 The radical, fundamental principles of freedom, rational self-interest, and individual rights. This is The Iran Brook Show. All right, everybody. On this Saturday, December 16th. It's a day for a positive show. Thanks everybody for joining me. I've kind of promised positive shows on Saturday. I have to admit it. It's not going to be easy to come up with topics for positive shows. I left a broad in the conception of what I mean by positive. Without repeating myself, I probably shouldn't concern myself too much with repetition, given that I think you guys like me repeating myself on certain issues. All right, let's, whoa. Harper Cottonville just came in with 100 bucks. Thank you, Harper. Yeah, super chat, all of that, you guys know. All right, don't forget to like the show before you leave. Don't forget to subscribe if you're not a subscriber. Don't forget to share and do all the other fun stuff that need to be done on social media. It helps the algorithm. Any interaction you have is going to be good. All right. So who did build that basically is a play on, you didn't build that, which is a phase of our famous speech, famous speech by Obama, President Obama during the 2012 presidential campaign. He was, I guess, in Virginia, campaign swing, talking about the need not to cut government, the importance of government, the importance of government, quote, investment, and so on. So this is straight out of Obama 2012. And, you know, many, you know, often when the speech is criticized and attacked, people claim it's taken out of context. People always claim everything is taken out of context when you attack any politician. It's just not true. It's quite in context. But, you know, so let's read the speech. And then I want to talk about, well, I'll comment on it as we go along, but also I want to talk about what it means to say you built that. And what you built that means, because I mean it in a sense that it's far more significant than Obama means you didn't build that. He starts over saying that a lot of wealthy successful Americans who agree with me because they want to give something back, give something back. When you give something back, what is inherent in that statement, giving something back? It's the idea that you took something. If you take stuff and then you give it back, right? But what is it that businessmen took that they need to give back? This is a critique I have on any businessman who talks about giving back to the community, giving back to whatever. You didn't take anything. It's a zero sum mentality. A zero sum world perspective that assumes that you took whatever you have at somebody else's expense. But indeed the whole process of life, a good life, a productive life and certainly the life of businessmen is creation. Now redistribution, not taking but creating. So there is nothing to give back because nothing was taken. And this is really important because the whole concept of you didn't build that rests on this idea that you don't add anything to the process, that you in a sense are just a passive or that you are just a redistributor and not a creator. He goes on to say they know they didn't. Look, if you've been successful, you didn't get there on your own. What does that even mean? There's a deep sense of the wall on our own. There's a fundamental sense that all we have is ourselves, whether we're successful or whether we're failures. We got there on our own. Now the fact that it's on your own doesn't mean that other people might not have helped you, assisted you, traded with you, benefitted you in a whole variety of ways. But that's true of everybody around you. And yet you are different than everybody around you. So there's something about you that matters. Whatever you have done, however successful you have been, it's on you. This idea of on your own is, you know, it's kind of a strawman as if individualism or perspective of business of the self-made man is a perspective of, oh yeah, on a desert island they built this empire. Well, nobody thinks that. Everybody knows that, you know, you went to school and there's a particular infrastructure and you hire people and you pay them. So your life is filled with trade and relationships. And yeah, sometimes help. It's not obviously a trade in terms of financial. But the reality is you still have to make choices with regard to every one of those trades. You still have to make choices with regard to every part of your life about all the circumstances that are around you. The circumstances are there. What you do with them is your choice. And in that sense, you do get there on your own. Or not. A lot of people fail on their own to keep quoting Obama. You didn't get there on your own. I'm always struck by people who think, well, it must be because I was just so smart. There are a lot of smart people out there. It must be because I worked harder than everyone else. Let me tell you something. There are a whole bunch of hard-working people out there. Again, superficial and geared towards getting the crowd all wild up and indeed they applaud on hard work. But if you've been successful in life, in anything, in whatever it happens to be, you have worked hard. Now, working hard does not guarantee that you're successful. But it's essential to being successful. Almost nobody is really successful without working hard, at least for a period. A period that leads to the success. And nobody is successful because they're smart. I agree with that. There are a lot of people who are smart. So the question is, if a lot of people work hard and a lot of people are smart, why do some people succeed and other people don't? What is it about success? Well, the error and the errors are not successful. They're just rich. This is not about wealth. This is about success. So what is it that leads to success? It's not being smart in and of itself. It's not working hard in and of itself. So that is a good question and it needs to be answered. But what is Obama's answer to this? We'll get to my answer in a little bit. He says, he goes on to say, if you were successful, somebody along the line gave you some help. Okay, so it's not because you're smart. It's not because you're hardworking. It's because somebody gave you some help. Now, did the people who are not that successful not get help? Did the people who are not successful, you know, they're just lucky or bad luck? So what is it about, this doesn't differentiate it because he says, he goes on to say, there was a great teacher somewhere in your life. Well, I mean, almost all of us have had a great teacher. Even those who are not successful had a great teacher. So is the existence of a great teacher the cause of your success? Does somebody help to create this unbelievable American system that we have that allowed you to thrive? That's a good statement, good for Obama to recognize the American system is good. I know a lot of Republicans who wouldn't agree with that sentence. True. But don't all Americans live under that American system? And therefore, don't all of them have the opportunity to thrive? Then why don't they? Lots of people had a good teacher. Everybody lives under the American system. Not everybody succeeds. He goes on to say somebody invested in roads and bridges. True. And we all get a benefit from those roads and bridges. Yet some of us are successful, some of it or not. We still haven't gotten to the core of what makes somebody successful, which is really interesting. And wouldn't it be cool if we had a president who could tell us, who could articulate that? And then he goes on to say, if you've got a business, you didn't build that. Now, Obama claims that you didn't build that refers to the roads and bridges. But it's very clear here in the sentence. He says somebody invested in roads and bridges. This is on the context that if you were successful, somebody along the line gave you a helping hand. And then it says, if you've got a business, you didn't build that. That refers to business. It doesn't refers to the roads and bridges. He says somebody else made that happen. Really? Who? And why didn't he make it happen for other people? Why was I so lucky? The internet didn't get invented on its own. Government research created the internet so that the companies could make money on the internet. Well, the government research certainly did not create the internet so that companies could make money off the internet. Government research definitely contributed to creating the internet. But now for the purpose of private enterprise, for the purpose of national security, for the purpose of professors being able to communicate with one another at the universities, lots of reasons. He goes on to say, the point is, is that when we succeed, we succeed because of our individual initiative. But also, wow, he admits it, but also because we do things together. Nobody, nobody denies that. There are some things, just like fighting fires, we don't do on our own. Yeah, but it's the initiative that the people who do do it, which is their own individual initiatives, there are the inventors who invented all the equipment that makes firefighting so much more effective. It is individuals doing it. In that sense, sure they're doing it on their own. The fact that you're on a team doesn't mean you're not on your own. You still have to make a decision. You still have to choose. You still have to do what is necessary. Act. He goes on, I mean, imagine if everybody had their own fire service. That would be a hard way to organize fighting fires. Maybe, I mean, you could argue, maybe not. Maybe not. Maybe if everybody's a contractor, it still would work fine. I mean, he's creating massive strawmen, knocking them down and never giving an answer. But the essence of his answer is, you as an individual don't really matter. You as an individual, your choices don't really matter. He says, we succeed because of our individual initiative. Undermined by, you didn't build that. Undermined if you were successful, somebody along the way helped you. Undermined by, we also do things together. Sure, everybody knows we do stuff together. But not everybody's successful. Most of the people who failed did stuff together. So what makes the difference? What makes the difference? One of the female says, inventions are done by individuals. Yes, but Obama would argue, others would argue, that even investors have, even, sorry, inventors have investors. They build on previous knowledge. So what they invent is not out of nowhere, it's typically built on a foundation created by others. Scientific knowledge does not come out of nowhere, although it doesn't come out of nowhere, it is built in a foundation of other scientists. We stand on the shoulders of the giants who came before us. And after all, inventors that teach us too, inventors drove to work on government roads, inventors had friends, had family that was supportive, go on and on and on, in all the ways that you're not an isolated desert island, not something, right? Of course, knowledge is extended by new inventions. I'm not disagreeing with you, I'm just telling you what they would say, right? That there is no such thing as alone. And you didn't build that. It's all a result of others. But, you know, the question he's asking here, which is an interesting one, is why do some people succeed? And how does that relate to the question of whether you built it or not? What's the sense in which you build things? And what's the sense in which you're successful? What's required to be successful? And here I want to ask the real fundamental question here about success, I think. And that is, what does success require? And I think success requires a certain character. It requires you to be a particular type of human being with particular values and virtues. You need to have a certain type of personality. You have to be a particular type of human being. Not everybody is successful. Danielle Sosa, thank you. $250. Really, really appreciate that as a stick. And that is Danielle's 10th super chat on a live stream. That's what YouTube tells me. That's amazing. Thank you, thank you. Really appreciate it. So it takes a particular type of character. I mean we can all think about what type of character does it take to be a Steve Jobs, even in a Elon Musk, a Jeff Bezos, a Bill Gates? Certainly all of them are smart. And when Obama says there are a lot of smart people out there, maybe, but there's some people that are extraordinary smart. But not just at that level. There are people that are successful at all kinds of levels. There are great conductors and great composers and great scientists and inventors who don't necessarily make a huge amount of money. So success is not just about money. What does it take? I think it takes a certain level of self-esteem, confidence. I think it takes a connection to reality and an adherence to reality, the facts, to be successful. It takes an ability to deal with risk and failure because almost all of them fail at some point, at something. It takes extraordinary hard work, particularly if you think about those four. Elon Musk, you know, many times talked about sleeping under the desk in the office, never going home, committed to working most of the hours he's awake. Most days, I mean all of us do that, but overwhelming number. That was true of Jobs, that was true of Gates, that was true of Bezos. Unbelievable hard work. But a focus on reality, a commitment to excellence, a commitment to the facts, and a huge amount of ambition. One of the things that people who are successful are, is ambitious. They want to be successful. They take the idea of being successful seriously and they strive for it. They commit themselves to it. They have clear values that are oriented around the central purpose of being successful at whatever it is that they want to do. And they don't waver from those values. They don't waver from that central purpose, from that goal. So they're very goal-oriented, very values-driven. And they've clearly defined values. Limbeck, thank you, $50, really, really appreciate it, that's fantastic. Yeah, guys, we've already achieved the goal for today, really amazing. I guess I can stop, wrap up? No. And how do we get that kind of character? How do we get the kind of character of being this driven of having clear values, of having a real commitment to those values, of building the kind of character and personality that is oriented towards achievement and ambition? Well, much of that is by building it, by building it. I mean, one of the things that I think is amazing about Ayn Rand is the extent to which she holds that we can actually control the nature of our character, the nature of our personality. Now, you probably need to do this when you're pretty young, but the extent to which she believes it's malleable, that you, through your own volition, through your own free will, can shape who you are. What kind of person you are. You can choose the values you want to pursue. In other words, you get to build you. You're a self-built human being, or you should be. Because if you don't build it, guess how it gets built? By accident? Yeah, by other people? By random occurrences? Rand talks about a self-made soul. And what she means by that is using volition, using your power to choose to shape your soul, which means to shape your consciousness, which means to shape your character, your personality, the values that you strive for, and deeper the seriousness with which you take striving for those values. And think about values and virtues. Think about the moral values and virtues as the heart, the key, the essentials. By choosing those, you choose to be a particular type of human being and adding to it a commitment to achieving your values and adding to it an ambition that is the recipe for success, reason, purpose, self-esteem. So it's not just that businessmen build their business. Yeah, they went to work, they put the bricks one on top of the other, they made the decisions, they raised the capital, they hired the employees, they made all the business decisions, but it's deeper than that. Build themselves into the kind of people that would be successful at what they do. They built themselves into the kind of people that are achievers, that are doers, that are makers, that are builders. Many of them might not have done it as completely consciously as, you know, it would be good, but they had to be conscious to some extent of wanting to achieve, wanting to be successful, and of taking it seriously, taking it seriously. So when I say you did build that, it's not just the things external to you, the stuff that you literally build that I'm talking about. It is your soul, your values, your character that I think successful people build. Again, most people in our culture, because they're not guided by rational, completely rational, completely rational philosophy, mix bags into what they build and what they create. But to be successful, it can't be random, it can't be accidental. There has to be some deep fundamental commitment to values, and that has to be chosen. It cannot just be, give me one, one second, suddenly got hot in this room. So you did build that, whatever it is that you have built, whatever it is that you've been successful. Now, the alternative, of course, is those who are not successful, to a large extent, are not successful because they have not, I mean, and yeah, I talk about successful, not a particular project, not a particular, but overall, over time, because failure is part of life and part of ultimate success. But those are systematically unsuccessful. It's not because they don't drive on government roads. It's not because they don't work hard. It's not because they're not smart. It's not because whatever, it might even not be because they don't have individual initiative. Some people have individual initiative that goes nowhere, nowhere. It's because they haven't committed themselves to reality, to facts, and they haven't committed themselves to building a life around reality and facts. They haven't committed themselves to being ambitious in whatever realm they want to be in, in whatever realm they want to achieve success in. They haven't chosen to be the kind of person that is successful. Maybe out of fear, maybe out of ignorance, maybe out of who knows, a bunch of psychological issues that hold them back. But the reality is that success, again, comes from the right choices, the right character, the right decisions, the right build. So there's no question that the environment impacts you. We're all born with different inclinations and maybe in some areas, maybe even different abilities. But that's particularly the genetic stuff. That's just metaphysically given. That is what you have. But everything else at some point in life is up to you. What you do with it, what you do with that, and what you do with the environmental impacts on you. And again, those, many of us, many people, most people really, most people and certainly all people are not successful, most people are not successful, never take it seriously, never take the idea of the character, the value seriously. They just accept. They just roll with the punches. They accept what's happening. They accept their own values. Usually they're not particularly chosen. Usually those values are values that have been chosen by others. Think about Peter Keating in The Fountainhead. He doesn't choose his profession. He doesn't choose the designs. He doesn't choose what's going on around him. His mother, his boss, his colleagues, the culture, elsewhere. Somebody makes the choices for him. He doesn't have a self-made soul. His soul is just a mishmash of whatever has happened to him, whatever people have told him, whatever other people have chosen for him. So I don't think people understand when they say, you did build that, the extent to which they mean it. To get up in the morning and to go to work and to build a business and to dedicate the time, the focus, the resources, the energy, that requires choices throughout. That requires you taking control of you. But deeper than that, the choice to be ambitious, the choice to want to create, the choice to want to build is part of you building yourself. So not only is Obama wrong about you didn't build that about businessmen and others, he's wrong about the human potential. You can build that. You should build that. Start with yourself and then extend outwards to the values you seek. Will other people help you along the way? Of course, even in building yourself, others can help, surely, and her philosophy and her characters in her novels can help you. Surely, your favorite psychologist or just your neighborhood philosopher who answers questions or your friends or your loved ones that you bounce back ideas over. But none of them can do the work that you still have to do even with their help to make it yours. People can tell you lots of things. They can advise you about all kinds of stuff. But to make that advice meaningful, you have to integrate it into your own knowledge. You have to do the thinking. People can, again, you know, help you with philosophical advice, with practical advice. It can just go into one ear and go out the other. It happens all the time for most people. And advice could be wrong. But for the advice to actually be this idea we do things together, for us to really do things together, you have to be able to internalize the advice, the guidance, the trade integrated with your own life. It has to be part of you. It's not something external. Even when the advice is great. In other words, nobody can do your work for you. Nobody can do your work for you because the work happens here. The work is the thinking. The work is the integrating. The work is the valuing. And only you can do it for yourself. And when you do, you are building. And again, you build it doesn't mean you don't get help. You building doesn't mean you don't trade with other people. You building doesn't mean you don't have teamwork involved. They might be. That doesn't diminish by when I order your achievements. And when it comes to businessmen, their achievements are enormous. When it comes to businessmen, the integrations, the thinking, the work, the choices, amazing. And yes, they have to have employees, they have to have managers, investors that have people who work with them. But every one of those people is trading, is benefiting from. Otherwise, they wouldn't enter the trade. And every one of those people is only contributing to the extent that the person who's guiding all this knows what he's doing. C.S. You did build that. By the way, Obama's speech was inspired by a previous speech that Elizabeth Warren gave just a few months earlier. And it was pretty amazing how she gave it a year earlier, sorry, a year earlier. And it's amazing how similar the two speeches are. And this became kind of the, I'd say the thinking of that wing of the Democratic Party for a long time. Yeah, let me read you what Elizabeth Warren had to say just so you can feel as sick as I did when I read it. She says, quote, I hear all this, you know, and she's saying, okay, here. There is nobody in this country that got rich on his own, nobody. What does that even mean? On a desert island? Yeah, you probably can't get rich on a desert island. Trading whatever value you created for monetary worth. So yes, so it's a strongman right on the beginning. There's nobody in this country that got rich on his own, nobody. You built a factory out there. Good for you. But I want to be clear. You moved your goods to market and the roads the rest of us paid for. Isn't it true though that businessmen contribute more taxes than the rest of us? And since businessmen create the jobs most of us have, wouldn't you attribute the taxes that we all pay as employees to that businessmen who created the jobs that now pay these wages? So isn't it true that the businessmen are actually the ones building the roads? And it's not true that the rest of us, however, that is paid for it. She goes on to say, you hired workers. The rest of us paid to educate. Same argument. The rest of us, 50% of Americans or close to 50% of Americans don't pay taxes. On net, given how much they collect from the government, they don't pay taxes. It's around 50%. So those 50%, nobody paid to educate them. So, but even the ones who educated, again, where did the money come from? What comes first? Schools of businessmen. What comes first? Roads of businessmen. Well, some equivalent of businessmen has to come first. Because first you have to have wealth so that you have something to tax so that you can actually build the thing. It's not a chicken and egg. What comes first? And the eating the chicken and egg is not really good because it's obvious that the egg comes first. If you understand evolution, it has to be the egg comes first. What laid the egg? A thing that wasn't quite a chicken yet. And the mutation happens in the egg and you get a chicken. So we know exactly what comes first if you really think about it. But taxes have to come from somewhere. They come from those who create wealth. Now, it's true. You can create a scenario in which it comes from those whose wealth was stolen. But okay, in order to steal their wealth, they have to have it. Maybe they stole it. Somebody creates the wealth and somebody's in a modern society are not the hired workers. Unless you're a Marxist. I continue with Elizabeth Warren. You were safe in your factory because of police forces and fire forces that the rest of us paid for. Now, it's true. We need police and we need fire, but it's dubious that the rest of you paid for it. Given how much some people pay in taxes. She says you didn't have to worry that more and ring bands would come and seize everything at your factory and hire someone to protect against this because of the work the rest of us did. Who are these? Which work did the rest of you do? And by the way, the more and ring bands that seize everything at your factory that you should really be worried about is the government is those people. Those are more likely to take all your stuff. The SEC is the EPA, it's the those guys are much more likely to seize everything you have and for them you can't even hire somebody to protect yourself. So here's how she ends this. Now look you build a factory and a turn into something terrific or great idea. God bless. Keep a big hunk of it, but part of the underlying social contract is you take a hunk of that and pay forward for the next kid who comes along. You pay your taxes and in this case pay a lot of them because you didn't build it. But he did build it and he built much more. He built the character and the soul that goes with it. And nobody should be penalized for building. They should be celebrated. They should be adored for building, for creating. Yet the Elizabeth Warrens or the Obama's of the world are penalized. They want to put them down. They want to tax them. They want to take from them. All right. So go build. Go build out there in the world. But to do that and to do that well, build yourself. Make yourself into somebody you can be, should be, must be proud of and be proud. Make yourself esteem and then build and be successful. All right. Thank you guys. Let's see. We have quite a few super chats. This is great. I really appreciate it. Again, we had a bunch of stickers. Limbeck and Danielle and Catherine and I think it was Catherine's thinking about this idea of doing this show. I think that's right. All right. So don't forget to like the show before you leave. Really, really important. Helps with the algorithms and all the rest of the good stuff. If you're not a subscriber, please subscribe. Please subscribe to the show. Also important for us. We're trying to go for that 100,000. If yeah, if you want to support the show, use the sticker. Ask a question. Use the super chat. As you know, these shows the result made possible through contributions from people like you, like James who gave $200 to ask a question. So let's see. Thank you, James. That is very generous. Thank you. Okay. James says, hearing what you said about Boston and Dallas, gave me a new perspective. Dallas is not in the global financial centers list and Boston is number 17 of 20. However, the finance is mostly health care. Do you think Massachusetts is more racist than Texas? What do you think about living in London now? Wow. Okay. So I do think Massachusetts has a lot of health care, but that's primarily because the venture capital in Massachusetts is focused on biotech because the ring, what is it, 128, the ring around Boston. That's where all the biotech companies are. Boston is a huge biotech center. But beyond that, remember, Boston is a big private equity place. Bain Capital is there or Romney, Mitt Romney's old firm. It also used to be a banking center, not so much anymore. Most of the Boston banks got bought up and Boston is no longer a big banking center. If you want a banking center, that's Charlotte, North Carolina, which is the, I think, second banking center after New York. So finance in Boston, a lot of it's health care, but a lot of it's private equity trying to think what else. Yeah, banking's moved out of there. But yeah, fidelity is there. I think fidelity is in Boston. You're still finding, you're going to find a lot of investment advisors, a lot of investment. So it really depends on what you're looking for in terms of finance. Let's see. Do you think Massachusetts is more racist than Texas? I don't know. I mean, certainly Boston has, not Massachusetts, Boston has a history of being racist. It has a reputation of being racist. On the other hand, you know, the Boston Celtics were the first team, if I remember right, to hire a black basketball player. They were the first team to have, I think, a black coach. Even though their fans are considered racist, it's not. It doesn't really manifested in itself in, I think, a lot of Boston culture. Boston's quite leftist, but yeah, I mean, but it hasn't been run into the ground like many other leftist cities, like San Francisco. What else about Boston, racism in Boston? Yeah, I mean, I lived in Boston in the mid-70s, Brookline, Massachusetts, went to Brookline High School during a period of busing. And busing was ugly. It was not good. It was not pleasant. And I think it exacerbated the racism. It didn't make it better. On the other hand, Frank says the Red Sox were the last team in baseball to have a black player. But of course, that's history, so it doesn't tell you much about today. I don't think there's going to be much racism inside Boston. I just don't think so. And I don't think there's going to be much racism in Dallas. Now, small town, Texas, yeah. Redneck, Texas, sure. But I think if you go to the cities in Texas, whether it's Austin or Dallas or Houston or even Fort Worth or San Antonio, I don't think you can encounter much racism in the cities. Small towns, more likely. More likely. What do you think about living in London? I mean, look, I love London. Horrible weather. I don't know if I could live in London because of the kind of weather that London has. It's rainy. It's gray. It's foggy. It's rainy. And it's not rain like we have here in Puerto Rico. It rains. It just drizzles, constant drizzle. It's just annoying. And it's cold. Cold for me anyway. Not cold for Chicago, but cold. Boston is colder than London. But somehow it's less gray. I think it's because of the rain and the and I think, yeah, Boston London just is gray. And London is a great city. Better restaurants than in better restaurants in Boston or Dallas. It has more culture than Boston or Dallas. It has fantastic museums. It has concert halls. It has music shows. It just has a lot going on all the time. I'd say the biggest challenge in London right now are the Muslims. They really are everywhere. You see them, I mean, you see them in a lot of different places. You have to be careful where you live. You have to think about where you want to live. Enriks says theater, Boston, yeah, I mean culture. I mean, London has amazing theater. It's the theater capital of the world. Probably more than New York. So London is, you know, outside the United States my favorite city for culture, my favorite city for food. It's because it's got every type of food. It's got everything. Everything. So I'm a huge fan of London. The city is a real financial center. You have everything from hedge funds to private equity investment firms. You know, really everything. Venture capitalists. It's not hugely strong. Brexit has hurt London a little bit. It's not as convenient. It's not as easy in terms of travel to Europe primarily. But it's still holding on as a financial center. There's actually a story this week, I think, in The Economist about London's ability to survive anything. It just survives. So the biggest problem in London, I think, other than the weather, which is a big problem for me, but other than the weather is Muslims, the fact that that's a huge Palestinian protests, Muslims there not just living there, but a lot of Muslim tourists that might bother you, might not bother you. Crime is relatively low, although many would argue rising, and again, you have to be aware of which neighborhoods you're in. So as long as you're self-aware, I think London's like one of the great cities of the world, and it's a great place to live. I mean, if you care about crime, Tokyo or Singapore are the place to go. Hopefully that gives you something to go on. Hapa Campbell, $100, another one of my regulars who helps make this show possible with all his questions, all right, and support. My natural inclination is to be happy and benevolent towards people. But when a lot of what I get in return is people viewing the desire to see connection as weakness, it shows how ugly so many souls are out there. It makes me lose my benevolent inclinations. Well, I mean, here's the thing you have to here's what you have to keep in mind. Is there a lot of nasty people out there? A lot of people who are nasty people out there. There's a lot of bad in the world. There's a lot of cynicism and skepticism and just just ugliness. Just ugliness. But you need to try not to affect your benevolence. I might affect your willingness to trust other people. It might affect and it should. It might affect kind of the kind of blank check you give other people. Maybe when you meet them the first time maybe you're a little bit more cautious. But you have to hold on to the idea. I think to be healthy, you have to hold on to the idea of the human potential. You have to hold on to the idea of what people are capable of. What is possible to them. Judge them based on whether they're good or bad. When they're bad, get away from them. Get them out of your life. But fundamentally they are good people out there. And there is people are creating great things and doing good things and making great things and maybe not in your immediate environment right now then go seek out better people but don't give up on the idea that they are good people because they are. We're not yet in kind of a concentration camp we're not yet in a place where you just can't trust, believe anybody. There's still goodness and part of our job in life, job is wrong but part of our responsibility if we're going to make ourselves if we're going to build ourselves is to go find the good people, go find the better people. Sorry you're having such a hard time with connection in people. It's rough because there's so much there's so much bad out there, much more than there should be much more but there should be given what the human potential really is. Okay Michael, would holidays exist in an objective world? The whole concept seems sacrificial and otherworldly. Wouldn't every day be a rational celebration of life we wouldn't have to focus it on those specifically designated days. I I'm going to disagree with you here Michael. Yes every day is a celebration and all of that but the reality is that every day is busy. You're busy working you're busy building, you're busy creating you're busy focused on your central purpose you're busy doing stuff and it makes sense to have days that are explicitly about reflection explicitly about stepping back and appreciating appreciating the value of production I don't know, Thanksgiving for example appreciating the benevolent spirit in the world out there and in particularly under capitalism Christmas appreciating the political system that has made possible this life of production and success and so on you know, Fourth of July I don't know that you need a lot more than that but I think just days in which Valentine's Day a holiday where the explicit focus is on your romantic love on the person that you're romantically in love with and just an appreciation and reflection on that so for each one of your central values well not central values but each one of your major values out there I don't know, political freedom production and trade benevolence love probably come up with a few others I think it's a nice idea to have a day where we just dedicated to reflection on that on that so while every day has elements of all of that a day dedicated to just reflecting on that gives us more appreciation of it and more appreciation of the wonders of our life and the wonders of these particular values good question Clark, I ordered a t-shirt on Amazon and they sent me two while only charging me for one if I keep the extra shirt without informing them is that stealing or is it the sole moral responsibility of them from making it look, I don't think it's stealing I don't think it's I don't think there's any they made a mistake I wouldn't even say it's a moral responsibility it's a mistake and t-shirt I think it's a small mistake from their perspective and from your perspective probably if you call Amazon and say I got two instead of it they'll probably tell you to keep it but imagine it was you ordered a Rolls Royce and two showed up by accident I mean you ordered a diamond and two diamonds showed up by accident and it's worth a lot but if the other part is taking a real loss then no I don't believe in finders keepers I say this is unearned this is a real value that I haven't really earned and you know this person has made a mistake we all make mistakes and I should let him know about the mistakes so that he's lost I mean just like you made a $20 bill in the street it's just lying there you probably take it and you put it in your pocket and you're gone but if you find a suitcase with $100,000 in it well I mean first hand it over to the police because God you don't want the mob after you but second it's just not it's just too much it's unearned and somebody lost this and it's important to somebody $20 might not be that important this is important so it really depends on the size of the unearned that you're getting here the size of the unearned that you're getting here you know certainly if it's a wallet and there's a name of somebody even with $20 you would call them up so I do not believe in finder's keepers in those kind of context I think that's wrong I think that's the negation of kind of the objective's value system which yours is you own it finding something that's clearly somebody else's it's clearly an error they made it's not earning so the size matters sure it's how valuable it is to you how valuable it is to them again in a t-shirt I wouldn't worry about but if it was a diamond or something you would want to give it back I mean often a restaurant will come and they'll look at the bill and they haven't charged me for something is it finder's keepers and just say to how was it they made a mistake I don't care I'll go to them and say hey you didn't charge me you should charge me for what I consumed I want to pay for what I consumed I don't want free lunch I don't want somebody else paying for my stuff whoops alright straight up freedom technology has given people the opportunity to move beyond being physical laborers and instead use their minds to achieve higher levels of productivity but how can people be productive once AI renders the human mind obsolete well because I don't think AI will ever render the human mind obsolete it will render certain functions of the human mind obsolete I mean certain functions of the human minds already made obsolete I do not remember my multiplication table I'm sorry I'm good at math I used to be able to do advanced calculus I no longer remember the multiplication table because I've got a calculator I don't try to add a subtract to my head big numbers small numbers I still can do I've got a calculator on my phone so all technology modern technology particularly computers have already I can't spell never could spell without a spell checker I am indeed lost I am indeed lost now AI is going to take on more and more of that but that will free up human beings to do what is unique to human beings that which is creative that which is innovative new you know and that which is you know AI is still going to need to be programmed it's still going to need to be guided it's still going to be need to be used in a particular way so I don't think human mind will ever stop human beings can only a lot of how we relate to one another now I'll add to this that how do we say this I think that ultimately what we're going to see is much greater integration of technology with human beings that is I wouldn't be surprised to see much more you know a chip implanted in people's brains that allows them to connect possibly if it's possible to connect to the internet directly to engage with the AI directly inside you know something like New Orleans that Elon Musk is working on New Orleans is very simplistic but I mean there was something today the other day I read that scientists have created this helmet you can wear that measures your brain waves and brain activity and when you're thinking about something this helmet can translate using AI can translate what you're thinking and right now which is stunning stunning right now it can translate it's got about a 40% accuracy in terms of literally reading your mind it can literally read your mind now 40% accuracy is not great but it's pretty amazing relative to zero and it's only going to get better so imagine if that was inside your brain and you could literally in thought communicate with the computer so there's just stunning possibilities here that are not that would make make it so that we do in a sense we use the human mind for what is useful and we use the computer for what is useful and we have a fundamental real deep division of labor now how are there works all that you're going to have to invent some science fiction to do it but it is fascinating to think forward by the way I think we're far from the day while AI is changing the world as we speak while it can enhance our world dramatically as we speak we're far away from jobs or AI doing all the intellectual work it's still pretty dumb and it's going to be a while before it gets much smarter but even the dumb stuff that it does because it can aggregate so much information so quickly and it's going to save us gazillions of money and time and effort and it's going to make life so much better so much quicker in the meantime let's just enjoy it what happens in 100 years I don't know but I suspect it's some kind of merger of technology in human beings I think they call them transhuman Linda thank you great show today I'm furious why are you furious oh you're furious at Elizabeth Warren and Obama yeah par for the course are we constantly in a state of fury over Elizabeth Juan and Obama no be positive about your ability and all of our ability to shape our lives and shape our mind thank you thank you for the support Linda Steven do you think a second Biden term would be less destructive than his first because you won't be as concerned about support from the far left yeah I don't know I think well I mean first I have to figure out how destructive was his first term I think that the only way to prevent because Biden's ambitious it could be destructive and his ambitions are all style democratic ambitions his ambitions are greater power to unions more central planning more state control of business my hope but you know my hopes don't matter in the political world but my hope would be that if Biden had a second term Republicans control the House or the Senate and therefore could be a break on him the challenge of course there is often Republicans cooperate with him to get their agenda another problem of course is that he might Democrats might win the House and the Senate which would be a disaster so I have all three branches so no I don't think I think Biden's second term could be more destructive because he wins because he is destructive and if he has the House and the Senate so it really boils down to who has the House and the Senate and I as you know am a big fan of divided governments so if a Democrat wins the presidency I hope for a Republican House and the Senate if a Republican wins the presidency I hope for a Democratic House and or Senate we need a veto we need somebody to be able and divided government is a good thing in that context as long as philosophically both political parties are so deeply and fundamentally corrupt thank you Stephen alright let's see alright James says what type of things are new objectives most rationalistic about from your experience everything I mean I think that the very rationalistic in terms of really their understanding of pretty much everything but it expresses itself in I think a real rationalism with regard to ethics, how to live I've known too many objectivists who want to have sex like Dagny you know they want to mimic the kind of passion of Atlas Shrugged they want to you know the so-called objectivist who died their hair orange to be like how it worked they have a sudden and those are the extremes but they have a sudden superficiality in terms of the virtues they don't really they take Iran's ethics as dogma rather than as an integrated something to integrate into their lives and to make real and to have a concrete personal real understanding of them in terms of their own life in terms of concrete they can understand not in terms of kind of the novels or the essays I think it's in ethics primarily but rationalism usually affects every aspect of their thinking and it takes time so I'm not blaming anybody I think we all go through that phase I certainly did I think it's a lot of it's reflected in their thinking that they can convince anybody of objectivism and their willingness to be jerks about it and part of their perspective on being self-interested is to be a joke so those are the things I think that are primary Ori aren't terrorists fundamentally driven by hatred of existence and killing for the sake of killing not religion religion allows rationalization and being in a religious society is why they hate life but it's not the real driver I think that's ultimately right but the relationship is more complicated I think than what you're suggesting with religion I think religion both provides them with the rationalization it also provides them with the motivation so it's religion teaches them a certain view of man man is a sinner man is helpless you know free will doesn't exist so it's those ideas that they are taught that come from religion that make them nihilistic and then the consequence of that is unhappiness and they live in a religious society which just reinforces that unhappiness and then they also build these rationalizations around I don't know 73 versions and an afterlife a better world in the afterlife and I'm doing this for great cause and that of course is not independent of ideas so you've got this constant loop of ideas that shape a person so ideas are always the beginning that shape a person's personality that then the rationalizations involved in these ideas and this particular personality are formed but those rationalizations have an impact on the personality and of course living in a community where these rationalizations are what do you call it constantly reasserted reaffirmed stated over and over again reinforced thank you constantly reinforced is how it works it's not like there's a starting point but I hate existence why do I hate existence is I hate existence because bad stuff has happened to me that's unlikely to lead to nihilism in and of itself it's although it can but often it's bad things are happening to me I'm not happy but I'm holding these ideas that are really bad ideas really give me a bleak view of mankind which really now leads me to hate existence and hate the world which is reinforced by my rationalizations over that well it's only the Jews or it's only this or it's only that or it's 72 versions or whatever it happens to be so I think this is all entangled together I don't think you can separate it out completely I don't think inside okay it starts with hate the hate originates to a large extent from the ideas these kids learn when they're very young and from the hopelessness that these ideas create that's why you don't get as much self-destructive and just destructive nihilism outside of religion and even when it comes in a secular form it comes with baggage that is it comes with ideas it comes with particular nihilistic ideas that again sometimes are creating sometimes are reinforcing the hatred but don't I don't know that everything starts with an emotion everything starts with you know what kind of ideas am I being fed and those result in an emotion and then you get this feedback mechanism and lots of things are interrupting and lots of things are start eating away at you it takes a pretty extensive I don't know immersing yourself pretty extensively in nihilism to get to the point where you're a killer or you're a suicide bomber whoops what did I do Liam says how come the objectives movement isn't producing any Nobel Prize winners or great entrepreneurs or household name you would think every genius out there would devour objectives writing I don't know I mean it's a good question I don't know most of the people I know who are household names or big names or incredible entrepreneurs many of them read I ran were influenced by I ran claimed they were influenced by I ran but never were never objectives fully never devoured her writings never became never took that path in some sense too busy producing and creating so I don't know I don't know why we haven't yet gotten a Nobel Prize winner or a great businessman who is a committed objectivist I'm sure we will one day but it hasn't happened yet Robert happy Saturday from Jennifer and Mina and Robert and Amy we're just hanging out having lunch and enjoying the run book show like and share friends thank you Robert see you in Michigan few weeks few weeks right oh yes I need to do this a couple of announcements I'm not going to do that alright one second one second one second we get to that huh everything slow alright that doodle bunny another one why is customer service so amazing in Thailand given how socialist and poor it is I don't know again that I call Thailand socialist but it's something in the culture it's something in the culture that you know I don't exactly know but there's a sudden in spite of the poverty in spite of the statism there's a sudden benevolence and happiness maybe part of it is that they know what poverty is like they experienced it they know it it's right around the corner and they they're grateful for what they have partially because they they've experienced how bad it can be right but there's a certain culture of benevolence and friendliness and that is part particularly among women but I think it's over all but you find that it's mainly women in the service sector although not exclusively so I don't know what it is about I don't know Thai culture enough to be able to figure that out don't know Thai history enough to be able to figure it out what are the ideas that they have adopted and why are they so different than other Asian cultures because they are you go even in Cambodia you go I think to other neighboring countries they're just not the same there's some difference in the culture I think Cambodia of course went through the Khmer Rouge so they have a certain ugly history that they are still living with and then so I think maybe it's partially because Thailand does not have that they haven't been communist they haven't been they hadn't had they haven't had some awful thing happen to them that just just devastated them and turned them sour on humanity the best I can come up with at this point alright I didn't want to let you know if you live in Colorado I will be in Colorado and I will be giving a talk on Friday January the 12th it's going to be titled An Ambitious 2024 the Objectivist Approach so it's kind of a a positive talk about being ambitious next year and what that takes and what's going to be required so an ambitious 2024 how to achieve that from an objective perspective it will be at the Village Workplace and Events Center in South Havana Street in Centennial Colorado that's I think just south of Denver so you can find it there's an event bright if you're not sure email me I think we'll have it on our website as an event if it's not there yet it will be there really soon this week so look forward to that so join us in Centennial Colorado and it's a Friday it's a Friday evening bring your spouse come and have a nice evening with us if you want to stay for dinner now there's a charge I think it's $30 to get in and then there's all kind of levels you can it's like our super chat here right or it's like sponsorship of the show there's those kind of levels that you can join us for dinner there's a it costs a certain amount to join us for dinner you can be used to next to me at dinner that is another level in terms of cost so it's going to be fun and it's $30 for the talk which is good we want to get into the habit of charging for talks so that you know we can fund these things and it should be we should be able to we should be able to draw enough of an audience for $30 a person for it so please come if you're in Colorado join us it'll be a lot of fun and hopefully you can also join us for dinner afterwards okay I will then be in Michigan for two talks one at the University of Michigan I think I don't know if that's been totally finalized but I hope it is so University of Michigan that'll be on a Tuesday night and that'll be on capitalism and ethics and that'll be in Ann Arbor and it'll be on the 23rd Tuesday the 23rd you know I once gave a talk in Ann Arbor on Israel defense of Israel and a bunch of people showed up in these t-shirts with the you know the Jewish star equals Swastika this is almost 20 years ago and already Ann Arbor was a bastion of hatred of Israel that'll be at 7pm it looks like on Tuesday the 23rd and then on Wednesday at Northwood University which is North Michigan not sure yet what time unless Jennifer knows she's helping organize it so she might know and then on the 26th of January I will be in Austin, Texas for what I hope will be a big event and maybe we'll get some demonstrations and who knows what we'll get but at the University of Texas in Austin on the Israeli-Palestinian situation that'll be on the 26th of January in Austin, Texas please come if you live in Texas somewhere join us again there'll be a huge number of objectivists in Austin so hopefully they will all come and then hopefully students will come and we'll get we'll get some hopefully we'll be able to pull it off some of the business community in Austin can come and make Israeli and Jewish entrepreneurial community in Austin that I hope will come so I'm really hoping to make this a big event so hopefully you guys will comment it'll be my if you will my definitive moral statement on what is going on in Gaza alright those are my announcements let's go back to the super chat Michael Michael says how do you know when you are being too assertive or coming across as dogmatic unapologetic can this unapologetic absolutism turn off the undecided yes I think it can I think you have to really think about how you communicate how do you draw people to you to your view I think to sit next to me is $400 but that's in Colorado that's in Centennial Colorado $400 to sit next to me I guess there are two seats like that to sit one seat away from next to me I don't know what it's going to cost to sit across from me I don't know how much they're charging so this is all organized by Ryan who is a huge Ryan and his wife huge supporters of the show here and the talk and the dinner and everything and they put up the website and it's all available up there and you yes you too can invite me to come and give a talk at your in your city as long as you $400 for the seat next to me $400 asking again maybe she didn't hear my answer the first time but it's $400 thanks for the super chat and it's that's in Colorado but let me just say more about this abrasive stuff you don't want to come across as abrasive how do you know what you can see by the response you're getting if they're kind of moving away from you and if you feel yourself getting I have to make this point, I have to make it now I have to get across then it's all wrong I mean debate should be friendly you want to be certain and adamant and you want to create condom dissonance but you want to do it with a smile and you want to do it relaxed and you want to do it in a way that is appealing to them and you want to present yourself as happy and confident and in this world but really in each practice and in each thought you need to think about it what are you trying to achieve and are you achieving it and is this the best technique to achieve it and it's just like in a talk you don't go there and you bang them over their head with your ideas you have to draw them to your ideas you have to make your ideas appeal to them in their context oh so I was going to say you can invite me to come and speak in your city and we can come to some arrangements and doing talks and charging for them and doing dinners and charging for that is a way to fund you know me coming to speak so for kind of a guaranteed minimum I will pretty much go anywhere to give a talk pretty much anywhere around the world there's a few countries I wouldn't go to but yeah Maurice doesn't have a city so I can't go there alright sorry Maurice I can come to your home I'm available James I guess we have two James this is James Chi from the $200 before so thank you James oops James asks what are your favorite industries besides finance technology and healthcare well that's a lot do you read or invest in traditional industries more stable and older like construction engineering or anything else I mean I invest exclusively you know in my hedge fund in community banks so certainly an industry that I'm interested in it's not particularly my favorite in the sense of exciting but it's certainly interesting because I invest in it and therefore I try to make my clients money in it so I need to know it is banking banking so that's finance beyond that I'm interested in business generally I like construction engineering I'm a civil engineer a long time ago so I kind of I like this idea of developing of building I like beautiful bridges I like to see how developers design neighborhoods or design commercial centers or mixed use neighborhoods I think those are really cool and modern ones and so I think businesses that do that kind of work are really interesting but I don't invest in them generally I don't invest in individual companies and of course I'm also interested in education so I'm interested in private schools private universities, private colleges just private education I think private education is has to be the future without it we're lost so I'm interested in that both as a business and as a cultural change phenomena Frank says how did the how did the deferring and sharp personalities of work Keating, Weinend and Tui experience and endure difficult levels of success and failure well fundamentally work is a massive success and that is a consequence of his personality but it that personality also allowed him to endure you could call failure temporarily that is setbacks he was capable of going to the quarry and coming back and designing great buildings Keating is a failure at life even though he's got money he lives in a big house whatever but he's a failure at life he's a failure in romance he's a failure in all the important values and when he's not successful at painting it's a dead end for him he cannot recover from it so he is finished Weinend is a mix is again a kind of a mixture he's successful in his business he's in a sense first handed he's sold it out from the beginning he's believed that the only way is to go the road of power and in the end he's a failure and he's not and he doesn't believe he's redeemable he doesn't believe there's redemption so he can't cope with it because it's the failure here is his whole life the same with Keating they're both in a sense the same point, it's redeemable Chewie is of course you know he has success in destroying but his whole life is one big you know failure and it's a failure that has consequences in everybody around him because the form it takes is by destroying others but he has no self-esteem he can never be happy, he can never do anything good so he is evil through and through and despicable through and through and a miserable human being through and through Michael says do people lie because they fear reality yeah I mean they want that earned they lie in order to get the un-earned and they fear facts, truth, reality they fear the consequences of not getting what they desire not getting you know because they haven't earned it so they are dedicated to the un-earned but yes a big part of that is fear Michael also asks these intellectuals have so perversely gotten the moral equation wrong that it cannot be innocent that is hatred of the good for being the good I don't know which intellectuals they are talking about but remember there is a sense in which up until I ran nobody got the equation right the moral equation right nobody so it's any given intellectual is more likely to be wrong than right because being right is so rare it's such an achievement it's so huge Antonio says they truly appreciate this show I'm not sure who they are the supporters not sure alright guys thank you remind you all December 31st we have our fundraising show starts at 2pm no 2pm east coast time it'll go for as long as it needs to go though I do have dinner at 6pm so we've got probably 3 3.5 hours and it'll be to raise money for 2024 for the continuation of the Iran book show into 2024 and we'll have some ambitious targets to achieve and yeah I hope to see you guys I hope to see all of you there as I've said before if any of you would like to do a match or anything like that let me know everything is possible but we are going to have fun during that show show up a little bit for the whole show it'll be a cool review of 2023 although 2023 was not great of a year but it will be a promise interesting and I will try to make it fun as well alright everybody I almost forgot there will be a member show tomorrow 7pm east coast time members only show tomorrow 7pm east coast time you can still become a member to join that show just click on the membership button below and I will see some of you tomorrow and the rest I will see on Monday thank you everybody see you soon bye