 All right welcome everybody happy Valentine's Day and welcome to your Ron Brook show I hope everybody's having a fantastic Sunday I am still on the road not a great place to be on Valentine's Day should be home I find myself unfortunately often on the road on Valentine's Day for the last few years I've typically during Valentine's Day I've been in in Europe February seems to be a great day for a great time for me to be in Europe when it's cold and freezing and depressing but that has been the case I do however the reason my wife forgives me for missing Valentine's Day is our wedding anniversary is is very close to Valentine's Day just a few days afterwards and I make it back home by our wedding anniversary so that'll be the case this trip I'll be back home in time and therefore I'm given a free pass on on missing Valentine's Day Stephanie says I hope you bring your wife a really lovely present I have to admit I'm not good at presents never have been never will be presence isn't what binds us together so my wife has very low expectations when it comes to present so we've made a work we've made a work without the gifts yeah this is the thing about jewelry right and this is you learn it's much easier and much more beneficial and much more beneficial if if she goes and buys the jewelry herself so I have terrible taste I don't know anything about this you know and I basically told my wife when when we first got married don't expect me to buy jewelry you want to buy jewelry I'll provide I'll provide the money but but not the selection all right so I hope all of you have an opportunity to celebrate Valentine's Day today with a loved one with a romantic partner you know I it's I the show is early enough so that hopefully you still have plans later on this evening to to to celebrate you know I I think that every once in a while it's important that we do a show that is that is focused on kind of positive values that gets us away from politics and gets us so I was debating a number of political topics I could have talked about today I haven't talked about the impeachment you know it was there's still some stuff I want to talk about with regard to free speech there's a lot of things to talk about but then it dawned on me wait a minute enough Valentine's Day is a good day to talk about love and it maybe talk about love in a broader context because we did do a show recently comparing Iron Man's view of love with Jordan Peterson so we did talk quite a bit we did talk quite a bit about the importance of romantic love I want to emphasize that today and I will but then I want to talk more broadly about love I often talk about objectivism as the philosophy of love and I want to I want to talk about that a little bit and really view this show today as more of a motivation show more of a show to get you excited about pursuing your values and about pursuing objectivism not as a philosophy to understand politics not as a philosophy to understand what's going on in the world but a philosophy to live by a philosophy to guide your life as an individual towards your values and your success in life isn't it and as a human being so that's what we're gonna do today I've accepted the fact that as a consequence we'll have a lot fewer viewers if I'd made the show about about the far right which was I was going to do and and what's going on in the right or the future of the right we would have got a lot of viewers so we'll we'll hold that off for a future show that's not going anywhere that's not going anywhere so we talked about this a few a few weeks ago but look I know there's a lot of there's a lot of angst in the world right now there's a lot of frustration there's a lot of fear there's a lot of uncertainty there's uncertainty economic uncertainty there's there's massive political uncertainty there's real you know concern about about the future and about freedom and about where this country's heading where the world is heading and and what any of us can really do about it which is unfortunately very little there is a certain direction that this world is heading towards and you and I have unfortunately very little control on that direction we've got to fight and we've talked about that we've got to keep fighting and I will talk about that but essentially much of what is going on in the world is outside of our control what is though in your control is your life what is in your control are your values now it is true and I'll say that right up front that politics affects our values and and the state of the world the economic state of the world the political state of the world is going to affect the scope and the range of the values possible to us remember values values a thing one acts to gain or keep in a rational context values are the things necessary for your survival as an individual for your thriving as an individual for your success for your flourishing for life so the scope of those values the extent of those values are limited by the context in which we live and and again there's better work if for for worse there's little is little we can do about that much of that is going to be dictated and much of that is going to be determined by people who have very different ideas and very different philosophy than we do but there is a vast scope of values still accessible to us among them is romantic love and I think romantic love is a crucial value it's one that deserves that you engage in real effort real focus real attention to achieve if you have not achieved yet the values things one acts to gain or keep so act to gain it don't be passive don't be a coward go out and get go out and and try go out and make a real effort to gain one of the most important values that is possible for you faith asks are you not feeling well your energetic self ain't there this is what happens to me in hotels it kind of what happens to me when I'm sitting down and doing the show sitting down it's that's why some people would like me to do the show seated because I'm much more calm much more relaxed a little bit less energy but no I am feeling great so it has nothing to do with how I feel it has more to do with kind of it just everything slows down when you sit down and and and being in a hotel and and being in a font setting it just it just changes I think my energy is going to ramp up as we get a little bit focused I look a little disheveled yeah well you know traveling traveling so if you don't yet have a romantic partner and you know and it seems strange to even have to say this but with the popularity of I don't know men going their own way and and incels and this seems to be particularly a male problem of men wanting to live without without women or without long-term relationships just bizarre it seems necessary to say don't give up on one of the great joys of life don't give up on what I think is an essential crucial maybe not necessary but crucial value to attaining happiness go out and make an effort and try and and and engage and and love find someone who shares your values find somebody who reflects your values back to you find somebody who you can admire and love and cherish and and spend time with don't find a nurse is is is not that anything bad with nurses but but you know the kind of the Jordan Peterson idea of you got to find somebody who will help you when times are bad no find somebody who will celebrate life with you every single day find somebody who you will love to spend the good times with and who will be there for you when times are rough and if if you already have that relationship then cherish it keep it work to keep it like all values it doesn't just it's not just there it requires effort it requires attention it requires focus it requires thinking thinking like everything else in life right it requires actual engagement just like everything in life you can't just go by emotion by feeling by you've got to actually think it through you've got to actually figure out how to stay engaged keep your relationship healthy and positive and moving forward so it's hard to it's hard to overestimate it's hard to say too much about the value and importance of romantic love in a healthy life in a happy life in a successful life in a long life so don't give up on it and again I know that it's hard I know that it's hard to find somebody who shares your values I know that it's hard to find in the world with with a philosophy so different than yours and ours it's so hard to find somebody who really you can love but you know there's no option but to try and fight and search and keep trying and the world is vast enough that there's a good chance you will find somebody they don't have to be an objectivist they don't have to agree with you and everything but they have to reflect some fundamental important values your sense of life something they have to reflect back where you are not being alone and that's true of love but it's also true of friendship I know too many objectivists who think that friendship is in chat groups and in Facebook that friendship is Facebook friends are incredibly valuable and and you know today is a day to remember to love to befriend to pursue your values but I think in a broader sense the philosophy that you know many of us embrace the philosophy of objectivism I ran ideas can be presented as a philosophy really what is this essential thing about love I mean how can one love I mean I think I think I ran it some boy says before you can say I love you one has to be able to say I right so you start with the eye you stop by having by taking you seriously by taking your life seriously by loving yourself by pursuing your values you start with you and objectivism gives you the principles by which to live by to live successfully to live happily to gain self-esteem to gain self-respect to gain appreciation for who you are objectivism encourages you the virtue of pride to seek to be the best that you can be to strive towards and try to achieve moral perfection which means to take your life seriously with everything that that implies to fight for your values to strive for your values for whom for you so that you can be the best that you can be so that you can live the best life that you can live it means taking your mind seriously and it requires psychologically it really does require that you love life I think that is that is the precondition for loving anything else is loving being alive loving life loving the fact that you open your eyes and you see all this and you can understand it and you can shape it and you can have an impact did you are in control imagine if you believe there was no free will how could love be possible I am nothing but just random apt atoms you know I make no choices the world is not mine that would be pretty dark already pretty bleak they're pretty depressing so you are in control the recognition of that and this world is amazing and your your ability to live in this world is amazing and the fact that you exist is amazing and that should inspire you every day should inspire so we start with the love of being alive the love of the world that makes it that in which we live with all the flaws that exist out there it's so good to be alive and of course you can you have control over the kind of life you want to live the kind of world you want to create so the fact that you love life the fact that you love being in this world is the real motivation for going out there and trying to shape it and try to make it better and trying to make it the best that it can be for you and that's of course everything about objectivism encourages you to do that to produce the reshape reality in a sense in your image to reshape reality for your own life for your own enjoyment for your own values for your own financial well-being and knowing that you can do that again as part of part of what it is to love the world imagine if you were imagine if we were born into a world where you had no ability to shape the world around you you had no ability to reshape it to fit into your values Robert says let's see Robert Nassir says you are speaking my language you are the star of your life yes the director yes the screenwriter yes and the producer of this show and don't let anybody else tell you otherwise now the beauty of it is that everybody else is the same in their life at least everybody else who's healthy is the same as their life and their interaction with them between producers between directors between screenwriters so just as you would not want anybody else to try to impose their life on you their values on you their control over you you should never want to do that to somebody else another way in which to live a healthy productive marriage is to recognize that the wall independent we're all produces director screenwriters and actors we're all stars and we all need to be granted the independence and treated as individuals and stars and who asked what's the connection between productivity and love well as I said that you know I think love starts with self and I don't think you can really love yourself and love your life unless you are productive because productivity is essential for your self-esteem it's essential for you to feel to know that you can take care of yourself in this world that you're competent that you belong that you can sustain your life in this world so productivity is essential for self-esteem which I think is essential for loving oneself which I think then is essential for loving others that is if you cannot control your own environment if you cannot take care of yourself if you cannot own a living if you cannot produce then you what emotion would that evoke in you imagine place yourself in that kind of situation you don't know where the money's gonna come from tomorrow or you're living off of some trust fund but you can't produce anything you can't create anything what that produces is fear maybe resentment suddenly lack of self-esteem and that eviscerates any ability to respect yourself and therefore and it eviscerates any ability to love someone else you can potentially like people you can you can be dependent on people you can you can lust after others but real love real love requires real romantic love requires that you be you have an eye you have a self and that self requires that you produce that you create at whatever level you can whatever whatever you know we all have different roles in terms of production so I think productivity and being productive and generally I think being virtuous being rational being productive being independent being honest a kind of prerequisite for being good at love experiencing it fully being able to sustain it being able to maintain it being able to maintain a relationship people low self-esteem have hard times maintaining relationships they're constantly doubting themselves never mind doubting others so objectivism is about loving like you know one of the main features of objectives and one of the main outcomes of objectivism is a real love of life a real love of the engagement with reality and and again they're linked to productivity is one of the things that I think are so essential to be successfully productive is to love what you do again to love is to value to love is to value strongly to love is to is to place whatever it is you love as a as a really at the top of the value hierarchy and and we know that productivity is a virtue is a is a is a virtue purpose is a cardinal value but think about people who have who have a career but they hate it they don't enjoy it they don't like it compare that to somebody who loves their career who loves being productive who loves going to work every day who loves what they do and every moment of what they do that I mean think about how much that elevates your life think about how much more than enhances your ability to love the world and love your life and love everything that you do because we spend so much time at work we spend so much effort at work we spend so much of our mental effort at work one of the real crucial reasons you should find a career that you love you should not settle with regard to career it's just amount of time energy effort you spend it you want to make every moment count you want to make every every ounce of calorie every every not ounce of calories every calorie you exerts in an effort you want it to count you want it to matter again I say this often but you can't there's no repeat there's no rewind there's no redo there's no I'll get those hours back this is it this is it so make every moment of it count so love what it is you're being productive at find things you love to do and if if you can't find a job that you love then then find a hobby that you love find values that you love find something to focus your time on that you really really love that you enjoy that you get immense pleasure out of pleasure is you want pleasure pleasure is good so if you can love yourself and you could love the world in which you live and you love your life then you start discovering people that you can love friends that you can love heroes that you can love historical figures figures in novels people in your life with a pinnacle of that being you know romantic love everything about objectivism is is this pursuit of great values and pursuit of great values why you know what are values things things we love things that import to us things that are crucial to our lives so everything about this philosophy is about love what why do we want freedom why do we love freedom I love freedom so that can make more of my life so I can pursue more of my values so I can more intensely and more you know express myself and ultimately my love of the world so freedom is not just some abstraction and this is where you know part of what objectivism once it's fully integrated once you really thought it through what it would objectivism really can contribute is this integration of your thoughts and your emotions she Jones just understand it yeah freedom is important but you feel it but you feel it you're passionate about it you're energized by it you know people ask me he's relates a previous question I guess people ask me where do you get the energy to be on stage or to do four talks a day or to do all you know all the traveling and all the stuff and the energy comes from love it comes from loving what you're doing it comes from loving the ideas it comes from loving the world that you're trying to create it comes from loving every aspect of what you do Alicia says I'm ripping off that love of freedom to pursue my values line absolutely I mean why do we care about freedom this is a point I made in the talk I it's actually on my channel you can find it that I gave to a group of Russian objectivists about about why morality is important and you know I started off the talk by why morality is important for the fight for freedom and I asked I asked the question right at the beginning why do we care about freedom why is freedom important because I truly think that if you're an altruist if you take altruism seriously you don't care you cannot care about freedom you cannot be passionate about freedom freedom is not that important but if you are an egoist if you have if you are pursuing values if you're pursuing happiness if you're pursuing your life then freedom is crucial because it gives you the space to pursue your values it gives you the space that to to think about your ideas your values your life and go and act on it without asking for permission which might be turned where you might be turned down so it's freedom is not a starting point this is my big claim against libertarians right you don't start with freedom freedom is not a floating abstraction freedom is not something theoretical you just have out there yeah freedom is good the idea of people choosing and stuff no freedom is something you you need to be passionate about because it's about your life your values your love your ability to pursue your happiness it's personal and it's important and I think the reason people are not excited about freedom the people the reason people are not willing to to fight for freedom the reason we're not automatically just gravitate towards freedom the reason freedom is not in everybody's hearts as George Bush once famously said it's because most people are not that excited about pursuing their own values their own life their own happiness and they be taught that even if they want to do that that's not the right thing that's not the mall thing the right thing the mall thing to pursue other people's values to help other people to sacrifice for the people and freedom freedom is not exciting and indeed under freedom I might be tempted not to be moral under freedom I might be tempted to pursue my own self-interest the nice thing about somebody else telling me what I can and cannot do is that they could guide me to be good so maybe it's good to be unfree and and so for the altruist freedom is is difficult it's not something you can be excited about and it's not an accident that political freedom is an outcome of the enlightenment an outcome of the rediscovery of reason and and the rediscovery of personal values and the and the idea of individualism is an ending himself and the idea of individualism and it's not an accident that the pursuit of happiness is in the Declaration of Independence they understood it that way they wanted happiness they wanted success they wanted to live a good life they wanted to do it on their own standards through their own choices and freedom was a means to achieving that it's not an end the end is your life the end is your happiness the end of your values the end is your ability to love so yeah I mean this is another reason why politics you have to you have to view politics through this lens of it's just a means you know if you established complete laissez faire capitalism tomorrow you still have to live you still have to make the right choices you still have to think you still have to pick values you still have to love you still have to get a date you still have to you know find beautiful art to enjoy you still have to take responsibility for your own life laissez faire capitalism only it's a it's a big only but it's only creates the context by which you have more choices and you have more ability to live but it's still up to you to go out and live so in a sense it's it's not it's it's not an end it's a beginning so if you're gonna be obsessed about something be obsessed about your values be obsessed about the things you love be obsessed about the things that make you happy and then fight for freedom because it's interfering in your ability to gain those values but first have values first define values make those values clear in your mind and go after them to the extent that you can within the world and then identify where statism is obstructing your ability to access your values to gain your values to keep your values and go after it then be passionate about your politics but to me it's bizarre that people don't have a life they don't pursue values they don't care they seem pretty miserable but they fight passionately for political freedom and then what then they'll wake up what about all the years where they were asleep particularly given that they're not gonna be successful anytime soon and this is again the the the the difference between objectivists and libertarians libertarians about politics as an end non-aggression principle that's the end be all that's just the beginning and it's not even the beginning that's just to improve your ability to be happy to improve your ability to access values that are difficult to access today but everything ends and begins with your life with your happiness with your values and and and yeah and unless if a capitalism people would yeah Jennifer absolutely freedom to do what you want freedom so you can do what keep more of your tax money what are you gonna do with that money I mean you should be able to keep more of your tax money but but and you have to do something with it and what are you gonna do what are you gonna pursue how are you gonna live what do you get what choices are gonna make what your career gonna be who you're gonna love those are the important questions in life thank you Linda I appreciate that by the way very much open to super chat questions so use them to ask lots of questions because I don't let me see I need to find a way to bold this sorry once and expand that there we go right thanks Jamie all right we'll start with that question so yeah let's start with let's good we've got some some questions about this topic and then we'll take questions and other topics as well you on can you be more clear on the derivative derivation of pleasure a close friend of mine is big on pleasure but it's mostly derived through promiscuity which I oppose and he admits doesn't make him fulfilled can this kind of pleasure be virtuous well it depends what you mean by promiscuity if if the promiscuity is undermining some other value then no then you're gaining short-term pleasure by sacrificing some long term capacity to to have intimacy or to have a real relationship or to have kind of the the ideal of sex if you're if you're pretending that let's say this promiscuity we've got sex and I assume it does if you're pretending that every woman you sleep with is the love of your life in order to kind of fake the the sex then it's pretend you're lying to yourself and you're being dishonest and that undermines your ability ultimately to love and and to have self-esteem part of the promiscuity undermines your self-esteem so you have to be careful about that but remember at the same time that pleasure is crucial so you want to do it you want to have pleasure appropriately but and I'm not just talking about sexual pleasure I'm talking about pleasure generally you want to you want to once in a while have a great meal you want once in a while to just go in and get a good massage and just just enjoy it you want you know not one of those massages that were they where they're trying to break your bones and distort your muscles but actually just for pleasure just for the physical sensation that this is nice and I'm not talking about those massages in those other types I'm trying to just that just a sex is complicated right you want to you know you want to be able to have just you want to be able to enjoy physical pleasure right because it's it's life-affirming because it's pleasurable because it feels good not as the totality of life because we know we're mind-body integrated but sometimes the body needs you need and it's really good to experience the full the physical pleasure that's involved so make sure it doesn't undermine your long-term values make sure what you're doing is not fakery it's not you're not deceiving yourself right you know another good example of this is is you know masturbation is good because it's pleasurable because it's physical pleasure so embrace it right don't I mean we live in a culture in which that is considered or used to be considered taboo or unspeakable or not something you talk about but why it's a form of physical pleasure that you can of intense physical pleasure that you can do to yourself why would you not want to feel that experience that so there are many forms in which pleasure can embrace now sex as I said is complicated to get into not I think do yourself psychologically harm with sex there has to be something that is the connect you and the person you're having sex with there has to be some shared values I don't think it has to be the love of your life otherwise you should never have sex with anybody else but there has to be some shared values there has to be some psychological reflection back that has to be some real connection and you know and I think you can't have that connection with you know a thousand people it's relatively rare to have that connection so it's not like you go to bar and pick up anybody but you know I'm not against having you know I'm actually not not against and for having sex before you get married and for having sex with more than one partner as you learn about sex and as you learn about romance and as you learn about pleasure and as you learn about life it is it is you know it just doesn't make sense that there's only one person you can have sex within your life I mean that's just not true it's very intimate it exposes you it's very revealing about who you are experienced actually just want to make sure that when you have sex with somebody it's with somebody who you are willing to do that with but on the other hand and you know I have to say this and some people won't like this you know you can make mistakes there you know you can have sex with somebody and discover that it's wrong it's bad and you feel bad about it but that's not the end of the world they are emotional consequences to sex but okay but those can overcome just like there's emotional consequences to making mistakes in a lot of different things so I would rather you err on I'm gonna get in trouble with somebody in this some people in this I would rather you err on how you know err on slightly on the side of have you know being promiscuous than being too chased because part of this is learning part of this is figuring out we're not we don't like every other thing about human beings were not born with the knowledge of what works and what doesn't work for us when it comes to intimacy don't view it too lightly but don't view it like it's the end of the world right so you know so again I think airing on the side of pleasure is better than airing on the side of no pleasure what did I say was cool I don't know what I said was cool somebody says I said something was cool and I think this by the way goes for women and men the idea that only men can enjoy sex is absurd I actually think women enjoy sex more than men I think I think that the whole perception of man as sexual and women as not sexual is bizarre I think a cultural attitude to promiscuity among men which is okay but not among not with women and I think we should evaluate men and women the same when it comes to the human they both have the I mean they're both the same fundamentally in terms of being human and being rational beings so the the evaluation is the same if promiscuity is bad then we should condemn the men as much as the women for being promiscuous right all right yeah but it I mean I think what I want to what I want to emphasize here is embrace values embrace life and pursue it and that includes by the way that includes by the way sex and romance and everything else embrace it try seek it in a healthy productive way just looking at some comments here all right what is your favorite depiction of romantic love in literature or other works of art hmm well I mean that's it's hard to just bring that off the cuff I should have thought of that in advance there's some beautiful sculptures of couples I'm not a fan of would dance the kiss but but it it certainly but there are better ones than would dance the kiss there's there's one there's a sculpture from Denmark of a kiss that I think is just beautiful and and incredibly romantic by I can't remember the I can't remember the siblings Cindy Cindy the sculpture he's a he's a Danish sculptor there's some really beautiful paintings that I think depict romantic love and of course in painting and sculpture to capture romantic love one has to I mean it you have to be really really good because you have to capture a certain look you have to capture certain pose you have to capture in very you have to you know love is an abstraction and and here you have to you have to capture that abstraction in very concrete terms which is a real challenge Cyrano is of course thank you Christopher Cyrano is is an amazing depiction of of love of course it's it's an unfulfilled love in that sense it's sad so it's unfulfilled love and in most songs about unfulfilled love Cyrano of course mr. Sunshine is one of my all-time favorites again the challenge of mr. Sunshine is and I've said this before in terms of what I think the big weakness of mr. Sunshine is is it's never expressed the love is never fully expressed physically and I think I think mr. Sunshine would have been a much better show if at least in the episode before last or like the beginning of the last episode they had consummated the love they had had sex then you know so it's I think that the lack of physicality is unfortunate in that show because in so many other respects it's perfect it's perfect in literature what what else in literature I mean of course in Rand's novels but outside of iron man yeah literature is not my strong suit but you know I think you know I haven't read Ivan Ho in a long time but I remember there's a there's some great love scenes there there's of course amazing amazing music that is associated with love in opera whether it's in Tosca by Puccini generally Puccini is very good at expressing that kind of sense of romantic love in music so if you if you if you think about Tosco La Boheme there's some beautiful arias where the lovers sing to each other yeah I mean that's that's a beautiful movie it's amazing movie Anna Karenina somebody says covers a whole gamut as far as love is concerned but it's such a tragedy and it's essentially romantic part of the problem with her you know and in Tosco generally is it's naturalism and it's it's it's you know romance is necessarily tragic because of its romanticism yeah I mean opera has a lot of a lot of beautiful love music in terms of songs I don't know I don't I don't have anything that just jumps into my mind but I'm sorry I don't have more to say about kind of love in in art there's there's a lot of it all right don't forget you can use the super chat feature to ask questions I've got a couple couple of questions here I'm gonna get to let's see why hasn't philosophy caught up with technology well it's not a matter of catching up I think technology is I'm not sure exactly what the question refers to but mine you know if I had to understand the question oops let me just see so I'm not sure what what you mean by why isn't philosophy caught up with technology I mean technology keeps progressing in philosophy seems to be stuck with Emmanuel Kant you know 200 300 years ago and I think the reason for that is is technology is basically still building on the prevalence of a certain perspective which in the culture which is an enlightenment perspective so the philosophy of enlightenment to a large extent is still in our culture remains as part of our world in business technology progress and it's people's admiration for technology and in love of technology which is still the reflection or whatever's left of their enlightenment philosophy but technology is very concrete technology is very right here it's it's a product it's something that I that I have that I can see its use we live in a very anti-intellectual time where people don't see the value are in in ideas and philosophy at all and therefore don't value innovation if you will within philosophy don't value I think as a consequence I enhance philosophy and are quite willing to just accept the concrete the products that technology rather than investigate the philosophy that that it requires so philosophy is not advanced because people don't understand its value they don't understand its importance they don't and they just absorbed a particular philosophy from the culture around them and they're satisfied with that and if they're not satisfied because I don't think they really are satisfied they don't know where to look they don't know that the answer for their dissatisfaction with their life lies in philosophy and the intellectuals and again it's always the intellectuals fault I'm not guiding them in the right direction they're not presenting them with an alternative they are moving them towards a philosophy that would be consistent with their love of technology a philosophy that would be consistent with their love of their life for the or they they wanting to be successful in life so they are people sadly are stuck without guidance and it's exactly the guidance of philosophers it's exactly the guidance of intellectuals that they lack that they need and and that they're not getting and that that is the tragedy that is the tragedy okay does objectivism have a foothold in the ex-soviet countries or non-israel middle eastern countries well it depends what you mean by a foothold there certainly are people a lot of people reading Ayn Rand in the former Soviets in the ex-soviet countries I remember once being in Ukraine a few years ago and Atlas Shrugged was the best-selling book in Ukraine that year you could find Atlas Shrugged in like the in like the supermarkets they were selling it it was it was such a hot seller that even the supermarkets were carrying Atlas Shrugged so it definitely has a foothold there there clubs that people interested in that people passionate about it that you know I I saw a production of night of January the 16th Ayn Rand's Ayn Rand's play in Ukraine in Kiev put on by by locals there again the books sell very well in those countries there is a lot of passion what is lacking is a lot of knowledge of objectivism in beyond the novels in the language of the place and therefore there are a lot of intellectuals who are articulating objectivist ideas in Ukrainian which is similar to Russian but not exactly or in I don't know Poland or in even though a lot of polls of it Ayn Rand and a lot of polls are being influenced by Ayn Rand there's no intellectual movement yet of people actually advocating for objectivism but per capita I think there are a lot of people in Eastern Europe who are fans Georgia in the in a form of Yugoslavian states in Poland and in Ukraine and in a lot of these Eastern European countries there is a lot of passion fine-randed a lot of interest in Ayn Rand less so in the Middle East and I think the reason is that the Middle East is so backward in the struggle the struggle for survival is so difficult but even in the Middle East there is an Ayn Rand club I don't think they call themselves an Ayn Rand club but there's basically an Ayn Rand group in Dubai United Arab Emirates there are people who listen to this podcast in Saudi Arabia and in many other Arab countries there is a small group of objectivist in Tunisia that I get messages from an irregular basis kind of talking about Ayn Rand and encouraging me to well they're not yet encouraging me to visit Tunisia because they don't think it'd be safe but there's definitely a presence foothold probably more so in Eastern Europe than there is in in the Middle East but but there is a presence there's no question there's a presence even in the Middle East you on what is your view what in your view is the best Latin American country to do business in excluding Puerto Rico Puerto Rico is an American country I mean I it's hard to tell probably Chile Chile but I think Colombia is coming a long way and of course Brazil is a great place to do business just because of the the it's just that it's a big country and there has been in recent years have tried to move towards more rule of law but I'd say Chile is probably the most advanced in terms of rule of law and protection of business but Chile is heading in the wrong direction he'll Chile setting in the wrong direction okay in theory Christianity condemns hatred and extols love in practice it seems to produce a lot of hatred and little love yes because Christianity wants unconditional love that's impossible how can you can how can you it places love above your values but love is is directly interconnected to your values love is a is a is a product of your values and is a value so I think that it's just copying some so I think Christianity and Christianity is really bad and and part of what makes it so bad is that Christianity presents love as detached from pleasure as detached from value as you should love your neighbor like yourself really I don't love my neighbor like myself and I shouldn't love my leg and I myself I should love myself more than anybody else and and find people I can love like myself because they are valued to me an immense value to me that's what romantic love is is finding somebody who reflects you in them and they become a value to you because your life it's hard to imagine living your life without them so Christianity undermines love it undermines pleasure it undermines self-esteem it undermines happiness and and that's right it produces little love because at the end of the day love is this impossibility love is discounted like virtue in Christianity virtue is an impossibility so virtue is discounted virtue becomes less important whereas in objectivism virtue is possible my perfection is possible and therefore and the reasons to be virtuous are your own happiness your own success your own flourishing your own success at living so virtue is accessible love is accessible virtue is required love is required Christianity you know I don't condemn hatred I don't think objectivism can name hatred hatred is owned love is owned now you want to live in a world in which you love more than you hate because you want to live in a world that a pursuit of positive values but we don't condemn hatred objectivism it recognizes that hatred is necessary sometimes and it extols love but it extols the proper form of love a love that is value-driven not value less so Christianity is the source of so many of our culture's problems it's a source of our views about sex of use about pleasure of use about egoism of use about about values of use about work of use about success and Christianity in that sense Christianity is what needs to be eliminated eviscerated the ideas of Christianity needs to be eliminated from individual human life and it's hard because Christianity is in every aspect of our of our of our culture it's all around us do you think men are more likely to be promiscuous than women if so do you think it is because of hormones or just because it is more acceptable socially so I think yes men seem to be just empirically more promiscuous than women I think it's probably a combination of some aspect of hormones and I'll explain what I mean by that and but it's it's definitely an issue of culture and society and part of that lack of promiscuity among women imposed by culture and society is rational and part of it is not right so let's do that first and we'll do do hormones before birth control for women to have sex was very dangerous very costly you know very scary pregnancy particularly in in pre modern times was indeed dangerous pregnancy in non-modern times was physically dangerous many many women died a childbirth and but it was it was incredibly costly women didn't typically work in a profession where they could support a child because of the impact of Christianity having children out of wedlock was considered you know this horrible sin the costs borne by pregnancy and having a baby out of wedlocks what immense and therefore for women to be promiscuous and therefore have get pregnant and not know who the father was let's say was very very very dangerous existentially not just culturally but existentially and and it wasn't clear how you would support the child even if you didn't you know most women don't die childbirth but how would you support the child how would you support yourself and particularly if men shunned you and didn't want to marry you because so because you know you had had a child or you were sexually active so that the prohibition on for women for not had to not have sex before marriage made some sense in the sense of at least with marriage you had a source of support for the child you had a way to raise the child now in modern times where women can work and women even before birth control some of that goes away and indeed some that has gone away and women have become much more you know promiscuous is not the wrong word but much more open sexually because they can afford to have a child and of course once you have abortions legal and once you have birth control then there is no limitation birth control prevents you from being pregnant and therefore prevents you from suffering the consequences of having a child out of wedlock or having a child you don't want necessarily and you know abortion makes the the bad decision you might have made or the bad outcome that might have happened reversible fixable and I think that's one of the reasons why I think abortion is is we should support abortion we should support the legality of abortion and morality of abortion so I think from a acceptable society I think that's all changed I think that's what the sexual revolution was about I think birth control had a immense impact culturally so that is in terms of culture there was a question also about in terms of hormones and you know hormones I think for women because of culture the inclination towards sexes be suppressed but I do think that the hormones are probably more intense among men and if you put aside towards having sex for the sake of having sex and he put aside against reason and values and being able to control yourself in being a rational enemy animal not just an animal once you take all that into consideration then I don't think there that many differences right between men and women in terms of in terms of their desire for sex the intensity of that desire you know it just it just doesn't strike me as as when you take the cultural impact out that there is that much difference that much difference in this dimension sex is easier for men physically and in many regards so it's it's and I think in some respects emotionally but I think women are just a sexual and have just a strong sexual desires as men do how about doing more in the culture like becoming a moral beacon against cancel culture like more loudly standing up for those unfairly maligned yeah that's great you know you know but why is everybody suggesting what I should do go do it right go do it I'm doing what I want to do and I'm not interested in just in in in in spending my time seeking out those that are maligned by cancel culture and I think it's much more complicated than one things because a lot of people being canceled the people that I don't want to defend I might not think they should be canceled but I don't want to have to deal with them as a positive value as somebody I defend but somebody else could take that up somebody else who doesn't mind that I mean there's a lot of things one can become in the culture there's a lot of things one can do in the culture to promote better ideas you know go do it as I said I'm doing what I love doing and what I want to be doing is the time right for good commercial promoting objectivism like the lemon-aid stand on Einranz philosophy of objectivism in two minutes something just as powerful but set to the backdrop of current events I don't know maybe I mean you'd have to be really clever about it you'd have to be you'd have to create something really intense really powerful really that caught people's attention and at the same time of high quality and and it really reflected some idea you couldn't just do one commercial you'd have to do a whole series of them I mean I suspect it's way too early I suspect the culture is not ready I don't think the problem today is lack of exposure I mean millions of people have read Einranz but they don't buy it they don't they don't accept it so I think we need to keep getting millions and millions of people exposed to Einranz I think we need to do that and if the best way to do that is through commercials but that the goal of that kind of commercial should be go read Atlas Shrugged or go read the Fountainhead and then I think we need to be investing in changing the culture and that means again that means all the different things that involved in changing a culture whether it's getting great art produced that that is reflective of this but it may be doing some commercials you know speaking writing engaging in all the different issues defending people who get canceled by cancel culture doing all the different things that's going to require hundreds of different intellectuals doing different things and different regards not just intellectuals but artists and scientists and teachers and educators all kinds of people working out there working in the culture and shifting it and just shifting people's attitudes and reorienting the culture towards pro-life pro-value pro-love pro-egoism attitudes and of course fundamentally pro-reason attitudes and that's just a lot of work hard work and it requires a lot of different people doing a lot of different things I don't think there's one thing that will lead to success so why don't you do acts why don't you do what you do it I mean we need hundreds of people doing this stuff so or find somebody else to do it so so we don't just need Iran doing stuff we need lots of people doing stuff that's how you change your culture all right you know the technical problems here being a pretty unfortunate so I apologize for that but there's very little I can control with regard to the Wi-Fi here it just drops the Wi-Fi just drops every 20 minutes or so it seems like or maybe every 30 minutes all right let me let me end here unless there's some additional super chat questions let me just encourage again wish you all a happy Valentine's I hope you get to celebrate it with somebody you love somebody says no reason to kill off Christianity live and let live no there's a crucial reason to kill off Christianity I'm for killing off Christianity not killing Christians but killing off Christianity because because we're not gonna establish freedom we're not gonna establish a culture of value orientation we're not gonna establish a culture of love we're not gonna establish a culture with great art and great everything as long as Christianity is thriving and alive now if it's marginalized fine but it has to be killed as a dominant cultural force it has to and yeah live and let live but they don't let you live their whole philosophy is not to let you live right so first practice super chat question we'll ask more oh great thanks Prague Tiki I'll feel free to do so so yes unless there's a quick super chat question I'll say again happy Valentine's Day don't forget what love is about love is about your values don't forget to pursue those values with passion don't forget to identify those values and be clear about what they are articulate them in your own mind know what you're fighting for focus your values on achieving happiness and fulfillment and live it live your life as if live your life loving every moment of it and if you don't figure out why and improve and again I'm not saying there won't be hardships there won't be problems but even the hardships and problems in the context of I love my life are gonna be very different are gonna be dealt with very differently than from the context from a different context so have a great Valentine's Day celebrate your romantic love celebrate the love you have for your own life the love you have for reality and I will see you all probably next Saturday so we're probably taking a long break here because I'll be traveling and and I've got a wedding anniversary that I can't do a show on and I'll be doing other stuff oh I'm doing my debate so those of you in Florida don't forget we've got a debate with the CEO of Whole Foods John Mackie that'll happen at the Villages in Orlando on Thursday night the 18th Thursday night the 18th so I'll be flying to Florida on the 18th if you live anywhere close to that I hope you'll join us it should be it should be a lot of fun and and yeah so so please come it's and and do it it's at the Villages in Orlando Florida and you can find it online just do your own book debate Villages Orlando John Mackie and it'll pop right up all right everyone have a great rest of your week have a great Valentine's Day and I will see you all soon