 No problem. We'll fire away. Oops, what did I do? I don't want to do that. The radical fundamental principles of freedom, rational self-interest, and individual lives. This is the Iran book show. All right, everybody, welcome to Iran book show on this Tuesday night. Still, still not recovered completely. I'm still got this crazy, I think it was voice. But in not the normal level of energy, and I am still sitting. Excuse me rather than standing. I will be coughing throughout the night. So keep your distance. You don't want any of my germs on you. They are after all, COVID viruses, little. You know, escaping from Iran and infecting all of you guys. So beware, beware. Luckily, viruses are not emitted through Zoom. Zoom does not transmit viruses, not yet anyway. Not this kind of virus anyway. So again, welcome, everybody. Thanks for joining us tonight. Tonight, we're going to do a Q&A show. And we've got Nick and we've got Jennifer here. We might be joined by some others. I'm not sure the time for this Q&A was kind of moved around a few times. So I think a few people have dropped out who are supposed to be here. But of course, Super Chat is open. Jonathan, thank you for the support. Really appreciate it. So Super Chat is open. So feel free to use the Super Chat, ask questions, ask questions about but anything you would like. And we'll take it from there. Just quick, what do we do? We do a Ukraine update, just a quick Ukraine update, as I think everybody knows. Fighting was pretty intense on the Eastern Front between Ukraine and the Russians. I don't think the Russians have advanced by any significant amount. I very much think what we're going to see is a war of inches, where Ukraine advances a little bit. Russia advances a little bit, but nothing really moves much. In Mariupol, it looks like the Russians will take the city in the next few days or the next few weeks, hard to tell. The last kind of holdout of the Ukrainians is this area full of tunnels in an industrial area in Mariupol, it could take a long time for the Russians to clear that out. That is, tunnels are very, very difficult to deal with in an area like that. So it'll be interesting to watch. I think the main Ukrainian goal there is to keep the Russians busy so they don't get to go, the Russians in Mariupol, so they don't get to go and start another front attacking Ukrainians elsewhere. So keep them pinned down in Mariupol. All right, just to remind you that we have a show sponsor. Whoops, show sponsor is not in the description. But anyway, it is ExpressVPN. You can go to expressvpn.com slash Iran and you can get an extra three months free when you sign up by going through the expressvpn.com slash Iran through that link. I didn't think, I thought I'd get like pennies from this. It was okay. I just got a check like for 250 bucks. That's pretty good. Yeah, that's good. So thank you for all of you who signed up for ExpressVPN. Seymour Lee says I signed up for ExpressVPN with you rather than bench to pure last month. Hope you get a few pennies from it. I certainly did. Thanks Seymour and thanks for doing it through me and not Ben. You know, it's great to be sharing a sponsor with Ben Shapiro. Wow, we made it to the big time. Okay, let's see. Okay, let's get started with Jennifer. I was talking to a friend about free will and she said, people have free will and how come in history there's always bad people it's never been a time she didn't think where everyone was good, where there was no murderers and no robbers and stuff. There's always people that choose to be immoral. So she said, why is that? Is it possible that everyone could choose to be good? And I said, well, yeah. So she said, well, how come that never happens? And I didn't know because it's free will, you choose so you can't really say why. So I didn't know what else to say. I think that's right. First, you can't say there's at the bottom there's a choice in which you can't say why, but you can also say that when have there been cultures that have promoted the good? When have there been cultures that have incentivized people, you know, let's say young people who might choose to be good and then get slapped down by the world and slapped down by the culture and then shut it off because when they turned it on the consequences were too horrific to contemplate. So we haven't exactly lived in a culture, an environment in which you would expect a lot of people to choose to be in focus, to choose to engage in reality. Remember, according to objective is in the essence of evil is not a lack of knowledge. The essence of evil is evasion of knowledge. It's the willful ignorance of that knowledge, not just ignorance, but willful ignorance of that knowledge. So people choose not to focus, not to engage, not to see what is before their eyes and they're always gonna be evil people. I mean, if there were, you know, the Garden of Eden is a myth. It is, and there's always gonna be somebody who for whatever reason decides to try to cheat, to try to cut corners, to try to evade reality, to try to evade morality. And as a consequence, as a consequence is a bad person and it gets seduced by great and great evils. It doesn't have to be that way. There's no, then it's determined that there doesn't have to be that way. No, but if you really have free will and if really is a choice, then you'd expect some people to choose wrong. Some people will make the wrong choice. Some people will evade. History suggests that that will happen and will continue to happen. It's just the relative proportion of people will shift. And at the end of the day, I'd say most, a lot of people, and who knows in a good society, how many, but most people in our society are followers. They choose not to think for themselves. They choose not to engage in original thought to be independent. So if the culture around them is a culture that promotes bad ideas, that promotes evil ideas, then they will embrace that culture. You can see that in really, really horrible places where Russia right now, where bad ideas are prevalent, bad attitudes are prevalent, bad, everything is prevalent. More people are bad because that's how you fit in. You fit in by being bad. And since a significant number of people choose to try to fit in rather than to try to actually live an independent life, a rational, independent life, then the worst of culture is the worst of people will be. The more people will evade, the more people will be evil. Thank you. All right, Nick. Nick, can you hear me? Yep. All right. Yeah, I wanted to talk about Ukraine. Now, you seem to suggest that a stalemate is good because it's gonna lead to some sort of a ceasefire settlement, as long as the Russians can consolidate their Eastern Front. I mean, that's what they're after, right? I don't think it's good. I think it's what might happen given Ukrainian relative weakness. It's hard for Ukraine to defend itself and then to also counterattack and push the Russians out of the Eastern Front. My point is that that's the best case scenario for the Ukrainians is to hold tight stalemate where day 51 or day 52. So if they can hold for another two, three weeks, there could be the safe face and the Russians you said yesterday are after consolidating the Eastern Front, Mariupol, the city there and... I think so. I think the Russians might be on a temporary basis at least satisfied with that. Whether Ukrainians would be willing to sue for some kind of deal at that point, I don't know. And whether the Russians long-term will be satisfied, probably not. But the Russians also, you have to remember the Russians are really hooding from the sanctions. The sanctions are not insignificant. It won't break them because as I said, the Russian culture is a culture used to pain but it can very much make it very difficult for the Russian economy to function. What is this, Adam? I didn't know you could randomly share your screen without me allowing it. I don't know. Let me change that. Okay, so you're saying... You're muted, Adam. I don't know if you've been talking but you're muted. Go ahead. My controls went away. It's a bug in the Zoom software. But what I shared is the news that the Yandex CEO, Yandex, is the largest technology company in Russia. It relocates to Israel over Ukraine. Yeah. It cannot work for person. And I think Russia has already lost much more than they could ever possibly gain militarily. Absolutely. I said that a few days into this war that Russia's lost no matter what because they've lost economically, they've lost the best engineers are leaving, they're going to Israel, they're going to Eastern Europe, they're going to the... If the United States opened its borders up to Russian engineers right now, I think there'd be a flood of Russian engineers coming to the United States. It's just tragic that we have such stupid immigration policy. It's tragic. At the same time, we have a connected world. Many of them are now working for American companies while physically located in places as far away as Georgia and Armenia. And the numerical estimates I've seen is somewhere between 150 and 300,000 engineers and managers have left Russia. Yeah. So there's no way any kind of military victory can compensate Russia for what it has lost. But Russia doesn't care. I mean, the whole point of collectivism and nationalism and all this BS, is they don't care. It's not about economic success. If it was about economic success, you never go to war, war is a net loss always. It's a massive net loss for Russia, massive because of the sanctions and because of the loss of their own people. But Putin doesn't care. The points of this whole thing is some kind of mystical, irrational collectivist notion of greater Russia and Russian greatness. But they will, this is the fall of whatever good was in Russia is gonna be in massive decline in years to come. Russia was already a poor country and it's gonna become a much, much poorer country. I have a second question. I don't think Nick ever finished this question, his actual question. Go ahead, Nick. So just following up on that. How does, do you think the Europeans and the rest of the world are serious about keeping the sanctions on? They've talked about where it's gonna hurt Russia even more is with oil and gas. And so what I'm saying is is they talked about staggered sanction because they can't wean off Russian oil. So what I'm saying is, are they serious long-term to keeping these sanctions or is Putin gonna strike some kind of a deal? I think they are serious long-term primarily because this has really shaken them at the core. They didn't think they would see such bloodshed in Europe in the 21st century. They now don't trust Putin. They don't trust anything about Putin. He's lied to them and deceived them. And I do think they're serious. I mean, I don't know how long, but I'd expect that in the next couple of years certainly these sanctions will hold. I think at some point, depending on what happens in Russia, they'll start loosening up because at the end of the day, they are pragmatists. But the very fact that they're talking about weaning themselves off of Russian natural gas and they're talking about alternatives. If those alternatives actually developed, if you actually get other pipelines into Europe, if you actually get LNG ports built in Europe, they can bring natural gas in from the United States, then they'll be in a position to be able to cut Russia off at any time. So it's a positive development no matter what, even if they don't land up being consistent in their application of the sanctions long-term. Is there a successor to Putin, do you think, in the wings? I don't think there's anybody good who's a successor to Putin right now, unless there's a real revolution in Russia and I don't see any indication. Look, I mean, short of the 150 to 300,000 engineers that Adam mentioned and people who've demonstrated, tens of thousands of people who've demonstrated against the war, most of the Russian people, at least it appears support Putin, support the war are horrific nationalists and horrific racists and a significant number of Russian people embrace this, whether it's because they've been brainwashed or this is the only thing they ever hear in the news, but people have choices. The engineers found a way out and the engineers also knew what was going on. I think people choose, people evade to ignore the alternative news sources, but Russians unfortunately have embraced Putin, have embraced Putin for a long time, long for Stalin, a significant number of Russians. I think I told the story of being in Red Square once and there's a mall adjacent to Red Square and in the mall there was a guy dressed up as Stalin and people were standing in line to get photos with Stalin, right? I mean, just think about Hitler, think about in Berlin having a mall where people stood in line to get photographs with Hitler that would never happen. Hitler is a national embarrassment, but Stalin is still a national hero in Russia. It's really horrific. Adam? Yes, I first want to start with the recommendation. There's a Korean TV series, Naviera, which is actually an old Korean word, meaning butterfly. It's the story of a man whose parents prevented him from becoming a ballet dancer, which is what he wanted to become. When he was a teenager and so he took a steady job and after retirement decides that he is going in spite of his age, learn to dance classical ballet. And of course the story is about how this inspires a dozen people around him who learn of this and examine their own lives and the need for a central purpose. And so I really recommend the series very highly. Yeah, okay, great. I also want to ask a related political question. Yep. Which has to do with parental control over teenagers. Because in Canada lives a poet named Evanon Lau, her parents insisted that she must go to medical school. And when she was about to bring home a reports card that would not have put her on the path to admission to medical school, her parents had threatened to stop her from being able to read or write poetry even though she had won poetry competitions since she was in grade school and definitely wanted to be on that career and she ran away from home. Now in the United States, there's a law that anyone helping a runaway is committing a federal crime so what do you think of parental authority in such cases? By the way, in Canada, she was able to keep writing poetry and become a successful and well-known poet as she had intended to be. I think in the United States, at least in some states, I don't know if all states, a teenager wants to get away from parental control can sue for emancipation. So you can go in front of a judge and if you can convince the judge that you are adult enough to live independent of your parents at whatever age you are obviously under the age of where you legally can do it anyway. A judge can emancipate you from your parents, can separate you from your parents and I think that's the right attitude. I don't think the attitude, I don't think it should be that parents can do whatever they want with their teenage kids but I also don't think it's true that teenage kids you know, can just become adults suddenly and sign their own contracts and live their own life. There has to be some process. There has to be a legal age where you become an adult and if you want to claim that you're already an adult, if you wanna claim that your parents are not promoting your interest, you should be able to go in front of a judge and prove that you are ready to take on those responsibilities yourself. I have a second question but it can wait until other people have asked their second question. Sounds good, let's look at, let's do a couple of these super chat questions, the ones that are $20. So Michael asks, the Supreme Court of Florida has ruled red light cameras are unconstitutional. It's very big brother, it's very big brother. You get a ticket in the mail months later from a red light camera and you have no way of proving your innocence. I don't think that's completely true. You can go in front of a judge and say it wasn't you in the car, you go in front of a judge and claim the camera malfunctioned. If you have evidence to suggest that you can go in front of a judge and argue your case. I don't think that the issue is you have no way of proving your innocence. A lot of these cameras actually take a photograph of you. So it's hard to prove your innocence because you're probably not innocent. But, I don't have a problem. So let's say a cop was sitting in his car and took a photograph of you crossing a red light and then chases you down and stops you and said, you crossed the red light and you say, I didn't. And he says yes you did and here's a photo. How do you prove your innocence there? Or let's say you didn't take a photo which usually happens. So I've been stopped for not stopping at the stop sign. And I say, I did stop at a stop sign. The cop says, you didn't stop at a stop sign. So what do you do? I mean, you have to take the cop's word at it because that's what the rule of law means. That's kind of authority and the kind of we give the police and we give them the ability to make those kind of decisions. So I don't know why red light cameras are unconstitutional and giving me a fine for rolling over a stop sign is not unconstitutional. So I don't see the difference. Is it the fact that it's technology, not a human being? I just don't get it. I don't get what it is that's special about red light cameras or about speed traps. I don't like red light cameras. I certainly, certainly, certainly don't like speed cameras because while I try to stop at red lights, I don't try to follow the speed limit. I almost always speed. So I particularly don't like those cameras. Those cameras are prevalent in Europe. They're all over the place. Every time I drive in Europe, about three weeks after I get home, I get a long list of all my speeding tickets from the rental car agency. Cause what happens when you rent a car, they pay it and then they bill you. So I don't like it. The nice thing about getting speeding tickets in Europe is it doesn't go on your driving record. You don't get points. I don't know if you guys ever got, I got a letter once from the state of California saying that if I got one more ticket for anything, they would take my driver's license away forever or something like that. So I was going to be a persona non-guarda. Because I was getting so many speeding tickets. I just don't get it. I don't like speeding tickets, but it doesn't really matter to me if it's a machine doing it or a policeman doing it. What happens when all the, you know, more and more of the cops are robots and a lot of this, a lot of law enforcement is done electronically. Does it make it unconstitutional with the fact that it's electronic? I don't see what it is. You have a right to face your accuser. The accuser is not the machine. The accuser is the person behind the camera. And the fact that the camera's automatic doesn't mean you don't have an accuser. The accuser is the state. The state is accusing you of violating the law. I don't get this face your accuser is if your accuser has to be some living, breathing human being right in front of you who was there at the time. Your accuser is the discotony. The accuser is the state. The state is telling you that you're driving too fast. And here's proof that you drove too fast. So I don't know, maybe I'm missing something here about the constitution, but I don't see what the issue here. You still get to confront your accuser. That's the whole point of a trial. You get to go to court. When you get the fine, you don't pay it. You go in front of a judge. You have a defense attorney and a prosecutor and you face your accuser. So I don't know, it sounds like linguistic analysis to sum up. Oh, by the way, since you mentioned Korean shows, I have been watching Pachinko, Pachinko, which is I think on Apple TV. It's based on a book. It's a story of Korean immigrants to, well, immigrants in quotes to Japan pre-World War II and their lives in Japan and what happens to them all the way up into the late 1980s so far. It's interesting. It's not at the level of some of these other Korean dramas, but it is interesting. Both historically and the characters are interesting, but it's the piece of history I'm not very familiar with, particularly not from that perspective from what was going on in Asia at the time. So I find it really fascinating. So that's Pachinko on Apple. I think two episodes every weekend, something like that. Okay, one more of these super chat questions from Thomas. He says, not sism is universally regarded as evil because it is based on racism, but communism is not regarded nearly as negatively because it is based on egalitarianism. Shouldn't they be regarded as equal evil? Is there more to it? No, I don't think there's anything more to it. I think the fact is that egalitarianism, equality of outcome, broadly communism, communism itself, are considered morally virtuous. How many times have you heard in your life, communism is great, it's a great ideal, it just doesn't work in practice. And put aside the practice morality dichotomy there, the idea that communism is a great ideal, it's a moral ideal, egalitarianism is a moral ideal, equality of outcome is a moral ideal. It's behind so many of our mixed economy policies. So it's not surprising that a system, even a murderous one, that claims equality, claims egalitarianism is one that is not fully condemned. And Nazism in a sense is the opposite. It is, it claims, it rejects egalitarianism in the name of intrinsic superiority. And at least most of the time people have figured out that that is truly evil and that is really, really bad. Now that's changing because racism is on the rise today, but it up until a few years ago, it seemed like racism was on decline in the, in the perspective that some, you know, peoples were superior and somewhere inferior morally and from any other aspect was horrific, was I think fully understood. I think the reputation of the Nazis is actually going to improve in the decades to come as, you know, racism in different forms from both left and right is elevated. All right, let's go with Jennifer. First, I wanna say the thing you said about the camera. That would be this, about the camera, the red light camera. That would be the same kind of thing as like fingerprints or DNA, your blood found in a crime scene. It's evidence that then causes you to be accused by an accuser. So it's the same kind of thing, right? Absolutely, the accuser is the state. The same thing if you, you know, if you commit murder, the person who was murdered is not your accuser. It's, and it's not even a particular cop that is your accuser, it's a district attorney. It's just the state that is accusing. Okay, I have a question about art. Yeah. I was wondering about, if you watch a movie or listen to a song or read a book, it can make you cry. But usually when you look at a sculpture or painting, you don't burst into tears. So I was thinking maybe because there's a cumulative effect in like a movie because it continues to go along and it kind of builds up, whereas like a sculpture is one moment in time. Do you think that makes any sense? It's a good question. I think the time has an impact here that it builds up. The emotion builds to the crying as kind of a climax of an emotion. And there is an evolving story, the same with, you know, you could argue the same happens with music, although I'm not sure music can make you cry, maybe. But it's definitely a building of an emotion over time. It's one layer over another layer. And that brings about the emotional climax. I wonder also, if we're not a little, I don't know if the language of painting in sculpture is not part of our lives quite as much so that in a healthier culture, maybe we would respond more powerfully emotionally to sculpture and painting. But maybe this time element, maybe particularly with crying, you need a story to cry. You need a much broader context. So maybe, yes, I think that's right. I wonder though, because I always wonder from our own experiences to generalize because I wonder how ignorant we are in terms of our understanding and ability to respond to the plastic arts. It's just not something we're used to. And it's, I think most people are unaffected by the plastic arts completely. I mean, obviously not everybody, but some people are just, yeah. I was at this place in Dallas. It's an office park built by the Crow Company, C-R-O-W. And the buildings architecture is not my style of architecture. It's somewhat classical. It's got Greek elements. But inside the buildings, they are stocked, packed with good art. It's truly amazing. There's sculptures everywhere, outside and inside. There's paintings. Some of the sculptures are beautifully presented in dramatic ways. Every way, every way you go. They're just art and art and art and art. Some of it's contemporary, some of it's, but it's all representational. And it truly changes the atmosphere of a place and it gives us so much class. And it makes it so alive. It was really an experience. I spoke at this in this place and it was surrounded by all this art. It was truly a unique experience. I'm hope to be invited again because they also have quotes all around the office park. They have Aristotle. They have Adam Smith. And they have, if you know where to look, there's at least one quote of Ayn Rand's on the wall. So it's a pretty amazing place. It's Parkland, I think it's called Parkland in Dallas. So to have in Dallas, it's worth trying to get in there. All right, Nick. I just wanted to follow up more on the Ukrainian situation in terms of the unintended consequences. Now it seems like this whole net zero mantra, the anti-humanist net zero mantra, even Alex has picked up on this has been finally challenged. We're starting to talk about energy security. We're not specific about that. But I think that means about sourcing oil to regimes that are friendly to liberalism and Western ideals or whatever. Anyways, so what I'm saying is, do you think it has finally changed the debate somewhat? You know, before we used to hear net zero 2050, net zero 2030, we got to focus on this. All of a sudden it's just flipped everything on its head and now we're talking about energy security. And just one other thing, what lessons do you think China has learned from this Ukrainian conflict? Because they've been eyeing Taiwan. I mean, they got Hong Kong, now they're eyeing Taiwan. They've always been eyeing Taiwan and they're opportunistic and waiting for the right moment to pounce. Yeah, I mean, I've talked a little bit about China, but I'm happy to talk about it again. So, look, I don't think anything's changed in terms of net zero long-term. I think they're still committed to it. I think it's still a talking point, ideological issue. I think the climate change coalition is, you know, we'll step aside, but we'll, you know, it's not going away anytime soon because they've got a compelling story and, you know, people obsess about doom and gloom. Right now the doom and gloom is focused on Russia, but as soon as that Russian doom and gloom threat goes away, they'll refocus on climate change on some other doom and gloom story. But in a short run, it suddenly has made clear to people that the world is heavily, the West is heavily dependent on natural gas and fossil fuels. That if you're going to be dependent on fossil fuels, you want to be as independent as possible from bad regimes and that's this energy security issue. But, you know, I'm already seeing part of the spin being if only we build more solar panels, then we wouldn't have to use natural gas and then we wouldn't have to depend on the Russians, right? Although, of course, they forget that all the solar panels are built in China. So they're going to try to use this again as another way of getting off of Russia's, what Russia exports, which is fossil fuels. So I think this is a pause. I think generally this is a pause for a lot of bad ideas. I said that the only good thing to come out of this Ukraine war would be that Putin's thuggery is not naked. You can't escape it. And you're now going to get, you're now exposing all the people who support him are now fully exposed and we can call them out, if you will. And this energy thing, you know, there's not going to be as much tolerance, at least in the short run, for people arguing to get off of fossil fuels in the short run, particularly domestic fossil fuels. So, yeah, it's some good to come out of this crisis. This is part of it. It's not, but it's not a game changer because the game changer is ideology. Now the game changer could be Alex's book. So everybody should buy Alex's book, Fossil Future, and not just buy for yourself, but buy several copies and distribute it to other people. And that's where you get real change. It's through people like Alex and this guy running for governor of California, who's a big Alex fan when it comes to energy. And suppose he's got some momentum going, maybe he could win the governorship in California. Who knows, that would be a beginning of a revolution. That would be big. He's not a capitalist, but at least he's sane about energy issues. Is that Andrew Yang or something? No, no. Michael Schlebsenberger, whatever it is. Yeah, Michael Schloemberger or something like that. He's running as an independent, used to be a Democrat. He's Mike Schlinberger, and he's running as an independent in California. I'd vote for him. You know, I don't agree with a lot of what he says, but I'd certainly vote for him. He's also, another good thing about him is he's unmasking the whole corrupt nature of California's response to the homeless crisis, which I think he's doing a good job at. I don't think it's solutions are good solutions, necessarily, but he's at least, he says, you know, if you give people free housing and free places to take drugs and free needles and free all this other stuff, surprise, surprise, all the homeless people in the world are gonna come to California. Why would they go anywhere else? They're getting free stuff in California. And I think that's absolutely right. I said that the first time California suggested building free housing for homeless people, I said, that will increase homelessness, not decrease it. It's kind of obvious. People who are marginally can't pay, they rent, become homeless, they can get rent, free housing, all kinds of stuff like that. Okay, so that's one. Second question about China. Look, China's model for taking over Taiwan is the way they took over Hong Kong. It always has me. They've always hoped to be able to take over Taiwan peacefully. That is, I think they go, that is, they're highly motivated to do that. They consider China, Taiwan part of China, that is, they're all one people. They don't wanna be accused of killing millions of their own people. But looking at what's going on in Ukraine, I think China has become much more committed. To a peaceful methodology of taking over Taiwan. Or waiting until the world changes. What did they learn from the Ukrainian experience? One is, if Ukraine with very limited resources in terms of weapon systems, in terms of training, and in terms of money can stand up to Russia on land. Taiwan, which is a much wealthier country. Taiwan, which is much more sophisticated technologically. Taiwan, which has some of the best weapon systems in the world purchased from the United States, from Israel, from Western Europe. Taiwan will put up a fight. Taiwan can really, really hurt the Chinese. Chinese have numbers. Taiwan has, again, motivation, and Taiwan has technological superiority, in my view. So China's gonna think twice. Second issue is, if these sanctions imposed on Russia, you know, think about China. I can't remember the number, but how many trillions of dollars does China have on China having US treasuries? Imagine if those were frozen and China could not access that. Trillions of dollars, not billions, trillions. Imagine if China could not export their goods. Now the entire world economy would collapse, but so would China. China would become a poor country very quickly. So there's nothing, there's no good news for China in what's going on with Russia. The West united in sanctions, the sanctions are full of holes, they're not ideal. They're far from ideal. Germany's still buying energy from Russia, which is ridiculous. But China can't afford that. China's not in a better position. It's a richer country on a total GDP than Russia, but on a per capita GDP, not necessarily. And it's a country that's ambitious, right? China's not, Russia's ambitious vis-a-vis territory. China's ambitious vis-a-vis wealth. China wants to be successful. China wants its people to be rich. It can't do that if it's sanctioned by the world because it attacks Taiwan. So I think China is really having second thoughts about Taiwan right now and about what to do about Taiwan. I don't think, I said from the beginning, it would not use this as an excuse to invade. It's not going to invade anytime soon. On the contrary, I think this has extended the time before they invade even further. Can you freeze just the Chinese bonds? Sure you can. You can stop paying the Chinese. You can freeze their accounts. You can pay off the bonds, but freeze their accounts in the United States and not pay them off. So there's no problem. There's no problem in sanctioning the Chinese and freezing their bond payments and all of that. And that would be huge. Now, it wouldn't be good for America either, but war, as I said, war is lose-lose. Nobody wins in a war. Somebody said, I got a lot of complaints about that statement because they said weapons manufacturers win in a war. And I guess that's right. Weapons manufacturers, stock market value goes up because there's more demand for their products. Okay. So there's a few people who benefit from war and it's mostly short-term. And most weapon manufacturers are not only weapons manufacturers like Boeing. And they might gain from the weapons, but they may lose from everything else. The economy going into recession is not gonna be good for Boeing, for example. So, and of course it depends whether the war is close to you or far from you, but in the big picture, nobody wins from a war. All right, Adam. Okay. I have several red line issues where I would not vote for any politician who is on the other side of this red line. Yep. One of those red lines is prohibiting research into life extension drugs on the ground that old age is not an illness. Another is limiting the immigration of healthcare personnel as I'm getting older. I need more and more of them. And yet there are actually fewer and fewer. Another one because of people and family members and friends from our value who happen to be women of reproductive age is abortion. Again, this comes very close to home. I should say there was one time in my life when I actually, that was before Roe v. Wade and I risked a 20 year prison sentence in federal prison because I helped my girlfriend get an abortion because both of us were career oriented. And I don't look forward to a time when people will need to take such risks again. So those are my red lines on the right-hand side of the political spectrum. But I can't think of any very specific red lines on the other side. One that I'm fairly clear about is I wouldn't vote for a candidate for district attorney who thinks that looting should be legal. But other than that, what red lines should there be on the left-hand side of the political spectrum? I think lots of them. Socialized healthcare. So you can have all the longevity research you want but if you socialize healthcare in the United States it will be a worldwide disaster and the quality of the care for you as you get older but even more so for young people will be horrific in the future. There'll be very few drugs developed. Again, 70% of all healthcare innovations happen in the US because we still have a little bit of freedom. That's on these one. A candidate of the left who would argue for, I don't know, net zero by 20, where are we now? 2022, 2030 as some suggest that would be a no-go for me. And you could say, well, they can't get their past Congress but you can't really get past Congress a ban on abortion either, not really. And they haven't in the past, Republicans have had all the positions of power and did not pass a ban on abortion. So the problem is that I agree with your red lines on the right and I think there are plenty of red lines on the left and this is why I find it very difficult to vote because both people on the left and on the right tend to cross the red lines pretty quickly and pretty easily. I don't know, right now things like support for a cashless society in which the Fed issues a digital currency. That's a red line for me. That means I'll have a record of every single cent that I spend and the federal government can watch every transaction I make, everything I do, I will have no money that's mine that I can do with what I want, nothing. I mean, there's so many red line, there's so many of these that are just so unbelievably disastrous, free speech obviously, hate speech laws and that's a right and left one, right? One of my big oppositions to Trump was that he would have passed a hate speech law like that if you hated Trump, right? That he would be focused on him but the left wants hate speech laws. Anybody who wants hate speech laws, I could not vote for. So, I mean, once you start rolling, there are too many of them and it makes it impossible to vote and this is why I wish there was a third party in the United States that avoided at least the red line issues, right? That would be cool. And will you pose the name of the gubernatorial candidate that you just mentioned in California because I'm not familiar with him yet. He is S-H-E-L-L-E-N-B-E-R-G-E-R Mike Schellenberger. He is a big supportive Alex's or a big promoter of Alex's work on energy. And I think if you look down the line, you might not, you won't agree with a lot of his positions but none of them are wacky. None of them are so crazy as you'll say he's crossed the red line. At least none of them I've seen yet. So, you know, we'll see. Okay. I don't see anything in the chat. Did you post the names? It is in the chat. Wanda Freeman put the name up between the question by Sparks and the question by Richard. $220 questions. Heal, I'm putting it in the chat to you. Okay, thank you. Putting it to all of you. All of you will see it. Type message here. Mike Schellenberger. There it is. All right, John has joined us. Hey, John, can't hear you. Can't see you, can't hear you. John, John, you're not muted. No, cannot hear you. Cannot hear you. And you're not muted on my end. Okay, so maybe dial in again. All right. Okay, let me do some super chat questions. Again, $20 questions. Richard asks, hi, Iran. Thank you very much for the accommodation of Mr. Sunshine. I recently watched another Korean drama with the same lead actor. Oh, that's great. I love that actor called 2521. Okay, I'll look for that. I think it's at least as good. You should check it out. People keep telling me they find things that at least as good as Mr. Sunshine. I haven't seen anything yet that is at least as good as Mr. Sunshine. But I'm still searching. Sparks says, thanks, I love what you do. Appreciate it, Sparks. Richard also asks, also on the subject of Korean drama, do you think the Korean culture has a better sense of life compared to most other countries? It seems that they're producing a lot of great art per capita, especially with these dramas. I mean, there's something there. I think it has to do with the fact that they seem like they're not a cynical culture. They still have, there's something in the culture that's still pro-values, pro-human life, but pro-values in particularly, they take value seriously, which is unusual, right? And I think that is what makes them unique. But then they make stuff like what was it called? The game thing, I forget the name, but that horrible, horrible TV show that I had to watch because somebody paid me to watch it and give a review of, but something games, squid games, squid games. And then they made squid games and maybe the most horrible TV show I've ever seen, right? But even that, you could argue, at least, they had an idea, it was a pure nihilism, but it was like, they went all out. They hated capitalism, they hate capitalism, they hate freedom, if you will. They believe human beings are horrible. It's exact opposite of Mr. Sunshine. So how a culture can produce both those things and both of those things being popular is truly interesting and amazing. And I don't quite get it, but there's something about Korean culture that is very pro values. That's what I get from Mr. Sunshine and these other very good dramas that they've made. There's also something about it that comes from the history. The history of being oppressed by the Japanese primarily that revolves around injustice and their commitment to justice. So I think there's something about Korea that was shaped by the experience with the Japanese that is very focused on the issue of justice, which drives them towards making these value-driven shows. I don't know enough about the rest of Korean culture. Like they're very superficial otherwise. For example, they are the number one in the world by far in plastic surgery. So plastic surgery is huge in Korea in terms of wanting to become more beautiful and they take beautiful girls and they try to become even more beautiful and they do it at a very young ages. Anything to do with beauty. Now there's nothing wrong with beauty, but it's, there's a certain level in which it becomes an obsession which I think it does a little bit in Korean culture. There's the music which is shallow and superficial. So, but it's, you know, so it's hard to tell. It's hard to tell. I'd have to know more about the culture itself. I'd have to know more about the culture itself to speculate. I've just been invited to Korea to give a talk at a big conference. They're paying me, they're paying me, they're paying for business class tickets round trip. So I'm looking forward to, I'm looking forward to doing it. That'll be at the end of, towards the end of September. Okay, Charles Watt says, have you ever listened to a piece of music on a loop such as while working? Not a single piece of music, no. I mean, an album maybe, a playlist maybe, but not a single piece of music. No, I'd get bored. It would drive me crazy and then it would get, the song would get stuck in my mind and then I couldn't think of anything else and it would be a disaster. Okay. All right, John, let's see if this setup works. We still can't hear you. Can you guys hear him? No. No, nobody can hear you. Oh, some song coming across. Is it working? Yeah, yeah, can you hear now? Now I can hear you. I don't know what that was. Oh, hey. Do you have a question? No, no, I just came joined. It's finally, I've been a big fan of your show for about a year and a half, two years now. So it's, I'm probably one of your more younger viewers in 22, so it's nice. Okay, great. Somebody I admire in this world. Well, I appreciate that. Thanks for being on. And if you do have a question, jump in with the question. Yeah, of course, I've heard of them like situations, so I'll be out here. Sure. Let's see. All right, let's do one last round and then we'll wrap up with the, with some super chat questions. So, Jennifer. Do you think when Henry VIII dissolved the mask, Dary, is that that was actually a good thing? I mean, he didn't do it for a good reason, but... Henry VIII did what? Killed all his life? No, he dissolved the monastery. You know, he got rid of that. Yeah, I mean, I think it was. It was a part of the general reformation phenomena. It was a period in history where people really started questioning and questioning authority more broadly and the authority of the church more specifically. And I think that breaking up the monasteries again, he was quite a religious man, Henry VIII, what we see on television, all the philandering and all of that stuff. He literally wrote religious treaties. He actually wrote stuff as part of the reformation, originally defending Catholicism and then rejecting Catholicism. But he wrote, he was quite an intelligent person and knew his religion. And so I think, yes, I think any action that basically said, we reject authority and or at least we reject the supreme authority. We're gonna create these little authorities. It's a good thing. It disintegrates the M2s and it allows better ideas to come to the forefront and those better ideas, hopefully some of them can flourish and overtake all the bad ideas. So sometimes you have to go from really bad ideas to bad ideas, still bad ideas, but they're not as bad and they're more disintegrated. And therefore it allows for better ideas to, for the flowers to grow among the weeds. How about that? For the few flowers, whereas with Catholicism, no flowers, you just cut them all, cut everything down. But once you do away with that like central planning and at least the Protestant allow for some flowers to grow in between. Thank you. All right, Nick. Yeah, I wanted to still continue that theme with Ukraine and the unintended consequences, but this time I wanted to focus on the Middle East. The Russian, Syrian, Iran access, in terms of Russia, it seems to be the supplier for weapons to a lot of the rogue states there. Do you think now the world will treat Russia with more seriousness? I mean, Bennett, the Israeli prime minister went out of his way to have a one-on-one meeting with Putin over the last month. Am I correct or I don't know what that was about, but I guess he wanted to put a two cents worth in terms of the geopolitical situation there. Yeah, I mean, I don't think this will affect the situation in the Middle East that much. I think that Russia's position in Syria is pretty safe, primarily because it has nobody to oppose it. There's nobody really opposing Russia in Syria. The Russians are going to lose a lot of credibility. I think the value of their weapon systems is going to be looked down upon. I think that a lot of countries that relied on Russia as allies are going to start looking for other allies. So the one realignment you could see in Syria, now that I think about it, would be for Syria to try to get closer to Turkey and to distance itself from Russia. Turkey has Western weapon systems. Turkey is a member of NATO. Turkey is a powerful country in and of itself. That might force Syria to distance itself a little bit from Iran, but I don't think Syria cares that much about Iran. If their survival is at stake, they're willing to throw Iran under the bus any day. And I'm not sure Turkey's interested in taking on Iran. So Turkey might allow Iranian activity within Syria to continue. Turkey has a weird relationship with Israel as well. On the one hand, it's friendly. On the one hand, they're clearly hostile. So it's the Middle East. They smile at you and as soon as you turn the back, the knives comes out. So it's a very complicated, always moving target. There's election in Lebanon right now. It's hard to tell what's going to come of that, but nothing good is gonna happen out of the Middle East. I don't think Israel is in this situation where so far it's been appeasing the Russians or at least I think this last week, they did something that really upset the Russians and the Russians are now taking measures against Israel. So there's a little bit of some rattling of sabers there, but Israel benefits from the Russians not trying to shoot down its airplanes in Syria and a given free reign over Syria airspace to take out the Iranians. I think they'd be given that anyway. I don't think Russia is a match for Israel in the air. I don't think Russia wants to come after Israel from the air. I think Israel would wipe them out. And I think the Russians know it and are ultimately afraid of that. So I don't know. I mean, if Israel was more sort of and more anti-Russian, then I think maybe you could really see some changes happening, but Israel so far has been pretty meek when it's come to this showdown and has been not willing to take a firm stand against Russia. Israel has a lot of Russian immigrants. They almost all vote for right wing parties. Those right wing parties tend to be close to the Putin because of the Russian connections. A lot of the Russian oligarchs are Jews. They have houses in Israel. They have relationships in Israel. Unfortunately, it's not a clear cut issue with regard to Israel. But Israel has a world-class military equipment, the iron dome and all that, that it actively imports. Yeah, but Israel's always afraid of being alone in the world. The biggest fear Israel has is being isolated and being alone and it always seeks out friends, no matter where they are. And it's a lack of self-esteem. It's a lack of self-confidence. They don't trust the Americans anymore. They didn't trust Trump, although he was very friendly to Israel, they didn't trust him. They don't trust Biden. They don't trust the Democrats at all. Caroline Glick called Trump the best president ever. Yeah, I know Caroline and Caroline. Next time I see Caroline, I'll talk to you about that. Caroline's a mixed, a real mixed thing. I mean, she's great on some issues and she's a Jewish nationalist and other things. She's terrible. But look, none of this is simple. And for a little country like Israel, it makes it more complicated, particularly when Israel is always afraid and afraid of being alone in the world. And that's why Israel has close ties to China. It's trying to have close ties to India. It has close ties to Russia and Ukraine. And the reason these really prime ministers have been meeting with Putin is to try to negotiate a peace deal. But there is not gonna be any peace deal. So it's all smoke and mirrors. Okay, I would like to comment on something good that has happened. And that is the intelligence, especially targeting intelligence that Ukraine is using. And I probably shouldn't say more on where and how they are getting it. But given that Ukrainian snipers got rid of eight Russian generals. Yep. Well, they also published a list of all Russian spies in Western Europe. They literally put up a list of Russian spies on the internet and they all got kicked out of their host countries. It was a huge coup recently. In any case, getting rid of eight generals and sinking the flagship of the Russian Black Sea fleet required incredible intelligence work. Yep. And since you're a former intelligence guy, you probably appreciate how great it was. Absolutely. And I suspect that intelligence was not just Ukrainian. I suspect that they're getting security. I definitely think so. And I think even it wasn't exclusively Ukrainian and American either, I think the U.S. had some help too. Yep. But we're not running out of time. Really in a position to know these things. No, and it's better not to talk about it because let the Ukrainians have it. And we don't want the Russians to pick up on it. So that's good. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, the intelligence has been spectacular and they've acted on it and they fought bravely. And I wish we could get them heavier weapons systems faster. I wish Israel would sell them the kind of weapons systems that would really help them win this war. Hopefully Israel is helping them with intelligence. Hard to tell. Yeah, the one story we do know is that this Israeli company that's been selling their Pegasus software, it's popping up everywhere. Everybody's spying on everybody because this software basically allows you to plant yourself in anybody's cell phone, anywhere in the world. They get around all the security that Apple and others are putting on their phones and stuff. And they've sold it. This Israeli company has just sold it to anybody. And it's a huge, huge, what do you call it? Scandal in Israel because it's being used by the Israeli government against Israeli citizens. It's being sold to bad actors all over the world. So hopefully they'll reign this company in and get control over this because it's truly spooky to have that kind of ability in the hands of governments and in the hands of bad actors. All right, let's go through the last of the super chat questions and we'll call it a night. Let's see, Michael asked, even though Asia doesn't have Christianity, how come Asian societies are so much more collectivistic than Western countries that have been saddled by altruism of Christianity? I think two things. I think one, it's cause it seems like collectivism is the default unless you discover two concepts. And the tragedy of the West is the West has these concepts from very early on and has chosen to ignore them. The East has the excuse of they never had these concepts and the concepts are reason and individualism. And both these concepts in a sense already existed in Greece. And to some extent individualism is recognized by Christianity and then ignored by it. But so the East never had an Aristotle. They never had a great epistemologist. They never had a great philosopher who brought to the forefront human reason. And as a consequence, when you don't have reason, you're stuck with emotion. And emotion leads you towards the group. Emotion leads you towards numbers. Emotion leads you towards power and somebody with power and a leader in collectivism. And most cultures, almost all cultures that don't have the concept of reason gravitate towards some form of collectivism of one kind or another. Of course, much of Asia had Islam and Islam just brought those same altruistic religious principles to much of Asia. Michael asked, why did I in Rand view justice all of the Holmes as the worst Supreme Court judge? You know, I'm not sure. I don't know enough about the history and I don't remember what you wrote about him. But I think Holmes was, if I remember right, was a complete denier of individual rights, complete denier of the very foundation of the country and was the first person to really present a judicial philosophy is too strong of a word, judicial set of ideas. There was devout of individual rights and was based on some kind of utilitarian collectivistic principle. And he was the first. Of course, there were many others who were worse in the application, but he's the guy who opened up the floodgates and just, you know, by rejecting individual rights, rejects the whole basis of the country, the whole moral foundation of America, the constitution and the Declaration of Independence. And the judgment judgment at Nuremberg, there is a lawyer who is defending the Nazis by citing Oliver Wendell Holmes. That's powerful. Yeah, I forgot that. That's right. I have to watch that movie again. It's been many years since I saw that, but yes. You know, there's a utilitarianism to him. There's a pragmatism to him that just opens the floodgates after him. Brandeis is as bad. I think Brandeis comes after him, if I remember right. Dave says, I've met a lot of Swiss people who are fans of Ain Rand. In fact, the only pro-free market Europeans I've met are from Switzerland. Not in my case. I've met some Swiss people of Ain Rand, not many. I've met pro-free market Swiss people, yes, but I've met more free markets, Europeans in Scandinavia. It's shocking how many free markets Scandinavians there are and how many objectivists there are in Scandinavia. Probably per capita, one of the highest concentrations are in places like Norway and Denmark has a vibrant free market community, so the Sweden and Finland and then the UK, of course. So I don't know. I don't get that sense about Switzerland. Never have, and it's never been a place where there's a core group of Ain Rand fans, but not that many people who take it seriously. Thank you, Richard. Thank you, Free Trade. Morgan, what is the root of European balkanization? The Scottish National Party seems to push for balkanization of Scotland and it's sickening. What can we do about it in the short term? I mean, the only thing you can do about it in the short term is advocate against it and fight for the principle, the anti-balkanization principle, which is individualism, but the balkanization is a consequence of the nationalist movement in Europe in the 19th century which was built around ethnic tribalism. It was built around ethnicity, really about tribalism. And balkanization is just riffing off. It's just an extension of the great nationalist movement of the 19th century. And yeah, I mean, it's basically a return to primitivism. It's a return to tribalism. You can read Ayn Rand as an excellent essay about balkanization. It's called, I think balkanization, something about balkanization. Anyway, it's, look it up. It's an, look, balkanization Ayn Rand on Google. And I think there's a copy available online at Ayn Rand Institute website. And it's an excellent essay and that's the way to fight it. It's through that. All right, John, John has a question. John. There you go. Back to your previous question. I want to know why do you think it is that with people, it's easier to swallow altruism being the accepted ideology as opposed to rational self-interest because you think if people would read, you know, I'm in control of my own life. I'm capable of anything in the world. You think people would be more like accepting of that? I think it scares them. I think freedom and personal responsibility, which is what Ayn Rand is calling for, is scary to people with low self-esteem. It's scary to people who've been taught from when they were very young, not to depend on themselves, that they don't have the capacity, the world would fall apart if they did, if everybody did that, and that it goes against God's commandments and what's right, just and good. But I think it's a lack of self-esteem at the core of it. It's one of the reasons why education is so important. If you could raise a generation of high self-esteem individuals, then objectivism would come naturally to them because exactly what you said, who doesn't want a philosophy that says you're in control and you have an opportunity to make the most of your life and you can be happy, you can be successful. That's a pretty cool message, but not for people who are too afraid, who are scared. Particularly the young generation today, but I think this has been true since the beginning of Christianity, people are scared, people are afraid, and the generation, your generation, John, the world's gonna end, the world's gonna collapse, markets fail, capitalism creates poverty, everything's bad. I can't afford to be responsible. I need a safety net. I need people to take care of me. What will happen if everybody's responsible with themselves? What about the poor? I mean, there's just no end to the fear and the anxiety that young people have today. It's truly shocking and sad. Right, and if I may add on to that, I think being an objectivist myself, I think that the scariest part about it is not the fear of one's, my own personal failure, but a fear of just the irrational people around you, the people who burst into panic attacks, which I've had before, as soon as you tell them you're an objectivist or you're an Anne Brandt follower, they say, screw you, I don't want anything to do with you. They just break into this meltdown. So it's like that scared me more than any of Rand's teachings. Yeah, but that scared you because you obviously had something. You had some independence, some self-esteem. But imagine, but I think the reason, a majority of people can't even handle it, the reason they fall apart is because of their own lack of self-esteem. They really don't trust themselves. They know or they believe they know that they can't handle it. And so, and you know, I hear a lot of people say, but what about the poor? But they don't really mean what about the poor. They mean what about me? What if I can't hack it? What if I can't make it? I need my safety blanket. I need my little bunny to cuddle up with at night. You can't take that away from me. And the state and the welfare state and just the whole feeling of altruism gives them that, they think. Thanks, John. Good question. Thomas asks, is war crimes a valid term? Doesn't crime in this context require a governing body with authority to enforce rules? War crime seems to be a case of victor's justice. I mean, there are things that one does in war that are unthinkably evil. Killing civilians for no reason, raping, pillaging, for no purpose, I don't know why raping and pillaging would ever be for a purpose, adjust moral evils that go even beyond the original evil, which is going to war, right? So the real war crime is invading another country. That's the real war crime. So, but I do think there's a point in pointing to, I don't know if it's war crimes. I don't buy into the Geneva Convention. I don't think the Geneva Convention is relevant. But there is a victor's justice. There's a point in the victor saying, we're gonna prosecute those responsible for going to war because that's an evil. But then beyond that, we're gonna prosecute those people in the field who did unspeakable horrors, who did horrors that go beyond what is justified by war. And so I think having New York book trials, variations of New York book trials is something that one should have. And yes, if you win, you can commit all the horrors in the world. Nobody's gonna prosecute you. But if you lose, then the people who win beware of their prosecution. All right, three or four last questions. Michael also says, speeding cameras offer maximizing wherever you're not keeping people safe. That could be, but then that's true of any cameras, any speeding tickets. I mean, policemen with their things, I think are more dangerous than cameras because I actually, when I see a cop like that, I slam on the brakes, right? And that's dangerous. It distracts me and the guy behind me might hit me or whatever. So I don't think of all the things that worry me in the world, I have to admit that speeding cameras are not it. I'm much more with Adam. Outlawing longevity research is much more troubling to me than speeding cameras. I mean, I made street cleaning. No, these are not, these are not the signs of cultural decay and fascism. They are much more obvious signs than that. Your shows are gold. Do you like spaghetti Westerns? If you do, which one do you recommend? I mean, I enjoy spaghetti Westerns. I can't recommend them as art. They're enjoyable. If you take them for what they are, spaghetti Westerns. I prefer real Westerns. I mean, I like the classics. I like the old Clint Eastwood, Good to Bad and Ugly and the whole series that Clint Eastwood did with, God, what's the name of the director who did all those spaghetti Westerns? And then another thing to note about spaghetti Westerns, pay attention to them is that the scores, the music is fantastic. The music for those movies is fantastic. That was, I think, Rota, R-O-T-A, an Italian composer, wrote all the music for those. So Sergio Leone was the director. Thank you, Wanda Freeman, Sergio Leone. And I think it's something Rota was the guy who wrote the music. I mean, they're silly, Good to Bad and the Ugly, but it's not, they're not adult movies. They're not serious movies. But that's fine. Once in a while, watching a spaghetti movie is fun. Oh, what's the other guy? The main guy is Ennio Morriciano, M-O-R-I-C-O-N-E. Is soundtrack so fantastic? It's fantastic. Yes, that's right. Morricone, Morricone. Is soundtrack so fantastic? So the best film music you'll ever hear. So I would definitely, you know, if you enjoy that kind of stuff, definitely watch it. Okay, Bash Mandigan says, the war has been such a disaster. How can Putin survive? It's Russia. You can survive disasters. What would require for him to be overthrown? Somebody to do the overthrowing. And it's not clear that somebody is there to do the overthrowing. So it would require somebody who was willing to take the risk of overthrowing him and take command of Russia, either for democratic goals and to lead them towards more liberalization, or somebody who's just another authoritarian thug, but it doesn't like the Ukrainian war. I don't know that such a person exists. It strikes me that Putin has sidelined any potential competitors. Michael asked, in most Western countries, isn't shoplifting pretty much legal under certain amount? I don't think so. I don't think shoplifting is legal in Paris and London. I don't know where they come from. These leftist cities are just copying Europe, and Europe hasn't collapsed. Because I don't think there's a lot of shoplifting that happens in Europe. I just, on the Champs-Élysées, do you think there's a lot of shoplifting? Maybe, maybe I don't know about it, but in Denmark, you think there's a lot of shoplifting? Maybe the laws are not there, but people just don't do it. That's possible, I guess. Sweden is going through these massive riots right now, burning BLM-like riots all over Sweden for days now. The Muslims are inflicting because some guy is threatened to burn the Quran. I don't think Stockholm has a wave of shoplifting. So, yeah, I don't think you have anything to do with that. I really have done that because part of my tourism experience in the Netherlands at the main train station in Amsterdam, the tourist guide actually points out pickpockets in action. Yes, that's the rumor. It's the gypsies. The gypsies all over Europe are pickpockets, and they're there and you take that into account, but a cop would arrest them if you caught them. The problem with the gypsies is they're really, really good at it, and by the time you notice your wallet's gone, it's too late. My dad had his wallet stolen from him by a gypsy in one of these European countries. But I don't think that's because it's legal and it's because it's very difficult to stop these gypsies, particularly given the numbers of tourists to go through there. All right, I'm losing my voice again. It's time to say good night. Hopefully, I'll feel better tomorrow. I do have a planned trip to Europe next week. We will see what happens. We will see what happens, but all right. Thanks, everybody. Have a great night. Thank you, John, Jennifer, Nick, and Adam for your support of the show. Thank you to all the superchatters, and I will see you all. I'm not sure exactly when. I'll let you know on Twitter as usual. Bye, everybody. Good night, Iran. Good night. Nice to meet you.