 All right everybody welcome to your own book show on this what day is it I don't know what day it is it's Monday Monday here it's in hint I've learned that it's pronounced hint or as we Americans call it gent it is a beautiful day here it is evening what time is it six o'clock I've got a talk at eight o'clock so today's show will be an hour long it will be a little short Jonathan thanks thank you for the support it'll be an hour long I'll be doing shorter shows while I travel through Europe I'll try to squeeze them in either before events or after events or on days off we'll see how many shows I can get to it would be great if I could do a show every day yesterday I was in Amsterdam and did an event in the afternoon but by the time I got back to my hotel room I was so exhausted jet lag I just couldn't bring myself to doing a show so I apologize today I think I'll do it before the event I took a nap a little bit ago and hopefully I have we have the energy to get through this I've been driving around drove through drove to Amsterdam from Amsterdam to Ghent so a stick shift it's amazing it's like riding a bicycle it just returns to you the kind of the automatic reactions and responses so so that was pretty cool it's pretty cool to be on a stick shift and and change Bree says I'm up against Ben Shapiro I don't think that's competition those of you want to watch Ben Shapiro rather than me go ahead Ben Shapiro pretty conventional stuff Ben does anyway no good you know watch whatever you want as I said days will be it'll be different Ben Shapiro is not doing a show from Ghent he's doing a show from his usual studio this has to be more interesting after tell you Ghent is beautiful at least the the old city is is truly gorgeous I'm sitting here I've got a window overlooking the river and and all these kind of I don't know Middle Ages Renaissance I'm not sure when the buildings were built buildings and churches it it's really pretty it's really beautiful and it's a beautiful day which which I got lucky Sun is shining it is March after all now said it could it could be pretty ugly so I'm glad that that the weather weather is nice for our session today I see my videos not working so maybe you guys if you guys lose me or lose lose video let me know I'm just gonna assume everything's working fine unless somebody one of you kind of lets me know any different alright I will be doing super chat you know I'd appreciate any support that you can give to the show while I travel around it is you know I I'm a little mixed about traveling so much because I do lose quite a bit of revenue from the super chat so hopefully it won't be a lot given that you guys will be will be pitching in and supporting the show while we travel and yeah video it's interesting the video feed down video feed up seems like it's good for some reason I can't see my own show but that's fine I don't need to see it so yeah the support would be very much appreciated again if you get value from the show I'd appreciate if you so show value for value if you participate in the trade and part of that participation is if you're listening live through the super chat if you're not listening live then you can support me monthly on your own book show dot com slash support you can you can also use patreon and subscribe star and so on for the support Alejandro says get was rebuilt after the second world war it doesn't it was a rebuilt in the same style and everything this don't look like second post second world war buildings at least not by the river so I I I don't know if all of this was destroyed or not I did see you in Oz television asks I did see in Oz in Amsterdam he seems like he's doing well he was at my event so yesterday I was in Amsterdam another gorgeous beautiful city although I had no time to actually visit anything it's one of their has some of the great museums in Amsterdam they're probably the best Rembrandt collection in the world but also you know just just Flemish art Dutch art just a magnificent collection of art in in Amsterdam and just a beautiful city the canals and you know the right now all the trees are bare because it's winter but once once it gets green it's one of the most beautiful one of the most beautiful places ever I have not ever seen a live performance of the consult a bow orchestra Thomas Schubert and reminds us they're in Amsterdam one of the great orchestras in the world they've obviously listened to their performances on streaming on CD but I've never been to a live performance that that should be a goal I'll set that as one of my goals in life to get to Amsterdam and see a concert over there I was though talk about concerts I was today at the concert hall of the I think the Rotterdam Philharmonic in Rotterdam a beautiful beautiful modern theater and on stage with no audience being interviewed about ESG you know ESG environment society governance by a friend of mine who basically is involved with the pension industry in in Europe in the European Union but is based out of Rotterdam and he did a very high quality a beautifully produced interview with me very short 8-minute interview that will be distributed by video on a number of different channels will be seen by thousands of pension professionals politics politicians involved in in pensions in Europe so that's going to be that's going to be super cool I will get a copy of that video and will produce a short video of me answering the questions that from the interview so that'll be up on my website at some point but it's cool because it'll be a really high production slick kind of video that we'll be able to use so that that is good so that's what I did yesterday basically gave a talk at 2 p.m. I flew in at 10 a.m. 10 30 flew in I flew from Puerto Rico to Miami Miami to London London to Amsterdam in London basically had to run to the gate because God Heathrow was packed and getting through security took forever and when you change from an international flight to kind of a European flight at Heathrow you have to go to security again anyway I had a run got there just in time was one of the one of the last people to get on the plane flew to Amsterdam 10 30 arrived in Amsterdam rented a car drove to the hotel basically had no time then for the hotel to get out to where the talk was being held at 2 p.m. it was a great audience the talk was sponsored by students of the in Europe it's interesting right in Europe a lot of what happens intellectually in Europe is centered around political parties so the political parties each have their own think tank and the think tank is funded by public money from the political party is so for example you know some of Germany's biggest think tanks are think tanks associated with a big political parties and it's really interesting they get more money with their power less money when they're out of power so there's not this fundraising the think tanks do in the United States but then there's this attachment to politics and of course the corruption I think the intellectual corruption that comes from being affiliated with the political party and being affiliated with elections and being political rather than intellectual well in many parts of Europe the political parties also have youth movements they have like campus clubs they have youth organizations that then promote the ideas of the political party represent the political party and campuses we have a little bit of that in the United States we have young Republicans and young Democrats in on the different campuses and so on but it's it's not the same here it's it's far more organized it's I think it's run by the political parties there's this affiliation anyway the student group that hosted me yesterday I found the what's called the liberal student organization it's it's a it's from the centrist liberal political party in in the Netherlands it is a big political party quite an influential political party and this is the youth of that political party the youth that goes to universities they hosted it it wasn't a big group it was a Sunday afternoon after all they were probably about close to 50 people there but these are young ambitious potentially influential people there were it was a combination of I'd say objectivists or friendly to objectivism who heard about this through me in the Institute and then the students from this political organization and it was good because there was a lot of what I call virgins in the audience virgins of people who've never heard about these ideas before and they asked a lot of kind of the basic questions you usually expect from students who are not familiar with these ideas so I thought it was a really good event let me see strange okay yeah I thought it was a really good event it was it was fun good questions and you know I did I did my if you will my standard morality of capitalism talk with always told by people are familiar with the talk that it was a little different than usual you know every time I do these talks they were a little different yesterday I gave slightly different examples and and people seem to enjoyed it that David says hi you're on it was great meeting you yesterday I was good meeting you as well I really enjoyed I enjoyed the conversation hopefully the students enjoyed the talk and God you know got a real benefit from it and you know it again it's great to interact with young people it's great to expand the reach of the ideas it's great to get people engaged with what I do out there in the world tonight again I you know I'm not I can't remember the affiliation of the student group but it's a student group here affiliated with the local university at Ghent or Ghent I think they're affiliated with one of the political parties this is maybe not maybe they're not but anyway this is the second time I'm speaking for them the first time was about five years ago so the students will be completely different completely new students so it's great to see that there's interest it's great to see that they are interested in in in hearing what I have to say and you know it was so it's today I'll be talking about and I'll talk a little bit about my talk for tonight I'll talk about radical capitalism and in the case okay radical radical capitalism Roland says I think the heat at Heathrow they always just drop you outside the secure zone enjoy your travel as well I mean every terminal is a little different I was in terminal five you think everything's in terminal five all the British airflights you've come from somewhere that has security why do you have to have security again but anyway they do that they do that all over Europe it it makes connecting very very frustrating imagine every time you had a connection you had to go through security again it's happened to me in Frankfurt it's happened to me other places it just delays everything and you you can't have connections that are less than an hour an hour is really cutting it close and if the flight's just a little delayed you're in trouble you know my flight wasn't delayed and then my I had an hour and five minutes and our 10 minutes and I just made it which was good I just made it all right let me see so yeah so trip is going well I I've caught up a little bit on sleep I recommend if you ever want to travel in Europe if you haven't traveled in Europe Amsterdam is an amazing city I think I think I convinced Nikos last night and he did it to walk through the Red Light District in Amsterdam it's pretty offensive and quite disgusting but it's fascinating it's it's a it's a it's a cultural experience for those of you who don't know the Red Light District in Amsterdam literally had prostitutes sitting behind windows and if you're interested you go up to the door knock on the door they close the curtain and you do your thing behind the curtain with them but they're all on display and different streets have different like angles you know you might have a street with a particular type of particular type of body you know physique for the women you might have a street of trans you know different different places different ethnicities maybe and it's it's it's weird but it's it's sad because you know the women obviously don't look happy the whole thing is like you know you got family strolling by couples strolling by you know kind of uncomfortably observing all this it's just it's just a bizarre thing but it is part of Amsterdam and if you're in Amsterdam with seeing because you don't really see this like it is anywhere else in the world really anywhere else in the world so it's unique unique in that sense but Amsterdam generally beautiful beautiful city definitely worth traveling to definitely worth visiting Rotterdam is more of a business place it's more modern it's pretty it's it's clean it's gorgeous everything's really nice but it's it's much more modern it's clearly a city built for business I think it is the business center of the Netherlands the interesting thing about Netherlands just for a little bit of history here the interesting thing about the Netherlands is that it's it's super wealthy it's a it's a super wealthy country people have a relatively a lot of money and a lot of that wealth if you think about it is not necessarily associated with productivity today a lot of that wealth is is generational wealth it's it's old money so Netherlands is definitely a place where people have old money and a lot of people have old money that is you don't have to be a gazillion it's have old money because if you think about people have lived there for hundreds of years thousands of years maybe certainly hundreds of years since I said Amsterdam's existed they've owned property there maybe they've had businesses maybe the family says businesses people have inherited wealth inherited inherited real estate values have gone up over time it's it's probably the first place in Europe maybe the second place in Europe but it's it was sustainable the second place in Europe to really experience globalization to experience trade to experience the beginnings of capitalism the respect for property rights and finance and and trade so if you think about the the end of the Middle Ages I mean I think I think Italy particularly plays like Florence and Venice were definitely global players they had a significant banking empires if you will like the Medici's and Florence Venice was this global trade powerhouse but soon afterwards the the center of gravity in terms of global trade in terms of becoming the hub of trade and even if you think about art you know this small area of northern Europe produced Vermeer Rembrandt Rubens and and those are just the the creme de la creme the top artist but then a slew of dozens of other great artists some of the greatest you know still life painters in the world in all of history were Dutch and Flemish generally and in this place was super rich before super rich really existed Amsterdam was was probably the richest place in Europe post Renaissance probably until the somewhere close to the 19th century and it wasn't a wealth that was concentrated in a few aristocrats Amsterdam was a place which had a deep and meaningful respect for merchants for traders for entrepreneurs for business people well before I think that the 19th century when they got accepted in the rest of Europe you know Holland was a place where you had real revolutionary thinkers from Spinoza to Pupendorf and I forget the other guy but there was a series of them and again in this general geographic area who first started talking about rights and talking about political rights and property rights and and and issues like that so it was it was it flourished as a trading center it was a place the Jews who escaped inquisition from Spain in particular Portugal came to because there was amazing freedom or relative freedom in in Protestant Amsterdam it's why it got into it got into trouble and there were 30 wars were conducted here unbelievably but bloody wars you know devastating in many ways devastating wars but I mean maybe 30 or one might be the bloodiest war in western history in terms of per capita death per capita given the population west thank you west says rare chance for me to catch a live show thanks for everything I really appreciate that that's great $50 from west thank you I don't know that we're gonna have a $600 goal today we might have to be more modest in terms of the goals for the shorter shows but if we can get to something about $300 $400 that would be fantastic right now we're about a hundred so we've got we've got a while to go so thank you for all the super chatter so and I'll get your questions in a minute anyway that the history of this region of this region of northern Europe is a history of commerce and trade and relative freedom it's it's a history of intellectual tolerance intellectual openness of of really the beginnings of intellectual freedom when John Locke in the early 18th century feared for his life because he was involved in the revolution in England and and was right his writings there was a Catholic king who rose in England and and he was afraid and he wanted to escape somewhere to be safe he came to Amsterdam Amsterdam was the the place you came to if you wanted if you were radical you know the printing presses in Europe after the the printing presses that published the most radical philosophers the radical ideas the the the the were in again the Netherlands and in in in in this area of northern Europe so it's an exciting area the history here is is truly amazing as I said the art is is is stunning and the art if you look at Vimy if you look at Rembrandt if you look at Rubens the art expat and you look at the still lifes in particular what the art reflects is the massive amounts of wealth that individuals had here and and you know this again northern Europe was the first place to really start painting entrepreneurs painting guilds painting secular scenes so where Italy was primarily focused during the Renaissance on biblical scenes maybe some scenes from Greek mythology in the Netherlands what again Netherlands being more kind of this this area northern Europe Belgium and and in the Netherlands and even northern Germany there was much more of a secular attitude of painting workers painting daily life painting entrepreneurs painting the activities of the secular activities of life so it's a secular place it was a it was a it was a big part of the Reformation the negation of kind of Catholic authoritarianism they fought for that religious freedom it became a place of religious freedom and therefore it became a place of intellectual freedom and of course as I said it became a place of trade and a place of merchants and a place where there was a certain pride in being successful and being wealthy reflected in the art reflected in the painting so I'm a big fan again Gent I'm not a fan of Brussels Brussels is a bureaucratic city focused on the European Union it's got all the bureaucracy and the ugliness of a Washington DC without the beauty of DC and the museums of DC but but places like Gent and some of the other smaller towns in Belgium are beautiful so a trip through northern Europe covering these places is something I would highly recommend all right so again thanks everybody I will be taking super chat questions that's a quick update on my travels tomorrow I'll try to do a show in the evening I'll be in Vienna of course there's the magnificent city an imperial city everything about it is imperial it's big it's audacious but it's it's got a fantastic history and fantastic culture I'll talk about that tomorrow I'll also be giving a fascinating talk tomorrow in Vienna John Fund some of you might know John Fund he was he was an editorial editor at the at the Wall Street Journal a very very important intellectual on the conservative side and is you know one of the I think one of the important thinkers of conservators and particularly I'd say 10 10 years ago John will be in debating me not really debating me I think it's going to be kind of an exchange of ideas around free markets I mean he's going to challenge the idea of free markets so can they ever succeed can we convince the public conservators have moved in this other direction towards nationalism towards populism can they ever come back so it's going to be a great exchange of ideas between a I'd say a traditional conservative a Wall Street Journal conservative a relatively pro-free market conservative but somebody from the mainstream somebody from the mainstream political republican you know a thing and and myself and we're going to be talking about this and it's going to be provocative and it'll be fun so that is going to be that is going to be tomorrow of course many of these talks not all of them but I hope most of them will be videotaped and we'll be able to put up the videos online afterwards all right let's let's look at some of the questions here here is some gas money 30 Canadian dollars thanks Jeff what is the price of it over there I don't know so I'll I'll try to look at the gas stations that let you know what the gas price is here in Belgium all right I want to give you a quick update on Ukraine so there are a couple of questions three questions here about Ukraine so we'll cover those Matthew says why did Putin wait until now to invade Ukraine where their particular triggers openings that persuaded him to move now rather than earlier for example did he want to wait until his buddy Trump was out of the White House and so on you know I think it's a matter of of him assessing you know he so first you know he invaded Ukraine in 2014 he wanted to see what the consequences of that would be that was a test and the result of that test was basically that the West will do nothing that the West would let him get away with it basically he took Crimea and he took Eastern provinces in Ukraine and nothing happened and the fact is the militarily he did it very easily so he was querying assess the strength of the West I think also to some extent I you know I don't know if you waited until Trump was out of office it's hard to tell if he would have done this if Trump was in office or not I don't think Trump would have done anything different than Biden so I don't think that Putin particularly afraid of Trump they did have a good relationship so maybe he didn't want to spoil that relationship with this and he did seem to have Trump kind of under his thumb but maybe he didn't want to spoil that and maybe he felt that this would challenge the fact that this idea of the thumb I do think that COVID had a big part to play in this I think that Putin waited he was waiting for a right opportunity I think COVID gave him that opportunity he didn't want to do it in the midst of COVID because I think Russia was in trouble with COVID and I think he was very fearful of COVID so he waited until COVID was almost over at least from the perspective of he didn't have to fear it at home and he didn't have to fear it for his troops but it wasn't completely over so that the West was completely consumed by COVID so I definitely think that he waited during COVID he waited for it to be over and COVID provided him with kind of a shield he thought I think mistakenly and Putin has made a lot of mistakes here no strategic genius here that the West was too distracted with COVID to care I also think that two events emboldened him to do this again suggesting that the West would do nothing one under Trump and one under Biden I think the fact that China basically took control of Hong Kong in 2020 in 2020 basically during the Trump administration without a peep a peep without anything without sanctions without intervention without financial penalty anything nothing zero zilch basically China reneged on its deal with the original deal that it had with the UK over Hong Kong it reneged on its international commitments it reneged on its promises and the Trump administration didn't say anything didn't do anything again distracted by COVID maybe but generally Trump was not interested he didn't care so that suggested to Putin I think that maybe the West didn't care about these things and the West again distracted by COVID or distracted by other things would just let it happen and then Biden's complete just disgusting weak pathetic evacuation of Afghanistan evacuation is too nice complete capitulation brought bringing out the white flag and completely surrendering to the Taliban in Afghanistan putting American lives at stake our friends in whatever allies we had in Afghanistan's lives at stake and and and you know retreating from Afghanistan in humiliation I think both of those events convinced Putin again that the Biden administration was super weak and that America was just uninterested and it wouldn't do anything even if whether Trump or Biden was in it didn't really matter and then I think in the weeks leading up to the campaign where the United States its intelligence rightly it turns out I I was wrong I thought it was a mistake but rightly suggested that Putin was planning this invasion observing the United States in Europe as I described it at the time it was like chickens with their heads cut off running around in circles not knowing what to do just panicking complete panic there seemed to be no strategy seemed no focus and no commitment to actually penalizing Russia for what they were doing so so it was so I think it was all of that it was like the he didn't and then what happened when he invaded is the West somehow coalesced the West somehow woke up the Biden administration got attacked together it's performed you know relatively well since the the invasion Europe has performed amazingly well since the invasion much better than anybody including me would have expected the the sanctions are really really really hooding the Russians and they they're international so there's there seems to be no real places for him to escape yes India is not really playing ball and maybe China is not playing ball the China's wavering some places in Asia are not playing ball but generally even Israel today announced that they're not going to be they're not going to allow the oligarchs even the Jewish oligarchs to escape international sanctions by going to Israel so there seems to be a certain unanimity globally I think Putin missed that completely and but but there was no indication before the invasion that this would happen I think a lot of this has been inspired and this is why I called the president of Ukraine the most significant political leader in the West today I think it's the resistance the Ukrainian showed I think it's the leadership of the president of Ukraine Zolinsky I think it's it's the resilience of the Ukrainians that that caused the world to respond the way it did so I give him credit and I give the Ukrainians credit for it I don't think they would otherwise and by the way I'll just note you know I don't often say I told you so but I might as well say I told you so the day Russia invaded or the day after they invaded I made a certain prediction about how difficult this was going to be for the Russians I made a prediction about how long this would take I made a prediction about how pathetic Russian equipment strategy motivation personnel was going to be what is it they I don't know what day it is of the invasion day 2021 of the invasion it looks pretty pathetic I was absolutely right if I say so myself I'm wondering if all the people who disagreed with me who you know not just disagreed with me but were insulting towards me oh you're on you don't know what you're talking about wait until a few days when Russia overwhelms them I wonder if they get on here and apologize for being obnoxious about it I mean it's okay to disagree we're not all going to agree but to be obnoxious anyway I was right about about the war in Ukraine all right let's see more and more people are agitating for the US military to fight in Ukraine war how do we push back against this it's not America's war there's no American interest there's nothing to be gained yes there's there's Ukrainian freedom but I mean this is the question to ask yourself every single one of you and to ask the people agitating for this would you look your son in the eye and tell them to volunteer to go fight for this war would you look your son in the eye and tell them to go fight in this war and risk their lives for the for the Ukrainians why it would be total sacrifice there's no American interest here there's a general interest in promoting freedom in the world but that's not what the American military is was is there to do it's there to protect the lives and property of Americans lives and property in Americans are not being threatened I think we should help the Ukrainians fight this war as best we can now Europeans I think need to think about this differently is well if Russia wins in Ukraine will they settle for Ukraine or will they go further into Europe are you worried about that is it easier to defeat Putin in Ukraine and not risk him attacking a NATO country I still think the Europeans probably sit this out and wait for Putin to attack a NATO country and then crush it just the risk of nuclear threat right now with an unstable Putin is just not worth it so that's my perspective if he attacked a NATO country then they have to act I talked to a friend who lives in Finland he thinks Finland is going to ask for NATO to join NATO he also thinks that Russia could attack Finland and NATO would help Finland a lot but but you know Russia attacks Finland Russia's finished Finland is much better equipped than Ukraine Finland the Finnish army is a much better army than Ukrainian army Finland would crush the Russians the smallest Finland it it has a massive technological advantage it's being as he said Finland has been preparing for a war with Russia for 80 years since the last war it had with Russia in 1939 and it is ready and it would be another massive mistake military mistake political mistake for Putin to go after after Finland and if Finland joins NATO forget it I mean Russia's is history if it attacks a NATO country it really is it really is this I think I think I think it's just but I don't know how you how you change that fact without risking nuclear war and nuclear war is a big deal it's a big deal having hundreds of thousands millions of people die in a war like that that's a big deal so I would say stay out of it it's not you know it's it's too big of a sacrifice Europe be ready to fight a cold war with Russia maybe and invest in your military to fight a hot war with Russia just in case he wants to expand beyond Ukraine but I think it's going to be bogged down in Ukraine I think this is going to be a war that's going to last for a long time it's going to deplete Russian resources it's going to make them poorer and poorer and poorer and poorer as wars always do and ultimately I think the Russians will have to back off how exactly that plays out hard to tell and maybe they just accept poverty as I said in the past in a past show Russians are pretty good with suffering it's one of the things that characterizes the Russian culture its acceptance of suffering they've been suffering from since Ivan the terrible really every attempt to westernize Russia has failed Catherine the Great tried and it was a complete failure so uh yeah I mean when I said nuclear was a big deal that does sound like a bit of an understatement I'm talking about let's say localized nuclear war in Europe I mean millions and millions of people are gonna die it's it's just it's it's not you know as much as you know I value freedom for Ukraine I'm not willing to put the lives of millions of people at risk for that but it has to be very very clear to Putin that if he crosses a certain line and they have to the red line has to be the NATO line and it has to be unequivocal that he will be crushed crushed conventionally and if he uses nuclear weapons nothing will remain of Russia I mean nothing will remain of Russia now whether any foreign leader is willing to say that I don't know all right let's do this one why do you think Hong Kongers are not willing to fight the same way Ukrainians are fighting I think it's very different I think that China did this through stealth in many ways they did it slowly they did it without innocence anybody noticing they did it while people were distracted by covid if you remember how brave Hong Kongers were in 2019 they were in the streets they were demonstrating every day they were asking arrest they were asking everything everything was on the line but then covid destabilized that and took that out and then the the Chinese came in they didn't come in with tanks they they came in and and on a on a kind of low flame slowly chipped away and took and and and organized and if they'd come in the tanks I think in 2019 let's say I think they would have had a they would have had a fight street by street the other issue is Ukraine has an army Ukrainians have stinger missiles they have javelin missiles they have anti-tank missiles from the UK from other countries they have real weapons they have a military that's trained Hong Kong does not have a military I do think they would have had they would have had to chase them down through the alleys of Hong Kong if it was 2019 by 2020 the opposition was not organized and and the the Chinese just did it stealthily it's it's very much like the way not completely but somewhat like the way that Russia took Crimea and got an opposition China also used the fact that sadly there's a whole segment of Hong Kong that is primarily in the business community unfortunately that is very pragmatic and basically didn't want war and didn't want conflict with China and they used the fact that there was a fifth column inside Hong Kong primarily of the wealthy and businessman who who did not support the uprising did not support the the the you know the the the opposition and the the the the did not support kind of the demonstrations in the street and they used those forces inside Hong Kong to undermine the opposition within Hong Kong and in a sense they had a fifth column so the Hong Kongers never had a chance but again remember the spirit of 2019 remember those street demonstrations remember the the the flash kind of demonstrations they did in different places they surprised the security forces they showed incredibly bravery incredible bravery then China out strategized them the exact opposite of what Putin did Putin is a disaster in terms of strategy okay Bonnie asked how would you explain to someone that oligarchs would not be possible under capitalism yeah because oligarchs are you know basically were in the 1990s gangsters who used the fact that the privatization of Russian industry was done really really badly with no rule of law with no police with no with no courts without really any framework for legal framework for property rights so people were issued certificates of ownership in different businesses without any legal meaning and what the oligarchs did is they basically came to people and took those people's paper from them they basically stole them or they bought them for pennies because people didn't know what they were they didn't know what they were what they were was there was no markets in which you could exchange there was no valuation there was no property rights and they weren't familiar with the concept of property rights they didn't know what to do with it and as a consequence of that a few people managed to accumulate all these government assets and then going forward they associated themselves with Putin who has been ruled Russia really you know for 20 plus years and have he has basically secured their lot has granted them favors of granted them state-granted monopolies that's not capitalism capitalism the state does not grant you a monopoly does not grant you the authority the state protects the property rights of individuals the Russian state did not it allowed these people to use force to use the extortion to use the the techniques of gangsters the techniques of a mafia to to gain a foothold on Russian industry and that is not capitalism that is not freedom that is not that is not the way a system of property rights actually works all right jeff asks ryan ward had a discussion with per beeland on twitter about how sanctions hurt individual civilians how culpable of civilians for the actions of their government i mean they have to they are at the end of the day a government represents you whether you like it or not and now at the end of the day you know if you go to war with with a country the civilian population is going to suffer this is a big disagreement i have with libertarians libertarians think that you can't fight wars because civilian civilians are going to suffer and civilians are not responsible for what the government does of course they are that's why you should care about the government under which government you live under it's why you should care about politics i mean i i often tell you don't think too much about politics and that's absolutely true but you've got to care about politics and to the extent that you can have influence on politics you've got to have that influence because you might not uh you know you might not how did i want to put this basically the political class is going to determine much of your life particularly when it comes to war and things like that you should care about stuff like that therefore you should fight to have politicians that are not going to get you into stupid wars that are not going to do things that will lead to really really bad outcomes but when there is a war and you are you assume you're on the side of the good guys you have to win it and winning is going to inflict casualties on the other side and any casualties on the other side are not your responsibility the responsibility of the person to start a war in this case with regard to Putin and economic sanctions and we can have a whole discussion about whether economic sanctions are justified not because they hurt civilians but what are they war not war middle kind of middle ground between what what exactly are sanctions but let's assume we've got sanctions um the fault that any damage caused by the sanctions any lower standard of living any civilian victims of the sanctions are the responsibility of the party the initiated force and the party who initiated forces Putin so the the the russian individuals who are suffering who are uh losing wealth losing economic uh losing economically because of the sanctions are losing because of Putin not because of the west so the person who initiates the force is the one to blame for the consequences of the initiation of force so two things one is whether you like it or not your government represents you and you're going to benefit when the government policies are good policies and when you're going to suffer when government policies are bad policies that's true of all government policies and when your government does something bad like start a war you are going to suffer the consequences because other people in the sideline are not going to treat you as if you as an individual didn't start a war with just this government because you can't do that in war you can't separate out just the bad guys there are consequences to every action and again you're suffering as a consequence of your government's action and add to that the fact that most citizens support Putin most russian support Putin poll after poll shows that a significant number if not a majority of russians think Putin is a great guy okay well then suffer the consequences of how wonderful Putin is and the people who don't well leave russia or fight fight against and and and make your case to get rid of Putin and the others it's it's your moral responsibility to yourself and if you're not fighting if you're not willing to fight then again you suffer the consequences of your inaction but you can't escape the consequences of your government's bad actions there's just no way to escape it all right we're at about 175 dollars so somebody wants to come in with 100 bucks 125 bucks and get us to at least 300 bucks so it's at least reasonably we've only got 10 minutes to go for the show shows a shorter uh so we're gonna because it shows up shorter we're gonna have lower goals in terms of raising funds but we're still gonna have goals so 300 we'll be a goal we're at 176 it would be great if you guys if you guys could get there um let's see yeah that doesn't tell me anything um what else did i want to ask all right we've got a couple more questions i probably won't talk about radical capitalism because i'm just answering questions so questions from now on 20 dollar questions would be great let's get a few or let's get somebody asking a question for 100 bucks to get us to what we need to be hopper says shouldn't it bother you if someone is born with a higher IQ and is more successful than you through luck of genes they are guaranteed to have a better life than you and it's not fair why they're not guaranteed to have a better life than me so no it doesn't bother me that somebody has a high IQ lots of people have high IQs than me i've never been bothered by more successful people than i am partially because i know that this success makes my life better a bit because it's only a way for them to be successful but it just doesn't bother me because my life is my life my focus is my life i have i'm born with certain capabilities i mean it doesn't bother me that LeBron James plays basketball better than i do on the you know i enjoy watching LeBron James play basketball and i don't know that LeBron James has a better life than me he has more money than me he's the best in the world than what he does i i don't know that i'm the best of the world in anything but that's not the standard the standard for human happiness the standard for human happiness is not being the best relative to other people the standard for human happiness is making the most of your skills and talents and abilities it's living the best life you can live given the metaphysical nature that you have the genes the DNA the circumstances you were born in i don't i'm not envious of people who are born into wealth or born into anything i take my life the circumstances i was born into the the wealth the the genes i have the iq that i have i take all that just like i take reality into account just like i take facts into account that is a fact i am who i am and i want to maximize that that's all how other people problem not mine and a lot of people who have a lot of good genes don't maximize their ability and therefore don't live good lives so i i don't think they live better lives than i do all right dave asks a $20 question um the progress whoops what happened yeah the progress made during the 80s and 90s has been completely reversed the soviet union is back high inflation high crime are the new normals although without Reagan we might be a lot worse than we are now yeah i mean the the this progress in the 80s was always going to be reversed because it wasn't an intellectual revolution it was a political revolution that didn't have solid intellectual foundations and therefore was not long lasting i ran saw it and and i think many of us saw it that it would not last i thought it would last longer than it has lasted but i also don't think it's completely true that we've reverted back there is no soviet union um there is no ideology of putin i mean there's a kind of a what is it xenophobic nationalistic religious ideology that putin has but it's far less intellectually interesting or intellectually dominant that communism was soviet union dominated not only eastern europe but had a certain intellectual cachet all over the world it doesn't anymore communism is dead um and i don't and i think this nationalism is a nationalism populism is on the rise that's scary but god if we can defeat the primitivism the the the primitive ideology of ethnic based nationalism they went out worthy right western civilization is not worthy of being a civilization so this is a much this is an easier threat should be an easier threat and you can see that the other westers rallied against putin they're not willing to accept it yet right and and uh i think i think people like olban and people even in poland uh i think i think there's going to be a backlash i think this will turn out to be a positive and unintended positive consequence of this invasion will be a backlash against the national conservatives a backlash against this particular type of tribalism this ethnocentric nationalism um this this white you know aggressive aggressive posture that putin represents i i think there's already a backlash against it i think it's going to get stronger in the months to come and i think even you'll even see it in hungary in poland as maybe a reversion against that so anyway so that is uh that is so i don't think things are bad hey we're so richer than we were in the 80s and 90s um i think in certain areas technology has advanced so much over the last 30 years the 40 years that it's going to be very difficult to turn it around the internet is dominant globalization is is still going strong although weakening i mean the economic consequence of the 80s and 90s are not gone they're still with us whether it's the internet whether it's crisper um don't trivialize it yes inflation is back unemployment is very low though so there are a lot of there's a lot going on and and crime is high it's still not quite as high as it was in the early 1990s late 1980s although it could get that high i don't want to be doom and gloom is what back there yet the sad thing is that i don't see where ronald reagan could come from that's a sad thing and i think in the 70s you could imagine because you had very gold water there's no very gold water there hasn't been one since 1960s i don't see where the right this is again my critique of donald trump and the republican party i don't see where the opposition to the move towards statism comes from it it doesn't exist it doesn't exist in the republican party it doesn't exist in the democratic party so maybe this opposition and maybe this is a kind of a a last hurrah to opposition to statism against prudent but where's the real opposition to what statism within america gonna come from okay zha zha zhix zhix bees says i know you'll disapprove but i've considered the liberty ending my life around my late 40s and enjoy exploring the outside world in the interim i don't have much interest in owning a house or having a career thought just to clarify it's a sincere question i'm not looking for sympathy i don't see why you should end your life in your late 40s i mean i'm 60 life is great you know if you take care of yourself and and you're healthy there's so much to do there's so much to enjoy there's so much to see i mean look at me i'm in gento it's just in amsterdam i'm seeing the world you can see the world uh there's so many beautiful things in the world to experience there's so many wonderful things to do there's so much beauty to engage with there's so much sex to have there's just so much life to live why would you end it at such a young age i mean i can understand somebody in their late 70s and the late 80s saying you know i'm physically falling apart i want to end it i just can't enjoy life anymore but in your late 40s i mean god i you know there's so much to do there's so much i know you have not done yet there's so much beauty you have not seen yet there's so many there's so many people you have not met with there's so many ideas you have not engaged with life is too precious it's too stimulating it's too interesting it's too yeah wonderful to let go off at any age i mean i want to live to 150 if my body will will keep going i'm dubious about my my ability to do it but uh you know i i that's my thoughts i mean the thoughts is what a what a waste you know think about all the all the pleasure the joy that you still have yet to experience and that you are excluding from from possibility but even contemplating this i think it's it's it's a waste what why even think about it right i mean i i i yeah unless you're in in in such horrible physical or mental anguish but if you're in mental anguish or you can go see a doctor i mean go see a good psychologist go talk to somebody i mean there are good psychologists who can help you see the beauty and the joy in life so find a good psychologist talk to you know Gina Golan or get a recommendation from her whatever but but don't give up on how amazing life is you don't have to have a huge amount of money right i mean i've traveled through europe on a low budget you can hitchkike through europe you can backpack through europe you can you can take the trains for almost no money you go see things you can explore things and you know you can you can work you can travel and work as a waiter or whatever i don't know what you do but this idea that you need a fortune in order to enjoy life is just not true one of the great things about modern life is there's so much at our fingertips you know the iphone there's so many things that our fingertips that don't require a huge amount of money now i mean you're obviously missing the joy of a career in your life and that's something you should explore you should look for career it's never too late to look for something we can make some money at a reasonable amount of money enough money to be able to explore and enjoy the world but the idea that joy is associated with a lot of money is wrong yeah so you're a waiter i mean you see you travel around the world being a waiter go see new zealand have you ever been to new zealand new zealand it's an amazing beautiful place not now with covid but you know post covid um yeah linda says 76 and going strong i'm aiming for 100 life is good yeah and they're not you know yeah i mean if you don't have a career beyond waiting i mean maybe you should look for career beyond being a waiter maybe you should go and and do a uh a boot camp in programming and become a become a programmer there's huge demand for it you can make a lot of money at it uh but if you want to be a waiter then use you know you can have a very fulfilling life as a waiter all right brie says uh i was listening to a conspiracy not and it occurred to me they believe in conspiracy because it reinforces the idea that the right leader could fix everything they should force to see reality by their pragmatic argument yes i mean there's a sense in which conspiracy theorists you know human beings need explanations this is the power of religion right they need explanations for why things are what they are and they need a sense of justice they need a sense that there's a reason for why they are and that there's a solution for how to deal with them how to deal with the problems in the world and and to think about ideas shape history that's complicated and it means that we might now win and it's it it might take a long time and the path to victory is very difficult and very hard but you know but they need a simple explanation the idea of ideas shaping history is very complicated the idea that ideas cause Putin to do what you do very complicated it's much easier to believe in a conspiracy and believe that there's somebody pulling the strings that there's some thing and there's some easy solution getting rid of the people pulling the strings over placing them with people who pull the strings in a better direction so it's it's it really is this this need for simplicity need for explanation need that is unbelievably destructive it is it is conspiracy theories or what i meant called a perceptual level mentality it's a mentality that is not at the level of concepts at the not a level of abstractions not a level of real thinking it's a level stuck at at perception stop at simple simplistic explanations for the world and thinking that they can be fixed like that with some strong man some cabal to replace existing cabal because it's all just cabals all right robert nasa writes i live very very modestly which is why i get to do whatever i want there are many ways to style a joyous life it's great to have a lot of capital but that's just one way to do success yeah i agree completely robert i believe completely and i've had nothing and i've had you know a reasonable amount and i'm happy being happy in both circumstances i mean i when i was when both my sons were born we had nothing a largest expense monthly expenses with diapers and we we ran our lives on debt for years all right this will be the last question i guess although we did not make our goal somebody could step in and and and do 65 to get us to the goal but um otherwise we did not make a goal but michael asks if there was an advance further during the yonkipur war would israel have used nuclear weapons certainly i think if they'd advance significantly further i think there was still room for them to advance and still be repelled um certainly on the synih front israel was not facing an existential threat because synih is big relatively big and it would have taken a long time and the egyptians had no really did not plan on uh attacking israel itself um but the syrians could have advanced further how much would they have had to advance in order for israel to view it as existential threat and therefore use nukes hard for me to say i think there is a point in which israel would have used nukes yes if if if they believed objectively and i think there were fairly objective about this at the time if if they believed objectively that their existence was threatened that there was a good not a insignificant probability that they would be wiped out they would have used the nukes i i think israel took the israeli government took that consideration very seriously and they were willing to push the button uh luckily never got to that i i don't think there was a chance it could have got to that again the arab forces were weak um in spite of their initial success in yonkipur war they were weak they were using weak russian equipment as i've said in the past and and the arab soldier was unmotivated relative to the israeli soldier was fighting for the most selfish reason in the world for their for their own lives for their family's life for for the liberty that they they valued they knew that if they lost every jewish life uh in in uh in israel would be wiped out that is motivation to fight and fight hard if if you live in israel all right thanks everybody thanks for joining me today thanks uh for for participating in this little travel log experiment uh i'll try to do one tomorrow from vienna talk a little bit about vienna what i like about vienna a little a little bit of history i'm not that familiar with central european history but a little bit of history um and uh and we can talk we'll talk about vienna you can those of you who are not listening live if you'd like to support the show if you're on youtube you can applaud which allows you to make a contribution also uh you can become a um a member on youtube of the uran book show there's a you can go below the video there's a join button you can become a member uh we're up to 77 members we're trying to get to 100 as quickly as possible maybe today maybe tomorrow maybe you can help us get to that 100 uh very quickly here and uh also of course you can become a multi contributor at uran book show dot com for support patreon and subscribe star don't forget to like the show before you leave and again thank you for all being here and participating in urans european travel log day two hopefully tomorrow we'll be able to do a show travel log day three a lot of the consideration for whether i do these or not not only is if i'm tired or not but is there internet connection that's good enough to do it it's marginal here but it was good enough to do this show we'll see if the internet connection in the hotel tomorrow is good enough if it is i'll see you travel log day three bye everybody and and i was all over the place i'll try to give you as much notice as i can but it's gonna be all over the place bye everybody