 All right, one second, oops, we're not going to do that, sorry guys. Can you click on the video properties arrow for the zoom meeting? One second, let me just get this started. The radical fundamental principles of freedom, national self-interest and individual rights. This is the Iran book show. Welcome to Iran book show. Thanks for joining me on this Sunday afternoon. Sorry for the delay there, just having some technical problems. And I still have not got my co-panelists here on video, so they are going to be unfortunately without video. I have tried to fix it. Can't seem to fix it. All right, I'll have my, I'll have Angela look into it and see if she can figure out for next time, but I think for now we are indeed doomed to have you guys without video. Sorry, sorry about that guys. Thanks everybody. I hope you're having a great weekend. And I was, don't have much of an update. I don't think much has changed in the world, including in Ukraine since last, last we talked, which was last night. Supposedly peace talks going on at the Belarusian border. I have no idea what that's all about. We'll find out more as I guess the week progresses, but hopefully Ukraine doesn't capitulate to Putin's demands. All right, today is a Q&A. Let's see, we have four participants and we're going to take questions from them. The Super Chat is also open. You guys have already started asking questions. That's great. Thank you. But the Super Chat is open. We have a usual goal for the Super Chat. Feel free to ask me about anything. So this is a wide open, ask me anything, AMA. I think that's the definition of AMA it is. Okay, so let's get started, Jennifer. Do you think that economic growth is always necessarily tied to population growth? Like if the population, like even doubt after a while in a certain area, would the economic growth always be affected by that? No, so no, but of course, part of the problem is how do we define economic growth? So to the extent that you define GDP as economic growth, that is, if you define economic growth as some aggregate number, economy wide, then the more people who are working, the more people are producing everything else at constant, the higher economic growth. So if immigrants come in and they get a job and they work and they produce, economic growth by that aggregate measure goes up. But it's not the only thing or it's not the primary thing that makes economic growth increase. It's just again, if everything else is constant, the primary thing that makes economic growth possible is business formation, innovation and ingenuity. It's new products, new services, new businesses, employing people and creating new values. That is fundamentally what creates economic growth. And even with the shrinking population, the economy can grow. It just as people die off and you have fewer and fewer people producing, the aggregate might get smaller if the wealth creation, you're not making enough to compensate for the shrinking population. But what really matters is not GDP in total, what matters is quality of life standard of living of the individual. So again, if we look at these aggregate numbers, it's GDP per capita. GDP per capita as a population shrinks, if the GDP stays constant, GDP per capita goes up because the number of people you're dividing by shrinks. So what really matters is how it affects your quality of life. And I think ultimately that is not dependent on the number of people that is ultimately dependent on the values being produced, on the wealth being produced in the society in which we live. And whether the population is shrinking or whether the population is increasing. I mean, it's nice to live in a place with a population increasing for a variety of reasons. There are always young people, young people tend to be the innovators, young people tend to be the people with new ideas that are put the culture forward that change and innovate. And therefore, so you want to be in a culture that has young people and shrinking cultures tend to be older cultures. But from purely economic perspective, what matters is innovation, what matters is business formation, what matters is value creation. And that can happen even in a population shrinking Japan has very low economic growth, but it does its economy is growing, even though it is clearly has a shrinking population. It appears has a shrinking population. And I expect that in the future we'll have a shrinking economy and a shrinking standard of living and shrinking quality of life, given what's going on right now so it really is not dependent on just on the population certainly not the individuals quality of life or standard of living. Thank you very much. Yeah, that's great. Thank you. Jonathan. Hi, your own sorry about that. I'm enjoying these presentations two quick ones for you actually the first one is also a kind of economic. After this swift regulation that was installed these swift sanctions there's some indications that the, the ruble is going to drop dramatically tonight somewhere on the order of you know 30 40 even 50% of our term ramification or that kind of a devaluation for the ruble for the whole economy. And then also, can you speak to quickly what was said to Rand, when she left Russia for the last time, the quote about Russia being a cemetery and they're all dying and maybe it's just to the situation there today, philosophically. Thank you. And of course, right. I ran as opinion of Russia as a culture, be going beyond just opinion of the communists. I don't know what's going to happen to the ruble I mean it's very difficult to predict these things but it's going to go down how much who knows. It's already went down so much last week that it's it's the cheapest it's ever relative to the dollar. Basically what that means is that anything that China wants to buy from the outside world is become dramatically more expensive so so far, I think to rule is dropped 35% so so far it's become 35% more expensive drops another 35% and put it into, you know, everything will be double more than double what it cost before and you know, Russia needs to import a lot of stuff and right now maybe there's sanctions and it can't import a lot of stuff in the US. So it might or from Europe but it's going to import a lot of stuff from from China. China's not going to give them a deal. They're not going to accept rubles. They're only going to accept dollars. They're only going to accept hard currency. Maybe they'll accept Russia's gold but whatever it is, it means that Russia is going to more and more and more give up. So it's fine exchange for its fine currency reserves that it has in order to buy products overseas. My estimation in the short run primarily from from China. Now, it replenishes those this could this destabilize, you know, Putin and the entire economy Allah 1991. One of the challenges that the West does not stop buying oil and natural gas from Putin. So the West is still sending Putin euros and dollars or dollars primarily because energy markets are all denominated in dollars. Putin in spite of all these restrictions in spite of Swift in spite of everything is still going to see his phone phone reserves increase because we continue to buy energy from him even the United States. I think this is still true. It's still planning to buy oil and natural gas from Putin and you know why we need natural gas from Putin I think I discussed last time but it's absurd and ridiculous but it is, it is the reality. So his reserves are going to his reserves continue to increase he can then use those dollars to buy whatever he needs from China or from other places that are willing to trade from him, you know, maybe Central Asia, which has all kinds of resources and so on. But look, it's going to mean that in the streets of Russia, Russians are not going to be able to buy anything made outside of Russia, particularly not unless you're an oligarch or unless you're very well wealthy. The common people in Russia which is 90% plus middle class Russians and poor Russians will not be able to buy anything produced outside of Russia, because their prices just doubled will double tomorrow right basically more than double tomorrow. They won't be able to afford any goods that are produced outside of Russia now. Maybe they can survive without that but think of all the stores that carry these goods. Think of all the importers exporters who are probably going to go out of business or suffer dramatically. Think of the companies that have to import and are giving up these precious dollars that are now worth double in rubles what they used to be and are going to have to charge their clients to even products that are made in Russia are going to dramatically increase in price to the extent that the inputs into those products are far and inputs, Chinese, you know, raw materials or whatever, semiconductors. I mean, the only way that Russia is going to get any semiconductors is from China, those semiconductors just doubled in price. So in terms of rubles, anybody who owns rubles is screwed and you could see and of course there's a run on the banks right now. I don't know if Jonathan, if you've seen the pictures out of Moscow, but they are long lines at all the ATMs in Moscow. And they're saying that the ATMs are emptied every 40 minutes. The ATMs are going to zero and somebody has to come and replenish them. And the lines are just ongoing and basically there's a massive run on the banks. Now we know what happens when there's a run on the banks. Now the government could bail them out. But technically what happens is now the banks have to call back loans that forces businesses to liquidate and to get money to be able to call back. So you could see a collapse of the Russian economy very quickly here now. I think Putin has enough foreign currency reserve to keep it afloat for a while. He'll bail out the banks the extent that he needs to status always do. And, and, and, you know, so it won't all happen at once it'll happen over time, but the fact that Russians, you know, there's going to be a huge, maybe surprise if tomorrow or this week, Russia puts on capital controls internally in Russia because what's going to happen is regular Russians are going to sell their rubles and try to buy dollars with the anticipation that the rubble is going to depreciate even more later in the week. You might see capital controls and therefore the development of a black market. This is how one of the ways in which economies collapse. This was a feature of the Venezuelan economy. Another thing that the government could do right is they could start printing rubles right so they could start printing rubles to give people a sense that they have more money. They could do helicopter money where they give the Russian people more rubles to give them a feeling like they have more rubles. But as they do that prices will go up and it'll be a fleeting feeling. But that's what authoritarians always do. They start printing up money. So a lot of, a lot of bad options. And, and look, the sanctions are weak, primarily because we're still buying oil and gas. But from a Russian perspective, from the perspective of Russia, they're pretty devastating. And, and you could very much see the collapse of the Russian market in the week or the weeks to come, or you could see inflation or you could just see people struggling to get food. You know, Russia imports some of its food. It doesn't produce all this food domestically and where's it going to import it from. And I'm not sure the Chinese are going to be too happy to trade with the Russians. They'll take their dollars. They'll take their gold. But at some point, I think China is not going to be too happy with Russia. So, you know, you could see a real catastrophe in Russia. I think this is the real way in which Russia loses the war. It's, it's there'll be significant potentially significant pressure within Russia to depose Putin and to end this. Well, that's my, that is my prediction. But yes, economic catastrophe is in the cards for the Russians and it's going to be very, very painful. This is not a small country. It's not a rich country. And it's a country talk about inequalities. It's a country where a few people are super rich. It's not because they're super productive, but because they're well connected. And most of the population is pretty poor, even the middle class is non middle class by European standards. And they just had their money, if it's rated it just everybody's wealth just went down by 50% imagine what that would do to you. You know anybody listening, you know that just happened to 150 million people in Russia. And you asked was about, you know, in a sense of family told I ran when she left don't come back. This is a graveyard. There's nothing here for you. And not that they needed to tell us she knew she would never come back and of course I read always viewed Russia as even later on as she always viewed Russia as a place that in many respects was doomed that it had a culture that was there was currently deep down mystical, not just the eastern kind of Christianity, but deeper down superstitious and mystical, really, really deep down to even during communism. They were fundamentally mystical and notice that as soon as communism disappeared. They, you know, they immediately, they immediately turned back to Christianity. So this orthodox Christianity so it's a deeply mystical culture. And she always thought that nothing good would come there, you know, short of a philosophical fundamental philosophical change and there would be particularly hard in Russia, because of this culture. I think she's been right in spite of the building wall falling. Every sequence of events since 1991 in Russia has almost all of them have been negative, with exception of, you know, the fall of communism but they've they've handled everything badly. They, with Putin as a basically a complete dictator of Russia, launching a war to reestablish the Soviet Union, which is his dream. And nobody will stand up to him, at least not yet. So she turns out that she was absolutely right about Russia and we're seeing the consequence of that. Yes, let's see who's next Adam. Two questions. Only the first one is related to the Ukraine issue. The second is completely unrelated but since we're talking about Ukraine. I'll put the Ukraine question first. Only Western Ukraine was part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. It was not part of the Russian Empire. As you probably know, Ludwig von Mises came from Lviv in the Ukraine. And what has been happening over more than a decade now is that a Russian dissident intellectuals have been drifting to universities outside of Russia. There is a fairly large contingent of Russian intellectuals, especially historians who take a different view of the Soviet Union and Stalin than Putin does, who are now at universities in Poland. So Russia not only has a bad culture, it has a culture that drives out all the good people. And I think that's right. Look at Iran and look at all the other really amazing immigrants that came to the United States from Russia who did for decades and did in 1991, in the early 90s. Israel had a massive immigration in and so did the United States. In many respects, the best Russians have left or many of the Russians with better ideas have left. Yes, Lviv was the both place of Ludwig von Mises. It was part of the Austrian-Hungarian Empire. The border between the Austrian-Hungarian Empire and Russia was east of Lviv, west of Kiev, it was somewhere in between there. To this day, the western part of Ukraine is considered western versus the very eastern part of Ukraine, of Ukraine is considered Russian. The middle is kind of more Ukrainian if you will. And Ukraine as a kind of political entity and with the current borders is really a creation of the communist revolution. It was a creation of Lenin as an attempt to gain the Ukrainian support for the revolution. They gave them, quote, autonomy, not really autonomy, and later on Stalin, of course, starved them and killed anywhere between five to 20, 30 million Ukrainians through starvation. But yes, it's that that I've never been to Lviv. It's one of my regrets. I'd like to go one day. It's supposed to be a beautiful, beautiful city. And it looks more like Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Austria than it does kind of Russia, even Kiev. Okay. And the second question, if I may, go to it now, although it will leave Ukraine behind. So if I don't know if you want to go to other people who may have... Yeah, maybe we'll so-called because we're going to do two questions from you guys anyway. So let's maybe do that for this as a second question. Thanks, Adam. Okay, so my second question is about an issue that the objectivist community has not been talking about very much, but it's a tendency of the theocratic part of America. to impose abortion prohibitions. And now considering what is a prohibition and abortion? Essentially, it means that the state is using a woman's body for a purpose not of her choosing against her will. What happens when abortion is prohibited? Only unlike an ordinary rapist who may rape a woman for nine minutes, it's a nine month rape. It's one of the most horrible things that can be done to a person. It's monstrous. And yet I haven't seen many people in the objectivist community comment about it. I don't know why. I mean, I remember Leonard certainly has commented on it quite a bit and I've done quite a few shows on abortion. I lose a lot of subscribers when I do, but I've done a few. I mean, I agree with you that the Texas law is horrific. Their laws in Alabama, it looks like the Supreme Court is going to overturn Roe versus Wade or at least weaken it dramatically and therefore make abortion illegal in a significant number of states in the United States. I think the Midwest and South is going to become an abortion desert. I think it is horrific. I agree with you in terms of it is complete disrespect for the rights of a woman. It is a massive violation. It's a use of force over a woman. It's going to cause women to die in illegal abortions. It's going to force women to have children they don't want. It's going to force women to spend huge amounts of money to try to get to states that have abortion clinics. It is nothing good that comes from the prohibition of abortion. It's going to be an unmitigated disaster. And in the Supreme Court, it looks like this is the standard it's going to take and it's going to leave it to the states. It's not going to force, it's not going to ban abortion in the United States, but it will make it a state issue. And I don't think there's any way around that. The fact is that there's a significant proportion of the United States that is anti-abortion. And in many, many states, it is a majority. And it is a disaster and it is horrible. Just as Catholic countries all over the world, approving of making abortion legal, like I know Columbia in South America just made abortion legal. And, you know, it's horrific that the United States or America, the land of individual rights is going to be violating rights in that sense. And Ireland has legalized abortion. In that sense, the theocratic right is a massive threat to liberty in the US. This is one of the major ways. Ireland refused to vote for Ronald Reagan to a large extent because of this issue. And, you know, this used to be a major way in which we evaluated left versus right. It's sad that people don't think of this anymore when they when they look at political candidates because the whole Republican Party has capitulated on this, all of it, unfortunately. Unfortunately, also, there is a law that has never been repealed, but the United States has a law that prohibits interstate travel for the purpose of procuring an abortion. That law was never repealed. And as far as I know, if the Supreme Court rules in favor of state anti-abortion law, that federal law is going to come back into force. Well, but then we'll then we'll see we'll see if it's if it's used, but because even today, some women travel out of state to get an abortion because it's so hard to get abortions at certain states. So there's a movie that I saw and I can't remember its name now about a girl who has to travel from, I can't remember, Missouri or something all the way to New Mexico to get an abortion. And it's kind of a road movie about the road trip. And, but yes, all of that is absolutely true. And I think longer term, you know, if we get a more authoritarian government from the right, then you could see abortion criminalized in the entire United States. Okay, let's see Debbie. Hi, your own random question. Is that a Vermeer in your background? Yes, it is. David. Okay, cool. It's not David this. Not the above David. Yeah. It's called the geographer. That's what I thought. I have a similar one also in my office. Another one that's very similar called the astronomer. That's the one I have. He's looking out the window on a telescope one, I think is in New York and one I think is in Switzerland. I'm not sure which is which. But also you don't have the original. No. Okay, so Adam's got me all fired up now with the abortion thing. And thank you Adam for saying that and really doing justice to the horrific nature of the issue by describing it as a state common during a woman's body and and and it being like a prolonged rage, I agree. I would add that it's, it's, it is invoking men I've heard the argument that well I'm a man so what do I care. And aside from the general principles involved in that we're we're undercutting individual rights there is also a direct impact because the state will commandeer a man's income for child support. If, you know, he gets a woman pregnant and she might have otherwise gotten an abortion and so so men can can be ensnared in this directly as well. But I would say that. Then Debbie the solution is just nobody should have sex. Right. Right. That's part of their agenda. I mean that's part of the agenda whenever I bring up abortion. The answer people always have is well people shouldn't have sex out of marriage. No, not religious make that argument. It's just unbelievable to me how anti sex and I don't have pleasure people can be. It's, it's funny. It really is. And that makes me want to go back and reread of living death. Yeah, I ran as speaking of people in the objective is community being outspoken about abortion. I ran was beautifully passionately outspoken about it. And then I also wanted to point out though that on the new ideal podcast around the time when the Texas abortion law passed the new ideal podcast with it was Ben Bear and Augustina kept her last name. And, and I think one other person maybe on cargo they did a whole podcast about this particular issue. I'll add to that that Ben is just released. Thanks for reminding me but Ben has written quite extensively on the abortion issue is just released another article from on the island Institute website. And I think is going to release a series of articles on abortion. So no, I think the Institute is very active on this issue. It's going to be even more active as we get closer to the Supreme Court deciding about Roe versus Wade. Yeah, so, absolutely this, at least at the AI, there is no, there's, there's a passionate commitment to a woman's right to have an abortion, and to birth, which, which also makes it more difficult for many people to stomach but that is what rights necessitates. Yeah. And so just wanted to do justice because I so appreciate the fact that they're being outspoken like this. And, and so in so far as maybe it just went unnoticed that they get recognized for that they're the fact that they're speaking out like this. And, and it's, and it's much appreciated by me. Well we lose donors because of it that you know we had one donor recently tell us if you're going to continue to write on abortion I'm not giving you any money and she was a pretty big donor. So she, she was, and it's, it's, it's surprising how big of an issue this is for people. It is your own and I'm never cease to be amazed by how many people who are sort of marginally objectivist and that have been go turn into some kind of a raging theocrat when it comes to this. Yep, yep, I know. I know. I've never never understood it. All right. Thanks Debbie. Let's see yes. Hey, yeah. So I had a question about a different topic. I went through peak of scores on logic. This was a while ago, but I was amazed how I could follow along the entire course on audio. I like I could never imagine taking a course on logic or mathematics without video or like some kind of blackboard or something like that. But I could follow it along so I was really amazed by it. So I was curious I remember you had attended at least one of his courses in person the state of the art of objectivism, I think. I'm curious, did he never use blackboards was it generally his style, like how was his teaching style in general. I've attended, I've attended many of of Leonard Peacock's courses so the state of the art was the first one I attended but I've attended live many of them. I've seen him use a blackboard, he used a blackboard the one time I saw him use a blackboard. And I'm, he might have used the blackboard more, but the one time I remember him using a blackboard was he did a, and you can see this online you can find it on YouTube it's on the Iron Man Institute website, on Iron Man Institute channel and YouTube. It's when he did an intro to objectivism and the audience was students were not familiar with objectivism and he definitely uses the blackboard in that lecture. And so that's the one time I remember him using the blackboard in his courses that he gave in front of large audiences at the conferences which is where the logic course I think comes from and where most of the courses that you can listen to. He does not use a blackboard he sometimes had hands out handouts with outlines and with quotes and things like that but I don't think he ever used I don't recall him ever using it back. And the thing about Leonard is he is a really masterful teacher, I can't think of anybody better in terms of just a teacher. His pacing, his amount of repetition that he does the the accuracy with which he conveys knowledge or information, the way he pauses the way he looks at the audience to make sure they understand and and if they don't kind of does another row another another round to explain them. He always talked from notes or almost always talk from notes and the notes are very detailed. So he had it all written out. And, you know, it's, it's, here's a unbelievable, unbelievable teacher. You know, he's a great lecturer, but he's an even better teacher, you know, when he when he's teaching large groups. You know, long seminars and he said, you could follow the logic course along with even without visuals, which is pretty stunning pretty amazing that he that that was possible so yes I completely agree with you and it's a testament to how good he was. So I would just like to say for me is for any non objective is listening right, at least you can still go through his course on logic and objective communication and stuff like that. There's just so much to learn from both his teaching style and of course the content. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. I agree. Yes. Let's see Steven. Hey everyone, how's it going. Good, good. Usually I don't get to listen live. But today I was able to make it so figured out the question with all the craziness going on in the world. Yeah, go ahead. So hate to be the pessimist but what self destructive domestic policy changes. Do you think will come in light of all of this. I don't, you know, good question. I don't know, are we going to see any changes I think you might see and this is, this is. This isn't a change but you might see Biden's popularity increase. Which is a problem if you want the Republicans to win, at least the House and Senate to provide a veto on Biden's initiatives. I think it's really, really important for the Republicans to win either the House or the Senate, because if they lose if the Democrats somehow win both, that'll be viewed as a real mandate for and particularly if they win an extra seat in the Senate, it's going to be a real mandate for Biden's agenda, and that is that would be a disaster. So I think it's really, really important that the Republicans win, I, you know, maybe they shouldn't win too big. We don't want to give them too much of because the candidates are going to be awful so we don't want to give them too much confidence, but at least somewhat to the extent that Biden's popularity increases. Does he resurrect some of his build back better policies? Does he resurrect the social agenda? The Democrats become more committed to that? Does Mnuchin stop standing in the way if Biden is more popular? Really hard to tell. So I worry wars usually, even when they're distant, usually increase the popularity of the president in the short run. And in our case that's not a good thing. In terms of actual policies, God, I can't imagine, but of course it's possible, that they will double up on the bad energy policies. I think there's a little bit of sanity sinking in that maybe we don't reverse the bad energy policies, but we're not going to double up on them. I'm trying to think of other potential policies that result from this. I can't think of anything offhand. Do you have any fears that you have? I just think that after the 9-11 attacks, we gave ourselves a Patriot Act. Yeah, but that was an attack on us. So I don't think that's going to happen here because it's not an attack on us. We certainly see Europeans becoming more jumpy and maybe them passing more restrictions on freedom of movement and things like that because they're more worried about Russia. But I just don't see that happening in the United States. I think we're much more likely to... It's going to be interesting now to see how the focus shifts because the focus is clearly shifted away from COVID and will that reduce the pressure on the government to eliminate the mandates? Or will it increase the pressure on the government to eliminate the mandates? Again, hard to tell. So I don't see anything big coming from government that would reduce our freedom as a result of this. I'm sure, and here's my pessimism, I'm sure there are people in government trying to think of ways to use this crisis to do that. I just don't see how they're going to get away with it. Well, we'll just kind of keep our fingers crossed then. I think that's all we have, is pray and keep our fingers crossed. Maybe economic disruptions, right? Like if economic disruptions ensue, then that'll be their way to... Yeah, but I don't even see... Look at the stock market. I mean, the stock market, it really does seem that the financial markets are saying this is no big deal. And I think that's true. I mean, the Russian economy is not that big. The Ukrainian economy is even smaller. Being cut off in the Russian economy is not that big of a deal for financial markets in the US. I think it's a bigger deal for Europe. If China invaded Taiwan, all bets are off. That's a completely different story. Then you have massive economic disruptions. But I think two things are going to happen. I talked about this a little bit yesterday on the political front. I think this is an important point for the Republican Party in terms of clarifying who they are. And I think this division among Republicans and those who are pro-Putin, it's going to be interesting to see how the Republican Party deals with that. And then the second is there's going to be a bigger clamor to detach ourselves from China because what happens if China invades Taiwan and we're exposed and we can't sanction China because we're dependent on them. So that is one thing that could happen. And then how it's done will determine how damaging it is. But you could see pressure, much greater pressure on the United States to disentangle itself from China and bring a chip production to the US and a bunch of stuff like that. And because of looking at what happened with Russia and Ukraine and extrapolating to China and Taiwan. Thanks. Sure. Thank you. All right, let's see. Let's do a few $20 questions here on the super chat. Jason asks, if our billionaires set fire to their money, it would affect the money supply. He wants me to recap my explanation of what happens then. How does that impact compared to sanctions freezing, seizing of billions by an outside government? Well, I mean, if all the billionaires burnt their money, then there would be one time less dollars in the system. There would be a reduction in demand. The consumption of those billionaires would go away. There'd also be less saving and less investment going on. The government could compensate for that and this is what the Federal Reserve tries to do. So all else held constant, prices would decline. And because there would be a reduction, significant reduction in investment as well, productivity would decline and future production and future wealth creation would decline. The government would try to compensate for that by printing extra dollars to compensate for the dollars that the billionaires burned. So you would get prices coming back up. But it's not clear at all that you would get a rebound in investment and investments. So you'd still take the productivity hit long term, but you would, you would definitely get the prices probably would stabilize from government action if they got it right, which they probably would probably have either prices declining or prices increasing above and beyond. How does this, how does this compare to sanction freezing, seizing of billions by an outside government? Well, so it depends on whose economy you're talking about. The fact that we are freezing the assets of Russian oligarchs in the United States, in Russia, Russian oligarchs. But does not really affect the money supply in the United States. It doesn't change the fact that they have their money here in the bank or it's, or it's invested or whatever, they're not consumers in the United States anyway. So really the impact is primarily on their holding so it doesn't change that you know it could in the short run reduce prices of a very high end real estate in New York, or in London places where these oligarchs by tend to buy real estate. In short run, it might have that effect. Many of them already have that real estate. So it's not clear that that would impact that, but it might. But in for Russia, it eliminates the ability of those oligarchs to bring the money back to Russia. It eliminates the possibility of those oligarchs being that money back to Russia to invest in the Russian economy. It's not necessarily the possibility of them consuming it in Russia so that anything they consume has to be the wealth they have in Russia. So it certainly limits their ability to impact the Russian economy. But it doesn't have a huge impact because that money was overseas anyway it wasn't like they were going to bring that money, you know, back to Russia anyway. It doesn't have a huge impact. The freezing of the assets doesn't have a huge impact on the Russian economy. It primarily has a huge impact on the lives of oligarchs. They can't jet around the world. They can't access their credit, their accounts. They can't get involved in, I don't know, mergers and acquisitions buying companies doing investments doing all the things that if you know if you're in the financial markets, you notice Russian rich Russians doing in financial markets. They're very engaged. They're very involved. They definitely participate in those markets. So it affects the lack of the demand on the investment side more than anything else. But it's so small that I don't think it impacts, so small relative to the total that it doesn't impact global financial markets that much. Again, the Russian economy and the Ukrainian economy is just not big enough to have big impacts. And the oligarchs are not rich enough to have that big of an impact. Okay, Ali has two questions. Let's start with a $50 question. Why should we support Ukraine over Russia? They both have corrupt governments and halfway pack capitalism. And yes, Ukraine does puts does opposition in jail actually Russia is more economically free than Ukraine based on economic freedom index. I mean, I don't think that's completely true. So Ukraine is not a completely free country, obviously Ukraine is very corrupt when it comes to its economy and that's why it scores lower on the economic freedom index because it scores very very badly on corruption. Ukraine has some opposition in jail but some of those people in jail because of the corruption so it's hard to separate opposition to who's in jail because of opposition who's in jail for politics and who's in jail because of corruption. The fact is that Ukraine has had elections since 2014. The presidency has changed hands several times. Since then, it has competitive elections. It has competitive political parties. When Zimliski won, even though he won by 70% margin, he was a newcomer to politics, completely from the outside and he beaten incumbent. That is not a characteristic of dictatorship or one party rule. Whereas Putin wins no matter what. Putin has no opposition and when Putin has political opposition, he doesn't even claim that the opposition is corrupt. He just puts them in jail or poisons them. Putin kills, murders his opposition all over the world. He's killed opposition figures in London and he's killed them in Russia and he's killed them in other places. He tries to assassinate people. Putin is an aggressor in a series of wars, going back at least to Georgia where unprovoked that he invaded Georgia and took over whole province and at the time Georgia was a free country that had free markets, some of the free markets in the world and had elections and free political system and so on. And Putin still invaded it and to this extent still, even to this day, still controls one of its provinces. He invaded Ukraine unprovoked in 2015 and took Crimea, just completely unprovoked, complete initiation of force. And the fact is that he just initiated force. He just started a war, unprovoked, completely unprovoked. So it is clear that Putin is the bad guy. Not to say Ukrainians are a shining city on a hill, the ideal good guys, but relative to Putin. Ukraine is not threatening other countries. Ukraine is not invading anybody. Ukraine is not violating people's rights outside of its own country. Ukraine is not a threat to anybody. Russia is. Not to that, the fact that Russia is not a friend of the United States. Russia helps the enemies of the United States, including in the Middle East and in other places. It helps the Iranians. It helps the Syrians. It helps people who are enemies of the United States. Russia is not a friend. Ukraine is at worst neutral, is at best, is friendly to the United States. There's a million reasons why Ukraine is better than Russia and should be supported by the United States. Putin is a world-class dictator thug who should be opposed by any freedom-loving person in the world. Ali also has another question. Hi, why are you against seizing money of truckers and their supporters while you have different stands regarding seizing Russian citizens' assets and money outside of Russia? Isn't objectivism about protecting ownership? No, I mean, protecting ownership is part of it, but you know, I was again seizing money of truckers because Canada is a country of laws. It is a country based on the rule of law. And if you go to court and you can prove that the truckers did something illegal and you find them and you take their money, I mean, that's the rule of law. Whether you agree with the law or not, that is the rule of law because Canada is a country of laws. Russia is not. Russia is an authoritarian regime in which the people, the oligarchs who have all this money, you know, have this money not because they produced it, not because they created it. Most of them had their money because they're Putin's friends because they are associated with the government. They are completely out of cronies. This is not even private, really private property. This is part of the extensive network of the Russian government. Now, if you could show me an oligarch from Russia who really made his money independently of Putin, really made his money independently of the Russian government, then I would say, yeah, it's completely immoral to freeze his money. There's another aspect to this, and that is an aspect of there's a war going on. A war that Russia started, and by the government of Russia starting, it is basically given, you know, can't blanch those fighting it. The ability to do whatever these countries deem as necessary in their self-defense. Now, given that we're supporting Ukraine, that is part of self-defense. But I think that, so I think that the fault for the freezing, the violation of the property rights of the Russians whose assets were frozen is on Putin. Putin violated their rights by invading Ukraine and creating a situation by which this is a legitimate act of self-defense. So ownership is not a primary in objectivity. It's a consequence. And in wartime, I can bomb you, I can take your stuff, I can do all kinds of stuff if I deem it necessary for my self-defense. Okay, we've got three questions and we'll go back to our panel. RWS, is there anything to the claim that a large majority of Ukrainians are pro-Russia and the US through the CIA ran a coup to overthrow democratically elected pro-Russian PM? Can you give a quick recap of that coup? No, there's very little to that claim. A large majority of Ukrainians are not pro-Russia, indeed a small minority of Ukrainians are pro-Russia. Last time I saw a poll, 54% of Ukrainians wanted to join NATO, but almost 90% of Ukrainians are anti-Ukraine becoming a satellite of Russia. There is a small minority of Ukrainians on the eastern side bordering with Russia, who are generally pro-Russia, but it is a minority of Ukrainians and even those Ukrainians seem to be fighting Russian forces right now in eastern Ukraine. So if you look at some of the battles going on right now, some of the fiercest battles, some of the biggest opposition is in the east with people who are supposedly pro-Russian because they don't want to live under Putin's boots. What happened in 2014 is that, remember, Ukraine has never been a completely free country, but a completely corrupt Ukrainian president who was acting as a puppet of Putin. The citizenry had enough, they were pissed off. So they started demonstrating in the streets of Kiev in opposition to the Ukrainian president. Now, can we say with certainty that no American money supported that, the protests? No, we cannot say that was certainty. I'm sure some money for more kinds of American think tanks went to support that opposition. So what? The opposition was in the streets supporting, opposed to the president, just like the truckers went to Canada. The differences, and as much as I hate to know there is a difference here, is that in Kiev in Ukraine, Ukrainian forces shot dead many of the protesters who were protesting. And as a consequence of shooting them dead, the protests grew and became massive. And people basically camped out in the cold in front of, in this Maidan square, a square I've been to, and I've talked to people who were there, and they just camped out in front of it, insisting that the president, given that he shot his own citizens, that he killed his own citizens, that he resigned and leave. And they basically stayed there until he left, until he ran away. And following that, there was an election and your president was elected, and they returned to democracy or freedom. So, no, this is not some CIA coup. This is not some conspiracy. This was not motivated by the CIA, it was motivated by Ukrainians who were opposed to government policies, demonstrated, got shot, and now demanded that the president leave because he had ordered the shooting. And that's completely legitimate. It was a mini revolution. A mini revolution against the president who shot his own people is completely legitimate, completely legitimate. The right in the United States, the pro-Putin right, and Putin have spread these stories, which are completely false, and I encourage you to speak to people who were in Maidan. They were not being paid by the CIA, although again, I'm not saying nobody was paid by the CIA or nobody was paid by some American think tank or nonprofit. But the fact is they were there because they were fighting against the regime that it killed its own people. All right, let's see, Kirill, I don't know how much money that is. Anybody know how much money that is? Should I give that a $20, $50, how much is that? But let's see, let's take one more from Ali. I'm going to get the panel soon. Sorry, guys. Ayn Rand doesn't consider altruism as a virtuality says, why yesterday you celebrated Ilan, free internet to Ukraine? Is it part of human nature to celebrate altruism, even for a hard objective? No, it's not altruism. Ilan Musk values freedom. Ilan Musk values the idea of freedom. He values people being free in the world. Helping people free, be free in the world is not altruism. If you value life, if you value your own life, if you value your own freedom, then you gain an appreciation for the value and freedom of other people in other countries. And as a consequence of that, you want to help them and you want to support them. And I think that it wasn't a celebration of his altruism. That was a celebration of his admiration and respect for altruism. Altruism is sacrifice. It's placing your interests beneath other people's interests. And Ilan Musk didn't give up anything. And what he, what he supported was a high value for himself, the value of freedom. Kirill says the Czech government has started to criminally charge anyone who openly supports Russia's invasion of Ukraine. They face up to three years in prison if they convicted. I don't agree with such opinions, but am upset with the government. They regulate speech. Yes, it is horrible. This is a real problem in Europe. Europe does not have First Amendment rights. It does not have free speech rights. And they're using it under the provision that criminalized Holocaust denial. So Holocaust denial is illegal in much of Europe and in the Czech Republic and the Czech Republic has now expanded that to include supporting Putin. I think that is disgusting and despicable. And while I despise the idea of people supporting Putin, I despise even more the idea of banning their right to speak and say that. But that's a problem. And once you give the government the right to ban Holocaust denial, you give the government a right to ban any speech that they deem inappropriate. There's no free speech in that society. So even the Czech Republic, a relatively free country in Europe, doesn't have free speech. Alex says, when mingling with people and somebody brings up political philosophical issues with an opposing view of your own, does one have the responsibility to vocally disagree? Or is it okay to just walk away? It really depends. I think you generally, if you can and there's no great cost to you, speak up because that's the only way we'll change the world. There's no duty to do that. And if for whatever reason you're uncomfortable, for whatever reason the cost is too great for you, then I understand why you don't do it. But if we're going to change the world, that is part of what needs to be done. So if you want to be part of the battle, speak up. All right, Adam. Adam, Adam, Adam. You there? I'm here. I already asked the two questions that I was going to ask, but since you called on me, I may as well ask a third. What do you think of the current attempt by the Chinese leadership to distance themselves from Putin? Well, we'll see. I mean, I think it's too early to tell. The current attempt is pretty weak so far. You know, right before this, they signed a big trade agreement with Russia and they were very supportive of Putin. And at the beginning of the war, they were very cozy with Putin and they refused to denounce the war. I've seen some reports today that they are having second thoughts and they are backing away a little bit from it, but it's still tentative. I would think it's important to see them stand up against Putin and actually denounce him. I think that would be a good sign. Coming out of China, I'm very pessimistic about China, generally, because I think a next year to become more and more authoritarian and dangerous for its own people and dangerous for people to come in if they're going to express their opinions. There's no real free speech in China, where I think there was the logic stand for many of us at least five, six, seven years ago. But I'm hoping that maybe this is a turning point. Maybe they see that they need to distance themselves from Putin and maybe their only alternative now is to find a way to cozy up to the U.S. And the way to do that is to become a little bit more liberal internally. Hard to tell what Xi is thinking. This is the problem with authoritarianism. You really depend on the one guy at top and what is he going to think and what does he believe and what does he want? So I don't know what the outcome of this is going to be, but we're going to see it in the next few days. Thanks, Adam. Oops, Jonathan just left us. Debbie. So on this theme of speaking up and that it's not a duty per se, I wonder if this notion of it being some kind of held in that form as like, well, I guess I'm obligated to speak up for objectivism today. But if that follows from some kind of a rationalistic way of holding it or a quasi-religious way of holding it, because I noticed that I naturally, like at work, for example, I quote unquote speak up, I guess, but I don't even really think about it that way. So it will be more like I'll describe something I'm doing as being for selfish reasons and, you know, but in a positive way. And those kinds of things just because it's natural and like it those are, those just are my values. And so I say things like that, like, yeah, this is good, we should, you need to not only encourage people on my team to be more selfish and for example, I was talking to, in this case, a colleague and explain are you struggling with burnout, which I think is related strongly to altruism, because it's about not being able to say no, not feeling comfortable saying no, I'll explain you or how I'm so ruthless about getting everything off my calendar that I don't absolutely have to go to for my purposes, like meetings wise and things like that. And, and I told her, and I said, Hey, yeah, do that, do that to me. I won't defend it. If you've got a meeting with me, you don't want to keep it because you're too busy with other things. Cancel it. And she laughed and said, Oh, no, Debbie, I would never do that to you. No, I mean it. I want you to be selfish. Take care of yourself. You're getting burned out. Anyway, so like that's the way that I speak up for objective reason, but it's not out of some sense of like that it's outside of the flow of my normal life and that it's driven by some sense of duty or obligation for the cause. It's more like just this is life, these are values. And so I wonder if that mindset of, okay, I have to find some way to work capitalism into this conversation, you know, if that could have to do with it being held in that way. I mean, I think it is, but there is a sense in which, you know, if we care about the culture, we want to see it changed, then we need to speak up. And then it's just a reality. It's not an issue of duty. But if it's, if you hold changing the culture as a value, right, then it's not a matter of, then it becomes, well, I need, what does it mean to be a value if I'm, if I'm afraid to speak up. I think for a lot of people who are maybe not as comfortable or maybe don't have as much experience or maybe not a senior or whatever, it's harder for them. But the best way is to integrate it into your being and to understand it not as a duty, not as something, but I want to change the culture. I want to be helpful to people around me. I think these ideas are helpful to them and to me. And I want them, I want them to know, you know, sometimes it's even on an elevator. He describes this and what one could do just say, I don't agree and walk away. Just let the world know that conventional wisdom is not unanimous. Just force them to think about that. There's a value there but again, only do it if you're comfortable. And but sometimes you have to force yourself to be comfortable because sometimes, you know, fighting for your values is not risk free. Right. And you expand your comfort zone by pushing the limits of your comfort zone. I mean, there's plenty of things I'm sure that I do and say on a regular basis, that would have been made me really nervous and uncomfortable before, but that don't now. So it is true. You have to build up that muscle. But it's also true that it doesn't have to be some massive like you're taking some heroic stand and putting your life on the line. It's just so many small things in small ways that you can, you can speak up. Absolutely. Absolutely. And people should read Rand's essay on one one could do I think it gives a lot of advice about this. If you want to fight for better culture. Here's some things you can do and she talks about that. Great. Thank you, Debbie. Yes. Yeah, in the previous question I forgot to ask, were any of Leonard Pegasus courses video recorded other than I know that one, one hour introduction to objectivism course but the ones that are available on audio. You know, somewhere there was video of his. What do you call it induction course. Objectivism through induction. I see. And I don't remember what else would be videotape but I know that one was videotape because that one was done by video conference in the old old days of the mid 90s when you didn't have zoom which had video conference. So definitely any plans to make it available in video form. I don't know. I just don't know. Okay, I see. All right. And I remember some time back in the podcast someone asked about a good book covering how money works today like the different forms of money and the M1 M2 and different classifications how they apply today. Yeah. So recently Mrs Institute came up with a new book called understanding money mechanics. Yep. And it's called P Murphy seems pretty interesting to me so far. I haven't finished it, but just wanted to bring it to your attention. Yeah, I mean, I, I'm sure it's I'm sure it's good. I don't endorse anything that the Von Mises Institute puts out unfortunately, because of who they are. I was going to say and it makes no reference to anarchism. That's good. Yeah, he is but not in this book it like that's not. No, I know, I know, I just don't like sanctioning them and then he, he's also pretty anti very anti and I meant, but, but yes, they're good economists so you know the the he's he's a he's a good economist. So yes, that would be probably the best book you'll find out there, written in the last 1015 years that discusses that. Yeah, it's pretty new I didn't know I didn't know of this book it came up in like the last quarter of 2021 or something. I'll look for it. I'll look for it but I know what would be even if I don't know the book itself. Okay. Yeah, so I think that's I think thanks for the recommendation, I appreciate that. Okay, thanks Josh. Let's see. Jeff. I'm just asking this question because it's going to make me very angry. Jeff asks, apparently, Eric's swal well swal well suggest kicking every Russian student out of the US universities should be on the table any thoughts. This is so frigging disgusting and stupid. Right. Why. Why, what are these Russian students got to do with anything. I mean, on the contrary, encourage them to stay. Give them a green card tomorrow. Why would you want to kick them out of the United States what what did they got to do with this war. And the students, the kids. I mean I understand kicking out diplomats from Washington we haven't done that we haven't sent ambassador packing. I wish some of one of these guys would say let's break up diplomatic relationship and shut down the Russian Embassy and all the consulates that would be cool. Those are the people should kick out, including all the KGB agents that are there. Whatever you got to get these students. Again, give them a green card. Let's brain drain Russia. I'm for brain draining the world. Let's get all the talent over here. But I just tribalism. It's just blame all Russians now the oligarchs a particular class. And, and even if these kids are the kids of oligarchs I wouldn't blame them, I blame their parents, but not them. It's just the worst kind of collectivism. And this is the thing to watch for right. I didn't notice I didn't notice Nick was here. This is the thing to know to notice. And to watch for and to be careful of and cautious of is the fact that you know read Iron Man's roots of war. Collectivism is the source of war collectivism is where war comes from. Collectivism is evil. Collectivism everywhere is evil. In Russia, but here as well. And it won't only result in war in Russia. If we embrace collectivism, if we embrace this tribalism, there will be war in the United States, maybe a civil war, maybe who knows what adventure we will go on. So fight collectivism wherever you see it, including when it's here in the US from people you think you agree with us a few things. But I'm going to take a question from Nick, and then I'll go back to the super chat questions. We don't have any $20 questions. Nick. Thanks for joining us. Thank you. Yeah, I had a question regarding the supply chain issues with all the with all the hardcore boycotts going on in Europe. Obviously going to be this is going to exasperate exasperate the supply chain issues we're having wheat. I mean, they're a big resource supplier at all Asia. And of course Europe, but it's not only that it really doubles it because now they can't do business because they're Swift the Swift codes. So you know they the financing part can't get done either so it's a double whammy. It's, you know the unintended consequences it's going to affect us also in North America, because it's going to drive the price of everything up higher. What are your thoughts what are your thoughts on the unintended consequences both from the banking side, because they're trying to cut them off there, and from the actual commodities that they supply Asia and everybody else. So I think they're definitely going to be unintended consequences I don't think they're going to be huge. They will be some. And I don't think they can be huge because the Russian economy is not that big, and the Ukrainian economy is not that big even though Ukraine to is a big supplier of natural resources, particularly a sudden gas that they use to make chips. So it could affect chip production which is already each will supply but look at any unintended consequences of the fall to the Russians. So Putin is to blame for everything. And what we whatever costs we have to pay there on there on Putin. You know, markets don't seem to be worried about it and I always worry about second guessing markets. The stock market seems to think that this is not necessarily that bad for the US that yes supply chains might get tighter but the Fed might not increase interest rates as much so it might balance all balance out somehow. But it's always the incremental barrel that drives up prices through the roof. I know they're small in the total aspect of it, but it's the incremental for oil it's the incremental barrel that can drive three things through the roof. But you know Biden could could fix that by releasing some of the reserve that we have. You know that it was a joke. I know but he's a joke. You know, American producers sitting a lot of oil in the ground that they're not pumping out. Russia still wants to sell oil and we are not in bar going the sale of oil so they're still selling oil. And they're still selling natural gas because nobody wants to embargo that and Russia won't stop it for now because they need the hot currency they need, they need dollars. I just don't see it at least in a short run. And stopping this knife somehow Putin says, I'm shutting down the gas. I'm shutting down the oil, and I'm not exporting wheat anymore. Now you've got a big problem. But, you know, right now he's selling wheat to the Chinese he's selling oil to the Chinese. It's a global markets and anything he sells the Chinese impacts global markets. You know, oil went up over $100 about first day has come down. I think it's at 91 right now. It just the markets at least the saying this is not a big deal economically for us. Okay, right. One other follow up on the unintended consequences. What about the unintended consequences of the green movement now it just blows everything apart. Security hold on energy security becomes primary now, you know all this BS about ESG this that this that now they're in a corner. I don't know what energy security even means but what comes primary is we should be we should be exploiting the earth and extracting as much cheap energy as we can from it. And yeah, I think I think the tide is going to turn against some of the environmentalist actions I'm seeing more and more people speaking up I think this is going to do wonders for Alex Epstein's book that's coming out in April. I think we should actually try to bring it out in March if you can because I think I think it'll sell better. I think I think it's going to be easier to make the case for natural gas and for fracking in the places like the UK which is sitting on a massive amount of natural gas. Yeah, I mean, I think that the unintended consequence here is going to be positive in a sense that it's going to show how these environmentalists have made Europe completely dependent on on on on Russia, particularly Germany. I mean, here's an unintended consequence. Germany today is a today as said that it will start spending over 2% of GDP every year on its military. It is said is going to contribute more to NATO and it will invest more in R&D and more in troops and more in the military. Is this what Putin really wants is stronger Germany. What is an unintended consequences. Germany is also said for the first time ever that it is exporting weapons systems out of Germany to Ukraine. I don't think Putin wanted that. So I think there are a lot of positive externalities here a lot of positive from from the perspective of the West unintended consequences you know it's at the cost of Ukraine's, you know, blood and toil and wealth, but I think Russia is going to be weaker. I think China is going to be hesitant. And I think the West comes out of this stronger, more unified and and environmentalists take a blow. So you NATO is going to be stronger and you know NATO less dependent on the US I think, generally, you know, we're going to be in in in much better condition and people are afraid of Germany militarizing. Yeah, I know, I feel your pain, but I don't want to protect Germany for the rest of my life I don't want to pay for German protection, let German militarize only the Germans and the rest of the Europeans handle it. It shouldn't be on the United States to give them protection. This is the wake up call the world needed. I will see what wakes up but yes, it could be. And it looks like there's certain positives that are going to come out of it. All right, let's do some super chats Ryan says, perhaps today is a good day to acknowledge Rand's roots in Soviet Union. Oh, we did that. Keep on fighting you on. Thank you Ryan. Michael asks, if, if there were no income tax with trillionaires exist. I gotta tell, you know, because it's if there were no income tax than other people would have more capital to compete with the with the billionaires that would maybe drive profits down. I don't like making predictions about under freedom what would happen because the beauty of freedom is markets unpredictable. Who knows. I sent Bitcoin to Ukraine government today. Tech is king. That's great Ryan, which reminds me I need to set up my Bitcoin wallet so you guys can send me Bitcoin as well. Thanks Frank has a $20 question $30 question. You mentioned a David Deutsch book some time back. I looked it up and have been enjoying the audio book. Have you read it yet. A lot of big ideas, but a different version of Papa than I've heard from outside. Yeah, but I still think a flawed epistemology I think I think Deutsch is deeply deeply flawed and go off on a lot of tangents that are very problematic as a consequence, but the book is fascinating it's interesting I'm a chapter six or seven I think. So I'm reading it slowly, but it is a different version and a much more optimistic and a much more positive version and I like the parts of the book to talk about the human potential I like the parts of the books about progress, even even his attempts to get to some kind of morality are pretty good, or at least in the right kind of generally in the right direction, but he's the pro human in that sense, but his epistemology is just wrong and it really screws up this in the book and that's too bad. That's too bad. But again, I wish, and it's too, I don't, it's too late for do it, but we have quite a few do it fans on on who listened to you on book show. I wish they would really study ranz epistemology and get how superior it is to do it and how much better you could make do it. If you can bind it with ranz epistemology. Opar, study my, during my opar group. Yeah, just starting chapter three on concept formation. Join the opar group and study the objectivist epistemology. I would love to, one of the few minutes says I should meet David Deutsche. I would love to meet David Deutsche. I might be at Oxford. I think he's at Oxford or is it Cambridge I can't remember. I'll be in Oxford in May, I think. So I would love to meet him. Why would he meet me? I don't know why you would meet me. I don't know that he knows who I am or cares. But yeah, I mean it would be cool to meet him. He's a fascinating person obviously. And, and, and I'm actually attending a seminar this weekend. I'm leaving. I'm leaving on Wednesday, where he is going to participate in a portion of it by video conference from Oxford. So he and Stephen Pinka are going to be participating by video conference. So that'll be fun. It'll be fun to see him live and and to see him interacting with with conference participants. I'll be in a, I'll be in a small group doing that. It's a closed invitation only a group. Oh, somebody asked how to join the group. Debbie, how do they join the group. Tell us how to join the group. Sure, it's in clubhouse. So you just go to clubhouse and look for the clubhouse club called opar reading and discussion group. And it's open for anyone to join we meet every Sunday at 9am Pacific. Well, excellent. I want to feel it says I think David's epistemology is more conductive to creativity. I think it's the opposite. The problem with David's epistemology is you get dragged into unproductive tangents because of the way hypothesis are formed. I think if you understand rights epistemology you get all the benefits of David's views epistemology, plus much more focus and therefore less fewer crazy irrelevance and unhelpful tangents. Anyway, that's that's plus, there is the important point that runs epistemology is true and David's is not. There is that. Alright, Paul asked I hear thousands are protesting in Berlin for NATO to enter war do you think NATO should create no fly zone over Ukraine. I think the United States should leave NATO. And only then do I think NATO should enter the war. This is a European war. I certainly think European countries have an interest at stake. I certainly think Putin is a threat to Poland. And by being a threat to Poland is ultimately a threat to Germany. So, I think NATO should enter only after the United States leaves, but NATO has configured today where the United States is a dominant partner, and where countries like Canada are part of it has no business in this war. We have no business in this war, so NATO should stay out. No, I don't think that's true. Anyway, to be continued wonder Freeman. Let's see. Robert asks. Robert asked, gotta leave early to skip my six o'clock show will finish listening later. Thanks for everything you do take this money me it serve you well thank you Robert appreciate it and enjoy your show. Landon writes with Trump allowing himself so much with Putin and Putin now being toxic. I'm full for that will destroy his influence in the Republican Party, at least decreases influence I think that's true. I think it's one of the unintended consequence of all this is going to be forcing the Republican Party to take a stand about Putin, forcing the Republicans party ultimately to take a stand about Trump. So what is your rationale for us leaving NATO. Leaving NATO NATO serves no purpose vis-à-vis the United States. NATO basically requires the United States to sacrifice for the sake of not its interest so let's say Russia invades Estonia. Why should my kids die on the battlefields of Estonia to protect Estonia. So the United States go to war only only to protect its interest only to protect the individual rights of its citizens only to protect the individual rights property of its citizens since invading Estonia doesn't violate the individual rights of Americans America has no business going to that wall. I don't think it's a new Cold War because I think Russia's too weak and Russia's made this a hot war, which means they're going to come out of it very weak on the other side. All right, we're almost done with three more super chat questions and then we're done. Don't forget to like the show before you leave we only have 100 likes have many more views. So please like the show. I don't forget to use the super chat to contribute to the show. Don't forget to subscribe if you're not a subscriber and don't forget to join. Don't forget to join the Iran book show you can click the join button below and be a member of the Iran book show we're trying to get to 100 members as soon as possible. We, you know, so see if if you know it's only five bucks of six bucks to become a member so please become a member. It would be great if everybody will listen to the show also became a member of the show that would be very very cool. It's more than Ukraine for Putin, but it's not a threat yet to the United States when it becomes a threat to the United States, the United States shouldn't enter the war in Ukraine. The United States should flatten, you know, Moscow and every military facility in Russia. But you have to be, it has to be a real threat for us to get to that point. He says well Georgia use this as a chance to retake the land lost in the war with Russia. I don't think so. Georgia. Georgia Georgia government seems to be pretty pro Russia, the people are not but the government seems to be I think they're still afraid of the Russians, and the current government in particular seems to be afraid of the Russians. Travis, can you try to have a chat with destiny. I'm open to debating destiny somebody has to put it on. I'm not going to make an effort to go find destiny anonymous user. Thank you for the support Andy thank you for becoming a member of the wrong book show. We had a Nick last question. NATO equals action and no action talk only remember to like the show thanks for Nick I appreciate it. All right everybody, I really appreciate the support thanks for being on. Thanks for joining us for this am a we don't quite make 600 bucks today but you know that's okay we've done really really well the last couple of days so I'm going to give you a pass today let you know that tomorrow we're going to be talking to Peter Schwartz about about his book about altruism, in particular about altruism as it manifests itself in domestic policy, but also altruism as it manifests itself in the war in Ukraine. So if you're interested in the idea of altruism if you're interested in the idea of ethics if you're interested in the differences between altruism and egoism. Tomorrow is a must listen show Peter's terrific. So that'll be at 7pm East Coast time will have Peter Schwartz on to talk about his book is new book. And again the conversation will be focused on morality and it will be focused on altruism, and it'll be focused on egoism, and we will definitely talk about the relevance of a discussion of altruism in, you know, altruism to the world in which we live right now or Colt has a final question. Even though you said a couple of things I disagree with today on the show I still get value on your content, and it makes my life better so therefore I'll keep supporting the show, probably abortion I'm going to I'm going to risk it by saying he probably didn't disagree on abortion, a content make my life better so therefore I'll keep supporting the show. See folks this is what what's called maturity thanks you Colt Savage. Oh, to $20 you repeated yourself I don't know if you did that by accident or on purpose but thank you. I really really really appreciate that. Yeah, Ukraine's been talking about having peace talks with Russia for hours. But I've been watching the story. I think it's it's not good news, I don't think. But it might be that they feel like they have to go through the motions, but it is a compromise and a necessary compromise Putin. You know, look, it's hard to put yourself in the place of the Ukrainian people. If Russia. Okay, I'll just make this point. To this point, Russia has not fought to win. To this point, Russia's fought like they expended everybody to fold and they would it would be this an easy deal. They have purposefully not killed civilians. They have purposefully tried to protect civilians. You know this is not total war. This is not the kind of war that leads to victory. If Russia changes tactics. If Russia decides it has to win this and win this fast. If Russia stops caring about civilian casualties. This could be horrific and brutal. So, I understand why the Ukrainians would rather talk than watch thousands and thousands of the citizens killed slaughtered murder. Particularly given the NATO. It would be interesting to see if there was really massacres going on in Ukraine, whether NATO would intervene then. But if you look, look today there were people in villages standing on the road and refusing to let the tanks pass just standing there, not letting the tanks run them over right and imagine if the tank start running people over and start just killing people. I don't know that Russians would do that, but if they did. That would change the dynamics of this quite a bit. And so this is kind of what I think the peace talk is trying to prevent. But I also think that if you're Ukrainian you got to be very, very careful and don't give an inch. Don't give an inch because it'll never be an inch. They'll take and they'll take and they'll take. Thank you everybody. I will see you all tomorrow, 17 Eastern time. Yes. Can I give you a $20 question? $20 question quickly. Okay, hold on. Let me just send the money in. Just ask the question. Okay. All right. So, Don Watkins made the point. I don't know if you said anything about Gary Kasparov's book winter is coming. He said it was vital context psychologically insight and moral clarity. What do you think about Gary Kasparov in his book winter is coming on Putin? Yeah, I mean, Gary Kasparov has been critical of Putin for years and years and years. He left Russia a long time ago and refuses to go back. It's not safe for him to go back. We'll put it that way. It's not safe for him to go back. He is a huge critic of Putin has been for a long time. This is not new. I think that book in anticipation of what Putin was going to do and be I've met Gary Kasparov. I don't know five, six years ago in San Francisco where he gave a talk. He is, I have a huge amount of respect for him. He's not only the best chess player of his generation. He is a real mind. He has moral courage and he's somebody worth following and reading. So I second Don's recommendation of the book. Is he aware of Anne Rand? Yes. He's a fan. Okay. He's a fan. All right, great. Thanks, Nick. Thanks for that. Last question. Thank you all guys and I will see you all tomorrow at 7pm with Peter Schwartz. Thanks everybody. Have a great night. Have a great rest of your weekend.