 The radical, fundamental principles of freedom, rational self-interest, and individual rights. This is the Iran Brookshow. Hey everybody, welcome to Iran Brookshow on this Saturday, January 21st, afternoon here in Puerto Rico. Hope everybody's having a fantastic weekend. And I'm excited about today's show, sorry for the delay. Zoom was not connecting, not connecting to my restream software to stream it on online, but so I had a reboot, reboot zoom and get a new address and made it work. And it's working so. All right. Thanks for joining today. We're going to dedicate today show to a discussion of Iran. I primarily focused on the Iranian protests and what's going on in Iran right now. As you know, I think one of the real moral travesties in the world right now is the fact that this is not being covered in other media it's not being covered by other broadcasters it's not being covered on on Bailey on Twitter on in the mainstream media is not being covered at all. I actually did a search this morning on Iran to just see the protests are still going on what's happening right now, and nothing. So some stories about them helping Russia and some stories about the EU assigning the Iranian Republican God as a terrorist organization, but nothing on demonstrations nothing on what's going on. I had to go to Twitter and find my usual Iranian sources to discover that, yeah, this this weekend the more demonstrations and they happen every week and the ongoing in at least in certain cities. It's not be covered so I met. When was it a year ago maybe six months ago seven months ago I can't remember I met Puyah. What I have and I apologize in advance for distorting everybody's names. We are a few months ago in Poland in Warsaw of all places where he was. We was applying for a visa to come to the United States he is now. I'm happy to say in the United States, I think in Texas somewhere. He has agreed to join us. Puyah is from Iran, and we're going to get to kind of into a bit of his biography kind of what was like growing up in Iran, and then talk about the protests, the protests so. Hi Puyah. Hi Iran. Nice to be here. Yeah, I'm glad. I'm glad you could join us so. Tell me a little bit about growing up. I mean you grew up in Iran where anyone did you go up. Esfahan. Esfahan. The center of Iran. It's in the center. So how far from Tehran is that? Six hours driving. Six hour driving. Right, so what was it like growing up you were born well into the Islamic revolution. And so Iran was solidly Islamist in terms of at least its regime. What was it like kind of on a day to day basis was did you, did you have the experience of living under theocracy did you feel it was a part of living part of life. Yeah. Well, I was born in 1999. It was well deep in the revolution. It was second generation that was born under revolution. And I've been thinking about trying to write about my story of how I was oppressed in Iran. But if I were being honest with myself, since I will give a little bit background as I say before that I say I want to be honest with myself. The main, the main source source of grievance and pain in my life before now that I'm here. Everything's great before was from actually foreign governments, not Iranian government. I will explain explain that later on. Let me go. So I didn't have, I had the plans to leave Iran since I was nine. I grew up well into the dictatorship I grew up when before there was an internet. The internet came late to Iran and at that point at the age of nine, there was a boot like I got I got something in my hands on a bootleg version of the Disney movie, Ratatouille. And yeah, the, the, the scenery that you know this little rat leaves the village it goes to Paris and, you know, does great things. And, you know, the romantic scene of the view of Paris that that's at the age of nine really had a deep impact on me and I told myself, like, it wasn't because I hated Iran. It was like, okay, if there was a Paris, I want to be at Paris. I don't know why anyone doesn't want to be there. Anyone is anywhere like why are people scattered in the world like they should be all at the age of young ages. They should be all at the best place on earth like whatever the best places I wasn't on set on the idea that's Paris. So I, the very young age I had already set myself the goal of leaving Iran. I started learning English by myself. And I prepared early on, because of my orientation, I never was conceited. Even before, even before I realized how bad of a place it is to live in Iran, how bad and unlucky it is to live in Iran, I already had the goal of leaving. So I didn't really feel the pain too much because when I was 18, I left immediately. As I turned 18, getting my independence, I got a passport in life. And I realized that the only reason I couldn't get a passport was because I have eye condition and I could, because of that, get exempt from military and exempt from being drafted into IRGC, which is a no one terrorist organization. And if I had been drafted to IRGC, I wouldn't have been able to get a visa anywhere in the world because as someone who's a member of, became a member of terrorist organization. So very glad I didn't have to do that. So when I was in Iran, I was always looking past. I was always looking past the injustices. I was looking to abroad. When I turned 18, I'm leaving and I genuinely had like, it wasn't, it wasn't sure at all like it was very uncertain, but I had to pay like my entire life I'm building since the age of nine. I'm building, presuming that I'll be abroad. And I just don't want to live in Iran. So I'm very glad that I got out because I wouldn't have been able to live. Absolutely. So did you go up in a religious household, the secular household? Yes. Religious household. Religious household. So your parents were accepting of the regime? This was supportive of the regime? So this is part of the theme of my talk. So the first generation, when there was a revolution at the beginning, they were supportive of the regime. But as the time progressed and as I became older, every single year, I could see the progressively everyone, it was, there was a point that time as a teenager, like in 2010, every single person knew that this regime is evil. Every first single person knew that's what they're, there's something really wrong happening and they can't give that like they can't support. At least they can't say it's right. But everyone went ahead with it. So what were the things that they objected about the regime? Was it just the economy wasn't good and there were sanctions or was it, you know, was it other aspects of oppression? Well, some common things are like, why is it that we are not interacting with the world? Why is it that we want war in Syria? Why is it that we want hate Israel? Those types of stuff. And also, well, you know, they should be, there shouldn't be compulsory hijab, but there still should be compulsory dress codes, but only like hair is okay. But if it's ankles, it's not. But if it's like hair, that's the hair should be okay. So it was like a little bit, the general consensus is like, oh, basically what they're doing is right. Just they're going too far with it. Yeah. Or even if people who thought there was totally wrong and there shouldn't be even Islamic government, they just, you know, through their hands up, it's like, oh, well, that's nothing we can do about it. And so I, because it is what it is, I go on with it and they went on with it. So would you say there's a certain fatalism in the Middle East? I think this is true of Arab cultures. I don't know if it's true of Persian cultures, but it's absolutely true. It kind of a fatalism of this is the way it is. What can one do? You know, things happen for a reason. It's just the way it is. It's just the way it is. Yes, absolutely. If I have to use objective, I would say it's extremely primacy of consciousness because it's all about my inner world and what I imagine in my head. It's not about changing the world. It's not like their world is bad, and they already checked out on that and everything is about all the culture, all the spirituality is about going into your head and doing some mental gymnastics. So because of that, yeah. And the situation in Iran sucks always, except in a very brief period, back in 10th century. Time ago, maybe in some of the BC centuries too. But even then, Iran was, Persian civilization was representing, to the next day, they were against Greek civilization. They rejected their values. Yes, it was always quite mystical. With exception, I think you're right, of the height of the Islamic world, which is around the 10th, 11th century. When Islam discovered the Greeks, it's always about the Greeks. So when did you become secular? Was that a young age? Was that only after you left? At the age of 10, 10, 11. So how I became secular? So the context is that there is absolute censorship. There is like no information getting in and out. We don't learn that much. We learn just as much as the state TV is showing us from abroad. What do you learn in school? In school, well, within different types of subjects, but there is always compulsory religious studies that we have to pass on. And also Koran, we need to learn how to come to it. And also Arabic to learn how to say Koran. And also like even normal subjects are infused, like biology is infused with religion, that it really just... But school was very military like most schools in Iran. They became better progressively later. But my generation, especially previous generation, they were really in... It really feels like a military camp schools in Iran. And that's deliberate by design. So for example, before you go down to class at 8 a.m., you have to be there at 7 a.m. And you need to be lined up exactly according to your class and according to your height also. And you need to... It says military formation and there will be sermons and Korans will be read. So I had a very young age. I'm very happy that I came to that conclusion. I knew that I'm not going to learn anything at school. So I just did the better minimum to pass and learn as much as I could. I was very interested. I was at the age of 14. I had good enough English to read English books. I interrupted you again, but you were telling us about how you turned away from religion. Yeah, I turned away from religion. It's absolute censorship. It became better later when I got older. When there was internet. But my attitude to religion was, if it's as good as you say it is, I'm going to figure out. So they were, for example, telling me this Ayatollah blah, blah, blah is there. And he's like the holiest man ever. If you see him, you'll be shocked how holy he is and how much knowledge he has. I was like, okay, that's great. I want to meet that guy. So at the age of 10, I got on, instead of taking the words for it, I mean, maybe I took their words for it, but I just want to see it with my own eyes. So I remember going on a bike, doing whatever it must, away from my home that was, and that's huge. Ayatollah was going to give a sermon. I would stay there, stay behind, wait in the line to talk to him. Talk to him and say, this guy is your ideal. You're saying this is the holiest, most knowledgeable. You're asking him basic questions you can't answer. So at the age of 10, 11, I realized I don't know what these guys are talking about. I simply don't know. So that was the end of religion for me. And how did the world around you react, your family, friends, school? I mean, did you have to keep it quiet? Did you, was there, was there resistance? My father at the beginning threatened to kick me out of this house. And he was very angry, but later on, they thought if they resist me, I'll change back to religion. But I just, I kept going with my convictions. And at the end, they were just told me, just be a good person, promise that you'll be a good person. Because that, you know, it's more excusable for them to think that way because they're living in leadership. And that's the more shocking thing is like people, like Prager saying that they can't be a good person without us. So when did you, when did you discover? When I had already left Iran in Poland, I was studying economics and in university. And I learned about milk and freedmen because of his monetary theory. And one of his interviews, he mentions Ayn Rand on past dismissively. He was like, who is this Ayn Rand guy that he, he really dislikes. So I, that's, that's. And, and to what extent, so what year was it that you left, that you left Iran? 2018. 2018. And so you were there in the previous rounds of demonstrations. I mean, you remember anything about, I know, 2009, I think it was in the 2019. But 2019 already left, but 2009. Yeah, I wasn't there for 2019, 2009. I was young, but I saw it with my own eyes. And people when they're like, they're hearing that there was some demonstrations in Iran, they think, oh, it's the same thing because 2009 same thing happened and nothing came out of it. But if that on hindsight, that will look like more looked like that, but if you like zoom in and see exactly what were the issues of the people at 2009 and what are the issues right now. There is a world of difference in 2009. There was all issue like this regime has gone wrong. It's worth saving though. It's worth saving. And this guy can save it. They like this, this president candidate, presidential candidate who was like already a president of Iran, like in the 90s or 80s. And like, that's, that's a world of difference with that. And then right now they're totally rejecting the idea that they have to be ruled by religion. So, and there is, there is really, I will not give it away because I have the inductive. I have interviewed a bunch of girls and people in Iran and that what is happening in Iran is really incredible. The same is really inspiring. So I'll just keep that aside until we get to it. Yeah, we'll get to it. So, so, so I want to read a few lines from the, what's become the anthem of the, the protests. And, you know, and I want to ask you in a sense what they mean. So I'm not going to sing it. Don't worry people. I promise I don't sing on my show for dancing in the streets for the fear when kissing for my sister, your sister, our sister for changing rusted minds for the shame of poverty for yearning for normal life. What is it? What does it mean to say for yearning for, for normal life and Iranian to say right now what, what is it? What is it that they think they have and what is it that they're, that they're seeking? Right. So I can't give you an abstract terms, but I will just give you a bunch of nuggets here and there. Yeah, I would say I don't want abstractions. I want actually, because a normal life is, is a normal life. It's not an abstract. It's like things you do in life. So I had a group of friends in Tehran. I was doing this one and this is that way. And I used to get on the bus to very early on in the morning and just make it so that I could be there by afternoon and get on a bus back way back after I met them. These were really, I would get, we'll get to their stories later on, but when I wanted to meet them and like two of them were girls, one of them was a guy. We couldn't like on the street greet each other. Like we had to. Okay. And like go, go there, like point move there. We go into like a complex, like a shopping mall type complex. And then we go like in a maze and go left and right. And there is like no light here. We think I'm not going the right direction. There is like, oh, this is the storage room. I'm like, no, go past the storage room. And like there is a small door like cafe and you enter and you need to go like upstairs. And then finally when you get there, like the girls can like take up their rails, like roll up their sleeves and they say, hi, you know, you can hug them like that. So like this, this is what I mean. Like that's the boot's licking of human contacts. That's one example. That's not the only data that it why, why, like, and, you know, no one ever knew why. And this now they're finally, someone has the courage to ask why and see, look at the answer that there is. It is, it is fascinating that all the, all the Judeo-Christian religions, all Judeo-Christian, all the monotheistic religions that come out of Judaism all have in their fundamentalist, in their fundamentalist version, the same attitude towards, towards women. Islam takes it another step. But, you know, you can't, you cannot shake the hand of a Judaism, right? If she's ultra-orthodox, cannot shake her hand. A man cannot shake her hand. You can't hug her. You can't touch her. She wants to sit on the same sofa with you on the same piece of furniture because they might be too much thing. If you go to a very, very fundamentalist Christian society, you know, place, the same thing. Kavadehe. And they, and there's, there's almost no, there's a beautiful movie actually. It's called Witness with Harrison Ford, a young Harrison Ford, where he goes to the, what's the, what's the name of the, of the religious community he goes to and he falls in love with this woman. And it's, it's, it's a beautiful movie, but it, it again shows the same kind of relationship between men and women. And there's this, it's a very, the Amish. Thank you, Jason. It's the Amish show. Because there's a very, very horrible and barbaric even attitude. It says a lot about the perception of men and women and their, their, their, their, you know, in their perception of sex and, and all of that. And, and what it all means, it's, you know, men cannot see a woman's hair because they, you know, we become animals if we see a woman's hair, you know, we'd rape and pillage as a consequence. It is such a horrific view of man that all the Jewish Christian, Islamic fundamentalists share. It truly, it truly is horrific, but Iran is far as I know the only country, well Saudi Arabia and a bunch of others in the, in the Gulf who, who actually Islam is the only one that actually practices it on scale. Where, where, you know, human connection is, is very impossible. Was there any, you know, between men, let's say between boys, was there also an issue there or is it mainly between, between the sexes? Oh, there isn't an issue there too. And, but even, even to see boys alone, there was, used to be a time that they tried to go really extreme and like put on the rules, rules on the book. You can't wear jeans. You can't have mullet. You can't have, wear it too long. You can't have. You can't wear short sleeves. You couldn't wear as a boy, as a man. You can't, couldn't wear short sleeves anymore. They were on the books and then in the, back in the 90s or 80s. And the, the international community made fun of them. It was like, what do you mean? Like you're banning jeans and banning short. So what they did afterwards is that they just repeat like those books and they made it an unwritten law. And they're the morality police is always on the lookout for like, like anyone who stands out in any shape or way possible. Like it doesn't, it doesn't really matter. Like if your boy, especially girls, but even for boys, like if, like I had, I had a friend in Iran. He left and he's an asylum seeker in Turkey right now who had a shirt that like, I forgot what was that image. Like there was a major plugs bunny or something like that. Yeah. And the morality police like pulled him over. It's like, take off your shirt right now. It's forced him to take off his shirt. I was like, burn the shirt in front of them. It's like, call your father, tell him to bring you a plain shirt. So it's really like, I mean, a lot of it is women. And I have a lot of firsthand. They are especially evil and cruel on women, but it's notes. Everyone that comes from the hatred of everyone. And were you acquired to, to go to the mosque? Were you required to do prayers? We're not required to go to the mosque, but in the schools, most of them, we were required to pray when at noon. Okay. All right. So let's, so you were in Poland and you, you were in, how did, how did you get to read? How did, how were you exposed? Oh, you said you exposed, I ran because melted freedments and something. And then you read Rand in English. Yeah. Yeah. I was fluent in English by the age of 14. And yeah, but that was when I was 19. I got to know and 19 or 20. And, you know, pretty early on, I was lucky that there was an iron round con in Warsaw. It was actually Warsaw. And so I saw you there. You probably don't remember me. I thought it was. We met at the, at the, at the bar. What's the name of their bar? Liberty. Something like that. Yeah. Liberty lounge. Yeah. Liberty lounge in Warsaw. They have actually shrugged among the liquor bottles. And that, that, that is a fun place. So, so you, you managed to pick up on your end in Poland. And, and did you stay in touch with your friends in, in Iran? Yes. Yes, I know some of them. Yes. So when did you first know that there was these, that these protests were happening and something was really changing? Well, I, because I have a brother, young brother in Iran who was born when I was 15, 14. So I raised him up and he feels like my own, my own son. He, he's in Iran. So he, like, because of him, like I followed the regime, that they followed what's happening in Iran. I'm never going back to Iran, obviously, but because of that, I'm just following it. I kind of, it was, it's happening there. And it's, it's really started the current war of revolution that's, that's going on. And I will give you why I think there's a moral revolution later on. There was one girl back in 2020. I think it was 2019 2020 who alone, this wasn't a protest. This was just a normal day in Tehran, like a square somewhere. And she, if you search a girl of Engelop, Engelop streets, E-N-G-H-E-L-E-L-A-B street, you will see there's one girl who got on the top of, like a electricity generator, I'm not sure right, electricity power and like a five foot, five foot height and, and took her scarf and put it on its sake. And she just stood there and someone took a picture of her and she became an icon to the extent of other girls other girls doing the same to the extent that they, all of those like power generator things that that's already had in the city, probably they control the power grids. They put wires on it, something that you can't go on top of it anymore. And then they, that's, that's, it's really the current war of revolution. I don't think would have been, would have been come so soon without that one girl who chose to go like alone with no agenda. She was just put up as she put her. Did anything happen to her? Do we know if anything happened to her? They were searching for her for years and later they got her, she's in prison, right? She's in prison. Oh God. So, so you think, so that's when it kind of started or that's when it came in kind of kind of consciousness, people started to pay attention. Yes. Tell us a little bit about how, so you were following it and when did you notice that this time it was different? When I saw that, well, so it was pretty sudden. It was like that happened and there were probably people people's consciousness, but it was very sudden after the death of a killing of Masa Amini in Iran. You explain the situation, the story I'll just say quickly that like she was just mind-gorn business and the Morali police. So, I have recollections of Morali police, how it looks like, but Morali police, like you're not wearing your hijab properly. You're showing your wrists, like you shouldn't show your wrists, they should be covered. Then get in the van. And if you don't get in the van, like they will bring leashes to you and like pull you to the van and take you to the police station to like teach you, to re-educate you. There has been cases of someone, a family of my friend who, she was like a 35 year old woman and because of her, her was showing, they put her in the van and said, read all of these pamphlets, gave the pamphlets to her. It's like, I'm not going to read this pamphlet. The pamphlets are about like how hijab is important and you should cover yourselves and how to properly cover yourself. It's like I'm not reading this and they said, we're going to take a test and if you don't pass that test we're not letting you out of this van. We don't care, like we're going to keep you girl. So, yeah, so they, something similar probably happened to Assamini as well and their ambiguity because a dictatorship and the free fall of information is that there's no journalism. We don't know exactly what happened, but she happened to die. Some people are saying that's why someone saw her beating her head on the pavements. Someone says, no, it's okay. We don't know exactly what happened, but she died and she died in police custody because of that. And there was, at that point, people in Iran looked at themselves, especially men, looked at themselves like, we have been our lives agents of morality police ourselves. One morality police cannot force like 80 million people to follow these laws. We have been enforcing these onto our sisters, onto our wives, onto our mothers ourselves. And there was a real, real moral reckoning, real, and this is, we're not talking about their free society when free exchange of ideas and forums and debates can have no. It's like in absolute that silence dictatorship, there was within each individual person a moral reckoning they had. Are we on the side of morality police or are we on inside of them? And like when we see like this, it has been like seeing this videos of women burning their hijab and men clapping for them. It has been things like, for example, I guess you say this, my friend's sister, she is telling us that whenever she was, she went to work at night. So when she was coming back at night and there were always men, even though she was like dressed properly, men that were always like, Oh, you pretty lady, do you want to get on the car? We're going to give you a ride back home. Like they were like, they're harassing, like normal people. And that used to be a common place. But after massage, I mean, he's dead. They don't see that anymore. Like they're not harassing. Normal men stop harassing women. They stopped there because there was a real moral reckoning. Like, who's side are we? And it has been like, I will also need to say this other story. One of my friends, she had a sister in Iran and her name is Ava. And I'm giving, I'm covering the real name. So, so there, I didn't even be safe. She was, she, there were, because theater in Iran, basically almost completely banned. And so there was a private theater somewhere and it was like hidden. And if the, if the police gets to them, they will jail all of them. But there was a play going on. Somewhere hidden. And when they entered the hidden, hidden basement of somewhere. So she was selling her like, she couldn't believe this was Iran. Like men or women were totally comfortable. Men were not harassing them at all. And they're like, they're like the girlfriends, boyfriends were like kissing and holding their each other's hands. And like this is totally self-started. Again, this is, we don't have any Iran anyone who like tells us, no, you should be this way. You should be that way. Like she and money, like every person really did a moral reckoning onto himself. And the same person, the same girl, she was in a, so in coffee shops, you also need to, even if you're in private property in stores, you need to keep your hijab. If you don't, there's like my other place going on and they like close the business because of that. So that's why the business owners are forced to enforce hijab laws, even if they don't agree with it as well. And for Ava, she went to the coffee, her coffee place and she took away her job and just put it there. And she was studying. And usually what happens is a store owner says like, please put it on. We're going to close my business. And this time they said, thank you. You don't have to pay for your coffee. Your coffee is on us. And we're on your side. Like how beautiful and amazing it is. Like more moral revolutions are completely real. And they can happen at very sudden, suddenly, and it could happen even under the leadership. Yeah. I think we're seeing that in you on. I think you absolutely right. It is a moral revolution. And we're seeing it. So from what you're hearing from you on the demonstrations, continuing is, and what, and what do they want? What, I mean, is this just about a hijab? Or is this about the morality of relationships? Or is this something broader? They want the Islamic government gone. Yeah. They want the secular government. And that's not some of, some of them are saying that or some of them are saying, no, we just want morality police. Like it's a unit, everyone is unified on this one issue. That they want the regime gone. And it's normal regime. They want a normal regime, which they have a sense of what that means, or do they have a positive vision? Or is it mostly just this they don't want? They want something like Europe. Europe is a big ideal for Iran. So they want, they want to be able to vote. They want to be able to, and they want to be able to, what was it? They want to be able to live what we consider a normal life. That is a life where you can make choices for yourself. You can interact with whoever you want to interact. You don't have to ask permission to hug somebody. So that, so that's, that's across the board. That's what people out in the streets want. Yes. Yes. And that's unequivocal. And to what extent do religious people, let's say your parents support that? There has been also a moral revolution within my parents, and they're not religious anymore. My mother, who had the hardest time getting one strand of her show, not because of morality, but because she couldn't get herself to do it. Yeah. She's, she's now at the age of 40 something. It's hard to change at that age, but the force of this remote awakening is so sweeping. Even her, she changed her beliefs. And they're not calling me and telling me, you were right all along these years. You were wrong. It's hard for older people, especially parents to say that. Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. So. And how, how extensive do you think this is with any Iranian society? That is, is this just in the cities and in the big cities among more educated people? Or is this, is this more widespread? The protests are going on everywhere. It's erupting everywhere and even, even probably at the same rate, but if I have to pick, I would say it's probably more with outside the cities, the smaller cities in smaller towns and all over the world. Okay. So I, so I mean, I know you're, you're not a procrastinator of the future, but you know, if you had to give, if you had to give a timeline for how long this regime lasts, do you think it can last? Do you think, do you think this is, this is the end? It's just a matter of time. Weeks, months. That's completely depends on people's view. If they could, they could, why, why that? I mean, they could let it go. Let this moment of world reckoning go and say, oh, well, there were those were ideals. Let's come back to reality. Or they could just. Not like, say the obvious and keep, keep on yearning for your normal life and not be adjusted to the abnormal life that is going on there. I mean, that's, I mean, there's scenes like, yeah, I'm not making these up. My friend was anyone like that. What's happening? It was like a 18 year old boy standing with like a baseball racket, like baseball. It's like, why are you afraid? Like I'm going to sit down and defend myself. Yeah. Why are you going away? And, and like women who like in front of the police, like even though they, it's huge, incredible amount. My friend in Iran, like he saw first, like in front of his eyes, one of the girls, like she was bashed on the head so hard that she died. Like she died. That's like, her image was, was spread around as another victim of the Iranian government. And this is not, we're not talking about normal like protests and some, some refer mentioned on this note. These are really blood hungry people, blood thirsty people. And that's, that's what happens. That's what happens with religion and strong, strong ideology when states becomes religious and not only religions as subscribes to any ideology. So what's your sense? So how are they taking the fact that the regime is now executing demonstrators, you know, they're, they're hanging them in public and, and the, the, the, the, the consequence of being caught in some of these demonstrations could be, could be a life sentence or a death sentence. Oh, absolutely. They're, they're, they're just because these boys were on the streets and not because they were particularly bad or not because they were like doing it. Just because they're picking up random people on the street and hanging them, hanging them like, like super fast trials. Like obviously like there has been always much trust in Iran, but like they're, they're really doing this to give a chilling effect to people. Like next time you're coming to out on the street, you're the next one that we randomly picked for our gallows. So. And yet the demonstrations continue. Yes. And any sense, you know, I don't know if you know this, but any sense that, that's a families of people in the military and families of people high up in the regime are participating in these demonstrations also fed up. Is it going to get to the point where if, if one of these molest say shoot them, they're shooting their own families. Well, so the people who are shooting are not military are just random. Like, so there are, there is such a thing as siege. It's named in Iran. It's like IRGC's people's army, people's like the social group. I have translated. And, and the really they, what they do and what they're really expert at is picking like they having like their arms everywhere in our society and really like attracting the most blood thirsty, the most psychotic, the most unhinged people in the society. I mean, these people exist in our societies to a different extent, but they really are like absorbing those people. They're young. They're my age. And like, they don't care. They have a, they have a gun. They should. So they're, yeah. So do you see a, do you see a scenario where the military turns against the regime because the, the, some of the generals or some of the offices, their daughters, their wives, they are in the streets and, and they're getting harmed. Well, I, I studied with my, you know, high school was high school, but I studied with a lot of kids whose father is ever a military. And if I have to, based on what I said, I would say no, but that's, that's a very soft no, because again, I would have said no to this moral revolution that happened. We really don't know what could happen. So why would you say no, put aside the moral revolution? Why would you say no? What, what, what behavior did they exhibit back then when you were in high school? That's a just no. Yeah. So this idea of, you know, the world is not for me and I'm just like a weak meager person. It gets like pensions from the government. And although that's pension is very little, but I can't even get that. And if there will be a revolution, that person would be caught away like, and they will not give me my money or maybe. Not that they were militant. It's not that they were militant. It's that they were weak. You're saying the reason you don't expect it to happen is because they're weak. These are weak people who don't stand up for anything and are afraid that they lose their, their, their, their pension. Yes. Yes. Most of them are like that, but there are really blood hungry people who are promoted to top, top levels and they will not stand back until they put down. So the question is, I mean, the question is in a revolution always at the end of the day, somebody has to do the putting down. Yes. And the question is who anyone is going to do to put it down. Since this revolution doesn't seem to have a leader and doesn't seem to be organized politically, who is going to be, what is the element in society that it's going to actually put down the existing regime? I think that is, is what's going to be interesting and what the next, that's necessary for the next step to happen, for the regime to actually go away, either the military or the, the, the national, the guard or the, the, the, the, you know, somebody has to say enough is enough and go after the, the moolahs. Yeah, I don't know. That's, that's a good question. I wish I knew, but no. I mean, the 79 revolution was so big. I mean, everybody stopped working. Everybody was in the streets. Of course, ultimately the military flipped and supported, but I, you know, that I think it's going to have to take something like that. Yeah, you're going to say something. Sorry. I don't know too much about 79 revolution. I know general, but I, I, I'm hearing because the country has been in the fog of war, so to speak, sever since then. So we really can't have like an objective reporting or objective, like recounting of like what's happened, what happened exactly. And people have different, their own point of view is because based on where they were when they're, and they're a country. So I don't really have a firm account of how, how many 79 revolution happened. There are many accounts on that. Probably what you can find on the internet is better than what I have to say about it. But what I have to say or what I have to bring are like concrete people. I wish I could show their pictures. I say, no, no, that I'm not talking about some characters and novel. I'm not talking about some guy that you don't, like you, if you met in real life, you wouldn't be friends with. I mean, I, if it were like that, I wouldn't be my friends. I'm, I'm probably like taking even from like the people who are even better off in Europe, but some, if that's okay, I can give you like some of some of the concrete experiences of what happens with morality police. And so you understand. So it's not all about morality police, but if, but we'll get to, like I'm going to tell these stories and we get to, I thought about, we'll get to what is it really about? It's not only about like whether we can walk on veiled or veiled. It's more, way more than that. But now about morality police has been like, these are accounts that I'm like, I wrote down, I'm reading from what they told me. Sure. Like one day we were in Eston's like biggest square. That's like with historical buildings. And they were walking with my, with my, my friend was walking with two of his sisters and his mother. And four, four or five veiled women, like really like with not that they're covered, but really they covered everything here. And they came and they said, and we're also two and three men supporting them said, one of them came and told my sister, this is what my friend to stay aside, stay aside. And my sister, they told my sister, you're not wearing right things and her mother, like this is her mother, like who are you to tell my, my, my daughter not to wear it. It's my daughter, like, like, you know, I, I told her to wear it that way. I'm okay with it. And her father is okay with it. And I was like, don't, don't talk. Like don't, don't get yourself into this. You have your daughter, you have your hair out. You have your ankles are showing. That's not the way to come out. Do you think this, this country doesn't have any laws? Do you think like if, if people came out like you, they will be carnage on the streets. And what, what, what she did, she put it at the regime, the morality police, the girl at the moment on the police, what she pursuers do, she pulled out a scissor and she cuts because, because my friend's sister had had a veil, but there was some hair was long enough. Some of it protruded out. So she took a scissor and cut her hair from on the back. So it's like now you can't, you don't have any more hair to show up to anyone, to everyone. And then she proceeded to like pull her pants down, like violently, like take something to care and pull her pants down. It's like, oh no, your ankles are covered now. You know, and if like, if you, if you say anything, we're going to put you in the van, like be thankful that we didn't take you to the van. And they said, I also said, when they went, when she, she cut the hair, like this is a woman talking. It's not like some men oppressing women. This is when she's cut her hair. She threw it on the ground. It's like, people are like you, like are like that. They should be like, so spit on the ground. Like I would take you and throw you onto the ground. And like, you know, like this is like really the human, the human, the humanized. And again, under Sharia law, men cannot touch women. So it's like when things are not married or if they're not family. So these are women enforcing morality police laws. And that, that's something like this common idea that, you know, like it's men oppressing women. I mean, a lot of times it is, but it is a real like women compressing women. That's that. And it's like, why, why do they do that? It's like interesting. Another recollection. I'm just being quick, not getting nice. One of the, they, one of their neighbors, they stopped and asked, like she had the proper veil. So she had like already covered herself enough. So like be unsuspected. They stopped her. Why are you wearing a red lipstick? And it's like, why? That's okay. But you know, there's no laws on the book. Do you know women who wear red lipsticks end up like training their husbands, you know, things like that. That's another. And they had forced her to remove it. And then, you know, when you ask her, the boys, there's another like my friend has, he, what he had like short sleeves. Like, why are you wearing short sleeves here? Are you wearing short sleeves to show up your biceps? Like, no, like you're, you're an agent of immorality. You know, like they forced him to like get something out of the way. They, um, and this is another story. My, another sister, the other sister of my friend, she one time had to think really to think in this sense that she needed to be taken to the emergency room of a dental clinic. She had, you know, she was put on the chair. It's like the doctor will visit you. Like we come to see you like in a minute. And she was in so much pain that her bail fell off. She was like dressed modestly, but just her very, the doctor came in and, you know, she was in pain. She needed immediate help. She said, get the hell out of my office. The women like you are the reason why our societies are so bad. And like took, took, took her again, like threw her out in the lobby and that he yelled, any woman who's not bailed properly to get the hell out of this clinic. And again, this is not, they're not doing it because, because like morality police is coming there. These are real people, real men who have this ideology. And we're talking about when we're talking to you about, uh, moral revolution, this moral revolution is happening in such a country. It's such a stage. So do you think like that dentist might have changed his mind recently? I don't know. Are these the people who are changing their minds or is it people who maybe will more on the sideline? Uh, most probably more, more than people in the sideline, but I can't rule out that some people will like that change their mind. One of my intellectual inspiration that to, that even get to read about philosophy was he is, I can online intellectual and Iran is like his, his haze is fit, faces fit in, hidden hidden and he walks up, talks with a voice modulator. His name is I am Zeus. That's his name on YouTube. He said, and he, he said, he was part of that. He was so ex ultra orthodox religious that he was part of 1979 revolution. And now he's the biggest enemy of the regime like he's like, so it, those changes with this pivots happen all the time. It's really not every well, as you said earlier. So, um, tell me a little bit in their words, what they see as the purpose of all these demonstration, what do they want? You said you had some examples of people standing up and saying what they actually want. Uh, what the demonstrators want. Yep. They want, as I said, they want the regime gone. They want the reason gone. There's no, there's no compromise there. There is no compromise. It's a way past compromise. And they've seen a lot of them with their own eyes, how compromising with regime 2009 got them, you know, got everything worse. So it's, it's just trial and error. They realized the compromises and work and also not all of it is a human human human beings, like they naturally want integrity. I think they naturally want ideas to make Sunday or naturally, especially young people want to live according to their ideas. So they're more idealistic ones. And to what extent are they connected to the internet now with VPNs and Starlink or whatever? Are they connected to the external world? Yeah. Starlink. That's, that's funny because everybody was all over news, but nobody is impossible to get Starlink. If you're not already like living in, in the West, like it's impossible to create an account even like Elon Musk was saying, it's free to use, but sure, but if it's to create an account, you need to be early have created in the West. So I have like a credit card kind of connected to it. And so it fell to me. Really like in jet disingenuous from Elon Musk. Like, okay, sure. Like, why, why don't you like make it easier to for people in Iran to create accounts if you want. And they're like, he said last time around hundreds. Starlink survey. That's good. That's better than nothing, but if, if why not go more, like if you're already doing that. So. A lot of people access the internet then do they and how do they do it? They have, they have access. So the recently since I left, they, it's become way much, much, much worse, much worse. And a little bit on a state of internet in Iran. So when I was young, 10, until I became 14, you needed a permit to have access internet access. Oh, okay. And yeah. And then later repeal that. I don't know why they did it because it was for their purposes, a stupid decision. But they couldn't probably stand their wave of progress. And. Well, I was lucky at an earlier age and my mom could get, get a permit for some reason. But then they, they started like the internet that they provided to people had a random stuff blocks on it. It was totally blocked. So I'm talking about like a Chinese regime, anything anti government is blocked and monitored. Like, that's like, kind of to be expected in Iran. Totally unsuspecting. Like, for example, I was talking about Ratatouille earlier on the page, Disney page on Ratatouille is blocked. You know, so these are like, they're, what they're looking for is for like values. I think this is, and to give you more examples to make it inductive for you, but I would just have had to cut it short. They say, what are they looking for? Like any, anything that people are interested in, they go block that immediately. And they find a way around that block. Yeah. What they're doing right now is, so people in Iran is found a way around the block. What they're doing right now, they're totally cutting off internet. Like, like really unplugging. Wow. Yeah. So there is no VPN that can go over that. Yeah. How are we getting videos out? How are people getting actually seeing videos? Yeah. That's interesting. So I, if I have to guess, some people who live near the borders, send to them and they, like some, they get it, but, but the internet is not 20, it's not 24 seven. It's, it's, it's very, very little of it is like, you're very horrible at speed. Yeah. They let people have and they cut it all the time. So what they're looking for is that people give up, give up on internet because it's so painful. It's disconnects all the time. That should just give up on it. So you still, if you are really determined to upload a video, you can't do that. So. All right. So we've got a, we've got a lot of questions. A lot of them, some of them related, some of them not related. So. I have more stories also if you can get to that before. Sure. So do you want to go through a couple of more stories and then we'll get some questions in. Okay. So this is. From her was from my friend and her name is Rosita. And she was a regular collection. Her sister was sick and spine injury. And she was taking her to take an MRI picture for spine. They stopped her, the traffic police stopped her. It's like your license. Right. She gave the license and saw like the police stopping and not letting them to go. Why are you not going around the way of a way to doctor? And we need to be there. Your job is not well. Like you're not covered properly. What are you talking about? And that's that day, like you usually she's a kind of person that would be targeted by that kind of thing. And that day she was very rush to just put something like really she didn't look her best. Like, what are you talking about? Like, I'm literally covered at the top. So no, not you, your sister in the car. And they took, but she's sick. Like she has like a spine. Like she can't like, okay, we'll put something on her. We put a veil on her like, let us go. They didn't let her go. And so call your father and their father came and her father also very sad for Rosita. Her father also was early revolution counter revolutionary. So she, he's living with a fake identity. And so I'm, and her father was when she came, he came there. It's like basically kissing their feet. It's like, please let my daughters go and they didn't. And there were those fights for all that. And like how, how sad is like a simple, like basically not having a target, even if you're going to the doctor, like they're really trying to, what they're looking for is to break people's spirits. And they would select for people who can take pleasure in breaking people's spirits because this was not morality police. This was traffic. So they're doing this on your own. Yeah. Yeah. So there's, I have, I have a couple of more also. Well, for those, I wouldn't, I would like to like move away, move away from morality police topic. So maybe this is sometimes some questions and I get, I need to get why my, I said earlier that my biggest grievance is with foreign governments. And we get to that. Why don't you, why don't you mention that? Why is the biggest grievance with foreign governments? Right. I mean, so I, I'm asking that genuinely out of my, myself, like had I been born in, let's say, Philippines, how I've been in the Philippines, it's a better country. I could not take division. Maybe it is. I'm not sure too much about it. Like any other, like developing country, that's not a dictatorship exactly. I would want to leave Iran as, as passionately as I leave my country as passionately as I wanted here. So the, the fact, the fact that it was the leadership was incidental and, you know, made it more clear for me that I need to leave, but I would have needed to leave anyway. And so the problem I have is that there are so many, incredibly smart, motivated, self-taught people in Iran. And I need to mention the self-taught aspect of that because you're not being taught anything. Like you have to, school are not being taught anything. You're like, you, and there is like no material out there. There is no like Coursera that you can go sign up on. I get the course. Like you don't have access to, to all of that. You don't have a credit card. You're not connected to like international banks. You have to like really, really like have like an extreme sense and desire for knowledge and self-growth to go like, and, and, you know, become the person who you want to become. And there are lots of people like that, you know, and I, like a privilege of finding some of them. And some of them I'd mentioned that we're in Tehran and we'll get to their stories and they would leave. They would leave like on a heartbeat. They would know they're conscious of self-conscious. There are some people who are not conscious, especially as younger, they're not conscious of what's going on, the fact that they need to leave. These people are conscious of them. They want to leave, but the foreign governments have so many restrictions for visas and so many hurdles. Like your father needs to show bank account balance of $100,000. And you need to show that if you come back, you have a job. And like, I mean, people who are rich in Iran, they can do that. But it's whatever ambitious younger people who don't have that much money and that amount of support from their parents. And we're talking about a country that's minimum wage is like $54. You know, it's extremely difficult to like, how can you get $100,000? And also on the top of that, some of it's understandable because, you know, Iran, like there are terrorists in Iran and like violence, but still like we're talking about young motivated people who like, let's say studies French and like a fluent in French, sorry, French and English as well. And like they how like this. Let me maybe name them to see who I'm talking about, apart from myself. My friends in Iran in Tehran or one of them is found next to me and two of the three of them Tehran. I saw Rosie, Sarah, Sajad, like these, I met them completely randomly through like an online group. But like these people were just, I wish I could show their pictures. I really wish I could say that you just have to see them. Like these, like for example, Rosie, she has that Parisian girl aesthetic and she's like, the way she talks is she like uses like deliberately rough slang in the middle of her words. So she like that creates like a really cute contrast and with her self voice and she, she like wanted to like do great things in her life. She wanted to do science and then realize like there is no future for me in science. She went, she switched to French at least because you know, maybe I can leave to France. I like France so much. And I mean, she was yearning to leave, but because she had like three other sisters and brothers, there was not enough money for her. The constraints on them leaving is not the regime, not allowing them to leave. The constraints on they leaving is the immigration policies of Western governments that don't allow immigrants in and make it super expensive. Exactly. The restrictions are so draconic. They're so hard, but the regime doesn't feel the need to restrict immigration. But they're doing my job for me. You know, and my, my story of, I'll talk about my story of coming to US, I applied, I was supposed to be there in 2021 here. Thank God in 2021. And they told me like, because you're from Iran, we have to check that you're not a terrorist. And like, we can decide that no, no indication, like I was out of Iran since 2018, no education that I got. I was like studying in Poland and like all of information about me I already gave to them. With no faults. I never did anything like that in my entire life, but they took one year for them to process my visa and they could have extended indefinitely. And I was in Europe and I thought, okay, my study visa has like expired. Well, they deport me. I was like in a state of constant fear that, okay. I remember you were in that state of fear when we met in Poland. It was, it was during that period where you weren't sure that you were going to be able to get into the United States. Exactly. And I was so, I mean, talking in concrete, like I was afraid of like whenever the open door opens, I was leaving a shared apartment. Whenever the open, I was like half shivers. Are they like officers coming in and they're going to knock on my door and I couldn't say like, why couldn't you seek asylum? The international laws for seeking asylum is that when you leave your country, you have to immediately seek asylum. If you don't immediately seek asylum, your application is rejected and you have to go to court and there has been cases of people who are wanting to seek asylum in U.S. They get a visa on everything, by the way. They have a leg of flight changed in London. So they don't enter the United Kingdom. Just change planes in London, Heathrow. And when they apply to asylum here, the Western government has said, you like landed in UK. Why didn't you, you know, seek asylum there? No, I mean, that's going on right now with people coming from Venezuela. And the argument is you traveled to Mexico. Why didn't you apply for asylum in Mexico? Why are you applying asylum in the United States? Yeah, I mean, I mean, yes, I mean, that's a whole other topic we could talk about. But the evil of our immigration laws and the human lives. I mean, people talk about immigration and all these theories and economics and culture, but the human lives, the cost in human lives that are closing our border in terms of the human potential and what it does to human beings, real human beings. I mean, I've always said in my talks, you know, the mother that crosses the border to have a baby in the United States is a heroine. She should get a medal, right? And yet our culture of use her is evil and bad. And it's just, yeah, I'll get angry. This is a topic. Your issues are, you know, there are like concerns that, okay, like you have issues and concerns, like let's work it out. Like let's find a solution. Like let's find, let's say you don't want, let's everyone from Iran in, because like some of them are genuinely bad people. Like you have, like... Background checks, it's not that hard. Background checks, that or like have, let's say, you don't want too many people coming, have like a very strict English test that you have to get 100 in, like 99 and whatever. And the only people who are really determined to study English so like become so perfect in English that they like pass this academic test, they can like, there are like solutions. You can get creative. Like there are solutions to... But that's why it's not about those things. Yeah. The point is you've been looking for solutions. And I'm here to say, I'm here to say it's like people who are not even looking for it. I understand there are concern, but if the fact that you're not looking for solutions or your solution is like, oh, just close down the border or just, you know, make it harder, shame on you. Like you are the reason why Rosie is in Iran. You are the reason why Sarah, which I didn't even get to like explain who she had wonderful, she was. She couldn't make it. Like you are the reason why. And like, how can you, like, how can you like talk about immigration and totally forget the fact that something needs to be done. So it's a problem. It's not that simple. But look for solutions. Because they don't care. The bottom line is they don't care. They're focused not on human lives. They're focused on their fears. And they're dominated by fears and they're not interested in solutions. You see that over and over again in debates about immigration. Because the solutions are relatively easy. All right. So let's take some questions. And then there's a bunch of questions. You're unrelated. You can either stay when I answer those or you can leave. But I want to be sensitive to your time as well. All right. So I'm just doing them by the order they came in. I see all the. Let me just check all these are not related. Okay. So let's just start here. So I like numbers as do average Iranians accept existence of Israel? Yes. I mean, Israel had good relations with Iran pre 79. And I think I think there were a lot of people actually moved a lot of visitors from one to the other, at least of the well connected people. All right. Let's see. Yeah. Andrew asks, how does the regime explain the violence against women done by the morality police? Do they deny the violence or try to justify it? They absolutely try to justify it. So they say it's, you know, they try to make some excuse about how it's done. How hard is it just pull down your veil a little bit? Okay. Like I would can't control everyone. We can't control men. That's their ideology. Right. Like just pull down your veil. And if you don't do that, that's your fault. That's how they justify it. Yeah. It's the same. It's the same kind of mentality of people who, who claim the women are responsible for their own rape. I mean, it's, it's always the woman's fault. It's, it's really disgusting. Let's see. What, what process do you think, do you see actually changing the regime if they're on elections? I don't know. You don't know. But they're definitely thankfully, I don't know how educated people of Iran are in the midst of a big censorship. But the principle of secularism like the government needs to be accepted. Most people are on board with that. I know about that. And endorse that. So whatever, if there's going to be an election, fair election, that, that is definitely going to be. Yeah. But there's not going to be a fair, as long as this regime is in power, there won't be a fair election. Even the moderates that the West always supports in Iran are not moderates by any, by any Western legitimate standard. So there is no, you know, I don't, I don't see an option other than some kind of revolution. And therefore somebody within what we would call the elites is going to have to, you know, do something is going to have to flip. And, and, you know, I think it's the most likely is the military, but who knows who knows. I don't know enough about Iran. Let's see. Do you have any information about the kids getting sentenced for making of a Pharrell happy video? Right. That was a long time ago. That was 2015. Yeah. This, can you tell the story because the story is Pharrell William released the song happy, you know, because I'm happy to clap along if you're like that, that song. And the idea of that song was, okay, like you film your yourself happy with this song, singing this to the song. And I just uploaded it to the internet. Like they were, that was the entire point of the song to show that everyone is happy. And some people did it on any one, obviously they can do it on the streets. So they're on their rooftops in their houses. Yeah. And they were just, you know, saying that women were unveiled and those people got like identified, arrested to like a really, really, really harsh sentence. I don't exactly remember what the sentence was, but it was very harsh. Wow. And as far as you know, they're still in jail. So nothing, nothing, no update on that. No. All right. Apollo Zeus asks, he says, I've seen a documentary that depicted you on as a secular paradise before 1979. What are your thoughts on this? Interesting question. So, uh, you know, the secularism that was going on, the progress that was going on in one before the revolution had Iranian culture as its enemy. So they were going against thousands of years of bad culture and bad view of women. I mean, I can, I can tell you, I don't, I don't have to memorize me in English, but I can tell like the lyrics of the popular songs back then didn't portray a good vision of women, the view of women, like they portrayed like, yeah, I want to basically be like obedient to you, you, you men, you know, we are women. Like what we do is like, you know, go after you, like bow after you. And this is like not the exetership. Like people are genuinely when they want to write songs, and that's their idea of romantic, romantic idea. Like what's how romance looks like. I mean, as change recently become more western, but that was how Iran always was. Like Iran never had a good view on it. And there definitely were better people in Iran. There were definitely like industrialists that were like hugely rapidly industrializing, changing. They were like scientists. Like there was like really good human capital everyone had and they were really good progress was being made very fast at the same pace as South Korea. Like Iran and South Korea were the same GDP and they had had the same growth. And I look for South Korea is not where you want. North Korea is. Yeah. But, but, you know, the show was still a dictator. There wasn't complete free speech. I mean, it's so it's, it was still somewhat of a dictatorship. So the reason why people hated the Iranian shop was because he had reforms. Such name name was white revolution in Iran. And the reforms were capitalistic reform. So what they did, like the lands in Iran were feudally old. Yeah. One feudal lord of each region owned all the lands and they were served side. I was like, that doesn't make any sense. And he like served like whoever works on these lands, like go there, like starts farming, whatever we give it to you. So he like started privatizing lands. He started privatizing like a lot of industries, like the rail for example. And, and people hated him for it. And it was, you know, he took all of like the feudal lords were like, he took all of our lands away from us. And so a lot of reasons why people and still like, I don't want to say therefore it's good. Like you can't have in states free market capitalism with like the Cree. But the reason why people hated him was because of the better things. If you really were, I think, my opinion, if you really were like as oppressive as Khomeini, they wouldn't have had a revolution. Yeah. I mean, I think, I think that he was, well, I mean, I think he was, I think you, you, you write, but it's more proof that you can't force a culture to be free when they want to be free. You know, he was opposed by two elements within Iranian society. The intellectuals were basically socialists and they hated his capitalism and indeed I told Khomeini the genius of Khomeini was he understood this. And so he integrated Marxist language into his sermons. So if you listen to his cassettes, which were distributed in Iran in the 1970s, he talks, he talks a lot about redistribution of wealth. He talks a lot about the classes. He sounds like a socialist, you know, and this is why French intellectuals, when I told Khomeini came to power in 1979, French intellectuals were singing his praises. They thought this was amazing. This was positive because he had talked this socialist stuff. So that was one element within Iranian society that rejected the Shah. And then the second element was the religionists, the ones that did not like the secularization, did not like the reforms, wanted a traditionalist society. And what Khomeini did, and that was his evil genius, was united those. And that was unusual. How do you unite traditionalist Islamists with socialist radicals and united them? Of course, as soon as he got into power, he made sure to kill and to execute all his opponents on the left, all the intellectuals who were socialists, he got rid of. But yes, I mean, it was a revelation. This is when you try to impose capitalism on people who want socialism. You try to impose secularism on people who want religion. It ain't going to go well. This is why philosophy drives culture, drives politics, not the other way around. All right, let's see. We did that. Chris says, great interview. Any recommended biographies, memoirs about life in Iran? There has been biographies and memoirs, but I remember some of them, I wish I had prepared for it because I know there are, there are, but I don't remember them, unfortunately. I'm sorry. Most of it is in Farsi. The best ones are really in Farsi. The ones that are in English are still good, I think, but yeah, it needs to be translated. The most are in Farsi, so they get published outside of Iran in Farsi? They get published. So there are independent news organizations, I'll say, and what they do is they go after people who are like really, really had a bad time in Iran. I mean, that's pretty likely they were like really jailed and really tortured and their parents were killed. And they go like they interview them and they get the first-hand details. And those are on in Farsi. The ones that are in English happen are the more fortunate ones, let's say. The ones that I've read at least. I get to translate their books. So the son of the Shah, the son of the grandson of the Shah is in America and is very active politically. Is there any appeal within Iran to him coming back and doing, I mean, are people advocating for him in any kind of sense? Yes, there are people advocating for him and especially Iranians abroad are advocating for him. The rationale is like no one really, my sense is like no one really likes him that much. But the rationale is we need to get behind him because if we're going to have a provisional government and have like take some like votes and ballots and he says, you know, I just want, I'm not gonna rule, I just want people to be able to take their votes. I'm not saying he's lying, but he's not that great of a person in my opinion. It could be way better. Yes. I give him credit for at least sticking around and fighting for, it's just Armin says it's a son. So Armin, $500, thank you Armin, that's amazing. I assume Armin is Iranian. He says great interview, Puyah is an impressive young man. I agree, thanks. Thank you Armin. Let's see, Gail says Puyah, you are a heroic inspiration for young people who want to take their life seriously. Welcome to the US. Thanks Gail. Ryan says thanks Puyah, great to listen to you. Thanks Ryan. All right, let's see. Any other questions from you guys on Iran before I go to kind of just the general questions I have here? So there was actually a bunch of stuff I would, I just found in my notes to talk about. So apart from, I have more of first hands also if you want to hear, I can tell them, but I've done some also research about like this nature of this government, what happened exactly. And this is where obviously you have more knowledge than me. I'm just going to tell you the results of it. There is a real sense that what happened with Khomeini in Iran, that it was so, it was that Iran is a government is based on hatred of the West in a sense, which is different than the hatred of the West, the al-Qaeda or ISIS that they have. What do I mean by that? I mean the problem of al-Qaeda is like the West is ruling, but they're not ruling under Sharia law and they must succumb to Sharia law. But Iran is really not that much about Sharia law. Iran at the point of like Iran, like I mean recently listening to her speeches and what they've been taught in school is not that the West, if only they need to come under Sharia law, it's like the West should not exist like period like that. It's not that they need to be Muslim. What they're doing is completely wrong and they need to be stopped and there are the pestilence on the world not because they're stopping awesome Muslims, but just pestilence on the world like period. So there is like a sense if I, if we can draw shades, distinguish shades, there's a shade like more evil even than ISIS is on the government, even than al-Qaeda as as evil as they are or maybe, you know, based on their, but their say, I'm saying so. I mean some quotes like I have like random quotes from Khomeini, like for example, you see how he like recognizes that there are like people that were better than him. So for example, one of the same memory says, our youth has the Western disease. Let's forget the West. If we can erect a Chinese wall between us and the West and even like reject their progress in doing so, like we don't want their progress will be better off. And this one, the other one is every corruption is from educated people. The more educated, the worse they are. Like every calamity that happened to mankind ever comes from universities. Like so a person who's like oblivious to the greatness of educated people, it's the greatness of universities and mostly he's talking about again, the good universities. If he was oblivious, like he wouldn't say that he says that he sees the greatness is he's the greatness of the West and he hates it exactly for that greatness. And it's, you know, I've said this in the past. I think Iran serves as a real inspiration to the Isis and the, I mean they might criticize it but at the end of the day, it is the one country where they have been successful. Yes, they're Sunnis and the Shiites but I don't think they care that much as we think they care. I think for them, Iran is a symbol of success of standing up to the West, of success of oppressing the wrong people, of success of bringing about this kind of rejection of all Western values. And it's an inspiration. If this regime falls, I think it's the biggest blow the broader Islamist cause could have. There's no bigger blow than this regime falling. It's much bigger than defeating ISIS or killings Bin Laden or anything like that. And this is why it's one of the many reasons why it's so evil that the West is just ignoring what's going on right now. It's truly. Islamism but Islam as a political ideal will really die just like communism as political ideals kind of died after Soviet Union collapse. There'll still be elements here and there but it's a political ideal. And if you read the Sunni Islamists, the al-Qaeda's and Muslim Brotherhood and people like that and the extent to which they were inspired by the 1979 Revolution to the extent that that energized them and gave them purpose in life. Iran is at the center of things. It really is the key to getting rid of this plague, ideological plague. I'm going to let you go. I really appreciate it. Thank you. I think everybody really enjoyed this and benefited enormously. I've got a bunch of these other questions that I have to get through because I've got a hard stop. I'm actually going to be, for those of you listening, I'm going to be on GB News in London in less than an hour. So in 50 minutes I'll be in GB News London talking about why the culture hates rich people. So completely, we'll have to switch hats. But I need to finish before and prepare for that. So thank you, Puerh. I really appreciate this. This has been great. And you'll be in Austin, right? Yes, I'll be. I'm working at Salem Center. So I'll see you there. That's right. So Puerh is working at the Salem Center, which is with Greg Salmiere. And they are hosting me. I'm giving a talk there on Wednesday night. And the talk is going to be around the pursuit of freedom, both in Iran, focusing both in Iran and China, but broader than that. We'll talk about Russia. We'll talk about other places as well. And we've really called it for yearning for normal life, because I think part of the question is, what is a normal life? What are we, Thursday night? Thank you. Great. I fly into Austin Wednesday night. Thursday night is the talk. Sorry. The talk is for yearning for normal life, because it really is the question of what does a normal life mean to us? What do so many of us, I think, in the West, and it's part of the immigration, I think, issue too. So many people don't really, they live a normal life and they take it for granted that everybody has in the world. And why are people trying to come here? And they don't quite understand that they have no concept. So this idea of a normal life, I think, is going to be central to what I want to talk about and what it took for the West to gain a normal life and what is going to have to happen in the world for us to be able to sustain a normal life. So I'm looking forward to giving the talk, looking forward to seeing you in person. And Greg, thank you for reminding me. It's Thursday and thank you for putting on the event. And I'll see you all then. I think we're going to try to livestream it on my channel. We did the last time I did events for Salem, so I'm hoping we can do it again. So stay tuned Thursday night. We'll be streaming this. And Paulo says GB news is on YouTube live as well. So okay. So you'll have me live on YouTube a lot. All right. I really appreciate it. Great to have you here in the US. All right. Let's see. So we have a bunch of questions from Michael and Frank and James and Hopper. Okay. Let's just jump in. Michael asked. And these are not related to the topics. That's why I left them for last, even though like Michael says a $50 question is the population slowly starting to recognize that the enemies of capitalism are motivated by jealousy and insecurity rather than compassion for the vulnerable. I think this narcissistic, scam is being discovered by more and more people. I don't see it. I mean, I don't know why you think that's the case. I mean, first of all, nobody in the culture even knows that this capitalism and, and what capitalism is. And the people who claim to be. The people who claim to be pro-capitalist are not pro-capitalist to prove some vague notion of a mixed economy that they have. And I don't think they understand what is happening. And they certainly don't understand that what this is motivated by is not jealousy. It's not envy because I don't think that's what motivates. It's, it's altruism. It's altruism. It's, it's, and it's, it's a bad epistemology with its subjectivism. But it, but altruism drives the hatred of capitalism. Altruism drives the hatred of success, the hatred of, of, of the wealthy, of, of the achievers, not the wealthy, the people who achieve. And so I don't think people are coming to recognize, and if they think it's because of jealousy, then they're, then it's wrong. Or if they think it's because of security, I think it's wrong, but I don't think they even think that. And, and, you know, you use the term like capitalism. Who are these, who is the population? Right. Again, the population doesn't have a concept of capitalism. Or if they have a concept of capitalism, they hold it as a mixed economy. They hold it as what we have today. And that doesn't help us. And it doesn't. I mean, what is the difference between the people out there who hate the enemies of capitalism and the supporters of so-called capitalism in the world in which we live? It's about how high taxes should be. And, you know, how many regulations they should, I mean, it's, it's marginal. It's at the margin. So, and I don't see people having insight. And certainly not. Nobody gets the idea of, of, of altruism, of the real source of the resentment towards capitalism. And you can see that by the fact that nobody's opposed to the welfare state. I mean, almost nobody. It's a tiny fraction of a minority. All right, Michael, also for $50 in the long run would be a good thing if Trump wins the nomination and loses again, even more drastically. The country, then the country witnesses Democratic over, overseeing a horrible economy for another four years and a free market conservative wins in 2028. I mean, there's a lot of ifs there. First of all, that there is a free market conservative wins in 2028. Why do you think that if the Republicans nominate Trump this time? Why would they nominate anybody better in 2028? Why wouldn't you expect a Trump-like candidate to be nominated in 2028? What is the, there's no deterministic factor here. And what does it say about the state of the Republican Party if they nominate Trump again? And is it a party that is savable? Is it a party that's salvageable by 2028? If the Republicans nominate Trump again, I think the Republican Party is finished. I don't see how you save it. If the last six years have not been enough for them to figure it out, then another four years, you add more, another six years, how long does it take? And maybe what you should say is Trump should win and then the economy would crash. But it's also not clear that if Democrats win, they oversee a horrible economy. When did this happen? Obama won in 2008, oversaw a horrible economy, and won again in 2012. People don't have a concept of a horrible economy versus a good economy. They don't know what's possible. Bill Clinton won in 1992 and oversaw a good economy relative to modern times. So he was voted in again in 1996. So the fact that a Democrat wins, does that guarantee you a bad economy versus a Republican? Can the American people differentiate? Can they actually see if Biden has another four years, do you think the economy would just go into a tailspin? The economy he's had the last two years under Biden, we've had inflation, but employment is high, employment is high, wages are relatively have increased. Do people really have this conception the economy sucks because of Biden? I mean, they don't like Biden for a variety of reasons. But is it, is it the economy? And are we sure that another four years would have a bad economy? And I mean, these calculations are very, very difficult to assume. I, you know, I would like the Republican Party to grow up and to reject Trump. And as sooner they do that, the sooner they do that, the better. And the more you extend, they'll learn next time, they'll learn next time. One more failure, another failure. You're giving them too much credit. If they have, if all the failures today are not enough, why do you think one more failure would do it? Liam says, according to objectivism is honesty with oneself, not others. Honesty is being true to one's knowledge of reality and objective needs of man's life. So the only reason you should feel bad about lying to someone is because of what it does to yourself. Yeah, in a sense that's right. But what it does, it's not about feeling bad about lying. It's understanding that lying is self-destructive. It's self-destructive to you. But it's also by lying to somebody else, you are rejecting your moral code. You're rejecting the adherence to reality. You're rejecting reason and rationality and, or you're in a sense doing that to yourself. You're undermining all of that. You also, so you're undermining, and then of course you're undermining your relationships with other people. And to the extent that you value other people, then you also feel bad about doing something to somebody else that's bad. So it's not true that everything kind of comes back to, there's this undermine my mind, but irrespective of what happens to other people. Part of the way it undermines you, your relationships, your ability to do things with other people, and your ability to think about the world rationally and oriented towards the fact, is the fact that you've hurt somebody you care about, that has some value to you, right? That is part of the equation. These are people, you deal with these are people, this is a person you want to have a relationship with. It's a person you want to do something with, and you've lied to them and you've undermined that, you've undercut that, you've undermined and you undercut your own life. And other people's feelings matter to you if you care about them. And to the extent that you care about them, they matter to you more and more. So what it means to be selfish here is not just the specific, I undermined, how did you put it? I wasn't true to my own knowledge of reality. That's all true, but it's also true that I hurt this person that I care about, and I care about this person, and I hurt him, and that matters, and that also undermines me. So there's so many, I mean, lying is such a clear case where you're undermining yourself at so many different levels. You're undermining your life at so many different levels. Indeed, every one of the virtues, you should be able to see that relationship with honesty because we all have experienced with being maybe dishonest on occasion. We can see how it completely undermines it and undercuts us. And, right, James, we're just listening to your news update showing cancer. Despite the FDA, will we see a cure for cancer in your lifetime? Does the FDA have so many wrenches in the gears? We don't see a cure for any major disease anytime soon. So, I mean, you can't really talk about a cure for cancer. Cancer is not one disease. Cancer is many, many diseases. Cancer can be caused by lots of different things. Some cancers are viruses, are caused by viruses. Some cancers are caused by, probably by, I don't know, diet, by behaviors. There are lots of different causes of cancer, and therefore they're going to be multiple treatments. Are some cancers, are we going to be able to, in a sense, cure some cancers in a sense of being able to fairly... I mean, we already do. There are a lot of cancers that have captured at the reasonable time are curable, a lot of them. The later you wait, the more difficult it is primarily because it spreads, and then there's no way to attack it in any specific, you know, in one way. And of course the way we treat cancer today is often so horrific that often the treatment is not quite as bad as the disease itself, but it's close. I think that in the next 10 to 20 years, we will see revolutionary new ways to treat cancer in spite of the FDA. They will reach us. I think that there's a huge amount of research going into cancer. There's a huge amount of money being invested in trying to figure this out. And the FDA is relative to the FDA lenient when it comes to cancer, relative to everything else that it does. And I do think, and there's real progress and there's real innovation. I think some of this is the immunotherapies of, in a sense, stimulating the body itself to fight the cancer by itself. I think there have been some interesting breakthroughs recently. Now, I also, you should know, I am not an expert. I am saying all this based on my reading and based on my understanding, and I am no expert when it comes to cancer treatment. This is just a layman's view of what's going on. And as bad as the FDA is, I think the progress is greater than the FDA's attempts to hold it back. And the FDA here is not holding it back as much as its process is one that holds it back. It's not like the FDA has a mandate like it does maybe with life extension. We're not interested in this. No, the FDA wants to see cures for cancer. It wants to promote these things. The doctors who sit on their commissions or their committees to try to prove once positive outcomes, they just create a massive bureaucracy to make that happen and the process is expensive and difficult. And the standard for what is good is way too high. But I think more and more drugs are going to reach that standard. More and more treatments are going to get there. And look, we've come a long way. There are a lot of cancers now that are treatable and we're going to make real progress over the next 20 years. Hoppe Campbell, how do you tie John Dewey and Rousseau to Kant? I think that's what you're asking. How do you tie John Dewey and Rousseau to Kant? Has Kant been influential in the Muslim world as well? Or were they already so primitive and nihilistic that they didn't need a Kant to knock down any further? Let me take these headphones off. All right, I'm going to do this really, really fast. I mean, this would take, you could do a course on this. I think that Rousseau is easy. Rousseau came before Kant. And Kant admired Rousseau from my understanding. He had a portrait of Rousseau in his desk. He liked certain aspects of Rousseau philosophy. I mean, Kant's philosophy is very different than Rousseau, but I think to a large extent, I inspired by some of the same things. So Rousseau actually comes before Kant. I think John Dewey, I think once you do what Kant did, which is divorce human reason, rationality from reality, and divorce morality, which is doing, which is following religion here, but divorce reality from reason. That is reality is in a sense, it's just there. It's just, you know it in a sense through revelation, right? There's a Kaggle and private. It's just there. You just know it, which is very similar to religious morality. But once he does that, he makes lots of different iterations, lots of different strands of irrationality possible. And one of those strands is Dewey. Could Dewey have come about with Kant? Maybe I don't know enough about Dewey, but suddenly Kant makes Dewey possible. The whole idea, the whole pragmatist project is that there are no principles because reality is fundamentally not knowable. You don't know long-term what will happen. You don't know that what exists or works today will work in the future. What is true today will be true in the future. There are no absolutes across time. There are no absolutes, you know, not just across time, but generally, you know, cross-sectionally as well. So in that sense, Dewey benefits or Dewey is based on the idea, on the rejection of the efficacy of reason. It's a direct rejection of reason that Dewey capitalizes on. As with the Muslim world, you know, of course, it had an impact, again, indirectly that I know of, but indirectly. But, you know, it had an impact, for example, on the anti-Muslims in the Muslim world. That is the secular people who went to Europe in the 19th century and early 20th century to study and wanted to come back to their countries with an alternative to Islam, wanted to bring a secular vision to their countries. It came back instead with a variety of different Neocontian philosophies that basically led them all to be authoritarian and, you know, led their populations to embrace Islam in opposition to their authoritarianism. And they landed up viewing these people trained in the West, coming to Syria and Iraq and other countries in the Middle East. And with a secular ideology and becoming dictators, they blamed the West for that. And therefore they associated those horrors with the West, which made their own societies move more towards religion. So in that sense, Khan had a backlash, but it's also true that somebody like Artur Khomeini knew a lot about what was going on in universities and used that in order to achieve success. But I don't know any direct into the Islamic theology I don't think Khan had any direct impact in the Islamic theology. Islam didn't need it in a sense. It was already. And I don't know if Khan had a direct impact on Christian theology. I just don't know. Liam, what do you make of Stephen Crowder turning down $50 million contract with the Daily Wire in the name of standing up to big tech? Irrational times we live in when idiot like that can be offered such numbers. Yeah, I mean, that's pretty amazing that he would be after $50 million by the Daily Wire. And why would he be standing up to big tech? Is the Daily Wire big tech? So I don't understand the whole story. I haven't read about it. I don't know what happened there. It also suggests to me that Stephen Crowder is making a lot of money off of whatever platform he has. And I think anybody who has as many followers and views and as Stephen Crowder does is making a fortune online. YouTube personalities really do make a fortune online. One of the reasons I want to... Anyway, but yes, it's crazy times when Stephen Crowder can make $50 million. It's also crazy times that the Daily Wire can pay somebody $50 million. Somebody like Stephen Crowder, $50 million. Who knows how much... Can you imagine how much they're paying Jordan Peterson? If Stephen Crowder is getting $50 million? If that story is true that he turned down $50 million, I don't know if you really did turn it down. I have no idea. Frank, never give up thinking, dissolve darkness with positive perceptions. Thank you, Frank. Lee, while I often think of the word values as denoting rational values, I seldom hear the term destructive values, which according to Rand's definition would be a valid concept, valuable, input appreciated. There is a talk. I don't want to get into this partially because it's long, but partially because the talk is much better. Let him pick up as a talk where he describes concepts like values that have in a sense two different uses. You can use values as denoting rational values, rational values, pro-life values, the values oriented around human life, around success in life, but values, things that you actually keep are not just positive by that terminology. They are values, but they're destructive. Yes, the concept values has two different ways in which we use it. You have to, when you talk, depending on the context, you have to be clear in which use you're making. Now, I don't remember the exact title of the talk, but there is a talk by Leonard Pickup where he talks about this explicitly and brilliantly, I think. And it's not just values, the number of concepts that he brings up that have these two uses. And if you can't just reject one, you can't just say, no, values are just this and we reject everything else. No, I don't think it's like consciousness. Lee says, thanks, Iran. Like consciousness as both faculty and a state. No, I don't think it's quite like that. Because, you know, the very definition of value that Iran gives us, that which one acts to gain or keep leaves it open to be both positive values and destructive values. So I think, and I can't exactly put my finger on why it's different than faculty and state, but it seems to me that it's different than a faculty and a state. But I would highly recommend you just listen to Leonard Pickup's talk on it. I should listen to it again. I'd give a clear answer. Michael says, do you think Apple's iPhone dominance will last or has the company stagnated too much since Steve Jobs died and Walkism seeped into corporate management? I mean, I see no reason to think that Apple has dominance is going to fade. The reality is that in spite of what you think, the company is stagnant. I think it's stagnant primarily with new products. But the fact is iPhones continue to be produced. They continue to be successful. Steve Jobs now died a long time ago. Tim Scott has done a good job. I don't know how much Walkism has impacted corporate management. It's really, really hard to tell indeed. In some respects, Apple has stood up to some Walkism among its employees and stood up to them and rejected it. So I fear that there's no forward-looking new great products that they are pushing for that I think Steve Jobs would have come up with. But that's kind of that long-term vision. But in terms of taking an iPhone and continuously making it better, I just don't see who's a competitor and who does it better than Apple even today. The talk by Leonard Peacoff is called The Principles of Two Definitions. The principle of Two Definitions by Leonard Peacoff. Why is there a question mark there? I think that's the talk. But you can find it online. The Iron Rain University has all of Leonard Peacoff's talk. Okay, Michael says every day you don't work hard, you're going backwards. Generally in life, if you don't move that stuff from Joko Willink, who has some great stuff to say, generally if you don't moving forward, you're moving backward. I think Leonard Peacoff says that in Opa. Or get busy living or get busy dying as Shoshak Redemption. Michael says, what is the difference between being emotionalist and listening to signals your subconscious is signaling you? Being an emotionalist is acting on those emotions. It's letting your emotions guide you, letting your emotions lead you. Whereas feeling those emotions, identifying them, recognizing them, learning about yourself from them, that's all completely rational, completely valid. Harper Campbell, why are some Muslim countries rich like the UAE? Are they more secular than the rest of the Islamic world? And do you think London is a better-run city than New York City? UAE is rich because it basically has oil, or it refines oil, or it has a port. It sits on a port that basically delivers oils. It's all about natural resources. It's all about the ability to exploit and to sell and to export those natural resources. UAE also has a very small population, so a relatively small amount of natural resources spread over a small population makes a lot of people rich. Saudi Arabia, which has a much larger population, even though they have a huge amount of natural resources, there are a lot more poor people in Saudi Arabia just because of the size of the population. UAE is tiny. And that's why weights in Dubai and Qatar are rich is because of that, because of the number of people relative to the natural resources that they have. Do I think London is a better-run city than New York City? In some respects, yes. You know, and I haven't lived in either city, so I don't really know. But, you know, London seems cleaner to me, but that's partially culture. Certainly London is safer. Again, partially culture. Yeah, I think clean and safe are the two things that strike me. But of course, New York is inspiring. London doesn't have quite the inspiration that New York skyscrapers have. London is still and there's probably a lot of zoning that has to do with that in London. You know, there's also a lot of zoning in New York that restricts the kind of buildings they build, but you still get skyscrapers in New York. You don't get skyscrapers in London. Not at the same level. I love both cities. Both cities are amazing cities. Okay, Andrew, last question. If conservatives were sincere in being only anti-legal immigration, their focus would be on law-abiding productive immigrants and how to build a safe, mainline legal immigration system and expanded. Given the demand for immigration, they would take that as a market signal and they would expand legal immigration and then make it efficient and easy and safe and quick and super productive. And they are not. They're not interested in that at all. They're interested in shrinking the legal immigration system. Almost all of them are interested in shrinking that system and making it more cumbersome and more difficult. All right. Thank you, everybody. Thanks for joining the show today. I hope you enjoyed it. Thank you, Puruya, for joining us. And it was a fascinating discussion and he's quite a courageous young man. And, you know, I'm really, really happy that he made it to the United States and is now integrated into our objective as community and that he's working at the Salem Center and he's got a productive future ahead of him. So that is very exciting. And it's sad that somebody with that kind of ambition and productive focus, it took him so long to go through the process to get into the United States. All right, everybody. Have a great rest of your weekend. I'm going to go off in 10 minutes. I'm going to be on with GB News to prepare. Thank you, everybody. I will see you all on Monday morning, Monday morning for the new shows. Bye, everybody. Have a great weekend.