am I saying it wrong? How do you pronounce it? Just typing it out. I know the one is Milay. But what's the other? That's the painter. All right. What do I want to do here? I want to remind you that next week I am in Colorado. I would love to get together. I would love to have an opportunity to meet you guys. Anybody who's listening to show in Colorado. And that is possible. January 12th, it's Friday. We are doing an event open to the public. It is $30 a person. So like a super chat, it does cost a little bit of money. And attending the dinner afterwards also costs a little bit of money. But we'd love for you to come. We'd love to have your participation. We'd love to meet you and hang out. So please join me in Colorado in Denver. I'm going to put the link to the event in Colorado in the chat. And I will also put it after the show. I will put it under the video. So it looks like the chat won't let me. Okay. The chat won't let me. I don't know why it's not letting me. Won't let me do anything. All right. Yeah. But you can find it. You can find the link on your on bookshow.com. On your on bookshow.com. There are events underneath. And you can find the January 12th, the second event on January 12th. And hopefully you can come and and enjoy and join us. That'll be that'll be great. I will put it after the show under the description in the description of the show underneath. All right. Let's jump to the Q&A. Remind you tonight, 6 p.m. East Coast time. We've got the Argentinian economist. Don't miss it. It's going to be fabulous. All right. Ryan, 140 Canadian dollars. Thank you, Ryan. He says, hello, Iran. I miss the New Year's Eve show. I here is the here is to 2024. Sending support to the IDF and Ukrainian soldiers as I type at this trying time. Thank you, Ryan. Really, really appreciate the support from me and for the IDF and Ukrainian troops. Okay. Michael has a two part question. Let's see. Part one, just to clarify from yesterday's question. I get that evil people don't think of themselves as evil and are good at compartmentalizing. My question was how do people who evade so much achieve such positions of authority in Hollywood, academia, the media? You would think if I'm right, it's correct that people who evade wouldn't be able to achieve what these people have achieved. I mean, there are two things. One is goes to the compartmentalization, right? In that portion of their mind that is compartmentalized, not to evade, if you will, they are good at what they do and they can be good at what they do. And again, you see a lot of people who are very compartmentalized. Second, many of them achieve what they achieve in fields that are oriented towards second handedness, are oriented towards people, not facts, not reality. These are Peter Keatings. Think about Peter Keating in the front end, he succeeds, right? He's at the top of his field, architecture. He's miserable, he's got all kinds of other problems. But in terms of professional success, he succeeds even though he's evading constantly. And because most people in the field and most of the customers of the field are conventional. They just want the same old. They're not looking for anything new or interesting. They're just conventional. And therefore what these people, these evaders become very good at is not dealing with reality, but dealing with people. Rand has a line about this somewhere and I can't really know what the line says exactly, but it's the kind of person that is oriented towards other people as his main orientation. Can evade reality, ignore reality, be really bad with reality, be really good with other people. And academia is about appealing to people. It's about fitting in. It's about writing a lot of papers and doing a lot of presentations that don't rock the boat too much, that appeal to other people, people who decide about whether you get tenure or not. So it's that orientation towards people is to think about politics. Same thing. But I'd say the media world is very much like that. Hollywood is very much like that. This is a second-handed world of what Rand called social metaphysicians. That is where society, i.e. other people become their metaphysical reality. That's what they're oriented towards. And they can become very good at that. Again, Ellsworth True is very good at that. Peter Keating is very good at that. The villains in Iron Man's novels are very good at that. And I think if you read the novels again, particularly The Fountainhead, and you think about, or in Ella Shaw, James Taggart, think about how she describes their psychology and how they functions. I think she's incredibly observant about how that works. Thank you, Michael. $50, really appreciate that. Sylvanos, another $50, is that if there are powers that be, that are restricting info around Epstein, doesn't it follow that they probably have a successor agent to facilitate the same capabilities? What chance would there be of such behavior in an ideal world? So I don't know that there are, you know, I don't know that there are powers out there that are suppressing this. I think, so first what I think is suppressing it is fear. I think good people are fearful of exposing the bad people because they're afraid of the consequences. And I don't think the consequences are murder. The consequences are not being invited to the right parties. The consequences are not getting a job. The consequences are political. So I think there's a lot of fear in the world. And I think fear, more than anything else, is holding people back from revealing what's going on. There could also be people in power that have strong interest not to reveal what's going on. It's hard for me to believe that they can hold it back. And ultimately I think we will get more information about Epstein. How much? I don't know. We'll see. And maybe you will never know. Maybe that's possible. Do I think there's a successor agent, i.e. a successor to Jeffrey Epstein? No, I don't think so. I think once he was revealed, people on the lookout for somebody like that. Now, it's not saying there's no access to underage girls for sex. That is always available. It always has been available in history, sadly. But it's not done, I think, since Epstein. It's not done out in the open the way Epstein did it. Now it's gone underground, if you will. And I think that's right. I mean, there are prostitution rings everywhere. And some of them, I'm sure, cater to, you know, the underaged or the clientele, the once underaged children. And the police, I think, fight that constantly, shut down these rings regularly. But sadly, there was constant demand for this. And as a consequence, it keeps popping up again. But yeah, the government should definitely be focused on shutting these down. And again, the FBI and other law enforcement do on a regular basis. What chance would they be of such behavior in an ideal world? I think a lot less. Would an ideal world, would there be no pedophilia? I doubt that you could get to that level of ideal, right? Maybe, but there'd be very little. First of all, because the appetite for such a thing would be reduced. I think, you know, a healthy philosophy leads to a healthy psychology. A healthy psychology, with a healthy psychology, one doesn't seek children as objects of sex. It's a sick psychology that demands that. It's a certain mental sickness. And the healthier we are as an ideal society philosophically, culturally, the less repressed we are about sex, the more sex can be discussed in the open, the more it's viewed as something natural and beautiful. The less healthy sexual appetites are put in the underground, the less sickness there is, the less perversion there is, the less of this kind of behavior, the Epstein kind of behavior there would be. You know, the more self-esteem people have. And here I know a lot of you will object and flip out. But people like Jeffrey Epstein, people like Donald Trump, who is another, you know, sexual, you know, what do you call it? There's a great video where he acknowledges this predator, right? Predator is a good word. The more self-esteem people have, the more self-esteem people have. Womanizers don't grope women. That's not a womanizer does, somebody who just floats with women. But he's a predator, he's a groper, right? He's admitted to it, so I don't think there's anything new when I say that or should be controversial, although I'm sure it is. The more self-esteem a man has, the less he requires force in order to engage in healthy sexual relations with women. So whether it's a Trump or Epstein or many of these others, people out there who feel like they have to bully women or they have to be aggressive with women or they have to pay for sex with women or they just have to surround themselves with beautiful women, shallow, beautiful women that mean nothing to them other than sexual. All of that goes away with self-esteem. You know, what's the guy's name? Andrew Tate. The appeal of Andrew Tate goes away when people have self-esteem. Andrew Tate has no self-esteem. He has no real love of self. If he loved himself, he wouldn't demean himself to the level that he has, with the women that he has. So I think that all of that suggests that in an ideal world, who we partnered with, our relationships, our sexual relationships, our romantic relationships would be completely different than they are today. All right, ooh, running late. Let's do this. Remo says, how has the US government distorted the IPO market? Oh, God. Well, I mean, in a million different ways by the very creation of the SEC and the regulation of every aspect of the IPO market. But just to give you one example, but there are lots of these, the Sabin's-Oxley bill that was passed in 2002, I think, basically made it very expensive to IPO. It created a duty for the CEO to legally be responsible for the financial statements being issued. So it made the legal liability of boards and CEOs much more robust. It made it much more expensive to go public, much more expensive to IPO. And indeed, for years after Sabin's-Oxley, the IPO market mostly dried up and a lot of public companies were in private because it was much, much cheaper to be a private company than a public company because of Sabin's-Oxley. It basically placed a regulator on every CEO's shoulder in terms of the accounting and the numbers and stuff like that for public companies but not for private companies. But everything, all the SEC disclosure requirements, all the SEC regulations are geared towards public companies. Well, the higher, the more expensive you make going public, the more difficult you make going public, the more liability is involved in going public, the less going public there will be and that's distortive of the IPO market. And that's just, again, one you could go lots and lots of layers on that. Bradley says, in Anthem, solitude is illegal. Is physical space necessary for thinking clearly? Many compulsory socialists socialize in order to avoid solitude. Objectivism has helped me enjoy and even require my own space to operate rationally. Yes, I mean, I do think you need your own space. Van Rijn once said something like civilization is the process of more privacy. Privacy meaning to some extent solitude. That is a space that is being able to be alone. If you think about how people lived in the Middle Ages, everybody lived in one room. Kids, mother, father, maybe there was a blanket that separated the parents' bedroom from the rest of the house, but everything was one room. If you had sex, it was basically sex in public. There was no privacy. Privacy didn't exist. And the richer we are, the more civilized we become, the more privacy we demand. And privacy meaning space we demand. Separate space. Separate spacing. And I think it's crucial. I think it's crucial to be able to be alone. It's crucial to be able to be in silence or with music that you enjoy. It's crucial to be able to think without somebody else whispering in your ear or without somebody else making noises. Yeah, it's important to have time alone. For your mental health, for your ability to think, your ability to concentrate and focus. And you have to be able to create the conditions under which you focus best. And that requires you to have your own space. Harper Campbell says, do you think a lot of leftists can't see themselves working with their hands so when they observe manual labors, they assume these must be miserable and being exploited into doing such intolerable drudgery. No, I don't. I don't think that's the source of it. And I don't think Marx thought that the workers were exploited and miserable. That what they were doing was horrible and therefore they were being exploited. I don't think that is the sequence that generates his view of exploitation. I mean, for him it was more the reality that the workers worked and that their management and capitalists didn't seem to do any work. And for him, work was physical. He himself didn't do any work, of course. And it was that the capitalists got rich, the labor did not, even though from a perceptual perspective, which is the level at which Marx could conceive of the world, the labor did all the work and sweated the sweat. And it wasn't so much about misery, it was about the fact that they produced the stuff. And the management and the capitalists didn't do anything. They literally weren't creating anything. And Marx couldn't contemplate what it is they could be creating. And as a consequence, he had this view of they're getting rich and only people doing any work of the labors, they must be exploiting the labors. That is the only way he could understand us. All right, remind everybody tonight, 6 p.m. East Coast time, interviewing an economist from Argentina who's going to talk to us about the state of the Argentinian economy and Millet, Millet's reforms, what Millet hopes to achieve with them and how far this economist thinks Millet can go and how Argentina will respond. Oh, anyway, we go. And you, of course, will be encouraged to ask questions using the Super Chat. All right, Jason, I ask, have you ever thought of Elvis like a superhero? No, I haven't. I hadn't really, I hadn't really until I saw 22 Lumen film, which then it made me think, what a phenomena. Have you seen it? The film summarizes, summarizes, love killed him. No, I've never seen it. And no, I can't think of it. Elvis is a superhero. I don't really even know what that means. No, and I don't know what this movie is, the 22 from 2022 Lumen film. I guess it's the Elvis film that came out in 2022, which I've not seen. So I don't know. Marilyn says, the background seemed a bit too dark to me. I get that, but 53% of the people like it. Marilyn says, the new background is growing on me. That was fast. Phil says, imagine Churchill's sarcasm to Sunak and Biden, quote, telling your enemy your intention seems a great idea. By the way, do either of you fancy a few hands of poker? Yes, but you need a Churchill for that to pull that off. But yes, I mean, God, let's tell the enemy exactly what we're going to do and exactly when and where. Okay. Thoughts on the effective acceleration is an AEACC movement and latest Lex interview with the movements founder Beth Givos seems positive. I'm not going to comment on it now. I will do a whole show about it soon. I need to watch the interview, but yeah, I've been following this a little bit over the last a few weeks and I will do a whole show on it very soon. So I'd rather not comment on it now and leave it for a show that I'm going to be doing. Oh, it's getting tighter. It's 52. Yes, they like the background. 48? No, they don't like the background with 150 votes in. So we've got significant number of votes and it's very close. This is going to be basically a tie and unresolved. We'll have to keep playing with backgrounds until I find something which all of you will like and have and prefer. So we will keep trying. It is interesting. More of you have participated in the poll than have liked the show. Liking the show really, I think participating in the poll also helps, but liking the show helps more with engagement and therefore with the algorithm and with promoting the show. So please like the show before you leave. Like, like, like, how do I get this to be something that is a habit with you guys? And just as you click on the poll, also like the show. Do it at the same time. All right. James asked, does all irrationality come from cowardice? No. I don't think irrationality comes from cowardice. I think irrationality comes from all kinds of emotional states. And a lot of it comes from evasion. It comes from and there's no real cause of evasion. Evasion just is. James says, I'm getting a bit sick of living an honest life with such a threatening legal system there to protect people. Well, think how much more scary it would be to live a dishonest life and not know which dishonesty they could lamp onto and drag you off to some horrible, yeah. So yes, I mean, I'm sick of the legal system we have, but at least I know that they've got nothing on me. They've got nothing on me. They have to really be corrupt to come after me. Imagine if I was corrupt, I'd really be terrified. J.J. Jigby's, you're on. Who cares what most people think? They're wrong. The dark lighting obscures the art in the background. It looks like you lost power and you're using an emergency light. I mean, that's one interpretation. Another interpretation is more dramatic. I stand out more. So I'm not convinced by that argument. You know, the art is background. No matter what the lighting is, it's background art. It's not art to be focused on. I'm not big on background art anyway. I think art should always be kind of at the center. You see, it's even distorted in that sense that it was the camera was angled in the wrong way. But I don't think this is the right answer. I mean, does all background have to have art? Does the background I have have to have art? What else could it have? I mean, I'd be challenged to come up with a better background than I have because by people who know, by marketing people. So I'm interested in what you guys think. I'm not going to change. I'm not going to put a green screen back there. I'm not going to change. But how do we make it more interesting? How do we make it so that this background is not boring? Because I think you guys are bored. We can put strobe lights back there. We could have dancers dancing behind me. I don't know. I'm asking for input. But the reality is that me standing in front of a bookcase with some art pieces behind me is not going to attract new viewers to the show. And the reality is that these things do matter. That is the kind of background you create does matter. I'm not putting up a green screen. That is not happening. So it has to be something where we actually manipulate objects in reality. It's not going to be a green screen. Too much of a headache. And no, I'm not doing a green screen. That is done. Frank says, is it more justifiable to disregard civilian casualties in a democracy backed Hamas than civilian casualties that may occur in Iran? No, I think in either case you have to do whatever is necessary for your self-defense. And Hamas was not democratically. I mean there was one election. You don't know what the election would be today. I think they would still win or would have been before October 7th. I think they would still win. But that's not the point. The point is you have to do what is necessary for your self-defense. That gives the justification. Your self-defense requirement is justification enough to do whatever is necessary to win. And how the government got to where it is, none of your business, their problem not yours, have nuns in the background. I could have nuns in the background. Too expensive. Nuns are expensive. You spend way too much time getting irritated with people on chat. Alright, I didn't spend a lot of time today getting irritated with people on chat. Clark, is a British accent your favorite accent? Yeah, by far. Well, in English for generally, well maybe even that's not true. French accent I think is sexy. Yeah, but I think a British accent. It's the most intellectual, most prestigious I think. Okay, Jason, you have a healthy balance of using the irritants in the chat as props they are. I think so too. I think these guys are props for me. You guys, if you think I'm really getting irritated or if it upset you, you're taking it too seriously. Now, if it turns off new people, if it limits the number of subscribers on the show, then I'm worried. By the way, don't forget to subscribe if you're not a subscriber yet. You, don't forget to subscribe. Demon, whoops. How do you view personal data? I think it should be viewed more as private property and given protection as such. What are your thoughts? Yeah, I think so too. But there's a sense in which it is where when you go on a website, you fill in one of those forms and you say, yeah, you can use my data and none of us read those forms. But there has to be a different model where our personal data is respected and is thought of as our data and where companies like Google and others pay us pay us to use the data. Or they don't pay us, but they give us a lot more control over their data. Now, the reality is most people don't want that control and most people, you wouldn't use that control if they got it. I don't think the government needs to intervene here except for the third party doctrine, which Amy Peacock talks a lot about, which is the idea in the law that if you give your data to Google, then you've given up your data and then the government can take it. Now, you've given Google the right to use it in a variety of different ways and that's fine. That's private property. But the government shouldn't have access to that data. And I think that the third party doctrine perverts much of the way our private data is used online. What I would like to see is a market-driven solution to the problem where maybe different business models deal with that data differently and re-choose how our data should be dealt with. But nobody's forcing you from giving your data to anybody. Do you think DEI is in publishing like stories and novels are being accepted based on the author's race agenda instead of quality of work? Yeah, we know that. That's definitely the case. I'd even say it's in publishing in the sense that what is the story? Who are you telling a story about? Are you white telling a story of somebody who's not, who's colored? If you're colored, you know, you're telling a story of a white person. All of these factors, unfortunately, tragically, playing a role in the publishing world. There's no question about it. Savanos, throw a fancy rainbow light in there. I'm thinking, you know, maybe a halo? Like some kind of halo thing? That'll work. Charlie, put a green screen of good Renaissance art. Just some ribbing. I know you don't like it. I like Renaissance art. What do you mean? I don't like green screens. But again, I don't want art as background. I mean, I have some art and background because it's the background of my office. And I think it adds to the aesthetic. But I don't want you to perceive art as something you put in the background. I want you to experience art. And for that, it needs to be your focal point. And I want to get you to the point where you view art that way. Enric, get a good lighting person to recommend different lighting scenarios. There should be someone from all your connections. Lighting people, is there anybody out there who's a lighting person? I need a lighting person. Definitely need a lighting person. Particularly if you know of a lighting person in Puerto Rico. Get me a lighting person in Puerto Rico who can come into my office and help me. A lighting and design person who can design my background and set up the lighting properly and put up some strobe lights or disco balls or whatever we need to do in order to do this right. But I agree, Enric, my challenge is to find somebody. And if I could find somebody in Puerto Rico, I would hire them in an instant and get it. But if somebody out there, you're on Bookshow, has ideas on how to use this Bookshow, these walls, for better background, and what kind of lighting I should be using, then please let me know. Please let me know. And I'm happy to, even if you can't make it to Puerto Rico, do a consultation with you online, pay you for it, and try to create a more... I mean, you guys already sold, so it's really make a more welcoming set for new people. That's what I want. A welcoming set for new people. Mary Alina's coming around to the disco ball idea, I see. All right, everybody, 6 p.m. tonight. Don't miss it. I'm looking forward to it because I'm interested. But I know a lot of people are interested in me. So join us quickly, Chalet says, oh, what about a 12 gorge and an American flag in the back? That's always a good one. Too conservative. I'd have to have like a rainbow flag on the other side to show that I'm not some second amendment focused Bible thumping conservative. So we'd need to balance it off with some stuff, right? See, it's difficult. We have to do stuff that is going to be real to who I am. I don't have a 12 gorge. An American flag I like, but no ISIS flags. Yeah, I don't know. Bob Marley poster, no, that wouldn't go right. Maybe a Beethoven poster, but I've got I've got Vermeer Vermeer Vermeer is over there. No, not over there that way. That's Vermeer, right? And that's that's more me than a poster of like that. I have to enjoy the office as well because it's my office. All right, guys, see you at 6 p.m. Don't miss out. By the way, the poll is 62 to 48. Those of you are not watching live can do the poll, but you can in the comment section. You can let me know what you think of the lighting. Bye everybody. See you tonight.