 The radical, fundamental principles of freedom, rational self-interest and individual rights. This is The Iran Brookshow. All right everybody, welcome to Iran Brookshow on this Monday, December 18th. Hopefully everybody has had a fantastic weekend looking forward to a productive and amazing week before us. I guess the week before Christmas we had into next week, which is a week basically all dominated by holidays and Christmas and New Year's. All right, war is hell. I think the daily pictures out of Gaza I think illustrate that. We see Gaza basically to a large extent flattened. You're seeing thousands, thousands of people killed. Many of them deservingly so as supporters and members of Hamas. Some not so children, many children have been killed, which is always a sad to see. But of course from the perspective of Israel necessary, there is no real alternative for Israel to defend itself without this kind of bombing. But on Friday I think we got a sense of how hellish war can be and how just the uncertainties, the fog of war as it's described, in particular fighting an enemy like Hamas whose fighters are in civilian clothes, who are regularly set booby traps and use Hebrew and use the sounds of children and regularly finding ways to lure Israeli soldiers into situations where they are killed. Well, on Friday it turns out that three of the hostages, three male hostages, managed either to escape or were abandoned or somehow freed themselves from Hamas. They had been hiding in a particular home. They had been trying to send SOS and help signals out. I guess nobody saw these signals. And then when they thought Israeli soldiers might be approaching, they ventured out with a white flag trying to basically get the attention of the Israeli soldiers. Israeli soldiers saw people approaching, unidentified and shot them. The first round of gunfire killed two of the hostages, a commanding officer then required that the soldiers stop firing, but one of the soldiers continued and killed the third. In other words, Israeli troops on Friday killed three of the hostages. They were there to save. I mean, this is a massive tragedy on top of tragedy, on top of tragedy that Israel has suffered, you know, really from October 7th. And it's something that I think has resonated throughout Israeli society. It's something everybody has been traumatized over the weekend over. I think the soldiers who did the shooting will be traumatized really for life. I don't know, I think no matter how much they are told that this is what happens in war and this is kind of the consequence of war, you know, they won't be able to forgive themselves or forget this completely. And it is going to hound them. I feel sorry for them in the future, of course, the families of the three hostages that were killed. And, you know, this is a point worth emphasizing. The Israeli forces have now re-emphasized, so the three hostages were carrying a white flag, re-emphasized don't shoot at a white flag even if you're afraid of a booby trap. You know, they spoke Hebrew, but sort of many of the terrorist speak Hebrew. This is what happens when you deal with an enemy like this. And these things will happen. And it's quite possible that some of Israel's bombing has killed some hostages. This is why I said early on Israel has to engage in this war under the assumption that the hostages are dead. Because you cannot fight a war against a group like Hamas on edge that anything you might do is going to cause damage to your hostages. You have to defeat them. That has to be priority number one. You have to defeat them and you have to defeat them thoroughly and you have to defeat them quickly. And, you know, again, the more time Israel takes, the greater the international pressure on it. And you have to thoroughly defeat them. You have to destroy them completely, thoroughly. And you have to bring the Palestinian morale, the Palestinian view of the world to a low so that they reconsider the view of Israel, they reconsider their view of themselves. You know, sadly, I don't know that this could have been avoided given the conditions of battle. I don't think it's worth speculating about whether this could be avoided given the conditions of battle. The Israeli army will now be more alert to the possibility that there are hostages out there, whether that can actually be implemented under the conditions of intense fighting. This was all in an area, by the way, where there was intense fighting going on. You know, between Hamas and Israeli soldiers. Whether more lives of hostages can be saved, it is clear that the Hamas does not want to negotiate, is not interested in a ceasefire, does not want to release any more hostages. It's not clear how many they have. It's not clear how many are alive. It's not clear how many they have control over. I mean, hostages are being held in all kinds of places, and it's all clear that Hamas even knows who they have. It's also clear that they don't want to release some of them because of the horrors they've inflicted on them, and they don't want those horrors to get out. Another female hostage over the weekend was announced that had been killed by Hamas. I think it was one of the women who were raped brutally before she was captured. Israel just has to get on, get on with the job of capturing and killing the entire Hamas leadership and killing and capturing as many of the Hamas fighters as possible and demoralizing the Palestinian people as much as they can. One of the fines over the weekend was a large tunnel. I mean, this is quite a tunnel. Underneath Gaza, particularly in the north reaching out all the way basically to the Israeli border, it is pretty obvious that this tunnel was part of the process of preparation and from which the October 7th assault was made, the entryway to the tunnel is just a few hundred yards from the actual crossing into Israel and a nearby military base, a military base that was overrun on October 7th, where a lot of soldiers died. It stretches over two and a half miles. It's linked with a sprawling tunnel network across Gaza. It's linked to the other tunnels that are connected. But this one is wide enough for cars to pass through and vehicles were brought to the mouth of this tunnel on October 7th to launch the attack that they initiated. It is made of materials that they haven't seen in other tunnels. It is more solid and it also seems to be another Israeli intelligence failure in not knowing that the tunnel existed so close to the Israeli border and not knowing of its size and capacity. It just shows the limitations, I guess, ultimately of intelligence. This tunnel must have cost tens of millions of dollars to build and tens of millions of dollars that could have gone to bettering the lives of Gazans. This is what Hamas did with the money that they got, including from the United States, but from Qatar and Saudi Arabia and Iran and everybody else. The tunnel has ventilation, electricity and is 55 yards underground in some points. Millions and millions of dollars went into building this thing. Other than that, you know, battles continue. It's very fierce. It's fierce both in the North and in the South. Israel, you know, I think in some sense they keep thinking they've got control of the North. But Hamas still has men underground that keep popping up and re-establishing themselves in particular neighborhoods. Israel goes in, destroys them, destroys some of the tunnels. They pop up somewhere else. Others pop up somewhere else. This is just going to take a long time because you're not fighting a final war. You're fighting a war where the enemy is really unseen for most of the time and can move from place to place without you noticing. So until Israel literally demolishes the entire tunnel system, which is going to take a long time, very, very difficult engineering task, it is going to still be dealing with these Hamas terrorists coming out of different holes in the ground and attacking. This is the kind of urban warfare. This is worse than normal urban warfare because of the tunnel system, but this is the kind of urban warfare that is so difficult and is so deadly and is so hellish. And think about a soldier who is in this for weeks upon weeks. It's not surprising the mistakes are made. The US has told you, I think the other day, that over 20% of all Israel's casualties in Gaza have been a result of friendly fire. That again is tragic and horrific. But pretty standard, particularly in an urban warfare like this. But even in Gulf War I, well over 20% of the US's casualties in that war were caused by friendly fire. So it's war is hell. It's a disaster. It should be avoided. And when you cannot avoid it, it needs to be done with massive force as quickly and as thoroughly as possible to get it over with quickly because of how hellish it ultimately is. All right, let's see. Yes, one more aspect of the war is what's going on with the Houdis in the Red Sea and the transition from the Red Sea to the Indian Ocean or the Arabian Sea in the south. Basically the Houdis have blocked one of the busiest shipping lanes in the world. All of the major shipping companies or I think four of the biggest five major shipping companies in the world have now stopped transporting, sending their ships through the Red Sea. This means that the Swiss Canal is empty. Most of those ships were heading to the Swiss Canal. And as I've told you last week, this is a major transportation link between Asia and Europe. And yet now these ships are going to have to go around Africa, which extends delivery by at least three weeks and makes it far more expensive to do this. So here's a shared group funded by Iran, supported by Iran, doesn't do anything without Iran's permission. Basically blocking one of the, I think it's second or third most busy shipping lane in the world. And the United States and the rest of the world is doing nothing. I mean, they knock out the missiles when they see them flying there, but no shipping company is going to risk it. The Houdis are a, not a particular fierce army, they're not particularly, they have no capacity as compared to the United States or any military, western military force. But what this has done is it's created an interesting alliance against the Houdis. Egypt, which generates significant revenue from the traffic through the Suez Canal is really ticked off. Saudi Arabia that has ports along the Red Sea unhappy. China, which ships its goods to Europe through the Suez Canal and the Red Sea, very unhappy. Europe unhappy. The United States is trying to assemble an international force. They're trying to get the Chinese to participate. They're trying to get the Egyptians to participate. They're trying to get the Europeans to participate. They're trying to put together a significant European force to take on the Houdis and to open up the shipping lane. I doubt ground troops would be necessary, but it would require a massive coordinated air campaign to destroy the Houdis' capacity and capability or incentive or willingness to continue to blockade the Red Sea. It is possible that this would be coordinated with the Yemeni government that's been fighting a civil war with the Houdis for years now. It might even be coordinated with Saudi Arabia. Saudi Arabia has been helping the Yemeni government fight the Houdis for all these years. It will clearly tick off the Iranians who basically back the Houdis completely, but it is going to be interesting. This is a campaign which will have to be far more intense than what was done with the Somali pirates. The Houdis have far more sophisticated weapons. They have ground to ground missiles. They don't actually have to climb onto the ships. If you remember, the Somali pirates actually wanted the ships and the cargo because they held them ransom and they would get paid for them. Here, the Houdis just want to destroy. They have no interest in the ships, so they want to bomb these things, which is very difficult to stop. It's going to be very interesting to see what happens in the week months to come. My expectation is that the Chinese are going to try to put pressure on Iran to put pressure on the Houdis to stop. I don't think China wants to join the United States in a military campaign, but that will be interesting to see if they do or they don't. Anyway, it is going to be fascinating to see how this plays out, but it is a real challenge to the global economy. This is, again, a major source of trade, a major pathway that is now blocked, gone. Shipping has basically halted. It will be interesting to see how it all plays out. All right, Hong Kong. Now, Hong Kong, of course, we know is a real tragedy. In 2020, taking advantage of the world being distracted by COVID, the Chinese government basically took control over Hong Kong. And as part of it taking control over Hong Kong, it's basically dismantled, arrested those who were working for freedom within Hong Kong and who are opposing Chinese war. Hundreds of people were arrested. Hundreds of people still sit in jail. One of those people was Jimmy Lei. Jimmy Lei is turning 76 years old in jail this month. He is charged with colluding with foreign forces under the national security law, as well as being charged with sedition. If he's convicted, he's likely to spend the rest of his life in jail. Jimmy Lei came to Hong Kong as a teenager with nothing, literally nothing, worked in the textile industry as a workman, saved up his money, slowly worked up manager, ultimately owner, ultimately became an owner of much of the textile manufacturing in Hong Kong, became a billionaire, sold his textile business and invested the money in communication, newspapers, radio, TV, landed up owning, I think it's called Apple, and the number one pro-democracy, pro-freedom newspaper in Hong Kong, and that constantly supported the opposition, constantly supported the attempts to keep Chinese out, keep Chinese out of any involvement in Hong Kong. He was a real classical liberal, really believed in liberty, and had and has British citizenship. He is part of his Hong Kong citizenship. And you know, he's a real good guy, one of the real good guys out there in the world. Anyway, here's trial, which is a kangaroo court, in front of three judges appointed by the government, will start today. As I said, if he's convicted in this trial, he will go to prison probably for life. And this is one of the real fighters for liberty and freedom, and one of the great critics of the Communist Party in China. So I don't know what can happen. I don't know if the Brits can negotiate some way for him to be released. I don't know, but the reality is, and we all know this, and I mentioned this in 2000 when this was happening, in 2020 when this was happening, is that the Western world, primarily the United States, and this is under Trump and under Biden, have basically abandoned Hong Kong. Abandoned Jimmy Lee, abandoned the freedom fighters in Hong Kong, and China will do whatever it wants. China's only reason to go soft here is that it still wants and still views Hong Kong as important as a financial center, and still wants Hong Kong to thrive and succeed as a financial center. It is a revenue center for the Chinese government, and therefore, and it's a prestige. It's an issue of prestige for the Chinese government. If Lee is sent to jail for life, I mean, what should happen, what should happen, but won't, unfortunately. Is it every legitimate business in Hong Kong that is owned by the West should shut its offices and move out? And just like I think many American businesses should move out of China, they should move out of Hong Kong. These are not conditions they should say that we're willing to do business. We do not want to have our people here when they could be arrested anytime for what they say, you know, and the viewpoints that they have. And the world should start abandoning Hong Kong as kind of a center of finance, a center of economic liberty. It is no long. Once you lose free speech, which Hong Kong has, it has no freedom. And therefore, we should stop treating it as a free place. So, yeah, truly sad, but we know this has been coming for a while now. And, but sadly, I predict that nobody's going to do anything about it. Interestingly, there's a lot of security around the trial. I guess the Chinese are worried about civil unrest, although very unlikely, given how the Chinese have clamped down and how violent they're willing to be in clamping down on any kind of civil unrest or any kind of demonstration. So, but there is a lot of security around the trial. But very little chance that anything will actually happen. The court is open, so there will be people in the courts. It will be reported what happens in that court. But clearly, this is a kangaroo court. It's a political trial. It has nothing to do with real law and order. And again, this is one more step in Hong Kong losing its status as well as a, you know, relatively, as a place of the rule of law, place of the rule of law. All right, let's see. Chile, we talked about last week about the Chilean constitution that, you know, there was a decision made a few years ago to rewrite the Chilean constitution. The constitution had been written in 1980 under Pinochet. The first attempt was a very socialist constitution, a very, very left-wing constitution, and that lost by a landslide. So the Constitution Convention, I guess, met again. This time what they proposed is a more conservative, not free market, but more conservative constitution. That, for example, bans restricts abortion and restricts immigration in the constitution. So on the social issues, elevates religion. And this constitution now has failed. The vote was on Sunday with almost 100% of the ballots tallied. 50, basically 56% of Chileans have rejected the new text of the constitution. I think what's going to happen at this point is that the constitution that was drafted in 1980 is going to stay in place. I just don't think there's a clear solution here. It's not clear if anybody could draft a constitution that could pass. It's not clear that anybody could do so a better constitution than what exists. And the battle over these various issues will have to be basically the site in the ballot box among politicians and, you know, what do you call it? The parliament and the president of Chile. So Chile Constitution, as I predicted last week when we talked, did not pass a failed. All right, two stories from the world of business, if you will. The first one is U.S. Steel, which is a legendary American company. First forged, put together, if you remember, by conglomerating a bunch of American steel companies in the early part of the 20th century, basically 122 years ago. So in the very early part of the 20th century by Carnegie, funded by J.P. Morgan. It was one of those conglomerates that Antechos was written to dismantle. And that became one of the largest companies in America for many years. It was a dominant player in the steel industry for a long time. It didn't do so well, I'd say, in the last 40, 50 years, primarily because it had stagnated, technology had passed it by. There were smaller, more nimble steel companies that had outperformed it, but still was a significant player in the steel industry in the United States. Anyway, U.S. Steel was purchased over the weekend by Japan's Nippon Steel for $14.9 billion in cash. I mean, not literally in cash, but not in stock, in money. Which means that Japan's Nippon, the fourth largest steelmaker in the world, maybe now becomes the third. It basically establishes Nippon as one of the dominant players in steel in the world and a dominant player in steel manufacturing in the United States. It already has some plants in the United States. It has some co-ventures with other American steel manufacturers. But it has now bought U.S. Steel, the legendary U.S. Steel. It bought it at 142%, a premium over August 11th price since then. There have been various parties bidding for U.S. Steel, starting with Cleveland Cliffs, which is a U.S. Steel manufacturer, bid $35, so there's $20 above that. More recently, Cleveland Cliff had raised their bid to 40, but Nippon is... It would be interesting. It's going to be interesting to see how the Biden administration deals with this. Is this going to be no problem? Is this going to raise eyebrows? I mean, it is a foreign country, Japanese. It would be interesting to know what Trump thinks of this. I wonder if he's talking about this on Truth Network. Because this is the kind of thing he particularly hated in the 1980s and 90s when he thought Japan was going to take over the world. And we were losing by trading with Japan. Here's a Japanese company coming over and buying an iconic American company. Overall, this is probably good. This will probably generate significant technological synergies. Other types of synergies that will probably make steel over the long run cheaper than it would have otherwise been. Nippon has said that it will respect all the union contracts, but the unions are flipping out and the unions are objecting to this. We'll see what they can do about it, but they're going to object and then we'll see what the Biden administration does. If it supports the unions, antitrust or somebody on this, it's hard to tell what exactly can be done. This is not a Chinese company buying US steel to Japanese, Japan as an ally. I'm not sure you could raise national security issues. Nippon Steel is unlikely to shut down many of these plants. It's just going to make them more efficient. It's going to bring, I think, some Japanese expertise to production of steel in the US. And probably leverage it's because it's massive size now in terms of economies of scale and in terms of technology. Lastly, a really fascinating story. There's a company called Orchid Health. Orchid Health is now advertising the ability to test in vitro fertilized embryos. So embryos before they are placed in vitro. They can test them to tell the future health and mental issues that the child when it's born might have. So they would do a genetic screening of IVF embryos, a comprehensive genetic screening, not only for things like a single gene mutations that cause disorders like cystic fibrosis, but more extensive medallies of common and rare gene variants known to predispose people to all kinds of diseases, including neurodevelopmental disorders, severe obesity, and certain psychiatric conditions such as schizophrenia. Now there's already a huge uproar around this. This is genetic engineering, this is choosing your baby, this is playing God, this is all that stuff. They're not genetically engineering, but they are providing you with, here we'll sequence three embryos and you get to choose which one to use for the in vitro fertilization. It's an amazing technology, I think it's fantastic. But of course people are afraid that this now be used with embryos naturally conceived inside the womb. It could be used for artificial insemination, you can choose which sperm and which egg. This is kind of the whole idea of designer babies. This is one more step in that direction, not quite, but it's one more little step in that direction. There is also some people who are upset because some of these predictions are questionable. It's not clear that we know enough to be able to say that certain gene combinations cause acts. This is still science in its infancy and there's still a lot of speculation around this. Some, in particular the psychiatric genomics consortium is 800 researchers who are working to decode the genetic and molecular underpinning of mental health conditions. They're claiming that the new test relies on data produced over the past decade and that the company Orchard has violated restrictions against the data used for embryo screening. So there's a lot of conflict around this company, but I don't know the legality. I don't know whether they violate anybody's property rights or what exactly is going on here. But the ability to do this is pretty cool. Orchard literally sequences 99% of an embryo's DNA. And again, it can find anything from irregular heart rhythm, atrial fibrillation, to inflammatory bowel disease, to type 1 and 2 diabetes, to breast cancer. They can find the genes responsible for these. You can now pick a super healthy baby if you're doing in vitro fertilization. I think it's super cool. I think it's super exciting. But it's going to cause a massive amount of angst among those who hate this kind of biotech, who hate the idea of design of babies, who hate the idea of playing God. Supposedly, it's just the medical ethicists, I'm sure, are flipping out. But I think it's really cool. I just had my genes sequence and I know my predisposition to various diseases. As an adult, I know that. And that can change my behavior in terms of what I screen for, what I pay attention to, and everything else. So it's good to do. I highly recommend this, by the way. You should all be doing this. The technology is relatively inexpensive. It is available at the end of 23 and me does it, but also many other companies do it. I did it through this particular health plan I belong to. And then you sit down with the doctor and you just go down the genes. It also tells you what drugs are going to be more effective on you and less effective on you if you have to take medication, what you're sensitive to, what you're not sensitive to. But it tells you what your risks are of getting certain cancers, certain diseases, diabetes, neurodegenerative diseases, and others. And this is amazing technology. And you guys should all look into checking it out. 23 and me is straightforward, but the best is to do it through a doctor and then have the doctor walk you through the results. Also that will prevent you from panicking when you see some of these. But to put them in perspective so that you can actually analyze them and then figure out a plan for what you're going to do about it. I believe more information is better than less. I like more data, more data, more data. There's not going to be too much of that. And data is a good thing. And it allows you to then make choices about your life that minimize the potential for bad things to happen. So please, go get your genes sequenced. But you should also have a bud for body scan. There's also an hour blood test that looks for cancer, costs just under a thousand bucks. But it screens your blood for DNA of cancer cells. You know, you have to be willing to take the risk of a false positive. But hey, I'll take the false positives if I can catch cancer early. The whole idea is to catch cancer early. As Peter Tia says, take as many of the four horsemen of the apocalypse down as you can. The four horsemen of the apocalypse are, of death are, cancer, heart disease, diabetes, basically, and dementia all time. Those are the four that you want to do everything you can. And when it comes to cancer, the main thing you can do, the main thing you can do, is screen. Screen, screen, screen. Catch it early. So, I mean, likelihood that many of us will get cancer, catch it early, so it can be easily dealt with. Later you wait, and more likely it is to be deadly. All right, Remo. Remo says, do you like classical music made for waltzes? Yeah, absolutely. Love it. Johann Strauss. Some amazing, amazing, amazing, beautiful, beautiful music. Leonard Peacock really likes waltzes, and he loves the music, the classical music made for waltzes, but they're truly beautiful, benevolent, joyful, amazing music. James, Johann, I implore you to watch the new Godzilla minus one film. I was surprised at how incredibly benevolent the film is. It's as if it was written by an objectivist. You will absolutely love it. Beautiful film, nine out of ten. You know, God, I don't know that I have time. I don't think it's going to be, I think it's run is done at the Puerto Rican movie theaters. I need to check, but I want to go see it. It's just a matter of timing, and my wife clearly does not want to see it. So it's mostly about timing to go see it. Tom says, just wanted to show my appreciation for your show, Best From London. Thank you, Tom. Really appreciate that. That was Tom's first super chat, according to YouTube. Thank you, Tom. Let's see. Yeah, I forgot a pitch. You can support this. And stickers. We have a goal every show, and the show is funded through the support that I get from these super chats and the multi contributors. This is a supporter funded show. The show could not exist, would not exist. Actually, I live off of this without your support. So if you value the show and you'd like to support it, you can use the feature here in YouTube, very convenient. You can ask a question that shapes the show. You can just do a sticker and just show support. You can just say, hello. So please consider doing that. We're about 80 bucks short of the goal for today. So it would be great if we met it like we do most of the days. Let's see. What else did I want to say? Yes, the Ironman Institute, as you know, is the sponsor of the show. They are now looking for applications for the Ironman Conference in Austin, Texas that is coming up in March, particularly if you're a student, particularly if you're interested in intellectual career. You can also apply for scholarship. You will be able not just to take classes from objectivist intellectuals, but you'll also be able to schmooze with them, hang out with them, and get to know them. Particularly, we know now Greg Salamieri and Ben Baer will be there. There will probably be others. The conference will be held in late March. I assume you're all coming to the conference in Europe, which will be in Amsterdam in early March. I will be there. So that'll be a lot of fun. So I assume all the Europeans among you will be there. So yeah, please join us in Amsterdam and in Austin to sign up for these. All you have to do is go to ironman.org-slash-start-here where you can fill out the application. Tom says, I've just finished reading Dr. Pickup's lecture series on philosophy from Thales to Hume. Absolutely brilliant. Absolutely. I mean, yes, one of the great, great courses of all time and in real education and philosophy. Thank you, Tom. All right. Let's see. Michael, are you arguing the Enlightenment is largely a failure in its ability to sustain itself against the forces of darkness? Well, I mean, that's kind of the half empty glass. I would say that the Enlightenment was a mixed bag. It has obviously produced amazing good, unbelievable good over the last 250 years. You have to credit the Enlightenment with the Industrial Revolution and with whatever elements of capitalism we've had and still have with political freedom, political liberty. You have to attribute to it free speech and all the good stuff that are in the world today. And yet it has struggled to fight the anti-Enlightenment elements, whether those come from the left through socialism and communism or from the right through various forms of statism and fascism. It is constant in battle with those elements. Right now, the Enlightenment is fighting for its life in Hungary. It's fighting for its life certainly in Russia. It's fighting for its life in various parts of Europe. It's fighting for its life in parts of South America. And again, it ultimately had a somehow overcome communism and it did, but it was brutal. And of course, throughout the 19th century, there was back and forth. And philosophically, intellectually, in academia, the Enlightenment has lost and lost pretty quickly, sadly, to the anti-Enlightenment elements. So on balance, it's a massive gain. But unfortunately, what you're seeing again now is the slow erosion that has resulted from the anti-Enlightenment forces. So, and look there, as Tom says in a sense, that damaged the Enlightenment was already done by people within the Enlightenment or during the era of the Enlightenment. Certainly, human skepticism has been incredibly damaging and it is rejection of causality and of knowledge of causality is rejection of certainty. And then of course, by Kant, who many thinkers think of as an Enlightenment figure, and maybe you could argue started out as Korea is somewhat with a foot in the Enlightenment, but ended up as the most destructive force of the Enlightenment. So, across the board, I think this is, the Enlightenment is constantly under attack because it did not complete its mission. It needed an iron rand. It needed an integrating force and it did not have that. Wes, thank you for the $50 to get us much closer to our goal. Thank you, Savanos, also for $50. So those two are responsible for almost half of everything we've done today. Paul, thank you. Catherine, thank you. Gail, thank you. All the regulars really, really appreciate your support. And as a consequence of all that, we're only like $24 away from our goal. Action Jackson says, has anyone seen Emma Koch's performance of Viola with Andre Rio? I highly recommend it. And what a story. I haven't seen it yet. Action Jackson sent me the video a few days ago. I haven't looked at it, but you should all check out Emma Koch's, that's KOK, Emma KOK of performance of Viola. So check it out. Check it out. The optimist pessimist, the optimistic pessimist says, how do you simultaneously support open borders for America but oppose Palestinian immigration to Israel? The open border advocacy sounds like Christian morality for thee, but not for me. It's very simple. Any political stand is a political stand within a particular context. And if the immigrants crossing the border into the United States were committed to killing Americans, were committed to the destruction of America, were committed to slaughtering, raping, pillaging Americans, then I would be the first to say we need to build a wall. I mean, I would even then not argue for a wall. I would argue for going over there and taking care of these murderous SOBs. That's how Palestinians who want to come into Israel, that's what they want to do. They want to kill everybody. So yes, you got to stop them. I've never supported a wall on the borders of Israel. I support going to their homes and destroying them before they can destroy you. The people crossing over for the southern border, whether you like them or not, whether you think it's a good idea or not, are not coming to America to kill you. They're not coming to America to slaughter you. They're not coming to America to rape you. And indeed, the crime statistics for illegal immigrants show that they're less likely to be criminals than you are as an American born in America. They're coming here to work. And they're coming here because we have a crazy immigration system where they get benefits. They get welfare. If they're coming here to seek asylum and asylum cannot be granted quickly, they cannot even work. So the insanity, the system on the southern border is insane. And indeed, I don't support open borders if everybody comes across the border, gets a check, or is guaranteed housing, or is guaranteed food. But if they come here for work, and if there's no work they have to leave because nobody else will support them, then what's the problem? But in Israel, that's not what they're coming for. They're not coming to work. They're coming to kill you. Well, of course, I'm for self-defense. Of course, I'm for stopping people who want to kill you from coming in. But look at that southern border. As bad as it is, has crime in New York gone through the roof because New York has all these immigrants? It doesn't. Optimistic pessimist says, you talk about, uh, didn't we get this? Yeah. All right, let's do these optimistic pessimistic, whatever. You talk about environmental extremists being anti-human, but people like you support transhumanism and gene editing, also anti-human. If that's anti-human, then yeah, I'm anti-human. I'm for improving humanity, improving human life. If you can edit genes to take diseases out of it, wow, how is that anti-human? If you can edit genes to make us a little smarter, wow, how is that anti-human? If you can edit genes to eliminate schizophrenia, how is that anti-human? That is exactly human. If I can implant a chip in my brain to make my IQ go to a thousand, how is that anti-human? That makes me as a human being more powerful. Anti-gene editing, anti-what you call transhumanism, that's anti-human. That is by definition anti-human. You don't want human beings to maximize their potential. You don't want human beings to live the best life that they can live. You don't want any kind of intervention to make human beings be the best that they can be. You are the anti-human. Anti-human beings are not, I don't know, you know, human beings are not defined by the things that you're editing genetically. Man is the rational animal to the extent that I can expand the capacity of a rational animal to live well, to live long and to be able to apply his rationality and everything else. To that extent I'm benefiting human beings. And look, we're constantly changing our environment. Why can't we change ourselves? So, no, I mean, that's absurd. And again, the position you're articulating is the anti-human one. Then optimistic pessimist says, if you reject cultural relativism, then on its face you cannot also support open borders. Why? Why? The United States had open borders for the entire 19th century. Really, well, with the exception of banning the Chinese up until World War I, basically. The United States had open borders. And yet they didn't embrace cultural relativism. You came to America, you expected to be American. You expected to embrace American values. You expected to earn a living. You expected to work for yourself. You expected to live. The logical inconsistency is yours. There's nothing about cultural relativism. I reject the very idea of cultural relativism and I reject most cultures as bad, awful, but I don't deny the fact that people from all over the world can embrace my good culture. And they do. Japan has embraced Western culture and is thriving as a consequence. So South Korea saw elements within China. So did Hong Kong. So did Singapore. So can African countries and they will. So can Eastern European countries. Some of them don't and they suffer the consequences. But there is one good, right culture for human beings. But all human beings can partake. Even human beings bought in a different continent in a different country. They can still partake in this good culture. All they have to do is embrace the right ideas. So no. The idea that there's a contradiction here is completely logically nonsense. Andrew, you've commented on how art of the Renaissance preceded the Enlightenment. Any thoughts on the intellectual force that empowered the Renaissance? It would seem that highly conceptual work of art would rest on philosophy. Yeah, I mean, you already see it with Aquinas. Aquinas brings Aristotle's this worldliness to the Christian world of the mid to late 13th century. And that this worldliness together with an appreciation for logic and for reason and for the human mind is integrated by the thinkers in the post Aquinas period. And I think that leads to a change in how people view the world, a philosophical change, a subtle one that then opens them up to Renaissance art, both to creating it and to appreciating it. And it makes it possible. So you don't get it. You don't give Renaissance art without Aquinas. And the thinkers that take Aquinas as ideas and then start implementing them both within the Catholic Church and outside of the Catholic Church and the openness they slowly have towards Greek ideas. And then what really launches the Renaissance from an aesthetic perspective is when they opening up to Greek aesthetics, Greek art. And they're already starting to be open up to Greek ideas when they discover the sculptures of ancient Greece. And wow, that is a huge discovery for them. And that's what they want to emulate. But there's already this basic, this foundation of Greek philosophy there. As discovered in the great universities of Europe taught, investigated, integrated and more and more of the books are showing up in Europe because of the Christian conquest of Spain. They're discovering all these libraries held by the Muslims with all these texts from Greece. They're translating them into European languages primarily to Latin. And that's how these thinkers in the West are reading them. Also, they're getting some books on the Byzantines with the fall of Byzantine. But mostly it comes from the Muslim world primarily from the Iberian Peninsula. It's not naive utopianism, open immigration. It's what the United States had in the 19th century. What's your objective point of view first planet of the apes film? So which one is best? What's my point of view on the first planet of the apes film? I mean, I like that film. You know, the original one with Charlton Heston. It was kind of a bleak ending, but it was consistent with this idea of the wall, you know, this catastrophe, catastrophizing. And it was a stunning ending at the time. It was surprising. I think the first time you saw it and when people didn't realize what the planet of the apes was all about. So it was very well made for the time. Yeah, I remember enjoying it and thinking it was good. The optimistic pessimist says we the cultural trans transplant by Gary Jones overcome this blind spot of naive utopianism with open immigration immigrants change native culture. Sometimes they do sometimes they don't. And mostly immigrants are changed by the by the culture. So lots of people are writing a lot of BS. That's fine. There's a book that will suit your particular biases. There's a book for everybody. But the reality is that immigrants change. South American immigrants in the United States over the last 50 years have assimilated quite nicely into American culture and quite well into America's views. The kind of America that we're experiencing today does not emanate from immigrants. It emanates from American born university professors. It emanates ideas that those professors have adopted from other Europeans in Europe and are implementing in the United States. It has nothing to do with immigrants. Right. So I don't buy it. You know, Israel you could criticize Israel. But Israel in a sense has open immigration for Jews, which means Jews from all kinds of cultures from all over the world who don't like each other at all. They've emigrated to Israel. There's a lot. There were over time in vast numbers, much larger numbers per capita per population than even in America. There have been huge amounts of tensions. There's been a lot of stress. There have been a lot of disagreements and so on. Over time, they have molded a culture that has taken elements of the best from each. And Israel today has a culture that has been fueled by immigrants, by the original European immigrants, and then the Middle Eastern immigrants, and then the Russian immigrants, and all kinds of immigrants and have fused, not a multicultural, but a positive, a good culture where the good of each of those is adopted and the rest is chucked. And that's true. That has been true of America forever. It is indeed a melting pot. Melting pot make things better, not worse. And it's just a historical, and it shows a very, very bleak view of humanity. It shows a very, very bleak view of your own culture. You see, I believe our culture is so good that if we just had a little bit of self-esteem, if we just had a little bit of confidence in our culture, we could convert any immigrant pretty much from anywhere to our culture, to our culture. And the idea that we can't, the idea that these immigrants coming here are going to change us is just being a pessimist. It's just not appreciating how good and important our culture is. Right. Optimistic pessimist clearly disagrees with me, but I appreciate the fact that he's willing to ask questions in the super chat and not just rave on the regular chat and complain and bitch, so at least he's supporting the show a little bit. Yeah, and he's been around for a while. All right. Thank you. Thanks, everybody. Really appreciate the support. We reached our target, particularly Wes and Savannah, so came in with $50 each. Thank you, but thank you all the superchatters. Shelly, thank you. I didn't thank you earlier. I think I got everybody now. All right. Tomorrow, two shows. We will start in the morning. I'm not sure what the evening show will be about. We'll see maybe it'll be my review of Dominion. We will see. And have a great rest of your week. Bye, everybody.