 The radical, fundamental principles of freedom, rational self-interest, and individual rights. This is The Iran Brookshow. Hey, everybody. Welcome to Iran Brookshow. I screwed up today. Big way. And kind of a funny way. So today's like, whoops, let me put my video. Today's like a super busy day. We're flying, my wife and I are flying out tonight to Israel and packing and just last minute things. We're going to be gone almost four weeks. So there's a bunch of stuff to do. And my back was hurting earlier. So I figured I'd take some Advil to deal with my back while I did all this stuff and did a show. And, you know, everything else I was supposed to do business calls. Anyway, I went and took the Advil and I took the first pill. And then when I put the second pill in my mouth, I thought, these look a little strange. I wonder if this is Advil PM. I sped it out, went back to the thing. And of course it was Advil PM. And luckily I only took one of them. But I'm like half dazed. I'm half asleep. I don't know. And I'm going to be like this. I guess the whole day I hate Advil PM. It's just God, what an awful day to do it on. So I'm just telling you this because any errors, mistakes, misrepresentations, misstatements that I make during the show today, I blame the drugs. It's not me. It's the drugs. They're responsible for that. So there you go. All right. Let's jump right in. I saw the story. I thought the story was going to be Mr. Muffin says you run as high. Actually, you run as low. You know, I don't know these drugs don't generate a high. They actually generate a low. So this was pretty interesting story in the news today. I think I don't know how many of you are familiar with Park Park is the Palo Alto Research Center. But Park was part of Xerox. You remember Xerox, Xerox, which today is is owned by Fujifilm. Xerox used to be a major US corporation. It set up the Palo Alto Research Center as a private research lab like Bell Labs and like many other labs that were affiliated with American business. Park was one of the one of the leading research labs in the world during its time. Indeed, you can go back to 1940 where as well, no, this isn't wouldn't be 1940. But anyway, so so I'll get I'll get to 1940 in a minute. But anyway, Park today has been formally, in a sense, shut down or not really shut down, but it was donated. To SRI, SRI International. SRI International stands for Silicon Silicon Research Institute. Sorry, not Silicon. What am I talking about? Stanford Research Institute. But it changed its name at some point to SRI to separate itself from Stanford itself. It is a private, non-for-profit research laboratory and they do all kind of research. And it is it was originally it was originally or the origins of SRI were RCA laboratories. So it used to be in before government basically started pouring gazillions of dollars into scientific research and into technological research and basically crowding out private capital. Most of the cutting edge research in the United States, particularly ones that had real applications were being done in private research labs. The most famous of them, of course, is Bell Labs, which was owned by AT&T, RCA laboratories, which was owned by RCA, the record label, the transistor maker, the radio station. And later that RCA became part of SRI. In 1940, RCA laboratories demonstrated the world's first commercial transmission, transmission electron microscope. There's just just a few highlights from the history of SRI and Park. In 1969, SRI, then associated with Stanford University was involved in the first transmission on the op-net. Op-net was, of course, the first computer network, which served ultimately as the foundation of the Internet. In 1973, Park created Park that was owned at the time by Xerox, created the first personal workstation, really the first personal computer. I don't know if you guys knew this. Park created the first personal computer. In 1974, the David Sanov Research Center, which was part of SRI, invented the amorphous solar silicon cell, which was the building block of solar technology. 1975, Park released the first graphical user interface, GUI, which contains icons and pop-up menus, and they can overlap and require point-and-click interaction, the foundation of how we use computers today. In 1988, Park coined the term ubiquitous computing, describing a future where mobile devices are connected through the Internet. Park has been a massive innovator in computers. SRI has been a massive innovator in a variety of different scientific technological realms. It's nice to see that Park wasn't just shut down, that it is being transferred and the buildings will be preserved by SRI, and research will continue in them. Famously, it was at Park that Steve Jobs first saw that user interface of windows, icons, and a mouse. Park is where the mouse, the computer mouse, was invented. Steve Jobs basically took that. One of the great failures of Xerox, and if you will, one of the great corporate failures ever, was that Park innovated all these innovations. Xerox never benefited from them. That is, Xerox never invested in computers, or when it did finally, it was way too late, never invested in commercializing all the inventions being made at Park. And it took Steve Jobs to basically figure it out, learn from it, and then apply it all. And apply it into the first Apple computers, and certainly by the time of the Macintosh, the whole mouse interface was born and has come to dominate all computing. So, you know, a major American institution, a testament to American innovation, American investment in science and technology, and a testament to the fact that great innovation and great investment in science does not, indeed, should not happen at the government level, but these innovations are going to happen when you leave the entrepreneurs, individual entrepreneurs, and private companies to invest and do these things. And even when something like Park is not capitalized on, as Xerox never really capitalized on Park to the extent that they could have, that knowledge is not lost. That knowledge is picked up by people like Steve Jobs, and then they utilize it. Xerox did not prohibit Apple from using its technology, and we're all massive beneficiaries of that. So yes, I think an important day in the history of technology in the United States, and again, the more I read about these private labs, the more impressed I am, you know, Park today has about 1,000 employees that all of those will join SRI and enhance the research areas that SRI has involved in. Some of those include computer vision, artificial intelligence, and machine learning, and robotics. So, you know, these are spaces that these companies, these entities, if you will, these research entities have been focused on for a long, long time, and it's more proof, again, that you don't need government to generate basic research that leads to great technology breakthroughs. You can do it privately, and these companies have done it privately for a long time. Oh, right. Oh, a story out of China. I found this really fascinating, right? So, AI is one of the big technologies of the future, big technologies of the present, and a lot of money is flowing into it. For a long time, it was thought that China had a real advantage in AI. China had invested a huge amount in AI, and there was a lot of very sophisticated Chinese AI companies, and I think that's probably true. Among other things, the AI in China has a lot of information from which to learn, if you will, learn in quotes, because there are a few privacy considerations, and they can just get all the government information, get all the information that's on the Chinese internet, on Alibaba, and WeChat, and things like that. But of course, this kind of innovation is a real threat to a regime like China. What is the chat GPT, the Chinese chat GPT, going to say about different political systems? What is it going to answer to a variety of different questions about different regimes? What about the history of China? I mean, this regime spends a lot of effort to try to whitewash the history, to try to whitewash Mao Zedong to make Tiananmen Square just disappear. Well, what if the equivalent of chat GPT in China discovers the truth about these things and releases them? And in anticipation of this, Beijing is moving to rein in China's chatbots. You know, the government is committed to keeping a tight regulatory control over technology, a technology that's going to change the world, it's going to change the world moving forward. So that, I think yesterday, the cyberspace administration of China unveiled draft rules for generator artificial intelligence, for chat GPT-like applications. According to the regulations, company must heed the Chinese Communist Party strict censorship rules. So censorship will be applied to AI. Just the websites and apps have to avoid publishing material that besmirches China's leaders or rehashes forbidden history. The same is going to apply to AI. So imagine all those brilliant engineers working on machine learning, and now they have to insert into all the code rules about what the chat GPT-like product can say, can't say what history it can look at, what history it cannot look at. These rules, I'm sure, evolving as the bureaucracy in China, the regulators decide various issues. I mean, just think of the energy, the effort, the time, the brainpower devoted to censoring technology, energy, brainpower that could have been devoted to enhancing it, to making it better, to driving it forward. This is exactly why I'm not too concerned about China leapfogging the United States technology-wise. The content of AI systems will need to reflect, quote, socialist core values, and avoid information that undermines, quote, state power or national unity. What does any of that mean? What are socialist core values? What undermines state power? What undermines national unity? Do you want to take a risk as a programmer that any of that, that your product violates any of these things? Sounds pretty risky to me. You might end up in jail or worse. Means you're going to put in all kinds of constraints on the software, all kinds of limitations on what it should, could do. Think about how that slows progress, slows innovation. What is it? It's force applied to the human mind. It's a gun pointed at your forehead. Don't mess with state power. You know, God forbid anything that your product says doesn't reflect socialist core values, force paralyzes, censorship paralyzes. And it brings about lousy technology. It brings about, you know, failure to innovate, progress, succeed, grow, all the things we're afraid of China for. It's not going to happen because of these kind of things. Companies will have to make sure their chatbots create worlds and pictures, words and pictures that are truthful and respect intellectual property. Truthful, truthful based on socialist core values and respect intellectual property of Chinese. Not clear if they will respect intellectual property rights of anybody else. And given the Chinese government doesn't respect intellectual property rights of anybody else. And they'll all be required to register their algorithms with regulators. Now, this is part of a story out of the New York Times published. I know I'm not supposed to cite the New York Times. Forgive me, published yesterday. A fascinating story about the growing regulatory appetite. Growing regulatory appetite of the Chinese government when it comes to AI. These are our final rules. They expect that these rules will change after consultation with Chinese tech companies. They could soften the rules, but they're not going to undermine the basic principles of censorship. Indeed, the fact that these are not final rules just again suggest the uncertainty that Chinese regulations like this create for the industry. Fear and uncertainty that could only again harm progress, innovation and success. So there's plenty of reason here to believe that the United States is going to have a significant and dramatic and maybe long term lead over the Chinese companies because of these kind of regulations. That I thought was interesting. And again, both interesting and kind of following the path that I've been talking about in terms of what happens to Chinese innovation. All right, Stephen, thank you for the support. Really appreciate it. Mary, first time super chatter. Mary, thank you. Really appreciate the support. We're still about $200 short of what we need to be. So think about using the super chat to ask questions. We've only got one question in super chat right now or to just express your support. All right, let's see. Well, surprising nobody, I think Biden announced this morning that he is running for president. This is, I think, tragic for the country. But even the Democratic Party is not happy with it. A significant majority of Democrats didn't want Biden to run, but it was clear that he was going to run. I think a big reason is just his age. You've got to have some cognitive decline after 80. In the best shape as you might be, there is just some memory loss, some cognitive slowness. There's cognitive decline. This should be a max age for presidents. I really don't think that we want to have presidents in the 80s and 90s running the country. That kind of job is suited for a 50-year-old, even a late 40s-year-old, somebody with the energy, the dynamism, with a life experience, who could actually get the job done. Biden can't have the energy and he doesn't have the mental capacity to really deal with a job like president of the United States. And neither, by the way, does this chief rival Donald Trump. And indeed, the one person Biden could probably beat in a general election is Trump. And it looks like that's exactly what the Republicans are going to do. More bad news, I think, yesterday for DeSantis, who has been ridiculed about some interview he gave. But Biden is running. Not a popular choice of the Democratic Party, but it doesn't really matter. Nobody's going to run against him, I don't think, who has the potential to unseat him on the Democratic side. This is going to be Biden versus a Republican. I think pretty much every Republican out there could beat Biden, other than maybe Donald Trump. And yet the Republicans will probably choose Donald Trump, so we will get a Biden-Trump election, which is just a nightmare and horrors and horrific and sad. But that looks like what the reality is going to be. Biden is running for president. What a shock. All right, finally, a quick Iran update. And this is just one small story, but I think that is reflective of what's going on. This was published by ISW, or understandingwar.org. That keeps track and has kept track of the protests in Iran and just generally about the Iranian regime and its connection. So you can find this in understandingwar.org. I find their analysis really good, and they also provide a lot of information you don't get from the mainstream media, both about the Ukraine war, they give you a lot of detailed information, but also about other hotspots, and in particular Iran has become a hotspot for them, and during the protests they provide a lot of information they still do. They keep track of it very clearly. Anyway, on April 18th, the Supreme Leader of Iran Ali Khamenei was giving a speech at a Basij University to the students. And usually what happens when the Supreme Leader gives a speech like this at a university is that everybody in attendance is basically being screened by security to make sure that the speech is not disrupted and to make sure that everybody's going to cheer when they're supposed to cheer and support when they're supposed to support. And they don't want to have any expressions of doubt or any questions or any opposition during a speech like this. So these are all students that were clearly vetted by security forces in advance. And yet, during the speech, the audience disrupted Supreme Leader. And I think about this, these speeches are, there are cameras there, there are security forces there. Anybody who is disruptive is going to be identified, targeted, potentially arrested. It takes a lot of courage to stand up to the, not just the leader, but the supreme leader of Iran. But that's exactly what happened. Video footage that has been leaked from the event showed one of the students in the audience interrupting Khamenei's speech, interrupting them, shouting. Immediately, regime officials do not listen to the people's voice. Khamenei dismisses the student, leading other audience members to reportedly protest Khamenei's dismissal. The audience members call on Khamenei to respond to the students' grievances specifically, after which Khamenei ends the speech, walks away. Now, this is just small, but it's showing, I think, shows the courage of the students. It shows the courage of the opposition to Khamenei and to the Iranian regime. It shows that people are willing to stand up to them, even in circumstances that are very risky towards them. And that the students who stood up to Khamenei were students who were vetted. And therefore, on their face seemed like these would be students that support the regime and support Khamenei. So here are students rebelling against the regime. It's a beautiful thing to see. You know, I think it's super inspirational and maybe hopefully one could hope bodes well for the future of Iran. But little things like this. There's also a lot of now talk. Rouhani, who is a former president of Iran, has claimed, has argued that the Iranian regime should have a referendum over the Hajab. Khamenei has dismissed that. There is a massive debate going on within the leadership of Iran about whether to allow a referendum or not to allow a referendum. The referendum is actually in the constitution because it was a referendum in 1979 that established the Islamic regime. Big mistake by the Iranian people, but it was a referendum. It was the majority of people wanted an Islamic regime. So they allow for a referendum in it. The question is for what? When? Who gets to decide? So maybe there's a little cracks in the regime itself. Maybe there's some people within the regime who would like to see some changes. Maybe this is the beginning of a slow process of deterioration of conflict from within, which as I've said all along is going to have to happen. Conflict from within where they are power centers within the Iranian regime that actually stand up and reject the current path of the supreme leader and the various regime elements. So that is where we are against a small event, nothing big, nothing super substantial. But just another example of I think the breakdown, slow breakdown of the Iranian authoritarians and the potential for positive change in Iran as we move forward. Finally, a very quick story on eggs. You remember egg prices were going through the roof in 2022 last year. They kept going up and up and Elizabeth Warren claimed that this was all greed by greed inflation. She called it inflation by egg manufacturers. They were monopolizing and it was all their fault. And this had nothing to do with anything like maybe the fact that there was an avian flu that was killing the chickens and fewer chicken laying hens and therefore fewer eggs. No, no, no, this is all those greedy businessmen, which every problem in the world is always for somebody like Elizabeth Warren, always greedy businessmen. Well, anyway, egg prices are plummeting. They have gone down dramatically in January. They went up a little bit in March. They've gone down a lot again in April. They are now lower than they were really at any time in 2022, maybe right at the beginning of the year. It had similar prices to where they are today. All of that is gone. And my interpretation of that is clearly that greed has been eradicated in the chicken raising and egg producing industry. And if only you could figure out what virus actually eradicated the greed, we could then maybe genetically engineer that virus so that we could use it to eradicate greed in other industries and therefore bring prices down. Because we know scientifically that the only reason, the only reason the prices ever go up is because of those greedy businessmen trying to make a profit and who drive prices up. So I think you can all breathe a little calmer. Egg prices have returned to pre-greed levels. And, you know, at least in one industry we have wiped out the evil greed of producers and things are back to the ungreedy state that they were because we know that egg manufacturers were not greedy in 2021. So we're back to the ungreedy times of 2021. All right. That is all I had. So and we don't have, we have basically two very quick super chat questions. So unless you rush in with additional questions, this will be a very, very short show, which is fine with me because it's a busy day. Although it would be a shame to be so far off from the goal of $250 for the show. All right, let's see. Michael asks, will you vote for Biden over Trump if that's what comes down, it comes down to. I don't vote for president. You know, I live in Puerto Rico. We, one of the, one of the biggest advantages of living in Puerto Rico is that we are not allowed, even though we're American citizens with American passports, we are not allowed to vote for president. So we don't, and I'm glad I don't have to make that choice. If I had to make that choice, I either would not vote at all, or I would vote for Biden, but probably just wouldn't go and vote because there would be no point. I lived before in California. Biden would win California anyway. And why put myself through the heartache or actually voting for the bastard when I don't really want to and when he's going to win the California anyway. So my guess is I just wouldn't vote. I think Trump is a disaster. Again, I think the Republicans have an opportunity still to do better than Trump. There is a primary coming up. Many of you will vote in that primary. Please don't vote for Trump. Vote for anybody else. It would be nice if the Republicans coalesced around one candidate who was a real alternative to Trump. But it would be nice not to have that alternative again because it's a sickening alternative. I despise Biden. I think he's bad for the country. I think he's doing horrible things in a variety of different ways, particularly for business. But I think Trump ultimately is much more destructive for the country and for the long term viability of this country. I think for me it would be impossible. Given what I know and what I think about of Trump, it would be impossible for me to vote for Trump. I understand why people vote for Trump. I get it in a situation where it's Biden and Trump. I get it because of my low opinion of Biden and Democrats. But I couldn't do it. Couldn't do it. Colin says, how much do you and articles safe travels? Well, it depends how long the article is. I guess $250 if it's not a very long article. If it's a long article, maybe $500. I'm happy to review it under those circumstances. Let me know. Thanks, Colin. And thanks for the safe travel wishes. Bree says, the first privately funded moon lander just lost contact 260 feet from the surface. The Haikutu are Lula landers. Is this a Japanese Lula lander? I'm not sure who's it is. Yeah, that's too bad if it lost contact 260 feet from the surface. I hope that doesn't mean it crashed. It would be very cool if a privately funded moon lander actually landed on the moon and was communicating. So let's hope this doesn't mean it's crashed and gone. Let's hope it's a glitch and it will resume contact. We'll see. Okay. Brownies, 003. Are you familiar with Chris Langan? I am not. Any thoughts on him or his CTMU theory? I'm not. I have no idea what that is. Sorry. I'll copy paste that into my things. I don't know anything about and maybe should because somebody's somebody's asking about them. So I'll put that in that, in that folder. All right. And I think that is it. No, no additional questions. I'll be pasted it. That's good. So that's done. Answer that question. All right, everybody. So I am leaving tonight. I expect to be back. I will be back on May 21st. So I'll be gone until May 21st. That's almost four weeks. I expect to be doing shows on during the trip, but it will depend a lot on the quality of the of the internet connection I have in the various hotels that we'll be staying at. So we will see as as we progress. Also, that means the time zones will be weird and I'll be doing shows at strange hours. I guess like I did today. So please be patient. It also means that we won't be on a very rigorous schedule. Well, I'll just be doing shows when I can. Hopefully. Shazba, thank you. Really appreciate that. Jeff, thank you for the support as well. So thank you for all the superchatters and the stickers and so on. We're still way short of our goal. Unfortunately, I don't know what happened over the last few shows, except for yesterday. You know, the, the, the supporters tank, but I think it's, it's because they've been off hours and we've just had fewer people on live in order to, in order to support what we're doing. But hopefully once I get back in, in May, hopefully while I'm on the road and we get back in May, you know, the support will stabilize and we'll be back on track in terms of super chat support for the Iran book show. All right, for those of you who do not want to use super chat to support the show, but would still like to offer value for value. Please consider doing supporting the show on a monthly basis on a one time basis on Patreon and on your own book show.com slash support. You can either use subscribe star or locals or just Venmo. So there are a lot of different avenues by which you have the opportunity to support the show. And of course, if anybody wants to support the show on YouTube, there is a, even if you don't watch live, if you watch later, you can press the applaud button and you can make a small, a large contribution there. You can also become a member of the Iran book show down there. It says join, click the join button and become a member. I think we're almost the 200 members. And it would be great, great to, great, great to add you as a member and have you join us for the members only shows. All right, everything. Thanks. Thanks for joining me. Thanks all the super chat is and I will thank you, Robert for the for the wishes. I will see you all while I'm on the road. Bye everybody.