 The radical fundamental principles of freedom rational self-interest and Individual rights This is the Iran Brook show All right, everybody. Welcome to your own book show on this Thursday night second show today. Hope everybody's doing well and Having a great week and getting ready for a weekend getting ready for the world cup filled week filled weekend Lots of quarter-final matches. It's gonna be it's gonna be a lot of fun a lot of fun to watch Today we're gonna talk We'll see how this evolves. This is gonna be me riffing about More recent American history and kind of the events that have shaped the state of the world as we see it today We're gonna try to connect a little bit of military history some financial history And very much a global perspective. So geopolitical perspective the relationship between countries and You know, that's gonna be that's gonna be the focus today. We'll see how it evolves. It's still me thinking aloud I'm particularly interested in this period partially because I was alive during it And it seems like a lot of stuff happened that you kind of get perspective on not so much when you're there When you're actually living it but when you get perspective on it it years later So hopefully I have some perspective on it, but it's still something that I think Needs to be continuously thought of how did we get to where we got today? What are the key kind of events that have shaped the world over the last 40 years so I'm open to comments suggestions critiques But it should be hopefully this will be interesting and And fun if anybody has an idea for sexy title for this topic, that'll be great America's geopolitical decline is kind of boring recent history of how we got here boring But I I didn't have anything better. So maybe after the show if somebody has a good Sexy title they want to propose that we can replace that with maybe we'll get Some additional views. I see Adam is here and he's a little pissed off at me He says he woke up at 7 30 to listen to my 8 a.m. Show this morning And when he got put it on at 8 a.m. The show was over And he says it's not YouTube since November just unpredictable time. No, it's YouTube Adam. I first I apologize Life is unpredictable and things happen and I had to change I had to change the schedule this morning and And And I also get confused by the time zones I have to admit I think I said I would have it on at 11 o'clock Eastern, but I always intended it to be at 10 o'clock Eastern but because Puerto Rico now is now ahead of of East Coast it You know my excuses You know I get confused with time zones. That's pretty pretty pretty lame excuse, but There you are let's see So yes, the morning shows will be unpredictable and they'll be unpredictable because my schedule is unpredictable and because things happen in the morning that I cannot predict and We'll just have you'll just have to go with it That has nothing to do with with what's happening in November I don't think that has anything to do the show this morning was Got a lot of views at least live it the problem is not live shows the problem is That the shows are not being viewed as much after I post them that is after their life and And and more than viewership. It's not even the viewership. That's as much of an issue the real issue is subscriptions and I looked at the history of subscriptions So if anybody's got any insight into what's going on YouTube I'm eager to hear but it looks like there's definitely a trend it started earlier this year, but it accelerated in November where Unsubscribes a pretty flat, you know, so people leaving About a third of all people subscribe leave after some period of time. So that that's pretty steady That happens constantly the number of people leaving is flat But the number people joining Is is down dramatically and it's it's edging down all year and it's now The lowest that's ever been since the beginning of the show since 2017 and that doesn't make any sense So we have more viewers But a lot fewer subscribers the only explanation for that is the less new people watching the shows There's net less exposure to new people. So there's definitely something in the algorithm Something in the way The shows are being positioned. I think less so in terms of live but more so in terms of what happens after It could be the new way in which shows are being categorized where live shows are now in a different place than the rest of your videos and So live shows are segregated so this whole This whole This whole issue Something is going on and I'm curious what it is and I'm open to suggestions Maybe I'm gonna have to split up my YouTube channel and create a separate sub channel what they call sub channels now for the shorter videos and have The live videos I either longer videos all in one place. I don't know but something has to give So if anybody has ideas if there any YouTube experts out there if anybody who works for YouTube would like to contact me and let me know What the hell is going on? That would be great It's it's Very discouraging suddenly to see those number plummet and I don't think it's content that the period the period of time where I got the most unsubscribes was the period around the 2020 election Since then non subscriptions have been pretty consistent And you know predictable in terms of what happens when I got a bunch of us subscribes over the last few days But then I was worried about that but the problem is not the number of unsubscribes. They're pretty constant It's that I'm not getting any new subscriptions So I'm getting negative net subscriptions Because I'm getting unsubscribes which I always get and then nobody adding Anyway, that is that is the issue and You'll hear me vet my first vent my frustrations once in a while Just because it's on top of mind and it's affecting what I do. Okay second issue that has just Thrown me for a loop is that for the first time my super check tracker is not working And and that's just a you know, I've become If I ever I didn't have it right but now I've become completely Depended on it my life like how do I do a show without my super chat tracker? So I've sent an email emergency email to the developer of it. Hopefully by tomorrow he'll have a fix for me, but It's weird It's it's linking up to the show from this morning and it doesn't recognize the new show And it's it's just not working. So um, that is Frustrating and it's frustrating to a large extent because that means I have to go. Oh, wait a minute. It's working. Ah, stop everything Wait, wait, wait, let me just do a few things. Yeah, the the only question that's not on there Is john's $50 question, which he was worried would not appear But uh, I luckily I copied a paste that could I expected this trouble But yes super chat tracker Life is good again. Everything is fine. Don't worry about it. Super chat track is working. All right. So, uh, super chat track is working It's missing 50 bucks. So anything I post at 50 bucks. That's that's what's actually Um in terms of the super chat happening, uh, but uh, cool So relieved so happy Um, all right, let's see Uh, I see we got one of our one of our trolls on here Uh, who wants to harass me and you so I'm just gonna try to ignore it. All right Um, we're gonna do history today. This will be fun. Hopefully if you like history Hopefully something uh interesting that you don't know. I've noticed that when I do history shows a lot of you get Uh, a lot of people like them They don't get watched as much as they should I think but a lot of people at least on the live show like them um So let's talk about um kind of I think the the the last 50 years are Super interesting To a large extent because I've lived the last two 50 years. I kind of remember stuff This happened over the last 50 years But also because I think we've gone through a number of Ups and downs in terms of america its place in the world And uh, kind of the geopolitical the geopolitical state Of the world and and really I want to start today With a discussion and and one of the motivations for doing this I guess one of my big motivations for doing this really is that The left has completely captured The narrative the storytelling The history Of the last 50 years that is almost everything I read about what happened over the last 50 years is told From the perspective of the left now. It's not that the perspective the weight is better It's just they don't have a perspective. They they they don't write much history. They don't they don't involve themselves much in it So, you know, so it's it's uh, it just is uh Is the history books the history narrative the economic narrative The front policy narrative of the last 50 years have been dominated by By the left and and maybe the the narrative pre that has also been dominated but again We live in the present and I'm familiar with the more recent past more than I am of the more distant past And I can tell you that the story The economic story and the geopolitical story of the last 50 years is told primarily from the perspective Of the left and I want to tell an alternative story. I want to tell a story Uh, that is not uh anti-american. I want to tell a story and a story connected to facts. A story here is not Fantasy I want to tell I want to tell the story that is from the perspective. That's not anti-american From perspective. That's not Keynesian or even marxist an economic perspective A perspective that is not approach everything from an anti individual rights, why did everything go dark in here? All right So power is out That's weird. All right. What's weird is we've got a power outage But the internet's still running the video is still running Now the power is back up All of that was still running. Um, and I think that was all running because I've got all of this Connection here hooked up to a battery So I think I can run this without electricity for a few minutes Maybe even half an hour, but the lights are connected to the battery. It's all connected to the battery and the battery The battery held us up helped kept us going How cool is that? All right modern technology So even though all the electricity went down in the house the generator for some reason didn't instantaneously kick in Uh, my usp Beaped and my usp kicked in and worked. I mean Technology is stunning. It's amazing thumbs up to the greatness of uh technology Um, all right, uh, where were we? Uh, yes, I'm gonna we're gonna talk about his history We're gonna take a a different narrative a different Different explanation of what happened I'm sick and tired of the same story About how capitalism, uh, you know, how bad capitalism is and how uh, how uh, you know, life was amazing during the 1970s and then Ronald Reagan destroyed it and um, and then, uh We had a capitalist free market all the way until, um until the the the uh, What was it? the great financial crisis that was caused by capitalism and then Obama saved the world and and the only reason the economy didn't grow fast under obama was because The uh, the the evil republicans didn't allow for bigger stimulus and on and on and you can do the same thing for font policy of how awful america was and and uh, we we basically We basically, uh Forced the those uh islamist to fly the airplanes into our buildings And again, you could go on and on with that narrative side. I don't want to talk about the negatives I want to talk about this the positives So I want to talk about the way I see The history of the last 50 years evolving In a few dimensions Um, you know, this might take more than one show to really get through But I want to I want to at least start on on a project that does this because I think I think it's super interesting And I keep learning new things as I Investigate further and I'm reading a number of books now that have just got me really thinking about this some of them having to do with um The big financial changes that happened in the early 1970s and the consequences all the way to today Others have to do with the changes with regard to To war and with the changes with regard to the perspective of the united states And then other changes have to do with the rise of china Which I think are all crucial and everything really starts in the 1970s In 1970s you get um, these big I think tectonic shifts um From a global perspective from a political perspective starting with The going off the gold standard in in 1971 and floating the u.s. currency Between 1971 and 1973 basically floating The u.s. currency and un unhinging it to any thing else and uh that ultimately resulting in uh dramatic rises in inflation And uh in ultimately in stagflation And in a in a dramatic um in in a dramatic um I should do an american history course. Why what did I say now? God I I should deliver an american history course. No, I I couldn't do that. I'm not historian But anyway, we went off the gold standard and uh what you got was a uh a massive Um depreciation in uh the dollar a massive decline in the dollar's purchasing power The dollar became A currency that was completely at the behest its value is ultimately the behest Of the federal reserve of centrally of central planners Who sat around dictating basically the value of the dollar the value of the dollar In terms of purchasing power in terms of what it could purchase and the value of the dollar vis-a-vis other currencies was ultimately determined By a group of central planners that that changed the world That had massive implications for other countries that had massive implications for the finances of other countries and ultimately In spite of the fact that the u.s. Dollar became unhinged from gold It surprisingly to some extent Stayed the international currency. It stayed the currency of choice of pretty much Every significant country in the world. So the world today is on a dollar standard dollar is The global currency that we have today everything is denominated in dollars Everything ultimately is exchangeable into dollars Everything is pegged to the dollar the dollar is uh today our global currency that that started way back in in in history as we You know with with the establishment of bretton woods and and um in in the 19 in the 1940s But ultimately led to a ultimately led to a world in which It was in the united states had only one currency That was the dollar and slowly over time that dollar became to dominate has come to dominate Our entire world has come to dominate the entire world has come to dominate transactions financial markets trade Everything is basically denominated today In dollars and dollars that are ultimately controlled by Um by the u.s. Federal reserve and and its policies ultimately controlled by the u.s by the u.s. Federal reserve So a big big move big economic Shift happened in 1971 when we went off the gold standard and basically floated the dollar and made the dollar Again just whatever whatever the people at the fed Decided that it would be so 70s were dominated by decline If the 1960s america was still positive there was still You know the there was still this idea that we'd won world war two that we we were a strong country We were landing a man on the moon Technology was advancing the economy was growing Uh, we felt so confident that uh, you know, we started spending like crazy On on establishing a welfare state and creating a welfare state The 1960s was a time of you know the the the woodstock generation the hippie generation It was a time of a certain You know Feelings I think there's a lot of feelings of invincibility of success a progress of achievement a time of great optimism The economy was only going to grow Their understanding of economics was so weak as they thought they could get away with spending money like crazy and the economy would only grow Uh, the u.s. Was still pegged to the gold and the whole world looked to us as the standard We still could win the war in vietnam by the early 1970s doom and gloom was setting upon america And in the 1970s were a decade of doom and gloom darkness Uh crimes started spiking inflation spiked We had stagflation so we had recession and inflation we had Very high unemployment Every aspect of american life Seemed horrible new york city the greatest city in the world the financial center the global financial center basically When bankrupt Had to be bailed out And it's not just true of the united states Uh, the west generally was in decline economically The uk england was a horrible place dark The socialists had run it into the ground. They had destroyed the wealth that had been created over generations There was england looked like it was a country the uk looked like it was a country that was going bankrupt China was in the midst of a cultural revolution Or just coming out of a cultural revolution It was still struggling to figure out what was next It had just survived the deaths of tens of millions of people. It was still under the boots about situng and communism Most eastern asian countries Were still poor Were mostly authoritarian The world generally was dominated by authoritarian regimes the soviet union was deemed to be a powerhouse Largest nuclear arsenal in the world a military that people believed was the second most significant in the world and given The american humiliation of vietnam may be the most powerful military in the world In a sense the soviet union was ascending and the united states was descending in the west with it too That was kind of the story of the 1970s A story of descent A story of failure a story of darkness a story of crime On the trade on the trade front the 1970s were a period in which the united states was losing At every every front. I mean the united states had You know it was losing to japan In in technology losing to You know losing to the germans on much of its manufacturing the united states couldn't compete It didn't you know americans had invented the vcrs and yet no vcrs were made in america america used to Make all the televisions in the world the most of the televisions in the world a dominant number of of of the televisions in the world and then Suddenly they weren't making no televisions And the japanese Primarily the japanese and the europeans were dominating The 1970 seemed like an era that was the end of american economic dominance Government was growing Government had into government had had grown dramatically during the 1970s in the mid Sorry during the 1960s in the mid 1970s inflation government intervention You know in the fort administration They had this button say Beat inflation now as if a button was gonna beat inflation. I mean it was pathetic And america was in a pathetic state So you could view as the 1960s as this period of out there optimism Rot underneath but the rot had been there for a long time the 1970s has declined But what's interesting about the 1970s Is as america's in decline Underneath it There's some really positive trends happening There's some really changing attitudes among americans There's some bad things happening the rise of evangelicals and the rise of evangelicals and they enter into politics But at the same time there's a change in attitude towards capitalism I think due to iran's work due to milton freedman Mises hayek There's a change in people's attitude towards economics By the late 1970s People believe that canaanism is dead That well maybe not dead but canaanism Is failed During the 1970s an appreciation for capitalism develops an appreciation for market develops a free market movement Starts developing during the 1970s there is growing frustration With the economic state and the social state of america and there's the beginnings of oppositions to it So the 1960s sees the rot of the new left In spite of the seeming success and the seeming prosperity And the result of that rot leads to a horrible 1970s and of course the mistakes made economically in the 60s But the 70s sees this underlying change And then during this underlying change While things are awful and horrible You start seeing the first signs of reversing Some of the evils So you start seeing a little bit of deregulation even though there's massive regulation under nixon Massive regulation most of the alphabet a lot of the alphabet agencies that exist today including the epa Were created under nixon And you see the excess of the 60s medicare and medicaid And and the welfare state the war on poverty the war on drugs nixon The one drugs is nixon You see all of that from the early 70s and late 1960s and yet moving into the mid 70s into Jerry Ford and then uh jimmy kata you're starting to see deregulation You're starting to see government getting out of the way Due regulating broker commissions due regulating trucking due regulating airlines due regulating Other industries more and more and more and you're starting to see this trend towards deregulation It doesn't yet appear in economic numbers the economic numbers are still doom and gloom and darkness and horror But you're starting to see that trend just like you see that you saw the trend of government spending didn't appear as inflation until Five six years later in the 60s and then it appeared in the 70s The same thing happened in the 70s With positive news and of course the 80s flipped that so in the 80s Again, you get a period of incredible optimism morning in america ronald reagan cornered and really the 80s and 90s a period of american ascent not just american ascent domestically economically Which it was you see the inflation being crushed you see economic growth returning strongly you see employment returning strongly You see american businesses completely being restructured you see massive takeovers and And sales and closures and reallocation of capital and a complete reshuffling of the american economic deck All to create more productivity for the sake of Increasing shareholder wealth for the sake of shareholder Shelter worth maximization you see a massive change in the american economy during the 1980s Which are all basically positive and at the same time you see a significant investment in the american military You see a dramatic improvement in the american military one of the underrated things that happens in the late late 1970s But it starts in the 70s and early 1980s is a recognition within um senior people at the pentagon Of the importance of technology the importance of semiconductors the importance of integrating technology into weapon systems And you see a real shift happening in the 1970s in the american military In changing the way money is spent in emphasizing technology DARPA investing heavily in future technologies and Applying existing technologies primarily to missiles so We went from Vietnam where pilots couldn't hit anything Really couldn't hit anything No No laser guidance. No smart bombs. No cameras on bombs. No pre-programmed routes. No gps And even at the end of vietnam they were already applying a little bit technology A little bit of of of putting a computer in a bomb And the hit rate exploded But that was just the beginning now they were taking and they were shrinking those chips and making these computers smaller and smaller Now they could put them into these weapon systems And create a whole new generation of weapons and of course nobody else could do that in the world Nobody had the chips nobody had the technology Nobody had the expertise and how to Take technology and use it for weapon system use it in war Which you saw in the 1980s Was dramatic investment in the u.s. military a lot of that went into smart technologically advanced Military equipment The economy rebounded A military in a sense rebounded The soviet union clearly was in decline in the 1980s whereas in the 1970s The cia was writing reports about the soviet union was growing faster than the u.s So much for the cia's knowledge By the 1980s it was clear that the soviet union was in decline patroska And the the the starting of the opening up of the soviet union was clearly its death and really The 1990s are the Apex the the peak really american Dominance in the world american success in the world america's America's the richest country in the world America's technology is driving whatever progress is happening in the world American military is unmatched we'll get to that in a minute in the world the soviet union Not only is bilin wall fell the soviet union has collapsed completely russia is poor Devastated on the ropes china is not yet a factor We'll get to that The 90s are the period in which the united states is the only dominant world power It seems invincible economically and militarily now we'll get To why that isn't the case and what the floor is behind all of that in a little bit I'm going to go back a second to the 70s And and and uh and bring in one other element, which is china Because while matzatung is still alive. He dies in 1976 And just at the time when the united states are starting to deregulate In the mid to late 1970s china is shifting policy subtly Slowly without getting much attention from the world except some forward-looking businessman who then later on go on to make a fortune in china but china shifting done Deng cha pang comes to dominate chinese politics in 1978 starts opening up china to foreign investment Starts opening up china internally to entrepreneurship to making money making money is good Celebrating millionaires China is clearly on the scent dramatic ascent in the 1980s It's still not a dominant player. It's still not not a dominant actor Not militarily it has an aging old Backward military soviet style military It it's not a player in the world yet gentlemen square Pulse china backwards in terms of its international engagement people You know withdraw from it It cannot sustain itself without Global support without your support. It's not an important player yet in the world I want to talk about one event in 1991 that I've never thought of really until recently As as a major event, but it turns out that in terms of global influence It was a major event and that is the first Gulf War The first Gulf War basically was a war Where America was living up to its its promise to the Saudis To protect the Saudi war family and to basically protect the states of the Gulf In exchange for oil. So there's a long-standing deal going back to Truman Really FDR and then Truman But then I think renewed by most american presidents since then Basically saying look Saudis. We will protect you We will supply you with weapons, but not just that we put boots on the ground to protect you But you in exchange will guarantee the supply of oil. Now the Saudis reneged on that in 1970s We didn't do anything about it. We let them renege on it Of course when they nationalized oil, we didn't do anything about it when they were negged on They promised and embargoed oil to the west. We didn't do anything about it But we continued this deal And in 1991 Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait Took Kuwait in a matter of hours He now controlled. I think it was 25 of all the oil in the world And he posed a threat to Saudi Arabia. He had troops now on the border with Saudi Arabia And and and it expressed his his uh, uh, you know unhappiness with the Saudi regime and with open more broadly And was rattling sabers And was pretending he was going to be the dominant man in the middle east and the united states If you remember George Bush senior assembled A coalition and put troops on the ground, but the coalition was just a a facade. It was for for moral cover The military on the ground was an american military And and if you remember the 91 war Well, some of you are too young to remember the 91 war turns out to be um Quite a significant and important war Uh from a military history perspective It was obvious that american would win. America had You know a massive force raid against iraq, but iraq at the time had the fourth largest army in the world It was it had a lot of tanks. They have a lot of army They had just fought a war with iran. So they had uh combat combat knowledge. I remember at the time Making a very accurate prediction about the war, but nobody believed me. Uh, just like they didn't believe me about Ukraine I I said military american military Versus soviet tanks and soviet equipment No contest the us would wipe them out and they'll wipe them out like that But it turns out that the world Didn't think that's what would happen. They thought this would be a brutal fight They thought this would take a long time indeed american press american military experts at the time Thought this was this is going to take forever and then put aside whether we should go to war or not The war happened we're evaluating the history not the not that the not not whether it was a right war or not But what are the consequences of it? I mean there was real fear that this would drag on forever that the iraqis were a real powerful force that they would put up a fight That america could succumb that america could be destroyed Not america could be destroyed, but america forces could take real casualties massive casualties I mean there was real fear about all this I was at the time a graduate student at the university of texas nobody listened to me, but I said This will be a short war and america is not going to suffer many casualties It was indeed a very short war And america suffered very few casualties. I think most of american casualties in the first gulf war were consequence of friendly fire errors iraqis killed very few americans But what shocked the world What surprised the world it shouldn't have But it did Was america's use of precision weapons america's use of technology it turned out that america was generation ahead Of the soviet weapons that the iraqis were using actually two generations ahead The iraqi weapon systems had no chance against america They had no chance against precision bombing Into bag dead against precision bombing that could take out tanks from the air They could take out tanks with anti tank missiles held on the ground on the ground These were far more advanced missiles far more advanced weapons that anybody had seen that anybody had imagined They could thread bombs through windows Now I knew they could do that because we were doing that in israel in 1982 in lebanon But I guess nobody extrapolated If israel could do it well the americans could do it on steroids And this is 10 almost 10 years later the weapons were even more sophisticated So ze racer says and they go for 147 total american kia 35 of them friendly fire So not a majority but a significant number of them 20 percent friendly fire, right That's a that's nothing 147 in a major war the first largest army in the world And most of it was american planes just Just shooting shooting caravans of retreating iraqis destroying their tanks one after the other destroying Their facilities destroying whatever america wanted to destroy they could destroy whatever they wanted to do in this war They could have done cruise missiles nobody had seen cruise missiles in action before This is the first war in which cruise missiles were used and it blew The russians and the chinese out of the water. I mean it it shocked them They suddenly realized that they were third rate powers There was only one power in the world There was only one real global power in the world nobody came close It's interesting that as a consequence of this The russians Try to integrate technology but to a large extent double down on the old soviet style weapons systems and and strategies The chinese on the other hand Completely scrapped everything and started from scratch That's why the chinese military today is so much more advanced than the russians because they took technology seriously And they adopted started adopting technology directly into weapon systems starting in 1991 And as a consequence of today are much more formidable military force than the russians Much scarier than the russians so 1991 saw Not only the collapse You know during that period the collapse of the soviet union complete Collapse of the soviet union the wall had already fallen It showed american military conflict as By far The most powerful nation in the world The 1990s was also a period of exploding innovation Exploding new technologies All dominated all dominated by americans america saw its Stock markets go up its economy boom Under bill clinton the economy did fantastically well unemployment well down Inflation stayed low Interest rates came down asset prices went up We got A whole new world with the internet internet is created by al goh Thank you again. I'll go if I haven't said enough. Thank yous And The world was an american world Everything was going america's way and again we as an object of us Living through the 1990s I have to say that that was not my perception at the time america At the time for me was there was a fading country. I could see all the negatives And I think we missed all the positives and the positive or consequence of things that happened At a granted superficial level but superficial makes a difference a little bit of freedom goes a long way The deregulation of the 70s and 80s made a huge difference the restructuring of american businesses in the 80s by michael milkin and and and call icon and The rest of wall street made a massive difference The allocation of huge quantities of capital into silicon valley The the the creation of a venture capital industry in the 1970s and 80s the creation of a high tech industry in the 70s and 80s The creation of apple and and IBM computers and microsoft They changed the world and that was the 80s and 90s and the world was in ascent and america was in ascent China was in ascent but way lagging way behind And and this was a period Uh that could have become A revolutionary period could have become The change the world period, but it had one fundamental basic underlying flaw and that is No philosophy No ideology driving this this was all a consequence of You know a mixed economy Shifting a little bit towards more freedom Not ideologically Committed to more freedom, but just a small shift towards more freedom And that building confidence that that works not because it's good not because it's virtuous not because it's beautiful But it because it works So the left moved to the right The right became more free market You saw that with tony blair in the uk you saw that with bill clinton in the us They gave up on their big socialist plans bill clinton On day one gave up basically on his other than hillary care But once hillary camp loaded that was it he became basically A right of center president who basically did much of what newt gingrich and the house republicans told him to do Because it worked And because america was writing high and because everything america seemed to be doing was working Japan oh one other aspect of this of course is that in 1991 Japan Witnessed this massive stock market crash Real estate crash I mean there was a period in which I think Like what was it the the the land of the imperial palace in tokyo Was worth more than Manhattan or something like that Real estate prices plummeted in tokyo Japanese company stock plummeted While japan continued to sell the united states cause and other things It was no longer this in place to envy it it entered this long long that still continues state of stagnation All happening in those late 1980s early 1990s One economic rival japan goes away Europe There's no there's no you are yet, but europe is not a real force Soviet union is gone china is still not still not a significant force all the rest is the united states and yet There's no philosophy There's no ideology There's just kind of a vague sense of meandering and stumbling from here to there politically and intellectually And not making any too big of a mistakes until We make them because since then oh Philosophy since there's no ideology since then oh intellectuals there You know using this great opportunity Remember when the soviet union collapsed fuki yama wrote that famous Essay about the end of history Liberal democracy the mixed economy had won It was the end of history that nothing else was going to happen because We'd won liberal democracy had won But was the liberal democracy a mixed economy an unideological pragmatic blood nothing neither here nor there A mixture of socialism and some freedom This was going to dominate the world this had won and what had lost Well, it's so the communists and the fascists had all lost And there was a sense That they had lost but it wasn't clear who would want What it wasn't clear which ideas had won And this is the problem with the mixed economy is the economy Is going to do better than communism it's going to do better than fascism And it makes you feel great it makes you feel invincible But it's not good And it's not sustainable And of course the event that brought america Down to earth from the euphoria In a sense or its status In the 1990s the status is easier to see After the fact and during the event that brought it all down was 9 11 And of course 9 11 was completely avoidable 9 11 was a consequence of years and years of appeasing islamists Of avoiding offend of avoiding offending them Of not taking their threats and attack seriously And 9 11 showed america To have the greatest weapon systems in the world To have the strongest and richest economy in the world To be the only superpower in the world And yet and yet To be impotent in a in the front in the face of a bunch of cave dwelling terrorists Who hated civilization hated the west hated everything america stood for and yet america could not defend itself Not intellectually nor morally and ultimately not militarily In 2001 is the end of that decade of American invincibility It's the beginning of an afghan afghan war that we have to say we lost 2003 is the beginning of an iraq war that you have to say We didn't win We we ultimately lost Middle east is no safer today than before In spite of all the weapon systems In spite of all the strength in spite of all the riches in spite of all the wealth We couldn't stand up to a bunch of terrorists. We couldn't stop them. Then we couldn't kill them. It took decade to get bin laden and the taliban Right back to where they are today back today to where they were back then nothing changed Gave up trillions of dollars the lives of thousands of young men And nothing nothing changed so The 2000s Are the really the unraveling of america They start with 9 11 They end with the great financial crisis So if 9 11 And the response to 9 11 show american weakness moral weakness america cowardice american inability to deal with a with a threat Geopolitically uh militarily But must but importantly morally The great financial crisis shows america to be a paper tiger when it comes to economics It shows that You know from my perspective we didn't go far enough in all the deregulations and all the lack of in in freeing up the economy But the way the world interpreted it the way the world interpreted it and still interprets it Is the great financial crisis Was the result Of too much deregulation was the result of too much capitalism was the result Of american capitalism and therefore it was the failure of american capitalism So if america military prowess Was in decline during the 19 During the 2000s american economics started declining In 2008 the perception of america as a giant economically starts To fade starting in 2008 And we still haven't recovered from either one of those We're still suffering from The last wars in afghanistan and iraq Our inability To stand firm We're still even more so still suffering from the fact that we blame the financial crisis On capitalism on freedom on liberty And if only increased restrictions in economy increased government intervention increased government involvement So what you get is 60s rise for the 50s and 60s rise Decline sharp decline in the 70s rise in the 80s and 90s Decline in the 2020s And You know, that's a cycle being so far. It's a cycle of a mixed economy. It's a cycle of bouncing around From more freedom to less freedom to more freedom to less freedom I fear though that there's no energy today On their more freedom side And part of the reason for that is Almost all of the interpretations of the history All the almost all the stories of our history suggests that it was We we did phenomenally well when we had less freedom And we do badly When we have more freedom that is the interpretations of reversed They tell us for example that we peaked The left tells us that we peaked in terms of influence in terms of strength in terms of economic ability in the 1970s Which I think was one of our was where we were at the bottom And the 80s and 90s were what undermined us And the 2000s were just the consequence of the undermining that happened in the 80s and 90s And that You know We are doomed as long as we deregulate Libery economy as long as we A strong militarily they don't want us to be strong military We can't be strong military. Look what it gave us it gave us wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and we lost so, um that's kind of My little my story. I mean there's a lot more that can be said on any one of those periods There's a lot more that can be said of financial crisis. I've said a lot of it, but it it probably Deserves a a return to that period I've talked endlessly about 9 11. So I'm not gonna do it now But I think you guys know my perspective of 9 11 if you don't you can go back and listen to my shows on 9 11 I think that That a lot of other things happened during the 80s and 90s that are interesting But the one thing that never happened with with the fall of the Berlin Wall the one thing that never happened with the fall of the Berlin Wall was We didn't really Think about capitalism what it means We didn't really think about freedom in what it meant We didn't consider What exactly was winning? We embraced the mixed economy. We relished the mixed economy and the mixed economy can only go towards more Authoritarianism towards more state involvement towards more and in the mixed economy here I talk about broader than just pure economics. Just a just a mixed view Of freedom a little bit of freedom are not too much in everywhere We see that we see that throughout And and what we saw in the 2000s was Obama and Trump Basically doubling up learning the lessons from bush not to be strong internationally and not to Drive towards markets More state intervention taking the intellectuals and the economists and the and the the intellectual forces out there more seriously More state intervention more central planning more controls And what we've done is we've shifted over the last 10 years Dramatically towards greater statism in every in every front Again, there's a lot to say. I think one of the interesting things to talk about I need to do a show on this one an interesting thing to talk about Is what led to the rise of the tea party? And how did the tea party morph into Trumpism And and what is it about what it what is it that people You'd say in the lower middle class working class people Are so ticked off about what is it? That So alienating I've talked about this on and off over the years Many times or maybe I should do it again because it's it's it's going to keep coming back What happened to economy and into to america that caused that and I think a lot of that is 9 11 The deflating Sense again the 90s with this period where we could do no wrong in some sense and we were the superpower and we were everywhere And we were everything and then and I think the 2000s completely deflated that They deflated our self-confidence as as a in a sense as a nation as what america could do as a military as As what our government can do to protect us Suddenly 3000 americans died unexpectedly Again by a bunch of cave dwellers And then the great financial crisis kind of annihilated our confidence in our economy And the government was bailing people out and bailing people out left and right So cronyism was on the rise cronyism was everything in this combination of a of the lack of self-esteem of Confidence in america's ability to defend itself and now a lack of confidence in america's economy. I think ripped ripped this country to shreds and and and affected people in dramatic ways and If you remember the tea party was a response to the bailouts. It was like It was a it was a response not even to the bailout of the banks. It was a response to the bailouts of people's mortgages I forget the guy's name on on cnbc who looked at the television How many of us are willing? You know, we were responsible. We we we were paying our home mortgage. We bought homes. We could afford We've been responsible. How many of you are willing to pay for your neighbor's mortgage who is irresponsible as three homes Who bought a home he couldn't afford Anybody rick santelli. Thank you and everybody said No, I'm not willing to pay for that. It wasn't even the banks. It was it was your neighbor It was pitting you against your neighbor because it was about redistribution of wealth a massive redistribution of wealth and that led to this You know, just people being super upset everything that they understood to be Right about this country We didn't bail people out like that in america Yes, we took care of the poor, but we didn't bail out our neighbor because they made stupid mistakes We let them suffer the mistakes and yes, we made sure they didn't stop but we didn't pay for their mortgages And then if you add on to that again the the state of insecurity that resulted from 9 11 and and and the just the general state of economic insecurity that the great financial crisis caused you can see the beginnings of We've been betrayed the whole system has to go. We need a strong man to fix things. We need We need a central planet to fix things This is chaos. This is insanity It's a swamp. It really is a swamp cronyism people are being bailed out left and right Keep your hands off of my medicare. So it wasn't about limited government. It was really just an emotional Frustration about the state of the world that led to the tea party And because it was ultimately just emotional frustration. It wasn't intellectual. It wasn't principled That led to trump And where are we today? I don't know. I don't think anybody knows I think americans are still frustrated They're still upset They get it that You know following a an incompetent moron Is not going to solve their problems But they're looking for answers. They're looking for solutions The insecurity is still there the the the getting out of afghanistan the way we did did not You know make us feel confident about our military abilities or make us confident about the abilities of our of our government The economy if we go into a session next year Is going to be very traumatic unemployment Has been very very very i mean unbelievably low now for a long time That's partially because a lot of people just aren't looking aren't looking for work They'd rather play video games in their basement or they've retired early or whatever but Partially it's ever partially it's just the u.s. economy has done phenomenally well because The remnants of that deregulation of the 70s and 80s And the advancement of technology in this country have driven this economy In ways that are hard to imagine in spite of all the the the nonsense now that economic growth has not necessarily resulted in great That employment growth has not necessarily resulted in great economic growth and a great increase in standard of living quality of life But but people have had jobs and if you get of a session when employment goes up a lot That is going to be a shocker and that is going to be upset people And that is going to bring us back to Tea party territory and what arises out of that? I think next year could be a very very important year very very significant year 2024 is around the corner. It's an election. How do our politicians respond? How do the people respond? What are they looking for? It could mean a move towards more socialism Or it could be really be a move towards more freedom Because people are going to have existential angst next year. We're going to have cognitive dissonance It's going to be a time to present radical ideas. It's going to be a time to present explanations and plans I think a candidate Who can portray a positive future a candidate who doesn't only run on the evil of the other side A candidate who doesn't only run on I hate the left or I hate the right but a candidate actually can present a positive vision for the future real or unreal Is the one that could they'll win in 2024 because I think that's what America will be ready for in 2024 I think next year could be quite brutal for a lot of people and they'll be looking for some optimism They'll be looking for positivity All right, uh, hopefully uh, you enjoyed that. Um I'm trying to think if there's anything that I wanted to cover that I did not um, I mean I think I think if you had to think about the big key events deregulation new technology Um deregulation new technology restructuring of american business and then 9 11 and everything falling apart after that But all the positives coming from technology And and deregulation and uh and restructuring and then all the negatives coming from increasing status and from the from the from the other side of it Um It also I think suggests that it's less about who particular president is or who the particular congress is It doesn't really matter Bill Clinton did some good things. George Bush did lots and lots of bad things Jimmy Carter did quite a few good things George was senior was just blah so It's less about the politics and it's more about the bigger picture of what's going on and the bigger trends because the political parties Will just accommodate the trends When the trend was towards great economic freedom. Clinton just rode the wave And then when the trend was towards we need to grow government because we need to get out of this mess Bush, obama, trump Rode that wave And of course beneath all this is the fact that philosophy is going nowhere. It's at a dead end It's banging its head against the wall From post-modernism to whatever else is out there. There's just no pro man philosophy out there. There's just no pro progress pro success pro human life philosophy out there. There's no set of ideas I mean There's no benevolence And there's no individualistic philosophy except objectivism So it's all in the background of an intellectual desert I mean the leading intellectuals in this period are people like paul krugman It's nothing He's a nothing. He's a zero Who else do we have? We had the neocons. Well, that didn't go too well imploded in their face and they're gone They're still around but as far as the intellectual influence they're they're finished because I mean what unites all the intellectuals is altruism statism a rejection of individualism and and freedom and capitalism and So there's there's nothing no no intellectual firepower out there meaningful and now we're seeing There's the reaction to the fact that there's this really void Is is the intellectuals of the right are becoming reactionaries They're looking back against the middle ages And the intellectuals on the left are just becoming more naked nihilists all the time So there is a real void here. There's a real Emptiness that either gets filled by good ideas or get will get filled very quickly by bad ones And that's why I think the next few years are really pivotal You almost always sense that the next few years are going to be really pivotal And they really are every year in a sense is pivotal, right? But it does really seem like The battle for reason and the battle for individualism Is is right around the corner yet? There's nobody fighting on outside Anyway, we'll see Me riffing on The last 40 50 years. I'm sure I'll do this again because This needs to be refined needs to be a book one day It needs we need to tell the story the economic story And and the geopolitical story of the last 50 years. I mean I'll just one other element is that as the United States is in decline in 2020 teens China is on the rise But what is going to cap china's rise what is going to limit china's rise? Is Statism is the fact that it refuses to give up the system That holds it back if it refuses to give up the system that by necessity makes it Poor worse than it should otherwise be But china's rise is a fascinating story And china I think's decline is going to be a fascinating story And I think I think we might witness in the decades to come china's decline or at least China's stagnation. I think we're really witnessing it today all right, uh, we Uh, we're gonna move to the super chat section. We are about halfway To a goal if you count the $50 question from john Armin put in $100. So thank you. Amen really appreciate it Um, I'm in ask no question. Justin put in 50 australian dollars. Great monologue. Thank you run. Thank you. Justin really appreciate it Okay, let's do a $50 question from john He came really early and he posted this question. So luckily I saved it because it did not show up in the uh In the uh, super chat tracker because it was somehow broken for a while there All right, so we are about halfway to our goal. So, um, yeah Come on over Get us, uh, are you get us get us to the goal a few $50 questions, uh, would be great Let's see. So so john says How come everywhere I look on the internet they say deflation is worse than inflation. Is this correct? If it's wrong, are they all mistaken? Are they lying and if they're lying What is the incentive for this to lie? I mean some of them a lot. I love the show. Thank you john I mean some of them are lying, but I don't think many of them are lying and and They're lying because what they don't want is a true free market and in a true free market you would have Some deflation and and what they deflation By one meaning we'll get to that in a minute and so they they they they want to Uh, and in the 19th century had deflation and they would like to label the periods of deflation in 19th century as Great depressions even though they weren't anything of the kind It's it's just it's it's easier for them than to justify the hatred of capitalism So I think what motivates the lie is a rejection of capitalism rejection of freedom a rejection of a proper monetary policy But many of them are not lying See deflation is a tricky concept in a sense. It's tricky just like inflation is tricky There are two senses of deflation. There are two deflation generally In a popular conception of the term is when prices come down Including by the way wages In a deflationary economy wages also might come down Because the purchasing power of the money goes up So you can buy more with less But there are two ways in which prices can come down. There are two causes of deflation And the cause of the deflation will dictate whether that deflation is bad or whether the deflation is Good deflation can be worse than inflation When the cause of that deflation Is credit collapse The inability of business to borrow money The inability of a business to grow The inability of entrepreneurs to raise money to start new businesses That is when the lending markets when the capital markets collapse Money is sucked out of the economy It sits on the bank's balance sheets. It sits as reserves It's not being lent. There's no business activity. There's no economic activity The economy collapses into what potentially could become a great depression Now i'm using the conventional way of talking about deflation deflation and inflation inflation prices going up Deflation prices coming down. I'll talk about the proper view of deflation inflation in imminent The second cause of deflation The healthy cause of deflation Is when you have a fixed monetary policy When the amount of money is not growing At the same speed As the economy is growing If productivity Is increasing faster Than the supply of money Then prices will come down But that's prices coming down for good reason Because we're producing so much more And prices are coming down in a way That raises Raises A standard of living and quality of life So The two forms of Price declines two causes of price declines One is a collapse of credit Which which is a collapse of business and it's not about Weaning out the weak and preserving the strong that in a free market You would never get that you would never get a collapse of credit On a systemic basis. There is no such thing as depressions in a free market There is no such thing as a collapse of business in a free market in that sense This kind of deflation Cannot happen in a free market This kind of deflation can only happen When the federal reserve or some other policy Causes banks because gold is being confiscated Because the federal reserve is shrinking is is requiring much higher Reserves because they're shrinking the money supply artificially So it can only happen through central planning But when central planning causes Credit to collapse then deflationary causes that credit collapse causes prices to drop Employment to disappear Unemployment to rise in other words and that is horrible and that's awful and that's worse than inflation But the alternative to that is not inflation the alternative to that is free markets In free markets. There is no such thing as systemic risk systemic risk is brought about because of Government involvement primarily because of the Fed the Fed is the systemic risk Entity in the economy. It's kind of funny that the Fed is responsible for regulating systemic risk when they are the systemic risk so so It's a complicated issue now a proper understanding of deflation Which is the flip side of a proper understanding of inflation as inflation is not about prices Inflation is about the quantity of money. The problem is that once you have a fiat system and once you have a fiat system in a digital world It's almost impossible to figure out what the quantity of money is when is So it's almost impossible to figure out whether money the quantity of money Is increasing or not but The quantity of money Increasing artificially as inflation And the flip side of that would be the quantity of money decreasing artificially as deflation and in that sense that kind of deflation is bad but In the market in the free market. There is no artificial the quantity of money increases when um More gold reserves are added or whatever the reserve currency happens to be whatever you whatever we figure out Is the reserve money when that money is added it's added through production. It's added over time and It it doesn't really go away other than Because of import and export gold might flow out of the country But that isn't a harmful deflationary process when that happens That is a stabilizing force ultimately all right, it's complicated I mean economics is hard economics is complicated a lot of moving parts in economics, right um Yeah, I mean z-racist says Also cpi measures year over year increases prices, but it doesn't take into account natural price declines caused by increasing productivity Yes, but it's it's just it's just there's so many problems with cpi or any measure of inflation Cpi is just the increasing prices in a particular basket of goods And they do try by the way in the modern cpi the cpi as they use today They do try to adjust the cpi for increases In productivity so in price declines caused by price productivity So they do take into account for example that a tv Might cost the same as it did 10 years ago But it's much better and they adjust for that now is their adjustment good Is the adjustment bad a some economic adjustment that they make the problem with all macro numbers the problem with all aggregate numbers is there They're not that meaningful They're not that meaningful yet our central plan is can only run the economy on macro numbers macro numbers being things like gdp Or cpi consumer price index or things like that which from a actual economic basis are meaningless All right, that was a very long answer But john did put $50 into it. So he deserved it. All right. Thank you john for the question. Thanks for the support We are as I said about halfway so still about $300 short If you're in a 20 maybe dollar short of our goal. So, uh, you know Chime in here. We're going to go quickly over these super chat questions and in particular 20 and plus questions because I've got a lot of five ten dollar questions That's going to be hard for me to get through all of them So, uh, let's shift now to 20 plus questions 20 dollars plus questions so we can make our Our targets today. Okay. James says Because can businessmen overpower intellectuals? We all give up give lip service to anti enlightenment ideas to appease the intellectual class Then we ignore them to pursue an indulge in the life sustaining values of business and selfishness Well, you can up to the point where Where they take your money They regulate you out of existence up to a point where they Don't teach your kids anything at school So that your kid can't take over the business because they don't know math Up to the point where all your kid is taught is nihilism up to the point where they burned down your factory. So Yeah, you can do it for a while But ultimately the intellectuals if they win if they dominate the culture That has a profound a profound impact on your life that you cannot escape That you cannot escape You will suffer the consequences Whether you want to pretend you won't or not and this is the argument to the businessman who says leave me alone I'm not involved in politics. Just let me do my thing But the reality is you are politics is involved in you And you will suffer the consequences and therefore it is your fight It is your fight God you're assisting the super chat today. What's uh, what's up guys? All right, brie Um, youtube wants you to use the community tab They're trying to make it like facebook. So promote your show there I tried this today and got 3,300 views and plus 12 subscribers for reference My last video had 1100 views. So I don't know what the community tab is All right, I'll check it out. I'll try to find the community tab And and figure out what's going on there. Thank you, brie. I really appreciate that Yeah, anybody who's got ideas of what's going on with youtube. Let me know All right, andrew Despite the wrong prevalent morality, there are some things people should know are wrong Stealing anti-semitism Are more people blaming mental health issues to rat to rationalize away failure to exercise moral agency? So why well because I think morality is slipping from people that they should know Stealing and anti-semitism bad. Why? In a in a in a world where the president of the united states Is probably a thief um, but it certainly is a liar And relishes the fact that he lies in order to achieve things in a world where pragmatism is perceived as Fine great fantastic the way to live why is lying and stealing wrong if you can get away with it? and Then anti-semitism. Why is anti-semitism wrong? Why is anti-semitism wrong? if if Marjorie Taylor green who got elected into congress Can claim that it was jewish. I don't know. What was it lasers that I don't know what they did exactly You know if she can be an anti-semit and be a hero of the modern republican party and gonna get a Some kind of leadership position probably in this next congress or at least a juicy committee appointment Well, maybe maybe it's legit and if and if marching among the nazis in charlesville the good people on both sides then That's what our leadership tells us that how do we know what moral code and if Q and on if conspiracy theories are driving us explaining the world then You know, why are we Why is anti-semitism wrong? I mean, that's it's it's a it's as good a conspiracy theory as any in many respects It's a better conspiracy than most Because it's a it's a conspiracy that actually has seems to have some evidence out there Jews in power. They're all over the place. They're bankers. They're they're everywhere. You know, why aren't they controlling the world? They should be so You know, I'm not sure Where this idea that everybody should know anti-semitism is wrong In a in a in a world where tribalism is rising collectivism is rising um In a world where the only thing that matters is Do you hate the left or don't you hate the left? If that's the only standard anymore, then why not hate the jews most jews are leftists, by the way Most jews are progressive democrats There's another reason to be an anti-semit so I don't think I think the the moral standards collapse Agency collapses Once you lose individualism And the country clearly over the last You know 10 years has been moving away from I mean has for the last 100 years But certainly over the last 10 years in dramatic fashion moving away From individualism and towards bigger and bigger and bigger more and more and more tribalism so No, it doesn't surprise me at all anti-semitism will always rise In periods like this will always rise In periods of great uncertainty and of of when when individualism is in decline Individualism is getting rejected And it's on the left and it's on the right individualism anti-semitism is everywhere And and and it's and it's it is everywhere. It's it's on Hey, it's it's on my chat by people who think they agree with me on 90% of the stuff But I'm still too jewish or something right So it's it truly is so Morali has no I mean Morali, right? I mean think about the nazis They knew stealing and anti-semitism were wrong and then suddenly they didn't They knew slaughtering people murdering people was wrong until suddenly they didn't once You abandon reason and individualism Once you get caught up in a collectivistic fervor Anything goes and agency moral agency individual moral agencies out the window I mean think about all the Truly horrific things people have done and supported in human history When they should have known better Over and over and over again. They should have known better John says thank you. That was so much more detailed answer than I was expecting definitely with it. You're the best Thanks, john. I appreciate it All right, so now we're left with only five and ten dollar questions And we're still away. We're still two hundred and ninety dollars short of our goal. That's not good guys Um You got to keep me motivated to do all these shows that I'm doing to a day Maybe we shouldn't be doing to a day. I don't know, but you know, you got to keep me motivated I don't think we quite made a number in the morning either so I don't know All right, let's see Dean says I mean, maybe what we'll see is increasing monthly contributions. So please don't forget you can support me on patreon subscribe star PayPal uran book show dot com slash support Venmo just put in uran book Locals any Payment mechanism known to man I will accept so but but that that's um monthly steady commitment Makes a huge difference to me and to my ability to plan for the future Particularly going into 2013. So now if you plan to support the uran book show at some point This month is the time to do it because then I can I can plan for 2013. I know that money's coming I know what's happening. So, uh, please consider so for everybody christmas ask Please consider supporting the uran book show Moving into 2013 at 2023 god, I just skipped the 10 years moving into 2023. Please consider Doing a monthly subscription to the uran book show even some of you who do super chat Please consider doing something on a monthly basis on on the uran book show. So that's money I can Mostly I mean you can cancel but mostly count on Amen, uh, thank you really really appreciate the support. That was 300 from armin So only 40 dollars now short. So that that we should be able to make An almond says the morning show is excellent. Thank you. I appreciate that. All right. Let's do these. Uh, Let's do these uh, uh these quickly Uh, uran, I've asked open ai to include you in a seinfeld episode and it was really funny Hearing you explain objectivism to jerry seinfeld Can we get a printout of that? Is there a way to get a hold of that? I've seen some other ai objectivist Stuff and it's been really interesting. I think ai I think chat gpt knows objectivism better than most objectivists do I think it's applied objectivism to The things that I've seen better than most objectivists could do on the fly so It's pretty cool I'm excited about the technology if nothing else Landon says hey aran. I hope you need some help on the youtube algorithm. That's your video Retention rate. That's my first guess. How is your audience defined? Uh, and then landon goes on youtube changed their algorithm To prioritize feed clicks over search video retention And binge worthwhile worthiness over subscribers To compete for eyeballs All right, I think I understand most of that not all of it I know Landon I'm kind of putting on my hands up in the air because I don't know what to do with any of that So what do I do? I need instructions. I need to be guided. I need help Help There's a beetle song like that, right? I'm not going to sing. Don't worry Um, all right, so landon if you have ideas Please email me them because I have I'm seriously looking for Significant help on how to uh, how to make, um YouTube get youtube back to where it was. I mean we were chugging along nicely particularly last year But also parts of this year and just gone all gone to hell All right, and and literally my subscribers are going down Not just for a day but going down for over periods and that's Unusual and unnatural All right, let me just I have to I have to catch this Spam and get rid of it before it takes over the channel. All right. There we go. Got it. All right Daniel says do you still do the number one minute videos? I know those brought in a lot of views so I did them early on and they brought in huge views Huge numbers of subscribers. They some of them went viral hundreds of thousands And then and then They did a little worse and then he did a lot worse and now they get nothing They go out we get I don't know a few hundred maybe a thousand views and that's it And I don't think it's a quality of the short videos has changed But again the algorithm was upgrading them Initially and has been suppressing its sense so I don't know We're looking for and now I know Christians publishing a lot of short videos not short short not one minute ones But like five six minutes like he's doing two or three a day Is that good? Is that bad? If we do that should we now maybe now that we've got a big enough channel should we Spin it off and do it on a On a sub channel on a different channel just for the shorts and keep the main channel for these live shows Any kind of advice any kind of thinking anybody has and if somebody knows somebody at youtube we can help with this That would be phenomenal. So Thank you guys Paul says Objectivism debates chat gp gpt. There's an interesting video you're on Do it with greg and on car. How cool would that be? I mean, I think I mean my fear is chat gpt is so impressive it might win All right, we're getting some super chats. Look at this Len says reading dim. I think only path to save west is discovery in physics lab In validating heuserberg uncertainty principle and d2 science Soon no, there's plenty of people that have invalidated the heuserberg uncertainty principle in terms of its philosophical meaning There's plenty of theories to explain quantum mechanics in a in a this worldly way Um The problem is not Quantum mechanics the the the whole issue is reversed The reason people interpret science the way they do is because of the bad philosophy they hold And and you've got to you've got to reverse that now what you need are great scientists Who can then attribute their great scientific discoveries? to Objectivist epistemology, that's what you really need Colt says your morning your morning show you added to what I was saying on why the roman empire fell There's just one problem. I didn't say the one empire. I said the roman republic I noticed a lot of similarities of both republics decline um Yes, I I think that's right. Sorry. I didn't notice the The did you mention the republic but yes, there is there were a lot of similarities Between the roman republics decline and american republics decline. There's no question um Less excuses for the american one because we had better ideas We had the founding fathers and we had the enlightenment which the romans did not have they had greece, but greece Didn't really have good ideas when it came to politics Not really thought out good ideas whereas the founders and linema did So we have a lot less excuses than they did Um, all right, let's see. Where are we? Um Jason Adams says why unlike europe are there so many still retail banks in the u.s All doing the same basic uncreative stuff Oh, this is this is like my number one every expertise in the world And one of the world experts on this topic jason um Basically because The american regulatory environment from the founding of america until 1994 Made it almost impossible For banks to to have in some cases more than one branch In other cases to leave their state To merge to consolidate to cross state lines All of that was banned so the united state had the more banks per capita than any country in the world by a long shot in the you know forever since since really the founding of america and this is this is part of the Prop problem with jefferson's view of of banking and his distrust of banking And then that was kind of encoded in the in the state regulations And that survived into the 90s And one of the major pieces of deregulation passed in the 90s was in 1994 when congress passed a law that for the first time in american history Allowed banks to merge Allowed banks to cross state lines and and and build branches any way they wanted for the first time in american history Do you know the bank of america was a bank? That had branches in california only for most of its history. It's called bank of america was a cali It was really bank of california And then it it managed to get a few branches in nevada because they had some reciprocality agreements and state law And and and maybe one or two other states It only became an american bank. That is a national bank when uh, north carolina NC and b north carolina state bank was then became nations bank actually bought it after 1994 For the first time to be able to create a nation's a national bank If the united states had 17 000 banks in 1994 something like that Today it has 5 000 because of consolidation We're heading towards having a lot fewer banks a lot fewer retail banks It's just going to take maybe 20 years because of regulations because of controls But because we had so many it just takes a long time to get rid of them That is to buy them out to consolidate them to have them go bust So that process of consolidation just takes time. There's just no other way around it And a lot of bankers are very comfortable running their little banks and they don't want to sell and They they just they just make money off of Older people young people don't use their banks But the older people do and they'll they'll survive as long as the old people survive, but over time The us will get rid of those retail banks, but it could take 20 years at least at least It was never the bank of italy. It was run by it was founded by an italian But it wasn't the bank of italy. It was the bank of america. It's founded in california Michael says my professor said we dropped atomic weapons in japan instead of germany because the germans are white like us I find that primitive explanation hard to buy It's historically ignorant. The atomic weapons were not ready for japan And sorry, not ready for germany. Germany had already been defeated by the time we dropped the atomic bombs on on hiroshima and agasaki Germany was crumbling quickly and easily It didn't require atomic bombs. Japan was holding out An invasion of japan was estimated to to cost a million american lives potentially and many many million japanese lives um It had nothing to do with being white or not being white and uh And it's ignorant just of the timeline and just a simple timeline. It doesn't match up. It's just stupid Andrew says thanks for a wise answer to my question. You're ruthlessly philosophical when i want The psychological you always do and which i respect But what do you think of mental health and moral agency? Do you accept that kanye can control himself? I don't know. I think it would be ridiculous for me To try to diagnose kanye west when i've never met the guy and i know very little about him I just don't know He could be completely sane And and and just crazy just crazy ideologically He could be manic depressive. He could be I don't know I mean, I don't even know really what manic depressive is those schizophrenics. So it's out of my field So it could be just people trying to excuse And try to deny him agency. It could be his agency, right? If you if you listen to his show with lex, the guy's nuts I watched kanye's interview with lex freedom. The guy's nuts. Now, is he nuts Because he can't think because he's corrupt ideological Ideologically which causes you not to be able to think Or is he nuts because there's some real chemical imbalances in his brain that is always he nuts for because he was beaten as a kid I don't know So, I mean, I'm not a psychologist and armchair psychology is very dangerous. So I have no clue I'm willing to buy the explanation of these bipolar, but clearly nick fuentes is not bipolar But his name fuentes nuts. Yeah, he's nuts, but he's responsible for himself being nuts It's kanye west responsible for himself being nuts I suspect so But I can't I don't know Beware I mean, there's a reason why I Don't completely answer the psychological questions because I because I'm not a psychologist particularly when it's about psychologizing somebody else I mean in theory, I can maybe answer some questions, but when it's what is this person suffering from? I don't know Michael ask do you recommend investing in lithium stocks all my super smart near friends are doing it? I don't know Are they expensive are they cheap? You know, who are the entrepreneurs? Who's the management? Are they good? Are they bad? Do you know something about lithium that the rest of the market doesn't know do your friends If your friends got insight into the future that the market doesn't have Because if your friends don't then the market's probably priced the Genius investment that is lithium already in the stock price And it's already priced in this little upside On the other hand, they could get lucky on the other hand. Maybe they do know more than the market does I don't know I don't make stock investment recommendations because You can't tell by saying should I invest in in what I have to and then I'd have to study it I have to research it. I have to look what's the price What's it based? Do I think I know more than the market? Are there benefits of objectives being published on pro trump publications? Is it not worth being associated with them? Not worth being associated with them period. No, no, no, no There's no value there. There's no there there I mean, I guess it depends. You consider fox a pro-trump publication I guess so it's valuable to be there. But if it's if it's a trumpest Publication out of the make america great again journal, then no if it's just fox or if it's You know, I don't know What's his name? Glenn Beck show or If it's individuals or shows that are generally pro-trump But if they bought hook line and sinker into the trump's agenda in every aspect and and they are banner is trump Then no, but if it's just a general Media outlet that happens to be pro-trump, then yes, absolutely Ian says it would be interesting to cover a history of how the left recovered from the craziness Of the 60s and 70s then the fall of the USSR to being successful in the 90s and 2000s Well, they want they politically they really weren't successful until the 20 teens And I think that's because they had been discredited so badly They they lost in the 80s. They lost in the 90s and they lost in the 2000s Obama was the first real leftist president since Jimmy Carter or really since Truman to some extent Jimmy Carter did so many good things It's hard for me to to view him as that bad So I'd say I'd say it's it's it starts with Obama and and of course I will say that the reason for that and I can't trace it Is the impotence of the right again the 1990s with the great opportunity To present an alternative to communism to show what actually worked to defeat them to show why America was great Why America was at the top of the world and to keep it there And it is the right that failed and created a vacuum into which the left returned Of course in the meantime the left had dominated our institutions, particularly the universities, but if the right Had mustered self-esteem Confidence, but of course it couldn't because this is the right if if there had been a pro capitalism moment movement That it mustered those things a pro-american pro-capitalist I say pro-american to differentiate it from many of the libertarian movements then There would have been a chance To to prevent the left ever coming back But given who the republicans are and given who conservatives are it was inevitable that the sequin the sequel to Compassionate conservatism would be obama right if If the best of republicans can do is compassionate conservatism, then why not obama jack says ought i finish atlas shrug plus opa Even if i disagree with objectivism as a whole i agree on moral metaphysics and politics disagree with concepts Plus some of the ethics. Yeah, I definitely think you should finish And and then you'll also be in a much better much much much better position to say that you disagree You'll know what exactly you disagree and you'll be able to have fine-tuned arguments to disagree with but until you actually Read the body of particularly opa in this context then I would hesitate To say you know what you disagree with completely You know opa is the first system systemic presentation of objectivism the same with atlas shrug atlas shrug presents it as a whole As a way of life as as what it means in a deeper sense and I think you've got to get that to be able to know what you're opposed to James says what happened when you got to dc on your hitchhiking trip. Oh god for five dollars now We were telling stories for like a hundred bucks I can't just tell the story now for five dollars All right, so this is what happens. So i'm arriving in dc. I get i'm gonna be dropped off its night It's yonkipur. It's the beginning of yonkipur. Yonkipur is a is is the day in which jews fast And i'm going to stay at these friends of my parents And I assume they're gonna be fasting so I assume when I get to their place there's gonna be no food So I go I don't know. I think I went to mcdonald's I go to mcdonald's and I basically Eat everything I can get my hands on I just cram food down and I fill myself up completely And I go to these friends of my parents house now first just imagine me showing up at these people I mean I've been hitchhiking for weeks. I haven't really had a shower in a few days I stink all my stuff is filthy I don't know what they thought they had invited into their home. It was horrible But then anyway I walk in and it's yonkipur and they say oh you must be hungry And they have prepared this massive spread on the table. I mean huge quantity of food on the table this wonderful stuff Um, which I then just had a politeness had to eat, right? Uh, so uh, that's the funny story, uh, they they they weren't very religious and they didn't fast on yonkipur So everything was cool, but I didn't know that so because a lot of jews even if they're secular like my parents They're fast on yonkipur for sure All right ed Today there's so much talk about america being a democracy and so little about america being a republic How did a how big of a problem do you think that is? I think it's a big problem. I don't think it's a huge problem. I think it's a problem We need to fix but there's so many bigger problems Much bigger problems than that, right people kind of know it's not a pure democracy They kind of know it's a representation or something They they know we have a bill of rights. We they know they have a constitution that you can't overrule through democracy They have a sense that it's a democracy, but not a majoritarian democracy um So I don't think that's a big deal. The big deal is altruism The big deal is statism. The big deal is is mysticism subjectivism Uh shazba says neil degrass Tyson said the 15 percent of american elite scientists believe in god His question was why isn't that number zero? He didn't have an answer um The number isn't zero partially because a lot of people believe they can't have morality without god A lot of people are confused epistemologically and they They compartmentalize epistemology. I mean most of the great scientists in the past Were were religious people newton is a good example Uh, but there you go. I mean the ability of people to compartmentalize is is pretty amazing And tragic tragic. It's sad that so many scientists believe in god Have you ever watched Christopher Hitchens youtube video on debating objectivists a man who was pro-eason yet was a marxist? Well He became less of a marxist over time And as he became less and less of a marxist he became more and more pro-reason, but it's because he was Incline towards reason. It's why he ultimately abandoned his marxism All right. Thank you everybody. Uh, we blew away the goal. I really appreciate that. We're probably we're close to 800 bucks Uh, so thanks everybody. Thanks for the support. We'll have another show tomorrow morning I'm not promising what time Oh, what's happening tomorrow tomorrow? I'm oh tomorrow. I'm giving a lecture at a crypto conference so tomorrow I I uh, I'm speaking at a crypto conference conference I never said monogamy was necessary for morality. I don't know where that comes from Uh, so tomorrow I'm speaking at this conference Okay, I expect The tomorrow's new show will be at 11 a.m. East coast time It might be 1115 or 1130. It depends really if my talk is on time at this conference and um If it's on time at the conference and then if, um If, uh How long it takes me to get back and all of that stuff so Um Worst case scenario It'll be at 12 30 east coast time but again It's gonna be a moving target because My life is a moving target and there's nothing right now. I can do about it All right guys. I'll see you all tomorrow or we'll probably have a show on saturday Probably saturday night because I want to watch the soccer the football on During saturday, so probably saturday night Um, so it's a confetti in Puerto Rico. They invite me every year. I I spew my skeptical stuff about Crypto and they keep inviting me back so I