 The radical, fundamental principles of freedom, rational self-interest, and individual rights. This is The Iran Brookshow. All right, everybody. Welcome to Iran Brookshow on this Sunday afternoon. Hope everybody's doing well. Hopefully you all adjusted to Daylight Saving Time. So you made it to the show on time. Didn't arrive an hour early. But yep, the world has Daylight Saving Time. Puerto Rico does not. We don't change our clocks. We stay on the same clock. And the world just shifts on us twice a year. The world shifts. Very, very confusing, because now I'm an hour ahead of East Coast time, and I have to keep that in mind as I schedule meetings, as I do everything. It's just another thing that you have to keep track of in a world where you have to keep track of so many different things. So something else to try to confuse us over. But yes, it is 4 p.m. right now, 4 or 3 in Puerto Rico. I believe you guys on the East Coast, it is 3 p.m. So welcome. Thank you. Thanks for joining me this afternoon. We've got another Iran's Rules for Life show. Today, we're going to talk about curiosity. I'm curious what you guys think about curiosity. So please prepare questions. And you get to get a discussion going. As you know, Super Chat questions get answered. All of them, the higher the amount of money placed on a Super Chat question, the sooner it gets answered, maybe the longer the answer usually is. So jump in. We also, as you know, we have a target for these shows. It's $600 an episode. Ali does not look like she's here today. So I'm not sure what's going on with Ali. Another power outage in Venezuela, not surprising. This is the consequence of socialism. But I'll keep trying to keep track broadly. Also, because the world has shifted, Puerto Rico is now closer to Europe time-wise. So Europeans, Israelis, all of you guys on that other side of the world, some of these shows will be at a better time for you than they have been in the past. So hopefully that works for everybody as well. I have a feeling we'll see when I can do the shows during the week. My goal is to do them 8 p.m. Puerto Rican time. But that might become a challenge given that some of my business meetings only end at 6 o'clock. And then there's no time to go out to dinner and stuff. So we'll try to figure this out. And I will keep you guys updated as I resolve the various issues around this. Reminded everybody, if you like the show, if you enjoy the show, if you get value out of the show, please consider becoming a monthly supporter to the show. You can do that on uranbookshow.com. So I support on Patreon, on Subscribestar, on locals, and on and on and on we go. All right. So Iran's Rules for Life, you remember the primary focus of Iran's Rules for Life is how to live a selfish life. How to live a life focused rationally on you, on your values, on how to live the best life that you can live. So the first principle in Iran's Rules for Life is take your life seriously. Think about it, plan for it. And have goals, have values, and have a structure. And think about the things that will generate happiness and success in your life, the things that will lead you to live a life that is flourishing, that is successful, that is living with a big L, that is thrilling, that is exciting, that is fun, that is a life of happiness ultimately, a life of happiness. So I'm excited about this series. I hope you guys are too. It doesn't get a huge amount of views, which just doesn't bode well for the book. But hopefully once a book comes out, we'll grow the audience. And if we do a book, then anyway, we'll build an audience. And maybe there's a bigger audience for the book than there is for the show we will see. Jeff, thank you for the support. I really appreciate it. And so the focus is really on living a good life and coming up with principles not to replace the ethics of objectivism, of course not. This is to build on these all principles that are part of what I consider the objectivist ethics, applications of, lower down on the hierarchy. These are more concrete, more behavior, more things that you can activate in your pursuit of the objectivist virtues, in applying the objectivist virtues. So please read the virtue of selfishness. Please study Einrann's theory of objectivist ethics. That's how you're going to get a good life, how you're going to achieve flourishing is basing your life on those principles and those ideas. This is some shortcuts. These are some concretes. These are some ideas for you to consider in pursuing a great life, a great life. All right. So how did I come up with curiosity? Although once you come up with it, it seems pretty straightforward and pretty obvious. And we can talk about that. And maybe it's too straightforward and too obvious. I'm not sure. We'll see how much there is to talk about it as we go along. So the way I got to this was, or the way I got to curiosity, was really by looking at, by reading a, the way this came to me is really reading an article that was published in the Wall Street Journal on the 10th anniversary of the death of Steve Jobs. And it was a short commemorative piece about Steve Jobs, who died on October 5, 2011 by Johnny Ive. Johnny Ive was Steve Jobs' partner. He was the chief design officer at Apple for many years. He was part of the team that launched Apple's revolutionary products and ultimately responsible for their design. He worked very closely with Steve Jobs over these years and I think developed a deep friendship with Steve Jobs. And I think got to know Steve Jobs really, really well during this period. And so Johnny Ives wrote this commemorative piece in the Wall Street Journal. What was it now? Three weeks ago, four weeks ago, I intended to do the show earlier and then other stuff got in the way. And I didn't get to it. And there was a paragraph that Johnny Ives wrote in this that really struck me. Now, you guys probably know this. Many of you know this. People who've been following me for years know this. I am a huge Steve Jobs fan. I love my iPhone, right? And I use my iPhone in my talks and in my presentations quite often. But it's not just the iPhone. I have real admiration for Steve Jobs as a entrepreneur, as a businessman, as a thinker, as a visionary, as a designer, and as a human being from what I know about him. Not to say he was a fraud, not to say he didn't do stupid things taking care of his health, or as the case may be, not taking care of his health and not applying reason and rationality to the issue of his health is sad and disappointing from somebody like Steve Jobs and sad in a selfish way for me in not having Steve Jobs around for another 20, 30, 40 years, it's, I think, sad for all human beings, all human beings who value human life and value human progress, not to have Steve Jobs around to guide us with beautiful products, with efficient, productive products, to guide us towards greater fulfillment and a greater manifestation of our lives. So I'm a huge Steve Jobs fan. I love heroes. Steve Jobs is a hero. I don't really believe many of the nasty stories that have been written about him and been told about him. And everything that Steve Jobs ultimately touched was a massive success. And a massive success in an inspiring way, in a pro-human way, I mean, just think of Pixar, the movie studio that he became CEO of before he rejoined Apple the second time and just the beauty of those movies and what they meant and how they revolutionized animation and how the best movies in those days, were made by Steve Jobs, in a sense, by the team under Steve Jobs. So the nastiness that so many people tell about him is inconsistent with the level at which he was successful. Anyway, that's just all background, because the paragraph that struck me was this. And I'm quoting from Johnny Ives' article about Steve Jobs, short article about Steve Jobs. He was without doubt the most inquisitive human I have ever met, is his insatiable curiosity, was not limited or distracted by his knowledge or expertise, nor was it casual or passive. It was ferocious, energetic, and restless. His curiosity was practiced with intention and vigor. Now, this is, I think, a stunning paragraph. And it connects in my mind to books that I've read about other great people, whether it's Leonardo da Vinci or whether it's the book I just read about the bioscientist Daudin, who was one of the key people in the CRISPR biotech revolution that we are living through right now. They're all, all these people are ferociously curious, energetic, restless. But there's something about this term, ferociously curious, ferociously inquisitive. Most people assume that being curious is something you're born with, something you cultivate when you're young. And, you know, it's just kind of passive afterwards that curious people and less curious people. And it just is what it is. But what you get from this paragraph, and what I think is so inspiring about the way it's written, is that Steve Jobs' curiosity was intentional. It was focused. It was not casual or passive. On the contrary, it was ferocious, energetic, and restless. And to find a sentence, his curiosity was practiced with intention and rigor. But I think curiosity is essential for a flourishing life. And it says a lot about one's attitude towards the world and towards one's own life, the extent to which one is curious. And I think one can train. You can train yourself to be curious. So a lot of the traits that we require as adults are developed when we're children and developed, in a sense, out of our control, developed or not in full conscious control, because we're not full conscious control of our minds when we are children. Curiosity can be drummed out of us when we are children. Many, many parents do their best to drum curiosity out of their children's minds. But I think what is important here is curiosity is something you can resurrect. Curiosity is something you can activate, even if it has been drummed out of you as a child. And this is how you do it. So what does it mean to be ferocious when it comes to curiosity? What does it mean to be intentional? It means that you know that the world is rich with knowledge. The world is rich with opportunity and opportunities for you, for your life, for your growth as a human being. You know that you don't know everything. However much you know, there's always more to learn, more to know, more to gain. And you're constantly seeking that knowledge out, even when. It's not clear how this particular knowledge connects with your values right now, with what you're doing right now, with what you're pursuing right now. Because, and this is philosophy teaches this, and objectivism teaches us this. If you, you know, Lenny Peacock talks about this quite a bit in OPA. Reality is a whole, it is one. Everything is connected to everything else. Knowledge is integrated. Now, not everything necessarily is important, not everything is worth the effort, but so much is. So many connections can be created. So much knowledge is related to one another. The more one knows, the more one knows about the things that one wants to pursue, about one's own goals. And to realize this, to realize the unity of knowledge, to realize the scope of what is available to us in terms of information, in terms of knowledge. I think if one realizes that and one knows that, you want to find out about stuff. Now many of us were curious as kids. And I think as kids, you know, our minds are in a sense, in a sense, empty, they're empty of knowledge. And we spend our time trying to fill it in, fill in that knowledge. And part of that is we want to understand the world. We want to understand connections between things. We want to understand a cause and a fact. We want to understand what's going on around us. Everything is new. Everything is exciting. One of the things I love about babies and children is how exciting the world is to them, how exciting knowledge is to them, how curious they are. Every child, when they reach about two years old, every healthy child, when they reach about two years old, starts asking why? Why? Why? Because they're curious. Because they want to understand the world around them. Because they want to integrate, not consciously, but they mind, is demanding. It's an integrating machine. It wants to connect the thing that's observing right now to the things that I learned yesterday, to everything else that it thinks that is going on around. And it wants to understand the cause and effect relationships. Why? Why? Why? Just watch a two-year-old, three-year-old, four-year-old. And it drives the parents crazy. I can understand that because it's nonstop. It's constant. And you explain something, and they go, why? And you explain that, and they go, why? And the challenge is to explain these things in a terminology that is both true and at least somewhat comprehensible to the child. And that's difficult, challenging. You have to keep pursuing it. You have to, at some point, they ask you, why is green green? And you just have to say, it just is. So an important part of being a parent, an important part of being a parent, an important part of choosing to be a parent is willingness to engage in cultivating this curiosity and not suppressing it against so many. Stop asking why. It just is. This is just how the way it is. They start yelling at their kids. They shut them up. Don't bother me now. Trying to destroy. And I'm sure some of you had parents like this. Never explaining, never teaching, never encouraging. But that curiosity is that wanting to know the world is so exciting and so thrilling. It's what much of life is about. It's about discovering the truth. It's about knowing what's out there. And it's about then learning how to use that knowledge to make your life better. And you never know where the next piece of knowledge might be that might really help enhance your life. It might be that book on biotechnology that tells you something you didn't know about gene editing that might be able to resolve a genetic issue that you might have. Who knows? But part of it is just the love of knowing which children have. The love of just understanding the world around them. And you can see it in their eyes. You can see it in the when they get an answer that they understand, that explains something to them. Oh, wow, they're so excited. You can see kids in a money-soring classroom from a very young age, when they figure something out for themselves, the level to which that becomes exciting. So that excitement about knowing the future, not knowing the future, knowing the world, understanding reality, understanding cause and effect, understanding the world around you. Of course, that's what reason is about. That's what cultivating your mind is about. That's what is required for human survival. It's certainly required for human flourishing, for human success, for productivity, for creativity. Knowing the world around you, understanding it. And some of us as children are super curious and maintain it and sustain it. I used to read encyclopedias when I was a kid. I used to, I mean, I loved just sometimes just opening an encyclopedia at random on a particular page and reading. And no matter what the topic, it was interesting. I mean, and it's the problem I have to this day. I can go into a bookstore. And I can very quickly say, I want this book. And I want this book. And I want bits of book. And I want those books. And all of the different topics, all in different subjects, all in things I don't know right now, I want to know who has time. I don't. But it's a wonderful sense, that curiosity, that desire to learn. And again, it gives you a scope of knowledge about reality when you learn it. That opens up opportunities, opens up avenues for you in terms of your life, that you can't just imagine rationalistically trying to plot your life into the future. You need to be engaged in the world, in its challenges. Engage means understanding. You need to be engaged in understanding the world around you to really ultimately benefit from the world around you. Now, many of us, I know a lot of people who this curiosity is stomped on when they're children. They lose it at some point. I don't know any child who's not curious. But I know lots of 16-year-olds who are not. I used to gobble up biographies and history books and science books and just a whole variety of things from all over the place. Because it was all fascinating. You know what, why? Because reality is fascinating. The world is fascinating. And again, if everything's connected to everything, it's useful to know important stuff about lots of different fields. You actually never know when the information will become useful specifically. But in the sense of your mind, in the sense of grasping reality as a whole, it's useful to have examples from biotech and example from physics and examples from business and examples from finance and examples from politics and ethics. And history, history, history, history, history. Noel says, curiosity killed the cat. Yeah, but we're not cats. We're integrating souls. And we need fodder for that integration. We need knowledge. We need concretes. We need examples. We need to understand the world around us. A survival depends on it. And indeed, I think the most creative, the most productive people in the world also tend to be the most curious people in the world, the most inquisitive people in the world. Doudin, as an example, the bio-scientist, sees biological phenomena once to understand it. And ultimately, what drove her was want to understand the origins of life. And in order to understand the origins of life, she understood earlier that she needed to figure out RNA. That RNA was the key to understanding the origins of life in a sense more important than DNA. And she did. Doudna, Doudna, yes. I highly recommend again the Code Breakers, the Code Breaker story of Doudna and CRISPR, the use of CRISPR, the discovery of CRISPR as a gene editing technology. Fascinating book. Fascinating book. And she's a hero, a hero for being so inquisitive, a hero of being such a good scientist, a hero for dedicating herself for being focused. That's another thing Johnny F. talks about, Steve Jobs. On the one hand, he's super curious. He wants to know all the stuff from all kinds of fields, from all kinds of parts of life. On the other hand, super focused on what he's got to do, super focused on the particular project, says no to lots of things. That's the kind of combination that I think makes for great producers, great scientists, makes for interesting people. Ives continues about Steve Jobs. Many of us have an innate predisposition to be curious. I believe that after traditional education or working in an environment with many people, curiosity is a decision requiring intent and discipline. Yes. So what we have this, called it innate curiosity as children, it's discouraged, it's stomped upon, not just by our parents, by our teachers, by our teachers, what an irony is there. And by the people around us, by our bosses, don't ask. Just do what I tell you. And therefore, it requires of all of us to be intentional and disciplined about it. So Iran's rules for life is be curious, which means activate it, pursue it, do it. Think about areas in reality, in the world, that you are not focused on right now, that are not part of your career right now. But you find interesting. Maybe it's just a mild interest, because you're so focused and because, again, the curiosity has been stomped out of you. Whether it's in history, whether it's in some scientific discipline, whether it's in some other part of life. And put some time aside on a weekly basis to explore areas of life, areas of the universe that you have never explored before. Be purposeful, intentional, about thinking beyond what you need to think of right now, beyond your current projects, beyond your current values. Explore. Life is, in some senses, short, but in some senses, long. There's lots of opportunities to do lots of different things. One way to discover some of those things that you maybe could do and are not doing, maybe you could become passionate about is by finding out about them. Do you like history? Maybe you don't. Maybe you don't know you like history. Maybe it's a passion you could develop. Read a couple of history books. Read a book or two on science. Ask questions. I mean, this is so crucial. In our analysis, really, of anything, right? In our analysis of the work that we have to do, in our analysis of the politics around us, ask why. Why is something the way that it is? Why are things done the way they are done? Why are people the way that they are? What's causing it? What's behind it? What are you missing? What could be helpful? So look out there. Look out there. And don't just accept things, statements, anything on face value. Dig a little deeper. Be curious. Why? Why do they think that? Let me give you an example which you will hate. Right? Critical race theory. Why do people buy into this? What is it other than its woke manifestations, which are obviously horrible? But what is the actual theory? What do they actually believe? Why is it appealing to so many people? What are the ideas behind it? Maybe read one of the CRT books. I know that's sacrilegious for many of you. And now you'll know something about your enemy. You'll understand him better. You'll maybe have a more nuanced approach in a sense of understanding why this catches on with certain people. What it's all about rather than just accepting on face value everything that you hear out there without ever asking why? What is it? Where's it from? Who started it? What's critical theory? Where does that come from? How do I know? Don't feel threatened by new knowledge. Don't feel threatened by the enemy if you will. It's knowledge. Critical race theory itself might not be knowledge. But understanding critical race theory, at least to some extent, will give you knowledge about people, about the culture, about its chance of being successful, about its popularity. And it will now give you a sense of what you should do about it. So get out of your comfort zone. Listen to some podcasts by people who you might know in advance that you're going to disagree with. And don't just listen from the perspective of, ooh, I'm going to disagree with them. Let me catch them at all their lies and hypocrisies and stupidities that they're going to say. Try listening to them from the perspective of, let me try to understand why they think this. Not in order to justify their thinking. Thinking is often wrong and based on evasions. But understanding where their evasions are, what is the appeal of this? Why do so many people buy into it is important. If you're interested in economics, politics, read Marx. Now, you can't listen to everything. You can't read everything. You have to pick and choose. This is why curiosity should be disciplined, intentional, purposeful. But at every point in life, at every stage in life, at any age in life, you want to be broadening your horizons at least in some way, in some capacity, in some areas. Knowledge is a beautiful thing, a powerful thing. Knowledge is what allows us to survive, to thrive, to flourish, be engaged, seek it out. It's the only way you understand who your allies are, who your enemies are. It's the only way you'll understand where the world is heading. I mean, I have to say that often reading about things like the book I just read, Undoubted, I mean, it enhances my ability to be optimistic and be positive about the world, that there are people like her out there. I don't know what her politics are. I suspect she's probably left of center, as most scientists, I think, are. But she's cut her mind. That is making discoveries that are enhancing human life and have the potential to enhance human life on a scope that I'm not exaggerating by saying it's unimaginable. That's a beautiful and amazing thing. The fact that science is progressing, that science is advancing, the fact that many diseases might be curable in the next few decades, we might be able to reverse or slow down aging. These are amazing things. Products of other people's curiosity, hard work, focus, energy, ferociousness, competitiveness, desire to discover the truth. You want to know about these things. Johnny Ives continued to write, being curious and exploring tentative ideas. So other thing, explore different ideas. Don't get too sad. You're not willing to consider anything else. Test your ideas out. Challenge them. Being curious and exploring tentative ideas were far more important to Steve than being socially acceptable, than being socially acceptable. Our curiosity begs that we learn. And for Steve, wanting to learn was far more important than wanting to be right. Jobs was a truth seeker. He wanted to be right. That's why he was learning. But he recognized that sometimes he was going to be wrong, and learning was a path to truth. So expand your horizon. Be a lifelong learner. Be curious about the world around you, but the people around you, about what is true and what is not, what the facts are. And don't be passive about it. And this is the important thing. Don't just, I'm a five on the curiosity scale. I'm a three, I'm a eight. No, you can be what you want to be. And yes, you might not feel that passion. You might not feel that drive that some people who are really curious feel. But you can create that passion and that drive once you engage that part of you that maybe the world, your parents, your teachers suppressed. Ask questions. Force yourself to ask questions. Force yourself to challenge yourself. Force yourself to step out of your comfort zone, to go into areas you know very little about, to speak or to read people you might not typically read. Try to get a wide array of different views, different perspectives on the world. Not in terms of you need to read every force philosopher out there, but it's good to read some. And it's good to have the perspective of a scientist and an entrepreneur do it with intent, do it with purpose, and bring energy to it. Generally everything you should do in life, you should do energetically, ferociously. I love this. Let me read it to you again. He was without doubt the most inquisitive human being I've ever met. His insatiable curiosity was not limited or distracted by his knowledge or expertise, nor was it casual or passive. I love that. It was ferocious, energetic, and restless. His curiosity was practiced with intention and rigor. See if you can have that paragraph referred to you. See if you can build a life where that's you, your intentional, your purposeful, your ferocious, and seeking out new knowledge, seeking out new information. One of the advantages I always thought that bookstores had over Amazon, which I still love walking into bookstores, is that you would go to a section, any section, and just browse. I was just at the airport in Chicago. Chicago has good bookstores at the airport. And I just started in one of the sections, and it was like, it was ridiculous. Because it was like, I want to read this. That one is really interesting. What about this? And then go to another section. There were 25 books I wanted to read there. And it was a little frustrating, because I can't read them all. But it's like, now I have a book and a Kindle, I have a book I'm listening to on Audible, and I have manuscripts I have to read on my computer. I'm reading Alex Epstein's new book on my computer. And next, I've got Don Watkins' new book that I have to read on the computer. So I've got all these things. And my biggest frustration is, I'm not reading enough. I'm not reading enough. I need to spend more time reading. But between doing the shows, and between the hedge fund, and between everything else, you have to relax a little bit. And knowing the importance of having arts and experiencing art, I just find I don't have anywhere near as much time as I used to have to read and to do as much of it as I used to. No, thank you for the support. Really appreciate it. 50 Canadian dollars. That is amazing. Thank you. So be curious. Explore. Keep learning. Keep learning. All right. Let's see. I'm particularly interested in questions around this issue, or generally questions around rules for living, around making your life a better life, around achieving happiness, or success, or just being successful at living, taking your life seriously. So anything about curiosity, anything about these things will get priority, even if it's not at the $20 level. I know you have political questions. You always do. But I'm not going to be in a rush to answer them because you've got to expand your horizons beyond the stupid political situation we're living through. All right, let's see. Adam had a $50 question, which was right on topic. He says, living by curiosity since age four, my speed accuracy trade-off work was part of Don Norman's user-centered design, system design method. Jobs used it to make computers usable by ordinary people. I didn't know where it would land. Lead, should scientists care in advance? No, I don't think you care in advance about where it would lead. And I don't think it's the same skill set. Discover something, and then know where it will lead. It's not the same skill set. Indeed, it's often a completely different skill set. The scientist who does basic research, does basic science, is often not the person who takes that science and commercializes it and applies it and uses it. It's rare that you have people who can do both, who are engaged in both, even within a company. Steve Jobs, I think, had a good understanding of how computers work and how the iPhone works and all of that. But he didn't have the detail. He needed people to do other stuff. So scientists can't care if they start caring. Then they will abandon the basic science. They will abandon the pleasure and satisfaction of discovery. They'll be not playing to their strength. They'll be playing away from their strength. Now, some scientists are good at the application part of it, are good at turning into something usable. But you can go in as a scientist saying, yeah, if I don't understand within 10 minutes how this is going to apply and how this is going to make a lot of money, you can't do that. To really know something requires a lot of energy, focus, time, curiosity, rigor, ferociousness. And it takes time between the step of knowing the science and knowing its application and how it could change the world. Division of labor is crucial in everything. But that doesn't mean you are not interested. That is, again, I'm for division of labor, I'm for specialization. But I'm not for being an ant. Being so specialized that you don't know anything about anything except the one thing you're supposed to do. That's a disastrous, horrible, boring, uninteresting life. I'm for constantly expanding your horizons. And what you'll discover when you do that is that you'll get better at the job that you're focused on because we're integrating constantly. So you want to specialize, but you want to keep learning across a variety of fields. And often, that will really enhance what you do in your narrow specialty. Again, because of the connectivity of human knowledge. Oops, what did I do? Undo typing. There we go. Let's see, what else do we have in terms of, yeah, too much of this is about politics. Superkill asked, have you noticed that most people want to be told what to think on various issues rather than doing their own research and forming their own conclusions? Is that lack of curiosity or just laziness? It's both. It's lack of a desire to discover the truth, a commitment to truth. It's a certain lack of honesty, suddenly a lack of independence. But part of it is not being curious. I don't, you're telling me this is so. I have to know it for myself. I'm curious how you got there. How do you know these things? What are the facts? I want to know the facts. So it's a sad reality that there are many people who just want to do what they're told, who are just sheep in that sense. All right, before we go on, we are still way off our goal. So we raised about $233 out of $600. So we're not even halfway there, although time wise, we're certainly halfway through the show. So if anybody has any questions, comments, or just wants to support the show, Super Chat is a great way to do it. And we can keep going. I'll also answer questions on unrelated topic. If you want to, I'll focus on the questions relating to curiosity first. It's fascinating to me that even when the topic is explicitly curiosity in how to make your life better and how to live a better life and what that takes and what's involved, 90% of the questions you are asking is about politics. I don't know what we're going to do about that. I try. I'm fighting against this constantly. But it seems like it's so ingrained in people to want to be able to control their political fate. Even though I keep telling you guys, your level of control of politics is almost zero. Instead of focusing on something like the quality of your life, the quality of your thinking, your ability to your curiosity, your ability to know the world, expanding your knowledge, growing as a human being, learning new things and new skills and new abilities that will enhance your life, that will make your life better, you want to know about socialism and the GOP and things that you have no control over. Now, you could argue it's curiosity. But I think there's a certain obsessiveness about this. Because, again, it's not something that necessarily enhances your life. It's over and over and over again. The same questions, the same things, the same issues. It's become, politics has become like sports. People out there sit and they listen to commentator after commentator after commentator, analyzing the performance of their team, analyzing the data from this particular player, that particular player, over and over and over again for the rest of their lives. Enough. We get it. How about spending a fraction of time on something that really benefits your life, makes your life better, more complete, more interesting, more fascinating, more something that you can actually control. But politics is now like sport. Who won the election? How many votes did he get? Who did he get the votes from? What can we learn about it? I mean, I do that too because it's part of my job to do that for you guys. But what can we learn from it? What difference does it make? You're not gonna be able to do anything about it. Arthur, thank you. I really appreciate that support. That's terrific. Yeah, I mean, the last few minutes, we got a bunch of money coming in. So we should be over 300 now. So at least we're well above halfway mark to the 600 bucks. But keep it coming, guys. Keep it coming and ask lots of questions and broaden it as broad as you want. Not just politics. Hey, by the way, if anybody wants my top, I don't know how many, top, maybe it's 10, one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, 10, 11, my top 11 war movies of all time. My top 11 war movies of all time. How much do we do for that? Let's make that 100 bucks for the top 11 war movies of all time based on my list. So I'll leave that out there. I've got the list here. If you want it, somebody can just use the super chat. There's something, there's information, knowledge. Well, it's not exactly knowledge. It's an expansion of horizons, maybe. That you actually could control. You can actually go watch the movies and would have a direct impact on your life. So again, no, saving private Ryan is not in my top 11, God, no. And many of these are not the kind of war movies one would think of when thinking about a war movie. For example, not one of them has blood and guts spilling over and gore and stuff like that. Not a single one of them. Yeah, these are cerebral war movies. Cerebral war movies. And the list of 11 of them are available for 100 bucks. I'll give you five for, Fury is not a war movie. I'll give you five for 50 bucks. All right, let's see. We've got a bunch of questions now. Let's do $50 questions. Eric says, hey, Iran, thanks for all you do. I love your rules for life series. Some of it related to what you said about curiosity. Did you get my email about innovative Galliari blood test, the test for 50 types of cancer? I love medical advances. Yes, I did. I'm never sending me that. I've started looking into it. I'm gonna talk to my doctor about it. It seems like it's something, depending on the price, I haven't checked out the price, but it seems like it's something that I would do once a year as a screen to catch early, right? So, and a blood test is no radiation. There's no downside to it other than false positives, but again, false positives. I'd rather have false positives than not know if I actually had cancer. So I'm excited about that kind of technology. I love medical advances. I grew with you every completely love medical advances and it's exciting to see how much the progress is being made on the medical side. And if only the FDA and the CDC and all the bastards in Washington DC got out of the way, then yeah, it would be amazing. Let me, I'll bet you that at least half of the movies that I would recommend is the best war movies of all time. You have never heard of. And anyway, so I haven't yet to see a single movie that you guys have listed, Farewell to Arms, Casualty of Warband, The Brothers, Dunkirk, Dear Hunter, Patton makes my list, Patton is the only one, MacArthur, Battle of Britain, The Dumpsters, Good, Fury, oh, I saw Fury, that's right, Fury. There's another Fury that I'm thinking of which spends the Tracy from the 1930s, which is a great movie. Eric says the test is $949. Yeah, I mean for a thousand bucks, it's worth it to do once a year. That's a well spent thousand bucks. So I'm gonna talk to my doctor about it and see what she thinks and think about doing it kind of on a regular schedule once a year and getting those results. Yeah, so as I said, a hundred bucks gets you my top 11 war movies. You know, we could switch it, we could do top 10 dramas if you want. Yeah, I mean, some movies it's hard for me to tell if they're war movies or dramas. There's a lot of kind of overlap between them. Yep. All right, let's see. I'm gonna take this Andrew question because I think it's a good question and it's really interesting and it's related to the theme of what we're talking about. Andrew says, he's being a devil's advocate. He says, if the left's purpose is always anti-success and anti-person responsibility, why be curious about each instance of it, e.g., for example, CRT? You don't have to be, but if you're going to be, if you're going to comment about it, talk about it, think about it, obsess about it, read about it from, then you should know what you're talking about. And if you're interested in why something like CRT is appealing to people, so it's not so much the people who start this, who initiate it. I don't care why Kendi, whatever his name, Kendi, who wrote the book about anti-racism, why he is interested in these ideas. He's an evading racist, power-lusting little nobody who's interested in anti-success and anti-person responsibility. But why is CRT accepted by so many people? Why is it so easily, why do people so easily buy into it? Why are they deceived by it? Why are so many people who are otherwise pretty intelligent, computer programmers, CEOs of companies, doctors, lawyers, successful people, people who are smart, people who are not idiot, people who are not anti-success and anti-person responsibility, inherently. Why are they bought into it? Now, I'm not asking for answers to that. You might know that, but it's hard to give an answer to that without knowing something about what it is. What are they actually right? What are they actually saying? What is the context in which this gives rise to this? Why does it elicit, the kind of response that it elicits? That takes research, knowledge, examination. I mean, yes, you can be just throw stuff out there and if that's how you wanna live, that's fine. But one of the reasons, one of the reasons I think that I don't make a big splash is because I don't comment, it's rare that I comment immediately on news stories. Even when it's kind of obvious what's happening is bad because I find it impossible to comment on stuff that I haven't at least a little bit researched, that I know something about. Now, unless it's an area where I'm already a wizard, right? I wanna get a little bit of grounding. I wanna understand what's going on. I wanna steal man the case. I wanna be able to get the best perspective possible on what it is. Now, not only is that what I think for an intellectual, it means to have integrity, but it's interesting. It's actually interesting to understand your enemy is interesting. I'm a fighter. I wanna understand. I wanna know where it's weaknesses are. I wanna know what makes it tick. I wanna know how I can shoot them down. All right, people are proposing a lot of interesting movies. Mark Goodwin says, I think CRT appeals to so many people because it appeals to morality, much like other liberal ideas. I think that's a big part of it, but you gotta ask the question why? And I think to understand that you have to understand the history of racism in this country. You have to understand the degree to which racism existed in this country. You can't whitewash that. You can't hide that. The degree to which CRT latches on to some reality, something real, even in the world in which we live in today, maybe even recognize that there still is some racism out there. It latches on to something that people recognize as real. And then it distorts it and perverts it and turned it into a whole agenda. But yeah, and that's true of many of the leftist claims. I mean, nobody likes the idea of the poor, right? People barely surviving and barely, and they latch on to something real, the suffering of the poor, and they build a whole model and ideological case around that. But you got, if you wanna combat it, you have to understand that, right? You have to understand that and draw it out. And all right, there's always some element of truth. It's not even truth, but there's some element in reality that they are exploiting, some element of reality that they are using, and knowing what that element in reality is gives you power. All right, let's see, war movies that you guys like. Imitation game, really good. Excellent movie, I really like that movie. By the way, my list is, I made this list 20 years ago, so a lot of the more modern movies that might make the list haven't, because I haven't updated the list. And frankly, I don't think any movie in modern times compares to any of these movies. American Sniper, I enjoyed American Sniper. It's just not a very deep movie. It's a frustrating movie. Starship Trooper hated that movie. The book was fairly good, although Henlein very much is playing with fascism there. Schindler's List, I did not like the movie Schindler's List at all. Empire of the Sun, very good movie. Give it a four out of five. Steve, I think it's Stephen Schruppberg, Empire of the Sun, one of his less successful movies, but quite good. Let's see. Right, I was using this as an excuse to raise money. Now I'm giving you my opinion about these movies for free. Somebody step in and give us $162. And I'll list off all these movies for you. Let's see. I mean, I told you, Outpost. I really enjoyed Outpost and it was the horror of Outpost and learned a lot from it. But again, that's a three or four out of five, not a five. Wolf of the Roses, I don't remember. The Great Escape is a great movie. Where's the Great Escape in my, huh, where's the Great Escape? Yeah, Great Escape is a five. The Great Escape is definitely one of the top ones. Battle of Little Bicorn, it's okay. Three maybe. Bridge on the River Kwai, definitely a five. One of the great movies of all time. Again, if you wanna know why, you're gonna have to, you're gonna have to, one of my favorite movies of all time. If you wanna know why, you're gonna have to put up the hundred bucks. Clint Eastwood movies. Clint Eastwood movies are always good, they're never great. Braveheart, no, Braveheart is like a two or three. Braveheart philosophically is a terrible movie. And in many other respects, it's pretty good, but it drives me nuts. No movie with Mel Gibson gets a five, I don't think. Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe Mad Max, two. Mad Max, two. Gets out a three or four. In Glorious Bastards, no, I don't like those movies. The Doody Dozen, yeah, three or four maybe. Glory, very good movie. Glory's a four or five. Glory's definitely a four or five. Pearl Harbor, Torah, Torah, Torah. Yeah, quam movies, they're just not that thrilling. Last of Mohicans, definitely up there. One of my favorite movies of the last, I hate to say, 40 years, made in the last 40 years is Last of Mohicans. Dust Boot, very well made, excellent movie. It's not on my list, but it would make the, it would make probably the, certainly the top 20 war movies of all time. All right, all right, that's it for this. You're gonna have to put up, you're gonna have to put up dollars. We're short $156.70 to hit our goal. You're gonna have to make a dent in that to get more for me vis-a-vis war movies. All right, let's see. Yeah, this is a good one. Wolland says, I love the depiction of virtue of curiosity in Ayn Rand's Anthem. Absolutely, absolutely. Can you think of good concretizations in other works of art? Huh, that is a good one. Curiosity, well, there is a painting. Now something like Curiosity is very difficult to do in a painting, but there is a painting by an artist called Wright of Derby at the National Gallery in London. Now he has more than one, so you could probably find his paintings otherwise you can also look him up online. There's a painting, it's in the National Gallery by Wright of Derby. I don't remember the name of the painting, but if you look Wright of Derby, you'll find it. And it depicts a science experiment, and it depicts an array of people standing around as a science experiment is happening. He's got maybe three or four of these paintings. And the different expressions of the different people relating to the experiment is wonderful, just wonderful. And the lighting, the drama that he creates through lighting. And the whole theme really is scientific curiosity. But there's gotta be others, there's gotta be movies about, I'm really bad at just, you guys throwing out there, things like that. You know, movies about Thomas Edison and things like that, that relate to curiosity. I'll have to give that some thought, but suddenly Wright of Derby came to my mind, and that's hard in a painting. That's hard to do in a painting. Let's see, right. Alan asks, is the universe a simulation, a quantum bubble? That's my head banging curiosity, ouch. Is it? Is this just a quantum bubble? Is it just a simulation? Who's simulation? Is it my simulation? Are you in my simulation? Or am I in your simulation? Or are we both in somebody else's? Anyway, no, it's not. It is what it is. I mean, I asked those kind of questions when I was 17. It seems as if, so fist questions. Does the universe really exist if I close my eyes? All right, let's see. Curiosity is how almost everything is invented. I mean, I should have said that earlier, right. People are curious about new things, about how to do it. How to do it better? How does this work? Discovering causes and effects. I mean, I just assumed curiosity for you guys, but curiosity for a scientist is bed and butter. That's what they do. That's what they do. All right. All right. Bradley says maybe 16 year olds lose curiosity about the world because they shift focus to peer status and the opposite sex hormones could be a powerful anti-reason agent. Is curious productivity a cure for fitting in and loneliness? Todd, thank you. Really appreciate that. You didn't even ask for the movies. For 50 bucks, I could have given you half the movies, but I guess there's no interest. All right, thanks Todd. I really appreciate the support. Todd also was very generous yesterday. Maybe 16 year olds lose curiosity about the world because of the hormones. I don't think so, and I didn't experience that. Now it's true. It just, I mean, part of the curiosity when the hormones hit is about that thing called girls, right? That weird creature called women that you have no clue about, that you have no understanding of, and yet you have this deep desire for. So your curiosity now is focused on partially in human relationships. But I didn't find that that dissolved my curiosity about other things. It didn't stop me from reading and being interested in other stuff. You ask, is curious productivity a cure for fitting in and loneliness? I don't think so, why? I don't think you produce in order to fit in. You produce because you need to. Because it is a human virtue. You understand, almost everybody understands at some level that life is conditional. It's conditioned on your choices. It's conditioned on you working, producing, being productive. You don't work to impress the girls. I don't think. You work because you know, deep down, that it's how you survive. And it gives you that satisfaction, that self-esteem that only work and provide. So, no, I don't think the hormones are anti-curiosity. They focus on interest maybe in a different direction and they focus on curiosity in a particular direction and they stimulate certain actions and certain interests. And I don't view productiveness as some kind of second-handed way of eliminating pain. It's a way of increasing your self-esteem. And it's a way of manifesting your life and your vigor and your interest in life. All right, let's see. Alan says, big question in business. I find it too many times. Business folk latch onto early tech. Keep investing in, they do latch on or they don't latch on. Keep investing in legacy tech and then miss or ignore the next tech revolution improvement. How can we change this in trans- in transigence to change? I mean, it's a real challenge. Because the extent to which new tech is going to be valuable, the extent to which legacy tech is now legacy is difficult to identify. And the switch is exposes real, involves real costs in time and labor. And I know a lot of companies that chased the latest, hottest tech and got crushed by the expenses and got crushed because once in a while, the latest, greatest, hottest tech was not the best tech, was not the tech that survived. So I think the way to deal with tech is difficult. I think it requires real focus and real thought. I think from the perspective of managers, it requires openness to new ideas. From the perspective of senior management, it requires engagement with younger people who are more attuned to the latest changes in technology, which is hard for older managers because they're giving up a certain level of control and they're acknowledging their lack of knowledge. But it primarily needs to be a focus, needs to be something that business focuses on and devotes resources to figuring out. And there's no easy solution to it because as I said, it's not like there's an easy answer. It's not like it's obvious. You really have to study the problems. You have to dedicate real energy, real time and real effort to figuring out the technological path and you have to accept that you will probably fail, that you'll probably get it wrong, probably get the timing wrong and you might not invest in the right technology. All right, by the way, $100 to get my list of favorite war movies would actually get us over the goal of 600 bucks. So you've got an opportunity to choose two things with one contribution. All right, Michael says, the common criticism of objectivists I hear is that we know it all. As though a mark of sophistication is not knowing too much and being too sure of ourselves, even if we have the right answers. Yeah, but there is a legitimate aspect to that criticism. I know too many objectivists who don't know it all but pretend to know it all or delude themselves into thinking they know it all. I know objectivists who think that because they've had INRAN and because they know philosophy or they know INRAN's philosophy. They know everything about economics and about politics and about genetic engineering and about physics and they have a theory about quantum mechanics and they have a theory about everything, that philosophical knowledge grants you knowledge in everything. I knew people like that, I've known people like that, I see a lot of young objectivists who believe that. I probably held that for a while. So yes, objectivists can be obnoxious know it alls. Obnoxious know it alls in the sense of pretending to or being rationalistic detached from reality in terms of their knowledge, yet presenting it as if they have the concrete knowledge, they know it all. Hey, Jeff, thank you, really appreciate that. I think you just got us over the $600 mark. That is fantastic, thank you. That's a hundred Canadian dollars, thanks, Jeff. So if you present yourself as knowing something, this is my point about CRT, then make sure you know it. Make sure you can explain it. Make sure you can concretize it. Very few objectivists could teach the things that they are convinced that they know. And yet, if you can't teach it, and if you can't write it in an essay, a coherent, logical, understandable sequence in an essay, you don't really know it. So I think way too many objectivists, way too many objectivists present themselves as know it alls in the negative sense. And I don't believe in humility. I believe in objectivity. Know what you know. Know what you don't know. That's hard. But know what you know and know what you don't know. So few objectivists live by that. Michael asks, if you could do it again, would you not had kids and just saved a ton of money? No, no. Having kids is amazing. I mean, I know I would not wanted to miss that experience for all the money in the world. You could have paid me, and I still would have had kids, right? So absolutely not. I would, you know, the pleasure, the fun, the enjoyment, the projection of the future, the day-to-day enjoyment and challenges that kids present is worth a fortune. Worth a fortune. Colin asks, I live in New York and have often thought of visiting Iron Man's grave. Have you ever been there and what's your thought visiting cemetery in general? I have never been there. I think I'd like to go sometime. It's a little bit out of the way, but it would require a special trip to do it, but I think that would be nice. I like being in cemeteries of people that I admire. I remember once stumbling into a cemetery in Florence, where Michelangelo is buried and Galileo is buried and Machiavelli is buried and just all these famous people, many of whom I greatly admire, some of whom I don't like Machiavelli, and it's really, it's an opportunity to contemplate, to think about them and to think about their genius and particularly in Florence, to walk into somewhere where you've got so many of them concentrated in one place, or in Milan to go to the cemetery, to the grave site of Verdi or Toscannini, and it's just an opportunity to remember their greatness and remember what they contributed to your life. You can't literally say thank you to them, but you can spend a moment thinking about them and thinking about what they meant to you. Arthur, thank you, $100 Canadian dollars, that's great. Now we're well over our target, which is what I love and you guys keep making it happen, which is terrific. Arthur writes, Mr. Rand was a fan of painter Salvador Dali. Are you familiar with surrealist painters Rob, Gonzalvez and Vladimir Kush? Or surrealist photographers, digitally manipulated image, Eric Johansen and Hussian Sahin? Best was to describe them in surrealism with a clever touch. So I don't know most of them, the only one I know is Vladimir Kush. The thing that I liked about Dali, that many surrealists don't have, but that he have, is the sharpness of his paintings, the clear outlines of his figures and of the images. The originality obviously of what's going on there, but much of what's going on there is philosophically rather annoying and negative, but what she loved about it is that sharpness, that clearness of vision, the beauty, the use of colors to enhance that sharpness rather than to blur. And I think very few painters have that and what's among the surrealists, because what she didn't like about Dali was the surrealism. What she liked about him was his technique, his color, his lighting, the clarity that he presented. And I don't think you get that with the other surrealists. I don't think you get that with Kush. I don't know the others. I don't know. And I don't know what I, in fact, thought of photographers who are surrealists. And I'm not sure what I think about them. I have to think about it to see some of their paintings. But yeah, Dali was unique. If you look back at the surrealist paintings, you can tell a Dali, you can immediately spot a Dali because of those qualities. So it wasn't that he liked, she liked surrealism. It's a she liked Dali. Let's see. Thessie. Well, no, before Thessie, we've got Jean. Should I buy an excellent picture OLED TV or a lower picture quality Samsung frame TV but it displays any digital work of art while the TV isn't being used? I guess I don't quite understand that why can't you do the same thing on a OLED TV? You could set up like Apple TV. You could set up a slideshow with works of art and you'd get them at a much higher resolution and it would be beautiful. I would go with OLED TV. The purpose of a TV is to show movies and TV series not to show you art. Art is a subsidiary function. If you're going to pay the same thing for those two, I would go with the TV, the real TV and get the full effect and the full visual impact and then buy some paintings and put them out on a wall. Buy posters. Posters are good enough. You don't have to have originals up on the wall. And as I said, you can use your LED TV to portray paintings by creating a slideshow in Apple TV or in Roku or any of these other mechanisms. Thessie asks, even though not a strict war movie, it's a war movie. How about ZeroDoc30, funny how after years she and the guys got the bastard? Yeah, I enjoyed ZeroDoc30. There's something about the style that I don't like. It's Karen Bigelow. Karen Bigelow has done a few good movies. ZeroDoc30 is one of them. There was the one about the guy who takes about minds in a war zone that was quite powerful and quite dramatic and exciting. I enjoyed that. It's not a five. It wouldn't be one of my top movies because stylistically, I think it's too naturalistic. It's not stylized enough. I like movies that are stylized. I like movies that don't attempt to be naturalistic and show you everything and give you the perfect image of what it is. So that my only issue with that one. All right. Micah says, learn to discipline your emotions because if you don't, your enemies will use them against you. Yeah, but more importantly, learn to integrate your emotions. Learn to make your emotions serve you by making sure that they are consistent with your values. They're consistent with your philosophy and then you don't have to make them subservient. You still need to control them but you don't have to make them subservient. Thank you. Kuda Baba says, the movie I was thinking of was Hurt Laka. Yes, Hurt Laka. Very powerful, very intense. Again, not a top ten movie but certainly a good movie. Three or four certainly. To me, three or four is a really good movie. A really enjoyable movie. A zero is a movie I hate and negative one is a movie I really hate. Some movies get negative ones. One is good but two is very good. Three is four or five are great. I don't know, something like that. So when I say something is a three or four, I really enjoy three and four ranked movies. All right, let's see. Bradley, how is second-handedness related to altruism? Keating wasn't altruistic but he gave up Cathy out of fear of not fitting in. I mean his whole life was driven by what others wanted and the relationship to that is that altruism conditions you to place the well-being, the opinion, the views of other people above your own. Altruism tells you not to be self-interested, to be self-less. Well, if you're self-less, how do you make decisions? Whose views do you take seriously? What do you consult? So altruism in a sense conditions you to be a second-hander because it tells you don't act on your judgment, who the hell are you? Marley, you're nothing. You can be sacrificed to anybody. So second-handedness is directly a consequence of altruism. All right. We are at, I don't know, Catherine says we're $277 to $1,000 and nobody, nobody yet has put up the money to get my top 11 war movies of all time. I'm waiting. All right. We don't have any $20 questions so we're going to do some of the lower denomination ones starting from the top, from the earliest questions asked. Michael asks, there are more intellectuals on the right than you give them credit for. No. I know exactly how much credit I give. No. The world is dominated by intellectuals on the left and most of the intellectuals on the right are heavily influenced by intellectuals on the left. And it's easy. Just look at the number of books published, how many of them are written by people on the left and how many people on the right. It's no contest. Look at university professors. 90% of them on the left, 10% of them on the right and the more influential ones on the left. Look at the think tanks. You can look at media. Look at newspapers. Look at magazines. I mean, yes, there are intellectuals on the right. Many of them really, really, really bad. I never said they weren't. But the world is dominated by intellectuals on the left. Think about the last 200 years. The people, the intellectuals, the dominant intellectuals have been feeding. Thomas Sowell is not influential. Thomas Sowell is a great intellectual. He's not influential. In the debate of a CRT and in the debate of, yeah, I mean, most intellectuals are anti-intellectuals. Fine, but they are intellectuals in the sense that on the right, they speak, they promote ideas to the public. That's what an intellectual does. Their ideas might be anti-conceptual, but Thomas Sowell is not a voice on racism today. No, yeah, they're like a handful of people who take his ideas seriously. But in the debate out there in the culture, the left dominates that debate. Yeah, but I'm not saying they're none. I mean, if you think about philosophers, who's a philosopher of the right over the last 200 years since the founding fathers? Who's a philosopher associated with markets? Spencer? Nobody cares or nobody thinks about him and he was pretty bad at that. So in terms of intellectuals that count, whether you like it or not, and this is not a dig against the right. It's just a factual historical reality. I think it's also a dig against the right. The dominant intellectuals, you know, what is the equivalent of the post-modernists? Yeah, I mean, there was Mises and Hayek and Friedman and those were giants. But for every one of those, there were like 30 of the left. And there is no Hayek Mises or Friedman today. And the better ones, yeah, Robert Nozick, yeah, that's the point, you can name them on one hand. So, what was the rest of the question? That's why people were going after you on the comment section on Marquardt. Fine, but it's a reality. If you want to pretend that the right is promoted over these intellectuals, then why have we lost? We, not we, why have they lost? Because I'm not of the right. Why have they lost? No, they've lost for two reasons. One, they don't have many intellectuals. And two, they're not very good. Not in terms of combating the left because conservatives are status quo. Conservatives are looking backwards. You're not going to win by looking backwards. All right. What is it that Silicon Valley likes about the left? They think those of us who can't code are hopeless idiots that need to be controlled. I can code. I don't know. I don't think it has to do with your ability to code or not ability to code. I think they resent the right for being religious. If you don't believe in evolution, why would I vote for you if I'm an engineer or a scientist? I think many of them are super smart and they do indeed think they bought into a philosopher-king idea that they can indeed manage your life better than you can because you're not as smart as them. I definitely think that's a part of it. I think that the right has failed to present a coherent, inspiring, exciting case for capitalism and freedom. At the end of the day, the left dominates educational establishments. All they've heard since they were in kindergarten was the left's agenda. They would have to be original thinkers and real giants to be able to escape that. I think, again, you give them too little credit. I think it's a real important and interesting question why people in Silicon Valley are so leftist. I wouldn't dismiss it as we can't code and they want to run our lives. I think that's a silly way to think about it and not a helpful way. Again, curiosity. You should be curious, legitimately curious. I am legitimately curious about why the left has so much appeal among smart people. Look, if you're interested in IQ studies, the left dominates IQ. The median IQ of people who vote Democratic is higher than the median IQ of people who vote Republican. They beat Republicans on education. They beat Republicans on IQ. They probably beat Republicans on curiosity. So it should really be an issue. Why? And this is the kind of stuff that you should be curious about and not just accept bromides as answers. You should think and try to think about it. I don't know that I have the answer completely, but, all right, how old? 20 bucks. Australians are not quite 20, but close. Steve Jobs took LSD, formulated an iPhone, Tim Cook sold $100 dongles, and small iPhone changes thoughts. I think tech is missing revolutionary innovators, but true tech companies have managers not innovators. I think to a large extent that's true. I think Apple has innovators, hi, Henrik, has innovators, thanks for the support, innovators at the company level. Tim Cook is not an innovator. Tim Cook is a manager. But part of Tim Cook's skill is to allow the innovators to innovate. And while we'll see if there's any major innovation under his watch, we'll see what happens with Apple Car, we'll see what happens with other things. But yeah, we're definitely missing Steve Jobs. We're definitely missing Steve Jobs. We're definitely missing people like Steve Jobs. And why was Steve Jobs? Why did Steve Jobs vote Democratic? I think he did if he voted at all. But he certainly wasn't a passionate Republican. Why? I mean, those are important questions. One of the smartest guy on the planet in the last 50 years, certainly one of the most productive, what was it? All right, Michael asks, I think we're right for charismatic dictator that will drive liberty into the ground in the majority of Americans who cannot think critically. Yep, I've been saying that for a while. I don't know if we're right yet, but we're certainly heading in that direction. Analytics Synthetic says, dichotomy says, do you think that Kant's bad sentence structure is intentional so as to make it more difficult to criticize his ideas or the result of his evasions? I don't know, probably. But you'd have to ask somebody who knows more about Kant and about the history of philosophy. It is suspicious that these crazy ideas are presented in such a convoluted way. Is some of his other writings clearer? I mean, somebody would have to study that. Michael asked, it's interesting that people will rally behind socialism from the right but not the left. Why is that? Because the GOP socialism doesn't come with explicit nihilism? No, because GOP socialism is the very consequence of their altruism and they're not willing to give the altruism up their altruism because they're not willing to give up their religion. So, you know, that's the direction. So, I don't think, I think some in the GOP are nihilists. They're not, and therefore they are. Yeah, so I don't think the difference is just nihilism. I think there's more similarities than differences. I think the similarities have to do with altruism and to some extent, nihilism. I think there's nihilism on both sides. Is there a good history of the 19th century capitalism? What were the sources from which Rand learned the capitalism success in this period? Well, first she witnessed them. She knew enough about history to know the successes, to know what life was like before and to know what life now, even if she didn't know all the details about what it was in between. Then there's a lot of people who wrote about these things. I don't know about books but articles. I think in those days, even history books about American history included the great advancements that, and histories of England, great advancements. I think these things were taken out in more modern history books about the period. And then there were writers. There are historians that write this. But if you look at capitalism, not an ideal, if you look at the more historical essays, look at her sources because she documents her sources and you can find it there. But I don't have a list, unfortunately, of those books accessible to me. I have a bookshelf of all kinds of books related to the topic. But what is missing, here's a challenge to a budding objectivist historian. We do need a history of capitalism, a history of the industrial evolution from a capitalist perspective. What actually happened during this period? How did it evolve? What is the sequence of events? I think it would be unbelievably valuable to get a more deeper understanding of what actually happened during the 19th century in America and in England. And even the little bit of a foothold that capitalism had in Germany, to what extent in Germany was the economic freedom, to what extent it was in France, to what extent it was in Russia, to what extent it was in Amsterdam. So a real history of capitalism. Andrew Bernstein's Capitalism Manifesto has some of that. But we need historians to do this work. There's a lot of work to be done. This is not easy, not simple, and it's detailed. And then that'll make our defenses of capitalism much richer. Yeah, Mises has the stuff. There's a lot of stuff, but I'm looking for an historian who can actually do this, an economic historian. Yeah, I don't think it's what Brad Thompson's interested in, so I wouldn't hold my breath about that. Michael says, please only wear long-sleeved fancy shirts for interviews professionalism in front of new audiences. Crucial, keep up the great work. Probably not happening, not if my interview is in Puerto Rico. I was lucky that I didn't wear shorts that day. The guy who interviewed me wore shorts. So, no, I mean, I'm too old to pretend that I'm, you know, to exclude the externalities of professionalism. I don't wear ties anymore, and I don't wear long-sleeved shirts in Puerto Rico. Yeah, Mark, I do mind this question. Particularly, I mind this question is the last question that we have. Mark asks, what are your thoughts on David Kelly's positing that benevolence is a major virtue? Look, it's not my major problem with David Kelly. My problems with David Kelly is not the particulars, but the principle involved. But I don't think benevolence is a major virtue. What does benevolence as a major virtue mean? Remember that all the virtues in objectivism, all the major virtues in objectivism, are integrated around a theme. They are all aspects of reason and rationality, of the virtue rationality. What benevolence has to do with dealing with other people, a perspective on other people, our attitude towards other people? There's already a virtue that deals with that. And that is the virtue of justice. I mean, most people don't even know what the benevolent universe premise means. What does that mean? What does it mean a benevolent universe? I know things are going to be great. So with regard to other people, you've got the virtue of justice. With regard to understanding reality and understanding the world around you and the universe, if you will, you've got other virtues that deal directly with that. Benevolence is, I don't see it as a virtue. It's not something you act on. It's not an aspect of rationality. It's an aspect of your understanding of reality. So I think Jose is right. It belongs in the metaethics. In a sense that it is a bridge between epistemology and ethics. Now, I'm way above my pay grade here. I'm not a philosopher. But it's a bridge between epistemology and ethics. It says something about understanding of the world and the nature of reality and the nature of man striving for values in reality. It's a recognition that because of the way I ran, because morality is derived from nature, from the is, that the art that is morality is derived that the is that is nature, that the moral is the practical and the practical is the moral, that things work out. Why? Because of the efficacy of reason. So it is like a meta point about reason, about reason as man's basic means of survival, about the fact that ethics is derived from reality, the application of reason to reality. So that's my thinking about that. My main problem about this issue with David Kelly is not that point. It's that he presents that point as objectivism. And it's clearly not objectivism because I ran didn't have it there. It might be true, but it's not objectivism. As I've said many times, objectivism does not equal truth. I don't think benevolence is an effect of rationality. I think benevolence is the recognition of the efficaciousness of rationality. So it's an effect of the recognition of the efficaciousness of rationality. It's not a moral virtue in and of itself. It's not something you strive to do. You don't strive to have a benevolent view of the universe. You have a benevolent universe because you realize, oh, this works. Reason works. Again, I'm not a philosopher, so we'll have to ask Ankar or Greg what they think about that. But that's my best effort. I'll let you judge how good it is. All right, thanks everybody. Don't forget to give a thumbs up. We almost went two hours today. Don't forget to give a thumbs up to the show. If you liked the show, we had two people didn't like the show. Who knows what I said to piss them off. One of them didn't like the show before the show even began. Don't forget to give it a thumbs up. Don't forget to become a monthly supporter. If you're not, you can become a monthly supporter by going to uranbrookshow.com. Or by going to by going to locals or Patreon or Subscribestar and putting on your own book show. Thank you for the amazing support I got over the super chat. 750 bucks. That is very impressive. Thank you guys. And I guess I will see you all. I'm not sure exactly. Definitely there will be a show on Tuesday. Then the question is, is there going to be a show on Monday and Tuesday? Or a show on Tuesday and Wednesday? Or is there only going to be a show on Wednesday? It will be, most likely, at 7 p.m. East Coast time. But it could be 8 p.m. East Coast time. We will see. And then on Thursday I fly to Denver. And I'm giving a talk at Friday at Denver. Then from Denver I'm flying to... Oh Frank, thank you. Wow, that's very generous. We're now at 800 bucks. That's amazing. From Denver I fly to Guatemala. And I will spend next week in Guatemala. If my hotel in Guatemala has decent internet, I will try to do shows from Guatemala. I certainly will have the time to do the shows. So I will try to do shows from Guatemala. But that is only if the internet connection is decent and reasonable. So I will let you know. And then for Guatemala I go to Connecticut. And then I'll be finally home a week after that. So there are not going to be a lot of shows in the next week and a half. Unless I can do some shows from Guatemala. I will try. I promise.