 The radical, fundamental principles of freedom, rational self-interest, and individual rights. This is The Iran Book Show. Hey everybody, welcome to Iran Book Show on this Monday, July 19th. Welcome. I hope you had a great weekend. I hope you set up for a fantastic week. I see that my podcasting app again is giving me trouble. I think I've got the latest version. Okay, we're back up. Okay, the podcasting app is up. So welcome to Iran Book Show. And thank you for joining us. We've got a full show today. There's a lot to talk about. There's a lot going on. Russia and NATO summit in Lithuania. Custom munitions and a big to-do about custom munitions. And then we're also going to talk about you probably all were panicking this weekend because last week saw some of the hottest days ever in all of human history. We were told maybe the hottest days in all of human history or all of the planet's history. Never mind. Anyway, so I know you guys were panicking, particularly those of you who don't have AC. We'll talk a little bit about electric vehicles and then we'll end with the... I don't know why, but I wrote Amazon versus the FTC. It should be the FTC versus Amazon about the ongoing campaign of the FTC to basically destroy Amazon, as we know it. So we'll do all that. Let's see. Jonathan, thank you for the support. Really, really appreciate it. I see Remo and Seamus have already got us started with the superchats. I thank you guys. We have a goal, of course, for all these shows in terms of superchats. So please consider supporting and using the superchat both to ask a question and to support. Let me just make this quick announcement and then we'll go to the topic of discussion. An anonymous user. Thank you. I appreciate it. And that is, I'm looking for sponsors for the show, like businesses. If you have a business, a product, and I know I've tried this before and I haven't been super responsive to some of you out there around us, but I'm going to try to do better. I really am. This is getting more important for me. So I'm going to be much better on this. So if you have a business, if you have a service, if you have a product, do you think the listeners of the wrong word show would be interested in? If you think it's something I could endorse, I don't endorse everything. There's certain products that I'm not going to sell on the show, but there's certain things that I will. I don't know if you're a financial advisor, if you have, I don't know, a new app that you want to promote online or whatever. Please consider cutting some kind of deal in terms of sponsorship. Generally, I do about a thousand a month. But if I only mention it rarely, then we can do a low amount. You know, again, we can figure something out and negotiate and work on this. But I am looking, I do need to increase income from the show. And I think sponsorship is something that I see a lot of the other podcasting do. And of course, if I get enough sponsorships, then I can also eliminate the ads on the podcast. So with a few sponsorships, we can eliminate the ads on the podcast. So instead of the ads, we would have sponsorship ads. And I think that would be less offensive than some of the nonsense that is advertised on the wrong book show. Sometimes on the podcast, let's not so on YouTube where I have disabled ads. So we have no ads on YouTube. All right, so yes, if you want to sponsor the show, please let me know. You're on at youronbookshow.com, you're on at youronbookshow.com. Send me an email and we can figure something out. All right, let's talk about Russia, NATO, cluster munitions. I don't know, any other bomb types you guys want to talk about are happy to talk about. Let me take off the headphones. I don't need them. All right, so first thing, so there's just a lot of stuff going on. So we're just going to cover a few things together. First, let's talk about what's going on in Russia. It is interesting, although very little knowledge. So I'm just going to mention speculation here, just something to watch, something to keep track of, but very little knowledge. So the Pogosian thing, the mutiny that happened a few weeks ago really hasn't yet been resolved completely. Pogosian is missing. Nobody knows exactly where he is, although Lukashenko says he's in Russia. Pogosian fighters who were supposed to go to Belarus and there were encampments built for them. As far as we can tell, haven't moved into those encampments, so they are still wherever they happen to be in Russia mostly or in Ukraine. Pogosian himself has been to Russia, spending time in Russia, which is a little surprising. You'd think he would be arrested or shot or killed or whatever, but he's not. Indeed, there is now information coming out that Pogosian met with Putin together with like 30 of his commanders five days after the mutiny. It seems kind of weird that Putin would have him and they discussed what's going on in Ukraine. It seems just weird. I mean, he was Pogosian basically challenged Putin's authority. You'd think that would be the end of Pogosian. Putin needs him for some reason, or Pogosian has something in Putin to keep him alive. If he's alive, you know, for all I know, he's not. Hasn't fallen out of a window yet. I could be that a Buddhist strategy is to let Pogosian unwind his vast empire because Pogosian has built up a vast octopus-like, you know, business scheme with troops and professional soldiers all over the place. Maybe Pogosian is the only one who can kind of dismantle it or at least shift ownership of it to people more friendly to Putin, and maybe Putin needs him to do that before he falls out of a window. Hard to tell, but it certainly something's going on in the background. There is a lot of complexity to this. What do we do with the 1,000 or so, maybe under 1,000, maybe some of it between 500 and 1,000 troops, Wagner troops in Syria? Do they fall under Russian command? Do they go home? If they go home, they go to Russia. They go to Belarus. What happens to them? Wagner goes in as a contract with the Russian government over this. There's a contact get reneged. There's a contact go away. That all has to be negotiated. Even more complicated is the dozen or so, or half a dozen or so countries in Africa, which are basically dependent, to a large extent, for law enforcement on the Wagner group. And where Russia basically controls through the Wagner group, what happens in Africa? Are these troops not going to be paid directly from the Ministry of Defense? Are they going to stay in Wagner, but the ownership of Wagner shift? Are they all going to come home, and therefore Russia is going to give up its presence and control and influence in Africa? I mean, there are a lot of questions, and I don't see many answers right now. And I think these are kind of the questions that are being answered in the Kremlin as we speak by the various power brokers. Not only did Pogosin go missing, but the general who supported Pogosin has disappeared. He's supposedly in jail, but nobody knows. There's been no comment about him. He was the one general that everybody thought was actually competent to run a war in Ukraine, and he's in jail. Interestingly, the general who commands all troops in Russia that Pogosin condemned over and over and over again, he disappeared for weeks. He just made an appearance this last weekend, so he's not dead. He's alive. I suppose he's still commanding the troops, but why did he disappear for so long? Why did Putin shove him away to appease Pogosin? I mean, so huge amounts of uncertainty. The internal politics inside the Kremlin must be astounding. The Ministry of Defense, it can't be happy that Pogosin is still alive. Putin is clearly weaker. Every day that Pogosin stays alive, Putin is weaker. What is Pogosin going to do? One thing Pogosin might do is try to show Putin that he really needs Pogosin. What he does to do that? I don't know, invades another country, attacks. Who knows? Pogosin is a complete, I mean, I don't think Pogosin is rational. He is, to a large extent, a nut job. Now he's a nut job out of stress. What is he actually going to do? So there's massive uncertainty inside Russia, inside the Kremlin. There are other centers of power within Russia other than just Putin. There is competition going on right now. One of the things that's going on that we know is that Pogosin's name is being tarnished as much as possible. So Pogosin is, you know, whereas Dugin about a month before the mutiny presented Pogosin as the potential savior of Russia, the alternative, the better alternative to Putin, the real strongman, the future of the Russian Empire, Dugin and everybody else are backed off of that. They are now presenting Pogosin as a nobody, as weak, as Putin, as the emperor. So, you know, and they're trying to show that Pogosin is corrupt and he's, as if they're not all corrupt, but that his, you know, the Wagner group was not that effective and not that good and not that profitable. And just all campaign, and Russia is very good at these campaigns, in order to discredit Pogosin, not as somebody who is happy to see Pogosin discredited, but not in order to promote Putin. It's all really just interesting. So I don't have anything definitive to say here other than it's going on. It's something to watch. What actually happens within the Kremlin is yet to be determined. We have still not seen the ultimate consequences of the Pogosin mutiny from a few weekends ago. All right. So that was a Russia update NATO. So NATO is meeting today in today this weekend in Vilnius, which is the capital of Lithuania. Lithuania, of course, is a member of NATO. Lithuania also is a relatively small country, not as small as Latvia and Estonia with a border with Russia. Lithuania also, like Ukraine, like Estonia, like Latvia, has a Russian population. That is, they are so-called, you call them ethnic Russians, Russian speakers in Lithuania that could be, that Russia could use as an excuse to liberate them, an excuse for war. There's no doubt in my mind, and I think in many, most people believe that if Lithuania, Estonia and Latvia were not members of NATO, the Pogosin would have already gone to war with them and taken them. They would have been easy, right? I mean, they're tiny little countries. They would have been relatively easy to capture. Again, Lithuania is very close to Russia, and that is where the NATO summit, which happens, I think, every year, is being held. A few issues that are coming up in this NATO summit that are just worth reviewing quickly. It means NATO membership. So many countries in NATO, particularly in the East, countries like Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, would like to have Ukraine join now, join NATO immediately, without the guarantee of NATO intervening in the current war, but to guarantee that once the war ends, NATO is there to protect Ukraine from future invasion from Russia. So they would like to join now. Germany and the United States are saying, whoa, slow down. No, that is too tricky. It might evolve NATO immediately in this war. We will look at Ukraine joining NATO only after the war is over, and that is the position of the Biden administration and the position of the German administration. Overall, I think it's the right position. I don't think there's any reason. Let Ukraine fight this war with as much weapons as they can, and we'll get to weapons in a minute, but no reason to put NATO troops and American troops on the ground. And then after the war is done, after the Russians are kicked out of Ukraine, if that happens, then bring Ukraine into NATO. And as part of that, require Ukraine to become better, right? I mean, Ukraine can become better. It can, as many of the NATO members, less corrupt, more committed to free speech, although, you know, is hungry, corrupt absolutely, maybe more so than Ukraine, and yet as a member of NATO, what about Bulgaria, what about Romania? But I think Ukraine can improve and joining NATO is an opportunity to squeeze them for improvement, the same about joining the EU. So anyway, that's about NATO membership. There's going to be a lot of talk about how to provide Ukraine with security guarantees if and when there is some kind of peaceful settlement with Russia, either there's a ceasefire or peace or something like that. And then also a really important conversation is going to be around Sweden. Sweden would like to join NATO. Every country in NATO would like Sweden to join, except two right now. Those two are hungry. Hungry will allow Sweden to join. It's not going to stop it, but it's taking advantage that there's another country opposed to it to join the opposition just to be different. Well, just because Orban deep down doesn't want, doesn't like NATO, doesn't believe in NATO, and he's ultimately pro-Russia. But once I have to do something here, what do I have to do here? I have no idea. All right, I'll have to do it another time. So Orban is against Sweden joining, because he's anti-NATO generally, because he's anti-West. But the real opposition to Sweden joining NATO is from Odoan. Odoan, once the squeeze has been concessions out of Sweden, out of NATO, Sweden in the past has supported some of the Kurdish opposition to Turkey. They have since changed their laws and become less supportive of the Kurds, and they claim they've done everything Turkey's asked them to do. Turkey's saying, not quite, you haven't done enough. But really what Turkey's doing is trying to get leverage over the other members of NATO. One piece of leverage, one thing they would like, is Turkey would like to join the European Union. The European Union doesn't want Turkey, and so Turkey is trying to use Sweden joining NATO as leverage to try to join the EU. I don't think that'll work, but the US will probably use leverage against Turkey. That is, Turkey also wants upgraded F-16 fighters from the United States. And I think the US will use that as leverage to get Sweden. I mean, I said this a year ago, when this was first discussed. In the end, Sweden and Finland will become NATO members. Finland is already a member of NATO. Sweden will become one as well. Another one of my predictions, you can kind of, somebody should list all my predictions and check them off, because I'm constantly accused of having zero understanding of geopolitics, at least on Twitter, that bastion of intellectual debate. The other topic, one more topic, this show is going to be a long show. Other topic is defense spending. I should have just done the show on this. And that is, the United States has, routinely since 2014 and certainly under the Trump administration, has tried to get the Europeans to increase defense spending to become bigger participants and bigger funders of NATO activity. I think absolutely justifiably. In 2014, all the allies agreed to move towards a spending of 2% of GDP on defense within a decade. That decade runs out next year. I think in Vilnius and Lithuania, they're going to agree to make 2% a floor and to strive to have actually more than that. I think once you get European countries spending significantly more than 2% on their own defense, that's when the United States should consider leaving NATO and letting them defend Europe. After all, they're rich countries that have the capabilities, they have nuclear weapons in UK and in France. They should be able to do it. In addition to that, they're going to talk about regional defense plans, they're going to talk about Belarus, which they're now worried because Prygosny is there and does that mean anything? Is Lukashenko now being more ambitious? And of course, you've also got tactical nukes stationed for the first time in Belarus. I think since the USSR in Belarus, and that has got to be a concern. So those are the main issues coming up with regard to NATO. Oh, cluster munitions. One other issue that came up over the weekend with regard to the war is that the United States has agreed to sell or to give to sell kind of munitions, cluster munitions to Ukraine. Now what are cluster munitions? Cluster munitions are basically a shell that you launch into enemy territory and then the shell breaks up and you get dozens of little explosives. So it covers a much wider area than just one shell dropping and exploding. Now you've got multiple shells and it does so at a particular point just above the ground so it has maximum devastating effects. Now, of course, if you use these kind of munitions in indiscriminate ways, particularly in areas where there are civilians, then because this has the ability to kill a lot of people, or injure a lot of people, meme a lot of people, over a vast geographic area, if you do so in areas where civilians are present, a lot of civilians can get caught. And therefore, cluster munitions are considered a no-no in warfare and 100 countries have signed a treaty never to use cluster munitions ever again. Russia is not a signator. Ukraine is not a signator. Russia has been using cluster munitions from the beginning of the war. Ukraine, to the extent they have any, have used theirs as well. And of course the U.S. and the U.S. has them. What's interesting about this is almost all the cluster munitions that the United States has are stockpiled in Europe. So they're in, what do you call it, in all kinds of ammunition places in Europe. And in addition to that, what's interesting is the stockpile, they've got a large number of them, a huge number of them. I think they have a stockpile of roughly 10,000 cluster munitions in Europe. Most of them, most of them are approaching the end of their shelf life. That is, that they're going to, they're going to expire. They can't be used. So those are the ones that Ukraine's going to get. So here's two points about this. I don't believe in weapons bans. You know, in war you use whatever weapon is necessary in order to win the war, and a war over the long run. So, and you have to be strategic about it, you have to think about it, and you have to consider all the factors that are involved in using a particular weapon. But there should be no bans on weapons in terms of what it can achieve and whether, on the good guys, if the good guys can win. So, I'm glad the United States has not signed this treaty around that. But the second is, everybody keeps complaining about how much this is costing the United States. Everybody's concerned about the fact that the United States is spending all this money on Ukraine. But the reality is it's not. The reality is that Ukraine is getting a lot of ammunition and a lot of weapons systems from the U.S. that the U.S. will never use, that are either old or like these cluster bombs that are going to expire. Or just probably never going to be used because they're not going to be, they're not needed in a place where the United States is going to fight. Cluster bombs, cluster munitions, unlikely for the United States ever to fight a war where that would ever is too long. But in the next 20 years where that is necessary, again, the most likely war the United States is going to fight is in China. It doesn't need. We're not going to invade China. The war's going to be over Taiwan and that'll be our aerial and sea war. So we're giving them a lot of weapons we don't need. And yes, they all have a price tag, but we're not replacing them. So we're not spending the money. The reason defense contractors are making a lot of money is not so much because the U.S. is buying weapons to give to Ukraine. The main reason is that countries like Poland are massively arming themselves. They are, I mean, I'll talk about this on another show, but Poland is massively buying hundreds of tanks. They're buying F-35s. They're buying artillery. They are preparing for a Russian invasion like no other country in Europe. They will have probably the largest army outside of Russia in Europe because they're spending like crazy because they know what the threat really is. So again, everybody who's complaining about American taxpayers paying for this war, the numbers are nowhere near the size that is being reported. Again, they're getting stuff from stockpiles that is about to expire, about to expire. And that is true of much of the munitions and the weapons systems that we're sending them. All right, so I have no problem. Oh, one other point about cluster munitions. The reason the Ukrainian want these is because of all the trenches the Russians have built. And because of all these trenches, just using artillery on it is very ineffectual because you have to really get it right, right? Because people are kind of, the cluster munitions, you can get a much bigger area and you can inflict many more casualties on a much larger area using these kind of munitions. And yeah, so it's great for kind of trench warfare. It's great for inflicting massive casualties on a large space very quickly. And that's exactly what the Ukrainians need right now in order to break through the Russian defenses. Let's see. All right, so that was that update. Wow, that took up basically the whole show. All right, let's quickly do this hottest days. Yeah, so it's, we had, according to some people, the hottest days ever, ever in all of human history, hundreds of thousands of years last week. Now, of course, you have to ask anytime they tell you in a panicked voice that we have the hottest days ever. You have to ask how do you know that? There were no thermometers hundreds of years ago. You know, you can tell by, I don't know, tree rings to a point, but not really not the kind of precision that, you know, this was the hottest day by 0.1 Celsius or something. I don't know, maybe not even that. I think it was 0.01 Celsius. You can't tell the temperatures to a 0.01 Celsius, you know, in the distant past. So that's ridiculous, right? So they can say it was the hottest day since we started measuring on a global scale temperatures throughout the world. All right, that's not that many years. Recorded history, right, which is pretty, pretty short, right? We were only recording on a scale and on a global scale, because they're claiming globally it was the hottest day ever. We weren't recording that on scale for a long, long time. You know, for a long time. So this is, so it's the hottest day in the last 50 years, 60 years, 70 years, 80 years, 90, 100 years, something like that. Maybe not even that. Less than, I think 85. Anyway, and the second question is, who cares? And of course, the people who were hot on the hottest days of the year care and I would encourage them to buy air conditioning and make sure their cars have air conditioning and make sure they work in an office with air conditioning and maybe air conditioning in factories and make sure that you have air conditioning, right? Like in London, it sometimes gets really, really hot. And the problem with that is not the heat. The problem is they don't have AC. I mean, in that way, London's pretty backward. So you go to the theater in London and we did this once. I went to see My Fair Lady in London once with my sons years and years ago. And it was like 105 degrees and he was so hot inside. God, it was hot. Unbelievable. And I couldn't believe that the actors, singers, all on stage and all kinds of dress and they were sweating like crazy. It was so hot and yet there's no AC. So the solution, of course, that really hot is AC. And the solution, of course, is if the world is, if there's some real problem, if there's some real catastrophe, then the real solution is we need to solve the problems, right? We need more AC. We need to build dykes to stop the flooding. We need to manage floods better. We need to do all the things that you need to do in order to prevent real damage, right? Real damage from really horrible weather events. But in order to do that, we need a ton of energy and we need it to be cheap because we have to be able to afford all this. And to have a ton of energy and to be able to afford all this, what we really need is more fossil fuels, not less. We need cheap energy, cheap, abundant and efficient and reliable energy. So yeah, one day we'll go off of fossil fuels. And fossil fuels, indeed, are finite. I mean, I think, a long time. And maybe there's more efficient forms of producing energy. But the reality is right now, what you need is more fossil fuels in order to deal with the changes in the weather. Interestingly enough, yesterday I was invited to be on a, what do they call it? A Twitter, Twitter space, Twitter spaces. You know, like where DeSantis announced his presidential campaign. With, it was the biggest, it's the biggest Twitter space. I forget the guy's name, Nawaz. I'm looking, I'm looking at Twitter right now. But anyway, it was, they invited me to be one of the speakers on this thing. This is Mario Nafala, Mario Nafala. And the topic was, it's getting hot, what should we do and stuff like that. So it was good. Too many speakers, which means you don't get a say much. It goes by, you know, you have to sit there and listen to everybody else talk. And it's like, it's very difficult and you need a lot of patience for it. Not something I'm well known for. So I found it frustrating. I did get a say my piece in a short bit. But then I was trying to speak again and it just, it was just too long of a wait. So I dropped off. They, but there were like 5,000 people listening. So it is, it is good. I, you know, I could go on as an expert on a lot of different things. You know, and, and I'm on their list now. And this is the second time they've contacted me to join the space. So it really is a super cool. It's a place where I can get to thousands of people. I did see my Twitter followers spike up because of it. Also maybe because I was fighting this war on Twitter or weekend around Putin and around. So I got to say this stuff. But look, I am always suspicious. Of anybody who catastrophizes. You know, I was suspicious of people who say, oh no, if you piss off Putin, we're all fried because he'll launch a nuclear bomb. I'm suspicious of people saying, oh no, world has too many people who are going to die. I'm suspicious of people saying, oh no, the temperatures are going up. We're all going to fry. I'm just suspicious of any old Jesus coming back in the day of atonement is here. I'm suspicious of all of that. I mean, I'm more than suspicious, right? I'm pretty sure none of it is happening. Not pretty sure. I'm actually certain none of it's happening. And so anytime you get headlines that are screaming at you in a tone of panic, you know something's wrong. Catastrophizing bad and almost always over something that just isn't real and isn't completely wrong. All right. So that's how to say EVs. I had an interesting story about EVs. So it turns out, you know, everybody's trying to compete with Tesla. So everybody's building EVs, Detroit's building EVs. The Koreans are building a lot of EVs. Hyundai and Kia EVs that are very popular in Europe and in Asia are building EVs. Of course, the Chinese are building massive numbers of EVs, electric vehicles. They're just not yet exporting them to the United States. Wait until they do. They will change the market dramatically if they're allowed to export to the U.S. And the Japanese somewhat, although Toyota is the one company that's been very slow on EVs, probably they're probably right about it. But the reality is right now that they can't sell them. The reality is that the EVs are being produced primarily because everybody's anticipating that the market will shift. But more importantly, they're being produced because of subsidies. They're being produced because everybody thinks that these are going to be mandates and they're anticipating the mandates. But the reality is that most Americans don't want an EV. They don't want an EV because they don't want to be limited in their range. They don't want an EV because they don't have that noise of an engine revving, although you can buy an app that will create that for you. They don't want an EV because, I don't know, for whatever reason, the market, you know, who are we to decide what the market should want or shouldn't want? They don't want EVs. And the consequence of that is there is a ton of EVs sitting in dealerships, unsold, just unsold. They keep announcing sales and it doesn't matter because people are not interested and EVs are expensive. People are worried about running out of electricity while driving that they can't charge them. It's a new technology. They're resisting it a little bit. Luxury EVs are not selling because there's no, you can't get a tax credit. So Biden didn't provide a tax credit for luxury EVs or luxury EVs are lagging. The other kind of EV I think that doesn't get a tax credit is you have to have a certain percentage of the stuff in the EV made in the US. So there's a bunch of really good cheap EVs from Korea and other places who are not selling because you don't get a tax credit even though they're not luxury. Because they're from Korea or something. So the market is confused because of all the mandates, regulations, subsidies, sales, tax credits. And as a consequence, there's too much production of EVs and too little consumption of them. And supply and demand economics is not working because so much of this is manipulated by government policy, right? Government policy. And we all know that if you live in California by 2030, you're going to have to buy an EV because they won't be selling internal combustion engine automobiles in California in 2031. So I think a lot of people will buy an internal combustion engine in 2030, but at some point in 2030, you're going to have to buy an electric car. So this is so distorted for the marketplace. I mean, if EVs are so great, have them compete, no tax subsidies, no subsidies, no anything like that. And let's see and let Americans learn about them, let Americans figure it out. And over time, people will probably buy them because the certain things that EVs are really, really good at. But the market's completely distorted and a manifestation of that distortion is the fact that they just weigh too many of them and they're not selling. All right, finally, we'll make this quick because we'll keep returning to the story. It's a big story. Lena Kahn, who heads up the FTC, probably of all the people that Biden has appointed, the various regulatory agencies, she's probably the most evil. Anyway, Lena Kahn, and that's saying a lot, Lena Kahn made her name, made her name with an article she wrote as a student at Yale Law School, basically advocating for the breakout, the break up, the break up of Amazon. And that made her a progressive hero. It made a hero of the left. It elevated her and made her, what do you call it, somebody that everybody admired and respected. She then built a career on going after big tech. That was her big thing. And in an era in which pretty much everybody agrees on big tech. I mean, if I were a Republican, the one candidate I would try to stop from getting the FTC position would be this one. But they also oppose big tech. So why not give it to Lena Kahn? Anyway, so Lena Kahn is heading in the FTC and she's already sued a bunch of tech companies. Right now, there are three outstanding lawsuits against Amazon. And those vary from the latest one. The latest one is, we talked about it on the show. It's too difficult to unsubscribe from prime. I read this article where they mention this and they say they read about this in the New York Times. And the New York Times makes it almost impossible to unsubscribe. You have to give them a reason. Sometimes they send you to an operator to talk to them. But they don't want you to unsubscribe. No business does. But Amazon, where it's relatively easy to unsubscribe, Lena Kahn has gone after them as an antitrust suit because they have deceived us into subscribing to prime. Anyway, the new lawsuit, which they are about to file against Amazon is an all-encompassing lawsuit. This one is going to be to try to drive the complete breakup of Amazon. And it's, you know, she has built a career, literally a career, on attacking Amazon, on advocating for breaking up Amazon. And now she's in a position to actually do it. If she does it, they will solidify her legacy. This will make her a hero of the left forever. This will be the standard oil of modern times. And this will make her whatever, right? It's the arguments being made are so disgusting, disingenuous, unreal. The value that Amazon has created for customers like you and me is never taken into account. It's not considered the enormous value that the consumer, American consumer, global consumer has benefited from Amazon. They don't care. They're not in this for anything, really. And antitrust law is, of course, the most subjectivist and most horrific law on the books in terms of going after business. And unfortunately, there's unanimity across many Republicans and most Democrats that the government needs to be a lot tougher and start using this to really go after, really go after. These big tech and in particular Amazon. So this is a story you will keep watching. I'm looking. Well, I'm not looking forward to it. But when the lawsuit, the fourth lawsuit against Amazon is actually filed, we will review it and and look at it. So, yep, yep. Let's see. So, yep, that's where we are. Let's we should jump into the super chat because we're running late. I promise these shows would be short. Doesn't happen. We have achieved a goal. So thank you, given that we achieved it so quickly. Yeah, help us break through it, you know, we should we should be doing even better. All right, Remo. Switzerland is my favorite country. I love many aspects of it. What do you think of its future prospects? I think the country, it is the country in the West, we have to worry the least about. You know, I don't know. Switzerland, I think I think you're right in a sense that we don't have to worry about Switzerland. But I worry that Switzerland is going to be the substantiation, if that's a word, of mediocrity. It's going to be there. And, you know, it's, it's, it's not going to be too bad. It's not going to be great. The people are a little cold. They're not the friendliest people in the world. But, you know, it's efficient mostly. But if you talk to Swiss businessman, it's super regulated. The way of doing government by referendum is bizarre. It's a direct democracy. It's terrible. There's no sense of individual rights. You know, during certain periods that's fine and other periods it could be totally horrific. But I think what Switzerland will be is it'll always be good. Just not, never great. Never really a bastion of individual rights defending us and defending rights and being the kind of country that I think it could be given its potential. It just won't be that awful. Not good enough for me. I'm more ambitious than Switzerland. Right. Remorseless says, what is your opinion of the Night Watch by Rembrandt? You know, I think it's a magnificent painting. Statically, I understand why it's considered one of the great paintings of all time. I think I know why it's a revolutionary period of its time. You know, it's not one that inspires me greatly. But for its time, you know, it changes painting. It really takes painting to the next level. The use of light and shadow, the use of action. This is kind of a portrait of the Night's God. Usually portraits like that were always static. Everybody was static. They all had basically the same expression. Here Rembrandt makes each one an individual character, gives them a completely different identity, not just in facial features, but also in expression, in emotion conveyed. They're all in motion. They're all doing something or about to do something. There's nothing static about the painting. So the painting highlights the drama of the Night Watch. It highlights the heroism of some of the people in it. It highlights the dynamism and excitement. And he does that brilliantly. It's one of the great paintings of all time. And if you analyze it from aesthetic, he moves your eye across the painting beautifully. I mean, from every aesthetic standard, right? From aesthetic standard, it's one of the great paintings of all time. Again, it's not one that I would put up on my wall. It's not one that necessarily resonates with my values, but I completely appreciate it from an aesthetic value perspective from great art. I saw it recently when I was at the museum, the Reich Museum, or something like that. In Amsterdam, when I went to the Vermeer exhibit, we also went to see the Rembrandts and the other paintings in the museum. Magnificent museum, one of the great museums in the world. All right, Seamus says, salutations. Here's $20, I promised. The FTC is also trying to block Microsoft's $69 billion acquisition of Activision Blizzard. I thought that was already blocked by the Europeans. So it's hard to imagine how that goes through if the Europeans are blocked it. You know, no decision yet in the FTC, but I think the FTC will block it. Anything now that's marginal, the FTC will go, and since the Europeans have already blocked it, there's very little downside for the FTC to join that and block it as well. You know, maybe I'm wrong on the Europeans, but I don't think so. Thank you, Seamus. Really, really appreciate it. Chicken says, the French guy really bombed the life spaces on Twitter last night after the climate activists refused to bring any facts or even arguments. Complete ghost, no soul. Yeah, and it just went on and on and on. And the moderator came to me once and then I raised my hand again and then he didn't come back to me. So I just quit. I mean, I was there for an hour. I'll have to do it more and figure out a way to be more, participate more. But the reality is I got a boost on my Twitter feed. So it's definitely worth doing again and you get exposure to thousands of people. The problem is it's very short and and it's the kind of topics people are ready in their tribal niche on these topics. But look, I added over the weekend that plus my fighting over Ukraine added almost 100 people to my Twitter subscribers. So followers. So that is definitely a net plus. I should fight on Twitter more often, I guess. I will say this also, my subscriptions on YouTube suddenly are going up. And I figured out why because there was a period there where I wasn't doing a lot of shows. When I don't do shows, I add subscribers at a much faster rate than when I do do shows. I offend people less. I don't know. I don't know why that is. But anyway, anyway, subscriptions are back climbing on the runbook show at this pace. We'll make 35,000 here next few months. I hope we can sustain this pace. This will be fantastic and not fall into another one of those subscriptions declining like we did in kind of April and May and June. So since the middle of June, since the end of June, things are looking up since, I think, 24th, something like that. Thank you to Jeacon. Thank you. Really appreciate that. Bradley, Rand said most people only exist in the eyes of other people. This second-handed psychology is formed from very young. Something socially one's indifference to others is taken by them as an insult. How do you deal with it? I mean, I don't. I mean, you just deal with it, right? I mean, first of all, I try not to be insulting to people. It's worth making the effort not to be overly insulting. Muraslav says, maybe I got the subscribers because of Okan. Maybe, but I don't think so because everybody at Okan knows who I am. So, and most of the first timers were from the show. So maybe, but I'm not convinced of that. Anyway, we'll have to keep track and see how things go. But so, you know, you just have to be who you are. I mean, to help with how people view you and what they think of you. I mean, you should see the name calling that's going on on Twitter on every issue. I'm not tough enough on trans. So some so-called objectives are coming after me for not being tough enough on trans and not tough enough on the video that they happen to watch. And unless I put it in writing, it doesn't count. And of course, I was anti-Trump. They hate me on that. I mean, I'm hated by everybody, except for a few people here. So you can't live your life based on how other people think of you. And you just have to live your life and do the things that you know necessary to live your life. There's no reason to be obnoxious and rude and to people, particularly people you don't know don't deserve it. So people do deserve it. But other than that, if people find it insulting, tough. I mean, people are super intimidated by me. I don't know what to make of that. I'm not intimidated. All right, Silvano says, do you think chemical weapons bands are wrong as well compared to cluster weapons? What does it mean to ban a weapon? The bad guys never ban weapons. The bad guys never adhere to it. So what is the purpose? The Syrians use chemical weapons. And Obama drew a red line and then didn't follow up on it. So, yeah, I mean, chemical weapons are particularly nasty. They're horrible. If you're going to die, God, rather put a bullet in your head than ever exposed to chemical weapons. I mean, they kill you slowly and they kill you in the most disgusting ways possible, and you suffer. You suffer. But the bad guys don't adhere to conventions. The bad guys don't follow these things. So what is the point? It's just moral posturing. It's just virtue signaling. It has no purpose for it, right? I mean, if Russia signs the chemical weapon ban, do you believe them? I don't. So, you know, now, if the United States wants to say, any country in the world, and this is the only way in which bands work, any country in the world that uses chemical weapons, we're going to annihilate you. Okay, but then you have to live up to it. Then you actually have to do it, right? Then we actually have to do it. So, but international treaties guaranteed by the UN, meaningless virtue signaling. I am Meerkat, obligatory nuclear bro super chat. Nuclear is best way to produce energy. Of course. I said that on the show yesterday. All right, on the Twitter thing. Oh my God, look how many questions there. 5, 10. Okay, so if you want to ask a question for now on $20 question, Kenny just asked, why do we need cluster bombs? I answered that earlier on the show. You need cluster bombs to be able to deal with, you know, large spaces, large areas, because the initial bomb and particularly dug in like trenches, it's very effective against trench warfare. So, you know, because the bomb breaks into multiple bombs, those multiple bombs fall over a larger area and can fall into those trenches and incapacitate a lot more people. So it's very effective against the kind of trenches that the Russians have built in Ukraine to clear those up. All right, Robert says you're on book show and Okon was great. And hopefully your talk on Russia and Ukraine will be one of the first Okon 23 sessions released on YouTube. I hope so, because I need to get it out there. Not that I think I have any influence on the people who are pro Russia. But give give everybody else some some ammunition. And I might do a show tonight. I don't know what you guys think. Let me know. I might do a show tonight just on Russia and all the people loving Russia and all the arguments they make and why they're wrong and silly and horrible. So if there's real interest in a show on the Russian-Ukrainian war to just cover all these arguments that the pro-Putin people make, I'd be happy to do that. Okay. All right. Let's see. Oh and funding. Funding the war. Why are we funding and what's America interested in? Why should America be involved? So I might do that tonight. Lewis, love my AC. Thank capitalism for that and lifting our standard of living. Absolutely. Yeah, I couldn't survive here in Puerto Rico without the AC. And says, since you don't like GOP top three, Trump dissent as Vivek. Vivek's not a top three. No way Vivek's a top three. You'll likely be backing the Democrat again. So do you prefer Biden or Newsom? I'm not backing anybody and I'm not voting, but I prefer Biden only because I think he's less competent. The last thing we need as a country is a competent leftist running the country. That would be horrible. But yes, I can't support Trump dissent as Vivek and I can't support Biden or Newsom or anybody. I'm not going to support anybody. I'm going to attack them all and I think they're all horrible. Well, somebody says Vivek is almost up to the Santas and some polls. He might actually be third. Maybe. I mean, you know, I support the same Republican candidates, primarily Nikki Haley and Tim Scott. Those are the two that I support within the Republican Party. And I think both of them could beat Biden or Newsom pretty easily, but they won't be the candidate. And whether I support a candidate or don't support a candidate is kind of irrelevant to who wins. I don't sway elections. And the reality is that if you nominate Trump and I think at this point to Santas, one of those two, then you're probably going to lose the election. So I don't understand. I really, really, really don't understand people who at this point are supporting Trump. Because at this point, you should be supporting the most electable candidate for presidency, not within the primary, for presidency. And that's not Trump. And it's not. I don't think it's even the Santas. I think the Santas had a chance, but he's completely blown it, completely blown it. So, you know, this is my point. And then later they'll say, oh, well, I mean, Trump is the candidate. It's a binary choice. Well, it isn't a binary choice right now. Right now it's not a binary choice. So why is anybody supporting Trump? Because they really do support Trump because it's not a binary choice. They actually love Trump. And now claim I don't love Trump. I don't like Trump. I really, really don't like Trump. I just have to vote for him because it's a binary choice. Well, now is the time to show you don't like Trump by voting for somebody else in the primary. Michael says, is the fact that long form podcast interviews extremely popular a sign that the culture is seeking reason and maturity? Yes, but it's only some people. How popular are they really? I just don't know. You know, so, so, you know, a really big show on Lex Friedman is a few million people, 6 million internationally. That's a big number, but you know, it's about, you know, so I, but is that out of 350 million? I just don't know. I don't know how many people and that's a rare show that gets up to 6 million. So yes, it's definitely some people are seeking out something, maybe reason and maturity, maybe just more information. Remember, you know, also who, who gets the biggest viewership on Lex? It's usually the guys talking about UFOs or, or the people are really big in the culture like, like, you know, big names like Joe Rogan. So I just, I don't know. I like to think there's no question. It's a positive. How big of a positive. It's just hard to tell. Michael says the church today isn't promoting anti-Semitism. Why is, why is it still a thing circulating in people's minds? Well, because it's a cultural phenomena and it doesn't have, the church doesn't have to promote it. The church doesn't promote a lot of things that become cultural phenomena in the culture in which we live. And of course, it's not like the church doesn't promote it. It's still there in certain evangelical corners. You know, it's maybe subtle and it's, it's, it's not too extreme, but it's still there. Look, you know, the way to understand the world is to blame your problems on other people. And the other that is most likely to be blamed is the other in your midst. And, and other in your midst that is super successful and super quote powerful. And those are Jews and that will keep coming back as long as we're looking for simplistic, the voice from reality justifications for why we're great and we're not successful. Oh, because those people, they're doing it. It's their fault. They're doing it to me. And you see that everywhere. Michael says you say humanity is immature enough for objectivism, but are you too mature for socialism? Are we too mature for socialism? Have we been getting more mature since World War II? I don't know, but I don't know if we're too much. We're probably too mature for socialism because explicit socialism be tried so often that we kind of know it doesn't work. But are we too mature for fascism? I'm not convinced. I think we're heading towards fascism to some extent or another in Europe and in the United States. Maybe we can avoid it somehow because of this level of maturity you think we have, but it's not obvious to me. Michael says, is no one pure evil? Isn't there some good in everyone and some bad and even the most virtuous of men? No. No. No. There are people who are pure evil. Evil is the negation of reality, the complete evasion and a willing destruction of other human beings' lives. There are plenty of people who are pure evil. Putin is pure evil. Good people don't have an evil element in them. I think of myself as a good person. I don't have evil there. Now maybe I'm irrational sometimes and mindlessly, but not to the level of evil. Certainly I make mistakes, but evil is particularly if you mean it with the full implication of the word. It means quite a bit and it requires quite a bit. Do only incompetent and corrupt doctors accept Medicaid? No. Lots of doctors accept Medicaid. I mean it's a government program, but there's a certain population. You can only treat it if you accept Medicaid. There's no other form of payment for them. Some doctors want to treat poor people. There's no reason not to. And yeah, the government doesn't reimburse them enough, but I don't think you're incompetent and corrupt at all necessarily. Abtin, what is the difference between the term objectivist and student of objectivism is one better to use than the other? You know, I don't know. I don't particularly like either one of them. But I think a student of objectivism is more signifying that you're still studying the philosophy that you're applying it to the extent that you can, but this is a constant learning in a sense what all students of objectivism. The thing I'm objectivist is, look, I've accepted the basic tenets of objectivism and I try to live it. I try to integrate it into my life and I know a significant amount about it and about how to live it. That's the difference. It's the level to which your commitment and the level to which you have understood or think you understand. A student who says, in response to a hot or cold climate, produce more. Yes. Get richer. Anonymous users. Some of the best temperature records only cover a few local regions in a few countries over the past 200 years. High quality climate records are new. I think 85 is the oldest we have for high quality and kind of on scale. But 1985, so yeah. And I'm not even sure that's how high quality those are. Bree says 50% of honeybee colonies have died in North America this year and the news is blaming the global boogeyman. This is a lie. The Varroa mites that cure bees have become immune to the only treatment. There's always a deeper reason. Hopefully we can figure out a treatment so that they don't wipe out our bees. We need bees. What do you think of Elon compromising with CCP values recently? I haven't seen it but it doesn't surprise me. Look, Elon is a businessman. He's got a huge amount of business in China. He builds a lot of cars in China. He sells a lot of cars in China. I think all of his batteries are built in China or at least a significant number of his batteries are built in China. He's not going to piss off the Chinese. You know, he might talk to talk but I don't think and shareholders are going to hold him accountable for not. Now, hopefully over time he diversifies his away from China and hopefully shareholders are pushing him in that direction. But at this point it doesn't shock me at all. Michael says why don't judges have the integrity to dismiss cases that are clearly frivolous. They always let it go to the jury to cover those behind. I don't know the stats. I don't know how many cases actually ruled frivolous and how many are not. How many cases are frivolous? It should be called frivolous. So I just don't know what the percentage are. You know, but it's of course saying something is frivolous opens a judge up to accusations. Taking it a trial is the safer route for him. But I just don't know the stats. Andrew, good time to celebrate Amazon this Prime week when an enormous breadth of products will be available at this kind of prices for ultra fast delivery at the tap of a button. Absolutely. I celebrate Amazon almost every day. I'm buying something from Amazon. So yeah, I love Prime and I love Amazon. Ryan says great job on Twitter. Lately so many haters, but no real ideas. Thanks. Thanks Ryan. Really appreciate that. Whoa, we went over an hour. Thanks everybody. Really, really appreciate it. Thanks for the support. We crushed the goal. And probably see you tonight. Probably do a show tonight on all the fallacies around Russia, Ukraine, Putin, Zelensky is the devil kind of stuff that we see out there. But yes, I think I think I think there's a good likelihood we'll do the show tonight. If not, I'll see you tomorrow morning. And then there's a show in the evening. That show will be dedicated to environmentalism, Alex Epstein, and then we'll do the whole the whole week. New shows and an interview on Thursday on evolution. All right, everybody, I will see you soon.