 The radical, fundamental principles of freedom, rational self-interest, and individual rights. This is The Iran Brookshow. All right, everybody. Welcome to Iran Brookshow on this Monday, May 29th, Memorial Day. So I thought we'd talk a little bit about Memorial Day, what it means, its significance. I think a proper attitude towards it. So that would be our topic for today. I'm open for questions on this issue, on any topic, whatever you guys want to talk about. I am here. Super Chat is open. We have a goal. And yeah, take advantage of it. Thanks. Let me see. I want to remind you of our two sponsors, ExpressVPN.com. You can use a VPN. You can get a VPN. You can get a special deal if you do ExpressVPN.com slash Iran. You can get, I think, an extra three months free by using that link. And you're also going to support The Iran Brookshow when you do that. I get a small percentage, a small dollar fee for every time somebody signs up using it. And then I want to remind you of Fountainhead Casts. This is at the Fountainhead Gypsotec. Gypsoteca. Gypsoteca. The Justin Kandal has going. He has now, it has an online checkout is now available. So you can use a credit card or Stripe or PayPal to pay. The website includes a variety of different casts of classical sculptures. Beautiful stuff. If you want to follow my advice and make your environment in which you live, make your space in which you live. Beautiful. Fountainhead Cast is a good place to start on that mission or to continue on that mission if you've already started. So you can find it at fountainheadcasts.com now with free shipping on orders of over $100. If you're in the 48 States and lower 48 and online checkout using PayPal. All right, everybody. Or Stripe, PayPal or Stripe. All right, so Memorial Day. Which is today. It is the last Monday of May. Memorial Day is kind of a strange holiday. Yeah, a strange holiday for me anyway. I come from Israel where Memorial Day is something very, very different. Memorial Day in Israel is a day in which people really commemorate the lives lost in Israel's wars, the soldiers who have died defending the country. It's a solemn day. It's a sad day. The music on the radio is sad. The music, they make sure that on TV everything is kind of appropriately solemn. They have ceremonies all over the country. They have a siren that goes off, I think at least once. The entire country, the cars stop in the middle of the road and people get out and stand out of respect for the soldiers that have fallen for a minute. It's got this reverence attitude towards the fallen and towards what people call their sacrifice. We'll talk about that in a little bit. And so coming to the United States, and in the United States, what's the thing that jumps at you when you think about Memorial Day? Well, the thing that jumps at you is barbecue, you know, get together, barbecues. It's the beginning of summer really, the last day of spring maybe, and it's usually the weather's great and people go outdoors and everybody's having a good time. And yes, there's some ceremonies and some, you know, reflaying and flowers at some of the cemeteries, but generally it's a pretty joyous, boisterous, kind of happy time that most people, and it's how most people experience Memorial Day. Now, I think there are a lot of reasons for this, and some of them good, and basically most of them good, but there are a number of reasons for this. First is that Israel is a conscription military, so everybody serves in the military. And Israel is also a tiny little country, it's very, very small. And it fights wars against enemies that are far bigger than it. So in Israel, everybody knows somebody who's been killed in a war. Everybody has a family member or a friend or a neighbor who has died in military action in Israel. At least that was the case, I'd say, 20 years ago. Maybe things are a little different today given the fact that Israel hasn't really fought a full-out war since, you know, arguably 73, maybe 80, 83, 82, 83. Everything else has been relatively small operations. So, you know, this idea of remembering those who have fallen in wars is something that most Israelis take very personally because it's something that affects most Israelis quite personally. Whereas with America, America particularly today has a small volunteer army. It is not conscript, it's very small. The army is relatively small relative to the population. The number of casualties that America typically suffers in wars is relatively small because of how strong the U.S. military is and how overpowering the U.S. military is. So that most of the casualties on the other side, not on the side of the U.S. So that most Americans seem far removed from kind of what soldiers actually do, far removed from the death among soldiers. They're not going to have family members likely. Most Americans have never suffered as a consequence of war, a direct death. They like to watch action movies in which people, you know, kill and get killed, but in terms of actually being personal, it's personal for a lot of families, but not for a majority of Americans. It's also true that arguably the United States has not really fought an existential war, maybe since the war of 1812. The United States mostly has fought wars far away from the shores, far away from the United States. Therefore, the existential nature of war, they don't get a sense that the fighting is necessary for their own survival. Israel doesn't have that luxury. The war is always within an hour's drive of where you live. The battlefield is right next door. And again, almost everybody has, at least everybody, not almost everybody. Everybody has a family member who's been in a war, and almost everybody has a family member who's been killed or wounded in a war. So for Americans, Memorial Day is a time not so much to mourn the death of those who died in combat. It's to some extent, and this is the positive respect of this, it's to celebrate what they achieved. And what those in combat have achieved is freedom for those of us still alive. What they have achieved is freedom and security and safety and prosperity that comes with that freedom and security for everybody who's still alive. And that is something worth celebrating. That is something worth having a barbecue of. That is something worth, you know, if you actually search on Google, let me do it right now, let's go to Google and put Memorial Day. And we'll do it in Google News. So we'll look for the news that relates to Google Day. So we'll go to News, News tab, right? Well, it's different than what it was earlier today. But earlier today, the number one site that came up when I searched Memorial Day was Memorial Day, let's see, where is it? Yeah, these are the best Memorial Day sales this year. The best Amazon Memorial Day sales you don't want to miss. So what you have is Memorial Day in America is a day to celebrate, to have a good time. It's a day to go shopping. But you can also spin this positively. I mean, interpret this positively. It's a day to, you know, embrace and commemorate the American way of life that is made ultimately possible by the fighting, by the willingness of some to go on a fight for freedom and fight for America and fight for this country. And some, as a consequence of that fighting, die, lose their lives. Yeah, it's not a sacrifice. We'll get to that. Or at least it doesn't have to be a sacrifice for some people it is a sacrifice, but it doesn't have to be a sacrifice. So I kind of like the way America does it because it's focused on the positive. It's focused on those who remain alive. It's focused on, in a sense, kind of the freedom and the pursuit of happiness that so defines the American spirit. We can go shopping in peace. We can go and have our barbecues with our family in peace. We can go have a good time in peace. So I kind of like the way Americans celebrate memorial day. So for me, it's a mixture. I like to think about, you know, I like the day off. I like to celebrate that fact that we've got a day off and do something fun and so on and enjoy the long weekend. But it is a day of remembrance and I view it as a day of remembrance of a few things. First, of how great life is in America, in spite of all the problems, in spite of all the complaints, in spite of hating the left, in spite of woke, in spite of trans, in spite of all the things, in spite of the stupid budget deal and the politicians out of control, in spite of everything that is going on. Life in America is still pretty damn amazing, pretty damn amazing. And one's ability, in spite of all the problems that exist out there to go and have a barbecue and have a good time, eat well, go shopping, enjoy kind of the prosperity and the wealth and the unbelievable variety of goods that exist in the world. You know, that is truly amazing and spectacular and fun and that should be remembered in Memorial Day. But then there is the other dimension of this doesn't, you know, this liberty, this freedom requires vigilance. And sometimes, sometimes requires sending kids into battle, sending kids to fight for this freedom. But here there's a real, you know, beyond, beyond, you know, this, in addition to remembering those young soldiers who died for freedom, we'll get to that in a minute, I can't avoid and I can't prevent myself from thinking and it came to me right now of all the kids and all the soldiers and all the military personnel in American history that have died for nothing or for worse for nothing, have died for the stupid egos of politicians, have died for the strategic mistakes made by their generals and their political class, have died for altruistic causes that have nothing to do with American freedom and American liberty. I mean, how many wars has America fought where it was actually necessary for America to fight? How many men have died to defend, actually defend America, its values, its, its way of life and actually defend America from being destroyed? Sadly, probably less than 50%. I mean, you've got the war of independence, obviously, you've got the war of 1810 where the British basically invaded. You've got the civil war, which I think was a necessary war. And then what? World War I? World War I is one of the dumbest wars in human history and with no reason for the United States to enter, no reason for the United States to lose tens of thousands of men. World War I is a war that required the United States participation. Indeed, it's not clear to me that if the United States had not entered World War I, if we would have even had a World War II, history would have been completely different. MHA08 says, didn't the U.S. start the war of 1812? You know, maybe, maybe I'm wrong about that. It's quite possible that we did start that war. Question is, was it justified or not? But I'm gonna, I'm gonna claim ignorance and stop using that as an example because I'm not sure. But I do know World War I was not a war the United States should have entered, not a war that required the United States to participate in. And that U.S. participation ultimately, while it, quote, won the war, ultimately led to what? World War II is probably a war we had to enter. Certainly once we, once we attacked at Pearl Harbor, whether Pearl Harbor could have been avoided, I'll leave that to another, another discussion, another day and for historians to speculate. But yes, World War II is a war that we, it seems, had to participate in. We were attacked, American soil was attacked, American troops were killed. And there it ends pretty much, I mean, for the most part. Right? Korea, why Americans had to be in Korea? Why Americans had to die for Korea? Vietnam? Why Americans had to be there? A failed war of the French? Why Americans had to die there? No reason. And then to this day, why 7,000 American kids, 7,000 primarily sons, some daughters of American parents had to die in Iraq and Afghanistan is beyond me. After all, we're still in Iraq. And we only left Afghanistan last year in a horrific fashion, having lost. I mean, generally, wars we've lost were not wars we should have entered. So America has not fought that many wars that were justified, that were just wars, that were wars that required us to send in the military. And memorial is always a time for me to remember that fact. The evil of our political class, our intellectual class, our foreign policy establishment, the Kissinger's of the world, who will send kids into battle for, I don't know, some geopolitical calculation. And our kids pay the price, not just the ones who died, but the ones who maimed. So it is truly sad that so many have died for so little, for so little. But really, Memorial Day is a day to dwell more on those who have actually fought to preserve American freedom and to preserve American liberty. And those have gone into battle under orders from our politicians believing whether true or not that they were there to fight to protect American lives, to protect American property, to protect American interests, whether that landed up to be true or not. I don't think it's on the soldiers themselves, but on their bosses, whether in the military and in the civilian. So they are the ones we should primarily focus on during Memorial Day. And I know this word sacrifice is the word that easily rolls off the tongue. It's easy to attribute to it. It's something that the culture embraces and loves because sacrifice is the ultimate most noble thing one can do. Christianity and altruism have taught us. Ultimately, the symbol of sacrifice Jesus on a cross is the ultimate in virtue, the ultimate in goodness. And yet I reject that idea of sacrifice and the idea of sacrifice is noble. The young kids who die in order to protect the country, they don't go into battle wanting to die. They don't go into battle expecting to die. They go into battle willing to risk their lives. Why? Because they realize that in order to live, in order to be successful, in order to prosper and flourish, some people, and they as volunteers have chosen to be those people, some people are going to have to fight the battles. Some people are going to have to take the risks. Some people are going to engage in physical activity, physical warfare in order to preserve liberty and freedom. It is not a sacrifice. It is an investment. It is an essential activity for the preservation of their lives, their families' lives, their friends' lives. And indeed, one of the reasons I am so adamant about the virtue of a volunteer army is that you should want to do this, be willing to do it, not view it the risk taking as a sacrifice. The US military, as Jennifer points out, does not have kamikaze pilots. They don't have suicide squads. They join in order to fight for something that they believe in for an important value, for an essential value to their life, for the love they have, for the people close to them, for the love they have, for the liberty and freedom that those people have. Now granted, not everybody joins for those reasons. Some people do join for the sacrifice. Some people do join for blood and soil, for the state, for the nation, for irrational reasons. There's always going to be irrational people. And there's probably a lot of irrational people in the military today, given the percentage of irrational people in the culture more broadly. But the reality is, or let me put it this way, when I talk about the military, I talk about the best within. I'm talking about what's possible and what's potential. And if you listen to soldiers when they're interviewed about why they will need to fight, about why they're there, like after 9-11, the answer is almost never some abstract generality or some sense of duty. Almost always it's so, my family can be safe. So the people I love do not have to fear, I don't know, terrorism, Nazis, communists, whatever. It's always a self-interested reason. It's for my buddies. And in the trenches, in the battlefield, the reasons soldiers act the way they do is because of their connection to their friends, with them in the unit. It's why camaraderie within a team, within a military team is so important. Their friendship is important to one another. They're willing to risk their lives for one another. Not out of a sense of altruism, but out of a sense of devotion, out of a sense of love. And love is a very different motivator than duty. Love is a very different motivator than irrational respect for the Fatherland. So I think most American soldiers, because the volunteers, and because they've grown up in America, are self-interested. I don't think they're sacrificing. I think they're doing what they think is right, and some of them in doing so and in taking those risks will die. I thank them for taking on that risk. I appreciate the risk they're taking on because I am a beneficiary of it. But that doesn't mean they're sacrificing to me any more than I appreciate the risks that entrepreneurs make, or appreciate the risks that lots of people make in the world out there that I benefit from indirectly. I don't owe them other than I owe them respect, the respect that they all do. So in spite of my inclination to say, yeah, go and celebrate America. Go and celebrate the freedom and liberty that you have. I do think it's important in this day to stop and remember that this freedom is, it does cost, it doesn't come free. There is a price to pay. Pacifists are not free. Anarchism is not liberty. We need a government and we need a military and we need people willing to fight in that military in order to preserve our freedom and liberty. And we need to stop a moment to think about the young kids who put their lives on the line. Young kids in the military today who would be called to put their lives on the line. And I can't resist saying that we also need to think about. We also need to really embrace the idea that unfortunately they are likely to be putting their lives on the line for a bad cause, for unnecessary wars, and for rules of engagement that don't value their lives. So I find myself whenever I get into this kind of discussion, I find myself getting angry and you should get angry. I find myself getting angry for those kids. The 7,000 kids who died in Afghanistan and Iraq. Almost all of them because of our stupid rules of engagement, because of our stupid wars that have achieved nothing or very little. I get angry at what I see as the future prospects of our government egging on other countries towards war. And at the same time, not doing what is necessary, I think, to make sure that whatever wars are fought in the future, America wins quickly, wins handily while protecting the lives of American soldiers as much as possible. It scares me and horrifies me that our military is becoming more altruistic, not less. More woke, not less. Less understanding of the values of liberty and freedom that they are going to be fighting for. And more willing to put out, again, our troops, our kids in danger for no good reason. Did we learn anything from Korea? No. We did Vietnam. Did we learn anything from Vietnam? No. We then went into Afghanistan and Iraq and played games. Have we learned anything from Afghanistan and Iraq? No. No. I mean, the writers learned nothing. No. Complete isolation. Let's get out of the world. The left, funnily enough, seems eager to engage in more wars. And both sides seem eager to poke China and try to get them, try to get a war going with them. Instead of establishing a clear principle for policy. Okay, so I am split between celebrating the American life, sad for the people who had to die in order to preserve it, and angry at the politicians, at our intellectuals, for creating situations in which people die that are clearly unnecessary. In almost every one of these conflicts, a proper principle for policy would have prevented any need for any of these kids to go into warfare and to be killed. So celebrate, respect, and anger all together. All right, that's my spiel for today. Short, I know, but that's good, I guess. I am open to questions. Questions about this topic, questions about anything. We do have a goal that it would be lovely and wonderful if we could actually make. And I know this is the kind of topic that doesn't get a lot of live views, or maybe views at all. We'll see. You know, it's not attacking anybody. It's not super going after woke political correct. It's not dealing with an issue that daily wire deals with like trans or anything like that. But it is Memorial Day today, and it would seem a little weird not to talk about Memorial Day. But let's, in that context, let's take Liam's question, which will get us into a controversial issue. And I can rant a little bit about one of my favorite intellectuals to rant about. Matt Walsh just did a Memorial Day show on doctors assisted suicide legislation in Canada, making the case that the left is being eugenics back. He views the left as using euthanasia to solve the homeless crisis and entitlement program crisis. Yeah, I mean, I get Jack Walsh, I guess Matt Walsh would like the government to spend more money on the homeless, more money on entitlement programs so they're less suffering in the world so people will not have to kill themselves. You know, the irrationality of this guy is unbelievable, unbelievable. And the arrogance that he has to think that he knows what's better for people, that he knows who should live and who should die, that he should make that decision, rather than the people themselves is disgusting. I celebrate the euthanasia legalization in Canada and wish we had it in the United States. As somebody who's getting on in years, I dread the idea of going old, let's say with dementia, of going old without capacities to live a decent life. I would love to have the option to go to a doctor and get a little pill that I can take before I go to sleep and never wake up again. And why? And how? Is it any of Matt Walsh's business to force me not to be able to do that? To force doctors not to be able to prescribe such a pill to me? How is it any of our politician's business, whether I want to die or live, but you see, this is Matt's philosophy. He doesn't believe that I own my life. He doesn't believe that you own your life. Your life is God's. Your life is the community. Your life is societies. Your life is not yours. So you have no right to decide when to end it? Any more that you had a right to decide how to live it? This is collectivism at its ugliest, at its worst from Matt Walsh. Of course, your life belongs to God. God gets to decide when you go. You don't get to decide it. I mean, Shahzad's got it right. I could mix the pill with my wine. Absolutely. I mean, that's the way to go. The way to go is decide when to go and make it happen. If you're old and falling apart, if your life is yours, then you have the right to decide how and when to end it. And why would a doctor deny you the ability to do that? Why would a doctor deny you? Why would a pharmacist deny you a pill that could end it? Whether you're terminally ill, whether you're falling apart or even if you're, you know, just had enough for whatever reason. How is it anybody else's business? We're not morally obligated to choose to live. Morality cannot tell you whether to live or not. Morality starts. Morality begins once you choose to live. Before that, there's no morality. Before you make that choice, there's no morality because morality is there to teach you how to live. And when life cannot be lived with a capital L, when life is no longer worth living with a capital L, then it can be completely irrational to end it. But even if it's irrational, it's none of anybody's business. It's your life. It's your body. It's you, your soul. Some philosophers say that life is intrinsically valuable. They're wrong. And certainly, religionists like Matt Wallace say life is intrinsically valuable. But objectivism rejects the whole idea of intrinsic value. There is no such thing as value in and of itself. For every value, Rand teaches us, you must ask, for whom and for what? Who values it? And they value it for what purpose? Otherwise, it is not a value. So Matt Wallace's views on assisted suicide are horrific, awful. And this is typical of the right that wants to control you. That wants to dictate to you your life and death decisions. It fits perfectly in the anti-abortion, you know. Life is intrinsic because life belongs to God, not belong to you. So, yeah, that's what I think of. And to do it on Memorial Day is particularly, particularly disgusting. All right. We are way off target. So $20 questions from now on, please. Of course, you can use the stickers to support the show like Stephen just did and Catherine did earlier and anonymous user did and Ragnar. Thank you, Ragnar of the Desert and another anonymous user. So, yeah, we've got a number of people using stickers, stickers you can use for any amount of questions. Please make questions $20 or more. Otherwise, we're going to be stuck at these low numbers. Not even going to make the Morning Show $250. That would be kind of sad. All right. Let's see. Michael asks, altruism and heroism often go together in people's minds. It's amazing how bearable life is given the degree to which altruism is buried in people's souls. Yes, altruism and heroism do go together. And, you know, there's no question that some heroes, you know, that we perceive that save the day do it out of some sense of altruism or some sense of collectivism. I find that sad that that is their motivation. Real heroes, the heroes that I admire do it out of a sense of justice. They do it because they have their, you know, strong belief in liberty that liberty and freedom are valued to them. They do it from a sense of self-esteem. They couldn't live with themselves if they didn't fight for what was right, what was good, what was just, for what was consistent with their own lives and consistent with the lives of their family, of their parents, of their family parents, of their friends and family and the people they love. So, you know, I think being, you know, fighting, relating heroism to self-interest is really, really important. And I think captures would capture the imagination and change maybe people's perspective on kind of what it, what, what heroism is. And we need to divorce it, separate it completely from the idea of sacrifice. And I think you do that, you do that through this idea of showing that it is self-interested and showing that it's connected to self-interest. Thank you, Michael. Richard asks, thank you guys for the $20 questions. This morning you said that NVIDIA is a service company because it does not manufacture its processes. I think it is an intellectual property company selling its processes and designs. What do you think? Yeah, I mean, you're absolutely right. But of course, and it doesn't sell its designs. It's some contracts with somebody else to actually physically make the chip. Then it gets the chips and sells them directly to companies that use them or puts them into their own boards and their own machines. So, what I was trying to make the argument of is not that NVIDIA is a service company in traditional sense, but to make the point that, you know, we have a lot of these discussions about economics that happen in our culture where you hear things like, oh, the United States doesn't produce anything anymore. And China makes all the stuff that we use. And I know America is just, all America does is the service industries. They're just involved in service. And my point is that technically, there is, NVIDIA is a service company because the world is defined by service and production. So, when people say, oh, the United States is a service economy, think NVIDIA, think intellectual property, think design, think software writing, think design of manufacturing, just not doing the actual work of manufacturing. So, my point is to try to chip away at the notion that services are somehow inferior. Indeed, services are superior, profit margins and they're much more labors of the mind and so on. And the beauty of the TSMC business model, the Taiwan Semiconductor Company business model is that they figured this out. And what they understood is that if they concentrated their energy, they concentrated their expertise on manufacturing, they could become the best in the world and they could then outsource that to all these service companies that design chips, that build boards, that build applications, that build these other things. And they could become the central manufacturing hub for all these places. And America doesn't need manufacturing jobs. Who the hell cares? Who needs the manufacturing? What you need is value added productivity. And I would argue that NVIDIA provides massive value added productivity through its intellectual property, through its innovation, through its brains. And yeah, somebody manufactures it for it, somebody who's specialized in manufacturing, they manufacture it. Who cares how many people work in manufacturing? People use to work in farming. Very few people work in farming today, less than 1%. Detroit doesn't care about manufacturing. Detroit wasn't ruined by the loss of manufacturing jobs. Detroit was ruined by progressive leftist policing policies that created crime. But the children of the auto workers that were losing their jobs, moved to Silicon Valley and became programmers. There's no net losses here. The economy doesn't lose when we become more efficient. The economy doesn't lose when we become more wealth creating. I mean, it's a travesty that the United States makes any automobiles. I mean, the only reason the United States today makes automobiles is because the government has bailed out the American auto industry over and over and over and over again. We shouldn't be making automobiles. We don't make very good ones. Other people make them better and cheaper. So why are we making them? We certainly shouldn't be making them at Detroit given unions and labor laws in Michigan. If we're going to make automobiles, we should be making them where others are making automobiles, in places like Georgia, Tennessee, the Carolinas, with unionized labor and labor laws that are a lot friendlier to business and job creation. So there's no intrinsic value in manufacturing jobs. People who lose their manufacturing jobs are just going to have to get retrained and do something else. Anyway, that was my point. My point was to contrast, to make the case that service jobs was not McDonald's. Service jobs was Apple, Cisco, Amazon, well, Amazon throughout, NVIDIA. Those are service jobs. The high value, a high margin, lots of brainpower kind of jobs. Apollo Zeus, thanks for the support. All right, friend Harper, do you get a lot of applause after the live shows are over just curious? No, very few. Once in a while I'll get one or two, but very few actually. So in terms of direct support for the show, for the specific videos, it almost all comes 99% of it comes from the live chat. Of course I get the multi-contributions. That's bigger than the super chat, although super chat is growing to where it's almost the same. But it's the multi-contributions that really keep the Iran book show going. Plus the super chat. So when I see us not meeting targets and not reaching our goals in the super chat, that always is worrisome. Because it's how we fund what we do. All right, Shahzabat says, what would life be like today if I make a last revolutionary war? I'm reminded of the show Firefly in which their revolution failed. You know, it's, I don't know, it's very hard to tell. Partially because, you know, the UK, Britain was on a good path towards greater liberty and freedom. If the America would have lost a revolutionary war, certainly there's a chance at least that slavery would have been eliminated in America even sooner, because the British did. But of course the model of America became very, very important to many of these countries. The model of America I think sustained kind of liberty and freedom throughout Europe and throughout the United States and kind of the world. So, you know, you can't just look at the sequels events that take one event out. They all impacted each other. Would slavery have been eliminated in Britain if there hadn't been a revolutionary war in which the Americans won? It's very, very, very hard to tell. You know, but the trajectory at that point was positive. That is, the trajectory was still an enlightenment trajectory. The trajectory was still towards an industrial revolution. That trajectory was being sustained not just in the United States, but also in Great Britain. So, would there be a French revolution if not an American revolution? So, so, so hard to tell how history evolves. But you got to assume that without an American revolution there would be a lot less freedom and liberty in the world. It's hard to tell what would have happened exactly in America over time. I assume we would have gotten independence from the UK at some point, but when, what kind of country would we be then? Because it would have been later, so we would have been more statist. You know, would the industrial revolution have happened with quite the veracity that it did again without the intellectual foundations that the founding fathers lay down and without the example that America ultimately presents? I think at the end of the day the world would be less free, less rich, and things would be a lot worse in the world than they are today. A lot worse. Thank you, Shazma. All right. $20 questions are open up available. Hopper Campbell, how long can this mix between plunder and trade continue? Who knows? I don't know. A long time? I mean, basically until either we convince people that this is really, really bad or that the people being plundered go on strike. I don't know what happens first, but it seems to have a long life because what happens was you plunder, plunder, plunder, and then the people being plundered rebel, but what they rebel is not fully so you reduce the plunder to get them back to producing and they start producing again and then you start plundering again and plunder, plunder, plunder. This is why it's an intellectual battle and until you actually convince people that the plundering is evil and wrong and immoral and their life is being hurt, even the people who, quote, benefit from the plunder are actually losing from it. Until that actually happens, this is why it's such an intellectual. The whole thing is such an intellectual battle, such a philosophical battle more than anything else. And I don't know how long it takes. It could take a long time. All right, I see my Celtics are down. Not good. Not good. All right. Let's see, your views on the verse John 1513. Greater love has no man than is than this to lay down one's life for his friend. You know, it depends. What does that mean? Right? I don't think greater love has no man than this. Love for human for what? And how good of a friend is he? And what's the context? And is the friend worthy of it? And ultimately, is it a self-interested act or is it altruistic? And it can be altruistic in many, many cases. It's a bad friend. It's a friend who's made a mistake. It's a friend who's done bad stuff or it's a friend who doesn't appreciate you. There are lots of reasons why what you might do by laying your life for a friend might be bad for you. So it's not necessarily honorable. It depends on the motivation. It depends on the context. And this is so crucial to everything to understand the objective morality. The objective morality doesn't give you a set of commandments. It gives you a set of principles by which to live. And then whether you live up to them or not is the question. Thank you, Frank. Richard, doubling down on my topic for Adam's show, the economic impact of emerging AI and a declining workforce. All right. I'm copying and pasting that. You know, one way or the other, you know that that is a topic we're going to be covering a lot in the next weeks, months, years to come. All right. Is objectiveism a universal philosophy? I wonder if sentient alien species would come to the same conclusions. Yes, I definitely think it's a universal philosophy. And look, when you say universal, it's based on the knowledge you have of what the universe constitutes today. If there's a species that somehow functions by a different set of principles, ideas, biology, laws of survival, laws of existence, then yeah, I mean, it might be that objectiveism turns into a universal philosophy for mankind and not for other species. Other, you know, rational species. Once they're rational, my assumption is that, yes, objectiveism is universal, so you have to add the rational. But yeah, I can't imagine a rational alien species that has a philosophy that contradicts objectiveism. All right, Laurie says, oh my God, I just woke up with my boyfriend because I found out he's been cheating on me for the last three months. What can you say to make me feel better? I mean, good riddance. Obviously it was a scumbag that lied to you that wanted to have a relationship based on fraud, based on a lie. One of the most selfish things you can do in life is separate yourself from people who commit fraud, people who exploit other people, from people who want to fake reality. He is a faker and, you know, faking reality is devastating. It's devastating to the person who does it and it's devastating to the people who are close to that person. Your boyfriend would have caused you real harm if you had stayed with him, and my guess is that his cheating on you is not the only example of him being dishonest, usually when somebody is dishonest and dishonest in more than one realm. So, good riddance. And he's not going to, you know, if he continues a life of cheating and deception, it's not going to be a good life. And you, you know, separating yourself from people who are no good for you and no good for themselves, people who are basically no good is a good thing for you. And your focus should be, again, how to make your life the best life that it can be. And associating with cheaters is not a way to make your life good. So, separate for them. You know, strike out and go find somebody better. There are lots of good people out there. Find somebody better. And, you know, his cheating, don't take his cheating as a statement on your worth. It's a statement on his worth. And clearly, you know, he wasn't with it. So, he is the guilty party here, not you. So, you know, it shouldn't impact your self-worth, your self-esteem. It should impact his. And he should and will suffer the consequences. I have no doubt in my mind. I hope that helped. I don't know. I'm not sure I'm good at making people feel better. I don't know. Ragnar the Desert. Voice of a please advise as soon as possible by email. Okay, I am swamped right now. Really, really, really swamped. So, I apologize. It's taking me time. I'm not sure what do I owe you exactly, but I'll check my emails and maybe send me an email reminder, because then it pops up at the top of my email with exactly what I need to respond about. And I will, but again, I am swamped and lots of stuff going on in the next couple of weeks and maybe the next few months, I don't know. So, difficult for me to prioritize. Okay, Shazbot says, I just had a green tea mochi treat and it was delicious. Yeah, green tea mochi or whatever you pronounce it is really good. I love that stuff. If you can find any place that sells them, I recommend it. Yeah, I've eaten them many times. The problem with green tea mochi, mochi, mochi, like most desserts is it's way too sweet. Way too sweet for me today. I used to love it, but even the green tea, which is not as sweet as some of the others, is too sweet. So, as much as I, as much as I like, as much as I remember, have fun memories of a sweet tea mochi, I have to, I have to resist. I have to resist. All right, Apollo Zeus, sense of humor as sense of life. I don't have a lot to say about this. I'm not an expert on humor, but no question that your sense of humor reflects a particular kind of sense of life that you have. It is a reflection of what you find important or not, or what you find silly or not, what you find unimportant or not. It is significant. It is meaningful. So, I think it's a piece and a part of what constitutes your sense of life. Your sense of life will guide the kind of what you find funny. Apollo Zeus asks female bodyguards your thoughts. I have no problem with female bodyguards if they're good. If they're there because they're good at what they do. They're fast, they're strong, they know martial arts, they can shoot straight, I don't know, whatever, depending on their particular job. But no problem with bodyguards that are female. They are unbelievably strong, athletic, super killer, you know, martial arts, amazing women who have no problem with them being my bodyguard. James, you would think to become a professional intellectual would require enormous levels of self-esteem, but based on the number of anti-American intellectuals out there, I guess not. No, I mean I don't think it does. I think it's something that, you know, it requires a certain level of confidence in particular realm. I do see that there's a question about the difference between self-confidence and self-esteem and there's a big difference. You can have confidence in a particular skill, in a particular skill set. You can have confidence in a particular ability and particularly engaging in particular activities. But self-esteem goes a lot deeper than that. Self-esteem goes, and you could say that, also too, he has self-confidence. He knows how to write. He's a good writer. He can manipulate his audience. He knows what he's doing in that sense. But self-esteem is deeper. Self-esteem goes to why you're doing what you're doing. It goes to the value of what you're doing. It's going to the value, it's going to your perception of value. It's going to, are you esteem yourself, whether you think you're worthy, whether you think you deserve goodness in the world, whether you think, you know, not only that you will achieve, you know, you're confident, but whether you deserve that achievement, whether you deserve happiness fundamentally, whether you belong on Earth. It's a much deeper and all-encompassing and more fundamental assessment of yourself. It's not just a confidence to walk into a room and schmooze or walk on a stage and talk to people. Lots of people, Donald Trump has self-confidence. He has no self-esteem. He does not esteem himself. He doesn't value himself while he is confident in what, in some of the things he does. All right, anonymous user, despite the wrongful futile wars, hasn't the U.S. typically fought against evil regimes, organizations regardless? Yes, I mean, the United States has typically fought against evil. The other parties have always been worse than the United States. I can't think of an example where the United States fought against a culture, a society, a regime that was better than it. My concern with the, with the EMR wars is not what they inflict on other people. My concern with the EMR wars is our own soldiers, the price to us of those wars. Okay, Justin asks, what's the difference between ethics and morality? I don't really think there is a difference. I think there's synonyms. I mean, I know technically I'm sure there's a difference. You know, one is the application maybe and one is the theory, but I think they're basically the same. I don't use them in any kind of different way. All right, last question from Justin, will the Celtics win tonight? It doesn't look like it. They're down by 12 points in the second quarter. It does not look good. So I'm going to go in and maybe my chewing them on through the television will change things. But it doesn't work that way, of course. But yes, I'm not sure what's going on out there, but Celtics are not playing well and it looks like they're not scoring and their offense is stilted. It's just based on just looking at kind of the score sheet and they better wake up. They better wake up because soon it'll be too late and this is it. This is it both for going to the finals, which they have the potential to win. And for making history, being the first team to come back from his 3-0 deficit and win a seven-game series in NBA history. But they're shooting terribly. I mean, they started up pretty well, but they're shooting terribly. Jalen Brown is three of ten. Tatum hasn't taken any shots. One shot Tatum has taken. They're just shooting terribly. 25% field goal percentage right now. So they have to wake up and they have to start shooting and they have to start winning. All right, guys, thank you. Thank you, Kibb. Thank you, Stephen Harper. Thanks for the support. Really appreciate it. Thanks for being here today and commemorating Memorial Day with me. I will see you all tomorrow. Tomorrow we've got two shows. One in the morning news roundup and then in the evening we'll have Ankar Ghatte join me and we'll be talking about is Objectivism a closed system, an open system? Is that even a question? Is what about fact and value? Can you infer a value from a fact? And we'll also be talking about sanction. Who you should go up and stage with? Who you should debate? Who, you know, when do you mall sanction somebody and when is it appropriate to do so? Okay, Andrew says, yesterday's member show on art, reignited my enthusiasm for romantic painting and sculpture, particularly Michelangelo's Moses and Apollo and Daphne. The great artist's power to elicit emotional states is awesome. Thanks. I'm really glad you enjoyed it. Again, those of you who are members have access to that show, take advantage of that, enjoy it, watch it. You can watch it many times. I think at least looking at the pictures is worth watching it many times. And those of you who are not members can become members and go and watch it. And, you know, at some point I will be showing it to non-members as well. All right, everybody, thank you. Thank you again for all the superchatters. Thank you for all the support and I will see you tomorrow.