 All right, here we are we are doing an interview with a very very special guest We're doing it live and in person, which I know you haven't normally seen for me I'm on the island of Puerto Rico as most of you know by now and so I'm joined by a good a Very special guest and now a new friend Yaron Brooks. He's head of the or was with the head of the iron ran Institute and And There's a there's this feeling of being here in Puerto Rico of almost like this galtz Gulch type of a thing where I was just acts actually at this on it's called uncommon entrepreneurs event the other night I know you know who those people are and it was about maybe 50 Entrepreneurs and investors that gathered together and I just had this feeling like everybody has come here Left these productive members of society. They've left and they've come over here So that's super fitting because obviously iron-rand and like the galtz Gulch kind of came from there But you're on just give us some background on on you and kind of what you're working on sure I mean I I moved to Puerto Rico four years ago And and yeah, a little bit about gold golds coach, but I have a feeling golds coach things actually worked and here You constantly bump up against this things don't work here because it's even though a lot of entrepreneurs here The governor Puerto Rico is particularly ineffective and inefficient and unfortunately there's a there's a certain culture of Statism and socialism here that is pretty destructive So I moved to Puerto Rico about four years ago. I am I used to be the CEO of the Iron Man Institute I was that for 17 years from 2000 till 2017. I'm not the chairman of the board. I have own YouTube channel podcast. I taught I speak I love doing public speaking. That's my passion So I speak all over the world. I do on a normal year. I do over a hundred talks debates panels around the world and I You know, and I also am a partner hedge fund So I combine all that that's why I'm in Puerto Rico the income from my YouTube is not high enough to justify moving here but the hedge fund thankfully is and And then you know my background, you know, I had a PhD in finance I was a finance professor for many years before that. I was a civil engineer. I in Israel I grew up and Grew up in Israel seven Israeli military men my wife in the army so moved here when I was 26 got an MBA and a PhD and But I've always been kind of committed to since 816 to these ideas these ideas of Iron Man ideas of freedom liberty Yeah, so that's what I want to talk about today freedom and liberty and I want to talk about What we definitely both agree on which is that real change comes from changing people's thinking And so anybody that's watching this show knows that I kind of start pretty much every video by saying I want to change the way you think about money. Almost everything you've learned is wrong and Almost no amount of money I mean there's pretty much nothing that could create change if you don't have the right thinking for it And we've seen that obviously with you know people winning the lottery And so everybody thinks if I could just get lucky and get that next hot Crypto tip or whatever it may be that things could change about a camp and so And that's absolutely true about money and of course life is not just about money life's a whole life. It's complicated It's complex and you need ideas in order to know how to live a good life, you know human beings a Unique animal right all other animals in there, you know out there are born with a genetic Code to know exactly what to do. It's all programmed It's all automatized. They have no real choice Right and they know exactly how to survive and they know how to thrive and they know how to flourish if you will to the extent animals can flourish It's all coded evolution didn't spend when it came to human beings. It gave us free will And uh, we have choices We don't have it coded. We don't know what to do and how to live a good life How to live the best life you can To be happy to be successful in any roaming life money being just one dimension how to be good relationships how to be good Politically how to be good in every aspect of one life. That is really hard work that takes The right set of ideas. It takes the right attitude. It takes the right way of thinking about the world And at the end of the day, it's philosophy that shapes that it's it's philosophical ideas that shape that I want to Attracts me dying man's ideas that she gives you a toolkit I think to live a good life. She gives you the ideas of how to live a good life Everybody focuses on the politics and what she says about politics But it's much broader than that politics is just one aspect of life. There's as you said people win the lottery They don't know what to do with the money partially because they didn't earn it Right earning money and getting money not the same thing and you don't have the same attitude to the money And partially because they just don't know how to live they they don't have the toolkit To know what are my values? What what's important to me? What's not important to me? They haven't really sat down and said How do I want to live my life? How do I structure my life in a way that promotes my happiness? How do I? Create values a hierarchy of values that is going to make me better off every year every day every moment How do I live a flourishing life? That should be the goal of every human being on the planet Hey, hold up just for a second. I want to tell you about something I just got something cool in the mail. I want to show you and it is this new sleek package I just got with a brand new credit card. This isn't just any credit card. This is a block five credit card That's powered by visa and it's backed by bitcoin rewards. So this is a visa card I can use it anywhere in the world that visa is accepted and the benefit of this block five visa card Is that I get paid back in bitcoin? Most of my other cards pay me in some sort of reward points. I get airline miles Um, I'm not very good at using those they end up accumulating and I don't do anything with them But getting to earn bitcoin back with every single purchase is of course something that matters to me Now I know for a lot of people they say that the price of bitcoin is too high So I say well, you can always earn bitcoin You can get paid in bitcoin or you can just get cash back rewards on every purchase paid in bitcoin with the block five visa credit card Used everywhere that visa is accepted. If you want to sign up for the visa card that pays back in bitcoin from block five There is a link in the description down below Check it out. So it sounds like you're talking about living like an intentional life So I sit down decide the life that I want intentionally and then I intentionally build that life as opposed to Being a passenger. That's just subject to whatever happens to me. Absolutely. You're not going to be you know Let's say you want to go to your favorite restaurant tonight um Let's say a new restaurant because favorite restaurant you probably go there automatically But a new restaurant on the other side of town and you're just going to get in the car and take left right Randomly, what's the probability you get to the restaurant zero, right? You want generally people want to be happy What's the probability you achieve happiness unless you actually navigate towards it zero And take the time to define Well, absolutely. What leads to happiness? What does happiness look like and look you have to be careful? This is a subjective. This isn't whatever you feel like, right? You know, you can define certain goals that are ridiculous and stupid and even if you achieve them You won't be happy, right? So even the goals that you attain even the values that you want to pursue have to be within a structure of You know, I think rationality reason based on thinking and they have to be in the context of A human being a human life. What does a human life look like? um And here again, you can get a lot of guidance from philosophy Aristotle provides a certain guidance and I'll live eudaumonia in greece, which means kind of happiness and flourishing I think iron rand is the modern equivalent I think she's she approves on him at least it gives you at least a structure of how to think about it And then you have to sit down and define the values Define how you're going to get there How you're going to allocate resources just like you do in a business resources being time effort money to attaining these values And then just live it and you've got to really focus and live your life in a focused way to attain these values Otherwise you're going to drift you're going to go in all kinds of directions And you're not going to achieve what you what you want to achieve and to the extent that you achieve something like winning lottery It's going to be meaningless to you because it wasn't really something that you Worked towards and it wasn't in the context of a goal of a of a hierarchy of values. Yeah, that's great I want to I want to get into a little bit of who iron rand was what these philosophies were The kind of movement that she started that obviously you and other people are kind of carrying on And then I want to get into that's playbook that you're saying that she left behind And so maybe there's some practical steps that people can learn that maybe they can get from this interview That they can kind of have some steps they can get into um before we do that though, I think um I I always think about this quote from Henry Ford. He gave us quite a few good amount of quotes And he says that thinking is such hard work. That's why so few people do it And uh, so I think about that and and so I I I'll give you that quote But I don't want to ask you the question which is you're basically making the statement that people don't take the time to think And have this deliberate life. So so why why don't they? Well, a lot of reasons one is it certainly requires effort I I I'm going to disagree a little with Henry Ford only because If it's presented as hard work, you know people resist hard work, right? It's it requires effort. It requires engagement. It requires focus. It requires a commitment to doing it, right? And and by the way, I think this is you talk about tools for living a good life This is the most important commitment you'll make your entire life Commit to focusing your mind Commit to thinking if you commit to thinking everything else will fall into place, right? You have to learn how to think you have to learn how to think effectively You have to introspect and learn what your values are and whether they're appropriate values or not But the beginning the starting point for everything is think think think Um, and why people don't do it? Because it takes effort and because they're not taught to so if you go into a an ethics class In um in at a university right advanced ethics personal ethics, whatever Um, what are they what are they teaching? Oh, you should sacrifice to this. You should do this for the community. You should Nobody ever says to you Okay, let's come up with some principles on how to live a good life And what those principles look like and by the way the first principle is Think focus your mind use your free will that you have You know, you're never taught any of that. You're not taught to think critically to think You know in a challenging way. You're never taught logic right logic is is is like arithmetic You never even talked logic and we should we should all know logic because that's how you think that's what rational thinking means So you're not taught to take care of yourself Maybe we're taught to eat good food. Maybe we've been taught how to exercise, but we're never taught proper, you know, mental hygiene if you will month mental practice exercise Uh, how to how to improve that muscle and that's the most important thing we have is our brain And yet we're not really taught how to use it and that it applies to everything in our life Not just to business not just to getting good grades at school But to every part of our life Is going to depend on the quality of the thinking we do. Yeah It's easy to think of I was just thinking like psych uh physiology, uh Thinking requires a lot of energy and so your body doesn't like to expend energy Your body is always trying to conserve energy and so your body wants to have habits Like it wants to have these like programs that it can run Because thinking does burn a lot of calories. It does does it is work, right? And so your body naturally does that But then I guess a lot of it is just cultural culturally. We're not taught to think Which is which is amazing and then one thing, you know Because I've spent a lot of time thinking about this and working in this area Is that your brain is almost like a muscle that has to be trained in order to do that So you can train your brain to think and focus or You can train it to do the opposite to do the opposite. It's very easy seems like social media And all those things have done to us today. They've trained us to be distracted I you know to some extent you can we can blame social media and I'm fine with that and social media is You know got a lot of problems But look human beings have been around on the planet. I don't know million years 100,000 and I'll come and form home with sapiens How much of how much of those 100,000 years or cultures that embrace thinking? maybe Maybe a few hundred out of 100,000 years So it's not social media. They didn't have social media in the stone ages and have social media in the dark ages There are lots of things that prevent us from thinking social media just happens to be the latest fad But there's always something again. It requires work It requires commitment It and it requires some courage because you know what would happen if you start thinking you might discover that you've You've been thinking so bad. It's some wrong things You might discover that your neighbors are wrong that your friends are wrong your parents are wrong that maybe your religion is wrong I don't know But there's a lot of things that suddenly open up suddenly Because you're thinking and you have to be willing to face the idea of Things being differently than what you were taught suddenly things being differently than maybe the media has told you And maybe the authorities today have told you so People people shun that and of course the people in power Don't want you to think And this is how it in a sense it all started, right? I mean the the tribal leader and the witch doctor Don't want you thinking they want you relying on them to think that's how they maintain their job So the witch doctor is going to say don't bother thinking i'm in communication with the guy who really matters With the spirit the world of spirits. I'll tell you what the truth is you just do your work And the and just in case you deviate the tribal leader has you know has the weapons to keep you in track So this alliance between muscle And and and and witch doctory has has been throughout history It might not be religion today. It might be some other forms of witch doctory But it's it's the same kind of mysticism. It's the same kind of unrelated to reality and unrelated to reason But that's how we keep us under control They don't acknowledge that each one of us every single one of us has a capacity to know the world Has a capacity to discover truth not equal capacity some of us are smarter than others just a reality But we all have the basic capacity to know the world and look most of human history People didn't believe that This is a this was a revelation one of the reasons america is america Is because america is founded on the principle that every individual has the capacity to reason has the capacity to think for themselves Therefore has rights Which means freedom of action if i can think for myself i can act for myself if i can discover truth about reality I should be able to pursue that truth And and you shouldn't have the ability to interfere with me and govern as instituted to make sure you don't That's america. That's the culmination of the enlightenment. But those are all ideas that came out of The 1800s they didn't exist before that before that we were told the priest should tell us how to live and what to do Part of that i think also is that prior to the 1800s it was very difficult to live I mean you were living off the land and if you were living off the land you spent all your time trying to That's a reversing cause and effect So yeah, because the reason we had no advance is because we want for you to think So if you think about it what the 18th century did is it first it liberated the mind because of the printing press and then Starting with the printing press and then they you know earlier than the printing press even they started discovering the works of Aristotle Aristotle is a big hero in history in my book in iron man's book Because he he he's kind of the discover of logic. He's the advocate for reason. He's an advocate for ethical egoism He is he is the real shining light. Plato is the villain Aristotle is the hero and What happens in the 13th century on is they start discovering Aristotle's writing they start integrating into western civilization Suddenly you get the renaissance A an artistic flourishing where people recognize man as a hero is capable of choices Is capable of doing these magnificent things and then slowly you get people suddenly realize wait I mean we can discover the truth for ourselves. You're the price of information You get the reformation and then and then you get the enlightenment And you know the other name for the enlightenment is the age of reason You get the scientific revolution suddenly newton comes around and says, you know what every one of you can understand the laws of motion Whoa, you mean I don't have to read an ancient book. I don't have to accept it on faith You mean I can actually know these things based on based on observation and based on math And newton's saying yes, so then they go, okay, so if that's the case Why can't I choose my own profession because they couldn't right you had to go into the guild your father did or you Were farmer, why can't I go to my own profession? Why can't I choose my own wife? Why can't I choose my own political leaders? Why can't I live my life based on my mind based on my reason? And that leads to more freedom freedom means the more prosperity freedom leads the industrial revolution That change in ideas Is what leads to the industrial revolution to us becoming much much richer and having time and light and all these things But it's always ideas drive history. So it's it's throughout history The battle is always between different sets of ideas and depending on who wins that will determine What happens in history? So I want to get to the step by step a process of iron ran left us for building a better life But there's some pieces here. I want to dig into the first thing I was thinking is You're talking about how You know the more we think the more we start to maybe see areas of our life that are good or areas of life They're bad That can happen something that's really been taking off lately and as a hedge fund guy You may be paying attention to it's growing in the financial markets as well, but there's a lot of We'll call it psychoactive enhanced thinking You know, whether that be cannabis or psilocybin or you know, ayahuasca, whatever that is And that seems to really be kind of having like another renaissance Um, do you think that uh, what do you think about that? I guess, you know, I'm skeptical I I I'm uh, I'm all for enhancing ability to think and if if something can be proved I I think unfortunately because we we we made drugs illegal, which I think was a massive mistake And we should have never done that. I think all drugs should be legal Research wasn't done to see which one of these have good Psychiatric purposes, which one can actually enhance your ability to think or whatever it is So we don't have a body of research that actually justifies that so people are experimenting on themselves and be careful And I'd say be careful because you're experimenting on the on the on the most important tool you have You know, it's one thing to change exercise regimes and if you tear muscle It's bad and you have to recover and it's it's not how but you don't want to screw up with your brain, right? So my view is before you take any of those substances before you do anything like that Two things one test the science. Check it out. Make sure it's safe second Try using your brain without it Maximize that yeah, and then if you still need some more adrenaline. Okay, so maybe right but 99% of the humanity today is not utilizing what they have without any enhancements How about do that? And if you have bad thinking habits If you don't know how to use your brain without any enhancement enhancing A crummy product is not going to make it better. It's just going to make the same crummy thinking more elevated And look, I don't I don't believe you discover truth under the influence of LSD Um, I think you discover truth when you're completely sober Wide-eyed no alcohol. No drugs look out into the world and and and be aware of what's around you and integrate and and think about it That's how you discover truth. Yeah, I think there's a lot of a lot of very good truth that you said there Um Remove the log out of your own eye before you try to get the spec out of your neighbors almost in a sense where I was listening to Dave Asprey. He runs a bulletproof he's like a body hacker biohacker and uh, he talks a lot about improving your sleep And uh, he has I mean he gets into the nth detail on sleep and uh An improvement cognitive improvement and and he said people ask me all the time like what about this supplement or this supplement? And he says the first question to ask him is well, how many hours of sleep are you getting? Don't even bother with any supplement until you're getting the right sleep. Yeah start with the big stuff So I think that I think that's good. What you said there makes sense Um, okay, so yeah, just putting that away now I want to dig into so Einran she has the institute and uh, what were the what were the cornerstones of her teaching that she got from Aristotle? Individualism uh freedom of individualism the importance of that So suddenly an aspect of individualism Aristotle remember 2,500 years ago. So not everything he said was true. Not everything he said was right Um, but he got the big picture. You got right reality is what it is You know, you don't create it. You don't make it up You know, maybe it was uh in his world There was a plane mover that set it in motion, but it's not involved in all miracles. It just it is what it is Just accept that that's a big part of thinking accept reality for what it is And you have a tool to know reality reason reason is Aristotle's great achievement the emphasis and reason the importance of reason Reason only individuals have we don't have a collective consciousness. You can't eat for me You can't think for me either only I can do my own thinking so many people rely on other people to do their thinking for them Right, that's even today. We're seeing media headlines saying don't do your own research. It's dangerous Don't think for yourself. Trust the experts always do your own research now in some areas You need experts, right? I you know, I don't know medicine to all its details But do enough research to know which experts to rely on not all the experts agree Do enough research if the expert says something wacky, you know, wait a minute. Let me look at this more carefully Um, so yeah, I don't pretend to know quantum physics I'm gonna rely on experts But I'm gonna do research about which experts I rely on and and so they so there's a level at which I don't want to condemn experts I love experts. I love that they I don't know how to build one of these computers I know how to do this setup, right? I don't know how it works the internet or whatever I rely on experts to make it work. But if I had to know how it worked I could at least know enough I could do research enough so um Yet think, you know, think for yourself thinking as an attribute of the individual And then of course the purpose of thinking the purpose of Of of you the purpose of life of living It's to be successful at it. It's it's to be happy Um, you don't live out of a sense of duty. You don't have to Um, it shouldn't be something that's a burden. It should be something that's fun Uh, you know and and you should structure your life in a way you should get to the point in life Well, of course not every moment, you know, is is an orgasm, right? But you want it all to be building up to a good life to a feeling that yeah This is this is I'm enjoying life life is meaningful life is good for me And I'm happy and so so that's part of it And then of course the only political system just to finish up kind of the key points in iron-race philosophy The only political system that leaves you free To live your life Based on your values in pursuit of your happiness based on your reasoning Is capitalism it's a system that leaves you free leaves you alone The government is there only to protect you from somebody you might do your harm To to protect you from fraudsters to protect you from muggers But otherwise you're free to live your life as you see fit so You know, she has a she has a position throughout including in in aesthetics and what kind of art Once you'd pursue and why art is important for your life Most people are not that interested in that although they should be but she has this comprehensive philosophy That the bottom line of the entire philosophy is how to live a good life how to flourish So, um, I guess the question is in today's day and age I guess we're taught to Well, first I want to go I want to jump back. Um, you mentioned, uh, that's the definition of capitalism Let's talk about the definition of capitalism because today That's a dirty word. I hear people say capitalism And I've had people challenge me on this that we know that socialism has killed hundreds of millions of people in the last 100 years and they say capitalism has killed even more Capitalism has killed even more capitalism was slavery Capitalism, you know, america was founded on capitalism. That's slavery Um, and so the definition has as uh, definitely been misused and maybe completely perverted or lost What would you say the definition of capitalism is? Well, definitions be perverted or lost and people have no clue what they're talking about that as they don't know history They don't know cause and effect. They don't understand any of this is part of our educational system And they're not thinking they're mouthing something they heard on youtube They have no they have no way to defend their position, right? Capitalism is the only system in human history only system in human history to do away with slavery Right, it's not an accident. The slavery was done away during the heights of capitalism in the 19th century First in england then slowly through europe and then ultimately in a civil war in the united states a civil war between a capitalist north And a feudal south a slave owning south south wasn't capitalist The south was statist. That's why they were pro uh slavery So no capitalism again only system in human history to do away with with slavery Savvy has been a feature of human existence from the beginning of time you read about in the bible God tells the jews how to treat their slaves. He doesn't tell he doesn't ban slavery He tells them how to treat the slaves So uh, they've got they've got everything upside down look capitalism is a system in which The sole role of government is the protection of individual rights primarily in the context of economics Primarily property rights It's a system in which everything is privately owned the government owns nothing or almost nothing Uh, it's a system in which there's a complete separation between the state government and economics right so Government doesn't regulate It doesn't manipulate taxes It doesn't control It doesn't tell you how much to pay your employees. It doesn't tell you how many benefits to give them It doesn't tell you what products you don't have to register your business. What's this about registering your business Why can't you go out and just start a business? What what does the government even have need for you to register it? So all of that is anti capitalism capitalism is complete freedom Uh, the government is there to protect you You know certain laws have to be passed to make sure that we have clear definitions of property rights So we know when we're infringing on one another's or when there's ambiguity If there's a dispute between us we want somebody to arbitrate that dispute Uh, we you know, we want to make sure that people don't invade us that we have a military to protect us So a military a police force a judiciary and that's it. You don't need anything more for government according to in capitalism So in that sense capitalism, I knew and called the capitalism the unknown ideal She has this book called capitalism unknown ideal. It's an ideal that we've never really had The world has never been capitalist in an 18th century. We got the closest After after the civil war, um, hong kong maybe in the 20th century got close Singapore somewhat but singapore is very authoritarian in other respects capitalism is broadly freedom And it includes chewing gum by the way not just economic freedom, but also what you do socially So singapore is this mixture of economic as free as it gets in the world today But even then singapore, you know, nobody owns their own house in singapore The government all almost all 90 of all housing is government housing in singapore So there are all these quirks about singapore that make it also not real So there's never been a capitalist state what we live today is in a mixture Of some capitalism that is some freedom And a lot of controls a lot of regulations a lot of taxation and sometimes we get more statism and sometimes we get less statism But and and the proportions of these two change But we've never had a pure form of capitalism and all the things that they blame on that people have died of again slavery Capitalism got rid of it didn't institute. It's always been there I don't know. I had somebody tell me world war two was caused by capitalism and I was like really wait a minute Hitler national socialist fascist You know, obviously not a capitalist and Stalin Communists they started the war right they had a deal between the two they split Poland into two Stalin took the east You know, uh, Hitler took the west nobody knows the system. Everybody only thinks Hitler's the bad guy. Nobody remembers Stalin is just as evil. Oh, yeah killed more people actually it was more people So so here you've got you you've got hundreds of millions of people killed by socialism and Capitalism saw how blame for all this but this is the resentment they have towards capitalism They can't define it. They can't think about it. They can't conceptualize it. You know, they And they think we have capitalism what we have Today what we have is capitalism. We do not I wish we did so So, um, probably the biggest critique then I would hear about capitalism after that is then, um I want to dig into the civil war for a minute with you, but before that Um, I would say the probably the biggest critique of capitalism then I would hear I'm playing devil's advocate here. Obviously. I'm for free markets and capitalism as well But um, they would say well then without the government What about the monopolies and the corporations would take over the world and we'd be all enslaved by the corporations Again people have no clue, right? They don't understand economics And this is the economist's fault because you know when you go into economics 101 And they they have a whole section on perfect competition and monopolies they do those charts with marginal Profit marginal price the whole thing You know, I always say to people take that section in the econ book It talks about perfect competition and monopoly rip it out and shred it It's worthless. It doesn't relate to anything in real life. It has no relationship to anything in the world Does we know it? Monopolies don't exist in a free market. They are no such things every time we approach free markets They are big companies But what are we taught in find in any economics class? We're taught that whenever you have a monopoly prices go up Quality goes down and in the real world the exact opposite happens prices go down quality goes up You can go back to look at standard oil when they had 92 of all the refining capacity in the united states in the 1870s Prices went down every single year quality went up every single year and Because if it didn't somebody else would come in and exactly there's always competition unless The government sets up barriers to prevent them. So the only monopolies that exist are the post office And anything the government creates a barrier for and a lot of regulations on the books today Are barriers to entry a ways in which the government has chosen the winners Created barriers around them to protect them And and disincentivized Start-ups for competing with them. So in a free market, there's no such thing as competition No such thing as monopoly. There's always competition. It's not perfect competition. It's perfect competition. It's not perfect Perfect competition is stupid. There is no such thing as perfect competition a competition always arises. For example, who competed Rockefeller out of his business That he was in in the 1870s because he was selling oil for what in the 1870s He was selling it as kerosene for lighting And within a few decades his market chain lighting would be zero because of whom? Thomas Jefferson So competition isn't always in your quote industry Well, and you can see kodak right kodak owned the film industry for a hundred years and they get digital and it's gone But the and and the thing is with with the oil you wouldn't have identified Thomas Edison as a competitor of Rockefeller Rockefeller They do oil this guy does electricity But if you define the market as lighting Then they are competitors So and how often does the justice department or whoever does these antitrust lawsuits know how to define the market properly? They have no clue. So no, I there are no monopolies. They don't exist IBM you remember IBM the or you wouldn't remember if you're young But I the government went after IBM for decades. It was a monopoly. Why because they had mainframes Right, but even when had mainframes digital had These smaller computers and then by the time I went to court in the early 1980s You had personal computers and mainframes were irrelevant, right? So You know every single time they go after these. Oh, what was Microsoft's sin? Well, how did how did consumers suffer from Microsoft? They gave out a product for free Right, that's that's how absurd it is to go after companies for antitrust So the whole I would say the most evil law on the books in terms of economics Is the antitrust laws they should be scrapped. They should be eliminated passed by republicans by the way in 1890 And since then it's been downhill from perspective economic freedom Now jumping back into a side note just because I'm curious on the civil war Obviously the narrative that we're told is it was a it was a fight for freedom. I'm sorry freedom of the slaves In my research, uh, it seems that slavery was pretty much on the way out As a matter of fact, the farms in the south were were failing under their own weight Because of capitalism and it was not cost effective or competitive for them to maintain the slaves And I believe that almost all the slavery was gone going into world war two There was a couple states that were just kind of i'm sorry. Yeah, civil war And there was a couple states that were holding on and and what really caused it was A couple of the states it was succession. It was threat threat. It was South Carolina seceded But no, I mean slavery was widespread in the south and in many states at slavery Or I mean part of that part of the conflict arose Because new states were being created in the west and and there was the question of whether those new states would Be allowed to all have slaves are not allowed to have slaves. That was still a debate and it was still I don't know if it was hundreds of thousands or millions, but there were hundreds of thousands of people under who are slaves Who will be treated as slaves beaten the slaves Lynch the slaves killed the slaves It was it was a you know, yes, I agree completely Ultimately slavery would have been eliminated from just from an economics perspective But every year where you have a slave is a year in which your government has no legitimacy A government that allows for slavery is a government that is illegitimate government And the civil war should have happened right after the constitution was signed The fact that it took until 1860s to have it is a great tragedy of history But the fact is no matter how many slaves they need to be eliminated And you know if so many states were against slavery all they had to do was not fight The fact is that all the south fought every one of those states fought it The war lasted a long time. It didn't have to You know general lee who didn't own slaves didn't have to lead a southern army But they rallied because of the secession thing they believe states rights were more important than federal rights Yeah, but I don't I don't I think that's all I think that's nonsense I mean, I think secession is nonsense, but but but do you think secession is nonsense? Even in even in talks of today Today, certainly it's nonsense because I think the people who would secede would create countries worse than the state The place they were succeeding from so texas being out from under federal regulations. I think it would be horrible It'd be horrible. I'd be horrible. I texas run by religious conservatives as a as a super majority with no controls Would be a horrible place to live I want to get into that we we can talk about that but let me just say You know the civil war in my view is a completely just war and it's good that it happened too bad It didn't happen earlier It's it's tragic that 600,000 kids had to die for that but I believe in the south for that And south Carolina did not want to secede because they wanted to be free It's wanted to secede because they wanted to maintain a barbaric institution called slavery Which federal law should have banned and under under the constitution under Under the concept of individual rights the federal government had an obligation to go in and eradicate slavery From what I've seen too a lot of people blame the founding fathers for allowing Slavery to be in the constitution, but in the early version that thomas jefferson repend that isn't really well known He had actually written in there to remove slavery, but they knew they couldn't get all the states They needed to compromise and so they had to compromise a little bit So the founding fathers like thomas jefferson were for ending slavery, but it still got through. Yes, they A few of them. I want to have a question though because everything's a spectrum Right, we're living in this world where there's spectrum. You said we've never had pure capitalism We have a spectrum of that if on a spectrum we had on one side Zero percent of your wages were taken by the government or whoever That's zero percent. So you're a hundred percent free Well, that's not the only parameter of freedom. That's only one dimension of freedom than many others Okay, so on one side, you're free to do what you want and keep the fruits of your labor On the other side of the spectrum a hundred percent of your pay Is is taken by by your master the government or whoever so that's the spectrum So we're at 50 percent. So are we free or are we slaves? It's it's a good question. I I think we're partially free in some areas of our lives and we are Not free In other parts of our lives I don't want to call us slaves because that I think is because slavery is such an evil institution It's so horrible that we live pretty good lives in spite of the fact that they take 50 percent of our income I don't want to compare us to slaves But it's pretty bad and it's pretty disgusting and it's pretty obnoxious that they take so much and and You know you're under playing it because they take a lot more than 50 percent because you're not take considering property taxes and And so security taxes and all right sales taxes and all that and they're taking a lot more than 50 percent now I live in Puerto Rico. So they don't anymore. They take very little of my income although sales taxes are here are high here But but but yes, there is we are today living in a Uh, in a mixed economy tilted towards Unfree not towards free I just wanted to take a second to explain to you one more time Just how cool having this new block by visa credit card is I'm started to move a lot of my bills over to get paid from this Of course all my business supplies. I'm starting to pay for this my advertising budgets And I'm starting to run as much as I can through it because I'm getting paid a percentage back Of every single transaction In bitcoin we want to save in bitcoin because bitcoin is an asset that goes up in value because of the deflationary nature of it And we want to spend our fiat. So I'm spending my fiat through my Block 5 visa card and I'm getting back bitcoin that I can save and I can hold I expect to go up in value a lot. I expect to hold my bitcoin I'm going to pass it to my kids and my grandkids and hopefully my great-grandkids will have my bitcoin one day So I'm going to save it. I'm going to spend my fiat Through this card and I'm going to earn back bitcoin that I'm going to save if you want to get one There's a link down below So um, it wasn't a direction I had planned to take the conversation, but uh, let's talk about civil war We talked I know I know we talked a lot about our succession or whatever we're going to talk about but um, I think uh, Maybe maybe some succession will lead to civil war. That's what you know led to it before. So I think um, you know We have talked a lot about the left versus the right republicans democrats, whatever. I think um In regards to individualism and collectivism, they're both similar But they're they're on opposite ends of that spectrum But they're on opposite ends of the left right spectrum So it seems that the left cancel culture Whatever that's kind of what I would clarify that it's rules for the not for me It's you do what I say you don't get to eat me You don't get to travel you put this medicine in your body. You can't go here right kind of a thing This is you don't say what we like we cancel you like Dave Chappelle. You're kicked off network news Versus the other side, you know, maybe it's framed up where like Maybe the right if I framed it up broadly, I would say the right says let me keep my guns. Let me keep my income Let me eat my meat. Let me choose what schools my kids go to Let me do me and the left says no, you don't get school choice. No, you don't get guns No, you don't get to eat meat And no, you don't get to fly and and uh, it seems like the two sides are so far apart Um partly because in my opinion I believe let me I'll do me you do you I'm cool You make your choice. I do mine and whatever but the other side says no, you don't get to make your choice You do what I say and so because of that there's no compromise and it seems like we've become so divided There's no way that we have to separate. Yeah, and it could be that we do I I think if we do it's going to be bloody I don't think it'll be peaceful We'll see and if it's bloody it could be very bloody because you got nukes involved and you got a lot of You know, it's not going to be pleasant. Why couldn't we just peacefully split? Because I don't think there's the will look take texas, right? Let's say texas wants to succeed Well, what's austin going to do? Right. I mean, you have a choice to move. Well, sure, but but so to and and and uh You know, you have a choice to move today. I mean a lot of americans could move elsewhere They could they could move to another country. Is that really what you want to do? Is that really what you want to say? We're gonna succeed if you don't like it Move out of here and and it's a significant portion of population and and I will say and I know people on the right And I'm not I don't know that you're on the right but bill in the right don't like to hear it I'm on the side of individualism. Yeah a lot of the people on the left are the productive people in society, right? Yeah, I mean look look at silicon valley Look at look at the wealth created there Look at look at austin texas the reason everybody's moving to austin texas is because it's not texas They're not moving to to to midland texas. They're not even moving to dallas texas They're not moving to houston texas. Some people are they're moving to austin texas. Why because austin has culture Because austin has high tech and austin has a great university and it houses all those great universities partially because The left brings those things now. I'm not a left. I'm not pro left in any way, right? But my point is that The right has identified you presented a right the yeah cool. I'm all for those people Leave me alone. Let me do my thing cool, but the right's not that Um, I mean think about and we'd probably disagree about abortion But think about the the law in texas about abortion This is the most irrational law of ever hood, right? Um a uber driver who drives a woman to a clinic where she gets an abortion can be sued by anybody For having facilitated an abortion even somebody who has no quote stake in it, right? No standing legally I mean that's nuts Imagine that applies to anything any behavior. We didn't like it does it does People can bring the lawsuit. I mean you have ambivalent station You have you have people going into businesses and filing lawsuits against them because they violate only because only because that person believes they were damaged by Uh, well, I mean, I mean, that's the law, right people abuse the law But this is this is stated in law that you can't without standing sue anybody who you think facilitated this That's it No, not broke the law who had an abortion, right? But the big but but because there was a law against it You've taken uber, right? If an uber driver drives somebody and they get out of the car and then they break into a store You don't sue the uber driver and suddenly you can't sue the uber driver drove somebody to do a murder and then drove them back Would they be considered if they if the uber driver knew that they they committed a murder But if you just drive somebody to a place and then leave And and by the way even then I can't sue them The state sues them because they committed murder, but I can't sue so my point is this the texas Texas has some great people. I love texas. I lived in Austin for six years But texas has massive irrationalities Uh, texas is heavily regulated Uh texas has horrible licensing laws lots of regulations and all kinds of it doesn't have an income tax Because it taxes the oil and gas industry through the roof So it doesn't need an income tax if you look at economic freedom index texas is not number one It's not number two or number three or number four. It's somewhere there And in terms of culture and in terms of spirit and in terms of places to live Yes, austin is wonderful, but I don't know that you want to live in midland texas I don't know if that's the kind of country I would want I don't know that those people have the kind of values And I don't think that those people if I had a different color skin I'm not sure if those people if I had a different type of sexual orientation Would have this attitude of you do your thing. I'll do my thing. Everybody's free Uh, maybe everybody's free as long as they look like me and they're going to behave like me So I don't trust the right today You know just as much as I don't trust the left today And I think the right today has a lot of authoritarian tendencies Donald Trump's new social media company That's coming out has a little clause in it where one of the things you're not going to be allowed to do on the social media company Is do anything that might be viewed as insulting to Donald Trump. So, um, you know It's not quite the state censoring But that's the inclination of many people on the right is the censor. It's the manipulate You know a lot of people on the right today admire Orban in Hungary the the prime minister of the the prime minister in Hungary That's a that's a state that does not have intellectual freedom. It does not have real freedom of speech It certainly doesn't have freedom of journalism the right today in america and I'm not Maybe historically the right was better, but the right today in america is anti-capitalist It's anti-individual freedom. It is statist It just has a different approach to statums on the left and maybe less visible um, and and I think much more Compatible with americans. So I we talked about this over lunch I I think americans will never accept world culture. You know, I think I think it's going to be rejected I think in two years. Maybe five years will be laughing at that We ever had it because americans think it's the stupidest thing ever and it is right What scares me is that I think that much more inclined with the right kind of leader to embrace a type of statism And a type of authoritarianism that wraps itself up in a flag. Maybe wraps itself up in religion it wraps itself up in um pseudo capitalism what's presented a capitalism, but is really fascism That scares me a lot more because I think that's more more palatable from americans I don't see individualism in america anymore. It used to be I've even seen a difference between 1987 and today in terms of individualism Yeah, I would agree with that. I think uh, I think maybe we we drew the battle lines too hard on texas because uh And and and what the right is because I think we've probably different different definitions because it's not easily definable That's why it's not a useful term anymore. That's why I like individualism as a collectivism As do I and I think though a lot of collectivists in texas and that's why I I I'm worried about texas Yeah, so I I also draw my lines the same as that. Um, I guess I'm just thinking Uh, like I said, lots and lots of talk about civil war lots. It's all over the news. Um, it seems like There are two sides that are diet, you know that that are opposed and where exactly you draw that line It's a little bit difficult to assume. So I don't think they're that different So, you know, this is my fear, right? I've been talking about this for over a decade Is that that a leader rises somebody with real charisma somebody smart real commiss or good looking Um, and and says, you know what? Ron DeSantis Well, maybe maybe or maybe tucker Carlson. Who knows but somebody rises up and says, you know what? You're all right You people on the left there's there's a lot of truth to what you're saying and you people on the right There's a lot of truth to what you're saying Let's find a way to bring it all together, right? We all agree We all agree that individualism is dead What we need is to rally around an America an America that respects the environment that really cares about climate change They really cares about ancient forests and really cares about the little furry animals You know, so it's a give something to the environmentalists throw them a bone and the issue of race is very important And we have to address it, but you know what? You know, they this whole work stuff has gone too far and we need we need to bring back religion We need to bring back the family and we need to bring back family values And we need it, you know somebody who can wrap it all up into a nice with a nice bow And suddenly just like in Weimar, Germany the leftists or somebody discovered that this guy Actually talks their language of authoritarianism actually is a little appealing Maybe nationalism isn't that bad and maybe that's what we should and that's what scares the bejesus out of me And I don't know where that guys come from. Maybe comes from the left I don't know but somebody who can unite the country because I think the country is ready for uniting I don't think the split is deep. I think the split is superficial because you've got Collectivists of the right and collectivists of the left fighting and the solution is unite them all around the collectivist agenda Maybe it's another war. Maybe it's a terrorist attack I think the hottest issue right now and let's be careful because this is on youtube, but The hottest issue right now is that half the people think that you should be locked in your house If you don't take this experimental medicine And the other half says what do you mean? I've had it. It wasn't any big deal I don't believe in that the science doesn't back it up and And so there's a big divide there one says you should be forced to do what I say You should be locked in your house and the other half says no, I don't and so that's a pretty big divide Yeah, but it's it's even there Both sides are wrong So so a lot of people on the good side don't lock up and we should be free and so on They believe that and that's good, but they also believe that the vaccines, you know There are plenty of people they believe that they're planning some cheap enough in us That there are all kinds of weird theories about the vaccines regardless of what reason they don't know It doesn't matter. No it does it does absolutely matter because the question they believe they have the choice They should have that choice. I'm not arguing that point I'm arguing that it's not that they they believe it for the right reasons They don't many of them don't believe it for the right reasons. So to me Both sides scare me because if either side wins The mentality that has driven them is what's going to dictate the future. Yes I'm always going to be on the side of of freedom even your freedom to do stupid things, right? I'm for drug legalizations and legalizing prostitution and Legalize it all right and let people do and if somebody wants to inject themselves with heroin and screw up their lives Let them screw up their lives. Don't ask me to bail them out Don't take my money to bail them out But if but but give them the freedom to screw it up But I I'm not for drug drug addicts that I don't want drug addicts running in the world So I believe that both sides of this coven that I know a lot of people who believe it's a conspiracy that COVID was made up Why if if that's the case? Is that a you know in hungry, which is uh tucker coughs is not favorite country Why is why why are they doing a vaccine mandates, right? These are these are on the right so You know the idea here is that um vaccine mandates and all of this stuff is statism par excellence The people who are advocating for freedom I'm not really advocating for freedom. They just don't like these mandates They like different mandates and if they got power They would lock me up for something else that I did. Maybe I didn't engage in wrong sexual practices I don't know so I'm scared in the world in which we live Because I see collectivists and statists and people who want to lock me up on Every way not just on this one issue but across the entire board And I don't completely trust the people who happen to be my allies on COVID on any particular issue Plus again, I think both sides lack nuance. I mean COVID is a complicated question It it it depends on you. This is individualism, right? The problem with COVID is we treat everybody the same Instead of okay. How old are you? What's your health situation if you're over 80 Then what you do with COVID is different. Maybe you should stay home, right? If you're under 20 COVID is not an issue for you and maybe if you're risky and you feel like risking your life, you should go out I ride dirt bikes. I have friends that have died. I've had metal put in every one of my limbs And I still ride dirt bikes. I'm going to take that risk It's part of my life and I've and if people want to take risk they can take risk, but if somebody tests positive Should they be allowed to just walk around no matter what if they test positive? So I think the the answer is obviously no But I think the answer though comes back down to individualism where for example, if I get a cold just a cold I wouldn't go hang out with my friends Because I don't want my friends to get the cold, right? And I I would I would keep myself from my friends because I don't want them to go even though I know it's no big deal But I think it goes back to that education. It goes back to Should it keep personal responsibility? Well, individualism, personal responsibility, but also Respect for others. Of course, but think about think about if you're running if if you're running a a facility for that houses people who are over the age 65 Are you going to test people before they enter in the midst of a COVID? Yes, of course you are right because you don't want because these people if they get COVID are likely to die The probability of dying under COVID if you're over 80 is very high It's not just a common cold. It really is bad For kids it's meaningless and instead of thinking about how does it affect you? How does it affect me? How do we What is the government's role here, which is very minimal? It's basically to make sure that if you're infected you don't go infect everybody else, right? That's what a government does in infectious diseases. It's responsible for not allowing the infection to spread But only if you're positive if you're negative you're innocent the government has no business in your life Now with vaccines not with anything else On the other hand vaccines are not voodoo vaccines are not dangerous They're not some scary thing that that that that that people have instituted to take away your freedom You know, so again, you got to think of it individualistically about the effect it has on each individual Who should get a vaccine who shouldn't get a vaccine is an individual choice But also you need to think You know, what's the real risks involved and people don't I'd love to dig in deeper on that Conversation but seeing as it's going on YouTube. I might already have to cut some of it out. We'll see how that works Oh, I I say this stuff on YouTube all the time. I've never been sent. I've never been limited on YouTube For the censorship is real. It's crazy. You know, I'm uh, I when I was in high school the the ussr fell in the Berlin wall fall when I was in high school so I grew up under that that cold war and uh Man, I grew up afraid of that like uh, and I grew up thinking like man They tell you what you can do and what you can say And man a couple years ago and they dawned on me like I can't say whatever I want on youtube or whatever like boy That was heavy. I say everything on youtube. I don't I don't I don't live in myself at all once in a while. They won't uh monetize a video of mine fine Maybe they've been taking a bunch of channels down two of my friends I'm you know, let them take it down. It'd be great publicity, but they but they won't All right, I I doubt that they will partially maybe because I'm too small But uh, so far the only thing they don't monetize the mind I can say anything about cove it so far the things they won't monetize about mine is if I talk about sex Abortion even though I'm on their side on abortion. I'm pro-choice They take it down um and and and and foreign policy because I'm I'm pretty radical when it comes to foreign policy But those are the things they those are the things they take down almost nothing else has been taken down or demonet Oh demonetized nothing's been taken down But we'll see, you know, if they if they keep me off of youtube that'll be interesting Yeah, well my plan my my goal is I'm moving my audiences onto censorship resistant platforms Not like a new trump network where they could now censor me or rumble or any of those platforms that could eventually decide to censor me There's a new two new platforms that are being built on the bitcoin network where I can literally host my videos my podcast And my members can chat, but when they're chatting back and forth instead of going through whatsapp Signal servers It's peer-to-peer over the bitcoin network censorship resistant But can everybody see it? Um in in the community chat they can all see it. Yeah, just just like just like a telegram kind of right now It goes to telegram. So that's the future. So I'm using uh, I want to use Uh, youtube and twitter to pull people into that and then we can no that that's that's fantastic And you know, I don't want to just be like if I get if I could take a down big deal Um switching gears I'm not going to change what I say on any platform to satisfy anybody and if they decide to take me down They do. Luckily my my income somewhat depends on this but not not enough to to make me worry about it The thing for me is it's a bigger mission and I know we're on the same mission So let's just jump back into that which is changing the way people think at the end of the day. There's a million ideas Um, but what underpins all those is how people think which is how well they got to start thinking Too many people are not thinking they got to start thinking and so um, I want to help people change the way they think And so in order to that I need to reach as many people as I can and so Let me you know, if I have to dance around a couple words to reach as many people as I can great And then I'll bring them to my other communities and then I can say what I want kind of a thing Um, it's just part of my mission, but um So if we if we jump back into that I'm going back to iron rand and she's given us this uh blueprint to living a great life A I think you define that as a life that brings us happiness I don't know if I necessarily agree. Well, I guess I would agree that happiness is the pursuit But I guess the question is what brings us happiness And I think that comes through fulfillment and meaning and typically I believe After having kids that I say happy people serve others And so when I help someone else and they I see their life better when I the greatest joy I've ever had is helping my kids and seeing them have joy Um when I've gone down and done trips and in foreign countries and helped people and seen the joy that it's brought to them It's the greatest joy I've ever known so we can but whatever so I guess I'm still chasing my own joy Right, but but how we achieve that is different Um, but anyway, so you say that's the greatest joy or the greatest pleasure Pursuit is our own happiness and she's laid out this blueprint So fill us in on what that blueprint is and maybe how we can kind of achieve that Well, it goes back to what we talked about before If you think about the first thing you have to do when you think about this blueprint and and you know You can call the blueprint morality. What is morality? Morality is a blueprint to living morality is the blueprint by which you should live and iron rand Has a new moral code that that's the blueprint that she presents is a new moral code And what's at the heart of it at the heart of it is the way is the thing that allows us to survive allows us to thrive I think happiness comes from achieving one's values. I'm not talking about momentary joy. I'm talking about happiness I'm talking about When you're older and looking back and say yes, I lived a full complete life that comes from achieving one's values It comes from setting ambitious goals and getting there. It comes from, you know, being productive and and and being creative in the world out there And and whether that involves directly helping other people or whether that involves building a business or whether that involves building a great family You know, different different people are going to have different different values in that regard But at the end of the day It's what is the skill? What is the value that makes all of that possible in my view? All of that is made possible by from thinking So we're back We're back to this question of of thinking thinking is the most important value that you have You have to cherish it. You have to cultivate it. You have to practice it. You have to you have to really be good at it Because your life depends on and your happiness depends on and that means you got to be honest, right? So talk about this blueprint now people talk about honest means don't lie But it's much more than don't like honest means be honest to yourself As a primary It means face reality means be true to the fact. Don't ignore facts. Don't pretend they don't exist Don't pretend stuff doesn't exist because it doesn't match your priors Try it on to be biased try to be a real proper thinker, you know Have integrity if you if you believe in something if you do it so it's it's And then be productive, you know, so many people out there Leech off of other people live off of other people one way or another because they're lazy So they don't want to think for themselves And they don't push themselves. They don't make the most of their lives. They don't You know strive to be the best human beings that they can be So so they live mediocre plain simple boring lives And you see that all around you most people around us are like that life is boring. It's it's it's it's plain It's uninteresting. It's unexciting and I say you only got one life Every minute the passes you'll never get back What are you waiting for? Well, you know What what is going to take to get you off your butt and actually do something with your life and make the most of it? Be productive think You know treat other people with justice the way they deserve. I don't believe in treating people equally People don't deserve to be treated equally. Some people deserve crap and some people deserve everything And based off of their merit based on their merit absolutely based off on the value that they present to you Right, what does deserve mean to whom based on how good of a person they are, right? And a virtue should be rewarded in life not just in not in an afterlife but in life So, uh, you know justice means that it doesn't mean equality Which is what what it's come to mean in the world around us And then you know, I think people people need to internalize the idea of pride And I know pride is considered a vice out there, but I think that's a massive mistake Pride recognizing your own value viewing yourself as important and then taking seriously your life Taking seriously the idea that you need to make the most of it That to me is a massive virtue and something that people neglect all the time Yeah, and I think I'm not pride in a sense where I'm putting myself above you Yeah, you're irrelevant in that sense. It's what you accomplish It's what you do with yourself, uh, you know, there's a balance, you know, and you talked about the bible I mean Jesus said that the most important commandment is love God, but love your neighbor love love others Um, I don't love my neighbor. Uh, do you love your neighbor? Well, but what is love? You don't even know your neighbor, but love other others, right other people But some people they love some people I hate I'm proud of the fact that I hate people But I think uh, but I think what what the definition of love is though is like just being nice to people being kind I mean, it's not the definition of love. Look, I mean, love is well, it's defined in first Corinthians Love is patient. Love is kind. Love is self-serving. Love doesn't yeah So love is a lot of different things and it's the deepest emotion one feels And and and why are we trying to whitewash what Jesus says? He meant love Love thy neighbor love him And you know, I don't think he meant just have respect for him and leave him free and leave him independent No, he meant love him when he says like love thy neighbor like yourself as they self He meant it. I don't believe that so I disagree with Jesus I know I know that's controversial But I just I think Jesus is setting on the path for unhappiness because you should love yourself You should respect yourself above all and only from that context. Do I love other people? I don't tell my wife before I marry her You know, I love you because you mean nothing to me. This is selfless No, my love for my wife is the most selfish thing I have you wouldn't lay your life down for your wife Yes, out of a selfish selfishness because my life would be meaningless if I didn't But that's that's a selfish thing. I married my wife because how she makes me feel You would lay your laying your life down for your wife would be selfish. Yeah, absolutely. Why would that be? Because I couldn't live with myself Without her and I couldn't live with myself knowing that I didn't do everything I could to save her So absolutely selfish because of the how high of a value she is in my hierarchy of values But it's not but that's my wife. Would I lay my life down for my neighbor? No, what about your kids? My kids. Yes, one of them. Maybe not both. You know, it depends right depends on the day No, but you know for my kids, um, you know, I risk my life for my for my friends I'm not going to risk my life of really risk my life. I mean really Stranger, um, if my kids and the neighbor's kids are drowning in a pool I'm saving my kids first and I'm not embarrassed by that. I'm not ashamed of that and I'm gonna apologize for that They're my kids. I love them more than my kids neighbor. I don't even like my kids neighbors I'd help them out if it didn't cost me too much But if it cost me a fortune if it cost me my life, I wouldn't help them out. So My life is measured by my life by by my values by my standards and um, and I I I You know respect other people And and we'll help other people if I don't know anything bad about them I'll help other people because I have a general respect of humanity But I don't love but but you know again, there's a hierarchy Some people more important than other people some people life of more than other people And I don't love every neighbor that I have I suddenly respect every human being out there and happy to help Other people as long as the innocent bad people. I don't want to help Yeah, yeah makes sense So do you have any practical tips for thinking? So for example, I've heard you know studied many of the most successful people They'll talk about putting an hour on their calendar Where you know once a week I sit for an hour and think I uh, you know every morning Brian Tracy said every morning I pull out a notepad and write down 10 ideas You know, do you have any practical things that you do? Yeah, I mean I think the first thing that people need to do is Sit down and commit themselves to thinking because Thinking is something you should do every minute of every day I mean You relax sometimes and you entertain sometimes but basically When you're when you're fully aware, you never watch TV. Yeah, so that's I watch Oh, it's quite a bit of TV. We can talk about some TV shows But but yeah, I just did a whole episode in squid games. So uh, the most evil show ever, but uh Don't let your kids watch it I walk I I walked into the room and my kids were had just started it And it was like the opening scene where they're like in a prison yard and the gun turrets come out and start shooting everyone I'm like the middle of the first episode. I was like, what the heck? I'm like, no, no, no, no turn this No, they're watching behind your back. But uh, hopefully not but it's an evil show It really is a disgusting show and the violence is off the charts It's I know it's it stuns me The parents don't care about violence and and having the kids watch violence and and completely make violence You know desensitized desensitize completely to violence. It's just terrific. Anyway So commit yourself first of all to thinking I want us thinking mean right because people talk about thinking But what does it mean? It means focusing your mind. It means actually looking at the world out there looking at the fact I would say I would say the tips. I would say is A don't believe anything anybody tells you Uh, I I see on both sides of the political spectrum Each have their experts each have their gurus, you know, maybe these gurus on mainstream media these gurus on youtube or whatever They have their gurus and then people just just absorb it and then mouth it back. Don't believe anything Test it challenge it Go read multiple sources read the enemy read people you think you hate And test yourself against them Don't just accept whatever the status quo has always been and this is true in business This is true in every aspect of your life, but politics is big on people's mind these days Take it in politics take an issue and read the other side And and try to have an open mind try to look at what are the facts? What is not fact and then test that all out against what not against what I was going to say rush limbaugh said but rush limbaugh passed away But not against what tucker coston said but against reality against the facts against what you know to be facts Right and try to get as many of those as possible so Thinking is about facts first of all It's finding truth finding the truth and the truth is Out there the truth is in reality So so what you need is evidence what you need You know if we're talking about covet what you need are numbers what you need is data What and you need to have the you need to also be objective about what you know and what you don't know Right. I've seen people and check your own biases. Yes. I've seen people analyze statistics Who know nothing about statistics and as a consequence don't know what they're talking about And they completely miss what's in the numbers So know what you know and what you don't I've seen doctors analyzing statistics and covet don't know clue because they Did great doctors they want statistics Don't assume you know everything so so if it's really important study up and learn the skill that you want to know If you want to know statistics get a good stat book study statistics Don't just again get it from the get it from from whoever you supposedly trust in the media So really investigate stuff really and investigate stuff means read widely and you know when I do a show on a topic I I always try to read up people. I know I disagree with because I want to know what they're saying And I want to know maybe I'm wrong on some of this You want to know the the enemy's argument I want to know the enemy's argument, but it's also possible It's unlikely but possible that they're right or at least there's something in their argument Or maybe there's an element of truth And and it's always good to understand where they're coming from because then you'll know how to attack it If you don't know where they're coming from. So for example, if you take critical race theory, right? Which is garbage, right? It's complete nonsense But you've got to understand the history of race in america the history of racism The the people's attitude towards racism Uh, how much racism there is there is in america today? You've got to have a context. This crt didn't come out of nowhere, right? It's it's it's it's garbage built on some elements of reality You've got to understand something about police brutality And who they kill and if you're saying oh they kill everybody equal Well, you better you better have the data to support that not just because somebody said on tv But maybe the cops are racist. How do you know they're not? Do you know they're not? So it's important to be able to before you talk about these things actually know that what you're saying is true Which is hard. Yeah, and we see people so many people today. They're like live. They're just reciting headlines All they do is recite headlines. They don't even bother to read the article Yes, they literally read the headline. I think they know what the article said and a lot of times Today in today's clickbait world They try to bait you into headline, but then when you read it's not actually what the headline said But they'll just recite the headlines and um, yeah, that's uh, or the or the tweets or the you know It's it's we we're now into a culture of of of uh one-liners I do these videos where like i'll spend five six hours to research a subject in depth put all the charts all the data You know the video comes out 25 30 minutes long and someone will message me and say TLDR can you just give me the bullet points and it's like Dude, I literally put six hours of research into a 25 minute video If you can't spend 25 minutes to know the subject forget you're not thinking you're never going to make it like And that's the point think i've compressed it as best as I can but like if you want like the bullet points like And thinking again thinking is I don't I don't want you to think about as hard work But thinking takes effort It takes focus it takes time. So taking an hour a day I think you should take eight hours today because everything you should do it all the time You should you should be thinking all the time. You shouldn't you know again Even when I watch tv, I'm thinking what's the message? What's the theme? You know it ruins it though it ruins it doesn't for me because Well nowadays everything I'm watching I'm like it's propaganda. There's some things of propaganda and you shouldn't watch It's a waste of time But the good shows out there that that are not propaganda or You look I find myself just watching old seinfeld episodes nowadays So art is much deeper good art is much deeper than politics You can have a bad political theme But a really really important theme about free will or about something deep about human about what it means to be human being So I think you can enjoy art in a number of different levels and uh, you think meme culture is an extension of that today I think meme culture is part of the non-thinking. Oh, not part of art No, it's not art. It's just it's it's it's shortcuts. Yeah, it's like cartoons cartoons are not art They might be entertaining and they might be they might be informative But then not art art is much deeper than that. All right, so those are good tips Lots of good stuff I encourage everyone to think as much as I can and uh, I think to your point as you said the kind of first thing We first started talking at lunch was uh, we have to change the way people think so I think with that we'll go ahead and end it and wrap it up on that You said you were used to be with iron ran is to you're still kind of helping I know you guys What should be people paying attention to you want to point people to anywhere? Well, first of all, they should all read Iron Man if they want if they want because it's Do they have to start with the fountainhead before they go to atlas shrug? No, they can start with atlas shrug depends on your on your I started with atlas shrug. I mean it depends on your inclination if if if you're if you're more interested in kind of personal stuff I would say fountainhead is better if you're interested in the world if that's Where you like to play start with atlas shrug read her nonfiction as well She's got some powerful stuff in the nonfiction virtue of selfishness the Capitalism unknown ideal philosophy who needs it. There are lots of books Iron man institute as iron man dog. We have I don't know thousands of videos Lectures courses whole educational programs on her ideas So if you want to learn how to think and with the right kind of epistemological tools for how to think The iron man institute is a great place to go Because I'll really give you the lessons we have courses on logic. We have courses on thinking And then if you want to follow me you're on book show.com and of course twitter facebook youtube iTunes, you know every everywhere. I need to figure out what these What these? Blockchain new network sauce I can get in get in on that gig, but maybe I'll wait for the first movers to To get it established and then we'll we'll link to all that in the show notes below and With that with that we'll go ahead and wrap it up. Thanks so much. Absolutely