 The radical, fundamental principles of freedom, rational self-interest, and individual lives. This is the Iran Brook Show. All right, everybody, welcome to Iran Brook Show. It's Saturday. Where did Thursday come from? I don't know. Saturday, April 6th. I am in Buenos Aires, Argentina, coming to you from my hotel room. I just came back from the conference, the Iron Man Latin America conference. Mille just did an interview to end the conference, to end the day. Not the conference. The conference continues tomorrow. But to end the day, and I got a chance to meet him, and I got a chance to hand in my book with Don Watkins. So I thought I'd jump on. I don't have a lot of time. There's kind of a formal dinner associated with the conference. In 45 minutes, I figure I'd jump on for about half an hour, and then I need to catch an Uber to get to the dinner. But just give you my impressions of the day of the conference, and then of Mille himself. Let me just say, I thought the conference so far has been really, really good. I have to say, I think I gave a really good talk on freedom, what it is, and how our conception, not just the freedom, but of life, and the conception of Objectivism is so different than that of libertarians and of conservatives. So a big part of what I did was to differentiate Objectivism from libertarianism and conservatism, and I thought that went really well. I was really happy with the way it went. And so I did that this morning. Actually, somebody came up to me just as I was leaving this evening, and like five, six students were standing around, and they said, your talk was by far the best talk of the conference. It was even better than Mille if we're allowed to say so. And yeah, it was better than Mille's. So it left an impression. Hopefully that means some additional subscribers to the Iran Book Show. We'll see these are people, these are kids, students, who did not know that we had, I had a show. So it's great. So being here doing this is exactly achieving what I wanted, which is to expose the ideas of Iran, to expose the Iran Book Show, me, but I ran more importantly to people who are not familiar, and that's definitely achieving the purpose. I thought Ben Baer gave a good talk on capitalism. Rustina gave a good talk on collectivism versus individualism, although it was a Spanish. So I didn't get to follow the whole talk. What else did we have? Talit's Funny gave a talk on, in a sense, the role of the mind as the motor of the world. Maria Malti gave a talk. So yeah, I thought the first day of the conference was quite good. And a lot of people, you know, I think, I mean, the room was only packed solid for Mille, which means probably over 400 people were there for Mille. But I'd say there were two to 300 people there most of the day. So let me think from my talk, which is the first one in the morning, there were probably 200 plus, maybe 300, I don't know, 250, maybe, people in the audience. So that was terrific and a great success. I did get to meet Mille. So he had approved a small list of people who could meet him basically before he went to the green room, got some photos with him. And so that was, you know, that was kind of fun. So it was basically me and Talit's Funny, the CEO of the Anduin Institute and then a few other people including somebody who's going to be speaking tomorrow about his experiences escaping from Cuba. This is the guy who flew a MiG-27 out of Cuba to the United States and defected a real hero and they went back to get his family. So a real hero, I'm looking forward to hearing his presentation. Although again, it'll be in Spanish, so I'll have to weigh my translation headphones to understand it. So, you know, Mille was there. I was surprised. He's a little taller than I thought he was. He comes across. I thought he was short. So he's not friendly, but I don't know. He seems shy. He seems a little reserved and shy. No real reaction and we'll get to this about the interview. No real reaction to the fact that with the Anduin Institute, no real response about Anduin. I know that Tal gave him a copy of OPAW by Lena Pieckoff and then I handed him, which he looked at and kind of, no real response and then I handed him Free Market Revolution and he said, oh, and I said, I wrote this with Don Watkins and the title Free Market Revolution, I thought it would be particularly appropriate for you given what you're trying to do in Argentina and he smiled. He was the first time I'd seen it really beaming and really happy and he said, I'll definitely read this. I'll read this. So who knows? Who knows, but it would be great if he read it. I'll say that he definitely needs it. He definitely needs it. He's an economist who maybe understands certain of the economic principles around capitalism, but he really, really, really, really needs, needs, needs to understand the moral issues surrounding capitalism and that he's going to get from Ain Rand and I think he'll get some of that from Free Market Revolution. It's geared at that level. It's geared to the person interested in economic liberty. So I'm hoping that it's a way in. Everybody says he's read Atlas Shrugged. I see no evidence of that. Everybody says he's read Ain Rand. He mentioned it. I see no evidence of that, I have to say. In the interview, so he did an interview. So that was a fairly quick, we got some photos. I handed him the book, more photos. That's the only real exchange we had was around the book which he seemed to get excited about. And then he went on stage and he did this interview with Maria Marti who runs Ain Rand Center Latin America. And I mean, the interview I thought was very much him being a politician. Being a politician, it's relatively pro-freedom, but his first answer to the first question lasted 30 minutes. That was the interview basically and then a few other short questions and answers in which he basically gave a story of his campaign and his rise from an economist to a politician to ultimately running for president and the rallies he had and how he spread ideas. I thought that was the most interesting part of the interview probably was the part where he said that how he thought he influenced young people by citing books and by giving them references and by encouraging them to read. And the books he cited were all economics books. I'd say that so he gave a story about that. You know, the one, I'd say the most disappointing of his answers was the answer when asked about his view of business with his heroes, which he stated often. But he views business with his heroes because they're benefactors of mankind, because they're benefactors of society. There was no hint of the idea of pursuing their own values, using their mind, you know, thriving, flourishing, individuals flourishing, kind of a self-interested perspective on, you know, the businessmen and the morality of the businessmen, which if you read Ayn Rand, you know, he would have at least read whether, again, whether he remembers it, understood it, accepted it, you know. And he never mentioned Ayn Rand during the interview and he was given a gift by a Guatemalan sculpture. My favorite active selling sculptor in the world, a guy named Walter Peter, who is Guatemalan and he's got this beautiful sculpture of Atlas, Atlas holding the world with one hand kind of easily. And I think it's a beautiful sculpture and that was given to him and the reference was made to Atlas Shrugged and the reference was made to Ayn Rand. And he didn't bite. He just didn't say anything about Ayn Rand, which makes me think that he might not have read her or he doesn't like her or he doesn't read her but doesn't really know anything about it and doesn't want to talk about it or that it's politically dangerous to talk about it, which is possible. It's possible that he gets it, that he ends it. I mean, some people would argue he gets it. He gets egoism. He gets the self-interested motivation of businessmen. He gets that that's the moral foundation. He just can't say it because it's politically unacceptable and he would lose an election. I mean, that's possible. I can't say that that is not true. I just don't know. I see no evidence one way or the other. As I suspected, I know a number of people here in Argentina who are knowing quite well. And they think, so I talked to one of them after the talk, and they think that he is... this could really open doors and he would maybe be open to, interested in having a real conversation about these things. And if he was, I'd be willing to fly down to Argentina and have that conversation with him or maybe somebody else, but that would be great. If this opened the door and maybe he reads the book and he's curious and he wants to talk more about it, that would be super exciting. Other than that, I think his presence at the conference mainly drew people in and they were exposed to a lot of ideas. One of the things we did at the conference purposefully was because of their fundamental issues, we disagreed with Milerón, abortion, anarchy, individualism, and a moral defense, a proper moral defense of capitalism. As we structured the program of the conference to deal with those issues, I dealt with the difference between objectiveism and libertarianism. Tomorrow I am doing a debate with an anarchist, so I'll present the anti-anarchist argument. Ben Bair tomorrow will be giving a talk on abortion, on why abortion is a moral right. Augustina talked about individualism as the alternative to collectivism, because he goes after collectivism, but he never really articulates alternative, which is individualism, and never really plays it out. Again, maybe that's because, maybe that's because he's, because again, he needs to get elected. I don't know. And then of course Ben did today talk about the morality of capitalism, which presents the objectives. So we've structured the program of the conference in hope that a lot of his fans would come to the actual conference and hear our objections, our critique, our positions he holds, and hopefully open their eyes, hopefully intrigue them, interest them, fascinate them, and oops, one second, one second. Plug came out of the wall. And hopefully intrigue them and fascinate them, about Ayn Rand. And that's the goal. The goal is to get people to read Ayn Rand. The goal is to get people to engage in Ayn Rand's ideas. And so both today and tomorrow we are doing a whole series of talks basically presenting the alternative ideas to Amilay's ideas, not because he will hear them, because he won't, but because hopefully some of the people, because the people at the conference will hear them, and they'll understand no opposition. And, right. So, all right, so let's, I don't have a lot of time, so let me take some of these questions, particularly, particularly, okay, so we got Q2Santo says, you criticized Amilay saying that entrepreneurs are social benefactors. You said Steve Jobs helped millions. How is it different than what Amilay said, praising them for their contribution to humanity that does not equate to praising altruism? Friendly fire? I agree. I didn't say he was an altruist. I did say that if that's all you say about it, it appears it's a collectivistic defense. It's not, and it implies altruism. They're doing it for humanity. They are, you know, the reason it's moral is because a lot of people helped. Now, it's absolutely true and needs to be said that the only way they are successful and they get rich is because they make the world a better place. They improve the lives of other people. They help millions, billions, actually. But if that's all you say, then I think it's wrong. And I try, maybe you can catch me, I try not that that is not all I say. I talk about the fact that Bill Gates goes to work. Why? To make money. And that's a good thing. And why does he go to work? Because he loves it. Because it's a manifestation of his individual flourishing. It's a manifestation. His work is his passion. His work is his central purpose in life. He is a valuer. He is creating a flourishing life for himself. That's the primary moral defense of Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, and entrepreneurs and billionaires. And the only way they do that because of the trade principle, because of trade, is by improving the lives of other people. I mean, Ayn Rand wrote Atlas Shrug. It improved my life, it improved all of your lives. But she didn't write it to improve our lives. She wrote it because she loved writing. She wrote it because this was her passion. She wrote it because it was an expression of her values. She wrote it because it was part of her pursuit of her happiness in her flourishing as an individual. And yes, when you do that, this is the beauty, you know, this is the reality of a self-interested and a self-interested world, is if you pursue your self-interest in a productive way, and given that a productive way means that you are a trader, then you will benefit other people. But the purpose is not to benefit other people. And the fact that you benefit other people is not what gives it a moral, you know, a stamp of morality. The fact that you're improving your life, that you're making your life better, that's what makes it an improvement. And by the way, in my morality talk about capitalism, I present the fact that Bill Gates helped billions of people, not as his moral justification for Bill Gates, but to expose altruism for what it really is, to show that real altruism is not about helping other people, that really what altruism demands, because they hate Bill Gates in spite of him helping other people, real altruism is about the sacrifice and the destruction and the non-producing, the destruction of his own values. That's when you're really a good guy, right? So, if altruism really is not about helping other people, altruism is really about self-sacrifice. So, you know, Millet is not about self-sacrifice. But for somebody who criticizes collectivism, to say that businessmen are hero because they benefit society is about as collectivistic as an argument as it gets, and that's a reality. And it opens up the door to the assumption that businessmen are altruists, which they are not, and that altruism is the only way to morally defend somebody. So, that's the challenge I have. And yes, I think it's very, very, very important, and Inran does this a lot, to say that businessmen benefit millions of individuals, billions of individuals. But you can't stop there. You have to say more. And you have to say that it's in the service of their own happiness that they do it. It's in the service of their own values that they do it. That's not the primary. And for Millet, that's it. That he stops there, which is unfortunate, because, again, I don't know if he knows the rest of the argument, or that he can't say the rest of the argument for political reasons, but that's not a good impression that he's giving so many people. Look, I am excited about Millet in spite of my reservations. I'm excited about Millet. You know, I'm excited about anybody who's going to move a country, in this case Argentina, towards greater freedom. I'm excited about anybody who's willing to go up there and criticize collectivism. I'd like the criticism to be more devastating, in the sense that you have to offer an alternative, and that alternative is individualism, which means self-interest, which means everything that I've talked about. So I'm a fan. And I only want him to be successful, and I really, really, really want him to grow philosophically, to just to grow. I mean, one of the things that I noticed in the Q&A is he's not philosophical. He's an economist. He knows economics, and he keeps on voting to economics. He did mention my favorite living economist, so that's good, who I think is very, very good, and very individualistic, and very important. You know, and that is Israel Kurtzner, Israel Kurtzner, who taught for many years at NYU, I think Israel Kurtzner is probably 95, 96, so I don't think he teaches anymore. I think he's still alive. Anyway, I mean, he's my favorite living economist, and one of my favorite economists of all time. He didn't mention Israel Kurtzner, and that was terrific. And he mentioned him in, I think, a positive, a good context. So that was good. What else? I mean, the audience went wild. So I mean, this is really, he is a kind of, he's very charismatic. He's very technical and kind of boring, but he's very charismatic at the same time. And the audience went wild when he was introduced in the beginning. They went wild at the end. They yelled, you know, go freedom, whatever. It was quite, it was quite exciting. The name of the economist is Israel Kurtzner. He's an Austrian economist in the Mises line, and he specialized particularly in writing about the entrepreneur, the importance of entrepreneur, the centrality of the entrepreneur to economics, to economic success. All right, let's see. Thank you, Jonathan. Jonathan says congratulations. I mean, I don't know. I'm not sure there's anything to congratulate, but yes. Batista says, hi, Iran. I was sitting behind you at the first half of the event, so I'm happy to meet you. Your talk was great. Hope to exchange a few more words tomorrow. Absolutely. I'll be around all day tomorrow, and I will be in the anarchism debate. I know a lot of people in the audience were anarchists and are looking forward to that debate. Ein Mikat says, this conflict is slowly turning me into the Joker. Gaza must be destroyed. Don't become the Joker, please. That's awful. Joker is pure nihilism, but the Gaza conflict is horrible. But anyway, that's what we're talking about today. Andrew says, a selfish brute is a contradiction of terms. Absolutely. Andrew then says, do you view the Democrats turning against Israel as causing a schism on the left, or is the average Jewish Democrat turning against Israel too? I do think, at some extent, it's creating a schism on the left. But the reality is that the longer this conflict lasts, the longer Israel takes to do what is necessary, the longer it takes to win this and to destroy Hamas. The more opportunities to offer it, to make mistakes, to stimulate the altruism and the weakness of many American Jews, and the more they are likely to turn against Israel. I do think that Jews will also ultimately, potentially turn against Israel, particularly given that Israel is led by Netanyahu, which gives them an excuse to hate him. And it gives them an excuse to hate Israel because they hate Netanyahu. So it would be much better for Israel if they were led right now by somebody else. Yair Lapid, who's left of Senegal, or really a centrist, he's not left of Senegal, really a centrist, would probably do exactly the same thing as Netanyahu, but people wouldn't hate him because he's not Netanyahu. And he would probably find ways to be less obnoxious than Netanyahu, it tends to be. Netanyahu is acting in Gaza week, but he gives a, as usually gives a strong speech. They're still not in Rafa. Two months after they were supposed to be in, they were supposed to invade Rafa at the beginning of the Ramadan. It's almost the end of the Ramadan. Ramadan is about a month. They haven't done anything. They're not close to it. They haven't presented a plan. They haven't evacuated civilians. It's just very, very, very discouraging what's going on. But anyway, you know, let's, let's, you know, we'll talk about that another time. Maximum, Maximus says, go over your analysis post Biden-Caplan debate. You mentioned good points that you forgot. You're asking me now? God, you should have asked me right after the debate. I don't remember what the good points that I didn't mention. I mean, in a debate, particularly the debate tomorrow is quite short. I think opening statements are five minutes. So there's not a lot to say, not a lot, going to be a lot of opportunity to say much. But I don't remember what the points in the Biden-Caplan debate that I forgot. But yes, there are always going to be good points that you don't express because debates go very fast. You have very short periods of time to talk about stuff. And yeah, I mean, I have no, I can't remember. I thought the debate with Brian was good. I thought I won the debate. I did win it in terms of the voting, the number of people who changed their minds. Could have done better, I'm sure. Other things I forgot that would have been powerful. Yes. But the best thing about anarchism you could do right now is go read my essay with Don Watkins about why government isn't necessarily good, why anarchy is wrong. You can find that on Don Watkins' sub-stack. Just do, you know, I think if you do anarchy, you're on Brook and Key, you're on Watkins. Yeah, there it is. So just do anarchy, you're on Brook, Don Watkins, and you'll find it, it's called, and it's also on Brian Kaplan's website, it's called Anti-State as Anti-Freedom. And so you can find it both on Don Watkins' sub-stack and on Brian Kaplan's sub-stack. You'll find both. Don Watkins' sub-stack is called Earthly Idealism. So Earthlyidealismoneword.com. You'll find it and the anti-state and anti-freedom is right there. So you can find it. So I think reading that is much better than following a debate. Emil says, have you seen the libertarian classical liberal party on the rise in Denmark, and do you think this is a step towards major change in Scandinavia? I mean, you know, Denmark has always had a significant presence of kind of classical liberals in it, a friend of mine and a supporter of the Ironman Institute. Lars Christensen, the Danish entrepreneur, businessman, ran his own party. There was supposed to be classical liberal, and it got into parliament. It was quite successful, but then the party itself, I think, got corrupted by statism, which often happens in these, often happens in these kind of political situations. So I think there's always a chance in Denmark I think Norway has flirted with kind of classical liberal politics, but as soon as they get into power, the classical liberal ideas somehow go out the window and they become status like everybody else. I don't know if we're going to see a major change. I mean, Scandinavia is worrisome. In Sweden, there's a major rise in status, right wing kind of nationalist tendencies, anti-immigrant in the context of Sweden, you could argue there's some justification, but again, you have to provide the right context for it. But Sweden is probably heading into, and then Finland also has this very nationalistic right wing political party that is gaining ground. I don't see, and maybe some of the Swedes in the Finns could correct me, but I really don't see a classical liberal tendency in Sweden and Finland. Norway always flirts with it, but Norway's a rich country because of oil. There's no urgency in Norway for anything. They're generally centrist, they're not socialist, they're not capitalist, they're generally centrist, and I think they'll probably stick with that. And then, so I think Denmark is interesting. Like, look, I've given tons of talks in Denmark. I mean, for 20 years now, over 20 years, I've been going to Denmark regularly. I used to go teach seminars at Saxon Bank to Danish bankers. I've given talks at SIPOs, I've given talks at the university in Denmark. I think Denmark is a very exciting place. I've given talks, I think, to one of the political parties that was more classical liberal. So I think we've had an influence there. Atlas Shrugged was translated into Danish, funded by laws, and it sold quite well. Lars Christian himself has been on television a lot, kind of advertising Atlas Shrugged and the ideas of Atlas Shrugged. I mean, Denmark's a small country, and there's been a concerted significant effort to get Atlas Shrugged and the ideas of classical liberalism exposure in Denmark, in Copenhagen, in Denmark, broadly. So, yeah, I mean, I think that there's a good chance that some of those ideas are sticking, and maybe Denmark is a place where there'll be a major step towards change. I'm less optimistic about the other countries in what we call Scandinavia, right? So I think Denmark is, I mean, I'm glad to see that there is a classical liberal party that is on the rise. I haven't seen that yet. I haven't experienced that yet. All right, Oivitz says, nice to see you so far. You're on. Mainly because I'm talking fast because I have to go. So I'm trying to get a lot out quickly. Paul Azuz, thanks for the support. Really appreciate it. We got a bunch of stickers. Let's go. Zach, thank you. John, as always, thank you. Gail, thank you. Stephen Hopper, thank you. Eric, thank you. Mary-Aleen, thank you all. All of you, long time and consistent supporters of the Iran Book Show. Stephen, thank you. Wes, $100. Really, really appreciate it. John, thank you. And yeah, that's all the stickers. We have one final question. I really have to go. I'm supposed to be at this dinner. Andrew says, what do you think of Israel's communication strategy? You read the bombing of the ad. Aid workers, they claim full responsibility, apologized, and said they're accepting responsibility in difference between Israel and Hamas. So first, I think, yeah, I mean, I think the fact that they took responsibility is right. They're not lying. They're not pretending. They're not evading reality. They did it. It was an accident, and I think they should call it such. They could talk about the accident, and they didn't mean to do it. I think that's important. But I think they also need to make the claim. Anybody dies in Gaza in this war is the moral responsibility of Hamas. Everybody, no matter who pulls the trigger, is the moral responsibility of Hamas. That message needs to be loud and clear, and that is not coming through. That is not something they're talking about, because, in a sense, they've accepted the world's, you know, altruistic framing of all of this. Israel, you know, the world is just looking for opportunities to slam Israel. And unfortunately, Israel's giving them those opportunities. All right. Thank you, guys. I appreciate your support for a very quick, very short show. I will have more to say about the conference. I'm sure in days to come, I'm looking forward to the talks tomorrow, to my debate on anarchism. I'm particularly curious about Ben's talk about abortion and how the audience will respond to it. I remember Argentina is still a Catholic country. And, you know, so it should be, it should continue. The conference should continue to be exciting and interesting. And, you know, I hope Millet reads my book. I hope it has an impact. And I hope, you know, one day I get a phone call inviting me to come to Argentina to have a coffee and a conversation with Millet about how to bring about a real unapologetic, unequivocal free market revolution and a revolution in individual rights without any compromise and without any moral questions. I've had a nice Argentinian steak. I've eaten well in Argentina. But, you know, this is, I don't know, some formal event. I didn't bring a tie, so they're going to have to accept me without a tie. But it's some formal event. It's some palace dinner. I'm sure there'll be steak there. But I think I had steak for lunch. I think in Argentina, you kind of have steak for breakfast, lunch and dinner. Maybe I'm on the Jordan Peterson Carnival Diet or something. I'm not sure. All right, everybody. I will see you all maybe tomorrow. I'll try to do a show tomorrow. But if not, then certainly Monday, I'll do a show from Santiago, Chile. And the rest of the week we'll try to fit in as many shows as possible. Thank you again to the Super Chatters. Thank you for all of you for logging on for this short show. I will talk to you all soon.